There is a party of pilgrims bound for Mecca who will leave at the next full moon, six days from now. I have decided to ask five of the men making this holy journey to become our eyes and ears in their travels, so that upon their return, we may have the advantage of their observations, the better to be ready against any attack that may come. It is altogether fitting that pilgrims do this for us, for they have the opportunity to travel without any fear that Timur-i would keep them from completing their pilgrimage; he does not interfere with pious men, for which we may thank Allah, the All-Merciful.
We will have to persuade the Sultan to consider coming here to make himself seen if we are going to be able to quiet the apprehension among the people of our city. My informants are convinced that one of the reasons there is so much unease is that the Sultan is busy tending to reinforcing his fortresses and is not paying heed to the protection of Delhi. While you and I understand that the fortresses are in more need of repair and reinforcement than Delhi is, our people do not know this, and they see his continuing absence as an indication of his own fear, and not a demonstration of his circumspection. I do not know if they will continue to accept the Sultan's deputies as carrying his authority while he is gone. If we cannot maintain our authority,
it may be that a single rumor will be enough to throw the people into panic and leave us exposed to ruin as surely as if Timur-i and his cavalry were at our gates. You may believe that we are protected, but my informants convince me that this is not necessarily the case; I feel it incumbent upon me to inform you of this on behalf of our kinsman, the Sultan— may Allah favor and protect him and his people— so that we may continue to do his will.
Balban Ihbal bin Tughluq
carried by mute and deaf messenger for mutual protection
6
"I have been thinking about what you told me," said Avasa Dani as she leaned over Sanat Ji Mani, her arms going around his neck from behind; it was a still evening, with the lingering heat of the day drawing the aroma of flowers and greenery into the air, so that the library of his house smelled of jasmine and ginger.
"And what was that?" Sanat Ji Mani countered, turning his head to kiss her before rolling up the scroll open before him.
"About what would happen to me if you and I were to fulfill our needs together again; I have had many weeks to consider what you said." She rested her head on his shoulder, her arms remaining around him. "You said that if we lie together one more time, I would partake of your nature, and become like you upon my death if my body was not beheaded or burned."
"Or your spine severed in any other way," Sanat Ji Mani said somberly; he put the scroll aside and swung around to face her. "It is not something to consider lightly."
"So you informed me," she said, and kissed his brow. "I would have to live on the passion of the living, and their blood. I would have to avoid full sunlight unless I was guarded by my native earth. I would not be able to cross running water. It is all very troubling," she ad
mitted. "The more I consider it, the more reservations I feel."
"Good; give full attention to those reservations. I do not want you to change to my life if you have any doubts about it: it is a momentous step to take, and it is not an easy way to live," he agreed. "There are necessary precautions I mentioned to you, and which you must include in your lucubrations: I keep chests of my native earth with me in my travels whenever I can, and I line my soles with that earth once a month. Direct sunlight is still uncomfortable for me, as it is for all who come to my life. I have my native earth in my saddles and the floors of my carriages, but it is sometimes not sufficient to keep me from real pain; without such protection, open sunlight can be agony for me. It would be the same for you."
Avasa Dani sighed. "If my children had lived, I would not consider any of this," she said slowly. "But they died shortly after they were born, poor, shriveled creatures not many weeks old, and looking ancient as men of fifty."
Sanat Ji Mani stared at her. "You did not mention your children."
"No." She looked toward the window. "There is little to mention. There were two of them, three years apart, both girls, which embarrassed my husband, who was sure he was at fault for taking pleasure in the body, and so he stopped. Then he gave himself to the Buddha, and put his dead children behind him forever."
"I am very sorry," said Sanat Ji Mani. "I should have realized it was more than hurt about your husband leaving that was in you. If there is anything—"
"You can make me like you," she responded at once. "I will have no grandchildren, and so I must have longevity, or perish completely."
"Longevity at a price," Sanat Ji Mani reminded her. "And one has already been exacted from you." He was puzzled by her state of mind, and sought to find a way to understand. "You will not be able to reclaim a family."
"I understand that." She smiled wistfully. "But I will have something that is mine— a life that I have shaped, not that has been shaped for me."
"You cannot entirely escape the demands of those around you; none of us can," Sanat Ji Mani warned her. "If you make the attempt, you
will draw unwanted attention to yourself, and you will be thought a monster."
"Even over time?" Avasa Dani asked. "Will it always be thus?"
"It has been so far," he answered somberly.
"Yet you say that you have lived long," said Avasa Dani, "for all you must do to keep living."
"Longer than you can imagine. More than three thousand years." He knew she did not truly believe him, but he went on. "My father's kingdom was overrun by his enemies, his children slain or made slaves; I was one of the latter; they did not know that I could not be killed by the method they tried, for I had been initiated into the priesthood of our people, and was proof against most deaths. I could also have no children from the time I was initiated, as is true of all who come to my life." His hand went to the center of his torso; he could feel the old, white scars left over from his disemboweling that had put an end to his breathing life, so long ago.
"You are not dead," said Avasa Dani; her silver earrings rang their high notes.
"Not in the usual sense, no," Sanat Ji Mani replied. "But I do not live as you do, nor any of those around you."
"Did you have children, when you lived?" Avasa Dani held her breath as she waited for an answer, her hand brushing his arm as if to gain strength from that minor contact.
"I was given to our god, who made me like him when I was still a boy. Those born at the dark of the year did not have heirs. I had nephews and nieces, but it is not the same thing," he said steadily.
"No, it is not." She tried to laugh and failed. "Why do you tell me this? You make yourself more a stranger than you are."
"Because I do not want to expose you to an existence you may not desire for yourself. It is difficult to maintain this kind of life. Once you become of my blood, you will be a stranger wherever you are, and however you live, because you will not be one of the truly living. Those of my blood live in constant exile, and nothing can change that, Avasa Dani, not fortune, not honors, not the fulfillment of your heart's desire. Do not discount the price of being always a stranger: it is exacted in many, many ways." He took her face in his hands. "You do
not have the opportunities I do; women in this part of the world are not often given much liberty." Nor did they have it in other parts of the world, he added to himself, but there were places where the limitations placed on women were not quite so severe. "Here most women lead sequestered lives, and the few who do not are scrutinized constantly. You cannot readily travel on your own, or establish yourself in many cities beyond the Sultanate without putting yourself at risk."
"I might find a way to accommodate your life, and mine," she ventured. "If I decide to be like you, I may not need to relinquish everything from my life."
Sanat Ji Mani shook his head. "You cannot change by halves: I want you to understand that once you are one of my blood, you cannot turn from it unless you die the True Death."
"The True Death," she mused aloud. "It sounds dreadful."
"I cannot say; I have not yet experienced it," he told her, recalling the torment he felt whenever one of his blood came to the end of life. "I do know that once one of mine has died the True Death, the blood-bond is broken, but not until then." He kissed her mouth gently. "You will not dishearten me if you prefer to stay as you are."
She kissed him with fervor. "You say the bond endures until the True Death?" she asked when she could speak again.
"Yes. Once you have changed, once you have died the first death and come to my life, the bond is constant, one of the few consolations of our state." He touched her cheek, so lightly that the breeze through the room seemed more palpable. "Do not think that living as one of my blood must live is easily done for male or female. I fear it is nothing of the sort."
"You are going to warn me once more that I may have difficulties if I become like you, are you not? that I will have to change how I live. You want to protect me, I assume, and I am grateful that you do." She moved back a step, out of his immediate reach. "I know I should listen to you, and consider all you say; I have thought of little else for the last six weeks, and meditated on all you told me, and written down my thoughts as they became clear to me, so that I might contemplate them further. Among other things, I have pondered the adversities of travel, and the daunting prospects of being among strangers in faraway places. Then I have compared those risks to those
I would encounter remaining here in Delhi, as I am, and I know I should be prudent, circumspect— but I am not so willing to set aside the advantage you offer as you want me to be."
"How do you mean?" he asked, his dark eyes on her, his demeanor serene, his voice mellifluous and level.
"You have told me the disadvantages, but there must be advantages, other than living longer than most do. You have not elected to live as you have for as long as you have because it is an abhorrent obligation." She let the observation hang between them. "For all the difficulties you encounter, they are not sufficient to— You are not so overcome by the demands of your circumstances that you find it more a burden than a benefit."
"That does not mean it is not a burden," Sanat Ji Mani said seriously. "On occasion I feel it most heavily. All of us do."
"Life as the living know it can be that way as well, for some without surcease," said Avasa Dani. "You do not suppose that all of us never have much to bear."
"No; I do not suppose that. Life demands much of the living," said Sanat Ji Mani, his memories roused by her remark.
"Then you should also realize that many of us would not reject out of hand what you offer," she said somberly.
Sanat Ji Mani said nothing for a short while, then told her, "Many have, and for excellent reasons. There are stringent demands on women who choose this existence."
"There are demands on a woman in
this
existence, and well you know it," Avasa Dani countered. "To be hemmed in and constrained on every side by law and tradition from the day of birth to the end of our lives, to—"
"And that will not change simply because you do," Sanat Ji Mani warned her. "You will not escape the strictures of the place in which you live. You will always be isolated once those who were your living companions have died and you remain alive. In fifty years all your contemporaries will be gone, in a century, most of their grandchildren will be. If you remain here, you will quickly become an object of fear, so you will need to leave Delhi. You must go to where you are not known." He thought of Olivia, her annoyance at her self-imposed banishment on Rhodes, and wondered if she had returned to Rome yet,
to her native earth and the sanctuary it provided. "Hazardous as travel is for men, it is more so for women, and those of my blood need to travel."
"You are discouraging me," Avasa Dani accused him. "You may tell me as many times as you like, you will not frighten me."
"I am not trying to: I am trying to tell you what you will have to face," he replied quietly, a lonely tenderness in his dark eyes. "To be of my blood is irrevocable. There is no retreat from it, no modification of our true nature, no means to avoid our need. You cannot be half a vampire and half a living woman. So I repeat: you may not want to do all that you must to live the life those of my blood must live. Once you change, you cannot return to what you were." A sharp image of Heugenet fixed in his thoughts, and he realized one of the most pressing reasons for his reservations regarding Avasa Dani was linked to Heugenet, who had knowingly come to his life only to relinquish it a decade ago when she no longer needed to protect her son and his position.
"But you will help me," she said, kissing his ear. "To live your life."
"When I can," he assured her. "But we will not often be together, and you will need to fend for yourself."
She rested her hands on either side of his neck. "Then you will not take me with you when you go?"
