first trans-Atlantic expedition in search of the lands of the Great Khan. The seventeen-year-old youth Cesare Borgia at about the same time quietly left his school in Perugia and made his way to Rome to see what might happen to his father in the conclave. Also that year, in Spain, by order of the Inquisitor General Tomas Torquemada, all Jews were given three months either to accept Christianity or emigrate. Farther north, England's Henry VII, following in the footsteps of his illustrious grandfather, was first fighting and then making peace in France. At the University of Cracow, in Poland, a young student who would eventually be known to the world as Copernicus was hard at work. And near me in Italy, although I did not know it then, Leonardo da Vinci was making his first sketch of a flying machine.
However great a claim the doings of Popes and Cardinals might have had on the popular attention, they were but little on my mind when I arrived in Rome. My search for Basarab, and of course for Bogdan as well, still ruled my mind and soul. The dusty roads and the clerical conflicts of Italy passed by me almost unobserved, except as they might lead me to a likely gathering place for foreign mercenaries.
I rode alone, and traveled most of the time at night, having decided that any human attendants were almost certain to be more trouble than they were worth. Some of my devoted band of followers in Romania had volunteered to come with me, but I had discouraged them. Could you have met them, good reader, you would understand why.
Having been only once molested by bandits—the encounter, at dusk, was brief indeed, and afterward I recovered a purse that one of the highwaymen had dropped—I reached Rome in due course. The Eternal City, then excited as it always was by papal turnover, was at least as much transformed as Florence had been since I had seen it last. A new bridge had quite recently been thrown across the Tiber, and the municipal water supply had been restored to a level of quality unknown since the time of the Caesars. Much of this civic improvement was the work of Sixtus IV, one of those Popes who had come and gone whilst I lay sleeping; the same man who in his spare time had once tried to arrange the murder of Lorenzo de' Medici, as a means of settling some political dispute.
I approached Rome in an optimistic state of mind. By this time my Italian had regained some fluency, and I had achieved, as I thought, a fair amount of skill in asking questions. Alas, the answers were no better than before. The clue I had picked up at Careggi seemed worthless. No one with whom I spoke had heard of Bogdan, at least for the past several years; and at first no one had heard of Basarab, either.
And then, someone had. The first clue came by chance, in a conversation I overheard in a tavern frequented by soldiers. What they were saying confirmed what I had heard at the villa of Lorenzo, and put me definitely on what I thought was the right track.
My search led me first near the Vatican, and then directly into it. Understand that I am not speaking of the great church-and-single-palace complex that we see today, in 1492 Michelangelo and others had not yet begun the great rebuilding of St. Peter's and its hundred corollary projects of renewal. Nor—let me emphasize again—were the Pope's temporal domains limited to the miniature quaint city-state, a few scant acres in extent, familiar to the twentieth century. Rather all of Rome, and a large part of central Italy besides, more or less acknowledged His Holiness as temporal as well as spiritual ruler. More presently about that 'more or less.'
The area of Rome closely surrounding the Vatican complex was thick with private palaces, elaborate houses and gardens, many of them belonging to Cardinals. The clues that I had hoped would set me properly on Basarab's trail soon led me in among these mansions.
But the trail was cold, and I began to realize the fact; and on one summer night I allowed myself to be temporarily distracted from my fruitless search by the voice of a young woman, singing with beautiful sadness beyond a garden wall.
Silently crossing over the high stone wall and prowling through the gardens that it enclosed, I soon encountered a pretty maid standing utterly alone, leaning with her back against a tree and singing softly to herself. Judging from the girl's clothing she was a servant of some kind, perhaps a slave—oh, yes, Rome tolerated chattel slavery at the time. And there was something odd in the girl's behavior, as if she might be under the influence of drink.
Whatever the cause of her being here, at this hour, alone, I considered the situation my good fortune. Appearing at a little distance before her in the moonlight, I greeted her in my kindliest and most reassuring manner— ah, I can do such things more smoothly now, but I did not do them too clumsily, even then. Of course I was lusting for the girl's blood, and the fact that she seemed somewhat the worse for wine meant little to me one way or the other.
I spare you the details of the conquest; but it will come as no surprise to you to hear that I was soon able to taste what I desired, there in that fragrant midnight garden. This maid's blood had a certain tang, a surprising flavor, that was then completely new to me. Perhaps I should add here, parenthetically, that drug-laden gore is ordinarily a matter of indifference to even the most discriminating vampire. On imbibing it for the first time, he or she will very likely realize that a new and special flavor has been encountered. But to the trained palate there is already an almost infinite variety of human tastes. These depend of course upon the variations in individual body chemistry, as well as upon what the breathing partner has recently had to eat or drink.
Certain substances in particular convey their own strong flavors to the blood, and to the one who tastes it. Yes, as you might imagine, garlic is one of them. Of course if some more subtle substance is ingested by the breather along with one of these, then the taste of the more subtle substance, be it drug or whatever, is almost certain to be well disguised.
Almost none of these various flavors, or substances, make much difference one way or another to most vampires. They will not, as a rule, affect the blood's palatability. The spirochetes of syphilis, brought back from the New World by the intrepid explorers on the ships of Columbus, are of no more concern to the blood-drinker than the molecules of alcohol or the harsh dissonance of cocaine. We are immune to all these substances. They are not going to do us any substantial harm, or, for that matter, bestow upon us any particular pleasure, any more than merely leaden bullets are going to rend our flesh. For us, usually, the flavors in the blood alone are there, often interesting, sometimes mildly attractive.
However, we are not entirely beyond the reach of chemistry. And much in my story depends upon that fact.
But to return to that first of my nights in the gardens of Rome. To my chagrin, the somewhat tipsy maid and I were interrupted in our dalliance before we were quite finished. The light of distant torches played upon my face, and youthful voices, secure in the certainty of power and position, were raised in merriment. The voices approached, beginning to call a woman's name; and she who still lay in my arms stirred half-consciously at the sound.
Presently, through the darkened garden, which had seemed
They called each other Cesare and Lucrezia, names that meant nothing to me then; but the name they called out loudly and most often was that of the maid I had just embraced.
They saw her at last, now lying alone, stretched out wantonly upon the grass. And they saw me as well, though I had already started to retire from the scene.
Now it may sometimes be unsafe to interrupt a gentleman of passionate nature in the midst of his amorous endeavors. The danger is compounded when the gentleman happens to be a vampire. But on this occasion I was willing to beat a meek retreat.
The truth was that, very suddenly, and almost for the first time since the wounds of my assassination had finally healed, I did not feel at all well. The onset of the malaise had been so abrupt that I could only suppose it must be connected in some way with the blood I had just taken.
One of my most immediate problems was that I found myself frozen in man-form, almost as if the sun had suddenly arisen. Therefore the two adolescents were able to see me in the moonlight as I went over the wall, and they were impressed with my agility. The boy was armed with a sword, and after briefly examining the maid they decided to follow me. A nearby tree, next to the wall, made the job easier.
From what I could overhear of the remarks that passed between my reckless pursuers, as I staggered toward the horse I had left tethered nearby, I deduced that Lucrezia must have been carrying out some kind of a devilish
