Ray yelled and slapped the edge of the roofline excitedly, probably because the blue shirts of the fishermen had regrouped and were charging again, their numbers reduced but their courage undaunted. The black shirted Arsenal cluster had been distracted, fighting with some local boys who had decided to throw rocks. They turned just in time to see a wall of blue descending on them.
But I was no longer paying much attention, letting the memory play out for Ray while I toyed with another. It wasn’t one I usually allowed myself to see. There was no point anymore.
But something about today was different, as if there was magic in the air. Or perhaps seeing Venice once more, another memory I rarely looked at, alive and bright with Ray’s shared joy, had triggered it. Either way, I was suddenly back there again, seeing my father coming home on a winter’s night, knocking snow off his great cloak.
I knew immediately that he’d had success at the tables.
It was in his step, light and joyful; in the way he picked me up and spu
n me around, as if I weighed nothing; in the smile on his face and the set of his shoulders, straight and unbowed, as if, for once, he had been able to lay down his burdens.
He had so many of them, that it was a rare sight. Many vampires who came to Venice, seeking the minimal security it offered to the masterless, could not even manage to provide for themselves. They fell prey to dark mages, to charlatans, to unscrupulous masters who preyed on the weak and helpless, dangling the idea of a family in front of their noses to get them to do all manner of illegal deeds, while never intending to pay up.
They found those poor unfortunates all the time, or what was left of them: bleached bones on the beaches, the only remains of so-called immortals, who had never even made it past a normal human life span. They could not handle the stress of facing the world alone, but Mircea had had to do that as well as to provide for two dependents: me, and his old tutor and friend Horatiu, who was aging and no longer able to earn his bread.
If Mircea didn’t care for us, no one would, and the knowledge gnawed at him.
Yet it had been nowhere that night.
“Look what I brought you,” he said, sitting down on a stool by the fire, and pulling me into his lap.
The firelight was kind to the rich, mahogany of his hair and to the dark eyes that were so much like mine. It was less so to the strained face, the features as handsome as always, but drawn and tired looking as well. Vampires were often seen as superhuman and invincible, but Mircea was a very new vampire with no family to draw on. And these nightly forays, into dangerous a city filled with vastly stronger predators than he, were draining.
But his expression was nonetheless happy and even proud. He brought something out from under his cloak, and for a moment, I was afraid. Because it was a gift, a large, square box done up in brown paper with a string knotted into a bow on top.
I sat with it in my hands for a moment, steeling myself, because Horatiu had gotten me a gift that day, as well. My birthday was coming up soon, only nobody really knew when, for there was no one to ask. But father had assigned me a day to celebrate, we’d had better food than usual for the last week, and Horatiu had surprised me this morning with . . . a doll.
It had been exquisitely made; I had seen that at once. The body was carved out of bone and had articulated joints, moving almost like a real person. The hair was carved, too, but painted a glossy black, and the eyes were a deep, rich brown. It had carved shoes on its feet and a pretty, real cloth dress made out of a scrap of blue fabric. There was even a miniature necklace of tiny seed pearls around its long, aristocratic neck.
I knew immediately that Horatiu had not bought it. Such things would have been far outside our means, no matter how much he had scrimped from the household budget. He had made it, perhaps getting a little help with the finer features from Mircea or the woodcarver down the street, as his old eyes were failing.
But he had made it, nonetheless, for me, and I could not even imagine all the long hours that must have gone into it. I had seen him hiding something whenever I rose early or came home unexpectedly from play. I hadn’t thought much about it, but now I knew: all his spare time, for months and months, had gone into this.
I’d had no choice but to love it.
And I had, because I loved him, but I did not want a doll. They were the pretty playthings of the wealthy, for girls who did not have a whole city to explore. I did not want to sit inside and play with a doll when there were so many more interesting things to do. But I would; I knew that as soon as I saw Horatiu’s proud and happy face. He was so pleased that he’d managed to get me something that belonged to a girl of my station, as he insisted on calling it, despite the fact that none of us had a station anymore.
We were exiles from a throne I’d never known, and which my father had never wanted. It was now occupied by someone else, who I wasn’t sure as it changed often, but not us. And it would never be us again.
But Horatiu saw me as a little princess, and now his princess had a doll. I had hugged his neck and told him how much it meant to me. That, at least, had not been a lie. But I had been dismayed to think that I was to be stuck inside with it, while my friends stole candy and played pranks and watched ships come in at the docks, carrying untold wonders from faraway lands.
And now I had two dolls.
I smiled anyway and unwrapped my gift, and then just sat there for the longest time, staring.
It was not a doll.
“Do you like it?” Mircea asked, his face growing concerned. Probably because I had immediately thanked Horatiu this morning, whereas now, I couldn’t seem to speak.
It was a small copy of Mircea’s own artist’s box, the one he used to paint the pictures that supplemented our income. It had a plain wooden cover concealing wonder after wonder. There was a sheaf of finely made brushes, half vair hair, from the squirrels whose bluish gray fur often lined gowns in winter, and half pig bristle; a wooden palette fitted for a small hand, and complete with a flask of linseed oil, already reduced in the sun and perfect for mixing paints; a bunch of willow twigs made into charcoal for sketching; some costly rag paper, which could also be used for sketching or could be coated in linseed oil and made semi-transparent, for tracing.
But as astonishing as all of those were, they paled into comparison with the pigments, so wonderful and so many! There were the two mainstays of lead white and lamp black, the latter made from the soot collected from oil lamps. There were the arsenic-derived hues of orpiment and realgar, the first of which was a bright, lemon yellow, and the second a vivid orange, and which mixed together made a color reminiscent of gold. There were the clays: the beautiful reddish-brown of sienna, the softer, yellowish brown of umber, and the rich, dark brown of burnt umber. There were the blues: the deep sapphire of indigo, the sparkling, blue-green of azurite, and the purplish red of madder root. Even the rich crimson of vermilion had been included, and the costly but brilliant green of malachite.
But they weren’t in solid form, as I’d expected. Instead, finely ground powders resided in small, square wooden cells that took up fully half of the larger box. I had never seen anything like it.
“I ground them for you,” Mircea explained. “Some of the pigments can be dangerous. This way, you don’t have to touch them.”
“No,” I whispered.