some group action to stop me. But his efforts were unavailing. After the demonstration they had just seen, they were too cautious—as was, of course, Radu himself.
My small companion and I remained unmolested as I climbed aboard my horse. We had proceeded on our way for a hundred moonlit yards or so, and I was sure that no one had yet followed us, before I whispered to her: 'It seems that you had fallen in with some folk there who were no better than they should be.'
Of course I really expected no response, and there came none, save for a tighter clutching of the arms. The girl still slept. Swift, light breath puffed against my cheek. Her tiny maiden's heart had slowed, its rhythm re- entering the normal range for a breather of her age and size. Now moonlight showed me the presence of a pulse just at the deep curve of her throat, under skin unbroken as yet by any fang-marks. I examined her minutely to make sure. There had been as yet no sampling of this treat.
I touched her throat just at that spot myself, but with my lips alone. And having done so, I sat back in the saddle, pondering the mysteries of my own heart, which I was far from understanding.
We rode on our way unchallenged, and within a quarter of an hour arrived at a country crossroads, the intersection of two rutted moonlit tracks beneath which I could dimly sense the ancient graves of two of my own kind. Long ago the true death had established its claim upon them.
Around us the panorama of farms and villages and woods was quiet, town folk and peasants alike slumbering and dreaming, some quite peacefully. It might have been some calm land in a fairy tale, dwelling in peace, yet to hear from its challenging monsters and rescuing prince. How fortunate those good people, if they could tell one from the other!
But now I judged it was time for me to wake my companion, a task I accomplished as gently as I could. When her bright eyes were open, I asked: 'Do you know, little one, which way your village lies from here? Your house?'
After the child had inspected the three roads available, omitting of course the way that we had come, I was rewarded with a pointing finger.
When we had proceeded in the indicated direction for perhaps another quarter of a mile, I judged it safe to stop at least briefly.
At this point I dismounted and sent my horse away, relying upon a certain knack of communication with animals that I enjoy. I intended to regain the animal later, but meanwhile it would create a false trail to deceive the one (at least)who, I expected, would be impelled out of sheer vindictiveness to follow me.
But something far more important, namely my oath-taking, had now been brought into the situation. Vital to me, because I am what I am. And of great significance to Radu, because of what it meant to me.
The child had become a pawn in the deadly game we brothers played, but she was still a child. And I realized that in putting on the garments of a priest I had accepted a certain responsibility.
'What is your name, little one? Come, you are safe for the time being, you can tell me.' The question kept her from falling back to sleep. Gently I rocked her, as her mother might have done. Yes, I have told you that I have been a father; and you might consider the incontestable fact, strange as it may seem, that I was once a child myself. My manner and voice were as soothing as I knew how to make them, and the immediate cause of terror had been left behind. I thought that the speaking of her name might be of some assistance in my seeing her to safety, and causing her trail to vanish.
Around us the night was very quiet, the loudest sound a gentle susurration of insects. The path behind us was untrodden, at the moment, by anything more dangerous than a mouse; the air above the fields and forest flowed undisturbed by the flight of anything larger than a bird or natural bat.
With a little more coaxing, my small client produced a distinct word: 'Marie.' It was so softly breathed into the night, I needed vampire's ears to hear.
'A pretty name indeed. And where am I to discover your house, Marie? Your Mama and Papa?'
Another whispered name. Presently we moved on again, in the direction of that village.
When we had reached what I considered a safe distance from my deranged colleagues, I exerted some hypnotic power to ease the child's mind of the most corrosive residue of fear, the memories of what had already happened to her, so that her agitated trembling almost—almost—ceased, and the nightmares that would otherwise have soon arrived to murder months of sleep were drained of most of their capacity to hurt.
A quarter of an hour later, I felt confident that she had regained her essential sanity, and was almost beginning to feel at ease within the circle of my arm, though of course terror had established a foothold that years of peace would be required to eradicate. By now we were within the boundaries of the village, just outside her house. A neighbor's dogs were moved by my close presence to begin to bark, but from a distance I tranquilized the yapping pups, so that after a brief outburst only a querulous whine went trailing into silence.
To expunge from my small client's inner mind and soul the whole burden of fear associated with the incident would not have been wise, even had it been possible.
And after taking thought, I removed from around my own neck a certain holy medal, marked with a cross (Ah, are you astonished yet again? Remember that in my breathing years I did endow five monasteries.) and other symbols, and having this hidden virtue: of making the wearer impossible to locate by any of the darker arts—remind me to tell you the story, sometime, of how, in a vastly different time and place, I had happened to come into possession of such a thing of virtue—and hung it on its silken cord around the child's neck, athwart those silken veins and gently pulsing arteries. No doubt, I thought, her parents would soon take notice of the addition, she would tell them that the priest had given it to her, and they would suffer her to retain it.
But having come so far, Marie was reluctant to leave my guardianship—to cross, alone, the last few yards of darkness before the door of the small peasant house. That building's windows were glowing with late lamplight, and its interior was wakeful with the murmur of anxious parental voices, disputing between themselves in prayerful agony as to whether there was anything to be done now to try to regain their missing child.
She still felt safer clinging close to me than running to the house. But this condition lasted only until we were close enough to her home for her to hear the voices. Then without another word, she suddenly let go my hand and darted forward, raising a wordless cry. Cries of relief, soon turning to anger, came out of the abruptly opened door and glowing windows. There followed the sound of a sharp slap, anda child's outraged scream. Parental voices were bellowing their hoarse anger and relief.
By that time I was already in full, silent retreat, four-footed in wolf-form, and many yards away. My thoughts were already turning back to my problems with Radu.
But not entirely. For a long time afterward, I could still feel on my right hand, in a kind of tactile afterimage, the grip of five small fingers.
Chapter Twelve
I was soon to learn, the hard way, that my brother—who proved much better-organized than I had given him credit for—was rather skillfully arranging an intense vampire hunt, for which purpose he had recruited both
Very few people in the world had ever been able to do a better job than Radu of frightening and bullying people—and I am thinking now of the kind of people generally considered to be terrifying characters in their own right. But it is fortunate for me that he himself was hunting elsewhere when one of the party of his allies, under lesser leadership, had success.
Radu mercilessly drove his adherents, playing on their own fear and bloodlust, to track me down, then to take me by surprise, if possible, while sleeping in one of my French earths, and to kill me on the spot without allowing me to regain consciousness.
The second-best alternative, from the hunters' point of view, would be to harry me out of the earth and then dispose of me aboveground.
Of course their task was facilitated by the fact that I had given away my talisman, possession of which would have greatly reduced their chances of locating me by magic. But their job was made more difficult by the fact that Radu himself was prudently staying home.
Later, Constantia told me that as soon as she became aware of this effort, she had tried to warn me but had been unable to locate me in time. Also, according to her account, she had undertaken to organize countermeasures among the vampire population who did not like Radu. But I am afraid that her attempt must have been rather