Hunting Memories - By Barb Hendee Page 0,82

bet them five sovereigns that the lady would back down.

Jessenia was a good judge of character.

She and Robert traveled through France and Italy, meeting new people and sometimes staying in villages or towns for months at a time if the place pleased them. Once, Robert even helped a local constable solve a series of murders—involving young girls. Robert followed the smell of blood to a chapel and found the body of a girl in a secret space beneath the altar. He read the mind of the priest and found a mad predator hiding behind a serene face.

The constable paid Robert well for his help. Jessenia and Robert earned some money in these intrigues, but normally they simply took it from their feeding victims—and then would leave behind memories of a robbery.

As time passed, Robert took over this element of their existence, and he always managed to keep them adequately stocked with money.

Jessenia spoke a number of languages fluently. In the early days, Robert knew only French and a bit of Spanish, but as his telepathy increased, he learned how to draw meaning from words by reading minds. Soon he spoke fluent Italian.

He did think back now and then upon Thomas Howard and Lady Elizabeth and how he had abandoned his position—abandoned the house with the gates wide open after Jessenia had put his guards to sleep.

But that seemed a different life.

“It was different,” she told him. “But you are still yourself. Your years as a soldier, of serving the duke, of pitying his wife . . . these made you into who you are.”

“And what made you into who you are?” he asked.

She turned away from him, something she rarely did. “I invented myself.”

He did not press further.

After twenty years together, she began introducing him to other vampires, and this offered him more new experiences. He found out that she set up several message posts in every country, and she would stop occasionally to pick up letters.

As with people, he enjoyed the company of some vampires more than others. His least favorite was an elderly German scholar—turned late in life—named Adalrik. Robert found Adalrik to be decent and kind, with a solid old house outside of Hamburg. But he and Jessenia spent several months at the house one summer, and Robert had almost nothing to do for the entire visit. Jessenia could read and write several languages, including Latin, and she tended to get lost for hours in Adalrik’s library. Robert could barely read English and had no interest in learning anything else. But her concern for Robert’s pleasure always took precedent, and she soon assured him they would move on.

In Italy, however, over the years they stayed numerous times at a villa near Florence with a lovely woman named Cristina and her maker, Demetrio, and Robert did not grow so restless there. Demetrio was an artist from the Renaissance. He was full of good conversation, yet he always treated Robert like a social equal. Cristina was a kind hostess, and they were both clearly fond of Jessenia.

Unfortunately, after being turned, Demetrio had developed a discomfort with unfamiliar places, and he rarely left the villa except to hunt.

“It happens sometimes,” Jessenia told Robert quietly. “Demetrio’s maker was gentle, but he had a difficult time adjusting to the change. I’ve heard if the experience is traumatic, and the new vampire recovers for months in one familiar place, he or she may come to fear open spaces or places unknown.”

Robert felt pity for Demetrio.

Still, the four of them drank red wine on the terrace and played at dice games and told stories to each other. Their times together were always pleasant.

But Robert’s favorite visits always took place in a manor outside of Harfleur in France that belonged to a near-ancient crusader, Angelo Travare. He and Robert had a good deal in common and enjoyed each other’s company. Although he, too, could be prone toward scholarly nonsense, his penchants tended to change upon whom he was with, and he played the old soldier in Robert’s presence. Once Angelo decided to travel with them, and the three of them spent the better part of a year touring Spain. But Angelo was sometimes given to deep melancholy, and Robert often sensed the man was lonely—very lonely. Traveling with Robert and Jessenia did not alleviate this but rather made it worse.

“You two are good to me,” he said one night. “But you only see each other. You only need each other.”

Robert could not deny this, and