Empire of Fear Read online

  empire of fear

  empire of fear

  an epic vampire novel

  BRIAN STABLEFORD

  A HERMAN GRAF BOOK

  SKYHORSE PUBLISHING

  Copyright © 2011 by Brian Stableford

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  www.skyhorsepublishing.com

  10987654321

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  ISBN: 978-1-61608-263-5

  Printed in Canada

  For my wife Jane

  without whose support and encouragement

  such a book as this would never have been

  thought of, let alone written

  CONTENTS

  Part One:

  THE FRUITS OF PASSION

  Part Two:

  THE SHADOW OF ETERNITY

  Part Three:

  THE BREATH OF LIFE

  Part Four:

  THE SEASON OF BLOOD

  Part Five:

  THE BLOOD OF MARTYRS

  Part Six:

  THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL

  Acknowledgements

  PART ONE

  The Fruits of Passion

  ‘A man who loves a vampire lady need not die young, but cannot live forever’

  (Walachian proverb)

  ONE

  It was the thirteenth of June in the Year of Our Lord 1623. Warm weather had come early to Grand Normandy and the streets of London were bathed in sunlight. There were crowds everywhere and the port was busy with ships, three having docked that day.

  One of these ships, the Freemartin, had come from the equatorial regions and had produce from the mysterious heart of Africa, including ivory, gold and the skins of exotic animals. She had also brought back live animals, for the prince’s menagerie in the Lions’ Tower. Rumour spoke of three more lions, a snake as long as a man was tall, and brightly-clad parrots which the sailors had taught to speak. There was talk, too, of secret and more precious goods – intricately-carved jewels and magical charms – but such gossip always attended the docking of any vessel from remote parts of the world.

  Beggars and street urchins had flocked to the dockland, responsive as ever to such whisperings, and were plaguing every seaman in the streets, as anxious for gossip as for copper coins. The only faces not animated by excitement were those on the severed heads atop the Southwark Gate. The Tower of London, though, stood quite aloof from the hubbub, its tall and forbidding turrets so remote from the streets that they seemed to belong to a different world.

  Edmund Cordery, Mechanician to the Court of Prince Richard, was at work in his garret in the south-west turret of the White Tower. Carefully, he tilted the small concave mirror on the brass device which rested on his workbench, catching the rays of the afternoon sun and deflecting their light through the hole in the stage, and then through the system of lenses which made up the instrument before him.

  He looked up, then stood and moved aside, directing his son, Noell, to take his place. ‘Tell me if all is well,’ he said, tiredly. ‘I can hardly focus my eyes.’

  Noell closed his left eye and put the other to the microscope. He turned the wheel which adjusted the height of the stage. ‘It’s perfect,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The wing of a moth,’ his father replied.

  Edmund scanned the polished tabletop, checking that the other slides were in readiness for the demonstration. The prospect of the Lady Carmilla’s visit filled him with a complex anxiety which he resented. Even in the old days, she had not come often to his workroom, but to see her here now would perforce awaken memories which the occasional glimpses which he caught of her in the public parts of the Tower and on ceremonial occasions did not recall.

  ‘The water slide is not ready,’ Noell said. ‘Shall I … ?’

  Edmund shook his head. ‘I shall make a fresh one when the time comes,’ he said. ‘Living things are fragile, and the world which is in a water drop is all-too-easily destroyed.’

  He looked further along the bench-top, and moved a crucible, placing it out of sight behind a row of jars. It was impossible – and unnecessary – to make the place tidy, but he felt it important to conserve some semblance of order and control. He went to the window and looked out, over the Cold-Harbour Tavern and St. Thomas’s Tower, at the sparkling Thames and the distant slate roofs of the houses on the further shore.

  From this high vantage-point the people in the precincts of the Outer Ward seemed tiny. He was higher above them than the cross on the steeple of the church beside the Leathermarket. Edmund’s gaze dwelt on that distant symbol. He was by no means a devout man, but such was the agitation within him that he crossed himself, murmuring the ritual devotion. As soon as he had done it, he chided himself for his weakness of spirit.

  I am forty-four years old, he thought, and a mechanician. I am no longer the boy who was favoured with the love of the lady, and there is no need for this trepidation.

  This private scolding was a little unjust. It was not simply the fact that he had once been Carmilla Bourdillon’s lover which provoked his anxiety. There was the microscope on the bench. There was the fact that he was followed whenever he went about the Outer Ward, so that his every chance meeting had come under scrutiny. If that were not enough, there was the ship from Africa, whose master had undertaken a mission for the Invisible College while fulfilling Richard’s demand for new lions for his collection.

  But he had lived with danger for many a year, and had schooled himself to stay calm. Lady Carmilla was a different matter. His relationship with her had been a genuine affair of the heart, and it pained him that she was now doing Richard’s work, becoming an intermediary between prince and mechanician. The fact that an intermediary had been brought in at all was an overt sign that Edmund had lost favour. He hoped that he would be able to judge by the lady’s reaction how much there really was for him to fear.

  The door opened, and she entered. She half-turned, dismissing her attendant with a brief gesture. She was alone, with no friend or favourite in tow. She came across the room carefully, lifting the hem of her skirt a little, though the floor was not dusty. Her gaze flicked from side to side, over the shelves with their bottles and jars, the furnace, the turning-machine, and the numerous tools of the mechanician’s craft.

  To many, vampires and commoners alike, this would have seemed a room full of mysteries, redolent with unholiness – like the alchemist’s den which the unfortunate Harry Percy had made for himself while he was an unwilling guest in the Martin Tower. The Lady Carmilla probably saw no very great difference between the work of the wizard earl and that of the mechanician, but it was always difficult to judge what the opinion of vampires was regarding the multifarious quests for knowledge which common men nowadays pursued. Her attitude was cool and controlled. She came to stand before the brass instrument which Edmund had recently completed, but only glanced at it before raising her eyes to stare fully into his face.

  ‘You look well, Master Cordery,’ she said, calmly, ‘but you
are pale. You should not shut yourself in your rooms now that summer is come to Normandy.’

  Edmund bowed slightly, but continued to meet her gaze.

  She had not changed in the slightest degree since the days when he had been intimate with her. She was already four hundred and fifty years old – not a great deal younger than Richard – but her beauty had not begun to fade. Her colour was very white, as was common in the vampires of northern Europe, and had that lustrous purity – almost a silvery sheen – which was the unmistakable badge of immortality. No mole or wart, no scar or pockmark, could mar the perfection of a vampire face. Her eyes were a deep liquid brown and her hair was jet black, in striking contrast to her skin. Vampires very rarely retained fair hair after conversion, even when they had been born with it. Her lips were gently rouged.

  He had not stood so close to her for several years, and he could not help the tide of memories rising in his mind. For her, it would be another matter: his hair was greying now, his skin beginning to crease; he must seem an altogether different person. But as he met her gaze it seemed to him that she too was remembering, and not entirely without fondness.

  ‘My lady,’ he said, his voice quite steady, ‘may I present my son and apprentice, Noell.’

  Noell blushed, and bowed more deeply than his father.

  The Lady Carmilla favoured the youth with a smile. ‘He has the look of you, Master Cordery,’ she said. To Noell, she added: ‘In the days before you were born, your father was the handsomest man in England. You are very like him, and should be proud.’ She returned her attention then to the instrument. ‘The designer was correct?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ he replied. ‘The device is most ingenious. 1 would dearly like to meet the man who thought of it. It taxed the talents of my lens-grinder severely, and I think we might make a better one with greater care and skill. This is a poor example, as one must expect from a first attempt.’

  The Lady Carmilla sat down, and Edmund showed her how to apply her eye to the instrument, and how to adjust the focusing-wheel and the mirror. She expressed surprise at the appearance of the magnified moth’s wing, and Edmund showed her the whole series of prepared slides, which included other parts of insects’ bodies, and thin sections cut from the stems and seeds of plants.

  ‘I need a sharper knife and a steadier hand, my lady,’ he told her. ‘The device shows all too clearly the clumsiness of my cutting.’

  ‘Oh no, Master Cordery,’ she assured him, politely. ‘These are quite pretty enough. But we were told that more interesting things might be seen. Living things too small for ordinary sight.’

  Edmund explained the preparation of water-slides. He made a new one, using a pipette to take a drop from a jar full of dirty river-water. Patiently, he helped her search the slide for the tiny creatures which human eyes were not equipped to see. He showed her one which flowed as if it were almost liquid itself, and tinier ones which moved by means of cilia. She was captivated, and watched for some little time, moving the slide very gently with her painted fingernails.

  Eventually, she asked: ‘Have you looked at other fluids?’

  ‘What kind of fluids?’ he asked, though the question was quite clear to him, and disturbed him.

  She was not prepared to mince words. ‘Blood, Master Cordery,’ she said, softly. Her past acquaintance with him had taught her respect for his intelligence, and he half-regretted it.

  ‘Blood clots very quickly,’ he told her. ‘I could not produce a satisfactory slide. It would take more skill than I have yet acquired. But Noell has made drawings of many of the things which we have studied. Would you like to see them?’

  She accepted the change of subject, and indicated that she would. She moved to Noell’s station, and began sorting through the drawings, occasionally looking up at the boy to compliment him on his work. Edmund stood by, remembering how sensitive he once had been to her moods and desires, trying hard to work out exactly what she might be thinking. Something in one of her contemplative glances at Noell sent an icy pang of dread into his gut. He did not know himself whether it was anxiety for his son, or jealousy.

  ‘May I take these to show to the prince?’ asked the vampire, addressing the question to Noell rather than his father. The boy nodded, too embarrassed to construct a proper reply. She took a selection of the drawings, and rolled them into a scroll. She stood up, and faced Edmund again.

  ‘The court is most interested in this apparatus,’ she informed him. ‘We must consider carefully whether to provide you with new assistants, to aid development of the appropriate skills. In the meantime, you may return to your ordinary work. I will send someone for the instrument, so that the prince may inspect it at his leisure. Your son draws well, and must be encouraged. You and he may visit me in my chambers on Monday next; we will dine at seven o’clock.’

  Edmund bowed to signal his acquiescence; it was, of course, a command rather than an invitation. He moved before her to the door and held it open for her. He exchanged a brief glance with her as she went past him, but her expression was distant now, and inscrutable.

  When she had gone, something taut unwound inside him, leaving him relaxed and emptied. He felt strangely cool and distant as he considered the possibility that his life was in peril.

  It was not even my invention, he thought, angrily. After so many years of careful treason, so much endeavour to find the secret of their nature, am I to be thought too dangerous to live only because I have seen what another man has devised? Or have they changed their minds about our scholarly endeavours, and decided to keep watch on all of Francis Bacon’s friends, and the Earl of Northumberland’s magi too?

  He watched Noell while the boy carefully put away the slides which they had used in the demonstration. He had enjoyed these last few weeks, since his son had joined him in his work. As the Lady Carmilla had said, Noell was very like his father, though he had not yet grown to his full stature, and his mind was only beginning to quicken with that inquisitiveness and ingenuity which had made Edmund Cordery what he was.

  Alas!, thought Edmund, I had hoped the day might come when I no longer need protect thee from the truth of my pursuits. Now, perhaps, I must send thee away, and trust thee to the hands of another tutor.

  Aloud, he said only: ‘Be careful, my son. The glass is delicate and sharp in the edge; there is danger of injury on either side.’

  TWO

  When the twilight had faded Edmund lit a single candle on the bench, and sat staring into the flame. He had been turning the pages of Antonio Neri’s Arte Vitraria, which had made the secrets of the Venetian glassmakers known throughout Europe, but he had found himself unable to concentrate on the text. He put the book aside, and poured dark wine from a flask which he kept in the room. He did not look up when Noell came in, though he heard the door open and close; but when the boy brought another stool close to his and sat down, Edmund offered him the flask. Noell seemed surprised, but took it, then found himself a goblet, poured a measure, and sipped carefully.

  ‘Am I old enough to drink with thee, then?’ he asked, with a hint of bitterness in his voice.

  ‘You are old enough,’ Edmund assured him, deliberately using the less intimate form of address. ‘Beware of excess and never drink alone. Conventional fatherly advice, I believe.’

  Noell reached across the bench so that he could stroke the barrel of the microscope with slender fingers. He had not had much of fatherly advice, conventional or otherwise. Edmund had thought it prudent to keep him at a safe distance from treasonous activities, and from dangerous thoughts.

  ‘What are you afraid of?’ Noell asked, matching his father’s form of speech, so that they addressed one another not as parent and child, but as equals.

  Edmund sighed. ‘You are old enough for that, too, I suppose?’

  ‘I think you ought to tell me.’

  Edmund looked at the brass instrument, and said: ‘It might have been better to keep a machine like this a secret among common men, at le
ast for a while. Some clever Italian mechanician, I dare say, eager to please the vampire lords and ladies, showed off his invention as proud as a peacock, avid for their applause. Doubtless the trick was bound to be discovered, though, now that all this play with lenses has become fashionable; and such a secret could not be kept for long.’

  ‘You’ll be glad of eyeglasses when your sight begins to fail,’ Noell told him. ‘In any case, I can’t see the danger in this new toy.’

  Edmund smiled. ‘New toys,’ he mused. ‘Clocks to tell the time, mills to grind the corn, lenses to aid human sight. Turning-machines to make screws, coin-presses to mark and measure the wealth of the Imperium. All produced by common craftsmen for the delight of their masters. I think we have succeeded in proving to the vampires how very clever modern men can be, and how much more there is to know than is written in the pages of the Greek and Roman sages.’

  ‘You think that the vampires are beginning to fear us?’

  Edmund poured wine from the flask and passed it again to his son. ‘They have encouraged scholarship because they thought it a fit distraction; a deflection of our energy from resentful and rebellious ideas. They never looked for the kinds of reward which our learned men have begun to reap. Great changes are remaking the world: changes wrought by artifice and discovery. But an empire of immortals loves constancy. Vampires mistrust the new, whenever it rises above mere novelty. Yes, the vampires are becoming anxious, and justly so.’

  ‘But common men, without immunity to pain, disease and injury, could never threaten their dominion.’

  ‘Their rule is founded as much in fear and superstition as in their nature,’ Edmund said, quietly. ‘To be sure, they are long-lived; they suffer only a little from diseases which are fatal to us; and they have marvellous powers of regeneration. But they are not invulnerable. Their empire is more precarious than they dare admit. After centuries of strife they still have not succeeded in imposing vampire rule on the Mohammedan nations. The terror which keeps them in power in Gaul and Walachia is based in ignorance and superstition. The haughtiness of our princes and knights conceals a gnawing fear of what might happen if common men lose their reverence for vampirekind. It is difficult for them to die, but they do not fear death any the less for that.’