The city that drew me was one I had not known before in my life. It was a new city, in that it had not existed in the ancient time of the Caesars, and was now a great port. In fact, it was very likely the greatest city of all Europe. Venice was the name of it, and the Black Death had come to it by way of the ships in its harbor, and thousands were desperately sick. Never had I visited it before. It would have been too painful, and now as I came into Venice, I found it a city of gorgeous palaces built upon dark green canals. But the Black Death had a hold of the populace who were dying in huge numbers daily, and ferries were taking the bodies out to be buried deeply in the soil of the islands in the city's immense lagoon. Everywhere there was weeping and desolation. People gathered together to die in sickrooms, faces covered in sweat, bodies tormented by incurable swellings. The stench of the dead rose everywhere. Some were trying to flee the city and its infestation. Others remained with their suffering loved ones. Never had I seen such a plague. And yet it was amid a city of such remarkable splendor, I found myself numb with sorrow and tantalized by the beauty of the palaces, and by the wonder of the Church of San Marco which bore exquisite testament to the city's ties with Byzantium to which it sent its many merchant ships. I could do nothing but weep in such a place. It was no time for peering by torchlight at paintings or statues that were wholly new to me. I had to depart, out of respect for the dying, no matter what I was. And so I made my way South to another city which I had not known in my mortal life, the city of Florence in the heart of Tuscany, a beautiful and fertile land. Understand, I was avoiding Rome at this point. I could not bear to see my home, once more in ruin and misery. I could not see Rome visited by this plague. So Florence was my choice, as I have said - a city new to me, and prosperous, though not as rich as Venice perhaps, and not as beautiful, though full of huge palaces and paved streets. And what did I find, but the same dreadful pestilence. Vicious bullies demanded payment to remove the bodies, often beating the dying or those who tried to tend them. Six to eight corpses lay at the doors of various houses. The priests came and went by torchlight, trying to give the Last Rites. And everywhere the same stench as in Venice, the stench that says all is coming to an end. Weary and miserable, I made my way into a church, somewhere near the center of Florence, though I cannot say what church it was, and I stood against the wall, gazing at the distant tabernacle by candlelight, wondering as so many praying mortals wondered: What would become of this world? I had seen Christians persecuted; I had seen barbarians sack cities; I had seen East and West quarrel and finally break with each other; I had seen Islamic soldiers waging their holy war against the infidel; and now I had seen this disease which was moving all through the world. And such a world, for surely it had changed since the year when I had fled Constantinople. The cities of Europe had grown full and rich as flowers. The barbarian hordes had become settled people. Byzantium still held the cities of the East together. And now this dreadful scourge - this plague. Why had I remained alive, I wondered? Why must I endure as the witness to all these many tragic and wonderful things? What was I to make of what I beheld? And yet, even in my sorrow, I found the church beautiful with its myriad lighted candles, and spying a bit of color far ahead of me, in one of the chapels to the right side of the

high altar, I made my way towards it, knowing full well that I would find rich paintings
there, for I could see something of them already.
None of those ardently praying in the church took any notice of me, a single being in a
red velvet hooded cloak, moving silently and swiftly to the open chapel so that I might
see what was painted there.
Oh, if only the candles had been brighter. If only I had dared to light a torch. But I had
the eyes of a blood drinker, didn't I? Why complain? And in this chapel I saw painted
figures unlike any I had seen before. They were religious, yes, and they were severe, yes,
and they were pious, yes, but something new had been sparked here, something that one
might almost call sublime.
A mixture of elements had been forged. And I felt a great joy even in my sorrow, until I
heard a low voice behind me, a mortal voice. It was speaking so softly that I doubt
another mortal would even have heard.
"He's dead," said the mortal. "They're all dead, all the painters who did this work."
I was shocked with pain.
"The plague took them," said this man.
He was a hooded figure as I was, only his cloak was of a dark color, and he looked at me
with bright feverish eyes.
"Don't fear," he said. "I've suffered it and it hasn't killed me and I can't pass it on, don't
you see?
But they're all dead, those painters. They're gone. The plague's taken them and all they
knew."
"And you?" I asked. "Are you a painter?"
He nodded. "They were my teachers," he said as he gestured towards the walls. "This is
our work, unfinished," he said. "I can't do it alone."
"You must do it," I said. I reached into my purse. I took out several gold coins, and I gave
them to him.
"You think this will help?" he asked, dejectedly.
"It's all I have to give," I said. "Maybe it can buy you privacy and quiet. And you can
begin to paint again."
I turned to go.
"Don't leave me," he said suddenly.
I turned around and looked at him. His gaze was level with mine and very insistent.
"Everyone's dying and you and I are not dying," he said. "Don't go. Come with me, have
a drink of wine with me. Stay with me."
"I can't," I said. I was trembling. I was too charmed by him, much too much. I was so
close to killing him. "I would stay with you if I could," I said.
And then I left the city of Florence, and I returned to the vault of Those Who Must Be
Kept.
I lay down again for a long sleep, feeling the coward that I had not gone to Rome, and
thankful that I had not drunk dry the blood of the exquisite soul who had approached me
in the church. But something had been forever changed in me.
In the church in Florence I had glimpsed new paintings. I had glimpsed something which
filled me with hope. Let the plague run its course, I prayed, and I closed my eyes.
And the plague did finally die out. All the voices of Europe sang.
They sang of the new cities, and great victories, and terrible defeats. Everything in
Europe was being transformed. Commerce and prosperity bred art and culture, as the
royal courts and cathedrals and monasteries of the recent past had done.
They sang of a man named Gutenberg in the city of Mainz who had invented a printing

press which could make cheap books by the hundreds. Common people could own their own copies of Sacred Scripture, books of the Holy Hours, books of comic stories and pretty poems. All over Europe new printing presses were being built. They sang of the tragic fall of Constantinople to the invincible Turkish army. But the proud cities of the West no longer depended upon the far-away Greek Empire to protect them. The lament for Constantinople went unheeded. Italy, my Italy, was illuminated by the glory of Venice and Florence and Rome. It was time now for me to leave this vault. I roused myself from my excited dreams. It was time for me to see this world which marked its time as the year after Christ 1482. Why I chose that year I am uncertain except perhaps that the voices of Venice and Florence called me most eloquently, and I had earlier beheld these cities in their tribulation and grief. I wanted desperately to see them in their splendor. But I must go home first, all the way South to Rome. So lighting the oil lamps once more for my beloved Parents, wiping the dust from their ornaments and their fragile robes, praying to them as I always did, I took my leave to enter one of the most exciting times which the Western world had ever seen.

Chapter Fourteen

I went to Rome. I could settle for nothing less. What I found there was to sting my heart, but also to astonish me. It was an enormous and busy city, determined to rise from layers upon layers of ruin, full of merchants and craftsmen hard at work on grand palaces for the Pope and his Cardinals and for other rich men. The old Forum and Colosseum were still standing, indeed there were many many recognizable ruins of Imperial Rome - including the Arch of Constantine - but blocks of ancient stone were constantly being pilfered for new buildings. However scholars were everywhere studying these ruins, and many argued for their maintenance as they were. Indeed the whole thrust of the age was to preserve the remnants of the ancient times in which I'd been born, and indeed to learn from them, and imitate the art and the poetry, and the vigor of this movement surpassed my wildest dreams. How can I say it more lucidly? This prosperous era, given over to trade and banking, in which so many thousands wore thick and beautiful clothes of velvet, had fallen in love with the beauty of ancient Rome and Greece! Never had I thought such a reversal would occur as I had lain in my vault during the weary centuries, and I was at first too exhilarated by all I saw to do much but walk about the muddy streets, accosting mortals with as much graciousness as I could muster, asking them questions about what was going on about them, and what they thought of the times in which they lived. Of course I spoke the new language, Italian, which had grown up from the old Latin, and I soon became used to it on my ears and on my tongue. It wasn't such a bad language. Indeed it was beautiful, though I quickly learnt that scholars were well versed in their Latin and Greek. Out of a multitude of answers to my questions I also learnt that Florence and Venice were deemed to be far ahead of Rome in their spiritual rebirth, but if the Pope were to have his way that was soon to change. The Pope was no longer only a Christian ruler. He had made up his mind that Rome must be a true cultural and artistic capital, and not only was he completing work upon the new St. Peter's Basilica but he was working as well upon the Sistine Chapel, a great enterprise within his palatial walls. Artists had been brought from Florence for some of this painting, and the city was much intrigued as to the merits of the frescoes which had been done. I spent as much time as I could in the streets and in the taverns listening to gossip of all this, and then I made for the Papal Palace determined to see the Sistine Chapel for myself. What a fateful night this was for me. In all the dark centuries since I had left my beloved Zenobia and Avicus, I had had my heart stolen by various mortals and various works of art, but nothing I had experienced could quite prepare me for what I was to see when I entered the Sistine Chapel. Understand, I do not speak of Michelangelo, so well known to all the world for his work there, for Michelangelo was but a child at this time. And his works in the Sistine Chapel were yet to come. No, it was not the work of Michelangelo that I saw on this fateful night. Put Michelangelo out of your thoughts. It was the work of someone else. Getting by the palace guards easily enough, I quickly found myself within the great rectangle of this august chapel, which though not open to the public at large was destined to be used for high ceremonials whenever it should be complete. And what caught my eye immediately among any number of frescoes was an enormous one filled with brilliantly painted figures, all involving, it seemed, the same dignified elder with golden light streaming from his head as he appeared with three different groupings of those who responded to his command. Nothing had prepared me for the naturalism with which the multitudinous figures were painted, the vivid yet dignified expressions on the faces of the people, and the gracefully draped garments with which the beings were clothed. There was great turbulence among these three exquisitely rendered groups of persons as the white-haired figure with the gold light streaming from his head instructed them or upbraided them or corrected them, his own face quite seemingly stern and calm. All existed in a harmony such as I could never have imagined, and though their creation alone seemed enough to guarantee that this painting should be a masterpiece there was beyond the figures a marvelous depiction of an extravagant wilderness and an indifferent world. Two great ships of the present period were anchored in the faraway harbor, and beyond the ships there loomed layers of mountains beneath a rich blue sky, and to the right there stood the very Arch of Constantine which still stood in Rome to this day, finely detailed in gold as if it had never been ruined, and the columns of another Roman building, once splendid, now a fragment standing high and proud, though a dark castle loomed beyond. Ah, such complexity, such inexplicable combinations, such strange matter, and yet every human face so compelling, every hand so exquisitely wrought. I thought I would go mad just looking at the faces. I thought I would go mad just looking at the hands. I wanted nights to memorize this painting. I wanted at once to listen at the portals of scholars who could tell me what it was about, for I myself couldn't possibly decipher it! I needed knowledge for this. And more than anything, its sheer beauty spoke to my soul. All my gloomy years were gone as if a million candles had been lighted in this chapel. "Oh, Pandora, that you could see this!" I whispered aloud. "Oh, Pandora, if only you knew of this!" There were other paintings in the unfinished Sistine Chapel. I gave them a passing glance until my eyes hit upon two others by this same Master, and these were as magical as the first. Once again there was a multitude of persons, all with the same divine faces. Garments were rendered with sculptural depth. And though I recognized the Christ with his winged angels appearing in more than one place in this exquisite fresco, I could not interpret these paintings any more than I could the first. It didn't matter finally what these paintings meant. They filled me utterly. And in one, there were two maidens rendered so sensitively and yet so sensuously that I was amazed. The old art of the churches and the monasteries would never have allowed such a thing. Indeed it had banished such carnality completely. Yet here in the Pope's chapel were these damsels, one with her back to us, and the other facing us, a dreamy expression in her eyes. "Pandora," I whispered. "I have found you here, found you in your youth and in your eternal beauty. Pandora, you are here on the wall." I turned away from these frescoes. I paced the floor. Then I went back to them, studying them with my uplifted hands, careful not to touch them, just moving my hands over them, as if I had to look through my hands as well as through my eyes. I had to know who this painter was! I had to see his work. I had fallen in love with him. I had to see everything ever done by him. Was he young? Was he old? Was he alive? Was he dead? I had to know. I went out of the chapel, not knowing whom to ask about these marvelous achievements, for surely I could not wake the Pope in his bed and ask him, and in a dark street at the very top of a hill, I found an Evil Doer, a striding drunkard with a dagger ready for me, and I drank my fill of blood in a rush of eagerness that I had not felt in years. Poor sad victim. I wonder if in my taking of him I gave him some glimpse of those paintings. I remember so well the moment, for I stood as the top of a narrow stairs which went down the hill to the piazza below me, and I thought only of those paintings as the blood warmed me and I wanted to go back to the chapel at once. Something interrupted me at that moment. I heard the distinct noise of a blood drinker near me, the bumbling step of one who was young. One hundred years? No more than that, that was my calculation. The creature wanted me to know he was there. I turned around and saw a tall, well-muscled and dark-haired figure, clothed in the black robes of a monk. His face was white and he did nothing to disguise it. Around his neck he wore a glittering golden crucifix upside down. "Marius!" he whispered. "Damn you," I said in answer. Yea gods, how could he know my name! "Whoever you are. Leave me. Get away from me. I warn you. Don't remain in my presence if you want to live." "Marius!" he said again and he came towards me. "I have no fear of you. I come to you because we need you. You know who we are." "Worshipers of Satan!" I said in disgust. "Look at that fool ornament around your neck. If the Christ exists, do you think He pays any attention to you? So you still have your foolish little gatherings. You have your lies." "Foolish?" he said calmly. "We have never been foolish. We do the work of God as we serve Satan. Without Satan, how could there have been the Christ?" I made a dismissive gesture. "Get away from me," I said. "I want no part of you." In my heart was locked the secret of Those Who Must Be Kept. I thought of the paintings in the Sistine Chapel. Oh, those lovely figures, those colors . .. "But don't you see?" he replied. "If one so old and powerful as you were to become our leader, we could be a legion in the catacombs of this city! As it is, we are a dreadful few." His large black eyes were fall of the inevitable zeal. And his rich black hair shimmered in the dim light. He was a comely creature, even coated with dust and dirt as he was. I could smell the catacombs on his garments. I could smell death on him as though he had lain down with mortal remains. But he was handsome, fine of build and proportion as Avicus had been, not unlike Avicus at all. "You want to be a legion?" I asked him. "You talk nonsense! I was alive when no one spoke of Satan and no one spoke of a Christ. You're merely blood drinkers, and you make up stories for yourselves. How could you believe that I would come to you and lead you?" He drew closer so that I could all the better see his face. He was full of exuberance and honesty. He held his head proudly. "Come to us in our catacomb," he said, "come and see us and be a part of our ritual. Sing with us tomorrow night before we go out to hunt." He was passionate and he waited in

silence for my reply.
He was not a stupid creature by any means, and he did not seem callow like the other
followers of Satan whom I had glimpsed in centuries past.
I shook my head. But he pressed on.
"My name is Santino," he said. "I have heard of you for a hundred years. I have dreamt of
the moment when we would come upon each other. Satan has brought us together. You
must lead us.
Only to you would I give up my leadership. Come see my lair with its hundreds of
skulls." His voice was refined, well modulated. He spoke a beautiful Italian. "Come see
my followers who worship the Beast with all their hearts. It's the wish of the Beast that
you should lead us. It's the wish of God."
How disgusted I was, how much I deplored him and his followers. And I could see the
intellect in him. I could see the cleverness and the hope of understanding and wit.
Would that Avicus and Mael were here to put an end to him and all his kith and kin.
"Your lair with its hundreds of skulls?" I repeated. "You think I wish to rule there?
Tonight I've seen paintings of such beauty I can't describe them to you. Magnificent
works rich in color and brilliance. This city surrounds me with its beautiful allurements."
"Where did you see such paintings?" he asked.
"In the Pope's chapel," I declared.
"But how did you dare to go there?"
"It was nothing for me to do such a thing. I can teach you how to use your powers -."
"But we are creatures of the dark," he said in all simplicity. "We must never go into
places of light. God has cursed us to the shadows."
"What god?" I asked. "I go wherever I will. I drink the blood of those who are evil. And
the world belongs to me. And you ask me to come down into the earth with you? Into a
catacomb full of skulls? You ask me to rule blood drinkers in the name of a demon?
You're too clever for your creed, my friend. Forsake it."
"No," he said, shaking his head and stepping backwards. "Ours is a Satanic purity!" he
said. "You can't tempt me from it, not with all your power and your tricks, and I give my
welcome to you."
I had sparked something in him. I could see it in his black eyes. He was drawn to me,
drawn to my words, but he couldn't admit it.
"You'll never be a legion," I said. "The world will never allow it. You're nothing. Give up
your trappings. Don't make other blood drinkers to join this foolish crusade."
He drew closer again, as if I were a light and he wanted to be in it. He looked into my
eyes, trying no doubt to read my thoughts of which he could get nothing except what I
had said in words.
"We are so gifted," I said. "There is so much to be observed, to be learnt. Let me take you
back with me into the Pope's chapel to see the paintings I have described."
He drew even closer and something changed in his face.
"Those Who Must Be Kept," he said, "what are they?"
It was like a harsh blow - that once again another knew the secret, a secret I had guarded
so well for a thousand years. "You will never know," I responded.
"No, listen to me," he said. "Are they something profane? Or are they holy?"
I clenched my teeth. I reached out for him, but with a swiftness that surprised me, he
escaped me.
I went after him, caught him, and spinning him around, I dragged him to the head of the
narrow stone stairs that went down the hill.
"Never come near me again, do you hear?" I said to him. He struggled desperately against

me. "I can kill you by fire with my mind if I choose it," I said. "And why don't I choose it? Why don't I choose to slaughter you all, you miserable vermin? Why don't I do it? Because I loathe the violence of it and the cruelty, even though you're more evil than the mortal whom I killed for my thirst tonight." He was frantically trying to get loose from me, but of course he had not the slightest chance. Why didn't I destroy him? Was my mind too filled with the beautiful paintings? Was my mind too attuned to the mortal world to be dragged back into this abysmal filth? I don't know. What I know is that I threw him down the stone stairway so that he tumbled over and over again, clumsily, miserably, until he finally scrambled to his feet below. He glared at me, his face full of hatred. "I curse you, Marius!" he said with remarkable courage. "I curse you and your secret of Those Who Must Be Kept." I was taken aback by his defiance. "I warn you, stay away from me, Santino!" I said as I looked down at him. "Be wanderers through time," I said. "Be witnesses of all splendid and beautiful things human. Be true immortals. Not worshipers of Satan! Not servants of a god who will put you in a Christian Hell. But whatever you do, stay clear of me for your own sake." He was planted there, looking up at me in his fury. And then it occurred to me to give him a small warning, if only I could do it. And I meant to try. I brought up the Fire Gift inside of me, feeling it grow powerful and I quelled it ever so carefully and I sent it down towards him, and willed it to kindle only the edge of his black monkish robes. At once the cloth around his feet began to smoke and he stepped back in horror. I stopped the power. He turned round and round in panic and tore the scorched robes off himself, standing there in a long white tunic staring at the smoking cloth that lay on the ground. Once again he looked at me, fearless as before, but enraged in his helplessness. "Know what I could do to you," I said, "and never come near to me again." And then I turned my back on him. And off I went. I shivered even to think of him and his followers. I shivered to think that I should have to use the Fire Gift again after all these years. I shivered remembering the slaughter of Eudoxia's slaves. It wasn't even midnight. I wanted the bright new world of Italy. I wanted the clever scholars and artists of these times. I wanted the huge palazzo of the Cardinals and the other powerful inhabitants of the Eternal City which had risen after all the long miserable years. Putting the creature named Santino out of my mind I went near to one of the new palazzo in which there was a feast in progress, a masquerade with much dancing and tables laden with food. It was no problem to me to gain entry. I had equipped myself with the fine velvet clothes of this period, and once inside among the guests, I was welcomed as was everyone else. I had no mask, only my white face which seemed like one, and my customary red velvet hooded cloak which set me apart from the guests and yet made me one of them at the same time. The music was intoxicating. The walls were ablaze with fine paintings, though none as magical as what I had seen in the Sistine Chapel, and the crowd was huge and sumptuously dressed. Quickly, I fell into conversation with the young scholars, the ones who were talking hotly

of painting as well as poetry and I asked my dumb question: Who had done the
magnificent frescoes in the Sistine Chapel which I had just beheld?
"You've seen these paintings?" said one of the crowd to me. "I don't believe it. We
haven't been allowed in to see them. Describe to me again what you saw."
I laid out everything, very simply as though I were a schoolboy.
"The figures are supremely delicate," I said, "with sensitive faces, and each being, though
rendered with great naturalness, is ever so slightly too long."
The company around me laughed good naturedly.
"Ever so slightly too long," repeated one of the elders.
"Who did the paintings?" I said, imploringly. "I must meet this man."
"You'll have to go to Florence to meet him," said the elder scholar. "You're talking about
Botticelli, and he's already gone home."
"Botticelli," I whispered. It was a strange almost ridiculous name. In Italian it translates
to "little tub." But to me it meant magnificence.
"You're certain it was Botticelli," I said.
"Oh, yes," said the elder scholar. The others with us were also nodding. "Everyone's
marveling at what he can do. That's why the Pope sent for him. He was here two years
working on the Sistine Chapel. Everyone knows Botticelli. And now he's no doubt as
busy in Florence as he was here."
"I only want to see him with my own eyes," I said.
"Who are you?" asked one of the scholars.
"No one," I whispered. "No one at all."
There was general laughter. It seemed to blend rather bewitchingly with the music around
us, and the glare of so many candles.
I felt drunk on the smell of mortals, and with dreams of Botticelli.
"I have to find Botticelli," I whispered. And bidding them all farewell I went out into the
night.
But what was I going to do when I found Botticelli, that was the question. What was
driving me?
What did I want?
To see all of his works, yes, that much was certain, but what more did my soul require?
My loneliness seemed as great as my age and it frightened me.
I returned to the Sistine Chapel.
I spent the remainder of the night perusing the frescoes once more.
Before dawn a guard came upon me. I allowed it to happen. With the Spell Gift I gently
convinced him that I belonged where I was.
"Who is the figure here in these paintings?" I asked, "the elder with the beard and the
gold light streaming from his head? "
"Moses," said the guard, "you know, Moses the prophet. It all has to do with Moses, and
the other painting has to do with Christ." He pointed. "Don't you see the inscription?"
I had not seen it but I saw it now. The Temptation of Moses, Bearer of the Written Law.
I sighed. "I wish I knew their stories better," I said. "But the paintings are so exquisite
that the story doesn't matter."
The guard only shrugged.
"Did you know Botticelli when he painted here?" I asked.
Once again, the man only shrugged.
"But don't you think the paintings are incomparably beautiful?" I asked him.
He looked at me somewhat stupidly.
I realized how lonely I was that I was speaking to this poor creature, trying to elicit from

him some understanding of what I felt.
"Beautiful paintings are everywhere now," he said.
"Yes," I said, "yes, I know they are. But they don't look like this."
I gave him a few gold coins, and left the chapel.
I had only time enough to reach the vault of Those Who Must Be Kept before dawn.
As I lay down to sleep I dreamt of Botticelli, but it was the voice of Santino that haunted
me. And I wished that I had destroyed him, which, all things considered, was a very
unusual wish for me.

Chapter Fifteen

The following night I went to the city of Florence. It was of course splendid to see it quite recovered from the ravages of the Black Death, and indeed a city of greater prosperity and greater ingenuity and energy than Rome. I soon learnt what I had suspected - that having grown up around commerce, the city had not suffered the ruin of a classical era, but had rather grown progressively strong over the centuries, as its ruling family, the Medici, maintained power by means of a great international bank. Everywhere about me there were elements of the place - its growing architectural monuments, its interior paintings, its clever scholars - that drew me fiercely, but nothing really could keep me away from discovering the identity of Botticelli, and seeing for myself not only his works, but the man. Nevertheless, I tormented myself slightly. I took rooms in a palazzo near the main piazza of the city, hired a bumbling and remarkably gullible servant to lay in lots of costly clothes for me, all made in the color red as I preferred it, and still do to any other, and I went at once to a bookseller's and knocked and knocked until the man opened his doors for me, took my gold, and gave me the latest books which "everyone was reading" on poetry, art, philosophy and the like. Then retiring to my rooms, I sat down by the light of one lamp and devoured what I could of my century's thinking, and at last I lay flat upon the floor, staring at the ceiling, overwhelmed by the vigor of the return to the classical, by the passionate enthusiasm for the old Greek and Roman poets, and by the faith in sensuality which this age seemed to hold. Let me note here that some of these books were printed books, thanks to the miraculous invention of the printing press, and I was quite amazed by these though I preferred the beauty of the old handwritten codexes, as did many men of the time. In fact, it is an irony that even after the printing press was very well established, people still boasted of having handwritten libraries, but I digress. I was talking of the return to the old Greek and Roman poets, of the infatuation of the era with the times of my birth. The Roman church was overwhelmingly powerful as I have suggested. But this was an age of fusion, as well as inconceivable expansion - and it was fusion which I had seen in the painting of Botticelli - so full of loveliness and natural beauty though created for the interior of the Pope's, own chapel in Rome. Perhaps near to midnight, I stumbled out of my quarters, finding the city under curfew, with the taverns which defied it and the inevitable ruffians roaming about. I was dazed as I made my way into a huge tavern full of gleeful young drunkards where a rosy cheeked boy sang as he played the lute. I sat in the corner thinking to control my overwrought enthusiasms, my crazed passions, yet I had to find the home of Botticelli. I had to. I had to see more of his work. What stopped me from it? What did I fear? What was going on in my mind? Surely the gods knew I was a creature of iron control. Had I not proven it a thousand times? For the keeping of a Divine Secret had I not turned my back on Zenobia? And did I not suffer routinely and justly for having abandoned my incomparable Pandora whom I might never find again? At last I could endure my confused thoughts no longer. I came close to one of the older men in the tavern who was not singing with the younger ones. "I've come here to find a great painter," I told him. He shrugged and took a drink of his wine.

"I used to be a great painter," he said, "but no more. All I do is drink."
I laughed. I called for the tavern maid to serve him another cup. He gave a nod of thanks
to me.
"The man I'm looking for - he's called Botticelli, or so I'm told."
Now it was his turn to laugh.
"You're seeking the greatest painter in Florence," he said. "You won't have any trouble
finding him. He's always busy, no matter how many idlers hang about in his workshop.
He may be painting now."
"Where is the workshop?" I asked.
"He lives in the Via Nuova, right before the Via Paolino."
"But tell me - ." I hesitated. "What sort of man is he? I mean to you?"
Again, the man shrugged. "Not bad, not good, though he has a sense of humor. Not one
to make an imprint on your mind except through his painting. You'll see when you meet
him. But don't expect to hire him. He has much work already to do."
I thanked the man, laid down money for more wine if he wanted it, and slipped out of the
tavern.
With a few questions I found the way to the Via Nuova. A night watchman gave me the
way to the home of Botticelli, pointing to a sizable house, but not a great palazzo, where
the painter lived with his brother and his brother's family.
I stood before this simple house as if it were a shrine. I could see where the workshop
most certainly was by its large doors to the street which were inevitably open by day, and
I could see that all the rooms both on the main floor and above it were dark.
How could I go into this workshop? How could I see what work was being done there
now? Only by night could I come to this place. Never had I cursed the night so much.
Gold had to do this for me. Gold and the Spell Gift, though how I would dare to daze
Botticelli himself I had no idea.
Suddenly, unable to control myself any longer I pounded on the door of the house.
Naturally enough, no one answered, so I pounded again.
Finally a light brightened in the upstairs window, and I could hear footfall within.
At last a voice demanded: Who was I, and what did I want?
What was I to answer to such a question? Was I to lie to someone whom I worshiped?
Ah, but I had to get in.
"Marius de Romanus," I answered, making up the name at that very moment. "I've come
with a purse of gold for Botticelli. I've seen his paintings in Rome, and I greatly admire
him. I must put this purse into his own hand-"
There was a pause. Voices behind the door. Two men conferring with each other as to
who I might be, or why such a lie might be told.
One man said not to answer. The other man said it was worth a brief look, and it was he
who pulled back the latch and opened the door. The other held the lamp behind him, so I
saw only a shadowy face.
"I am Sandro," he said simply, "I'm Botticelli. Why would you bring me a purse of
gold?"
For a long moment I was speechless. But in this speechlessness, I had the sense to
produce the gold. I handed the purse over to the man, and I watched silently as he opened
it and as he took out the gold florins and held them in his hand.
"What do you want?" he asked. His voice was as plain as his manner. He was rather tall.
His hair was light brown and already threaded with gray though he was not old. He had
large eyes that appeared compassionate, and a well-formed mouth and nose. He stood
looking at me without annoyance or suspicion, and obviously ready to return my gold. I

didn't think he was forty years old.
I tried to speak and I stammered. For the first time in all my memory I stammered.
Finally I managed to make myself plain:
"Let me come into your workshop tonight," I said. "Let me see your paintings. That's all I
want."
"You can see them by day." He shrugged. "My workshop's always open. Or you can go to
the churches in which I've painted. My work is all over Florence. You don't have to pay
me for such a thing." What a sublime voice; what an honest voice. There was something
patient and tender in it.
I gazed upon him as I had gazed on his paintings. But he was waiting for an answer. I had
to pull myself together.
"I have my reasons," I said. "I have my passions. I want to see your work now, if you'll
let me. I offer the gold."
He smiled and he gave a little even laugh. "Well, you come like one of the Magi," he
said. "For I can certainly use the payment. Come inside."
That was the second time in my long years that I had been compared to the Magi of
Scripture and I loved it.
I entered the house which was by no means luxurious, and as he took the lamp from the
other man, I followed him through a side door into his workshop where he put the lamp
on a table full of paints and brushes and rags.
I couldn't take my eyes off him. This was the man who had done the great paintings in the
Sistine Chapel, this ordinary man.
The light flared up and filled the place. Sandro, as he had called himself, gestured to his
left, and as I turned to my right, I thought I was losing my mind.
A giant canvas covered the wall, and though I had expected to see a religious painting, no
matter how sensual, there was something else there, altogether different, which rendered
me speechless once more.
The painting was enormous as I've indicated, and it was composed of several figures, but
whereas the Roman paintings had confused me in the question of their subject matter, I
knew very well the subject matter of this.
For these were not saints and angels, or Christs and prophets - no, far from it.
There loomed before me a great painting of the goddess Venus in all her glorious nudity,
feet poised upon a seashell, her golden hair torn by faint breezes, her dreamy gaze steady,
her faithful attendants the god Zephyr who blew the breezes which guided her landward,
and a nymph as beautiful as the goddess herself who welcomed her to the shore.
I drew in my breath and put my hands over my face, and then when I uncovered my eyes
I found the painting there again.
A slight impatient sigh came from Sandro Botticelli. What in the name of the gods could
I say to him about the brilliance of this work? What could I say to him to reveal the
adulation I felt?
Then came his voice, low and resigned. "If you're going to tell me it's shocking and evil,
let me tell you, I have heard it a thousand times. I'll give you back your gold if you want.
I've heard it a thousand times."
I turned and went down on my knees, and I took his hands and I kissed them with my lips
as closely as I dared. Then I rose slowly like an old man on one knee before the other and
I stood back to gaze at the panel for a long time.
I looked at the perfect figure of Venus again, covering her most intimate secret with locks
of her abundant hair. I looked on the nymph with her outstretched hand and her
voluminous garments. I looked on the god Zephyr and the goddess with him, and all of

the tiny details of the painting came to reside in my mind. "How has it come about?" I asked. "After so long a time of Christs and Virgins, that such a thing could be painted at last?" From the quiet figure of the uncomplaining man there came another little laugh. "It's up to my patron," he said. "My Latin is not so good. They read the poetry to me. I painted what they said to paint." he paused. He looked troubled. "Do you think it's sinful?" "Certainly not," I responded. "You ask me what I think? I think it's a miracle. I'm surprised that you would ask," I looked at the painting- "This is a goddess," I said. "How could it be other than sacred? There was a time when millions worshiped her with all their hearts. There was a time when people consecrated themselves to her with all their hearts." "Well, yes," he answered softly, "but she's a pagan goddess, and not everyone thinks that she is the patron of marriage as some say now. Some say this painting is sinful, that I shouldn't be doing it." He gave a frustrated sigh. He wanted to say more, but I sensed that the arguments were quite beyond him. "Don't listen to such things," I said. "It has a purity I've almost never seen in painting-Her face, the way you've painted it, she's newborn yet sublime, a woman, yet divine. Don't think of sin when you work on this painting. This painting is too vital, too eloquent. Put the struggles of sin out of your mind." He was silent but I knew he was thinking. I turned and tried to read his mind. It seemed chaotic, and full of wandering thoughts and guilt. He was a painter almost entirely at the mercy of those who hired him, but he had made himself supreme by virtue of the particularities that all cherished in his work. Nowhere were his talents more fully expressed than in this particular painting and he knew this though he couldn't put it into words. He thought hard on how to tell me about his craft and his originality, but he simply couldn't do it. And I would not press him. It would be a wicked thing to do. "I don't have your words," he said simply. "You really believe the painting isn't sinful?" "Yes, I told you, it's not sinful. If anyone tells you anything else they're lying to you." I couldn't stress it enough. "Behold the innocence in the face of the goddess. Don't think of anything else." He looked tormented, and there came over me a sense of how fragile he was, in spite of his immense talent and his immense energy to work. The thrusts of his art could be utterly crushed by those who criticized him. Yet he went on somehow every day painting the best pictures that he knew how to paint. "Don't believe them," I said again, drawing his eyes back to me. "Come," he said, "you've paid me well to look at my work. Look at this tondo of the Virgin Mary with Angels. Tell me how you like this." He brought the lamp to the far wall and held it so that I might see the round painting which hung there. Once again I was too shocked by the loveliness of it to speak. But it was plainly obvious that the Virgin was as purely beautiful as the goddess Venus, and the Angels were sensual and alluring as only very young boys and girls can be. "I know," he said to me. "You don't have to tell me. My Venus looks like the Virgin and the Virgin looks like the Venus and so they say of me. But my patrons pay me." "Listen to your patrons," I said. I wanted so to clasp his arms. I wanted to gently shake him so that he would never forget my words. "Do what they tell you. Both paintings are magnificent. Both paintings are finer than anything I've ever seen."

He couldn't know what I meant by such words. I couldn't tell him. I stared at him, and for
the first time I saw a little apprehension in him. He had begun to notice my skin, and
perhaps my hands.
It was time to leave him before he became even more suspicious, and I wanted him to
remember me kindly and not with fear.
I took out another purse which I had brought with me. It was full of gold florins.
He gestured to refuse it. In fact, he gave me a very stubborn refusal. I placed it on the
table.
For a moment we merely looked at each other.
"Good-bye, Sandro," I said.
"Marius, was it? I'll remember you."
I made my way out the front door and into the street. I hurried for the space of two blocks
and then I stopped, breathing too hurriedly, and it seemed a dream that I had been with
him, that I had seen such paintings, that such paintings had been created by man.
I didn't go back to my rooms in the palazzo.
When I reached the vault of Those Who Must Be Kept, I fell down in a new kind of
exhaustion, crazed by what; I had beheld. I couldn't get the impression of the man out of
my mind. I couldn't stop seeing him with his soft dull hair and sincere eyes.
As for the paintings, they haunted me, and I knew that my torment, my obsession, my
complete abandonment to the love of Botticelli had only just begun.

Chapter Sixteen

In the months that followed I became a busy visitor of Florence, slipping into various palaces and churches to see the work that Botticelli had done. Those who praised him had not lied. He was the most revered painter in Florence, and those who complained of him were those for whom he had no time, for he was only a mortal man. In the Church of San Paolino, I found an altarpiece which was to drive me mad. The subject of the painting was a common one, I had discovered, usually called The Lamentation, being the scene of those weeping over the body of the dead Christ only just taken down from the Cross. It was a miracle of Botticelli's sensuality, most specifically in the tender representation of Christ himself who had the gorgeous body of a Greek god, and in the utter abandon of the woman who had pressed her face against that of his, for though Christ lay with his head hanging downward, she knelt upright and her eyes were therefore very near to Christ's mouth. Ah, to see these two faces seamlessly pressed to each other, and to see the delicacy of every face and form surrounding them, it was more than I could endure. How long would I let this torture me? How long must I go through this wanton enthusiasm, this mad celebration before I retreated to my loneliness and coldness in the vault? I knew how to punish myself, didn't I? Did I have to go out of my way to the city of Florence for this? There were reasons to be gone. Two other blood drinkers haunted this city who might want me out of it, but so far they had left me alone. They were very young and hardly very clever, nevertheless I did not want them to come upon me, and spread "the legend of Marius" any further than it had already gone. And then there was that monster I had encountered in Rome—that evil Santino who might come this far to harry me with his little Satan worshipers whom I so desperately deplored. But these things didn't really matter. I had time in Florence and I knew it. There were no Satan worshipers here and that was a good thing. I had time to suffer as much as I chose. And I was mad for this mortal, Botticelli, this painter, this genius, and I could scarce think of anything else. Meantime, there came from Botticelli's brilliance yet another immense pagan masterpiece which I beheld in the palazzo to which it was sent upon being finished - a place into which I crept in the early hours of the morning to see the painting while the owners of the building slept. Once again, Botticelli had used Roman mythology, or perhaps the Greek mythology that lay behind it to create a garden -yes, of all things, a garden - a garden of eternal springtime in which mythical figures made their sublime progress with harmonious gestures and dreamy expressions, their attitudes exquisitely gentle in the extreme. On one side of the verdant garden danced the youthful and inevitably beautiful Three Graces in transparent and billowing garments while on the other side came the goddess Flora, magnificently clothed and strewing flowers from her dress. The goddess Venus once more appeared in the center, dressed as a rich Florentine woman, her hand up in a gesture of welcome, her head tilted slightly to one side. The figure of Mercury in the far left corner, and several other mythic beings completed the gathering which entranced me so that I stood before the masterpiece for hours, perusing all the details, sometimes smiling, sometimes weeping, wiping at my face, and eyes now and then covering my eyes and then uncovering them again to see the vivid colors and the delicate gestures and attitudes of these creatures - the whole so reminiscent of the lost glory of Rome, and yet so utterly new and different from it that I thought, for loving all this, I will lose my mind. Any and all gardens which I had ever painted or imagined were obliterated by this painting. How would I ever rival, even in my dreams, such a work as this? How exquisite here to die of happiness after being so long miserable and alone. How exquisite to see this triumph of form and color after having studied with bitter sacrifice so many forms I could not understand. There is no despair in me anymore. There is only joy, continuous restless joy. Is that possible? Only reluctantly did I leave this painting of the springtime garden. Only reluctantly did I leave behind its dark flower-rich grass and overhanging orange trees. Only reluctantly did I move on to find more of Botticelli where I could. I might have staggered around Florence for nights on end, drunk on what I'd seen in this painting. But there was more, much more, for me to see. Mark, all this time, as I slipped into churches to see more works by the Master, as I crept into a palazzo to see a famed painting by the Master of die irresistible god Mars sleeping helplessly on the grass beside a patient and watchful Venus, as I went about clasping my hands to my lips so as not to cry out crazily, I did not return to the workshop of the gems. I held myself back. "You cannot interfere in his life," I told myself. "You cannot come in with gold and draw him from his paintings. His is a mortal destiny. Already the entire city knows of him. Rome knows of him. His paintings will endure. He is not someone you need save from a gutter. He is the talk of Florence. He is the talk of the Pope's Palace in Rome. Leave him alone." And so I did not go back, though I was starving just to look at him, just to talk to him, just to tell him that the marvelous painting of the Three Graces and the other goddesses in the springtime garden was as glorious as anything that he had done. I would have paid him just to allow me to sit in his shop in the evening, and to watch him at his work. But this was wrong, all of it. I went back to the Church of San Paolino, and I stayed for a long time, staring at The Lamentation. It was far more stiff than his "pagan" paintings. Indeed, he had seldom done something quite this severe. And there was much darkness to the painting, in the deeply colored robes of the various figures, and in the shadowy recesses of the open tomb. But even in this severity there was a tenderness, a loveliness. And the two faces - that of Mary and Christ – which were pressed together - drew me and would not let me look away. Ah, Botticelli. How does one explain his gift? His figures though perfect were always slightly elongated, even the faces were elongated, and the expressions on the faces were sleepy and perhaps even ever so slightly unhappy, it is so difficult to say. All the figures of any one painting seemed lost in a communal dream. As for the paint he used - the paint used by so many in Florence - it was far superior to anything we had had in the ancient days of Rome, in that it mixed simple egg yolk and ground pigment to achieve the colors and the glazes and the varnishes to make an application of unsurpassed brilliance and endurance. In other words, the works had a gloss that seemed miraculous to my eyes. So fascinated was I by this paint that I sent my mortal servant to procure all the available pigments for me, and the eggs, and to bring me by night an old apprentice who might mix up the colors for me, exactly to the right thickness, so I might paint a bit of work in my rented rooms. It was only an idle experiment, but I found myself working furiously and soon covering every bit of prepared wood and canvas which my apprentice and my servant had bought. They were, of course, shocked by my speed, which gave me pause. I had to be clever, not fantastical. Hadn't I learnt that long years ago when I'd painted my banquet room as my guests cheered me on? I sent them away with plenty of gold, telling them to come back to me with more materials. As for what I had painted? It was some poor imitation of Botticelli, for even with my immortal blood I could not capture what he had captured. I could not make faces like those he had rendered, no, not by a very long way. There was something brittle and hopeless in what I painted. I could not look at my own work. I loathed it. There was something flat and Accusatory in the faces I had created. There was something ominous in the expressions that looked back at me from the walls. I went out into the night, restless, hearing those other blood drinkers, a young pair, fearful of me and rightly so, yet very attentive to what I did, for what reason I was unsure. I sent a silent message to all the immortal trash that might perturb me: Do not come near me for I am in a grand passion and will not tolerate being interrupted now. I crept into the Church of San Paolirio and knelt down as I looked at The Lamentation, I ran my tongue against my sharp teeth. I hungered for blood as the beauty of the figures filled me. I could have taken a victim in the very church. And then the most evil idea came to me. It was purely evil just as the painting was purely religious. The idea came to me unbidden as if there really were a Satan in the world and that Satan had come crawling along the stone floor towards me and put the idea in my mind. "You love him, Marius," said this Satan. "Well, bring him over to you. Give Botticelli the Blood." I shivered quietly in the church. I slipped down, sitting against the stone wall. Again I felt the thirst. I was horrified that I had even thought of it yet I saw myself taking Botticelli in my arms. I saw myself sinking my teeth into Botticelli's throat. The blood of Botticelli. I thought of it. And my blood, my Hood given to him. "Think how you have waited, Marius," said the evil voice of Satan. "All these long centuries you have never given your blood to anyone. But you can give it to Botticelli! You can take Botticelli now." He would go on painting; he would have the Blood and his painting would be unparalleled. He would live forever with his talent - this humble man of some forty years who was grateful for a mere purse of gold - this humble man who had done the exquisite Christ I stared at, his head thrown back in the hand of Mary, whose eyes were pressed to his mouth. This was not something that would be done. No, this must never be done. I could not do it. I would not do it. Yet I rose slowly to my feet and I left the church and began walking through the dark narrow street, towards Botticelli's house. I could hear my heart inside me. And my mind seemed curiously empty, and my body light and predatory and full of evil, an evil which I freely admitted and totally understood. A high excitement filled me. Take Botticelli in your arms. Forever in your arms. And though I heard those other blood drinkers, those two young ones who followed me, I did not pay it any mind. They were far too fearful of me to come close to me. On I went for what I would choose to do. It was no more than a few blocks and I was there at Sandro's door and the lights were burning inside, and I had a purse of gold. Drifting, dreaming, thirsting, I knocked as I had the first time. No, this is something you will never do, I thought. You will not take someone so vital out of the world. You will not disturb the destiny of one who has given others so much to love and enjoy. It was Sandro's brother who came to the door, but this time he was courteous to me and he showed me into the shop where Botticelli was alone and at work. He turned to greet me as soon as I entered the spacious room. There loomed behind him a large panel, with a shockingly different aspect to it from any of his other work. I let my eyes drift over it for I thought this was what he wanted me to do, and I don't think I could hide from him my disapproval or fear. The blood hunger surged in me, but I put it away and stared only at the painting, thinking of nothing, not of Sandro, not of his death and rebirth through me, no, of nothing but the painting as I pretended to be human for him. It was a grim and chilling painting of the Trinity, with Christ on his Cross, the full figure of God the Father behind him, and a dove representing the Holy Spirit, just above the head of the Christ. On one side stood St. John the Baptist opening the scarlet robe of God the Father, and on the other, the penitent Magdalene, her long hair her only clothing as she stared grieving at the crucified Lord. It seemed a cruel use of Botticelli's talent! It seemed a ghastly thing. Oh, it was expertly done, yes, but how merciless it seemed. Only now did I know that in The Lamentation I had seen a perfect balance of light and dark forces. For I did riot see that balance here. On the contrary, it was astonishing that Botticelli could have done something as wholly dark as this. It was a harsh thing. Had I seen it elsewhere I would not have thought it was his work. And it seemed a profound judgment on me that I had thought for one moment of giving Botticelli the Dark Blood! Did the Christian God really live? Could he deter me? Could he judge me? Is that why I had come face to face with this painting with Botticelli standing beside it looking into my eyes? Botticelli was waiting for me to speak to him on account of this painting. He was waiting patiently to be wounded by what I meant to say. And deep inside me there was a love of Botticelli's talent which had nothing to do with God or the Devil or my own evil or power. That love of Botticelli's talent respected Botticelli and nothing mattered just now but that. I looked up again at the painting. "Where is the innocence, Sandro?" I asked him, making my tone as kind as I could. Again I fought the blood hunger. Look how old he is. If you don't do it Sandro Botticelli will die. "Where is the tenderness in the painting?" I asked. "Where is the sublime sweetness that makes us forget everything? I see it only a little perhaps in the face of God the Father, but the rest - it's dark, Sandro. It's so unlike you, this darkness. I don't understand why you do it when you can do so much else."

The blood hunger was raging but I had control of it. I was pushing it deep inside me. I loved him too much to do it. I could not do it. I could not endure the result if it were to be done. As for my remarks, he nodded. He was miserable. A man divided wanting to paint his goddesses on the one hand, and the sacred paintings as well. "Marius," he said. "I don't want to do what's sinful. I don't want to do what's evil, or what will make another person, simply by looking at a painting, commit a sin." "You're very far from ever doing that, Sandro," I said. "That's my view of it - that your goddesses are glorious as are your gods. In Rome, your frescoes of Christ were filled with light and beauty. Why journey into the darkness as you have done here?" I took out the purse and put it on the table. I would leave now, and he would never know what true evil had come close to him. He would never dream of what I was and what I had meant, perhaps, perhaps to do. He came to me and picked up the purse and tried to give it back. "No, you keep it," I said. "You deserve it. You do what you believe you should do." "Marius, I have to do what is right," he said simply. "Now look at this, I want to show you." He took me to another part of the workshop away from the large paintings. Here was a table and on it were several pages of parchment covered with tiny drawings. "These are illustrations for Dante's Inferno" he told me. "Surely you've read it. I want to do an illustrated version of the entire book." My heart sank when I heard this, but what could I say? I looked down at the drawings of die twisted and suffering bodies! How could one defend such an enterprise on the part of the painter who had rendered Venus and the Virgin with miraculous skill? Dante's Inferno. How I had despised the work while recognizing its brilliance. "Sandro, how can you want to do this?" I asked. I was shaking. I didn't want him to see my face. "I find glory," I said, "in those paintings that are filled with the light of paradise, whether it is Christian or pagan. I find no delight in the illustrations of those who suffer in Hell." He was plainly confused and perhaps he always would be. It was his fate. I had only stepped into it, and perhaps fed a fire that was already top weak to survive. I had to go now. I had to leave him now forever. I knew it. I could not come again to this house. I could not trust myself with him. I had to get out of Florence or my resolve would break. "I won't be seeing you again, Sandro," I said. "But why?" he said. "I've been looking forward to seeing you. Oh, it's not because of the purse, believe me." "I know, but I must leave. Remember. I believe in your gods and goddesses. I always will." I went out of his house, and only as far as the church. I was so overcome with the desire for him, to bring him over to me, and visit upon him all the dark secrets of the Blood, that I could scarce catch my breath or see the street before me, or even feel the air in my lungs. I wanted him. I wanted his talent. I dreamt dreams of the two of us - Sandro and me - together in a great palazzo, and from there would come paintings tinged with the magic of the Blood. It would be a confirmation of the Blood. After all, 1 thought, he is ruining his own talent, is he not, by turning to what is dark? How can one account for it that he would turn from his goddesses to a poem called the Inferno? Can I not turn him back to his celestial visions with the Blood?

But none of this must happen. I knew it even before I'd seen his cruel crucifixion. I had
known it before I went into his house.
I must find a victim now; I must find many. And so I hunted cruelly, until I could take no
more blood from the few doomed souls I found in the streets of Florence.
At last an hour or so before dawn, I found myself sitting against a church door in a small
piazza, looking like a beggar perhaps if beggars fit themselves out with crimson cloaks.
Those two young vampires whom I had heard following me came with fearful steps
towards me.
I was weary and impatient.
"Get away from me," I said. "I'll destroy you both if you don't."
A young male, a young female, each taken in youth and both trembling, they would not
retreat. At last the male spoke for them, his courage tremulous but real.
"Don't you harm Botticelli!" he declared. "Don't you hurt him! Take the dregs, yes, you're
welcome, but not Botticelli, never Botticelli."
Sadly I laughed. My head fell back and very softly I laughed and laughed.
"I won't do it," I said. "I love him as much as you do. Now get away from me. Or believe
me, there will be no more nights for either one of you. GO."
Returning to the vault in the mountains, I wept for Botticelli.
I closed my eyes, and I entered the garden where Flora dropped her tender roses to the
carpet of grass and flowers. I reached out to touch the hair of one of the young Graces.
"Pandora," I whispered. "Pandora, it's our garden. They were all beautiful like you."

Chapter Seventeen

In the weeks that followed, I filled the shrine in the Alps with many new riches. I bought new golden lamps, and censers. I bought fine carpets from the markets in Venice, and golden silks from China as well. From the seamstresses of Florence I commissioned new garments for my Immortal Parents, and then carefully dressed them, relieving them of rags which should have been burnt long ago. All the while I spoke to them in a consoling voice of the miracles I had seen in the changing world. I laid before them fine printed books as I explained the ingenious invention of the printing press. And I hung over the doors to the shrine a new Flemish tapestry, also bought in Florence which I described to them in detail, so they might choose to look with their seemingly blind eyes. Then I went to die city of Florence and gathering up all the pigment and oil and other materials which my servant had procured for me, I brought it to the mountain shrine, and I proceeded to paint the walls in the new style. I did not seek now to imitate Botticelli. But I did return to the old motif of the garden which I had so loved centuries ago, and I soon found myself rendering my Venus, my Graces, my Flora, and infusing into the work all the details of life which only a blood drinker can behold. Where Botticelli had painted the dark grass rich with varied flowers, I revealed the small insectile creatures inevitably concealed there, and then the most flamboyant and beautiful of creatures, the butterflies and the varicolored moths. Indeed my style ran to frightening detail in every respect, and soon an intoxicating and magic forest surrounded the Mother and Father, the egg tempera lending a gleam to the whole which I had never achieved in the past. When I studied it, I became ever so slightly dizzy, thinking of Botticelli's garden, indeed, thinking even of the garden I had dreamt of in old Rome, of the garden I had painted - and soon I had to shake myself and collect myself because I did not know where I was. The Royal Parents seemed more solid and remote than ever. All trace of the Great Burning was now gone from them in that their skin was purely white. It had been so long since they had moved that I began to wonder if I had dreamt those things which had happened -if I had imagined the sacrifice of Eudoxia - but now my mind was very much intent upon escaping the shrine for long periods of time. My last gift to the Divine Parents - after all my painting was done, and Akasha and Enkil were decked out with all new jewels - was a long bank of one hundred beeswax candles which I lighted for them all at once with the power of my mind. Of course I saw no change in the eyes of the King and Queen. Nevertheless, it gave me great pleasure to offer this to them; and I spent my last hours with them, letting the candles burn down as I told them in a soft voice of all the wonders of the cities of Florence and Venice which I had come to love. I vowed that every time I came to them I would light the one hundred candles. It would be a small proof of my undying love. What caused me to do such a thing? I have no true idea. But after that I kept a great supply of candles always in the shrine; I stored them behind die two figures; and after the offering, I would replenish the bronze holder and take away all melted wax. When all this had been done, I returned to Florence and to Venice, and to the rich highwalled little city of Siena, to study paintings of all sorts.

Indeed, I wandered through palaces and churches throughout Italy, quite drunken on what I beheld. As I have described, a great fusion had taken place between Christian themes and ancient pagan style, which was developing everywhere. And though I still perceived Botticelli to be die Master, I was taken aback by the plasticity and wonder of much of what I saw. The voices in die taverns and in the wine shops told me I ought to go North to see paintings as well. Now this was news to me, for North had always meant the land of the less civilized, but so great was my hunger for the new styles that I did as I was told. I found throughout all of northern Europe an intense and complex civilization which I had surely underestimated, most particularly I think in France. There were great cities in existence and Royal Courts which supported painting. There was much for me to study. But I did not love the art which I saw. I respected the works of Jan van Eyck, and Roger van der Weyden, of Hugo van der Goes, and of Hieronymus Bosch and many other nameless masters whom I beheld, but their work did not delight me as did the work of the Italian painters. The Northern world was not as lyrical. It was not as sweet. It still bore the grotesque stamp of the work of purely religious art. So I soon returned to the cities of Italy where I was richly rewarded for my wanderings with no end in sight. I soon learnt that Botticelli had studied with a great master, Filippo Lippi, and that this one's son, Filippo Lippi, was working with Botticelli right now. Other painters whom I loved included Gozzoli and Signorelli, and Piero della Francesca and beyond that so many that I do not want to mention their names. But all during my study of painting, my little travels, my long nights of adoring attention to this or that wall, or this or that altarpiece, I did not let myself dream of bringing Botticelli to me, and I never lingered long near any place where he was. I knew that he prospered. I knew that he painted. And that was quite enough for me. But an idea had come to brew in me -an idea as strong as the earlier dream of seducing Botticelli had been. What if I were to reenter the world again, and to live in it as a painter? Oh, not a working painter who took commissions, that would be nonsense, but an eccentric gentleman who chose to paint for his own pleasure, admitting mortals to his house to dine at his table and drink his wine. Had I not done so in a bumbling way in the ancient nights before the first sack of Rome? Yes, I had painted my own walls with crude, hasty images, and I had let my good-natured guests laugh at me. Oh yes, a thousand years had passed since then, more in fact, and I could no longer easily pass for human. I was too pale and too dangerously strong. But was I not more clever now, more wise, more practiced with the Mind Gift, and more willing to mask my skin with whatever emollients were required to dim its preternatural gleam? I was desperate to do it! Of course it would not be in Florence. That was far too close to Botticelli. I would attract his notice and were he to set foot under my roof, I would be driven to extremes of pain. I was in love with the man. I could not deny it. But I had another, most marvelous choice. It was the gorgeous and glittering city of Venice which drew me with its indescribably majestic palaces, their windows open to the constant breezes of the Adriatic, and its dark winding canals. It seemed I should make a new and spectacular beginning there, purchasing for myself the finest house available, and acquiring a bevy of apprentices to prepare my paints for me, and the walls of my own house which would eventually receive my best efforts after I had done some panels and canvases to once again learn my craft. As for my identity I would be Marius de Romanus, a man of mystery and incalculable wealth. Simply put, I would bribe those I had to bribe to obtain the right to remain in Venice, and thereafter spend freely among those who came to know me in the smallest capacity, and give generously to my apprentices who would be recipients of the finest education I could obtain for them. Understand please that in this time the cities of Florence and Venice were not part of one country. Far from it. Each was a country unto itself. And so being in Venice I was quite removed from Botticelli, and would be subject to very important laws which the citizens of Venice were required to obey. Now as to the matter of my appearance I intended to be careful in the extreme. Imagine the effect upon a mortal heart were I to reveal myself in all my coldness, a blood drinker of some fifteen hundred years in age with purely white skin and flashing blue eyes. So the matter of emollients was no small thing. Renting rooms in the city, I purchased from the perfume shops the very finest tinted salves I could find. Then to my skin I applied these ointments, carefully inspecting the results in the finest mirrors which could be had. I soon made a blending of salves which was most perfect for not only darkening my cold complexion, but for bringing back to visibility in it the finest little wrinkles or lines. I myself had not known that these lines of human expression still remained to me, and I was most happy to discover them, and I rather liked the image that I presented to the glass. As for the perfume, it was pleasing, and I realized that once settled in my own house, I could have the proper salves made for me arid have them always on hand. It took some months to complete my entire plan. And this was largely because I had fallen in love with one particular palazzo, a house of great beauty, its facade covered in glistering marble tiles, its arches in the Moorish style, and its immense rooms more luxurious than anything I had ever beheld in all my nights, and even my long ago days. The lofty ceilings amazed me. We had known nothing like them in old Rome, at least not in a private house. And on top of the immense roof was a carefully arranged roof garden from which one could view the sea. Once the ink was dry upon the parchment, I set out to purchase for myself the finest furnishings imaginable - coffered beds, desks, chairs, tables, all the usual appointments including gold threaded draperies for every window - and I set to the task of managing all this a clever and genial old man named Vincenzo, a creature of extremely solid health, whom I had bought almost as if he were a slave from a family who had no more use for him and kept him about in shameful neglect because he had once educated their sons. I saw in Vincenzo just the sort of governor I would need for all the apprentices I meant to buy from their Masters, boys who would bring some skill already learnt to the tasks they had to do for me. I was also pleased with the fact that the man was already old which meant I did not have to be tormented by the spectacle of youth dying in him. Rather I could pride myself, perhaps foolishly, on visiting upon him a rather splendid old age. How did I find the creature? I went about reading minds to discover what I wanted. I was now more powerful than ever, I could find the Evil Doer effortlessly. I could hear the secret thoughts of those who sought to cheat me or those who loved the mere sight of me. And the latter was a dangerous thing. Why dangerous, you might ask? The answer is that I was now more than ever susceptible to love, and when seen with loving eyes I knew it and I slowed my pace. What a strange mood would descend upon me while walking in the arcade along San Marco if someone should be looking at me admiringly. I would turn about, taking my time, and double back perhaps, and only reluctantly move away, rather like a bird in some northern clime enjoying the warmth of the sun on its wings. Meantime, with gold in his hands, Vincenzo was sent to buy fine clothes for himself. I would make a gentleman of him, in so far as the sumptuary laws allowed. And seated at my new desk in a spacious bedchamber floored in marble with windows open to the winds off the canal, I wrote out lists of those additional luxuries which I desired. I wanted a lavish old Roman-style bath built for me in this bedchamber, so that I could enjoy the warm water whenever I wished. I wanted shelves for my books, and a finer chair for this desk. Of course there should be another library. What was a house to me if it did not possess a library? I wanted the finest clothing, the fashionable hats and leather shoes. I drew pictures to guide those who would carry out my designs. These were heady times. I was a part of life once more and my heart was beating to a human pace. Hailing a gondola at the quais, I traveled the canals for hours looking up at the spectacular facades which made up the waterways of Venice. I listened to the voices everywhere. I lay back sometimes on my elbow and gazed up at the stars. At various goldsmith shops and painters' workshops I chose my first gathering of apprentices, taking every opportunity to select the brilliant ones who were for various reasons among the wronged, and neglected, and abused. They would show me profound loyalty and untapped knowledge, and I sent them off to their new home with gold coins in their hands. Of course I procured clever assistants because those were necessary, but I knew I would be very successful with the poorlings. Force was riot required. Meantime, it was my wish that my boys should be educated for the university -not a customary thing with a painter's apprentice - so I chose tutors for them and arranged for these men to come to my house in the daylight hours to perform instruction as required. The boys would learn Latin, Greek, philosophy, the newfound and much valued "classics," some mathematics and whatever they needed to proceed in life. If they excelled in painting and they chose it, they could of course forget the university and follow the painter's path. Finally I had a houseful of healthy and noisy activity. There were cooks in the kitchen, and musicians teaching my boys to sing and play the lute. There were dancing instructors and there were fencing matches over the marble floors of the great salons. But I did not open my doors to the populace as I had done in long ago Rome. I was too wary to do such a thing in Venice, too unsure of my ruse, too uncertain of what questions my mad painting might arouse. No, I need only have my young male assistants, I fancied, both to keep me company and to help me, for there was much to be done preparing the walls for my frescoes and covering my panels and canvases with the proper varnishes for my work. As it turned out, there was not much for anyone to do for some weeks, for during that period I wandered the local workshops and studied the painters of Venice as I had studied the painters of Florence not long before. There was no doubt in my mind, after this studious examination, that I could mimic mortal work to some extent, but I could not hope to surpass it. And I feared what I would accomplish. And I resolved to keep my house closed to all but the boys and their instructors as arranged. Taking to my bedroom study, I began a journal of my thoughts, the first I had ever kept since the nights in old Rome. I wrote of the comforts I enjoyed. And I chastised myself with more clarity than I did in my mind. "You have become a fool for the love of mortals," I wrote, far more than you ever did in the ancient nights. For you know you have chosen these boys so that you might instruct them and mold them, and there will be loving in it and hope in it, and the intention of sending them on to be educated at Padua, as though they were your mortal children. But what if they should come to discover that you are a beast in heart and soul, and they run from your touch, what then? Will you slaughter them in their innocence? This is not ancient Rome with its nameless millions. This is the strict Republic of Venice where you play your games, and for what? For the color of the evening sky over the piazza that you see when you are first risen, for the domes of the church beneath the moon? For the color of the canals that only you can behold in the starlight? You are a wicked and greedy creature. Will art satisfy you? You hunt elsewhere, in the surrounding towns and hamlets, or even in distant cities, for you can move with the speed of a god. But you bring evil to Venice because you are evil, and in your fine palazzo, lies are told, lies are lived, lies may fail. I put down the quill. I read over my words, forever memorizing them, as if they were a foreign voice speaking to me, and only when I'd finished did I look up to see Vincenzo, so polite and humble, and so dignified in his new clothes, waiting to speak to me. "What is it?" I asked gently so as not to make him think I disapproved of him for coming in. "Master, only let me tell you . . ." he said. He looked quite elegant in his new velvet, rather like a prince at court. "Yes, do tell me," I said. "It's only that the boys are so happy. They are all in bed now and sleeping. But do you know what it means to them that they have plenty to eat and decent clothes, and are learning their lessons with a purpose? I could tell you many stories, too many I think. There's not a dullard among them. It's such luck." I smiled. "That's very good, Vincenzo," I said. "Go have your supper. Enjoy as, much wine as you wish." I sat in the stillness after he had left me. It seemed quite impossible that I had made this residence for myself, and that nothing had stopped me. I had hours before dawn during which I might rest on my bed, or read among my new books before making the short journey to another place within the city where a sarcophagus had been hidden in a gold-lined chamber in which I would sleep by day. But I chose instead to go to the great room which I had designated as my studio, and there I found the pigments and other materials ready for me, including several wooden panels which my young apprentices had prepared as directed for me to paint. It was a small matter to blend the tempera and I did it quickly so that I had a wealth of colors at my command, and then glancing over and over again into a mirror which I had brought into the room with me, I painted my own portrait in quick exact strokes with little or no correction until it was complete. As soon as I was finished, I stood back from my creation, and I found myself staring into my own eyes. It wasn't the man of long ago who had died in the northern forest, or the frantic blood drinker who had taken the Mother and the Father out of Egypt. Nor was it the starved and dogged wanderer who had slipped soundlessly through time for so many hundreds of years. It was a bold and proud immortal who looked at me, a blood drinker who demanded that the world at last give him some quarter, an aberrant being of immense power who insisted that he might have a place among the human beings of which he had in former times been one. As the months passed, I discovered that my plan was working quite well. In fact it was working marvelously! I became obsessed with my new clothing of the period, velvet tunics and stockings, and marvelous cloaks trimmed in rare fur. Indeed mirrors were an obsession with me now as well. I could not stop looking at my own reflection. I applied the salves with great care. Each evening, after sunset, I arose fully dressed with the requisite disguise on my skin, and I arrived at my palazzo to a warm greeting from all my children, and then dismissing the many teachers and tutors, I presided over a good banquet with my children where all were delighted to have the rich food of princes, as music played. Then in a mild manner I questioned all my apprentices as to what they had learnt that day. Our conversations were long, complex, and full of wonderful revelations. I could easily surmise which teacher had been successful, and which had not wrought the effects I desired. As for the boys themselves, I soon saw which of the boys possessed the greater talent, who should be sent off to the University of Padua, and who should be schooled as a goldsmith or a painter. Of failures we had none. You understand, this was a transcendent enterprise. To repeat, I had chosen all of these boys by means of the Mind Gift, and what I offered them in these months, which soon stretched to years, was something they would never have had if I had riot intervened. I had become a magician for them, aiding them to realize accomplishments of which they hadn't ever dreamt. And there was no doubt that I found immense satisfaction in this achievement, for I was a teacher of these creatures, just as I had long ago wanted to be the teacher of Avicus and Zenobia, and during all this time I thought of Avicus and Zenobia. I could not help but think of them and wonder what had become of them. Had they survived? I could not know. But I knew this about myself: I had loved both Zenobia and Avicus because they allowed me to be their teacher. And I had fought with Pandora because she would not. She was far too finely educated and clever to be anything but a fierce verbal and philosophical opponent and I had left her, stupidly, on that account. But no amount of such self-knowledge caused me to not long for my lost Zenobia and for Avicus, and to wonder what paths they'd taken through the world. Zenobia's beauty had struck a deeper note in me than the beauty of Avicus, and I could not relinquish the simple recollection of the softness of Zenobia's hair. Sometimes, when I was alone in my bedroom in Venice, when I sat at my desk watching the curtains blow out from the windows, I thought of Zenobia's hair. I thought of it lying on the mosaic floor in Constantinople, after she had cut all of it so that she might travel the streets as a boy. I wanted to reach back over a thousand years and gather it up in my hands. As for my own blond hair, I could wear it long now for this was the style of the period, and I rather enjoyed it, brushing it clean without resentment, and going out to walk in the piazza while the sky was still purple knowing people were looking at me, wondering just what sort of man I was. As for my painting, I went about it using a few wooden panels with only a handful of apprentices in my studio, locked off from the world. I created several successful religious pictures - all of the Virgin Mary and the Angel Gabriel appearing to her, because this theme - The Annunciation - appealed to me. And I was rather amazed at how well I could imitate the style of the times: Then I set upon a major undertaking which would be a true test of my immortal skill and wits.

Chapter Eighteen

Let me explain what this undertaking was to be: There was a chapel in Florence that existed within a Medici palazzo, and on the walls of this chapel was a great painting by a painter named Gozzoli of the Procession of the Magi - the three wise men of Scripture - coming to visit the Christ Child with their precious gifts. Now it was a marvelous painting, full of rampant detail. And it was worldly in the extreme, in that the Magi themselves were clothed as wealthy Florentine citizens and there followed behind them a huge gathering of similarly clothed men and churchmen so that the whole was a tribute to the Christ Child and to the times in which the painting had been done. This painting covered the walls of this chapel, along with the walls of the recess for the place where its altar stood. And the chapel itself was quite small. Now I was taken with the painting for many reasons. I had not fallen deeply in love with Gozzoli as I had with Botticelli, but greatly admired him, and the details of this painting were fantastic in die extreme. Not only was the Procession itself enormous, if not actually never ending, but the landscape behind it was wondrous, filled with towns and mountains, with men hunting and animals running, with beautifully realized castles and delicately shaped trees. Well, choosing in my palazzo one of the largest rooms, I set out to duplicate this painting in the flat mode on one wall. What this meant was that I had to travel back and forth between Florence and Venice, memorizing parts of this painting, and then render it with all my supernatural skill. To a very large part I succeeded in my task. I "stole" the Procession of the Magi - this fabulous depiction of a procession so important to the Christians and especially to the Florentines and I laid it out in vivid and exact color on my wall. There was nothing original to it. But I had passed a test which I had set for myself, and as no one was to be admitted to this chamber, I did not fancy that I had truly robbed Gozzoli of anything he possessed. Indeed if any mortal had found his way into this chamber which I kept locked, I would have explained that the original of this painting was done by Gozzoli, and indeed when the time came for me to show it to my apprentices, for the lessons it contained, I did so explain. But let me return for a moment to the subject of this stolen work of art. Why did it appeal to me? What in it made my soul sing? I don't know. Except that it had to do with the three kings giving gifts, and I fancied that I was giving gifts to the children who lived in my house. But I'm not sure if that is why I chose the painting for my first excursion into true work with the brush. I'm not sure at all. Perhaps it was only that all the details of the work were so fascinating. One could fall in love with the horses in the Procession. Or with the faces of the young men. I shall now leave the subject as puzzled about it as I tell my story, as I was then. Immediately after confirming my success with the copy, I opened a spacious painting studio in the palazzo and began to work on large panels late at night while the boys slept. I did not really need their help and I did not want them to see the speed or the determination with which I worked. My first ambitious painting was dramatic and strange. I painted a gathering of my apprentices in full fancy dress listening to an old Roman philosopher who wore only his long tunic and cloak and sandals, and this against a backdrop of the ruins of Rome. It was

full of vivid color and my boys were well rendered, I give myself that. But I didn't know
if it was any good. And I didn't know if it would horrify.
I left the door open to the studio in the hope that the teachers might wander in there by
day.
As it turned out they were far too timid to do it.
I proceeded to create another painting, and this time I chose the Crucifixion - an approved
theme for any artist -and I rendered it with tender care - and once again I used the
backdrop of the ruins of Rome. Was it sacrilege? I couldn't guess. Once again, I was sure
of my colors.
Indeed, this time I was sure of my proportions, and of the sympathetic expression on
Christ's face.
But was the composition itself somehow something that should not be?
How was I to know? I had all this knowledge, all this seeming power. Yet I didn't know.
Was I creating something blasphemous and monstrous?
I returned to the subject of the Magi. I knew the conventions. Three kings, the stable,
Mary, Joseph, the Infant, Jesus, and this time I did them freely, imputing to Mary the
beauty of Zenobia, and glorying in the colors as before.
Soon my giant workroom was full of paintings. Some were correctly hung. Others were
simply propped against the wall.
Then one night, at supper to which I'd invited the boys' more refined instructors, one of
them, the Greek teacher, happened to mention that he had seen into my workshop through
an open door.
"Oh, please, tell me," I said, "what did you think of my paintings?"
"Most remarkable!" he said frankly. "I've never seen anything like them! Why, all of the
figures in the painting of the Magi..." He broke off, afraid.
"Please go on," I said instantly. "Tell me. I want to know."
"All of die figures are looking out at us, including Mary, and Joseph, and the three kings.
I have never seen it done in that way."
"But is it wrong?" I asked.
"I don't think so," he said quickly. "But who's to say? You paint for yourself, don't you?"
"Yes, I do," I answered. "But your opinion matters to me. I find at moments I'm as fragile
as glass."
We laughed. Only the older boys were interested in this exchange, and I saw that the very
oldest, Piero, had something to say. He too had seen the paintings. He had gone inside the
room.
"Tell me everything, Piero," I said, winking at him, and smiling. "Come on. What do you
think?"
"The colors, Master, they were beautiful! When will it be time for us to work with you?
I'm more skilled than you might think."
"I remember, Piero," I said, referring to the shop from which he'd come. "I'll call upon
you soon enough."
In fact, I called upon them the very next night.
Having severe doubts about subject matter more than anything else, I resolved to follow
Botticelli in that regard.
I chose the Lamentation for my subject matter. And I made my Christ as tender and
vulnerable as I could conceivably do it, and I surrounded him with countless mourners.
Pagan that I was, I didn't know who was supposed to be there! And so I created an
immense and varied crowd of weeping mortals—all in Florentine dress—to lament the
dead Jesus, and angels in the sky torn with anguish much like the angels of the painter

Giotto whose work I had seen in some Italian city the name of which I could not recall. My apprentices were quite astonished by the work and so were the teachers, whom I invited into the huge workroom for the initial view. Once again the faces I painted elicited special comment but so did the bizarre qualities of the painting - the inordinate amount of color and gold - and small touches I had added, such as insects here and there. I realized something. I was free. I could paint what I wanted. Nobody was going to be the wiser. But then again, I thought, perhaps dial's not true. It was desperately important for me to remain in the middle of Venice. I did not want to lose my foothold in the warm, loving world. I drifted out in the following weeks to all the churches once more in search of inspiration for my paintings, and I studied many a grotesque and bizarre picture which amazed me almost as much as my own work. An artist by the name of Carpaccio had created a work called Meditation on the Passion which revealed the body of the dead Christ environed against a fantastical landscape, and flanked by two white-haired saints who peered at the viewer as if Christ were not there! In the work of a painter named Criyelli, I found a truly grotesque picture of die dead Savior, flanked by two angels who looked like monsters. And the same painter had done a Madonna almost as lovely and lifelike as Botticelli's goddesses or nymphs. I arose night after night hungry not for blood, though I certainly fed when I had to feed, but for my time in this workshop, and soon my paintings, all of them on large wooden panels, were propped all over the enormous house. Finally, because I could keep track of them no longer, and went on to tilings new, rather than to perfect die old, I gave in to Vincenzo that he might have these works properly mounted as he wished. Meanwhile our whole palazzo, though it had become famous in Venice as "a strange place," remained somewhat closed to the world. Undoubtedly my hired teachers spoke of their days and evenings in the company of Marius de Romanus, and all our servants gossiped, no question of it, and I did not seek to put an end to such talk. But I did not admit the true citizens of Venice. I did not lay put the banquet table as I had done in the old nights. I did not open the doors. Yet all the while I was longing to do it. I wanted the fashionable world of the city to be received under my roof. What I did instead of extending invitations was to accept those I received. Often in the early evening, when I didn't want to dine with my children, and long before I needed to begin painting furiously, I went to other palaces where feasting was in progress, and I entered, whispering my name when asked, but more often being received without question and discovering that the guests were eager to have me among them and had heard of my paintings and of my famous little school where the apprentices hardly did any work at all. Of course I kept to the shadows, spoke in vague but gentle words, read minds well enough to make the most clever conversation and in general almost lost my wits so great was this love to me, this convivial reception of me which was nothing more than most of the noblemen of Venice took for granted every night of their lives. I don't know how many months passed in this way. Two of my students went on to Padua. I went out into the city and found four more. Vincenzo showed no signs of ill health. I hired new and better teachers from time to time. I painted fiercely. So on it went. Let me say a year or two had gone by before I was told of a very lovely and brilliant young woman who maintained a house always open to poets and playwrights and clever philosophers who could make their visits worth her while. Understand the payment in question was not a manner of money; it was that one had to be interesting to be admitted to this woman's company; poems had to be lyrical and meaningful; there had to be wit in conversation; one could play the virginal or the lute only if one knew how. I was fiercely curious as to the identity of this creature, and the general sweetness of the reports of her. And so passing her house, I listened, and I heard her voice threading through the voices of those around her, and I knew her to be a mere child, but one filled with anguish and secrets, all of which she concealed with immense skill behind a graceful manner and a beautiful face. How beautiful, I had no idea, until I mounted the steps, entered her rooms boldly and saw her for myself. When I came into the room, she had her back to me, and turned as if my arrival had made some noise which it had not. I saw her in profile and then completely as she rose to greet me, and I could not speak for a moment, so great was the impression on my mind of her form and face. That Botticelli hadn't painted her was a mere accident. Indeed he might well have done so. She looked so very like his women that all other thoughts left my mind. I saw her oval face, her oval eyes, and her thick wavy blond hair, inter-wound with long strings of tiny pearls, and the fine shape of her body with exquisitely molded arms and breasts. "Yes, like Botticelli," she said, smiling as if I'd spoken it. Again, I could say nothing. I was the one who read minds, and yet this child, this woman of nineteen or twenty years seemed to have read mine. But did she know how much I loved Botticelli? That she could not know. She went on gaily, reaching out for my hand with both of hers. "Everyone says it," she said, "and I'm honored. You plight say I dress my hair this way on account of Botticelli. You know I was born in Florence, but that's not worth talking about here in Venice, is it? You're Marius de Romanus. I was wondering how long it would be before you came." "Thank you for receiving me," I said. "I fear I come with nothing." I was still shocked by her beauty, shocked by the sound of her voice. "What have I to offer you?" I asked. "I have no poems, nor clever stories about the state of things. Tomorrow, I shall have my servants bring you the best wine I have in my house. But what is that to you?" "Wine?" she repeated. "I don't want gifts of wine from you, Marius. Paint my picture. Paint the pearls inter-wound in my hair, I should love it." There was soft laughter all around the room. I gazed musingly at the others. The candlelight was dim even for me. How rich it all seemed, these naive poets and students of the classics, this indescribably beautiful woman, and the room itself with all the usual splendid trappings, and time passing slowly as though the moments had some meaning and were not a sentence of penitence and grief. I was in my glory. I realized it quite suddenly and then something else struck me. This young woman was in her glory too. Something sordid and evil lay behind her recent fortunes here, yet she displayed nothing of the desperation she must surely feel. I tried to read her mind and then I chose not to do it! I didn't want anything but this moment.

I wanted to see this woman as she wanted me to see her - young, infinitely kind, yet
utterly well defended - a companion for the night's cheerful gatherings, mysterious
mistress of her own house.
Indeed, I saw another great drawing room adjacent to this one, and beyond it a
marvelously decorated bedroom with a bed made of golden swans and gold-threaded silk.
Why this display if not to tell everyone that in that bed, this woman slept alone? No one
was ever to presume to cross that threshold, but all might see where the maiden retired of
her own accord.
"Why do you stare at me?" she asked me. "Why do you look about yourself as if this is a
strange place to you when surely it's not?"
"All of Venice is lovely to me," I answered, making my voice soft and confidential so
that it would not be for the whole room.
"Yes, isn't it?" she said, smiling exquisitely. "I too love it. I'll never return to Florence.
But will you paint a picture of me?"
"Perhaps I will," I answered. "I don't know your name."
"You're not serious," she said, smiling again. I realized suddenly how very worldly she
was. "You didn't come here not knowing my name. How could you want me to believe
such a thing?"
"Oh, but I don't know it," I said, because I had never asked her name, and had learnt of
her through vague images and impressions and fragments of conversation overheard by
me as a blood drinker, and I stood at a loss because I wouldn't read her mind.
"Bianca," she said. "And my rooms are always open to you. And if you paint my picture,
I'll be in your debt."
There were more guests coming. I knew that she meant to receive them. I backed away
from her and took a station, so to speak, in the shadows well away from the candles, and
from there I watched her, watched her infallibly graceful movements and heard her
clever, ringing voice.
Over the years, I had beheld a thousand mortals who meant nothing to me, and now,
gazing at this one creature I felt my heart tripping as it had when I had entered Botticelli's
workshop, when I had seen his paintings and seen him, Botticelli, the man. Oh, yes, the
man.
I stayed in her rooms only for a short time that night.
But I returned within the week with a portrait of her. I had painted it on a small panel and
had it framed with gold and jewels.
I saw her shock when she received it. She had not expected something so exact. But then
I feared she might see something wrong.
When she looked at me, I felt her gratitude and her affection and something greater
collecting inside her, an emotion she denied in dealing with others.
"Who are you ... really?" she asked me in a soft, lilting whisper.
"Who are you ... really?" I repeated, and I smiled.
She looked at me gravely. Then she smiled too but she didn't answer, and all her secrets
folded inside her - the sordid things, things to do with blood and gold.
For a moment, I thought my powerful self-control would be lost. I would embrace her,
whether or not she would have it, and take her rapidly by force from the very middle of
her warm and safe rooms to die cold and fatal domain of my soul.
I saw her, positively saw her as if the Christian Satan were giving me visions once more -
I saw her transformed by the Dark Blood. I saw her as if she were mine, and all her youth
burnt out in sacrifice to immortality, and the only warmth or riches known to her those
which came from me.

I left her rooms. I couldn't remain there. For nights, no, months I did not return. In that time a letter came to me from her. I was quite astonished to receive it and I read it over and over and then put it in a pocket inside my tunic next to my heart. My dear Marius, Why leave me with only a brilliant painting when I would have your companionship as well? We are always seeking for amusement here, and there is much kind talk of you. Do come back to me. Your painting occupies a position of honor on the wall of my salon so that I might share the pleasure of it with all who come. How had this happened, this craving to make a mortal my companion? After so many centuries, what had I done to bring it on? I had thought that, with Botticelli, it had to do with his remarkable talent, and that I, with eyes so sharp and heart so hungry, had wanted to mingle the Blood with his inexplicable gift. But this child, Bianca, was no such seeming miracle, no matter how precious I found her to be. Oh, yes, she was to my taste as if I'd made her - the daughter of Pandora - it was as if Botticelli had created her, even to the somewhat dreamy expression of her face. And she did have a seemingly impossible mingling of fire and poise. But I had in my long miserable years seen many beautiful humans, rich and poor, younger and older, and I had not felt this sharp, near uncontrollable desire to bring her to me, to take her to the shrine with me, to spill out to her whatever wisdom I possessed. What was I to do with this pain? How should I be rid of it? How long would it torment me right here in the city of Venice where I had chosen to seek comfort from mortals and give back to the world in secret payment my blessed and well-educated boys? On rising, I found myself shaking loose light dreams of Bianca, dreams in which she and I were sitting in my bedroom and talking together as I told her of all the long lonely paths I'd trod, talking together as she told me of how she had drawn from common and filthy pain her immeasurable strength. Even as I attended the feast with my students I couldn't shake off these dreams. They broke in on me as if I were falling asleep over the wine and meats. The boys vied for my attention. They thought they had failed the Master. When I went to my rooms to paint, I was equally confused. I painted a large picture of Bianca as the Virgin Mary with a chubby Infant Jesus. I laid down the brushes. I wasn't content. I couldn't be content. I went out of Venice into the countryside. I searched for the Evil Doer. I drank blood until I was glutted. And then I returned to my rooms, and I lay down on my bed and I dreamt of Bianca again. At last before dawn I wrote my admonitions down in my diary: This desire to make an immortal companion is no more justified here than it was in Florence. You have survived all your long life without ever taking this evil step, though you know well how to do it - the Druid priest taught you how to do it - and not doing it, you will continue to survive. You cannot bring over this child to you, no matter how you envision it. Imagine her to be a statue. Imagine your evil to be a force that would shatter that statue. See her then in fragments. Know that that is what you would do. I went back to her rooms. It was as if I'd never seen her before, so great was her impression upon me, so soft and compelling her voice, so radiant her face and her worldly eyes. It was an agony and also an immeasurable consolation to be near her.

For months I came to her rooms, pretending to listen to the poems recited, sometimes forced to answer in the gentle discussions regarding the theories of aesthetics or philosophy, but all the while simply wanting to be near her, studying the minutia of her beauty, closing my eyes now and then as I listened to the song of her voice. Visitors came and went from her famous gatherings. No one dared question her supremacy within her own domain. But as I sat, as I observed, as I let myself dream in the candlelight, there came to my observation something subtle and dreadful as ever I had beheld. Certain men who came into these rooms were marked for a dark and specific purpose. Certain men, well known to the divinely alluring mistress, received in their wine a poison which would follow them as they left the genial company and soon accomplish their deaths! At first, when I with my preternatural senses had smelled this subtle but certain poison I thought I had imagined such a thing. But then with the Mind Gift, I saw into the heart of this enchantress, and how she lured those whom she must poison, knowing little or nothing of why they had been condemned to death. This was the sordid lie I had first perceived in her. A kinsman, a Florentine banker, kept her in terror. Indeed it was he who had brought her here, provided her with her nest of lovely chambers and ever playing music. It was he who demanded of her that the poison be placed in the proper cup to do away with those he chose. How calmly her blue eyes passed over those who drank the fatal potion. How calmly she watched as the poetry was read to her. How calmly she smiled at me when her eyes happened to fall upon the tall blond-haired man who observed her from the corner. And how deep her despair! Armed with this new knowledge, no, driven to distraction by it, I went out into the night roaming, for now I had the proof on her of guilt immeasurable! Was this not sufficient to bring her over, to force the Dark Blood upon her, and then say, "No, my darling, I haven't taken your life, I've given you eternity with me!" Beyond the city I walked the country roads for hours, sometimes pounding my forehead with the heels of my palms. I want her, I want her, I want her. But I could not bring myself to do it. At last I went home to paint her portrait. And night after night, I painted her portrait again. I painted her as the Virgin of the Annunciation, and the Virgin with Child. I painted her as the Virgin in the Lamentation. I painted her as Venus, as Flora, I painted her on small panels that I brought to her. 1 painted her until I could endure it no longer. I slumped on the floor of my painting room, and when the apprentices came to me in the dark hours of the dawn, they thought me sick and cried out. But I couldn't bring harm to her. I couldn't bring my Evil Blood to her. I couldn't take her over to me, and now a most great and grotesque quality attached itself to her in my eyes. She was evil as I was evil, and when I watched her from the corner of her room, I fancied that I studied a thing which was like unto myself. For her life, she dispatched her victims. For my life, I drank human blood. And so this tender girl, in her costly gowns with her long blond locks and soft cheeks, took on a dark majesty for me; and I was fascinated by her more than ever before. One night, so great was my pain, so dire was my need to separate myself from this young woman, that I went alone in my gondola, telling my oarsman to row back and forth through the smallest canals of the city and not bring me back to the palazzo until I gave the command. What did I seek? The smell of death and rats in the blackest waters, The occasional

merciful flashes of the moon.
I lay down in the boat, my head on my pillow. I listened to the voices of the city so that I
would not hear my own.
And quite suddenly, as we came into the wider canals again, as we came into a certain
district of Venice, there came a voice quite different from all the others, for it was
speaking from a desperate and deranged mind.
In a flash I saw an image behind the cry of this voice, the image of a painted face. Indeed,
I saw the paint laid on in marvelous strokes. I knew the painted face. It was the face of
Christ!
What did this mean? In a solemn silence, I listened. No other voice mattered to me. I
banished a city full of whispers.
It was a woeful crying. It was the voice of a child behind thick walls who on account of
the recent cruelties done him could not remember his native language or even his name.
Yet in that forgotten language he prayed to be delivered from those who had cast him
down in darkness, those who had tormented him and jabbered at him in a tongue he didn't
know.
Once again there came that image, the painted Christ staring forward. The painted Christ
in a time honored and Greek style. Oh, how well I knew this fashion of painting; oh, how
well I knew this countenance.
Had I not seen it a thousand times in Byzantium, and in all those places East and West to
which its power had reached?
What did this mean, this mingled voice and imagery? What did it mean that the child
thought again and again of an ikon and did riot know that he prayed?
Once again there came the plea from one who thought himself to be utterly silent.
And I knew the language in which he prayed. It was no matter to me to disentangle it, to
put the words in order, having as I did such a knowledge of languages the world wide.
Yes, I knew his tongue and I knew his prayer. "Dear God, deliver me. Dear God, let me
die."
A frail child, a hungry child, a child who was alone.
Sitting up in the gondola, I listened. I delved for the images locked away inside the
child's most wordless thoughts.
He had once been a painter, this bruised and young one. The face of Christ had been his
work. He had once mixed the egg yolk and the pigment just as I mixed them. He had
once painted the face of Christ, again and again!
Whence came this voice? I had to discover the source of it. I listened with all my skill.
Somewhere very near, this child was imprisoned. Somewhere very near, he offered up his
prayer with his last breath.
He had painted his precious ikons in the far country of snowy Russia.
Indeed, this child had been supremely gifted in the painting of ikons. But he could not
remember that now. That was the mystery. That was the complexity! He could not even
see the images which I was seeing, so broken was his heart.
I could understand what he himself could not understand. And he was pleading silently
with Heaven in a Russian dialect to be delivered from those who had made him a slave in
Venice and sought to make him serve others in a brothel through acts which to him were
sins of the flesh which he could not abide!
I told my oarsman to stop.
I listened until I had found the exact source. I directed the boat to go back only a few
doors until I found the precise place.
The torches were burning brightly before the entrance. I could hear the music inside.

The voice of the child was persistent, and yet there came that clear understanding on my part that the child did not know his own prayers, his own history, his own tongue. I was greeted by the owners of the house with great fanfare. They knew of me. I must come in. I could have whatever I wanted under their roof. Just beyond the door lay paradise. Listen to the laughter, and the singing. "What do you desire, Master?" a pleasant-voiced man asked of me. "You can tell me. We have no secrets here." I stood listening. How reticent I must have seemed - this tall, blond-haired man with such a chilly manner, who cocked his head to one side and looked away with his thoughtful blue eyes. I tried to see the boy, but I could not. The boy was locked away where no one saw him. How would I proceed? Ask to see all of the boys of the house? That would not do it, for this one was in a chamber of punishment, cold arid quite alone. Then suddenly the answer came to me as though angels had spoken it, or was it the Devil? It came swiftly and completely. "To purchase, you understand," I said, "with gold of course, and now, a boy you want to be rid of. One recently arrived here who will not do as he's told-" In a flash I saw the boy in the man's eyes. Only it could not be true. I could not have such luck. For this boy had beauty as bountiful as Bianca's. I did not count upon it. "Recently come from Istanbul," I said. "Yes, I think that is correct, for the boy was no doubt brought from Russian climes." I need say no more words. Everyone was scurrying about. Someone had put a goblet of wine into my hands. I smelled the lovely scent of it, and set it down on the table. It seemed a flood of rose petals descended. Indeed there was everywhere the perfume of flowers. A chair was brought for me. I did not sit on it. Suddenly the man who had greeted me returned to the room. "You don't want that one," he said quickly. He was greatly agitated. And once again, I saw a clear image of the boy lying on a stone floor. And I heard the boy's prayers: "Deliver me." And I saw the Face of Christ in gleaming egg tempera. I saw the jewels set into the halo. I saw the egg and pigment mixing. "Deliver me." "Can't you understand me?" I asked. "I told you what I wanted. I want that boy, the one who won't do what you try to force him to do." Then I realized it. The brothel keeper thought the boy was dying. He was afraid of the law. He stood before me in terror. "Take me to him," I said. I pressed him with the Mind Gift. "Do it now. I know of him and won't leave here without him. Besides, I'll pay you. I don't care if he's sick and dying. Do you hear me? I'll take him away with me. You'll never have to worry about him again." It was a cruel small chamber in which they'd locked him, and into that chamber the light of a lamp flooded upon the child. And there I saw beauty, beauty which has always been my downfall, beauty as in Pandora, as in Avicus, as in Zenobia, as in Bianca, beauty in a new and celestial form. Heaven had cast down upon this stone floor an abandoned angel, of auburn curls and perfectly formed limbs, of fair and mysterious face. I reached down to take him by the arms and I lifted him, and I looked into his halfopened eyes. His soft reddish hair was loose and tangled. His flesh was pale and the bones of his face only faintly sharpened by his Slavic blood.

"Amadeo," I said, the name springing to my lips as though the angels willed it, the very
angels whom he resembled in his purity and in his seeming innocence, starved as he was.
His eyes grew wide as he stared at me. In majesty and golden light, I saw again in his
mind those ikons which he had painted. Desperately he struggled to remember. Ikons.
The Christ he had painted. With long hair and burning eyes, I resembled the Christ.
He tried to speak, but the language had left him. He tried to find the name of his Lord.
"I'm not the Christ, my child," I said, speaking to that part of him deep within the mind of
which he knew nothing. "But one who comes with his own salvation. Amadeo, come into
my arms."

Chapter Nineteen

I loved him instantly and impossibly. He was fifteen years old at the most when I took
him out of the brothel that night and brought him to live in the palazzo with my boys.
As I held him close to me in the gondola, I knew him certainly to have been doomed -
indeed, snatched at the last moment from an inconsequential death.
Though the firmness of my arms comforted him, the beat of his heart was barely
sufficient to drive the images which I received from him as he lay against my chest.
Reaching the palazzo, I refused Vincenzo's assistance, sending him off for food for the
child, and I took my Amadeo into my bedchamber alone.
I laid him upon my bed, a wan and ragged being, amid the heavy velvet hangings and
pillows, and when the soup at last came, I forced it through his lips myself.
Wine, soup, a potion of honey and lemon, what more could we give him? Slowly,
cautioned Vincenzo, lest he take too much after the starvation, and his stomach suffer as
the result.
At last I sent Vincenzo away from us, and I bolted the doors of my room.
Was that the fateful moment? Was it the moment in which I knew my soul most
completely, the moment in which I acknowledged that this would be a child of my power,
my immortality, a pupil of all I knew?
As I looked at the child on the bed, I forgot the language of guilt and recrimination. I was
Marius, the witness of the centuries, Marius, the chosen one of Those Who Must Be
Kept.
Taking Amadeo into the bath, I cleansed him myself and covered him with kisses. I drew
from him an easy intimacy which he had denied all those who had tormented him, so
dazzled and confused was he by my simple kindnesses, and the words I whispered in his
tender ears.
I brought him quickly to know the pleasures which he had never allowed himself before.
He was dazed and silent; but his prayers for deliverance were no more.
Yet even here in the safety of this bedroom, in the arms of one he saw as his Savior,
nothing of his old memory could move from the recesses of his mind into the sanctum of
reason.
Indeed, perhaps my frankly carnal embraces made the wall in his mind, between past and
present, all the more strong.
As for me, I had never experienced such pure intimacy with a mortal, except with those I
meant to kill. It gave me chills to have my arms around this boy, to press my lips to his
cheeks and chin, his forehead, his tender closed eyes.
Yes, the blood thirst rose, but I knew so well how to control it. I filled my nostrils with
the smell of his youthful flesh.
I knew that I could do anything I wanted with him. There was no force between Heaven
and Hell that could stop me. And I did not need a Satan to tell me that I could bring him
over to me and educate him within the Blood.
Drying him gently with towels, I returned him to the bed.
I sat down at my desk, where turning to the side I might look directly at him, and there
came the full-blown idea of it, as rich as my desire to seduce Botticelli, as terrible as my
passion for the lovely Bianca.
This was a foundling who could be educated for the Blood! This was a child utterly lost
to life who could be reclaimed specifically for the Blood.
Would his training be a night, a week, a month, a year? Only I need decide it.
Whatever it was, I would make of him a child of the Blood.

My mind went back swiftly to Eudoxia and how she had spoken of the perfect age for the
Blood to be received. I remembered Zenobia and her quick wits and knowing eyes. I
remembered my own long ago reflection on the promise of a virgin, that one could make
of a virgin what one wished without price.
And this child, this rescued slave, had been a painter! He knew the magic of the egg and
the pigments, yes, he knew the magic of the color spread upon the wooden panel. He
would remember; he would remember a time when he cared about nothing else.
True it had been in far-away Russia, where those who worked in monasteries limited
themselves to the style of the Byzantines which I had long ago rejected as I turned my
back on the Greek Empire and came to make my home amid the strife of the West.
But behold what had happened: the West had had its wars, yes, and indeed, the barbarians
had conquered all it did seem. Yet Rome had risen again through the great thinkers and
painters of the 1400s! I beheld it in the work of Botticelli, and Bellini and Filippo Lippi
and in a hundred others.
Homer, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Plutarch—they were all being studied once again. The
scholars of "humanism" sang songs of "antiquity."
In sum, the West had risen again with new and fabulous cities, whereas Constantinople,
old golden Constantinople, had been lost to the Turks who had made it Istanbul.
But far beyond Istanbul, there lay Russia from which this boy had been taken prisoner,
Russia which had taken its Christianity from Constantinople so that this boy knew only
the ikons of strict somber style and rigid beauty, an art which was as remote from what I
painted as night from day.
Yet in the city of Venice both styles existed: the Byzantine style and the new style of the
times.
How had it come about? Through trading. Venice had been a seaport since its beginnings.
Its great fleet had gone back and forth between East and West when Rome was a ruin.
And many a church in Venice preserved the old Byzantine style which filled this boy's
tortured mind.
These Byzantine churches had never much mattered to me before, I had to admit. Not
even the Doge's chapel, San Marco, had much mattered to me. But they mattered now,
because they helped me to understand again and all the better the art which this boy had
loved.
I stared at him as he slept.
All right. I understood something of his nature; I understood his suffering. But who was
he really? I posed the same question which Bianca and I had exchanged with each other.
The answer I did not have.
Before I could think of moving forward with my plan to prepare him for the Blood I must
know.
Would it take a night, or a hundred nights? Whatever the time, it would not be endless.
Amadeo was destined for me.
I turned and wrote in my diary. Never had such a design occurred to me before, to
educate a novice for the Blood! I described all the events of the night so that I might
never lose them to overwrought memory. I drew sketches of Amadeo's face as he slept.
How can I describe him? His beauty did not depend on his facial expression. It was
stamped already on the face. It was all wrought up with his fine bones, serene mouth, and
his auburn curls.
I wrote passionately in my diary.
This child has come from a world so different from our own that he can make no sense of
what has happened to him. But I know the snowy lands of Russia. I know the dark dreary

life of Russian and Greek monasteries, and it was in one of these, I am quite convinced,
that he painted the ikons which he cannot speak of now.
As for our tongue, he's had no experience with it except in cruelty. Perhaps when the
boys make him one of them, he will remember his past. Pie will want to take up the
paintbrush. His talent will come forth again.
I put the quill aside. I could not confide everything to my diary. No, not everything by
any means.
Great secrets I sometimes wrote in Greek rather than Latin, but even in Greek I could not
say all that I thought.
I looked at the boy. I took up the candelabrum and I approached the bed and I looked
down at him as he slept there, easy at last, breathing as though he were safe.
Slowly his eyes opened. He looked up at me. There was no fear in him. Indeed, it seemed
that he still dreamed.
I gave myself over to the Mind Gift.
Tell-me, child, tell me from your heart.
I saw the riders of the Steppes come down upon him and a band of his people. I saw a
bundle drop from the boy's anxious hands. The cloth wrapping fell away from it. It was
an ikon, and the boy cried out fearfully, but the evil barbarians wanted only the boy. They
were the same inevitable barbarians who had never ceased to raid along the Roman
Empire's long-forgotten Northern and Easterri frontiers. Would the world never see an
end to their kind?
By those evil men, this child had been brought to some Eastern marketplace. Was it
Istanbul?
And from there to Venice where he fell into the hands of a brothel keeper who had
bought him for high payment on account of face and form.
The cruelty of this, the mystery of it, had been overwhelming. In the hands of another,
this boy might never be healed.
Yet in his mute expression now I saw pure trust.
"Master," he said softly in the Russian tongue.
I felt the tiny hairs rise all over my body. I wanted so to touch him once more with my
cold fingers but I did not dare. I knelt beside the bed and leant over and I kissed his cheek
warmly.
"Amadeo," I said to him so that he might know his new name.
And then using the very Russian tongue he knew, but did not know, I told him that he
was mine now, that I was his Master just as he had said. I gave him to know that all
things were resolved in me. He must never worry, he would never fear again.
It was almost morning. I had to leave.
Vincenzo came knocking. The eldest among the apprentices were waiting outside. They
had heard that a new boy had been brought into the house.
I admitted them to the bedroom. I told them they must take care of Amadeo. They must
acquaint him with all our common wonders. They must let him rest for a while, surely,
but they could take him out into the city. Perhaps it was the perfect thing to do.
"Riccardo," I charged the eldest. "Take this one under your wing."
What a lie it was! I stood thinking of it. It was a lie to give him over to the daylight, to
companionship other than my own. But the rising sun gave nie no more time in the
palazzo. What else could I do?
I went to my grave.
I lay down in darkness dreaming of him.
I had found an escape from the love of Botticelli. I had found an escape from the