“I fought it. But it soon realized I was no easy prey, and fled. I would have followed but… it was barely sunset. It ran west. You see?”
I understood. In the winter the sun tended to dip below a rise at the edge of our little hill at sundown. She daren’t have risked following it over that rise.
“The people in this village call me Lord Venice,” I said, extending my hand. “Or Serge.”
She extended hers. I bowed formally and kissed her hand. Even vampires appreciate a little class.
“I am Eloise, milord Venice,” she said, with a light curtsey. “The villagers have no name for me.”
She stepped into the light.
Eloise was dressed in rags, her pale flesh exposed in many places, although not in any really fun places. Her feet were bare—as I’d expected—but clean. Her unkempt black hair cascaded down her back, extending as far as her waist. And her large black eyes were mystifying. She was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, which is saying something.
“Tell me, Eloise,” I rasped, my throat suddenly quite dry, “what was it? What was the thing you saw?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It walked like a man, but… I have never seen anything like it before.”
“Perhaps I have,” I said.
“You know much of the world, don’t you, Master Serge?”
“More than you can imagine.”
“I can imagine a great deal.”
I smiled. “I’m sure you can. Now, I’m going to need a favor from you, Mademoiselle Eloise.”
“Are you?” She smiled back, all mischief and melody.
“Yes. I am afraid that thing will come back again. I need you to help me hunt it down and kill it before that happens.”
The following day brought snow to our little Picardy hilltop, forcing most of the locals inside to huddle beside the fire and do whatever it was we all did before network television. (I myself tended to do a great deal of reading, but the illiterate majority? No idea.) I was busy for much of the day in the armory, preparing myself for the hunt.
“I should go with you,” Lance said for the umpteenth time as he watched me run through the process of loading a crossbow with one hand. This was not easy, just in case you’re curious. Twice I nearly ended up with a bolt through my lower thigh.
“I’ll be fine,” I insisted.
He grabbed the weapon from me. “Rest the butt against your hip, damn you. Like this.” He illustrated his point. “You see?”
“How about if I just load it with two hands?”
“On horseback? You plan to rein your horse with your teeth?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“I should go.”
I sighed. “Do you trust me, milord?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then believe me when I tell you this. I need to hunt this thing without you. It’s not that I question your valor or your skill. But I am protecting you. There are some things in this world that man is not meant to see.”
What I didn’t say was that I was far more concerned with what was joining me on the hunt than what it was we were hunting. Historically, people don’t much care for vampires.
He pointed the bow at me, not as a threat but because it happened to still be in his hand while he gestured. Having a one-legged man with no depth perception pointing a loaded crossbow at one’s chest was mildly unnerving. “And you?” he asked. “Are you not a man?”
“I am.” I pulled one of the many broadswords I had to choose from out of its scabbard and attempted to wield it. It was weighted poorly. “Beyond that fact, how much are you prepared to know of me?”
I should mention that as much as I enjoyed the Coucy-le-Chateau, it was getting time to move on. I’d been there for nearly twenty years, and even a half-blind old warrior like Lance had taken note of the fact that I hadn’t aged a day. As I counted Lord Harsigny a dear friend, I felt I could trust him not to overreact. But it was only a matter of time before someone accused me of being a devil. The whisperings among the staff had already begun.
Lance squinted at me, uncertain how far he was willing to push this conversation, his curiosity waging a battle with an innate interest in keeping his understanding of the world untrammeled. He put down the crossbow. “I trust your wisdom, Serge. You know that I do. And I know that you drink from a font of knowledge most of us have never tasted.” (God, I miss the poetry of classical French.) “But I worry that in your zeal to… protect me, you are committing a fatal error. And that sword is much too heavy for you.”
“Is it?”
“Take the half sword.”
“What, that little thing?”
“It is sharp, and you will be able to swing it with speed and force. Speed is what matters in close combat.”
“I know that,” I said.
“I assume you will be facing an opponent who is not armored?”
“Not necessarily.”
He rubbed his face in exasperation. “It is a man?”
“An animal. But with a… tough hide, let’s say.”
“God save you, Serge. You should be bringing the dogs. You cannot face this thing alone.”
I wouldn’t be alone, but it struck me that that would be a bad thing to say.
We went through another hour of combat instructions with no more complaints from Lance that he should be going. I was pretty sure he still planned to follow me, but I didn’t bring it up because his advice was too useful to pass on.
I am actually extremely well-versed in a variety of combat techniques. If, for instance, Lance handed me a blow dart I could probably hit a fly in midair with it. The problem is that weapons change over time and from region to region, and sometimes I just don’t have the energy to keep up my studies. If I thought I could take my prey with a quarter staff, I’d probably be all set. But this was going to require steel, and the last time I had used a sword they were much lighter, and considerably flimsier.
At dusk I made my preparations. I was offered a suit of armor, but I turned it down. Those things are deathtraps, if you ask me. Sure if I’m jousting or attacking archers in a fixed position, armor might be good. But I needed flexibility, so I wore a light chain mail vest and the thickest leather waistcoat I could find.
My horse, Archimedes, was fitted with armor and a heavy saddle, neither of which he was accustomed to. He complained about it bitterly.
“God speed, Lord Venice,” Lance said as I climbed upon Archimedes. He handed me my sword and helped fix the crossbow to the side of the saddle.
“And you, Lord Harsigny,” I replied. “I expect I’ll see you in the morning, but if I don’t, take good care of the castle for me or I shall be forced to haunt you.”
A signal to the stable hand and the stable door was pushed open.
“And don’t follow me, my friend,” I added. “Some things are best left unseen.”
“I can barely see as it is,” he smiled.
I shook his outstretched hand. One way or another, I didn’t expect to be returning to Coucy-le-Chateau. I think we both knew it.
I rode hard through the small town and reached the gates in a matter of minutes. A casual onlooker might have assumed I was a messenger on a grave mission of some sort, which was fine.
