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

Part 6 - Romans

It had all happened so quickly. I had decided to make Iovita somewhat young. He did not pressure me to do it, but accepted his duty without a single false word. In Misenum, at twenty-four, after some years of working physical labor to feed the younger ones, he suggested to me that he would be of more use like me. As Aulus, Nonus, and Cassius grew older, they could find money. Aulus found work as a messenger in the city, as he had the best writing, and scratched for freelance for Nonus through those connections. Cassius, I suspect, took to petty theft. If it was not theft, and there was some trade going on, I neglected to see it. Iovita had a point, and we had a need. There was no end of blood in those days, and so there was little question of sustaining two of us in the city.

I have been many years comfortable with "we" rather than "I". "I" am a pitiful figure, weeping over the loss of warm marble under my feet. "I" had became accustomed to a patrician lifestyle in barely over a year, and found it difficult to watch the children wink at each other over the good fortune of finding maggots in their cheese. I had known the pleasure of maggots and the wakening touch of rats' teeth at my fingertips and toes. I sprung at the chance of "we". Iovita had been going with a local girl, and I suspect that what moved him was his inability to marry her. The reasoning did not bother me. He told me, "I know what life means for me, and it is to serve. I wish to do my duty by you and the others, and that is all. Let me take from you some burden." I am comforted that this choice served "us" rather than myself. 

I have no horror about what I am. I have never wished to die, not under this life. Under that other lifetime, I only wished to die because it seemed inevitable, hoping that I might influence where it happened. For Iovita, he felt it only necessary to inform me that he felt the same. I asked him if he wanted to live a little longer. 

"Sir, I do not know why you ask me this," he told me. "I am better for the role you are able to give me. If you will excuse me, I have a skill and I ask you to put it to service."

"You are better than your ability to fight," I told him.

"Sir, you are saying that, but I know I can be of use. I am not afraid. Let me protect them."

"Your brothers will not understand."

"With respect, Sir, you underestimate them. We have been raised to recognize our openings and pursue the best course. They will know that is all that we have done, between us." He lifted his eyes then meaningfully, to show me that he also spoke of what intimacy had been between us in Herculaneum. 

"Was that the best course, Iovita?" I asked him.

"I would not be the same man," he said, frankly. 

He was telling the best truth he could. Afterward, he had left boyhood behind. He had accepted reduced regard from his master with quiet dignity and responded with increased diligence. It had taken strength of character not to rebel, and to take responsibility for his drinking. At twenty-four, that boyhood had ceased even to shadow his face. He had long passed full grown, and had entered that beautiful period of strength unadulterated by age. He had good teeth and had never been pockmarked by disease. He held my hand while I wept over the choice. It was only, I told him, that I had been protecting him from blooddrinkers for so long, and found it difficult not to protect him for myself as well. How could I pierce him? He tried to lighten the mood and laughed nervously, "As I pierced you, those weeks. Aye, Red?" I slapped him because he made me laugh, and he said, "Is that enough of being serious? Hurry and do it before the younger boys come back." He made me laugh so hard with lines from our affair that it made me cry harder. "Not so rough, people will hear," he whispered in my ear before I bit him, imitating my voice, and I covered my face. "All right, get on with it, Red," he said then, "I'm sorry. I'm nervous."