The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Part 9 - Proserpine Begging

Escha found me when I was sleeping in the afternoon. I woke slowly, to his poking me in the back with a wooden sword. When he saw my eyes open, he dropped it with a clatter, and climbed onto the bed to lie over my body.

"Master, you sleep much these days," he said, in a good mood, back bowed over my back. "For almost a month, I've only been seeing you in the early morning. I miss you, because I love you." He said this word as if trying it out in his mouth. "I love you, so, it would be good if you could wake up more."

I rolled and embraced him, and rolled back, covering him with my body. He liked that, still small for his age, and easily grasped.

"I don't see Iovita much either," he said.

I kissed on the side of his head, making him laugh. "Tell me your secret, precious boy," I murmured. "Say what you have come to say."

"I'm not a tattle, so you know," he said.

"Yes."

"And I may be little, but I know what adults do. I'm a good listener." 

"Is he sleeping with someone, little one?" I asked, glad to have him in my arms, and not wanting to waste breath.

"I think he's sleeping in Nataniellus's room," he said, confident of being let into the world of adults for the moment. "They drink a lot together at night."

"In Iellus's room, is it?"

"Yes. Don't tell Iovita I told, but you said if he drank too much you would be angry."

"Do you want me to be angry?" I asked him, feeling good, half-asleep. "Are you angry, little one?"

He breathed out, quiet under my body, relieved to be away from the other boys. He was very good at hiding his distress until pushed, so I pushed him.

"You shouldn't listen in doorways, Escha," I said. "Tattling you know is undignified, but seeking out secrets is below dignity as well. It should not be you who intrudes on the private lives of others. You would not be pleased if you were the victim." 

In my arms, he was as he had been when I had first held him, two and half years before, when he climbed up to me and asked me if I was foreign. Now, I listened to the little gasp in his heartbeat, his body's secret voice, constantly fumbling for breath. Listening, I closed my eyes. His hair carried with it the smells of the places he had been, of dirt and chickens. There was the light odor of incense which had traveled to him on a breeze from the city proper, which perhaps he had not even noticed, but which lingered for me to find. There was the smell of roasted pig flesh, which he had eaten, and tang of fermented fish. His skin was overwarm from running in the bright sunlight.

"I'm not angry," he said, giggling at my smelling his hair and falling asleep over his trapped body.

"Iovita is nearly seventeen now. He is nearly a man, but if it is true what you say, you were right to tell me. How does he fare now? Where is my steward?" 

"He says he's not your steward, because he didn't finish training. He said he doesn't want to be a steward."

"Perhaps I will be angry, then," I said. "Would you like that, little one? Would it thrill you?"

"Yes," he confessed. "He deserves it. He disrespects you, and I hate it. He says you don't show your face because you're ruined, and he won't serve you because he can have anything of yours he wants, including your whore." The words poured out of him, at having been let into my confidence. 

"What else does he say, little bird?" I asked. "When does he say these things?" There was a tingle beneath my breastbone, of heat, tickling the back of my throat.