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I vowed that every time I came to them I would light the one hundred candles. It would be a small proof of my undying love.

What caused me to do such a thing? I have no true idea. But after that I kept a great supply of candles always in the shrine; I stored them behind the two figures; and after the offering, I would replenish the bronze holder and take away all melted wax.

When all this had been done, I returned to Florence and to Venice, and to the rich high-walled little city of Siena, to study paintings of all sorts.

Indeed, I wandered through palaces and churches throughout Italy, quite drunken on what I beheld.

As I have described, a great fusion had taken place between Christian themes and ancient pagan style, which was developing everywhere. And though I still perceived Botticelli to be the Master, I was taken aback by the plasticity and wonder of much of what I saw.

The voices in the taverns and in the wine shops told me I ought to go North to see paintings as well.

Now this was news to me, for North had always meant the land of the less civilized, but so great was my hunger for the new styles that I did as I was told.

I found throughout all of northern Europe an intense and complex civilization which I had surely underestimated, most particularly I think in France. There were great cities in existence and Royal Courts which supported painting. There was much for me to study.

But I did not love the art which I saw.

I respected the works of Jan van Eyck, and Rogier van der Weyden, of Hugo van der Goes, and of Hieronymus Bosch and many other nameless masters whom I beheld, but their work did not delight me as did the work of the Italian painters. The Northern world was not as lyrical. It was not as sweet. It still bore the grotesque stamp of the work of purely religious art.

So I soon returned to the cities of Italy where I was richly rewarded for my wanderings with no end in sight.

I soon learnt that Botticelli had studied with a great master, Filippo Lippi, and that this one's son, Filippino Lippi, was working with Botticelli right now. Other painters whom I loved included Gozzoli and Signorelli, and Piero della Francesca and beyond that so many that I do not want to mention their names.

But all during my study of painting, my little travels, my long nights of adoring attention to this or that wall, or this or that altarpiece, I did not let myself dream of bringing Botticelli to me, and I never lingered long near any place where he was.

I knew that he prospered. I knew that he painted. And that was quite enough for me.

But an idea had come to brew in me¡ªan idea as strong as the earlier dream of seducing Botticelli had been.

What if I were to reenter the world again, and to live in it as a painter? Oh, not a working painter who took commissions, that would be nonsense, but an eccentric gentleman who chose to paint for his own pleasure, admitting mortals to his house to dine at his table and drink his wine.

Had I not done so in a bumbling way in the ancient nights before the first sack of Rome? Yes, I had painted my own walls with crude, hasty images, and I had let my good-natured guests laugh at me.

Oh yes, a thousand years had passed since then, more in fact, and I could no longer easily pass for human. I was too pale and too dangerously strong. But was I not more clever now, more wise, more practiced with the Mind Gift, and more willing to mask my skin with whatever emollients were required to dim its preternatural gleam?

I was desperate to do it!

Of course it would not be in Florence. That was far too close to Botticelli. I would attract his notice and were he to set foot under my roof, I would be driven to extremes of pain. I was in love with the man. I could not deny it. But I had another, most marvelous choice.

It was the gorgeous and glittering city of Venice which drew me with its indescribably majestic palaces, their windows open to the constant breezes of the Adriatic, and its dark winding canals.

It seemed I should make a new and spectacular beginning there, purchasing for myself the finest house available, and acquiring a bevy of apprentices to prepare my paints for me, and the walls of my own house which would eventually receive my best efforts after I had done some panels and canvases to once again learn my craft.

As for my identity I would be Marius de Romanus, a man of mystery and incalculable wealth. Simply put, I would bribe those I had to bribe to obtain the right to remain in Venice, and thereafter spend freely among those who came to know me in the smallest capacity, and give generously to my apprentices who would be recipients of the finest education I could obtain for them.

Understand please that in this time the cities of Florence and Venice were not part of one country. Far from it. Each was a country unto itself. And so being in Venice I was quite removed from Botticelli, and would be subject to very important laws which the citizens of Venice were required to obey.

Now as to the matter of my appearance I intended to be careful in the extreme. Imagine the effect upon a mortal heart were I to reveal myself in all my coldness, a blood drinker of some fifteen hundred years in age with purely white skin and flashing blue e

yes. So the matter of emollients was no small thing.

Renting rooms in the city, I purchased from the perfume shops the very finest tinted salves I could find. Then to my skin I applied these ointments, carefully inspecting the results in the finest mirrors which could be had. I soon made a blending of salves which was most perfect for not only darkening my cold complexion, but for bringing back to visibility in it the finest little wrinkles or lines.

I myself had not known that these lines of human expression still remained to me, and I was most happy to discover them, and I rather liked the image that I presented to the glass. As for the perfume, it was pleasing, and I realized that once settled in my own house, I could have the proper salves made for me and have them always on hand.

It took some months to complete my entire plan.

And this was largely because I had fallen in love with one particular palazzo, a house of great beauty, its facade covered in glistering marble tiles, its arches in the Moorish style, and its immense rooms more luxurious than anything I had ever beheld in all my nights, and even my long ago days. The lofty ceilings amazed me. We had known nothing like them in old Rome, at least not in a private house. And on top of the immense roof was a carefully arranged roof garden from which one could view the sea.