I was aware that Corella had for some time taken to carrying a concealed wooden dagger. I watched him carefully lest he might go so far as to draw it.
I have no wish to dwell upon the scene. Vicious words were exchanged; the sick man all but called me a traitor. Or perhaps—certain words were said that I chose not to hear quite clearly—he actually did so, and I swallowed the insult because of his fevered illness and his fairness to me in the past. But I resigned from his service on the spot and stalked out. Rather, since I wished to remove myself from the Borgia's presence with as little delay as possible, I flew out, changing shape right in his bedroom, and departing in bat-form through the window. The last sounds I heard behind me were the scream of a terrified servant and the shattering of a dropped chamber pot.
Cesare, as I learned later, wasted little time or energy in hurling curses after me. He immediately dispatched his favorite henchman Corella to do the looting job. Michelotto took a few chosen fellows with him, and I have heard that the task was carried out with remarkable efficiency. Some two hundred thousand florins in coin, silver, and gemstones, all legally the property of the Church, were stolen that night to enrich Borgia's personal coffers. During the coming weeks and months he was to have need of all of it, and more, to feed and arm such troops as he could raise, to pay bribes and buy support.
On that same night that I left Borgia's service Constantia arrived back in Rome. As soon as I became aware of her presence there was a miniature conclave, consisting of Cesare's two closest female companions and myself. The newly orphaned Lucrezia and Cesare's devoted vampire lover listened sympathetically to my complaints regarding his behavior. Both said they understood my position, but still both remained angry with me for resigning from his service now in his hour of need. They, of course, remained unquestioningly determined to do all they could to save their beloved Cesare.
I in turn listened sympathetically to the pleas of the two women and swore quite truthfully that I had no plans to become the enemy of Valentino, who from my first hour in his service, down to my last, had treated me well. I agreed never to play an active role against the Duke—unless, of course, he first should try to strike at me.
This last proviso unreasonably alarmed Borgia's tender sister, who, after all, had much to be alarmed about. Yielding at last to Lucrezia's tearful pleas, I took an oath that even in the event of Cesare's someday attacking me, I should never kill him, nor inflict injury upon him beyond the absolute requirements of self-defense. She wanted me to swear my devotion to his welfare in even stronger terms, but in the case of a man who had impugned my honor, I could not. No, not even for her.
Shortly after my departure from this meeting, as I was informed later, the women hastened to meet with Cesare himself, mainly to urge him yet again to consider becoming a vampire. But whatever pleas or arguments were pressed in favor of such a move on the Duke's part, they were urged in vain. Cesare, quite lucid now though still kittenishly feeble, swore that this illness, whatever its cause, was not going to kill him. Moreover he was still going to be the ruler of Italy, as his father had intended. Time was to prove the first claim quite correct, the second false.
As for myself, I returned to the palace on that same night. Belatedly it had occurred to me that I might remove some at least of the Pope's treasure to a safe place, and later see that it was handed over to some good bishop, far from Rome, or somehow to the poor. Alas, the brigands had been there in Alexander's rooms before me. Not only the treasure in the vault, but all else of value, down to the candlesticks and bed curtains, had been taken. Scavenging jackals had come through on the trail of the great predators.
The Pope's body, too, had already been removed, and this made me curious. Drifting silently through one hall and chamber after another, I sought to find him. Looking back, I think that it was also in my mind to see whether he, adopting the advice now being given to his son, had turned vampire at the last moment.
To me, Cesare's condition had suggested nothing more sinister than severe malaria. But when at last I beheld the body of the dead Pope, who had been stricken at the same time, I was suddenly not so sure.
A wax taper, stuck in a plain wooden holder, burned at the head of the ordinary table, and another at the foot, but otherwise this holy relic had been left completely ignored and unattended. In some neighboring room, guards were making a racket, quarreling about some minor piece of loot—from what they were shouting, I gathered that there were more valuable wax candles there.
Unobserved—not that anyone would have cared—I assumed the solidity of man-form and came closer to the rude catafalque. Perhaps the best thing most people could have found to say about the late Pope in his present condition was that he certainly was not a vampire.
I counted myself fortunate in not being required to breathe, and my stay beside the bier was brief. Alexander's body was blackening and rotting quickly, and swelling also, so that the clothing that had been put upon him when he died was stretched to bursting at the throat, as if his collar had been an instrument of strangulation. In the morning, as I was told much later by an eyewitness, the men who came to bury him could not force his distended carcass into the prepared coffin. They were unanimously drunk, for which I cannot blame them, and they chanted obscene songs as with a rope they dragged the villain's remains from his bier, through marble hallways and courtyards, to his hastily dug grave.
Chapter 18
Shortly after the gavel went down to end the Residents' Association meeting, Mrs. Hassler emerged from the Boulevard Room on the fifteenth floor of the great building. As she turned toward the elevators, she found, with mixed emotions, that she was still accompanied by Mr. Kaiser, who had sat next to her part of the time tonight. He was a charming but somewhat diffident young man who had introduced himself during another meeting weeks ago.
"Have you seen our friend Mr. Maule during the last few days?" young Kaiser inquired now. He too, it seemed, was acquainted, though only slightly, with the somewhat reclusive Maule. And he too thought there might be some current reason for Maule's friends to be concerned about him.
Mrs. Hassler cleared her throat. "Only briefly," she temporized.
Her companion did not seem to be paying close attention to her answer. "You look a little pale yourself," he commented in a solicitous midwestern voice, continuing to walk right at her elbow. "If you don't mind my saying so. Are you all right?"
'Well"—she could feel herself blushing—"I did feel just a little under the weather earlier. But I've been looking forward to this meeting for some time, and I was just determined not to miss it."
Kaiser murmured sympathetically. They shared again their mutual dislike for the building's new owners, and particularly those owners' new architectural plans, which had caused the front of the plaza to be enveloped in ugly scaffolding, and as a byproduct had revived the otherwise moribund Residents' Association and brought about meetings like the one tonight, at which the possibilities of legal action and other alternatives to preserve the character of the plaza had been discussed.
On the way up in the elevator, Kaiser showed himself ready to listen to a little gossip about Mr. Maule's strange relatives, who lately had evidently been bothering the poor man without mercy.
He gave the impression of not having heard about that particular problem before. "Standing around out in the hall, you say? What sort of people were they?"
Feeling uncomfortable, Mrs. Hassler told a fib. "Goodness, I never really got a good look at any of them. It was just the—the way they stood there."
Her young companion frowned and seemed to be taking the matter rather seriously. "I wonder—should we just stop at his door, right now, and ring?"