The Taker-Taker 1

  Adair froze, realization breaking on his face. “My God, she is pregnant. Did no one know she was with child?” he roared as he spun around, flinging an arm at Alejandro behind him. My body was shutting down, piece by piece, and my soul was terrified, searching for a place to go.

  And then it ceased to be.

  I woke up.

  Of course, the first thing I thought was that the terrible episode had been a dream or that I’d passed the peak of my illness and was recovering. I found momentary comfort in these explanations, but I couldn’t deny that something terrible and irrevocable had happened to me. If I concentrated very hard, I remembered blurred visions, of being held against the mattress, of someone carrying away a large copper basin filled with thick, foul-smelling blood.

  I woke in my pauper’s bed in the tiny room, but the room was ghastly cold, the fire long since died out. The curtains over the sole window were drawn, but there was a sliver of overcast sky visible where the panels met. The sky had that gray cast of a New England autumn to it, but even those tiny chinks of light were bright and chalky, and painful to look at.

  My throat burned as though I’d been forced to drink acid. I decided to go searching for a draft of water, but when I sat up, I was thrown immediately to my back as the room circled and spun. The light, my equilibrium … I felt terribly sensitive, like an invalid altered by a prolonged illness.

  Aside from my throat and my fiery head, the rest of me was cold. My muscles no longer burned with fever. Instead, I moved sluggishly, as though I’d been left to float in cold water for days. One very important thing had changed and I didn’t need anyone to tell me what it was: I no longer carried my baby with me. It was gone.

  It took me about a half hour to leave the room, slowly acclimating to standing, then walking. As I inched down the hall toward the courtiers’ bedchambers, I heard the quotidian noises of the household quite precisely, with an animal’s keenness: whispered conversations between lovers in bed; the snoring of the head butler napping in the linen closet; the sound of water being drawn from the giant cauldron, perhaps for someone’s bath.

  I stopped in front of Alejandro’s door, swaying on my feet, steeling myself to go in and demand that he explain what had happened to me and to my unborn child. I raised my hand to knock, but stopped. Whatever had happened to me was serious and irrevocable. I knew who had the answers and I decided to go right to the source: the one who had placed poison on my tongue, spoken magical words in my ear, and made everything change. The one who, in all likelihood, had taken my child from me. For my lost child’s sake, I had to be strong.

  I turned and strode to the end of the hall. I raised my hand to knock and again thought better of it. I wouldn’t come to Adair as a servant, asking for permission to speak with him.

  The doors parted with one push. I knew the room and the habits of its occupant, and went straight to the bower of cushions where Adair slept. He lay under a sable blanket, unmoving as a corpse, his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.

  “You’ve rejoined us,” he said, more a declaration than an observation. “You’re back among the living.”

  I was afraid of him. I couldn’t explain the things he’d done to me, or why I hadn’t run from Tilde’s invitation at the carriage, or why I’d let any of this happen. But the time had come to confront him.

  “What did you do to me? And what happened to my baby?”

  His eyes shifted, settling on me, as baleful as a wolf’s. “You were dying from infection and I decided not to let you leave, not yet. And you didn’t want to die. I saw it in your eyes. As for the baby—we didn’t know you were with child. Once you’d been given the unction, there was nothing to be done for the child.”

  My eyes welled with tears, that after everything—the exile from St. Andrew, surviving despite the hellish infection—my baby had been taken away from me so thoughtlessly. “What did you do … how did you keep me from dying? You said you were not a doctor …”

  He rose from the bed and slipped on a silk robe. He grabbed my wrist, and before I knew what was happening, whisked me out of the room and down the stairs. “What has happened to you cannot be explained. It can only be—shown.”

  He dragged me to the common rooms in the back of the house. As we passed Dona in the hall, Adair snapped his fingers at him and said, “Come with us.” He took me to the room behind the kitchen where the giant cauldrons used to cook for crowds and the other pantry oddities were kept: fish grills, shaped to fit a fish like an iron maiden; cake tins and forms; and the half barrel of water drawn from the cistern for household use. The water glinted, black and cold, in the barrel.

  Adair shoved me into Dona’s arms and gestured to the barrel with a toss of his head. Dona rolled his eyes as he yanked up the sleeve on his right arm and then, as swiftly as a housewife snatching up the chicken that is to be the evening’s supper, he grabbed the back of my neck and plunged my head into the water. I had no time to prepare and swallowed a lungful of water immediately. By the strength of his grip, I could tell he didn’t mean to let me go. All I could do was thrash and struggle in the hope I might knock the barrel over or that he’d relent out of pity. Why had Adair saved me from infection and a fever if he meant to have me drowned now?

  He shouted at me; I heard his voice through the splashing but couldn’t make out his words. A long stretch of time seemed to pass, but I knew this must be an illusion. The dying were said in their panic to experience each of their last seconds clearly and distinctly. But I had depleted the air in my lungs; surely death would come at any moment. I hung from Dona’s hand in the water, numb with cold and terror, waiting for my end. Wanting to join the lost child, wanting—after all that had happened to me—to give up. To be at peace.

  Dona yanked my head from the barrel and water coursed from my hair, down my face, and over my shoulders, spattering all over the floor. He held me upright.

  “So, what do you think?” Adair asked.

  “You tried to kill me just now!”

  “But you didn’t drown, did you?” He handed Dona a towel, which he used to wipe his wet arm, disdainfully. “Dona held you under for a good five minutes, and here you stand, alive. The water didn’t kill you. And why do you think that is?”

  I blinked the frigid water from my eyes. “I—don’t know.”

  His grin was like a skeleton’s. “That’s because you’re immortal. You can never die.”

  I crouched by the fire in Adair’s bedchamber. He gave me a glass and a bottle of brandy, and lay on his bed while I stared at the flames and avoided the hospitality of his alcohol. I didn’t want to believe him and I didn’t want anything he might give me. If I couldn’t kill him for taking my baby from me, then I wanted to run away from him and out of the house. Again, however, fear kept me from thinking clearly, and the last shreds of my common sense warned me that I shouldn’t leave. I had to hear him out.

  Next to the bed was a curious instrument, with tubes and chambers made of brass and glass. I now know it to be a hookah, but at the time it was only an exotic contraption that bellowed sweet smoke. Adair drew on the pipe and exhaled a long stream toward the ceiling, until his eyes grew glassy and his limbs were languid.

  “Do you understand now?” he asked. “You are no longer mortal. You are beyond life and death. You cannot die.” He offered the hookah’s mouthpiece to me, then pulled it back when I didn’t take it. “It doesn’t matter how someone might try to kill you—neither bow nor rifle, knife nor poison, fire nor water. A mound of earth piled on top of you. Neither disease nor famine.”

  “How can that be?”

  He took another long draft on the pipe, holding in its narcotic smoke for a moment before releasing it in a thick cloud. “How this came to be, I cannot tell you. I’ve thought on it, prayed on it, tried to dream on it using all manner of drugs. No answer has come to me. I can’t explain it and have come to stop looking for answers.”

  “You’re saying you cannot die?”

  “I’m
saying I’ve been alive for hundreds of years.”

  “Who in God’s universe is immortal?” I asked of myself. “Angels are immortal.”

  Adair snorted. “Always the angels, always God. Why is it that when one hears a voice speak to them, they always assume it is God talking?”

  “Are you saying it’s the work of the devil?”

  He scratched his flat stomach. “I’m saying I have searched for answers, and no voice has spoken to me. Neither God nor Satan has taken the trouble to explain to me how this—miracle—fits into his plans. No one has commanded me to do his bidding. From this, I can only deduce that I am no one’s minion. I have no master. We are all immortal—Alejandro, Uzra, and the rest. I have made all of you, understand?” Another long draw on the pipe, a gurgle of water, and his booming voice lowered. “You have transcended death.”

  “Please stop saying that. You’re frightening me.”

  “You will get used to this, and very soon, you’ll never be frightened again. There will be nothing to be frightened of. There is only one rule for you to follow now, one person you must obey, and that person is me. Because I have your soul now, Lanore. Your soul and your life.”

  “I must obey you now? Does that mean you are God?” I snorted, too, being as brazen as I felt I could be with him.

  “The God you were raised on has given you up. Do you remember what I said before you received the gift? You are my possession now and forever. I am your god and if you do not believe me and care to test what I tell you, I invite you to try to defy me.”

  By then, I had let him lead me to the bed and didn’t protest as he lay beside me. He fed me the mouthpiece and stroked my damp hair as I sucked in the heavy fumes. The narcotic wrapped around me, cradled me, and my fear collapsed like an exhausted child. Now that I was worn down and sleepy, Adair was almost tender. “I have no explanation to give you, Lanore, but there is a story. I’ll tell you that story, my story. I’ll tell you how I came to be, and perhaps then you’ll understand.”

  NINETEEN

  HUNGARIAN TERRITORY, A.D. 1349

  As soon as Adair saw the stranger, he knew with the unmistakable chill of premonition that the old man had come for him.

  The end of the day was the time when they celebrated, the nomadic laborers with whom Adair’s family traveled. As night descended, they built giant campfires to enjoy the one piece of the day they could call their own. Their long hours working in the fields were over and so they gathered to share food and drink and entertain one another. His uncle would not yet be drunk and so would play folk tunes on his peasant’s violin, accompanying Adair’s mother and the other women as they sang. Someone would bring a tambourine, another would bring a balalaika. Adair sat with his whole family, his five brothers and two sisters, along with the older brothers’ wives. His happiness that night was complete when he saw, on the far side of the leaping fire, Katarina approach the circle with her family.

  He and his family were wanderers, as were Katarina’s family and everyone in the caravan. Once upon a time they had been serfs to a Magyar lord, but he had deserted them, leaving them to bandits. They fled from the villages in their wagons and had lived in their wagons ever since, following the harvest as itinerant workers, digging ditches, tending fields, taking whatever work they could find. The Magyar and Romanian kingdoms were fighting then, and there were too few Magyar nobles spread over the countryside to protect the vagabonds, should they even be inclined.

  Still, it hadn’t been so long ago that they had been forced from their home that Adair couldn’t remember what it was like to sleep inside a house at night, to have that small bit of security. His brothers Istvan and Radu had been babies, though, and had no recollection of the earlier, happier life. Adair felt bad that his younger brothers had never known those times, but then they seemed in their own way to be happier than the rest of the family and were perplexed by the melancholy that haunted their siblings and parents.

  The stranger had appeared suddenly, at the edge of the gathering that evening. The first thing Adair noticed about him was that he was very old, practically a shrunken corpse leaning on his walking stick, and as he got closer, he looked older still. His skin was papery and wrinkled, and dotted with age spots. His eyes were coated with a milky film but nevertheless had a strange sharpness to them. He had a thick head of snow white hair, so long that it trailed down his back in a plait. But most notable were his clothes, which were of Romanian cut and made of costly fabrics. Whoever he was, he was wealthy and, even though an old man, had no fear of stepping into a gypsy camp alone at night.

  He pushed through the ring of people and stood in the center of the circle, next to the bonfire. As his gaze rippled over the crowd, Adair’s blood stood in his veins. Adair was no different from every other boy in the encampment: uneducated, unwashed, underfed. He knew there was no reason for the old man to single him out, but his sense of foreboding was so strong that he would have leaped to his feet and run from the circle if his youthful pride hadn’t stopped him—he hadn’t done anything to this old man, so why should he run?

  After a silent search of the faces illuminated in the fire’s lambent glow, the old man smiled unpleasantly, lifted his hand, and pointed directly at Adair. Then he looked over at the group of elders. By now, all activity had stopped, the music, the laughter. All eyes fell on the stranger and then moved to Adair.

  His father broke the silence. He pushed through Adair’s brothers and sisters and grabbed Adair by the forearm, nearly yanking it from its socket. “What have you done, boy?” he hissed through his gaping teeth. “Do not just sit there—come with me!” He pulled his son to his feet. “The rest of you—what are you staring at? Go back to your storytelling and your foolish singing!” And as he dragged Adair away, Adair felt the stares of his family, and Katarina, on his back.

  The two went to a dark overhang under a tree, out of earshot of the campfire, followed by the stranger.

  Adair tried to deflect whatever trouble had found him. “Whoever you are looking for, I swear it is not me. You’ve mistaken me for another.”

  His father slapped him. “What did you do? Steal a chicken? Take some potatoes or onions from the fields?”

  “I swear,” Adair sputtered, holding the fiery spot on his cheek and pointing at the old man. “I don’t know him.”

  “Do not let your guilty imagination run away with you. I’m not accusing the boy of any crime,” the old man said to Adair’s father. He beheld both Adair and his father with contempt, as he might beggars or thieves. “I have chosen your son to come work for me.”

  To his credit, Adair’s father was suspicious of the offer. “What use could you have for him? He has no skills. He is a field hand.”

  “I need a servant. A boy with a strong back and sturdy legs.”

  Adair saw his life taking an abrupt, unwelcome turn. “I’ve never been a house servant. I wouldn’t know what to do—”

  A second slap from his father stopped Adair short. “Do not make yourself out to be more worthless than you are,” his father snapped. “You can learn, even if learning is not among your strengths.”

  “He will do, I can tell.” The stranger walked around Adair slowly, appraising him like a horse for sale in the thieves’ market. He trailed a scent in his wake, smoky and dry, like incense. “I do not need someone with a strong mind, just someone to help a fragile old man with the demands of life. But …” Here his eyes narrowed, and his countenance became fierce again. “I live a distance away and will not make this trip again. If your son wants the position, he must leave with me tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Adair’s throat tightened.

  “I am prepared to pay for the loss of your son’s contribution to your family,” the stranger said to Adair’s father. With those words, Adair knew he was lost, for his father would not turn down money. By this time, his mother was approaching them, keeping to the tree’s shadow, wringing her skirts in her hands. She waited with Adair, as his father and the stranger
haggled over a price. Once a sum was settled upon and the old man left to ready his horse, Adair’s mother flew to her husband.

  “What are you doing?” she cried, even though she knew her husband would not change his mind. There would be no arguing with him.

  But there was more at stake for Adair and he had nothing to lose, so he turned on his father. “What have you done to me? A stranger walks into camp and you sell one of your children to him! What do you know of him?”

  “How dare you question me!” he said, lashing out, knocking Adair to the ground. The rest of the family had come down from the bonfire by now, and stood beyond their father’s reach. It was nothing new for them to watch a sibling being beaten, but it was unsettling all the same. “You are too stupid to know a good opportunity when you see it. Obviously, this man is wealthy. You’ll be the servant of a rich man. You’ll live in a house, not a wagon, and you will not have to work in the fields. If I thought the strange man would agree to it, I’d ask him to take one of the others as well. Maybe Radu, he is not so blind that he cannot see when a good thing falls in his lap.”

  Adair picked himself off the ground, shamefaced. His father cuffed him again on the back of the head for good measure. “Now, pack your things and say your good-byes. Do not make this man wait for you.”

  His mother searched her husband’s face. “Ferenc, what do you know of this man you are entrusting with our son? What has he told you of himself?”

  “I know enough. He is a physic to a count. He lives in a house on the count’s estate. Adair will be indentured to him for seven years. At the end of seven years, Adair can choose whether to leave or remain in the physic’s employ.”

  Adair calculated the figures in his mind: in seven years, he would be twenty-one, halfway through his life. As it was, he was just coming into marrying age and was impatient to follow in his older brothers’ footsteps and take a bride, start a family, be accepted as a man. As a house servant, he wouldn’t marry or be allowed to have children; his life would go into suspension during this most crucial time. By the time he was free, he would be old. What woman would want him then?