30
Murdered him?” I repeated blankly.
“Yes, I daresay you don’t believe such a thing is possible.”
“Of you? No, indeed-”
He laughed, which induced another choking fit. “Bless you, my boy,” he said, when he was able to speak again. “Bless you for that. But I’m afraid I’m as damned as Adrian. Perhaps twice as damned, for I have caused you take his place for…well, the future is not foreseeable.” He glanced at Shade. “This old fellow may know how long you must remain as you are, but I do not.” He looked back at me. “Adrian told you that you cannot be killed?”
“I hardly believed him.”
“It is true. Indeed, Adrian bragged to me of exacting revenge on anyone who had tried to murder him-many of those men were my ancestors. In the sixteenth century, a group of them had overpowered him and stabbed him in the heart. They sought the dog, too, but this was wrong of them. As it happened, he proved more fierce than Adrian himself, and eluded them. Still, they were happy-Adrian did not stir. He did not breathe, nor did his heart beat. So, certain he was dead, they covered him in chains and threw him into the sea.”
Despite everything I now knew about Adrian deVille, a horrifying vision arose in my mind, of being in his place. I thought of being brought back to life again and again, only to drown moments later-and to repeat that fate forever.
Lord Varre seemed to understand why I paled. “No need to waste your sympathy,” he said. “Adrian told me he awakened the next morning in a small cottage, one of his many homes here in England, places where he keeps papers and possessions hidden. He placed various protections on these places so that none would disturb them. Thus, while my ancestors were dancing for joy, thinking themselves free of him at last, he was in a comfortable bed, Shade at his side. He was taken with one of his fevers, but while he waited for this to pass, he plotted his revenge.”
He fell silent. Many minutes passed before he spoke again.
“Should you decide to take Shade on a walk through the family cemetery, you will see a great many weatherworn markers for a single year late in the sixteenth century. Anyone will tell you that the plague struck the area, and hardly a man was left standing as a result of it.”
“He caused it?”
“Adrian boasted of bringing it to the place.”
“But that means-he took his revenge on the innocent as well?”
“Children, women, men who had nothing to do with the plot-diaries from the time recount terrible suffering. Early on, when the head of this house and all his family died, Adrian reestablished himself here as the heir to the barony, and turned a deaf ear when any of his remaining persecutors begged for mercy for their families.
“Although little survives in the family records from the time before the plague, there are a few letters and diaries from the times that followed. Stories have been handed down for generations-family tales of ‘Our Monster,’ as he became known. What I tell you next, I’ve learned in part from those stories and writings, and in part from Adrian himself.
“When he returned some thirty years later, his own anger toward the place had not abated. He did not bother with charm now. He was more debauched than ever, behaving insultingly to the women here, and cruelly to the children. He had spent this time, it seemed, learning to inflict pain on others. The family sent their servants away, in order to protect them, and would have sent their own women and children from the place had not Adrian forbidden it. Among the servants, a few stouthearted men stayed to be of whatever help they could. One of them bore the name of Wentworth.”
“An ancestor of your butler?”
He smiled. “Yes. Adrian felt invulnerable, but he was only one man, and the family awaited their chance. One night when he was, as usual, drinking heavily-perhaps you have noticed a change in the way drinking affects you?”
I shook my head. “I enjoy wine as much as the next man, but I’m afraid too much of it makes me so ill, I-” I broke off.
“Assuming you respond to alcohol as Adrian did,” he said calmly, “you will find that you now have what is commonly called a ‘hard head.’ It will take a great deal of drinking before you begin to feel the effects of alcohol, but you may then go on to become remarkably inebriated, to the point of passing out. A moment or two after you reach unconsciousness, you will awaken clearheaded, but suffer nothing more than a brief, slight fever. No headache, no queasiness. In short, you may become stewed to the eyebrows without being punished.”
“I find the prospect less attractive than you may believe.”
He smiled. “You are not much like your predecessor.”
“You were telling me about the second attack on him?”
“Ah, yes. That time, his downfall was at the hands of a raven-haired girl of fifteen, one of the fairest daughters of the house. She was his own granddaughter, but this made no difference to him. He flirted with her as if she were no relation to him. She decided to turn this to good use and enlisted the help of the rest of the household. She was a brave girl, but she professed a great fear of the dog, and on a night when Adrian was drinking and making amorous overtures, she asked Adrian to shut Shade away. For reasons we do not understand, Shade meekly allowed this.”
He paused and scratched the dog fondly on the ears.
“The girl gave a signal as soon as Adrian was well separated from the place where he had locked Shade away. Adrian was set upon again. This time they burned his body and scattered his ashes in the wind.
“They went back to the manor and were of a mind to harm the dog, but the girl stopped them. I do not know that they would have been able to do any of the things they intended to do to Shade, for he is capable of defending himself. She came close to Shade and said, ‘You will protect us, won’t you?’ and set him free.
“The men argued with her, but she paid them no heed.
“Again the dog sought Adrian, and had no difficulty finding him. Again Adrian awoke alive and whole in a place of his own. But for reasons he would not disclose to me, he did not return until long after that young woman had married and died in childbirth. With one notable exception, whenever he came back to visit this place, he reverted to his most charming manner. He usually came here, as I’ve mentioned, in another guise, most often posing as a European cousin who outranked a mere baron. He might be demanding, insist on special treatment and the best rooms, but he brought his own servants, paid for his luxuries, and threatened no one.”
“The notable exception?”
“This last visit. He returned here two weeks after Waterloo. He was demanding, as usual, but also unhappy-he could no longer drink to excess. He needed sleep. He grew hungry several times a day, and it was no longer the kind of mild sensation he had previously thought of as hunger.
“His arm was in a sling-he had been slightly injured on his journey north and the wound had become infected, a matter of some carelessness on his part in treating it, developed over several hundred years of never needing to concern himself over minor wounds. While here, he bumped his head, which raised a lump. Listening to his howls over it, one would have thought the world was coming to an end.
“The realization that he was now humanly vulnerable was emphasized by the fact that he arrived without his dog. Never before had I seen him without Shade. It was immediately clear to me that Shade had in some way restrained Adrian’s worst behaviors on visits to this household.
“I also learned that whatever supernatural gifts Adrian had lost, he was not entirely without power. His temper led to unhappiness with the staff. The staff who upset him began to suffer painful maladies and serious injuries. Two died. Other servants began to talk of the house being accursed, and despite the shortage of work in this area, they quit. That was when I went to him and begged him to have a care. I needed the staff to see to his comfort. What’s more, my two sons and their families would be closing up their London houses and returning here for the summer. I expected them at any moment.