Читать книгу The Ouroboros Cycle, Book One - G.D. Falksen - Страница 5

Chapter One

Spring, 1861

Normandy, France

It was a spring evening still touched by the chill of the season past. William Varanus smelled the familiar scent of winter as he walked down the spiral passage that descended into the depths of the unfathomable earth. Torches lined the walls of the tunnel, casting weird shadows that flittered about him as he passed. They almost seemed possessed of life, darting away the moment his eyes turned toward them.

How typically theatrical, he thought. Like we are still in the depths of the Middle Ages.

Or like they were still at Versailles.

His hosts had difficulty familiarizing themselves with the concept of the 19th Century. One would have thought that having escaped the horrors of the Revolution, they would have learned to adapt to the changing world. But no, they still wallowed in their pageantry and superstition.

Then again, they were French.

Finally the narrow confines of the tunnel ended in a black chamber lit only by the feeble glitter of a few lanterns. Of course, he had little difficulty seeing in the darkness, possessed as he was with the senses of his ancestors. But capacity did not justify excess. Just because his kind could manage in the darkness did not mean that they should flock to it so eagerly. Not yet, at any rate.

William stepped into the chamber and made for his appointed place at its center. It was an amphitheatre of tremendous proportions, carved from the rock seemingly by the hand of God. An historian might have assumed it to be the work of the Romans during their occupation of Gaul. Such a man would be wrong.

William did allow himself a hint of pride as he walked down into the central pit of the chamber. It had been carved from the stone by eager worshippers at the behest of his ancestors—or cousins to his ancestors, at any rate—in the time of the Celts.

He stopped before a raised dais hewn from the stone at one end of the pit. He saw the elders seated in their glory, hunched over like beasts with their features concealed behind hoods and cloaks. They had summoned him, but why?

“I am here!” William announced, his voice echoing off the rock and into the farthest depths of the cave. “As my elders have commanded!”

He paused, waiting as the reverberations of his announcement spread, faded, and finally vanished.

“What do you wish of me?” he asked, as silence finally returned.

That had gotten their attention. The elders’ eyes glinted in the darkness as they studied him, and all around the multitude in attendance—businessmen, landowners, and soldiers in their finest attire—leaned forward in their seats around the amphitheatre and waited to hear what would be said next.

Pathetic, William thought. Dogs fawning about the feet of their masters, hoping for a scrap of meat or word of approval.

In England things were different. There men of the Blood had dignity, not this perverse hierarchy of submission and spite.

“William Varanus,” rasped one of the elders, its voice so far gone as to be no longer recognizable as human, “you have been called before us to answer for a crime against your blood.”

Crime?

Out of the corner of his eye, William saw gray-haired Louis des Louveteaux step out of the shadows at the edge of the pit. Louis was like all the rest of them: tall, broad, and powerful, with the same gray hair as William. Once they reached a certain age, certain qualities of appearance became almost universal. It was the way of the Blood.

“I have committed no crime!” William answered. “Who says otherwise?”

“I do,” Louis said, crossing the pit to join William before the seat of the elders. “I do,” he repeated, more softly, as he gave William a half snarl, half smile.

“William Varanus,” the head elder said from on high, “you are accused of offending your blood…our blood…by failing to adhere to our most basic of laws.”

“The sanctity of the Blood!” proclaimed a second elder.

The call was taken up by the assembly, which began chanting aloud:

“The Blood! The Blood!”

William growled softly and felt his hair rising, but he kept himself calm. Losing his temper here and now would not only lose him face, it might lose him his life.

“What is my sin?” he asked.

Louis was the one who answered, smiling all the while:

“You have offended the Blood by taking a mortal woman to bear your offspring.”

William scoffed.

“There is no crime in that,” he said. “I know that here in France you seek to in-breed as much as possible—”

“Blood must be mated with Blood,” someone said. Soon the entire assembly was chanting those words with ever-growing fervor.

“—but I took my son’s mother in England,” he continued, “where things are different.”

“And see how you have been repaid,” Louis said. “Your bitch is dead, your son is a pathetic wreck kept ignorant of his heritage for his own sanity, and his surviving offspring is a runt! You would seem to be the last Scion in your line.”

William bared his teeth.

“So you say. What of it?”

“You have a granddaughter, William,” Louis said. “What a shame it would be if she were to go to waste.”

William felt the warmth of anger rising through his body.

“What do you propose?” he asked.

“Mate her to someone fit,” Louis said. “Someone of the Blood. That way, if she does nothing else, at least your granddaughter can bear a new generation of our people. Your line is diluted. It must be reinvigorated.”

“And who do you propose to father these ‘reinvigorated’ children?” William asked.

He already knew the answer. Indeed, he already smelled the answer as it waited dutifully in the shadows.

Louis smiled and motioned for someone to join them. A burly young man in a cuirassier’s uniform approached from the darkness.

“My son Alfonse,” Louis said. “Can you suggest a fitter man among our number?” He patted his son proudly on the shoulder. “Strong, brave, filled with vitality. A perfect specimen of the Scion race.”

So that was the plan! William had wondered at it ever since receiving the elders’ summons. Of course, he doubted the des Louveteaux cared a damn about young Babette. They were after the Varanus fortune, the company that William had spent decades building amid the smoke and fires of industry.

What typical Frenchmen.

“I thought,” William said, “that good Alfonse was intended for his noble cousin, Mademoiselle de Mirabeau.” Alfonse des Louveteaux and Claire de Mirabeau were first cousins. “And what a fine match they would make. Blood with Blood.”

Louis’s mouth twitched.

“I feel that our race shall be better served by Alfonse redeeming your bloodline,” he said, all but snarling. “Alfonse and Claire are both ideal in their purity, but unless we act wisely, Babette’s offspring may not be.”

There were murmurings among the elders in their high seat. At length, the leader spoke:

“This proposal pleases us. There is great wisdom in it. William Varanus, you shall see to it that your granddaughter is wed to Alfonse des Louveteaux, to redeem her taint of humanity by bearing his offspring.”

“My lords—” William began, seething with rage.

“So it has been decreed,” the elder continued. “Let it be so.”

“My lords!” William repeated, a roar hidden at the back of his throat. “This is folly. Shall I sow discord among my household by forcing my only grandchild to marry a man she does not love?”

“Love?” Louis scoffed. “Why should we care about a matter of love? The best families in Europe are filled with loveless marriages.”

Your own in particular, Louis, William thought.

“We are in a new age, my brothers,” he said, his voice resonating from the stonework. “We know that love has nothing to do with marriage—”

There were murmurs of agreement from the crowd.

“—and yet, more and more the idea of love, of a marriage based on love, has infected the youth of the civilized world. And even without love, there is still choice. A woman may be swayed by a father’s directives, but it is she who must choose with whom to entwine herself. If we force Babette to marry good Alfonse here, she will be angry and resentful, and she will cause disruption between our families. Worse, because she has not been inducted into our mysteries—as our elders have ordained—”

“Because she is a runt,” he heard Alfonse murmur.

“—then she will not know to measure her dissent. Her outcries against the arrangement may draw unwanted attention. And that is no good to anyone.”

“What alternative do you propose?” the elder asked in his rasping voice.

“Give me one year’s time to find Babette a suitable match. One of her own choosing.” When Louis began to protest, William held out his hand to silence him. “It will likely be Alfonse. But give Babette a year to accept him, to choose him of her own accord. She is yet young. A year’s delay will be of no great significance. And if—unlikely a chance as it is—she chooses another, then let us be content with that. I will ensure that any match is suitable. No matter who Babette’s husband is, their children will be Scions in mind, even if not in body. At worst, they will provide acceptable breeding stock for a ‘purer’ family. What more can be asked?”

The elders whispered among themselves for a time. William waited in silence, returning Louis’s furious glare with a cold expression. Like his brethren, Louis was an inbred dolt. The French Scions had once been among the greatest of their race. How far they had fallen over the centuries.

“We have decided,” the head elder said, drawing itself up to its full height. Even in the darkness and shrouded by the cloak, the perverse structure of its massive body was clearly seen. “William Varanus shall be granted one year’s time to find a suitable mate for Babette Varanus, one that the child will accept with accord. Should he fail in this task, Babette will be given to Alfonse.”

“Thank you, my lords,” William said.

He bowed deeply and turned his head sideways in a symbolic gesture that showed his throat. Louis and Alfonse did likewise, murmuring their gratitude through clenched teeth. There were some among the Scion order who would go so far as to lie upon the ground and show their bellies to the elders. William had far too much dignity for that.

“And now,” the elder rasped, “let us sing a hymn to He from whom all goodness flows, He who holds all life in His jaws.”

William smiled to himself. The politicking with the des Louveteaux was annoying, but he could manage it. Now, with that nonsense passed, the assembly would turn to something worthwhile. A few hymns to the ancestors, and then…

He smelled blood. Fresh blood. Young blood. And the delicious scent of meat.

The feasting would soon begin.