No, she hadn’t provoked it. And there had been no fleeing orange team members on the rooftop. So why the attack?
The only time he had seen the two of them together had been at the Rialto, when she’d helped to curtail the consul’s idea of fun. But surely, he wouldn’t kill her for that? For chasing off a few street urchins?
Unless it wasn’t the first time. Unless she’d made a habit of trying to rein in his excesses. Unless . . .
Mircea shook his head in frustration. He didn’t have enough information to know. But he knew one thing: That attack hadn’t been meant as a warning. It had been meant to kill, and it had very nearly succeeded.
His hand crept up to his still burning face.
Very nearly.
The window beside him suddenly opened and Bezio’s curly head stuck out. They looked at each other for a moment, not saying anything. Then the older vamp sighed and climbed out.
He didn’t ask if Mircea wanted company. Or wine. He just set a decanter on the grimy old tiles, pulled the stopper, and filled one of the two glasses he carried, the delicate stems looking strange next to his work-callused hand.
Mircea took the wine. He told himself that it was because Bezio couldn’t pour his own until he’d passed over the other glass, but in truth, he wanted some. Useless, as far as taste went, and it certainly wouldn’t get him drunk. But tonight . . . tonight he needed a drink.
They sat in silence for a while, the quiet city becoming quieter as candles were snuffed out in more and more windows. But there was still plenty of light from the arc of stars blooming overhead, the Via Lactea as the Italians called it. Not that they relied on it to light their way.
Man-made lights softened the darkness in patches all along the horizon. As they would most of the night in some quarters. The Venetians stayed up later than his own people, who preferred to be indoors as soon as the sun went down.
He’d often wondered how vampires managed in the old country. Where could you go, after dark? There were scattered taverns, of course, and a few inns and bathhouses in the cities. But for the most part life stopped at dusk.
His people knew what walked in the night.
But he’d heard stories, even as a boy, of a different world. A world where night burned as bright as day. A world of wonders.
His hometown of Sighisoara, and later his father’s capitol of Târgoviste, were both important trading centers. And Venice was one of his country’s main trading partners, with an insatiable appetite for Wallachian grain and meat, honey and wax. In return, the fleet of ships they sent each year brought beautiful cloth, luxury goods, and the finest of weapons. One of his earliest gifts from his father had been a Venetian crossbow, made in the famous Arsenal shipyard.
And, of course, the sailors on the ships had talked, as sailors always do. And the merchants who dealt with them had carried their tales back to dull Sighisoara, with its high walls and looming fortress of dark gray stone. To enchant a little boy with tales of a different kind of city.
A city with no walls, no guard towers, and no battlements. A city lying open and gleaming among the sapphire waves, like a glittering jewel. A city said to be the richest in all Europe yet protected only by the sea—and by its fantastic fleet of three thousand ships, a wooden wall stronger than anything built out of stone.
They spoke of a city so clean that it seemed to gleam in the sunlight, washed clear of the scents he was used to by the daily tide. A city of lacy pink stone palaces built in the Byzantine fashion, so light they appeared to float on the water, their arches picked out with real gold leaf. A city of warm winds and flowering vines and wealth beyond his wildest imaginings.
A city that never slept.
Wide-eyed, he’d listened to tales of masked balls taking place in brilliantly lit palazzos that shed ribbons of light onto dark water. Of gaily decorated barges and flotillas of smaller boats that ferried partygoers in between them. Of banquets to rival those of old Rome, with so many courses that the diners couldn’t possibly finish before midnight. Of firework displays that turned night into brilliant day.
He hadn’t believed most of the stories, of course, assuming that they were being exaggerated to entertain him. Arsenal couldn’t produce a ship in a day—everyone knew that took months! And a few silt mounds at the mouth of the Po River couldn’t support a population of 150,000—only Paris had so many! And the peasants, was he really expected to believe that they ate beef, and sugared sweets, and had paintings decorating their houses?
It was absurd.
It had been a shock, then, to find out that not only were the stories true, but that he hadn’t been told the half of it. Venice was a city unlike any other in the world. And a vampire’s dream.
Or it should have been.
Mircea drank wine.
Along with the abundant nightlife, there was the plus of having a constant stream of people coming and going. Carnival lasted nearly six weeks, from the day after Christmas to Ash Wednesday, and other feasts and saints’ days dotted the calendar, well into the summer. And even in the “quiet” months, merchants and sightseers came and went, along with sailors from the thousands of ships that used the harbor each year.
There was no need to drink from the same person twice. No need to fear anyone suspecting you. Add to that the fact that Venice was the most diverse city in all of Europe, the most cultured, the most urbane . . .
If ever a city was designed for his kind, it was this one.
And yet what had he found when he finally arrived? Not a dream but a nightmare. And one that, apparently, never ended.
Mircea had spent two years believing that it was his weakness that kept him constantly wary, perpetually afraid. He had assumed that those of his kind who were able to gain enough wealth and power could insulate themselves from that sort of thing. He had clung to the hope that perhaps, if he somehow managed to survive long enough, he, too, might find some kind of peace.
Until tonight had shattered that last illusion, and left him reeling.
“No one person should have that much power,” Mircea said harshly, finally breaking the silence.
Bezio shot him a glance over his wineglass. “That’s something I didn’t expect to hear from you.”
Mircea frowned at him. “Why?”
“Didn’t your father have that much power? Don’t nobles in general? They make the wars; we fight ’em. It’s how the world works.”
“This wasn’t a war.”
“People died.” Bezio shrugged. “For one man’s whim. Call it what you will, it’s the same to those poor bastards on the shore—or what’s left of them.”
“It wasn’t a war,” Mircea insisted, more strongly. “You called it rightly—it was a whim. The jealous whim of a madman who wanted all the applause, all the adoration, for himself.”
Or one who wanted an excuse to remove a problem, he thought darkly. Could the consul have killed all those people, dozens of them—people who had assembled to honor him no less—just as an excuse to attack one of his senators? He didn’t know, but he grimly decided it was possible.
In fact, knowing court politics, it was more than possible.
“And your point is?” Bezio asked.
“That no one should have that much power! Yes, people die in war, but at least it has to be debated, nobles have to be convinced, supplies assembled, negotiations made for safe passage for an army. . . . A hundred chances to turn back, to rethink—”
“Which no one ever does.”
“Some do. And even when they don’t—” Mircea shook his head. “At least there’s usually some point to it. That was slaughter today. Senseless, thoughtless, a useless waste of life! What will become of us if this is the best we can do?”