14

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¡ªincluding the Arch of Constantine¡ªbut 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¡ª."

"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¡ªthat 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 palazzi 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 palazzi 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.