Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [169]
“And what truth is this that you speak of?” I asked as gently as I could. “What is it that you know to be true of me?”
“You are a vampire, a blood drinker,” he said without flinching, his voice as polite as ever, his manner composed. “You’ve lived for centuries. I can’t know your age. I don’t presume to know. I wish that you would tell me. You have not blundered. It is I who have come to greet you.”
It was charming to be speaking in the old Latin. And his eyes, reflecting the light of the lamps, were full of an honest excitement tempered only by his dignity.
“I have come into your house when it was open,” he said. “I have accepted your hospitality. Oh, what I would give to know how long you’ve lived, and what you have seen.”
“And what would you do with that intelligence?” I asked him, “if I did tell you such things?”
“Commit it to our libraries. Increase the knowledge. Let it be known that what some say is legend is in fact truth.” He paused and then he said: “Magnificent truth.”
“Ah, but you have something to record even now, don’t you?” I asked. “You can record that you have seen me here.”
Quite deliberately I looked away from him and towards the dancers before us. Then I looked back at him to see that he had followed, obediently, the direction of my gaze.
He watched Bianca as she made her circle in the carefully modulated dance, her hand clasped by that of Amadeo who smiled at her, the light glimmering on his cheek. She seemed the girl again when the music played so very sweetly, and when Amadeo gazed on her with such approving eyes.
“And what else do you see here?” I asked, “my fine scholar of the Talamasca?”
“Another,” he answered, his eyes returning to me without fear. “A beautiful boyish one, who was human when I first laid eyes on him, and now he dances with a young woman who may soon be transformed as well.”
My heart beat furiously as I heard this. My heart beat in my throat and in my ears.
But he laid no judgment down upon me. On the contrary, he was without all judgment and for a moment I could do nothing but search his young mind to make certain this was true.
He shook his head gently.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I have never been close to one such as you.” He was flushed suddenly. “I have never spoken to one such as you. I pray I shall have time to commit to parchment what I’ve seen tonight, though I swear to you on my honor and on the honor of the Order that if you let me go from here alive I will write nothing until I reach England, and the words will never do you harm.”
I shut the soft seductive music out of my hearing. I thought only of his mind, and I searched it and found there nothing but what he had just said to me, and behind it, an Order of scholars as he had described it, a seeming wonder of men and women who wanted only to know, and not to destroy.
Indeed a dozen marvels presented themselves of shelter given to those who could genuinely read minds, and others who from the cards could somehow with uncanny accuracy predict fortunes, and some who might have been burnt as witches, and behind it libraries in which time-honored books of magic were stored.
It seemed quite impossible that in this Christian era, such a secular force could exist.
I reached down and picked up the gold coin with the engraved word, Talamasca. I put it in one of my pockets, and then I took his hand.
He was fiercely afraid now.
“Do you think I mean to kill you?” I asked gently.
“No, I don’t think you will do it,” he said. “But you see, I have studied you so long and with such love, I can’t know.”
“Love, is it?” I asked. “How long has your Order known of creatures like us?” I asked. I held his hand firmly.
His high clear forehead was suddenly creased by a small expressive frown.
“Always, and I told you we are very old.”
I thought on it for a long moment, holding on to his hand. I searched his mind again, and found no lie in it. I looked out at the young dancers moving decorously, and I let the music fill me once more