Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [168]
I tried to make my voice comforting.
“And you told him that the paintings had been done by me, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir, I’m sorry, so very sorry if this was more than I should have said. He wanted to purchase a painting. I told him that no purchase could be made.”
“It doesn’t matter. Only be careful on account of this man. Tell him nothing further. And when you see him, report it at once to me.”
I had turned to go when a question came to me and I turned to see my beloved Vincenzo in tears. Of course I reassured him at once that he had served me perfectly, and told him he must worry about nothing. But then I asked him:
“Give me your impression of this man. Was he good or bad?”
“Good, I think,” he said, “though what sort of magic he meant to sell, I don’t know. Yes, good, I would say so, very good, though why I say it I can’t tell. He had a kindness to him. And he liked the paintings. He praised them. He was most polite and rather serious for one so young. Rather studious.”
“It’s quite enough,” I said. And indeed it was.
I did not find the man though I searched the city. And I had no fear.
Then two months later, I met, in the most auspicious circumstances, with the man himself.
It was at a luxurious banquet and I was seated at the table, among a great number of drunken Venetians watching the young people before us in their measured and leisurely dance.
The music was poignant, and the lamps were just brilliant enough to give the vast room the most enchanting glow.
There had been several fine spectacles before with acrobats and singers, and I think I was faintly dazed.
I know I was thinking again that this was my Perfect Time. I meant to write it in my diary when I returned home.
As I sat at the table, I leant on my right elbow, my left hand playing idly with the rim of a cup from which I now and then pretended to drink.
And then and there appeared this Englishman, this scholar, at my left side.
“Marius,” he said softly, and in full command of classical Latin: “Count me a friend and not a meddler, I beg you. I have watched you for a long time from afar.”
I felt a deep shiver. I was startled in the purest sense of the word. I turned to look at him, and saw his sharp clear eyes fixed fearlessly on me.
Again there came that message, mentally, without words, from his mind quite confidently to my own:
We offer shelter. We offer understanding. We are scholars. We watch and we are always here.
Once again a deep shiver stole over me. All the company round was blind to me, but this one saw. This one knew.
Now he passed to me a round gold coin. On it was stamped one word:
Talamasca
I looked it over, concealing my complex shock, and then I asked politely in the same classical Latin:
“What does it mean?”
“We are an Order,” he said, his Latin effortless and charming. “That is our name. We are the Talamasca. We are so old we don’t know our origins and why we are so called.” He spoke calmly. “But our purpose in every generation is clear. We have our rules and our traditions. We watch those whom others despise and persecute. We know secrets that even the most superstitious of men refuse to believe.”
His voice and his manners were very elegant, but the power of the mind behind his words was quite strong. His self-possession was stunning. He could not have been more than twenty.
“How did you find me?” I demanded.
“We watch at all times,” he said gently, “and we saw you when you lifted your red cloak, as it were, and stepped into the light of torches and the light of rooms such as this.”
“Ah, so, it began for you then in Venice,” I said. “I have blundered.”
“Yes, here in Venice,” he said. “One of us saw you and wrote a letter to our Motherhouse in England, and I was dispatched to make certain of who and what you were. Once I glimpsed you in your own house I knew it to be true.”
I sat back and took his measure. He had put on handsome velvet of a fawn color, and wore a cloak lined with miniver, and there were simple silver rings on his hands. His pale ashen hair was long and combed plainly. His eyes were