The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire, Book 1) by Clay & Susan Griffith;Clay Griffith;Susan Griffith (36 page)

She came out in a quiet, solemn courtyard. Her footfalls were the only
sound that walked with her until a rush of birds fluttered away at her
approach. Adele leaned over a wind-torn rampart, gazing out on the city far
below. Nearer to her left she spied a strange tiny cemetery, far too small for
a human cemetery. There were numerous gravestones, all very diminutive.

"Pets. Of the garrison."

Adele spun about to see Prince Gareth about ten feet away standing
on the parapet edge, unafraid of the height. He was looking down at the
small cemetery also. There was an expression of sorrow on his face.

Damn him! He was still following her.

He continued without looking at her. "In the old days, the soldiers
here were allowed to bury their pets in this small graveyard."

"And where are the soldiers buried?" Adele inquired bitterly.

Gareth let out a slow sigh. "Perhaps in a cemetery as well. One can
only hope for the sake of their families."

"You talk as if you care."

"What makes you think I don't?" He floated to the stone walk with
the wind filling his long frock coat.

"Since when do you care about family?"

He glared at her. "Don't pretend to judge our families or politics.
My quarrel with Cesare is far more than a mere filial squabble. His war
will upset the balance of all the clans."

Adele smiled at him. "Then it is the perfect time to strike, while
your people are weak and conflicted. My father's victory will be assured
and legendary."

Gareth shook his head sadly. "No. War will destroy both of our
people. Our back will be at a wall and we will fight to survive. We will
be at our most vicious. The losses on all sides will be horrific."

Adele did not dignify him with a reply. They stood in silence,
staring at the small graveyard. There was fresh dirt in one corner.

"That grave looks new," she noted.

"I bury some of my cats there."

"Why?" It did not seem to be a thing a vampire would concern himself with.

Gareth shrugged. "I thought they might enjoy the company of
others. I would not want to die alone, nor lie alone. Why should they?"

Adele took a sudden deep breath. At this moment Gareth appeared
to be almost human. She was still prone to humanize him. Hundreds of
Mamoru's lessons were on this very subject. Vampires looked human,
acted human, wore human clothes, but it was all a facade.

She struggled to recover her cynicism. "Thank you for removing the
boat, or I might have injured myself escaping."

The prince's brow furrowed. "I'm having the boat repaired. It was unsafe
and leaking, if you remember. And we will need it to get you to the Continent."

Adele retorted, "I will never return home and you know it."

Gareth's demeanor changed in one swift stroke, not angry but full of
ice, his patience at an end. "Enough. There is so much more at stake here
than your imperial well-being. Just look around you." He turned away
from her and strode down the cobbled path.

Adele watched him and, inexplicably, felt her heart ache.

Some days later, Adele walked through the dark castle halls with a dripping candle as her main light source. Exploration diverted her attention
from thoughts of home. The rooms were all surprisingly tidy; at least
there were no skeletons nor debris littering the corners. Just cats. This
place was such an antithesis to what she had seen in London.

Adele had seen little of Gareth since the morning in the pet cemetery. He went about his solitary business, as did she. There were times
she would watch him talking with people from the town, his "subjects."
He was earnest and intense. He seemed to listen to them and ask them
questions. On those occasions when their paths did briefly cross, she
found him less infuriating. He wasn't a storybook hero come to sweep
her off her feet. He was a prince with duties and responsibilities. She
understood that part of him, despite herself.

Memories of those contented moments with Greyfriar, and the ease
they had shown with each other, washed over her at the strangest of
times. And, oddly, they weren't as bitter. She liked to remember, actually, if only to study her memories, to discover why she hadn't been able
to see Greyfriar as the vampire he was.

Adele passed another door, this one slightly ajar, and her candle guttered. The room was murky inside, but silhouetted against a window she
could see a figure hunched over a table, moving his hand back and forth
in a painstaking motion.

Greyfriar. Gareth, she corrected herself.

If he noticed her, he gave no indication. At first Adele thought he
was holding a pistol, cleaning it perhaps. Surely that was something his
human servants would be doing. Suddenly she realized he held a pen in
his hand. He was writing.

A vampire was writing.

With a grunt of frustration, Gareth pushed back in his chair and
wadded up a piece of paper, which he then threw across the room.
Adele's eyes narrowed when she saw the wad fall among numerous
others in a corner.

Gareth finally saw her and shoved a pile of paper on the desk to the
side as if to hide it. "Princess?" He seemed almost embarrassed.

"What in heaven's name are you doing in here?" she demanded, walking purposefully to the crumpled papers. "Drafting a ransom note?"

Gareth rose from his chair but made no move to stop her, though his
pale face seemed mortified by her discovery.

She smoothed out one of the wadded papers, fully expecting to see a
detailed note of her capture and a demand for ransom, and instead she
saw only poetry. The language was archaic English, and the script was
old-fashioned with large ornate illuminated letters opening each line.
Everything was so perfectly proportioned, it appeared to have been
typeset on a printing press. But the ink was still wet, and it smeared
under the pad of her finger. Looking up, she spied an old book open on
the table in front of Gareth.

Confused, she regarded him. "What is this?"

"It's writing," Gareth said plainly, and raised a contrary eyebrow.

Adele peered at him through one of the holes ripped in the paper.
"You're holding the pen a bit too hard, I should think."

Gareth nodded, slumping back into his chair. "I know. It's hard for
me to feel the instrument." His fist clenched.

Looking at the book on the table, it was easy for Adele to spot the
section of page he had copied. The mimicry was perfect. The enormous
detailed illuminations were duplicated to the last curl.

Adele said. "You're quite a draftsman."

He shook his head. "I'm writing."

She pushed the book back toward him. "Well, you're copying. But
the way you've re-created the text is remarkable. It's so precise. Very
artistic."

"So this is ... art?" Gareth took the torn sheet from her.

"Well, no. Again, this is copying. Art is creation, like writing. The
man who originally wrote these words was a writer, but all others after
who copy his work are not considered writers." She paused and smiled.
"Plagiarists, actually, but that's a completely different topic."

"I'm confused." He set down the pen. "Explain it to me. What is the
difference between this book and what I wrote? They look exactly the same."

Adele sat. "You must learn to write your own words, your own
thoughts. Here"-she indicated his piece of paper-"you only spoke in
another's words, like reciting history. You wrote, but did not create."

"But I did." He held up the crumpled paper in frustration. "I wrote
this with my own hand. I've seen humans do it thousands of times. As
Greyfriar, I tell them messages to send. And they write them. Just as I've
done here." He seemed confused and angry. "That's creating. The message is mine."

"It's close. You know these letters and you know how to read them,
so now you can create your own words with these letters. Think of something and write it down. It's that simple."

"What are you talking about?"

Adele sighed with exasperation. "If you record your thoughts personally it will allow your true voice to be heard by others rather than diffusing it through someone else. The spoken word always has a habit of
becoming distorted. Particularly when moving from person to person. If
your kind wrote, you could keep a permanent record of events. Others
could read your ideas as you meant them."

"Vampires would never bother to learn to read my words. They only
understand the sound, the spoken word." Gareth's tone was bitter.

Adele leaned toward him with her elbows on the table. "You know,
humans at one time had strictly an oral tradition. It wasn't until the invention of letters, like this alphabet"-she pointed to the book-"that writing
came about. We used to have poets and bards journey from one town to
another to tell us news and stories. But writing liberated the life of the text
from the moment of performance. Now everyone can enjoy a poet's stories
whenever they wish, rather than wait for the poet to come around again."

"Why did your kind create writing?" His long fingers brushed the
letters of the book with awe.

Adele wished she had paid more attention to her ancient history, but
she soldiered on. "Cultural changes, I guess-social, political, economic
mostly. A need to record commercial transactions."

"My culture deems themselves above all that," he remarked resentfully. "We have no economy. Therefore we have no need to create a
written language."

"It takes only one, Gareth, to beat the drums of change."

He raised his head to look at Adele directly with his pale blue eyes.
Passion and determination haunted his gaze. The woman suddenly realized that Gareth was jealous of humans. He wanted so badly to be something other than a vampire. She found it hard to swallow for a moment.

He asked a question in a low voice. "Would it insult you if I used
your alphabet? I don't think I could start from scratch."

Adele laughed, amazed by his polite request. "Gareth, you are
without a doubt the most perplexing vampire I have ever known."

"Do I have your permission?"

"To use my alphabet? Yes, absolutely. It's all yours."

"So what should I write?"

"Anything that you think is important. What have you been
longing to say? Perhaps to someone far out of your reach."

Gareth lowered his head and shrugged.

"Think about it. Then send me your work later this evening after
dinner. I'll look over it and we can discuss it tomorrow."

He straightened with excitement. "Yes? You would do that?"

"I would." The young woman rose from her chair and picked up her
flickering candle. She left the way she had come, with Gareth's gaze
upon her.

Adele spent the rest of her evening helping Morgana in the kitchen,
cleaning, cooking, swapping tales, laughing. It was curious how much
easier laughter came to her lately among the people of Edinburgh. Perhaps the sense of threat was easing a bit. Her life had become a series of
lows and highs, flashes of terror and moments of peace. She had learned
to relish those small gaps of serenity amid the chaos.

The serving girl grinned as she put various plates into the tall cupboards and then indicated the grey-and-white cat twining around
Adele's feet. "I see he has taken a liking to you."

"Seems so."

"That's good."

"Why?"

"He used to be quite the greeter, but that was before."

"Before what?"

"Before his companion passed. After that, he kept to himself. The
two used to play all over the castle. Knew each other since kittens. Now
he keeps only to himself and hides in your room. It's nice to see him take
an interest in something again."

"Animals don't grieve."

Morgana shrugged. "I don't know if it is grief. But he was different.
That's all I know."

"Where did all the cats come from? There are so many."

"They took up residence here when all else was ruin and slaughter."

"Are they food for ... him?"

Morgana looked aghast. "He would rather starve than harm a single
cat within these walls. He is quite smitten with them, though for the
life of me I can't understand why."

"Does this one have a name?"

Morgana shook her head. "Name it as you wish. There's too many to
name. I've just called it Pet, though that's what I call each and every one
of them. Much easier for me to remember." She chuckled at her own
joke.

Adele rubbed the cat's jawline, and it angled its head so that she
could rub all the harder. She would ponder a name for this particular cat.
It had to be a good name, because it had brought her comfort during her
dire predicament.

Hours later, sitting in her chamber with Pet curled on her lap
purring, there was a knock on the door. At her behest the door opened
and Baudoin was there with a silver tray awkwardly in his hands. He
stood silently.

Adele nodded him in.

Baudoin bowed ever so slightly. "My lord has bid me bring this to
you. "