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Before the coming of Sarah there were other consorts and I remember each and every one. Night-folk rarely forget. We sometimes pretend to forget, or attempt to hypnotize ourselves, but it does not work.
I am one with Old Muscovy and ashrams along the Western Ghats. I have prayed with friends and strangers everywhere. Vampires, especially long-lived ones are history books. We carry the truth within, like an eternal tattoo etched deep in every cell... I speak of my time in Restoration England only because I 'lived' there before coming here. Yet before London I knew other homes... You who are faithful to this record know that. I've shared secrets of Old Byzantium and the vampire academies of the Ottomans. I've known Hapsburgs since before they got into the king business. My likeness graces tapestries in ancient French chateaus. I saw little children snatched from their beds and thrown headfirst into wells till the cold, stone tubes were packed with the flesh of the innocents and the earth could take no more. We were brothers in The Faith, yet I did nothing.
Night-folk must be subtle. Loudmouths rarely thrive. But I prayed for their expedient entry into The World To Come. After all, what sins did they have?
And there was a woman, a young woman who silently approached the well. She knelt down in the mud, put her hands on the stones and whispered a prayer. I recognized the words. They matched my own petition, though I prayed in Hebrew-Aramaic and she beseeched God in the vernacular, a rustic strain of Norman French known to all on both sides of The Channel.
When she was done I spoke. I said - Did you lose a wee one tonight?... She was frightened. I could see her fear, but she shook her head and whispered - No, not in that way... Then why are you here? - I asked..... How could I not be? - she said.... I helped her get up... She looked at me and asked if I was the 'one' from the hermitage... I nodded. She nodded back. ... The 'hermitage' was a deep winding cave, often frequented by holy men. I, but the latest occupant. ... She whispered - Their mothers and fathers are dead, slain where they slept. None still live.... Then she ran away, back into the pre dawn shadows..... I stayed there for perhaps four score heartbeats. Did I say new prayers?... I suppose. You know me. That's how I am.
When the sun came up, he who held the castle in those parts sent out serfs and villains to burn the houses and the dead within. But first they took the currency. They always take the coins. That's how it's done. That's the reason why.
I slept little during the light-time, but I put it all down... a few pages... a chapter... the record of a massacre. It's in my journal... an old, vellum, heavy book. I still have it. How would I not?
And the night I met Jeanette bleeds from the lambskin page.
<the vampire, Jonathon, shares more next time>
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