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On the other hand, perhaps the secret of his brutality was a shallowness, a resilience born out of cosmic indifference to what he'd done.

There was another blood drinker staring at him coldly from a distance, and that was Everard, the spiffy black-haired fledgling of Rhoshamandes now making his home in Italy, who sat silently in one of the corners of the room. His eyes were fixed on Rhoshamandes with cold contempt, but I caught glimpses of a mind there that was seething and making no effort to conceal its torment. Ancient fires, rituals, eerie singing in Latin, all this drifted through his consciousness as he stared at Rhoshamandes, quite aware of my presence and yet allowing me to glimpse these thoughts.

And so this fledgling hates his maker and why? Was it on behalf of Maharet?

Slowly, without turning his head Everard looked up at me and his mind went quiet and I caught from him the distinct response that he did indeed hate Rhoshamandes but for more reasons than he could say.

How in the world could any prince keep order amongst these powerful beings, I thought. Indeed the sheer impossibility of it rather crushed me.

I turned and left them all that way.

Way upstairs, Sybelle was playing her music. This must have been in the studio. Possibly Benji was breaking up the broadcast with it. It was comforting, the melody. I listened with all my being, and I heard only gentle voices all through the various chambers that made up this great and glorious house.

I was tired all over, dreadfully tired. I wanted to see Rose and Viktor, but not before I'd spoken to Marius.

I found him now in a library very much different from the one I'd come to love, a more dusty and crowded affair in the middle townhouse of the Trinity Gate complex, a room full of maps and world globes, and stacks of periodicals and newspapers as well as books climbing the walls, where he was at a battered old oak table spotted with ink, poring over a huge book on the history of India and Sanskrit.

He'd put on one of those cassocks that Seth and Fareed obviously favored, but his choice had been for a deep red-velvet fabric, and where he'd gotten it I had no idea, but it was Marius through and through. His long full hair was loose on his shoulders. No disguises or subtle accommodation of the modern world required under this roof.

"Yes, they have the right idea, surely," he said to me, "when it comes to clothing. Why I have ever bothered with barbarian garb, I'll never know."

He was talking like a Roman. By barbarian garb he meant trousers.

"Listen to me," I said. "Viktor and Rose must be given the Blood. I am hoping that you will do this. I have my reasons, but where do you stand with being the one?"

"I've already spoken to them," he said. "I'm honored and willing. I told them as much."

I was relieved.

I sat down in a chair opposite his, a big Renaissance Revival chair of carved wood that Henry VIII might have loved. It was creaky but comfortable. Slowly I saw the whole room was more or less Tudor in style. This room had no windows. But Armand had given it the effect of windows by heavy gold-framed mirrors set in every wall, and the hearth was Tudor, with black carvings, and heavy andirons. The coffered ceiling was scored by dark beams. Armand was a genius at these things.

"Then it is just a matter of when," I said with a sigh.

"Surely you don't want to bring them over until some decision has been made about the Voice," said Marius. "We need to meet again, all of us, don't we, as soon as you're willing?"

"Well, you would think in terms of the Roman Senate," I said. "Why isn't he in my head or yours?" Marius asked. "Why is he so quiet? I would have thought he'd be punishing Rhoshamandes and Benedict but he isn't."

"He's in my head now, Marius," I said. "I can feel him. I've always known when he was absent or leaving. But now I know when he's simply there. It's rather like having a finger pressed against one's scalp or cheek or the lobe of one's ear. He's here."

Marius looked exasperated, and then plainly furious.

"He's stopped his relentless meddling out there," I said, "that's what matters." I gestured to the front of the house, towards the street where the young ones were milling, towards the wide world which lay to the east, and the west, and the south and the north.

"I suppose it would be pointless for me to scrawl a message to you on paper here," said Marius, "because he can read it through your eyes. But why bring over these two until we're certain that this thing is not yet going to destroy the entire tribe?"

"He's never wanted to do that," I said. "And there is no ultimate solution so long as he exists. Even in the most agreeable host, he can still plot and then travel, and then foment. I don't see any end to that except for one."

"Which is what?"

"That he might have some larger vision, some infinitely larger challenge, with which to occupy his mind."

"Does he want that?" Marius asked. "Or is that not something you've dreamed up, Lestat? You are such a romantic at heart. Oh, I know you fancy yourself hard-boiled and practical by nature. But you're a romantic. You always have been. What he wants perhaps is a sacrificial lamb, a perfect blood drinker, old and powerful, whose functioning brain he can take over and control relentlessly as he gradually obliterates its personality. Rhoshamandes was his prototype. Only Rhoshamandes wasn't vicious enough or foolish enough--."

"Yes, that does make sense," I said. "I'm exhausted. I want to go back to that little retreat I've found in the other building."

"What Armand calls the French library."

"Yes, exactly," I said. "He couldn't have designed a more perfect spot for me. I need to rest. To think. But you may do this with Viktor and Rose whenever you wish, and I say the sooner the better--don't wait, don't wait for any resolution that may never come. You do it, go on and do it, and you'll make them strong and telepathic and resourceful, and you'll give them the best instructions, and so I leave it to you."