"Yes. But I do not want to try to move about in all this running water until night has fallen," he said, adding, "Perhaps not even then."
She heard the weariness in his voice and came back to his side. "You are worn out."
"So are you," he said, running his hand over his slow-growing beard, thinking it needed trimming.
"The light does not work upon me as it works on you," she said. "And running water is no barrier to me."
He reached out and took her hand. "You have my gratitude for remaining with me; you could do better on your own, I suspect."
"If I were lucky, I might. If I were unlucky, I could be taken as a slave, or raped, or killed. No one pays any attention to entertainers on the road, the more so if they are female." She took a deep breath. "You are protection for me, and I am thankful that you have not tried to sell me before now."
Sanat Ji Mani was deeply offended; he kept his temper with an effort. "Do you truly suppose I would do such a thing? What kind of wretch do you think me, Tulsi Kil, to suggest I could use you so traitorously?" He sat up, his features set in stern lines. "You are not mine to sell, nor would I if you were."
She laughed. "You could say I was and no one would doubt you," she told him. "You would not have to scratch for coppers, but have gold in your hands again."
"I would not do anything so reprehensible," he said.
"My father bought my mother from her uncle," she said. "You might change your mind, if we have to contend with many more difficulties."
"I will not change my mind," he said brusquely.
She decided it was best to abandon this fruitless argument. "Well, you will or you will not: time will show which."
He rubbed his eyes. "Thank you." He put his sack under his head— it was nearly empty now but he could not make himself give it up, as if that would be the final reduction to beggary— and leaned back once more.
She sat down at the end of the wagon-bed, huddled up, for although the day was warm, the damp was becoming unpleasant. "Tell me some more of your life, Sanat Ji Mani."
"Why?" he asked. "You do not believe me."
"No, not entirely; but I like to hear your tales. They are exciting, and they make me think that life will always change." She put her elbows on her knees and her hands under her chin. "I like the stories about the Romans. They sound wonderful, having such grand entertainments, and letting their women make lives for themselves."
Sanat Ji Mani sighed. "Not all women were so fortunate, and not all Romans were wonderful. The entertainments could be bloody." He
stared up at the rickety roof. "You would have done very well there, particularly in the time between Julius and Traianus. Not everyone flourished, although it was a better time than many others. There was law that was intended to put all the citizens and subjects at the same level. But some could not use the law for protection, and some turned the law to their own ends."
"This was a long time ago, you say?" Tulsi prompted, her eyes shining like a child's for a loved story.
"More than thirteen hundred years," said Sanat Ji Mani. "I was there for more than a decade while power went from one man, to another, to another, and so on. It began with a youth called Nero and settled down again when Vespasianus and his grown sons came to rule: Titus and Domitianus. I was gone from the city before Titus wore the purple." He paused. "Emperors wore purple," he explained.
"Were they as grand as Timur-i Lenkh?" she asked as if the question were a ritual.
"Much grander. They had fine cities and good roads, and aqueducts that brought water long distances; their Empire stretched from Britain to Egypt, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea." He shook his head. "It lasted longer than many others, but not so long as some."
"Timur-i's Empire will last longer," said Tulsi. "Longer than the Emperors' of China will."
"No," said Sanat Ji Mani. "It will not."
She looked at him, her face masking her anger. "Why not?"
"Because Timur-i likes war more than he likes peace, and he does not trust his own deputies to serve him," he said flatly. "He appoints few men to supervise what he has conquered, and those he does appoint, he will not have faith in, and so he provides them inadequate support, for fear they will use that support to stand against him. He cannot have a legacy if he will not provide his lieutenants with the authority to do the work he demands of them."
"He is careful for the sake of his clan," said Tulsi.
"Do you really think so," he said. "Timur-i does not want to relinquish one jot of power and is convinced that anyone seeking it— other than himself— is a usurper." He closed his eyes. "Even the Emperor of China— who has reason to fear usurpers— appoints lieutenants and grants them the authority they must have to act in his stead. Timur-i
has made himself master of an Empire and rules it as if it were still only a clan. He calls himself an Emperor and conducts himself like a chieftan."
"What do you know of such things?" Tulsi asked, too sweetly.
"Enough to know Timur-i's Empire will be gone before he has been dead a century," said Sanat Ji Mani.
She had no immediate answer. "You must not speak against him," she said at last. "He will find out."
Sanat Ji Mani laughed. "How could he, and what would it matter if he did?" He reached out and touched her arm. "You are not in his camp and you will not be in his camp again unless you decide to go there, as Djerat did."
"You would stop me if I tried," she said, not quite sulking.
"No, I would not," Sanat Ji Mani said. "I might ask you to consider your decision, and I might point out the risks, but if it is what you want to do, I will not stand against you." He felt grief pluck at him, grief for the many times he had not been able to spare his companions from pain.
"It would be hard for you to manage without me, would it not?" she pursued, exacting revenge for his words against Timur-i.
"Yes, it would," he said bluntly. "As being alone would be difficult for you."
Whatever she had been about to say, she held back, and finally, reluctantly, smiled. "You have the right of it. I do not want to travel alone; I have said as much. So we remain together for now." She sat back. "Later I may change my mind."
"Later you may find a patron who suits you," said Sanat Ji Mani.
"I hope I might," she said, wistfully dubious. "How am I to find this patron in all this rain and away from cities?" She put her pack aside and stretched out beside him. "If you had the wealth you say you have elsewhere, you could be my patron."
"It would please me very much," he said, putting his arm around her shoulder. "If we reach Chaul and you cross the sea with me, I may yet be."
She chuckled. "It would be a fine thing."
"It would," he agreed, thinking he missed the comforts he had enjoyed not so long ago; it would be most gratifying, he told himself,
to return to a comfortable house with a library for reading, instruments for music, and a laboratory for alchemy.
"Do you truly believe we will reach Chaul?" she asked, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Yes. It is proving more difficult than I had expected, but I do not doubt we will get there." He stroked her hair. "The land is full of little princelings who squabble over territory like cocks over dunghills."
She remained quiet for some little time, then said, as if continuing with a conversation already begun, "The women you have known— are there many of them?"
"I suppose some would think so," said Sanat Ji Mani. "I have lived a long time."
"And do you forget them, over the years?" How forlorn she sounded, as if all her hopes had been dashed.
"Those who have known me, no, I do not forget them; they are part of me and I am part of them. I could more easily forget my hand than a woman I have touched, who knows that I have touched her." He turned his head toward her.
"You never forget anyone?" she asked in disbelief.
"Those I visit in sleep, as a dream, they are a dream for me as well, sweet and ephemeral, not intended to last. I often forget those women, in time. But those who receive me knowingly, every one is clear in my memory, and will remain so until I die the True Death." He kissed her forehead; it was a chaste kiss, a gentle benediction. "I will not forget you, whether or not I taste your blood."
"Have you visited me in sleep? as a dream?" She shivered as she asked.
"No, Tulsi Kil; I have not," he said.
"Why not?" She was genuinely puzzled. "You could have done."
"No, I could not; I told you I would want more from you than a fleeting impression of satisfaction." He touched her face with his free hand. "I would not abuse your trust of me so egregiously."
"Um," she said, reserving judgment.
He could not let it rest. "I value your friendship and your good opinion, Tulsi; I would do nothing to jeopardize either. If that means
there can be nothing more between us than what there is now, I accept it. But I cannot help but wish for intimacy, so that you and I would experience each other more fully."
"And you would be nourished," she said in a small voice.
"It comes back to that, does it not? You think that because I am a vampire, I must be without honor, that I am ruled by my esurience. If you so distrust me, why do you remain with me?" He kept his voice level even as emotion roiled within him.
"I do not distrust you," she said. "But you are right; I fear what you are."
"And the only way I could convince you otherwise would be to compel you to do what you do not wish to do." His enigmatic gaze rested on her face. "So we are at a stand-still."
"You will not leave me," she said, one arm across his chest as if to weight him down. "Say you will not."
"No, I will not," he said with kindness.
She stared into his dark, dark eyes and finally said, "If you do, I will kill myself."
"Why would you do that?" he asked, trying to fathom her intent. "What would you gain? If you do not desire congress with me because you fear death, what is the advantage of killing yourself?"
"I will not be at the mercy of the world." She tightened her hold on him. "I will not have it all be for nothing."
He drew her closer to him. "How can it be for nothing: you have not turned away from what life has offered you."
"I have turned away from what
you
offer me," she said.
"That is hardly the same thing," he said, managing to smile at her. "I wish you were not afraid, Tulsi, of me, of the world, of anything."
"How could I not be afraid?" She clung to him. "I have been dreaming about how my mother and father died. There has been so much killing."
"Yes," he said. "There has."
"All will end in death, no matter what we do," she whispered.
"Soon or late, it will," he agreed.
"Does that not trouble you, that all will end in death?" Beneath her indignation there was yearning.
"It did, a long time ago. I have come to terms with it: I have had to." He held her gaze with his. "That does not mean I find it easy to say good-bye, for I do not."
She held him tightly. "How long will you live?"
"I have no idea," he answered. "In that I am the same as any breathing human."
This time her silence lasted longer than before. "You say you do not take much blood, not from… from women." She tried to sound disinterested. "Not as much as from birds and beasts."
"You mean," he said as gently as he could, "you want to know if I take enough blood from a knowing partner, or a dreaming one, to be dangerous: no, I do not. With animals, it is different, for most of them are small, and do not have much to spare, and are needed as food for the living. Also, I get only blood from birds and beasts; from living humans I have the nourishment of touching, and that is better sustenance than anything." He was keenly aware of the places where their bodies met, even through clothes, but he strove to give no sign of this.
"Then your women who die do not die on your account," she said.
"I have told you that before. No, Tulsi, they do not die from what passes between us, or they have not for more than three thousand years." He looked up as another leak brought a ribbon of water through the roof, splattering onto the earthen floor an arm's-length away from where they lay in the wagon-bed. "When I first came to this life, I was what you fear, but I learned the folly of it, and I changed."
"You could have become more cautious, better at persuading women to forget their safety and embrace you." Her arm across his chest tightened. "Once they succumb to you, you would be free to do whatever satisfies you, and they could not stop you— could you not?"
"No doubt," he said drily. "But I do not."
