“Don’t take that tone with me,” Horatiu said, and pushed him up against the wall.
Mircea had a response on his lips, but it died at the sight of the knife the old man was wielding, like a butcher coming after a fat young calf. A half-blind butcher, because Horatiu’s eyes were getting worse every year. “I’ll do it myself,” he said, alarmed, and Horatiu thrust it into his hands.
“See that ye do,” he sniped, and took the flesh bucket out the back, and tossed it into the sea.
“You didn’t have to throw in the bucket, too,” Mircea said, watching him.
“As if I could ever use it for anything else!” the old man said, and slammed back inside.
No. Mircea supposed not. But they weren’t finished, and now they had no bucket.
He decided not to mention that. Horatiu was more incensed than Mircea had ever seen him, and not without cause. He and Dorina had spent the hour before dawn scouring the streets for him, and only found him at the last possible moment. If they’d been even a little later . . .
Mircea cut off that train of thought, and swallowed, tasting ash. He felt nauseous and really unwell, but thought it unwise to mention it. Horatiu stomped into the main part of the house, on some errand Mircea didn’t question, perhaps to give him some privacy. Which was appreciated, since the burnt flesh on the lower part of his body came off like a pair of hosen, in one, excruciating piece.
Mircea lay on the floor afterward, naked and uncaring, panting at the ceiling. He was bleeding from a few dozen new wounds, and probably looked like a plague victim. He felt like one, too, although he would live. By late tonight or tomorrow, the reddened flesh would be pale and perfect again; the broken rasp, which was all the fire had left of his voice, a mellow tenor; and his stiff and reluctant muscles smooth and strong.
It was the one thing you could be sure of as a vampire: what didn’t kill you would leave you exactly as you were, with no scars or other reminders of how close you’d come. Not that Mircea needed them. That experience had been seared into his memory, possibly literally.
“Are ye done yet?” Horatiu’s voice demanded, from outside.
Mircea sat up, feeling dizzy. “Yes, I—”
A pair of hosen hit him in the face, cutting off the comment. They were followed by a shirt, a belt, and a hat.
“What is this?” Mircea asked, looking at the latter.
“A hat,” Horatiu told him sweetly. “Ye wear it on yer head.”
“I know what it is! Why do I need it?”
Horatiu didn’t answer. He just left again, while Mircea struggled into the huge old camisa his servant had provided, which was threadbare and patched, and so voluminous that he’d taken to wearing it as a nightshirt, since it drooped well past his knees. Even the soft, weathered weave stung his skin in places, but nowhere near what tight hosen or a fitted doublet would have done.
“Here.” Something was shoved under his nose, while Mircea was still trying to figure out if he dared to put on anything else. He was leaning toward no, and that was before he realized that the thing Horatiu was holding wasn’t the drink he could have really used right now. Instead, it looked like one of the allegorical warnings against sin that pious pilgrims to the city were always snatching up after visiting the brothels, and before stopping by the taverns to drink themselves insensate.
Only hellish painted monsters didn’t blink.
Mircea took the little mirror and examined his face. Half of it was more or less normal, the side turned away from the sun, he assumed. But the rest . . . Mircea swallowed again, taking in the naked skull bubbling with blisters, the reddened, peeling skin of his jaw, and the liquid pus oozing out of a corner of one eye, which was so swollen and puffy that he was surprised he could see at all.
And, frankly, wished he couldn’t.
“It’ll heal,” he croaked, and ignored the expletive that sentiment won him.
He turned back to the table, his eye over a bowl, trying to force out as much pus as possible. Horatiu muttered something just outside Mircea’s damaged hearing as he cleaned up the latest mess. When he was finished, he pulled out a chair and sat down, with an audible sigh.
“All right,” he said, after a moment. “All right.”
“All right what?” Mircea asked, feeling pained and put-upon and grateful and irritated, all at the same time. He appreciated all his servant did for him—he truly did—and he didn’t blame the man for looking disgusted. Mircea had felt his own lip curl at that brief glimpse of the creature in the mirror, so how could he blame Horatiu for a similar expression? But in that case, why didn’t the man leave him alone? Go look at something more attractive, and leave Mircea to what passed for his ablutions?
“We have to talk,” Horatiu said ominously, and Mircea sighed.
Oh, that was why.
“About?”
“About?” Horatiu looked like he was about to smack him again. “What d’ye think? Ye almost killed y’damned self. I hope it was worth it!”
“It was.”
Mircea gave up on the eye and sat back against the wall, feeling about as good as he looked. Horatiu got up again, fetching them both flagons of ale and tossing out the little bowl. Guess that was another thing that couldn’t be saved. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case with other things.
“I have it,” Mircea said, as a tankard was put in front of him.
“Have what?”
“What have I been looking for? The solution.”
“That’s what ye said about the blessed kerchief of the many gold pieces,” Horatiu muttered, and drank ale.
“That was from a shyster—”
“And this isn’t?”
“No.” Mircea drank, to wash the feel of burnt flesh out of his mouth. “No.”
“And how do ye know that?”
Mircea told him.
It took a while, and at the end, Horatiu was staring at him in consternation. Or maybe that was the wonky eye. He couldn’t see out of it worth a damn.
“Are ye mad, boy?”
Or maybe not.
Mircea frowned. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“Pleased? Ye’re talking about killing her!”
“Killing—” Mircea paused, because he obviously hadn’t explained well enough. “No. Just the disease. Vampirism is—”
“What you are!”
“What I have,” Mircea corrected sharply. “A magical disease that I passed on to Dorina, and which is killing her. You know this.”
“What I know is that ye’re not taking her to some lunatic in the damned desert—”
“I will do what I must!”
“—and letting him carve her up—”
“He isn’t—will you listen?” Mircea grabbed the old man’s wrist, because he’d jumped to his feet, as if he planned to spirit Dorina away while Mircea was too weak to stop him. “He isn’t going to carve up anything. He’s going to cast a spell that divides her mind, walling off the vampire-based insanity and allowing her to live a normal life. Isn’t that what we’ve wanted?”
“No! That’s what ye’ve wanted! Ye hate what ye are, even now, after all this time. Ye can’t accept it, blame it for costing you—”
“Careful.” They didn’t talk about his deceased wife. They just didn’t.
Except for tonight, apparently.
“Why careful?” Horatiu demanded harshly. “Elena’s dead because of that damned murderous bastard of a brother of yours, not for anything ye could have—”
“She’s dead because I left her! Alone and unprotected! Just like I left Dorina—”
“Ye didn’t even know she existed!”