Part 21 (1/2)

'Jonathan will never take me back now. I will lose my son and be an outcast!'

'For what reason?'

'All I've done, and allowed - don't imagine that my husband does not know! He knows everything. Any Christian husband would shun his wife for what I have done.'

Dracula sneered. 'And you wish to return to these bourgeois rules of your so-compa.s.sionate society? I care nothing for their petty values! You think me a monster? Yet I am the one who will never condemn or desert you. I will welcome you always, though you go from me and suck the blood of all your beloved men, of thousands of men throughout the rest of time. You may be more easily rid of your husband, Mina, than you ever will of me. Don't mourn the loss of him. Jonathan will be yours in the end, as will Quincey.'

I closed my eyes. How could I answer?

'Have you made your decision? Do you wish to watch Quincey die, or to see him live for ever?'

'Just to see him again, alive - that is all I ask!'

1 December We have arrived at Hermannstadt.

The gypsies conveyed us along the broad valley of the Tirnave river in their creaking wagons. None spoke to me; they are the least courteous men I have ever met, and very intimidating with their swarthy looks and great black moustaches. I am more afraid of them than of the Count! I occupied myself by observing the scenery; the tiered fields and the leafless poplars, charming villages with low, red-roofed houses. Most have a fortified Saxon church at the centre. But all this medieval charm only reminded me how far I am from home and family.

I can and I will remain strong.

This room is a little larger, but even more eccentrically proportioned than the last. There is a lot of dark wood, and a good fire in the grate; I feel warm, for once. The door gives on to a vine-covered courtyard with stairs and galleries, but from the window I have a fine view of the town. Below me are narrow, cobbled streets with gabled houses, some with baroque fronts on their crooked medieval sh.e.l.ls. Raising my eyes I see the spires and domes of churches, and a long, tearing pang of guilt goes through me; but then, far beyond, there is the sudden blue wall of the mountains. That is where our destination lies. Dear Quincey; can he still be alive in that high, cold wilderness?

It seems strange that Dracula would let Elena reach the Scholomance; I thought he would have overtaken her by now! He has his reasons, I dare say. I must trust him. Ruthless as he is to those who cross him, he has a certain integrity . .. a n.o.bility.

Later Now I am destroyed. I must pray, if G.o.d has not entirely forsaken me. Oh G.o.d, dear Lord, let this all be lies!

Dracula came to me again. This time he did not seem tender but hard; like a man carved of marble yet animated by an inner fire that I have never seen matched in any mortal man. He held me tight and forced me down on to the bed, pinning my wrists so mat I could not struggle even if I had wanted to. Oh, the curse of his kind - that I did not want to resist him - was very strong upon me! I could only gasp, holding myself rigid, as his silken lips moved over my face and down the s.h.i.+vering skin of my throat. Then he bit down - and for a long time I came quite out of myself, and all was breath, and heartbeat, and delicious dizziness; all sensation, not thought. If he is as much beast as man, he is turning me into a beast also; a creature of flesh, not spirit. And for such l.u.s.ts, utterly d.a.m.ned.

When these fires ebbed away and I came back to myself, he still held me down, though more gently now. He had taken only a very, very little blood from me, I could tell, not even enough to make me faint.

'You remember,' he said, 'this - seven years ago.'

'That you violated me while my husband lay sleeping beside us?'

'If you would term it so. I would call it consummation. But you have seen, now, how delicate I can be ... as with you, so with a child. Your son, Mina . . .'

'Stop,' I said. Tears came painfully to my eyes. 'Don't talk to me of Quincey, I beg you. I cannot make such a decision.'

'You cannot decide, then, that he should not become immortal?'

'You are tormenting me. If you wish to prove that I can no longer renounce the Devil, have you not already done so? Quincey is also Jonathan's. He would never agree to such an abomination!'

Dracula smiled at me; a strange smile that was part tender, part malignant. 'Surely it is a decision only a mother could make. Yet you would consult his father?'

'I would not countenance even mentioning such an obscene notion.'

'But if his father was willing, more than willing, to let his son live for ever?'

'To exist for ever,' I said. 'No . . .' But still the idea of Quincey living for ever was so seductive, I could not let it go. And Dracula knew it.

'After that time I refreshed myself from your veins, while Jonathan lay asleep - how many months pa.s.sed before Quincey was born?'

I could not understand why he asked this. I paused to recall. 'Thirteen.'

'It is said that the Devil's get take thirteen months to come to term.'

He let me go, and stood beside the bed, looking down at me with a h.e.l.lish expression of- what? A sort of possessiveness, mixed with triumph. 'Ask yourself, then, who is truly the father of your son?'

His words struck such horror into my heart that I could not breathe. Even now I can barely write the words. I tremble and my tears fall on to the paper. How could he, even he, be so cruel as to suggest such horror, such blasphemy? Many thoughts ran through my head, like a rosary of torments, but I could only whisper at the last, 'Fiend, fiend...'

The Count laughed. His face, for all its harsh angles, became reflective, even tender. 'Such insults fall so easily from your lips.

Does it not strike you as ungracious, Mina, to speak so disparagingly of a man who may be your child's father? For Quincey's sake, at the least, you should accord me the respect and affection due to one who considers himself your devoted husband.'

I could not speak. I closed my eyes and lay motionless as he stroked my hair. 'Tomorrow we go into the mountains. You will need the warmest clothes, thick furs and food enough to last a few days. I will make all ready for you. You will soon be reunited with your son, my beloved, I promise.' Then he added with sudden pa.s.sion, 'What does G.o.d care for you, that he would take your son away? Come with me and he will never know death. Only the Undead can truly appreciate life in all its warmth and richness.

Only the Undead.'

When I looked up again he was gone, and there was only a thin mist swirling outside the window, and a sudden icy draught. I stoked the fire and am sitting over it even now, s.h.i.+vering and forcing myself to set down these words. I feel that I am going mad.

Dracula must be lying, tormenting me - but how can I ever be sure there is not some grain of truth in his hideous implication?

3 December?

I am unsure of the date; I am losing track of time. We left Hermannstadt yesterday, and the Szgany brought us towards the mountains until the way became impa.s.sable for the wagon. Since then we have made our way on foot.

Dracula led me through silent pinewoods and stretches of high pasture. It was growing intensely cold; frost glittered upon the branches and the forest floor crunched beneath our feet. As we emerged from the trees on to a broad saddle of gra.s.s, a bitter wind cut into us. I flinched; the Count only looked up at the sky. In the moonlight every gra.s.s blade was crusted and quivering in the wind, a field of fragile pennants.

As Dracula watched the horizon, clouds began to bank along the mountains and surge towards us. They came so fast, forming out of thin air as they came, that I knew this was unnatural. It was as if he summoned the clouds himself! Soon they clotted thick and low in the sky, obscuring the moon. Darkness folded in, yet I could still see my way, for the clouds and the landscape had a curious luminosity.

He took my arm. As we went on, light veils of snow began to dance across our path. We must have appeared a pair of spectres in the snowy wilderness.

The mountains rose steep and black before us. The sight of them filled me with dismay, for I was s.h.i.+vering and exhausted. At last I said, 'I need to rest. I cannot climb the mountains tonight!'

'Then I will find you somewhere to rest, and I will go on alone,' Dracula said simply.

Strange, how at some moments he can show such effortless courtesy. That both kindness and cruelty should come so instinctively to him, as to a child!Presently we came to a sloping spur of gra.s.s, with the forest running down steep on either side. Near the highest point of the spur was a low wooden building with a steep, overhanging roof. A cart track led us to it, and through a wattle gate in an arched gateway. It was a church. Not a fortified Saxon church but one of the picturesque Orthodox ones that are less common in this region. The spire rose like an arrow against the snow-laden sky; around us, gravestones, walnut trees and waist-high gra.s.s were quickly turning white. The reflective paleness of the snow made it increasingly easy to see, and as we came close to the church I saw that it had a galleried porch with great carved posts, long low walls of ma.s.sive planks which were curved at the apse like the stern of a s.h.i.+p. It made me think of the ark. A refuge to keep me safe from the storm?

Dracula stopped before he reached the porch but held out a hand, ushering me towards it. I saw, beneath the tiny windows, memorial crosses nailed, and pale outlines where older ones had fallen away. I wondered if he could enter a church, or only a chapel where his native earth lay?

I hesitated, with the flakes swirling into my face, the wind biting my cheeks. I did not want him to leave me. He leaned down and kissed me, full on the mouth; then he said, his -voice-stem as the snow, 'I know not how long I will be gone; in the Scholomance I can rest without my native earth, so I need not return to the Szgany. But I will come back to you as soon as I may - if not with Quincey, with news of him. By then you must have made your choice.'

With that, he stepped away from me, and almost immediately vanished into the swaying curtain of snow, which was growing heavier by the minute. Quickly I entered the church.