Page 107

It was Benedict crushed up against Rhosh, his back to Rhosh and his arms out. For a moment Rhosh was free of the pressure of the telepathic beams and tried with all his might to throw Benedict aside, but Benedict was unyielding and Benedict was finally calling on all his strength, finally learning how to use it, to remain there as the others held Rhosh's arms.

"Very well," said Seth, the vicious Prince, the proud Prince of Kemet. "Give us your word that you will never again strike out at any one of us or any one of them."

"He gives it!" cried Benedict. "Rhosh, tell them."

Sevraine stepped forward and turned now towards the others. "And let it be known throughout the world that no one shall accuse him or spit at him, or curse him or in any way seek to mock him!--that that is at an end!"

When no one spoke, she raised her voice again. "What is the good of a court or a prince or a council, if you can't give that order! Roland is gone, finished, punished for what he did. Now Rhoshamandes, please, give them what they want, and you, and you and you, give him what he wants!"

Benedict turned around and embraced Rhosh and laid his head against Rhosh's head. "Please," he whispered. "Or I will die with you, I swear it."

Gently, Rhosh moved Benedict to the side.

"I am sorry for what I did," said Rhosh. And it was true, wasn't it? He was sorry. He could have shrugged again at the pure irony of it. Of course he was sorry! Sorry he'd ever been such a fool and botched it on top of everything, and sorry he'd ever let the Children of Satan ensnare his fledglings and drive him out of France. He was so sorry. So sorry for everything. Seems

he was saying it aloud, and who the devil cared that they had no idea what he really meant.

"But I want to come to Court!" he said.

They stood facing him like pieces on a chessboard.

"And I will not clean up that abominable soot you have left on my floor!"

Benedict lifted his fingers to Rhosh's lips. "I'll clean it away," he whispered. "I'll do it."

"Come yourself to Court and ask the Prince if this is what he can accept," said Gregory. "And if you ever strike at any of us again, at any of us, your Blood Kindred, or the Replimoids, it will be the end for you, mark my word."

Silence.

Rhoshamandes nodded. "Very well," he said.

They were gone.

Just that quickly, they were gone. The long heavy velvet draperies scarcely moved on their rods. A ripple ran through the massive old tapestry on the far wall, and all those French lords and ladies looked at him from the corner of their eyes.

Rhosh was walking out of the room before he had made up his mind to do it. In his bedchamber he sought the only chair he had ever much liked, and rested his head against the high wooden back. There the civilized fire of early evening still burned, and the golden clock on the wall said it was not yet midnight.

He closed his eyes. He slept.

When next he came awake the clock told him he'd been sleeping for an hour, and he saw that the fire had been banked and built up. The very sight of the flames, always so comforting to him, was chilling. He looked at his hands, so white, so inhuman, yet so strong, and he rested his head back again, vaguely aware of the clock striking the hour of one.

Sleeping. Dreaming.

Then Benedict and he lay side by side on the bed.

"Will you go to Court and talk to the Prince?" Benedict asked.

"No," he said as he stared up at the interior of the baldachin. "But I won't be told that I can't."

Benedict laid his head on Rhosh's chest.

Rhosh wanted to say so many things to him, tell Benedict how much he loved him, tell Benedict that he'd never seen such bravery, tell Benedict that he would never ever as long as they walked the Devil's Road together forget Benedict's courage...but none of these words were spoken, because words couldn't do justice to the sentiments inside him and words took too much effort and words cheapened the love, the consummate love he felt for Benedict and always had.

He ran his fingers through Benedict's hair.

Faust...

Somewhere in the world surely some opera company was presenting Faust. How could there be opera companies in the world and no one presenting Gounod's Faust? And tomorrow night or the next or the night after, they'd find that opera company; they'd seek out its palatial home. Then they'd walk together like mortals, simple mortals, in evening attire, through long carpeted hallways, surrounded by the pulse of human hearts, and the heat of human breath, and into the velvet-and-gilt box they would go, and take their seats, and they would sit there in the sweet snug darkness, secure amid the mortal throng, and he would hear Marguerite's voice rising in the finale, and everything would be perfectly fine once more.