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No one protested. I heard the doors close.

I bent down and, cutting my tongue as I had so often done, I let the blood drip on the evil cut on his face. I marveled silently as the flesh healed.

Once again his eyes opened. He saw me and then he spoke.

"It's Marius," he said softly. He had never once in all our time together called me by name. "Marius has come," he said. "Why didn't the priests tell me? They told me only that it wasn't my time to die. "

I lifted his right hand. There too the blade of Lord Harlech had made a cut and now I kissed it with the healing blood and watched the miracle once again.

Amadeo shuddered. It was painful for him and his lips drew back for a moment and then he settled as if into deeper sleep. The poison was eating inside him. I could see the cruel evidence of it.

He was dying, no matter what his visions had told him, and no slight tender kiss of blood could save him now.

"Did you believe what they said?" I asked him. "That it was not your time to die?"

Reluctantly, painfully, his eyes opened.

"Master, they returned me to you," he answered. "'Oh, if only I could remember all they told me, but they warned me that I would forget. Why was I ever brought here, Master?" He struggled, but he would not be quieted. He went on talking.

"Why was I taken out of some distant land and brought to you? I remember riding through the grasslands. I remember my father. And in my arms, as I rode, I held an ikon that I had painted, and my father was a great horseman and a great fighter, and there came down on us the evil ones, the Tatars, and they took me, and Master¡ªthe ikon, it fell into the tall grass. Master I know now. I think they killed my father when they took me away. "

"Did you see him, child?" I asked, "When you dreamt these things?"

"No, Master. But then again, I don't remember. " He began to cough suddenly and then the coughing stopped and he breathed deeply as if it were the only thing he had the strength to do.

"I know I painted the ikon, and we were sent out in the grasslands to place the ikon in a tree. It was a sacred thing to do. The grasslands were dangerous, Master, but my father always hunted there. Nothing frightened my father, and I could ride as well as he. Master, I know now the story of all my life, I know it yet I can't quite tell you¡ª. "

His voice dried up suddenly, and his whole body shuddered once more.

"This is death, Master," he whispered, "and yet they said it was not my time. "

I knew his life was being measured now in moments. Had I ever loved anyone more than I loved him? Had I ever revealed more of my soul to anyone than I had revealed to him? If my tears spilled now, he would see them. If I trembled now, he would know.

Long ago, I'd been taken prisoner, just as he had! Was that not why I had chosen him? ¡ªthat thieves had taken him from his life as I'd been taken from mine?

And so I'd thought that I would give him this great gift which was eternity! Was he not worthy in all things? Yes, he was young, but how would it harm him to be forever beautiful with the countenance of a young man?

He was not Botticelli. He was not a man of immense talent and fame.

He was a boy dying here whom few would remember except for me.

"How could they have said it?" he whispered, "that it was not my time?"

"They sent you back to me!" I gasped. I couldn't bear this. "Amadeo, did you believe these priests whom you saw? Did you believe in the glass city, tell me. "

He smiled. And it was never innocent, no matter how beautiful, his smile,

"Don't weep for me, Master," he answered. He struggled to rise a little from the pillow, his eyes very wide. " When the ikon fell, my fate was made, Master. "

"No, Amadeo, I don't believe it," I said, But there was no more time.

"Go to them, child, call to them!" I said. "Tell them to take you now. "

"No, Master. They may be insubstantial things," he said. "They may be dreams of the feverish mind. They may be phantoms wrapped in the garments of memory. But I know what you are, Master. I want the Blood. I've tasted it, Master. I want to stay with you. And if you refuse me, then let me die with Bianca! Send back my mortal nurse to me, Master, for she comforts me far better than you in your coldness. I would die with her alone. "

He fell back exha

usted on the pillow