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At last they obeyed. I heard their steps as they went up the stairs. And then I mounted the steps of the dais and bent over my seated Queen once more, as reverently as ever, as bravely as ever, and I gave the kiss that might soon mean my death.

Nothing stirred in the sanctuary. The Blessed Pair remained quiet. Enkil did not raise his arm to strike. I felt no motion in Akasha's body. I sank my teeth quickly. I drank deep draughts of the thick blood as fast as I cou

ld, and there came the vision of the sunlit garden again, lovely, full of flowering trees and roses, something made for a palace, where every plant is a part of an imperial design. I saw the bedchamber. I saw the golden columns. It seemed I heard a whisper: Marius. My soul expanded.

I heard it again as if it were echoing through the silk-hung palace. The light in the garden brightened.

Then, with a violent throb I realized I could take no more. I drew back. I saw the tiny puncture wounds contract and vanish. I pressed my lips to them and held the kiss for a long moment.

On my knees I thanked her with my whole heart. I had not the slightest doubt that she had protected me in my sleep. I knew that she had. I knew also that she had caused me to wake. Avicus and Mael could have never done it without her divine intervention. She belonged to me more surely than when we had left Egypt. She was my Queen.

And then I withdrew, powerful, clear-eyed, and ready for the long journey overseas to Byzantium. After all, I had Mael and Avicus to help me with the Divine Parents who must be secured in stone sarcophagi; and there would be many a long night at sea ahead of us during which I could weep for my beautiful Italy, my Italy which was lost.

Chapter 9

9

IN THE NIGHTS that followed I could not resist visiting Rome, though Avicus and Mael both advised me not to do it. They feared that I did not know how long I had slept, but I knew. Almost a hundred years had passed.

I found the grand buildings of Imperial glory fallen to ruin, overrun with animals, and being used as quarries for those who came to take the stone. Huge statues had been toppled over and lay in the weeds. My old street was unrecognizable.

And the population had dwindled to no more than a few thousand souls.

Yet, the Christians ministered to their own, and their virtue was most inspiring. And because the invaders had been in some cases Christians, many of the churches had gone unharmed. The Bishop of Rome sought to defend them against their overlords, and maintained strong ties with Constantinople, the city that ruled both East and West.

But for the few old families who remained, there was only humiliation as they sought to serve their new barbarian masters, and to tell themselves that somehow the crude Goths and Vandals could acquire some polish and love of literature and some appreciation of Roman law.

Once again I marveled at the pure resistance of Christianity, that it seemed to feed upon disaster as it had fed upon persecution, and as it prospered during interludes of peace.

I also marveled at the resilience of the old Patricians, who as I said, did not withdraw from public life, but strove to inculcate the old values as best they could.

Everywhere one saw barbarians with mustaches, wearing crude trousers, their hair greasy and unkempt. Many were Arian Christians, holding different ceremonies from their "orthodox" Catholic brothers and sisters. What were they? Goths, Visigoths, Alemmani, Huns? Some I couldn't recognize at all. And the ruler of this great state lived not at Rome but at Ravenna in the North.

I was also to discover that a new nest of the Satanic vampires had settled in a forgotten catacomb of the city, where they held ceremonies to their Serpent Devil before going out to prey upon the innocent and the guilty alike.

Avicus and Mael, puzzled as to the origins of these new zealots, and most weary of them, had resolved to leave them alone.

As I walked through ruined streets and through empty houses, these zealot creatures spied upon me. I loathed them. But I hardly considered them a danger. In my starvation I had grown strong. Akasha's blood was in my veins.

But how wrong I was in my judgment upon the Satanic vampires, oh, how very wrong indeed. But I will come to that in time.

Let me return to those nights when I wandered the broken fragments of classical civilization.

I was not as embittered by it as one might think. Indeed Akasha's blood had not only given me great new physical power, it had enhanced the clarity of my mind, my ability to concentrate, to take to myself what I prized, and to dismiss what was no longer good.

Nevertheless the state of Rome was demoralizing, and it was only likely to get worse. I looked to Constantinople to preserve what I called civilization and I was all too ready for the voyage ahead.

Well, it was time to help Avicus and Mael with the last preparations. And they assisted me in carefully wrapping the Divine Pair as mummies, with all reverence, and placing them in granite sarcophagi which no team of men could open, as had been done in the past by me, and would be done in the future every time that the Divine Parents had to be moved.

This was most frightening for Avicus and Mael¡ªto see the pair moved and then so completely covered with the white strips of linen. They knew nothing of the old prayers in Egyptian which I recited, which were charms for the safety of the journey scavenged from my years of reading, and I don't think this comforted them. But the Divine Couple were my concern.

As I moved to wrap the eyes of Akasha, she closed them, and with Enkil there occurred the same thing. What a strange and momentary indication of consciousness. It sent a chill through me. Yet still I went about my duty, as if I were an old Egyptian wrapping a deceased Pharaoh in the Sacred House of the Dead.

At last Mael and Avicus accompanied me down to Ostia, the port from which we would sail, and we boarded the vessel, having the Divine Parents placed below deck.

As for the slaves that Avicus and Mael had purchased I found them most impressive, all handpicked and excellent even to the galley slaves who knew that they worked for future freedom in the East and rich rewards.

A strong band of soldiers were to sail with us, each heavily armed, highly skilled and quite convinced of the same promise, and I was particularly impressed by the captain of this vessel, a Christian Roman by the name of Clement, a man of cleverness and wit, who would maintain the faith of the others in the final rewards as we made the long voyage.