ribs and the pain as a lung collapsed, then a flash of shattered light as I received the death blow to my head.” He fell silent for a time, before continuing. “You know well enough the state in which I found myself upon waking. I marveled at being alive, and at last began to believe some of the outlandish tales my mistress of five months had told me.
“She was beautiful beyond telling, this woman. Her name was Alyssa of Byzantium, and she stood out among the blond belles of the French court like as able flame, an exotic black lily in a field of meadow flowers.”
Geoffrey fell silent, staring at the dying embers of the fire for a moment before continuing. “I began to hear rumors about her, that she was a witch and practiced dark arts, but so enamored was I that this only made her seem the better match for my own dark and witch-tainted Angevin blood; I secretly began to hope that the rumors were true. I never saw her before nightfall, and I never learned where she dwelt, though I begged her to come and live openly with me, but she would only laugh and turn away.
“I commenced to have a recurring nightmare about then, that I was attending a funeral, and when I looked upon the body it was my own, broken and torn almost beyond recognition. I told Alyssa, and she was troubled enough to trust me with the mystery of her nature and to offer her gift to me. The dreams continued and worsened. I not only saw myself, but members of my family and their reactions to my death: my father bewildered, my mother grieved, my wife relieved, Richard unconcerned, and John gloating. One night, a month before the tournament, I accepted her gift. I did not know if I believed her, but I would take what assurances I could. The dreams stopped on that night and never returned.
“After the fatal tournament, I woke bound and blind, fighting my restraints like an animal, but soon settling to the sound of her voice. I, like you, had a severe injury to the brain, and had taken a long, long time to heal to the point of awareness, but made a rapid recovery from that point.”
“How is it that your body was not missed?”
“Mine was not the only mangled corpse upon the field that day, and once the surcoat is changed, one broken body is very like another. People see what they want to see. I think that my mother did suspect, for when I visited her later she did not seem surprised.
“Eleven years passed before I was healed enough to take up the threads of my life, and much had changed in that time. Richard was pursuing his war with Philip and building his beloved castle Galliard. John was out of my reach, as Richard was keeping too close an eye on him. And I learned that I had a son, so I went back to Brittany. Alyssa had returned to Constantinople, but had left me well provided for. I watched Arthur, my son, grow into a young man, watched him learn to hate his dead father and all his father’s family.
“When Richard met his ignominious end I was in Prague; by the time I had returned to France, my son was in a fair way to be murdered, and by the same hand that had engineered my own demise. I saved my son, but I learned that John could do what I could not—I could not slay my own brother, however much he deserved it. Even though I could not accomplish it outright, I knew that it was not the defiance of death or the will to live that occasioned my renascence, but the desire for revenge. This, I think, you share.” I felt the blood drain from my face as I thought of Frizer and his taunting laughter when he drove the dagger into me, his helpless victim, oh so slowly, prolonging my agony as much as possible: Oh, yes, I wanted revenge, and not just on the minions. My pallor and clenched fists gave the answer I could not force past the knot in my throat. Geoffrey nodded and stood, offering me his hand. “Good, then tomorrow we will start teaching you to be not only vampire, but an Alexandrine prince.”
Chapter 4
After Geoffrey left the room, Nicolas fumbled with some books on the floor, and handed a large volume to