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

Part 2 - Silk of Deepest Indigo

Our scorpions were small, brown, and non-lethal, but we had all heard about the black and flying scorpions of Babylon, which were so light that the wind could pick them up and heave them great distances. That information made us cautious, because we were not entirely sure scorpions couldn't just secretly fly. One can generally tell how lethal a scorpion is by how dark it is in color, and though a scorpion sting always smarts, from the little brown ones there is no poison. In order to prevent surprises however, it was my job to shake out the blanket before we all lay down for the night. There was no escaping fleas and other smaller parasites, but scorpions were the dread, a guarantee of a bad night.

Nonus had found a piece of old mirrored silver while digging in the dirt earlier in the day, and that being a treasure beyond words, we did not spit at the gods by questioning its origin. Taking turns making faces in it made the boys more self-conscious than usual, and so they had all three gone outside to wash thoroughly before bed. Cassius said, "Come with us. You smell terrible. Rub the dirt off your neck," but I'd wanted a little peace before they clambered in on top of me to sleep. We all shared the same straw mattress and covers, which though arguably more comfortable than the wooden floor, took more caring for. I had just risen to sweep the floor a little, a daily and quiet task, when I heard little padding footsteps stop behind me in the doorway.

"Me excusa," I heard, in a reedy voice with heavy accent. It was so much of a whisper for a moment my ears refused to understand it. Excuse me. I could not tell if it was boy or girl, because the voice was so sweet and so soft.

I turned with my broom and there he was standing in the doorway, in little white tunic, one bare foot tucked behind his ankle, hands crossed behind his back. The lamplight from the atrium backlit his curls, setting them aglow at the ends, the little flyaways. His blond hair had been teased up, large and full, and when he turned his face to look away from my gaze the light lit his profile, and I saw for the first time his little nose with the turned down tip, the small but puffy pout, the rich brown eyes too large for his face. He had high, rounded cheekbones, and too large ears with fat, round earlobes. 

"Are you lost?" I asked him.

"Dit iterum sivis," he requested of me, carefully, as if he had memorized the sounds but didn't understand the words. Please say that again.

"Unde es?" I asked him, slowly. Where are you from?

"Gaul," he said, tapping the point of his foot nervously.

"Where are you supposed to be?"

"Sodes, loquere paulo lentius," he said, very quietly. Please speak more slowly.

"What do you need?"

"It's... Iovita?" he asked me.

"That's me."

He pointed at the bed, and he pointed at himself. When he saw me understand that he was meant to sleep with the other house slaves, he nodded vigorously, and brought his hands to his cheeks to communicate his frustration. I laughed and he broke into a smile at that. I gestured for him to enter the room and he did, and I noticed that he was slightly bow-legged. That didn't chart for me. How could he be a perfect specimen if he was bow-legged? 

"Aren't you sleeping with the master?" I asked, as he came in curiously, looking all around at the walls painted with images of fruit, and dogs chasing a rabbit, and bordered in Etruscan red. Nowhere in the house that I knew of were there any paintings of people or the gods who knew them, and only in the atrium shrine some small figures for worship.

"Nullo intelligo," he said. I don't understand. I had not yet learned that sometimes he claimed not to understand Latin if he didn't want to hear it. If he really didn't understand he would ask for clarification, not deny intelligibility.