would you have me be, then? Why this anger?" I shuddered all over, the tears veritably flooding from my eyes. "I would be strong for you, but I... I knew him."
"Why? Because he kissed you?" He leant down and picked up my hair in his left hand. He yanked me towards him.
"Marius, for the love of God!"
He kissed me. He kissed me as Martino had, and his mouth was as human and as hot. He slipped his tongue into mine, and I felt not blood but manly passion. His finger burnt against my cheek.
I broke away. He let me break away. "Oh, come back to me, my cold white one, my god," I whispered. I lay my face on his chest. I could hear his heart. I could hear it beating. I had never before heard it, never heard a pulse within the stone chapel of his body. "Come back to me, most dispassionate teacher. I don't know what you want."
"Oh, my darling," he sighed. "Oh, my love." And there came the old demon shower of his kisses, not the mock of a passionate man, but his affection, petal soft, so many tributes laid upon my face and hair. "Oh, my beautiful Amadeo, oh, my child," he said.
"Love me, love me, love me," I whispered. "Love me and take me into it with you. I am yours."
In stillness, he held me. I drowsed on his shoulders.
A little breeze came, but it did not move the heavy tapestries in which the French lords and ladies drifted in their eternal and leafy green forest among hounds that would forever bay and birds that would always sing.
Finally, he released me and he stepped back.
He walked away from me, his shoulders hunched, his head down.
Then with a lazy gesture he beckoned for me to come, and yet he moved out of the room too fast.
I ran after him, down the stone stairs to the street. The doors were open when I got there. The cold wind washed away my tears. It washed away the evil heat of the room. I ran and ran along the stone quays, over the bridges, and after him towards the square.
I didn't catch him until I reached the Molo, and there he was walking, a tall man in a red hood and cape, past San Marco and towards the harbor. I ran after him. The wind from the sea was icy and very strong. It blasted me, and I felt doubly cleansed.
"Don't leave me, Master," I called out. My words were swallowed up, but he heard.
He came to a stop, as if it really were my doing. He turned and waited for me to catch up with him, and then he picked up my outstretched hand.
"Master, hear my lesson," I said. "Judge my work." I caught my breath in haste and went on. "I saw you drink from those who were evil, convicted in your heart of some gross crime. I saw you feast as it is your nature; I saw you take the blood with which you must live. And all about you lies this evil world, this wilderness of men no better than beasts who will yield up a blood as sweet and rich for you as innocent blood. I see it. That's what you meant for me to see, and it's done."
His face was impassive. He merely studied me. It seemed the burning fever in him was already dying away. The distant torches along the arcades shone on his face, and it was whitening and as ever hard. The ships creaked in the harbor. There came distant murmurs and cries from those, perhaps, who cannot or never sleep.
I glanced up at the sky, fearful I would see the fatal light. He'd be gone.
"If I drink such as that, Master, the blood of the wicked and those whom I overpower, will I become like you?"
He shook his head. "Many a man has drunk another's blood, Amadeo," he said in a low but calm voice. His reason had come back to him, his manners, his seeming soul. "Would you be with me, and be my pupil and my love?"
"Yes, Master, always and forever, or for so long as nature gives to you and me."
"Oh, it isn't fanciful the words I spoke. We are immortal. And only one enemy can destroy us-it's the fire that burns in that torch there, or in the rising sun. Sweet to think on it, that when we are at last weary of all