Brian Stableford - The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady

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The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady

BRIAN STABLEFORD

A man who loves a vampire lady may not die young, but cannot live forever.

(Walachian proverb)

It was the thirteenth of June in the Year of Our Lord 1623. Grand Normandy was

in the grip of an early spell of warm weather, and the streets of London bathed in

sunlight. There were crowds everywhere, and the port was busy with ships, three

having docked that very day. One of the ships, the Freemartin, was from the

Moorish enclave and had produce from the heart of Africa, including ivory and the

skins of exotic animals. There were rumors, too, of secret and more precious goods:

jewels and magical charms; but such rumors always attended the docking of any

vessel from remote parts of the world. Beggars and street urchins had flocked to the

dockland, responsive as ever to such whisperings, and were plaguing every sailor in

the streets, as anxious for gossip as for copper coins. It seemed that the only faces

not animated by excitement were those worn by the severed heads that dressed the

spikes atop the Southwark Gate. The Tower of London, though, stood quite aloof

from the hubbub, its tall and forbidding turrets so remote from the streets that they

belonged to a different world.

Edmund Cordery, mechanician to the court of the Archduke Girard, tilted the

small concave mirror on the brass device that rested on his workbench, catching the

rays of the afternoon sun and deflecting the light through the system of lenses.

He turned away and directed his son, Noell, to take his place. "Tell me if all is

well," he said tiredly. "I can hardly focus my eyes, let alone the instrument."

Noell closed his left eye and put his other to the microscope. He turned the wheel

that adjusted the height of the stage. "It's perfect," he said. "What is it?"

"The wing of a moth." Edmund scanned the polished tabletop, checking that the

other slides were in readiness for the demonstration. The prospect of Lady

Carmilla's visit filled him with a complex anxiety that he resented in himself. Even in

the old days, she had not come to his laboratory often. But to see her here—on his

own territory, as it were—would be bound to awaken memories that were untouched

by the glimpses that he caught of her in the public parts of the Tower and on

ceremonial occasions.

"The water slide isn't ready," Noell pointed out.

Edmund shook his head. "I'll make a fresh one when the time comes," he said.

"Living things are fragile, and the world that is in a water drop is all too easily

destroyed."

He looked farther along the bench-top, and moved a crucible, placing it out of

sight behind a row of jars. It was impossible—and unnecessary—to make the place

tidy, but he felt it important to conserve some sense of order and control. To

discourage himself from fidgeting, he went to the window and looked out at the

sparkling

Thames and the strange gray sheen on the slate roofs of the houses beyond.

From this high vantage point, the people were tiny; he was higher even than the cross

on the steeple of the church beside the Leathermarket. Edmund was not a devout

man, but such was the agitation within him, yearning for expression in action, that the

sight of the cross on the church made him cross himself, murmuring the ritual

devotion. As soon as he had done it, he cursed himself for childishness.

I am forty-four years old, he thought, and a mechanician. I am no longer the

boy who was favored with the love of the lady, and there is no need for this stupid

trepidation.

He was being deliberately unfair to himself in this private scolding. It was not

simply the fact that he had once been Carmilla's lover that made him anxious. There

was the microscope, and the ship from the Moorish country. He hoped that he

would be able to judge by the lady's reaction now much cause there really was for

fear.

The door opened then, and the lady entered. She half turned to indicate by a

flutter of her hand that her attendant need not come in with her, and he withdrew,

closing the door behind him. She was alone, with no friend or favorite in tow. She

came across the room carefully, lifting the hem of her skirt a little, though the floor

was not dusty. Her gaze flicked from side to side, to take note of the shelves, the

beakers, the furnace, and the numerous tools of the mechanician's craft. To a

commoner, it would have seemed a threatening environment, redolent with

unholiness, but her attitude was cool and controlled. She arrived to stand before the

brass instrument that Edmund had recently completed, but did not look long at it

before raising her eyes to look fully into Edmund's face.

"You look well, Master Cordery," she said calmly. "But you are pale. You should

not shut yourself in your rooms now that summer is come to Normandy."

Edmund bowed slightly, but met her gaze. She had not changed in the slightest

degree, of course, since the days when he had been intimate with her. She was six

hundred years old—hardly younger than the archduke—and the years were impotent

as far as her appearance was concerned. Her complexion was much darker than his,

her eyes a deep liquid brown, and her hair jet black. He had not stood so close to

her for several years, and he could not help the tide of memories rising in his mind.

For her, it would be different: his hair was gray now, his skin creased; he must seem

an altogether different person. As he met her gaze, though, it seemed to him that she,

too, was remembering, and not without fondness.

"My lady," he said, his voice quite steady, "may I present my son and apprentice,

Noell."

Noell bowed more deeply than his father, blushing with embarrassment.

The Lady Carmilla favored the youth with a smile. "He has the look of you,

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Brian Stableford - The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady

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