The Vampire Armand (The Vampire Chronicles 6)

The priests held the clean brushes for me. One held a clean rag in his hands. I snatched up a brush for the red color which I then mixed with white paste, until it was the appropriate color of flesh.

"Isn't that a miracle!"

"That's just the point," said the Elder between clenched teeth. "It's a miracle, Brother Ivan, and he will do what God wills. "

"He won't wall himself up in here, damn you, not as long

as I'm alive. He's coming with me into the wild lands. "

I burst out laughing. "Father," I said sneering at him. "My place is here. "

"He's the best shot in the family, and he's coming with me into the wild lands," said my Father to the others, who had flown into a flurry of protests and negations all around.

"Why do you give Our Blessed Mother that tear in her eye, Brother Andrei?"

"It's God who gives her the tear," said one of the others.

"It is the Mother of All Sorrows. Ah, see the beautiful folds of her cloak. "

"Ah, look, the Christ child!" said my Father, and even his face was reverent. "Ah, poor little baby God, soon to be crucified and die!" His voice was for once subdued and almost tender. "Ah, Andrei, what a gift. Oh, but look, look at the child's eyes and his little hand, at the flesh of his thumb, his little hand. "

"Even you are touched with the light of Christ," said the Elder. "Even such a stupid violent man as you, Brother Ivan. "

The priests pressed in close around me in a circle. My Father held out a palmful of small twinkling jewels. "For the halos, Andrei. Work fast, Prince Michael has ordained that we go. "

"Madness, I tell you!" All voices were set to babbling at once. My Father turned and raised his fist.

I looked up, reached for a fresh, clean panel of wood. My forehead was wet with sweat. I worked on and on.

I had done three ikons.

I felt such happiness, such pure happiness. It was sweet to be so warm in it, so aware of it, and I knew, though I said nothing, that my Father had made it possible, my Father, so cheerful and ruddy-cheeked and overpowering with his big shoulders and his glistening face, this man I was supposed to hate.

The Sorrowful Mother with her Child, and the napkin for her tears, and the Christ Himself. Weary, bleary-eyed, I sat back. The place was intolerably cold. Oh, if there were only a little fire. And my hand, my left hand was cramped from the cold. Only my right hand was all right because of the pace at which I had done my work. I wanted to suck the fingers of my left hand, but this would not do, not here at this moment, when all gathered to coo over the ikons.

"Masterly. The Work of God. "

An awful sense of time came over me, that I had traveled far from this moment, far from this the Monastery of the Caves to which I had vowed my life, far from the priests who were my brethren, far from my cursing, stupid Father, who was in spite of his ignorance so very proud.

Tears flowed from his eyes. "My son," he said. He clutched my shoulder proudly. He was beautiful in his own way, such a fine strong man, afraid of nothing, a prince himself when among his horses and his dogs and his followers, of which I, his son, had been one.

"Let me alone, you thick-skulled oaf," I said. I smiled up at him to farther outrage him. He laughed. He was too happy, too proud, to be provoked.

"Look what my son has done. " His voice had a telltale thickness to it. He was going to cry. And he wasn't even drunk.

"Not by human hands," said the priest.

"No, naturally not!" boomed my Father's scornful voice. "Just by my son Andrei's hands, that's all. "

A silken voice said in my ear, "Would you place the jewels into the halos yourself, Brother Andrei, or shall I perform this task?"

Behold, it was done, the paste applied, the stones set, five in the Ikon of Christ. The brush was in my hand again to stroke the brown hair of the Lord God, which was parted in the middle and brought back behind His ears, with only part of it to show on either side of His neck. The stylus appeared in my hand to thicken and darken the black letters on the open book which Christ held in His left hand. The Lord God stared, serious and severe, from the panel, His mouth red and straight beneath the horns of His brown mustache.

"Come now, the Prince is here, the Prince has come. "

Outside the entrance of the Monastery, the snow fell in cruel gusts. The priests helped me with my leather vest, my jacket of shearling. They buckled my belt. It was good to smell this leather again, to breathe the fresh cold air. My Father had my sword. It was heavy, old, taken from his long-ago fighting against the Teutonic Knights in lands far to the east, the jewels long ago chipped out of its handle, but a fine, fine battle sword.

Through the snowy mist a figure appeared, on horseback. It was Prince Michael himself, in his fur hat and fur-lined cape and gloves, the great Lord who ruled Kiev for our Roman Catholic conquerors, whose faith we would not accept but who let us keep to our own. He was decked out in foreign velvet and gold, a fancy figure fit for royal Lithuanian courts, of which we heard fantastical tales. How did he endure Kiev, the ruined city?