Midnight 01 - Luisa's Desire

From my first glimpse of Shisharovar on the peak, it was my beacon, the place where I knew I would find a home. When my mother died in a fall a year ago, I returned."
     
    The memory seemed to leave no mark on his face but Luisa saw beneath the calm recital. He claimed his mother kept him safe and yet it was he who felt compelled to remain with her, delaying his dream until she could not need him anymore. How great an outcast had she been because of her choice of lovers? She had given Martin an English name. That suggested there had been more between her and his father than an affair. When John Moore went back to England, he must have cut a painful wound.
     
    "You are very loyal," she said.
     
    His robe rustled softly with his shrug. "It is not hard to be loyal to those you love, nor to return to a cherished home."
     
    Luisa's breath escaped in a snort. "I have known people who could barely be loyal to themselves."
     
    "That is their loss," he said as if what he'd done were a common thing. He seemed not to know how rare his integrity was.
     
    Feeling oddly off balance, she covered his stroking hand. "Do you really believe you lived before?"
     
    "I have dreamed of events from other incarnations and later had them confirmed. I have recognized possessions I used to own and people whose paths crossed mine. Of course"—his gaze met hers with banked amusement—"I do not expect you to take this on my word. As you said: faith is a matter of faith. There can be no proof for those who wish to doubt. But tell me of you. I am curious to hear of the man who made you, the upyr elder."
     
    "You mean Auriclus." Luisa laughed quietly in remembrance. "My master was tall and dark. Sinfully handsome. The perfect lure for a fisherman's work-worn wife. He had a face like a tragedian, as weary and sad as if he had taken the weight of the world upon his shoulders, as if compassion for every suffering creature suffused his breast. Our kind are good at illusion. Even now I don't know if his face spoke true."
     
    "Did he seek you out?"
     
    "In a way. But I noticed him before he noticed me. It was just past sunset in Florence. The sky was the color of lemons, the clouds like shreds of cotton dipped in blood. He was leaning on the quay, wrapped in his somber cloak, watching the scattered traffic on the Arno. I remember wondering what a fine man like him must think of those rivermen, with their talk and their swagger and their garish clothes. Looking back, he was probably judging which one would make the better meal. That day, though, I felt lower than I ever had, I was less than the boatmen, less than their whores, less than the pink-eyed goat who gave us milk.
     
    "Auriclus must have heard my thoughts because he turned to me, not smiling, just staring as if I were a puzzle he wanted to work out. His attention shamed me so badly I scurried away as quickly as I could, but I saw him the next day at the well, and again the following evening as I left the mercato. I had a pomegranate in my basket, a treat I would have to hide when I got home. He blocked my way, then took the fruit to draw it to his nose. His expression when he inhaled was like a man in the throes of climax. When he spoke his voice was as husky as if he'd had one. It made me shiver to hear it, as much as did his words. He told me I smelled better than the fruit, as sweet and clean as summer grass. It was the first compliment anyone had ever paid me.
     
    He had me for the price of it, so cheaply was I willing to sell my soul.
     
    "Only later did I learn he was not supposed to choose me. He had a rival, a student to whom he had ceded the world's great cities to avert a war. I was an experiment to him, an attempt to create a child who would be a bridge between their broods."
     
    "Did it work?"
     
    "I do not know. Oddly enough, I have never met another child he made. I suspect he would say he failed. I may have begun as a peasant but in the end I succumbed to civilization's lure."
     
    "Did he change you that first day?"
     
    She rolled her head in negation against the cushion. "No. But I dreamed of him after our meeting, erotic dreams that made me long for sleep. I was scrubbing the wash and imagining his kiss when I tore my husband's best shirt, the only one that had no mend. I hardly minded when Giulio came into the courtyard to beat me. I had a secret, you see, a hopeless fantasy that made me strong.
     
    "And then it was not hopeless because Auriclus appeared, my