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"Exactly. He even smashed the instrument, and you know what a piece of expensive merchandise means to the good draper. "

I smiled.

"And so Nicolas has no violin now?"

"He has a violin. He promptly ran away to Clermont and sold his watch to buy another. He's impossible all right, and the worst part of it is that he plays rather well. "

"You've heard him?"

She knew good music. She grew up with it in Naples. All I'd ever heard were the church choir, the players at the fairs.

"I heard him Sunday when I went to mass," she said. "He was playing in the upstairs bedroom over the shop. Everyone could hear him, and his father was threatening to break his hands. "

I gave a little gasp at the cruelty of it. I was powerfully fascinated! I think I loved him already, doing what he wanted like that.

"Of course he'll never be anything," she went on.

"Why not?"

"He's too old. You can't take up the violin when you're twenty. But what do I know? He plays magically in his own way. And maybe he can sell his soul to the devil. "

I laughed a little uneasily. It sounded magic.

"But why don't you go down to the town and make a friend of him?" she asked.

"Why the hell should I do that?" I asked.

"Lestat, really. Your brothers will hate it. And the old merchant will be beside himself with joy. His son and the Marquis's son. "

"Those aren't good enough reasons. "

"He's been to Paris," she said. She watched me for a long moment. Then she went back to her book, brushing her hair now and then lazily.

I watched her reading, hating it. I wanted to ask her how she was, if her cough was very bad that day. But I couldn't broach the subject to her.

"Go on down and talk to him, Lestat," she said, without another glance at me.

Chapter 4

4

It took me a week to make up my mind I would seek out Nicolas de Lenfent.

I put on the red velvet fur-lined cloak and fur lined suede boots, and I went down the winding main street of the village towards the inn.

The shop owned by Nicolas's father was right across from the inn, but I didn't see or hear Nicolas.

I had no more than enough for one glass of wine and I wasn't sure just how to proceed when the innkeeper came out, bowed to me, and set a bottle of his best vintage before me.

Of course these people had always treated me like the son of the lord. But I could see that things had changed on account of the wolves, and strangely enough, this made me feel even more alone than I usually felt.

But as soon as I poured the first glass, Nicolas appeared, a great blaze of color in the open doorway.

He was not so finely dressed as before, thank heaven, yet everything about him exuded wealth. Silk and velvet and brand-new leather.

But he was flushed as if he'd been running and his hair was windblown and messy, and his eyes full of excitement. He bowed to me, waited for me to invite him to sit down, and then he asked me:

"What was it like, Monsieur, killing the wolves?" And folding his arms on the table, he stared at me.