She remained staring at me for a long moment, as though to insult him, and then as though rousing herself from a spell, she looked at Mael.
"What can I do," she asked Mael, "to silence you before you say something foolish again?" Then her eyes returned to me. "Let me make this known to you all. I know that you possess the Mother and the Father. I know that you brought them here for safekeeping and that they are in a chapel deep beneath your house. "
I was brutally stunned.
I felt a wave of grief. Once again, I had failed to keep the secret. Even in Antioch long ago, I had failed to keep the secret. Would I not always fail to keep the secret? Was this not my fate? What was to be done?
"Don't be so quick to draw back from me, Marius," said Eudoxia. "I drank from the Mother in Egypt centuries before you took her away. "
This statement stunned me all the more. Yet it held some strange promise. It cast a small light into my soul.
I was wondrously excited suddenly.
Here was one who understood everything about the ancient mysteries, just as Pandora had understood. This one, delicate of face and speech, was a world apart from either Avicus or Mael, and how gentle and reasonable she seemed.
"I'll tell you my story if you want it, Marius," she said. "I have always been a worldly blood drinker, never one given to the old religion of the Blood Gods of Egypt. I was three hundred years old in the Blood before you were born. But I'll tell you all you want to know. It is plain that you move through the world by means of questions. "
"Yes," I said. "I do move through the world by means of questions, and too often I've asked those questions in utter silence, or long centuries ago of people who gave me answers that were fragments which I had to piece together as though they were bits of old papyri. I hunger for knowledge. I hunger for what you mean to say to me. "
She nodded and this seemed to give her extraordinary pleasure.
"Some of us don't require intimate understanding," she said. "Do you require it, Marius? I can read much in your thoughts, but this is a puzzle. Must you be understood?"
I was baffled.
"Must I be understood," I said, thinking it over, as secretly as I might. Did either Avicus or Mael understand me? No, they did not. But once long long ago the Mother had understood me. Or had she? Just possibly when I'd fallen so in love with her, I had understood her.
"I don't have an answer for you," I said softly. "I think I have come to enjoy loneliness. I think when I was mortal I loved it. I was the wanderer. But why do you put this question to me?"
"Because I don't require understanding," she said, and for the first time there came a cold tone into her voice. "But if you wish it, I'll tell you about my life. "
"I want so much to hear your story," I answered. I was infatuated. Again, I thought of my beautiful Pandora. Here was an incomparable woman who seemed to have the same gifts. I wanted so to listen to her, and it was more than essential for our safety that I listen to her. But how could we deal with the uneasiness of Mael, and the obvious obsession of Avicus?
She took the thought from me immediately, looking at Avicus gently and then turning her attention for a long sober moment on the infuriated Mael.
"You were a priest in Gaul," she said calmly to him, "yet you have the attitude of a dedicated warrior. You would destroy me. Why is this so?"
"I don't respect your authority here," Mael answered, trying to match her quiet tone. "Who are you to me? You say you never respected the old religion. Well, I respected it. And Avicus respected it. Of this we're proud. "
"We all want the same thing," she answered. She smiled, revealing her fang teeth. "We want a hunting ground which is not overcrowded. We want the Satanic blood drinkers to be kept out for they multiply insanely and seek to foment trouble in the mortal world. My authority rests on my past triumphs. It's no more than habit. If we can make a peace. . . " She broke off and in the manner of a man she shrugged her shoulders and opened her hands.
Suddenly Avicus broke in.
"Marius speaks for us," he said. "Marius, make the peace with Eudoxia, please. "
"We give you our loyalty," I said, "in so far as we do want the same things, as you've described. But I want very much to speak with you. I want to know how many blood drinkers are here now. As for your history, let me say again that I do want to hear it. One thing we can give to each other is our history. Yes. I want to know yours. "
She rose from the couch very gracefully, revealing herself to be a little taller than I had supposed. She had rather broad shoulders for a woman, and she walked very straight, her bare feet not making the slightest sound.
"Come into my library," she said, leading us into a chamber off the main room. "It's better for talking, I believe. " Her hair was long down her back, a heavy mass of black curls, and she moved gracefully despite the weight of her beaded and decorated robes.
The library was immense, with shelves for scrolls and codexes, that is, bound volumes such as we have today. There were chairs here and there, and some gathered in the center, and two couches for reclining and tables on which to write. The golden lamps looked Persian to me in their heavy worked designs, but I couldn't be certain of it.
The carpets strewn about were definitely Persian, that much I knew.
Of course the moment I saw the books, I was overcome with pleasure. This always happens with me. I remembered the library in old Egypt in which I had found the Elder who had put the Mother and Father into the sun. I feel foolishly safe with books which can be a mistake.
I thought of all that I had lost in the first siege of Rome. I couldn't help but wonder what Greek and Roman authors were here preserved. For the Christians, though they were kinder to the ancients than people now believe, did not always save the old works.