Here, In This Place: An Origin Tale

EATING WITH OTHERS

CONCLUSION

David lost track of the passages they took up to the apartments of Hagar, and broke the silence by saying, “You will lead me back, right?”

“If you would like,” the servant said, indifferent to David’s attempt at humor and good spirits.

“Here we are,” he said, when they entered a large, red carpeted ante hall smelling faintly of church incense, with great diamond cut class windows looking onto the night, and a richly paneled wall interrupted by three great doors. The servant knocked on the middle one, and a voice called. “It is open, Klaus. Send him in.”

The servant, who apparently was Klaus, pushed the door open, and then turned his back indicating David should enter.

He had seen a gypsy vardo once, on a television show, and the ornate patterns of the room reminding David of one though, of course, this room was much larger, and Klaus was pulling the door closed even as David walked onto the carpet. He could smell tea and cakes and, despite this, an irrational part of him wondered if his love for Tanitha and his incorporation into these people was all an elaborate scheme to bring him to this gruesome and ancient mother of the Kertesz clan where, locked in this windowless place hung with lamps and censers she might, at last, have her way with him.

“Have a seat—as they say—I will be in pros stigni.”

He took a chair, and he heard rattling in another room. He rose quickly when someone else entered, but this was only another servant, though far fresher and much younger than Klaus. With a slight smile, she bowed and set down the silver tray of elaborate cakes and chocolates, the strangely intricate silver tea pot that David did not know to call a samovar and, as she departed, in came a new figure, tall, slender in a great caftan all in radiant reds and oranges shot with purples. Her hair was hidden by a silken scarf but her face, wide eyed, small lipped, caramel skinned, was that of a girl, and great earrings hung in hoops from her ears.

“Lady?” he tried, rising.

She held out a slender, ringed hand to him and said, “You are David? Sit. Sit. You will call me Hagar.”

 

He had tried to watch her make the cup of tea, pouring it over the sugar cubes, and asked her not to be offended that he could not eat many of the fabulous cakes.

“Forgive,” she said, “I love food so much. That is the thing with us. We do not need it, so when we meet those who do, we forget that it is not the same for them. I can forget to eat for days, and then eat endlessly. I hope you remember to tell those down below that for you eating is not optional.”

David was entranced by the woman who looked younger than Mariamne or the women he had met downbelow, including Tanitha, this woman who looked almost like a child. He was wrapped up in her trappings, the shimmering, fire colored kaftan, the rings sparkling on her fingers.

“Tell me about yourself, David,” she pronounced his name Daveed.

“Madam, I did not even know you knew about me.”

David found it impossible to use contractions in her presense.

“My children speak to me,” she said, simply. “Everything that has happened has come to me. Rosamunde is more… I believe you would say… out of line… than usual. Her mother will not see her properly punished, and it is no longer for me to intervene. Those days are done.”

“Yes,” David said. Then, “Ma’am, there is not much to tell. I have no real family to speak of. I very much love your granddaughter. I love your family, if that does not sound presumptuous.”

“Love is always presumptuous.”

David nodded.

“I do not know what else to say.”

Hagar nodded.

“Well, perhaps let me say a thing? Or two?”

“Yes.”

“The word spoken of you was that you are a man of great loyalty, great fearlessness.”

“I am not without fear.”

“When you thought your friend Alexander was in danger, you confronted and were willing to fight Drinkers for him. That is thárros! That is….. how you say…? Courage, courage of the old sort. My eyes demanded they see such a man. Here you are, tall, handsome, humble like a boyar of old, you are. I knew you possessed the heart of my granddaughter, however I had to see you for myself before I could place this from my hand into yours.”

Now, Hagar reached into one of the pockets of her voluminous kaftan and pulled out an intricate and glossy little wooden box whose dark stain constrasted the rhinesones or, now David thought, diamonds that bordered its sides. She lifted the latch and opend the box, showing David a ring of rich, ancient yellow gold. It was thicker than most rings he had seen and it was intricately scaled, a sapphire eyed serpent biting its own tail.

“This was the ring that my lord placed on my finger, given to him by his mother who herself was given it in the last days of the Pharoahs. It is as old as it looks, and now I give it to you to place upon my granddaughter’s finger when you pledge your troth, as I know it is in your mind to do.”

Hagar closed the box and placed in David’s trembling hands.

“Take and receive,” she said. “For now, thou art family.”

 

 

Christopher and Lawrence were leaving together, and Asenath, in her bronze gown, rose to follow them.

“The night has barely begun.”

“It’s actually past midnight,” Laurie grinned at her.

“Oh, Lawrence,” she said to him, at the entrance to the hall, “do you retire so early now?”

“In a castle in the Transylvania Alps, yes.”

“We had thought of going into Bucharist,” Chris said.

“Bucharest? Well, now that is something, I suppose,” Asenath said.

Asenath cupped Lawrence’s crotch. While she massaged him, she continued: “I know that Christopher’s taste woefully do not include me, but I think I am still to your taste, am I not?” she said, still stroking as she looked from one to the other.

Laurie’s face was slack, a little unfocused and Chris said to him, “I will be in my rooms.”

“You’re free to join, Christopher,” Asenath murmured, still caressing Laurie between his legs.

Chris Ashby repeated, “I will be in my rooms.”

Laurie nodded dumbly, all of his mind flowing into his erection and the massaging of Asenath’s hand. The bronze vampires left the hall, leading Laurie by his penis.

Kruinh, Rhodias, Sunny and Gabriel left the feast together. As they did, Daniel rose, but Miriamne caught his hand.

“Miri?”

She shook her head.

“They have their own words for each other, Daniel. Sit here. Stay with me. Stay a while.”

When Dan sat down in the chair Kruinh had left, Miriamne reached through the back of it and cupped his buttocks, squeezing them.

“It’s been so very long since you’ve kept me company.”

 

Kruinh, at the entrance to the great foyer, had pressed his lips to Rhodias’s cheeks, kissing her, and whispered: “If you were not my own sister, then I would sink my teeth into your throat, slice off your head and set it on a pike for Mother to find in the morning. And even if I did it now, I doubt she or anyone else would blame me.”

Rhodias turned to him, eyes wide.

“Stay far from me,” Kruinh said.

“I came that my son might have favor in your sight.”

“That is not possible.”

“Then mercy.”

“Mercy he shall have. That or he would have died. Now get thee gone.”

But Kruinh was gone, with Sunny, and Rhodias went in the other direction, toward the wing where her sisters were, taking Gabriel with her.

“You must think me an absolute monster,” Tanitha said.

“I think,” David replied, “that you are marvelous.”

She took off one earring and then the other, and slowly began unbraiding her hair.

“Fine clothes and drama are good for one night, but that’s the last time we’ll do that for a while. What in God’s ass is that screaming?”

David had heard nothing, but now that he strained his ears, he could almost hear something like shouting, but he also heard the breeze blowing limbs against windows and the settling all over of this castle.

He shrugged.

“David, help me out of this dress?”

“With pleasure.”

“You’re very naughty,”

David bit down on her throat, sucking on her. Tanitha’s eyes closed with pleasure.

“Who’s the Drinker now?” she said.

David laughed low in his throat, and together they lowered the dress and Tanitha stepped from it wearing a black petticoat that was almost as luxurious as the gown.

“Is this how you used to dress…. Long ago?”

“You mean five hundred years ago?” Tanitha rolled her eyes and smiled.        

“It’s the way everyone used to dress. You look so handsome by the way. I almost don’t want to see you out of that tuxedo.”

“Do I look like James Bond?”

“James who?”

“Are you serious?”

Tanitha laughed.

“I’m only joking,” she said, undoing his bowtie. “You’d have to sleep in a coffin to not know who he is.”

“Was that humor?”

“It was,” Tanitha said, “and no you don’t look like Mr. Bond. Your hair’s too floppy.”

David grinned and pushed one of the wings of his nearly black hair back.

“But I prefer you to James Bond,” she said. “Or to any spy, really. Now,” Tanitha had removed the petticoat and was in her shift. She went to the bar and poured them sherry while David stripped to pull on joggers and a tee shirt.

Now, David heard screams and Tanitha said, “See?”

“Maybe it’s Sunny and Kruinh?”

“They don’t sound like that at all,” Tanitha said, her face blank.

David bursts out laughing and so did Tanitha.          

When she had done with laughing, she asked him:

“What did Grandmother have to say?”

“Oh, yes,”

David had hung his clothes neatly, his jacket over the chair.

“She gave me something.”

“Did she?”

With a raised eyebrow, Tanitha handed David a glass of sherry, then went to the table to light a cheroot.

“I don’t know that this is the time for it, but…. Hell, I should have left the tuxedo on?”

“David?” she lowered the cheroot before smoking.

David suddenly went to one knee, unlatched the box with a bit of struggle and held out the ring.

“Tanitha Tzepesh, would you be my wife?”

She looked surprised, which surprised David, a hand to her mouth, her blue eyes gone slate colored in her dark face. She said nothing for a moment, and then she said, “Yes, David. Yes, I will. Get up, get up. Kiss me now.”

“It wasn’t the best way to do it,” David was saying as Tanitha kissed him, and then he took her hand and placed the ring on her finger.

“This was my mother’s,” she said.

David blinked.

“Grandmother gave it to Father to give to my mother, and I thought it was gone. With her. I never knew…”

She took a deep breath, hand still pressed to her chest, and sighed. For just a moment it looked to David as if she might break, and then she drew a hand across her face and said, her eyes very wet:  “Well, Well.”

Now, Tanitha shook her head.

“What a fool I am. I had forgotten.”

She went to her bureau and said, “Grandmother gave me something too, but she only said, ‘One day you will know what to do with this.’”

“When did you see her?”

“As soon as I had settled in. While you were out with Daniel and Alexander. Here.”

It was a little brass box, frosted, and chased in fine patterns. When Tanitha opened it, there on red velvet lay another deeply gold ring, almost red, with another scaled snake biting its own tail. But these eyes were emerald and she told David, “Now hold out your hand.”