Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [92]
Oh, these were terrible thoughts. Did I not love Akasha? Had I not pledged my soul?
I was consumed with self-hatred and dread that the Queen would know my petty secret—that I wished to be rid of her, that I wished to be rid of all of them—Avicus, Mael, Eudoxia most certainly—that I wished—for the very first time—to wander a vagabond like so many others, that I wished to have no name and no place and no destination, but to be alone.
These thoughts were too dreadful. They divided me from all that I valued. I had to banish them from my mind.
But before I could get my wits about me, Mael and Avicus came rushing into the library. There was some sort of disturbance outside the house.
“Can you hear it?” Avicus said frantically.
“Yea gods,” I said, “why are all those people shouting in the streets?”
I realized there was a great clamor, and that some of these people were beating on our windows and doors. Rocks were being thrown at our house. The wooden shutters were about to be broken in.
“What is happening? What is the reason for this?” Mael asked desperately.
“Listen!” I said desperately. “They’re saying that we seduced a rich merchant into the house, and then murdered him, and threw his corpse out to rot! Oh, damn Eudoxia, don’t you see what she’s done, it was she who murdered the merchant! She’s caused a mob to rise against us. We have only time to retreat to the shrine.”
I led them to the entrance, lifted the heavy marble door, and we were soon inside the passage, knowing full well that we were protected, but unable to defend our house.
Then all we could do was listen helplessly as the mob broke in and sacked our entire dwelling, destroying my new library and all I possessed. We did not have to hear their voices to know when they had set the house ablaze.
At last, when it was quiet above, when a few looters picked their way through the smoldering rafters and debris, we came up out of the tunnel, and stared at the ruins in utter disgust.
We scared off the riffraff. Then we made certain that the entrance to the shrine was in fact secure and disguised, which it was, and finally, we went off to a crowded tavern, where, huddled at a table amid mortals, we could talk.
Such a retreat was, for us, quite incredible, but what else could we do?
I told Avicus and Mael what had happened in the shrine, how Eudoxia had been nearly drained of all blood by the Mother and how I had intervened to save Eudoxia’s life. I then explained with regard to the mortal merchant, for they had seen him brought in, and seen him removed, but had not understood.
“They dumped his body where it would be found,” said Avicus. “They baited the crowd to gather as it did.”
“Yes. Our dwelling is gone,” I said finally, “and the shrine will be lost to us until such time as I go to bizarre and complex legal measures to purchase under a new name what already belongs to me under an old one, and the family of the merchant will demand justice against the unfortunate individual, whom I was before, if you follow me, so that I might not be able to buy the property at all.”
“What does she expect of us?” asked Avicus.
“This is an insult to Those Who Must Be Kept,” Mael declared. “She knows the shrine is under the house, yet she incited a riot to destroy it.”
I stared at him for a long moment. I was too ready to condemn him for his anger. But quite suddenly I had a confession to make.
“That thought had not occurred to me,” I said. “But it seems to me that you are precisely right. It was an insult to Those Who Must Be Kept.”
“Oh, yes, she has done an injury to the Mother,” said Avicus. “Surely she has done that. By day, thieves may chip at the very floor that blocks the passage to the shrine below.”
A dreadful gloom took hold of me. A pure and youthful anger was part of it. The anger fed my