“Dinner isn’t ready yet,” he said lightly, dancing around the issue.
“But you don’t eat din—”
“And don’t change the subject.”
She gave a dramatic sigh. “Raniero said he’d take one for his boat, and Rigi’s dad could use one for the church, and Lucca’s grandma’s old girl just died and he wants to surprise her for her birthday, and, well, if there’s any more . . .” She broke off, obviously thinking hard.
“We’ll come up with something,” Mircea said, ruffling his daughter’s hair.
Dorina ran out, carrying the mushed bag of sweets and a smug-looking feline, and Horatiu shot him a glance. “We’re about to be overrun with cats,” the old man predicted darkly.
“There are worse things,” Mircea said, getting down a bottle of wine and glasses for dinner.
After the meal, when the rest of the house was in bed, he settled down with the letter that had come to his old residence. And had excited him enough that he’d forgotten to feed. It was written on fine paper, but in the rustic hand of a five-year-old, since Bezio had only taken up the art of penmanship recently. But the contents were clear enough.
Thought you’d want to know: we finally caught up with her in Rome. She led us a merry chase, because apparently she’s good at that. And because we were looking for her in the vampire community, and she’d switched to living among humans. But you know how persistent Jerome can be.
Mircea smiled. He still had trouble thinking of Jerome as a senior master, who had been in disguise like half the household. Only in his case, it had been with good intent—to investigate the woman he was convinced had killed his master and broken up his family.
It seemed that what Jerome had told them had mostly been true—except that it had happened almost two centuries ago. When the then human Jerome had been working in his apothecary in Athens, only to have a dying master vampire come in desperately seeking help. He’d managed to clear the tainted blood from his system, as evidenced by the fact that he succeeded in Changing Jerome later that day. But the damage had already been done.
But while his last child might not have been able to save him, he could avenge him. Because Jerome had grown up with a rare gift—the ability to hide his true age and power level. As such, he’d been the perfect candidate to infiltrate Martina’s establishment after the family finally traced her to Venice.
And to find out if they were right, and the prey had somehow managed to kill the predator.
He had spent weeks trying to figure out how to get a foot in the door without arousing suspicion, but hadn’t come up with anything. Until he was contacted by the condottiere he had bribed to get information on her. Martina had asked the man to keep a look out for likely slaves, and Jerome had quickly paid to make sure that he was among those shown to her. And then had spent every available moment, including the night of the fireworks when he’d stayed home, ransacking the place for evidence of how she’d done it.
He hadn’t found it.
But he had at last found her.
Anyway, we’ll know more soon since it looks like we’re going to Paris in a few weeks, along with everybody else these days. It’s still a dog’s own mess, of course, and likely to remain so for a long while. But that’s where the patronage is, and Jerome’s got this crazy idea of becoming a senator one day!
I don’t try to talk him out of it much; I figure court life ought to do that for me. I often wonder if our dear co-consuls would have wanted the job, if they’d known just how bad it was going to be. Cleaning up a court that’s been run on bribery, extortion, and corruption for hundreds of years, imposing a tough new law code, executing the worst of the worst offenders. . . . Sometimes, I think maybe they’d have had it easier if they’d lost!
I keep telling Jerome we’d do better to join Auria in her new establishment. You should see it, Mircea. We passed through Paris a year or so ago, and damn. People fight over invitations to her dinner parties, her salon (as she’s calling it) has senators and dignitaries and the like reading poetry at each other and talking politics. They say the recent treaty with the African Senate was worked out in her drawing room! I’m telling you, it’s hard to tell that the damned thing’s a whore house.
In fact, I’m not sure you can call it that anymore, since you need an invitation to get in the door. Apparently there’s a waiting list! I keep telling Jerome, we got out of the business too soon.
Speaking of Auria, she asked about you, when we saw her. She always does. You know, I don’t think you’d need one of those invitations, if you happened to show up.
Mircea remembered the last time he’d seen her, standing at the pier in the midst of bags and parcels of all types. Paulo had been buzzing around, prodding Cook to hurry, hurry, hurry. Their ship was about to depart and half the luggage wasn’t even on board.
“And neither are half their passengers! They’ll wait,” Cook had said, and swatted his backside.
“There’s room for one more,” Auria said, looking at Mircea. Although her expression said she already knew what his answer would be. And then she abruptly dropped decorum and grabbed him by the front of his doublet, burying her face in the fabric. “Oh, God, I’m an idiot!”
“Why?”
She looked up, laughing and tearful, all at once. “Because I’d stay if you asked me.”
“Auria—”
“But you’re not going to, are you?”
Mircea looked down into some of the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. And said nothing. What was there to say?
She shook her head. “She’s lucky, whoever she is. And there is someone, isn’t there?”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
She suddenly hit him, in the chest, with both small hands. “What are you doing here, then? Go get her!”
“I am. But with Constantinople now in Turkish hands, the Black Sea ports are closed to us. I plan to go overland, as soon as I’m allowed. The consul has promised safe passage, but only after the rebels are pacified. No one’s being permitted to travel through the disputed areas right now—”
“Idiots! Do they really think they’re going to win?”
“They haven’t done so badly so far,” he pointed out.
“Because the consuls have had too much to deal with in more important areas. But they’ve crushed the rebellion in Russia, and Spain will follow within the year. Even Hassani has stopped helping the rebels for fear of causing open war. They should give up and beg for mercy while they still have the chance.”
Mircea blinked in surprise. “You sound very current.”
“I found I quite like politics. I think I’m going to enjoy Paris!”
And it sounded as if she had.
Mircea’s trip, on the other hand, had been somewhat different.
I heard things didn’t go as you’d hoped back home, Bezio wrote. I know there’s nothing that can ease pain like that—there wasn’t for me when I heard that my Jacopa had passed. But I hope you know you always have a home with us. I also hope you find—how did you put it? Not just a reason not to die, but a reason to live.
Or something like that. I don’t have your gift for words. But I’ve thought about what you said, and I think you were right. There is a diff—
A cry broke through his thoughts before he could finish Bezio’s letter. Mircea got up, moving swiftly to his daughter’s small room. And found her on the floor, in front of the cat basket, looking with concern at three tiny, mewling pink things squirming around in front of their proud mother.