Blood And Gold (The Vampire Chronicles 8)

I went to my belongings and took from them the letter from Raymond Gallant.

"Read this," I said. "It will tell you, among other things, that they have spread their abominable ways as far as the city of Paris. "

For a long time I remained silent as she read, and then her immediate sobs startled me. How many times had I seen Bianca cry? Why was I so unprepared for it? She whispered Amadeo's name. She couldn't quite bring herself to speak of it.

"What does this mean?" she said. "How do they live? Explain these words. What did they do to him?"

I sat beside her, begging her to be calm, and then I told her how they lived, these Satan worshiping fiends, as monks or hermits, tasting the earth and death, and how they imagined that the Christian God had made some place for them in his Kingdom.

"They starved our Amadeo," I said, "they tortured him. This is plain here. And when he had given up all hope, believing me to be dead, and believing their piety to be just, he became one of them. "

She looked at me solemnly, the tears standing in her eyes.

"Oh, how often I've seen you cry," I said. "But not of late, and not so bitterly as you cry for him. Be assured I have not forgotten him either. "

She shook her head as if her thoughts were not in accord with mine but she was not able to reveal them.

"We must be clever, my precious one," I said. "Whatever abode we choose for ourselves, we must be safe from them, always. "

Almost dismissively she spoke now.

"We can find a safe place," she said. "You know we can. We must. We cannot remain as we are forever. It is not our nature. If I have learnt nothing from your stories I have learnt that much, that you have wandered the Earth in search of beauty as well as in your search for blood. "

I did not like her seriousness.

"We are only two," she went on, "and should these devils come again with their fiery brands, it will be a simple thing for you to remove me to some lofty height where they can't harm me. "

"If I am there, my love, if I am there," I said, "and what if I am not? All these years, since we have left our lovely Venice behind, you have lived within these walls where they can't harm you. Now, should we go to some other place, and lodge there, I shall have to be on guard always. Is that natural?"

This felt dreadful to me, this talk. I had never known anything so difficult with her. I didn't like the inscrutable expression on her face, nor the way her hand trembled.

"Perhaps it is too soon," she said. "But I must tell you a most important thing, and I cannot keep it from you. "

I hesitated before I answered.

"What is it, Bianca?" I asked. I was fast becoming miserable. Utterly miserable.

"I think you have made a grievous error," she said.

I was quietly stunned. She said nothing more. I waited. Still there came this silence commingled with her sitting back against the wall, her eyes fixed upwards on the Divine Parents.

"Will you tell me what this error is?" I asked. "By all means, you must tell me! I love you. I must hear this. "

She said nothing. She looked at the King and Queen. She did not appear to be praying.

I picked up the parchment pages of the letter. I moved through them and then looked at her again.

Her tears had dried, and her mouth was soft, but her eyes were filled with some strange look that I could not explain to myself.

"Is it the Talamasca that causes you fear?" I asked. "I shall explain all this to you. But see here that I wrote to them from a distant monastery. I left few footprints there, my beauty. I traveled the winds while you were sleeping here. "

There followed nothing but her silence. It seemed not dark or cold but merely reserved and thoughtful. But when she moved her eyes to me, the change in her face was slow and ominous.

With quiet words I hastened to explain to her my strange meeting with Raymond Gallant on my last night of true happiness in Venice. I explained in the simplest manner how he had sought knowledge of us, and how I had

learnt from him that Pandora had been seen in northern Europe.

I talked of all the things contained in the letter. I talked of Amadeo once more. I spoke of my hatred of Santino, that he had robbed me of all I loved save her, and how on that account she was, of all things, most precious to me.