Page 108

After all, it is a lot of trouble to hate people, isn't it? And a lot of trouble to be angry, and a lot of trouble to bother with such abstract notions as guilt or revenge.

The Prince seemed far away and unimportant. The Court meant nothing to him. Even Roland meant nothing. He could not have saved Roland. Roland was gone. That's all. Roland was gone. But this fellow being, lying against him, this being who was his Benedict meant everything, and why this made him weep he did not know.

23

Derek

IT HAD TAKEN time, or rather a long night of listening to Kapetria and remembering, and some time near her and with her--but he was finally able to see these creatures as innately beautiful, not as the white leeches who had kept him prisoner and tortured him. And particularly these two.

Marius and Lestat. It was 2:00 a.m. in the morning and the entire Replimoid company had been sleeping, except for the newest of the newborn ones who'd been feasting quietly on cold meat and wine, famished as it seems newborn Replimoids are, when the knock had come at the door.

Derek had heard it, and sat straight up in bed. Then Dertu who had been sleeping beside him was awake, and they were listening to Kapetria's voice. Everything was all right. They knew by the sound of her steady voice.

Now they were gathered in Kapetria's rooms at the very front of the inn. Her quaint leaded glass windows looked down on the slumbering village, and the sheer white curtains no doubt kept out all prying human eyes, but then no one was awake in the village--in spite of the fact that when the wind was quiet, you could hear that nightmarish music coming from the Chateau. And if you did step outside and go to the very top of the street, you could see them all moving up there, those strange beings, a community of strange beings, moving behind the windows through rooms and corridors filled with brilliant yellow light.

Lestat and Marius. They were beautiful, undeniably, positively majestic, and from the beginning they had appeared to Derek like father and son.

Lestat sat back in a chair tilted against the wall like a Hollywood-western cowboy with one boot heel hooked on a chair rung and the other booted foot on the seat of the chair in front of him. His rakish long hair was tied back at the nape of his neck. But Marius sat still and straight as though he'd never slouched or slumped or relaxed in his entire long immortal life. Both wore red. The Prince a velvet coat and pressed blue jeans, and Marius a long tunic of heavy wool that might have been court dress in any kingdom of the ancient world for a millennium.

"But is he really really dead?" asked Derek. "I mean he burned up, but does that really mean he can't come back?"

It was Marius who had done all the talking and Marius who answered the question now.

"You might be able to survive such a little conflagration," he said. "But we cannot. Roland had maybe three thousand years in the Blood. That makes for a powerful blood drinker, but not one that cannot be burned up."

He was using Derek's phrase but not mocking Derek. Marius's preferred vocabulary included such words as "immolated" and "incinerated" and "annihilated." And phrases such as "quite gone beyond reprieve."

"This was witnessed by some ten of us," said Marius, "and of course Rhoshamandes witnessed it as well. It was an exemplum for Rhoshamandes. Rhoshamandes yielded. Rhoshamandes has his young partner again, Benedict. Benedict saw this too. Between the fire that consumed Roland and the love that consumes Benedict, Rhoshamandes has been mollified and has given his word."

"You believe him, that he will not try to hurt us?" asked Kapetria.

"I do," said Marius. "I might be wrong. But I believe him. And for the moment, if any one of us acts on his own and tries to annihilate him, well, there will be tremendous discord. Believe me, I have in my heart of hearts not a particle of love for this creature, but I feel that the forgiveness of Rhoshamandes must be the cornerstone of what we are seeking to build."

The Prince rolled his eyes and smiled.

"He won't break the peace now because of Benedict," said the Prince looking directly at Derek. "Rhoshamandes can live with slights and live with failure. He's protected from fatal pride by a near-fatal smallness of soul."

"And more use to you alive than dead," said Kapetria.

Marius appeared to be thinking this over. Then, "Thousands of years before I came into existence he was alive, walking the earth as we say." He paused. "We don't really want to..." His words gave out.

"I understand," said Kapetria. "I read enough of your pages to understand." This is what she called their books, their "pages."

Marius nodded and smiled. He didn't smile often, but when he did, he looked youthful and human just for an instant, rather than like an ancient Roman carved on a frieze.

"And we have so many things we must do now," said the Prince. "We have to make a credo, make rules, make some way of enforcing rules."

Marius kept his eyes on Kapetria. "So where will you go now?" Marius asked. "Will you actually leave here without telling us where we might find you?"

This was a continuation of yesterday's argument and Derek felt himself tensing all over, fearful that these creatures were not going to let them go after all, that they'd never planned to let them go.

But Kapetria took it in stride.

"Marius, we have places, places that are our very own. Surely you understand how much we need this time together."

"I know you're increasing in numbers as we speak," said Marius, "and I can't blame you for it. But when will you stop? What do you plan to do?"

"As I told you last night," said Kapetria, "we need this time together to know one another. Can you not see it from our point of view?"