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fyrie, who is currently busy utterly breaking my brain in another post, and who once asked how did I think Herbert von Krolock got to be a vampire.
Tanz der Vampire, no pairing. You don't have to know anything about the fandom beyond the fact that the Graf von Krolock is a vampire, and before he came to be one, he fathered a son.
In keeping with the canon mood - well, the canon is a Gothic rock opera. That should tell you something. 2,750 words.
(Still not sure if I got the name of the duelling ground in Vienna correctly. Corrections and other constructive criticism welcome.)
TODESGLOCKEN
Autumn of the Year of Our Lord 1638, Vienna, Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
The night air already carried the autumn chill, but the ground of the courtyard was still more dust than mud. Kinga was grateful for it as she carried the pail of dishwater to the gutter. Less cleaning to do, especially now that most student lodgers were spending the night outside the city gates at one of the last revelries before the cold chased them back to the wineries and cellars close enough for the boys to drag themselves home once they were kicked out. They would wake her then to open the gate for them, but tonight they'd rather sleep under the stars than chance the long trek.
All except one, she thought. Just one window with the faint light of a candle she'd lit for him before dusk fell. She would have to go there and light another before she went to sleep; otherwise he'd wake and open his wound again trying to do it himself.
Kinga shivered. It was really getting cold at night.
She heard hoof beats, a sharp staccato over the cobblestones. She wondered who it could be, now that midnight had passed. A courier, perhaps, carrying mail from the outer reaches of the empire. She had sent a letter to the boy's home when he had first been brought to her lodging house, but she doubted he would live to read the answer.
The horse came around the corner at near gallop, pulled back by the rider just as it was about to ride her down. It was a great bay with a dark coat that was almost black in the moonlight. She stepped back towards the gate of the house, out of the reach of its hooves.
Of the rider, all she saw was a swirl of a dark cloak as he dismounted. "Which of these houses belongs to Kunegunde Tiedeman?" he demanded sharply.
Transylvanian accent, flickered through her mind.
"That would be me," she said, drawing her tiredness and indignation around her. She hadn't been running a lodging house for unruly students for twenty years without gathering some force of her own. "And I'm not accepting visitors this late."
The stranger grew still. She had the feeling he was watching her, though his face was in shadow.
"Forgive me, Frau Tiedeman," he said. "I did not expect the matron of a lodging house to be out on the street so late at night."
"Usually, I'm not," she scoffed. She headed back inside the courtyard, heard him following, leading the horse. He seemed to have manners, at least. "I gave the girls the night off - there is a feast outside the gates tonight. I would go myself, but care of the sick comes first."
"Care of the sick?" There was hesitation in that voice, as if he wanted to say something more.
He really had a remarkable voice, Kinga thought. Deep and melodious, and she was sure the accent reminded her of somebody.
She sighed. "It's such a sad story. Students duelling - I don't know why they don't just settle it with a brawl like normal people. And the boy won't tell anyone who the other man was, so all I know is that his friends found him in Buchenwäldchen Grove and brought him here. The doctors had hope at first, but now..."
"Now?" he whispered.
"He is dying. One day, maybe two." Kinga shrugged. "It happens. I've done my best."
For a moment, the courtyard was silent enough that she could hear her own breathing. Then the horse snorted.
"I'm sure you did, Frau Tiedeman," the stranger said. "Thank you. And thank you for sending the letter."
She startled. The letter? But it should have barely reached the border of Transylvania by now-
The man dropped his horse's reins on the ground, as if he were sure the animal would not move without command, and stepped into the pool of light falling from the attic window.
He wore black in the Spanish style, restrained and unembroidered. His hair fell down to his shoulders, straight and thick and dark. His face was pale, but it wasn't only the paleness that brought such resemblance between him and the boy.
His eyes were dark as night.
"I am Graf Johannes von Krolock," he said, bowing to her as if she were a princess of the blood, not a simple Viennese bürgerin. "Herbert is my son."
* * *
The attic room was bare and worn, but clean. The light of the single candle flickered on the crumpled sheets on the bed, on the pale gold hair arranged, funeral-like, over the shoulder of the still figure tangled in the bedcovers.
The air smelled of decay.
If Von Krolock's heart had beat, it would have skipped and stuttered at that moment. He moved his hand blindly to close the door behind him, and the wooden planks struck the doorframe with a dull thud.
"Frau Kinga?" The voice was the one he knew, but so weak and strained, almost silenced. "I told you I'd be all right - the candle's still-"
"Herbert," von Krolock murmured, unable to stop himself from audibly reassuring the boy's identity.
A jerk, a sigh that was almost a cry, grey eyes falling open, and for once he blessed his unnatural speed as a second later, he was gently cradling his son.
"Father." Herbert's voice was breaking even more, now. "I thought you'd come."
Von Krolock pressed a kiss to his son's hair. "I'm here."
Herbert's smile was as warm as always, his eyes as bright - maybe brighter - but the rest of his senses told von Krolock that the situation was by no means good. The smell was the worst of them, rot and decay like a body already disintegrating. Under his fingers, Herbert's shoulders were frailer than they had been since he had discovered fencing at fifteen. Each breath the boy took was laboured, underlaid with a stifled gasp of pain.
"What happened to you?" The question had been preying on von Krolock's mind since he had learned of his son's injury. Herbert could be reckless with horses or affairs of the heart, but with a blade in his hand the boy had long surpassed him. Even swordsmen with centuries of experience found Herbert a skilled and unpredictable opponent, and von Krolock could not believe another student had beaten him so easily.
"When you're fighting for someone's honour-" Herbert paused to draw a laboured breath, then winced as he shifted his legs to free them from the confines of the tangled sheets. "You don't really expect him to stab you in the gut when he falls into your arms after you've sent your opponent's sword sailing into the air."
The hiss came before von Krolock could clench his teeth, the monstrous and human parts of him for once in agreement about the fate of someone who had hurt what was his.
"All false - start to end." Herbert's laugh was cut off by a pained moan. "Should know better. Yet such a pretty face."
"They'll suffer," his father promised.
"Oh, yes, yes." Pale lips curled back from white teeth. "I'll cut them to pieces. If I can."
"You will. I'll summon doctors from the University, from the court-"
The softest rasping sound of long strands of hair shifting against each other as Herbert shook his head. "They've been here. All of them."
"I'll find others-"
"I-" Another drawn-out breath, and Herbert was trembling now. "I don't think I have the time."
Von Krolock's fingers clenched, and for a moment he thought his nails had cut his son's skin, but the sharp smell of fresh blood had another source. As Herbert struggled to raise himself and turn in his arms, the sweat-soiled linen of his shirt parted, revealing a bandage streaked with red and brown. At the edge of the bandage, the pale skin was reddened, pulled taut.
"Father, listen," the young man hissed. "It comes and goes, the fever - late night brings retreat, but I don't know how long I have, how much time with my thoughts clear enough. Listen."
For a moment all was still. Then von Krolock placed his hands under Herbert's arms, supporting his son's weight without jarring his wound. The trembling was more pronounced now, a sequence of bone-rattling shudders that ran the length of Herbert's skin.
"I'm dying," Herbert said. "There's poison in my blood, and no doctor can draw it out. I don't want it to end like this."
He paused to catch his breath. This close, the smell of decay was sharp, mingling with the blood and sweat.
"I've had a week since the poison set in," he started again. "Nothing to do but think. And what I thought is that nothing - not my blood, not my soul, not any chance at heaven I could possibly have - is worth dying like this, before I've seen, lived, loved, anything. You said it's damnation. Let me be damned, father."
Von Krolock's eyes closed, then opened. He opened his mouth, took an unnecessary breath.
"No," Herbert breathed, his strength clearly failing him. "What's the choice? Even if by some miracle I live like this, crippled, half-rotted - but dead or living, I'm no good to anyone. There would never be heirs by me, father, and God does not love such as I."
Slowly, carefully, von Krolock lowered his son's body to the bed again, spreading his cloak to provide a gentler surface than the coarse sheets. He stroked the pale hair, felt the dampness that spoke of a recent wash. It made sense, somehow: nothing appealed more to Herbert than his own beauty, and the matron of the lodging house looked to have a heart soft enough to comfort her patient in the only way that was left.
He remembered holding Herbert like that, some fifteen years earlier, as his son had struggled to breathe in the grasp of some childhood fever. In the end, he had found a book describing how cool, moist air would ease that affliction. Herbert had spent the rest of that week sleeping beside him in the crypt and had treated it as the greatest adventure ever.
"You're precious to me," he whispered.
The smile he got in return was hardly more than a pained grimace. "Then keep me with you. I've watched you for twenty years... I know what I'm asking for..."
"Herbert-"
"Father." A trembling hand reached out, seized his shoulder in a surprisingly strong grasp. "Please."
This was his son, his child, his and Izabella's - Izabella, dead these twenty years, dead with fear in her eyes, blood in her pale gold hair - but he had lived through, learned so much since then, though he'd never wished-
Before he was aware of the choice he had made, his fingers were slipping into Herbert's hair, gently lifting the boy's head. He gave into the pressure of the hand on his shoulder, bowing lower until the dark strands of his hair brushed Herbert's skin.
With a pained hiss, Herbert bowed his head back, arching his throat. How many people had the boy seen killed that way, von Krolock wondered. How much courage, how much trust did that one motion take?
As he bowed lower, Herbert's other arm wrapped around his neck. He only heard the whisper because his ear was so close to his son's mouth.
"Thank you."
He could hear the heartbeat, too faint, too slow, Still Herbert's grip on him was feverishly strong, threatening to tear the fabric of his clothes.
His fangs sank into his son's neck far too easily.
He tasted the dark poison in the blood as he heard the pained gasp, but the bitterness did not stop him. What danger was the rot to one that was already a corpse?
He forced his clenched throat to swallow. This close, with the same blood running through them both, a thought sufficed to bridge their minds, another thing he had not done in many years. He near-shook under the weight of the pain, but still he took it into himself with the blood and the life, leaving nothing but ashes in his wake.
Herbert's breathing slowed, evened out. His fingers flexed once, twice, then slowly slipped from his father's shoulders.
The last draught of blood was sweeter, untainted. The blood of the heart, he remembered his Sire's words, and the last you're allowed to take if you would have another made in your image. That time, the lesson had come too late.
He raised his head with a gasp. The incisions on Herbert's neck were small, bloodless. He leaned his forehead against his son's, letting their hair mingle on the folds of his cloak under Herbert's head, and listened for breath.
None came.
He wanted to hold the body in his arms again, stroke the golden hair, but there was no reason to, not now that there was no-one to feel the comfort. Instead, he straightened and leaned against the headboard of the bed, looking into the shadows. He pressed his palms against each other in the gesture his mother had taught him long ago, but of all the books on religion in his library, not one sacred name came to his mind.
The candle burned and flickered as the melting wax pooled below it, sending the shadows dancing. They floated over Herbert's pale skin, dark eyelashes, the pale gold strands scattered over black cloth. He knew the body would be cold by now, colder than his own skin.
He knew dawn would come soon, but he did not move. In the distance, the bells of a hundred churches tolled the rhythm calling the faithful to prayer at the first ritual of the day, though the sun had yet to rise.
He wondered whether any of the bell-ringers knew, the passing of how bright a soul these bells were mourning.
* * *
There were enough candles in the suite to read easily even once the last twilight had faded from the horizon. The Black Swan spared no expense on its guests' comfort, and they in return certainly did not spare money by lodging there. Von Krolock made a note to pay another retainer for the suite before he left; this was the most comfortable set of rooms in the guesthouse, and he had no desire to lodge anywhere else in Vienna.
He turned another page. His favourite publisher had proven as reliable as always, and while he got his hands on a fresh English Rosicrucian text that was even more interesting than this heretic treatise, the book had engrossed him completely. It was from the Netherlands, so he would have to hide it carefully on the way home, but the ideas were fresh and interesting. It was a pity it was so short.
Someone was whistling on the staircase, taking the stairs two - no, three at a time. The melody was the latest unofficial hymn of the University of Vienna, something unprintable and rife with rumours about the private habits of various faculty members. The door creaked as it opened.
"Did you have a pleasant stroll?" von Krolock asked.
"Just delightful." Herbert chuckled and twirled on his heel. The Brussels lace at his cuffs was even paler than his skin. "The weather's great, too. Refreshing."
Von Krolock reached out and grabbed his son's right wrist on the next rotation, ignoring the protesting yelp. He pushed back the lace, revealing a cross-shaped burn.
"Hey, I did that," Herbert pointed out. "Darling Janos was Hungarian and an altar boy. I wanted to see the fear in his eyes. I would have done it in front of both of them, but I only saw the crucifix after I'd put Heinrich's eyes out."
"You'll have to wear gloves for the next few days."
"I like my gloves. Are you done with that book, father? It really is a pleasant night."
Von Krolock gave the book a rueful look, then closed it. "I'll finish it later. What did you have in mind?"
"You've heard of the Spanish theatre troupe in town? The one doing Vega's plays?"
"The one whose performances are by invitation only?"
Herbert brandished two squares of pasteboard triumphantly. "It appears dear Heinrich had used his parents' influence. Since he won't be using them..."
Von Krolock smiled as he followed his son out of the suite. He could see a hundred thousand nights like these, stretching out into eternity.
The nights were theirs to seize, after all.
=FINIS=
fyrie, who is currently busy utterly breaking my brain in another post, and who once asked how did I think Herbert von Krolock got to be a vampire.Tanz der Vampire, no pairing. You don't have to know anything about the fandom beyond the fact that the Graf von Krolock is a vampire, and before he came to be one, he fathered a son.
In keeping with the canon mood - well, the canon is a Gothic rock opera. That should tell you something. 2,750 words.
(Still not sure if I got the name of the duelling ground in Vienna correctly. Corrections and other constructive criticism welcome.)
TODESGLOCKEN
Autumn of the Year of Our Lord 1638, Vienna, Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
The night air already carried the autumn chill, but the ground of the courtyard was still more dust than mud. Kinga was grateful for it as she carried the pail of dishwater to the gutter. Less cleaning to do, especially now that most student lodgers were spending the night outside the city gates at one of the last revelries before the cold chased them back to the wineries and cellars close enough for the boys to drag themselves home once they were kicked out. They would wake her then to open the gate for them, but tonight they'd rather sleep under the stars than chance the long trek.
All except one, she thought. Just one window with the faint light of a candle she'd lit for him before dusk fell. She would have to go there and light another before she went to sleep; otherwise he'd wake and open his wound again trying to do it himself.
Kinga shivered. It was really getting cold at night.
She heard hoof beats, a sharp staccato over the cobblestones. She wondered who it could be, now that midnight had passed. A courier, perhaps, carrying mail from the outer reaches of the empire. She had sent a letter to the boy's home when he had first been brought to her lodging house, but she doubted he would live to read the answer.
The horse came around the corner at near gallop, pulled back by the rider just as it was about to ride her down. It was a great bay with a dark coat that was almost black in the moonlight. She stepped back towards the gate of the house, out of the reach of its hooves.
Of the rider, all she saw was a swirl of a dark cloak as he dismounted. "Which of these houses belongs to Kunegunde Tiedeman?" he demanded sharply.
Transylvanian accent, flickered through her mind.
"That would be me," she said, drawing her tiredness and indignation around her. She hadn't been running a lodging house for unruly students for twenty years without gathering some force of her own. "And I'm not accepting visitors this late."
The stranger grew still. She had the feeling he was watching her, though his face was in shadow.
"Forgive me, Frau Tiedeman," he said. "I did not expect the matron of a lodging house to be out on the street so late at night."
"Usually, I'm not," she scoffed. She headed back inside the courtyard, heard him following, leading the horse. He seemed to have manners, at least. "I gave the girls the night off - there is a feast outside the gates tonight. I would go myself, but care of the sick comes first."
"Care of the sick?" There was hesitation in that voice, as if he wanted to say something more.
He really had a remarkable voice, Kinga thought. Deep and melodious, and she was sure the accent reminded her of somebody.
She sighed. "It's such a sad story. Students duelling - I don't know why they don't just settle it with a brawl like normal people. And the boy won't tell anyone who the other man was, so all I know is that his friends found him in Buchenwäldchen Grove and brought him here. The doctors had hope at first, but now..."
"Now?" he whispered.
"He is dying. One day, maybe two." Kinga shrugged. "It happens. I've done my best."
For a moment, the courtyard was silent enough that she could hear her own breathing. Then the horse snorted.
"I'm sure you did, Frau Tiedeman," the stranger said. "Thank you. And thank you for sending the letter."
She startled. The letter? But it should have barely reached the border of Transylvania by now-
The man dropped his horse's reins on the ground, as if he were sure the animal would not move without command, and stepped into the pool of light falling from the attic window.
He wore black in the Spanish style, restrained and unembroidered. His hair fell down to his shoulders, straight and thick and dark. His face was pale, but it wasn't only the paleness that brought such resemblance between him and the boy.
His eyes were dark as night.
"I am Graf Johannes von Krolock," he said, bowing to her as if she were a princess of the blood, not a simple Viennese bürgerin. "Herbert is my son."
* * *
The attic room was bare and worn, but clean. The light of the single candle flickered on the crumpled sheets on the bed, on the pale gold hair arranged, funeral-like, over the shoulder of the still figure tangled in the bedcovers.
The air smelled of decay.
If Von Krolock's heart had beat, it would have skipped and stuttered at that moment. He moved his hand blindly to close the door behind him, and the wooden planks struck the doorframe with a dull thud.
"Frau Kinga?" The voice was the one he knew, but so weak and strained, almost silenced. "I told you I'd be all right - the candle's still-"
"Herbert," von Krolock murmured, unable to stop himself from audibly reassuring the boy's identity.
A jerk, a sigh that was almost a cry, grey eyes falling open, and for once he blessed his unnatural speed as a second later, he was gently cradling his son.
"Father." Herbert's voice was breaking even more, now. "I thought you'd come."
Von Krolock pressed a kiss to his son's hair. "I'm here."
Herbert's smile was as warm as always, his eyes as bright - maybe brighter - but the rest of his senses told von Krolock that the situation was by no means good. The smell was the worst of them, rot and decay like a body already disintegrating. Under his fingers, Herbert's shoulders were frailer than they had been since he had discovered fencing at fifteen. Each breath the boy took was laboured, underlaid with a stifled gasp of pain.
"What happened to you?" The question had been preying on von Krolock's mind since he had learned of his son's injury. Herbert could be reckless with horses or affairs of the heart, but with a blade in his hand the boy had long surpassed him. Even swordsmen with centuries of experience found Herbert a skilled and unpredictable opponent, and von Krolock could not believe another student had beaten him so easily.
"When you're fighting for someone's honour-" Herbert paused to draw a laboured breath, then winced as he shifted his legs to free them from the confines of the tangled sheets. "You don't really expect him to stab you in the gut when he falls into your arms after you've sent your opponent's sword sailing into the air."
The hiss came before von Krolock could clench his teeth, the monstrous and human parts of him for once in agreement about the fate of someone who had hurt what was his.
"All false - start to end." Herbert's laugh was cut off by a pained moan. "Should know better. Yet such a pretty face."
"They'll suffer," his father promised.
"Oh, yes, yes." Pale lips curled back from white teeth. "I'll cut them to pieces. If I can."
"You will. I'll summon doctors from the University, from the court-"
The softest rasping sound of long strands of hair shifting against each other as Herbert shook his head. "They've been here. All of them."
"I'll find others-"
"I-" Another drawn-out breath, and Herbert was trembling now. "I don't think I have the time."
Von Krolock's fingers clenched, and for a moment he thought his nails had cut his son's skin, but the sharp smell of fresh blood had another source. As Herbert struggled to raise himself and turn in his arms, the sweat-soiled linen of his shirt parted, revealing a bandage streaked with red and brown. At the edge of the bandage, the pale skin was reddened, pulled taut.
"Father, listen," the young man hissed. "It comes and goes, the fever - late night brings retreat, but I don't know how long I have, how much time with my thoughts clear enough. Listen."
For a moment all was still. Then von Krolock placed his hands under Herbert's arms, supporting his son's weight without jarring his wound. The trembling was more pronounced now, a sequence of bone-rattling shudders that ran the length of Herbert's skin.
"I'm dying," Herbert said. "There's poison in my blood, and no doctor can draw it out. I don't want it to end like this."
He paused to catch his breath. This close, the smell of decay was sharp, mingling with the blood and sweat.
"I've had a week since the poison set in," he started again. "Nothing to do but think. And what I thought is that nothing - not my blood, not my soul, not any chance at heaven I could possibly have - is worth dying like this, before I've seen, lived, loved, anything. You said it's damnation. Let me be damned, father."
Von Krolock's eyes closed, then opened. He opened his mouth, took an unnecessary breath.
"No," Herbert breathed, his strength clearly failing him. "What's the choice? Even if by some miracle I live like this, crippled, half-rotted - but dead or living, I'm no good to anyone. There would never be heirs by me, father, and God does not love such as I."
Slowly, carefully, von Krolock lowered his son's body to the bed again, spreading his cloak to provide a gentler surface than the coarse sheets. He stroked the pale hair, felt the dampness that spoke of a recent wash. It made sense, somehow: nothing appealed more to Herbert than his own beauty, and the matron of the lodging house looked to have a heart soft enough to comfort her patient in the only way that was left.
He remembered holding Herbert like that, some fifteen years earlier, as his son had struggled to breathe in the grasp of some childhood fever. In the end, he had found a book describing how cool, moist air would ease that affliction. Herbert had spent the rest of that week sleeping beside him in the crypt and had treated it as the greatest adventure ever.
"You're precious to me," he whispered.
The smile he got in return was hardly more than a pained grimace. "Then keep me with you. I've watched you for twenty years... I know what I'm asking for..."
"Herbert-"
"Father." A trembling hand reached out, seized his shoulder in a surprisingly strong grasp. "Please."
This was his son, his child, his and Izabella's - Izabella, dead these twenty years, dead with fear in her eyes, blood in her pale gold hair - but he had lived through, learned so much since then, though he'd never wished-
Before he was aware of the choice he had made, his fingers were slipping into Herbert's hair, gently lifting the boy's head. He gave into the pressure of the hand on his shoulder, bowing lower until the dark strands of his hair brushed Herbert's skin.
With a pained hiss, Herbert bowed his head back, arching his throat. How many people had the boy seen killed that way, von Krolock wondered. How much courage, how much trust did that one motion take?
As he bowed lower, Herbert's other arm wrapped around his neck. He only heard the whisper because his ear was so close to his son's mouth.
"Thank you."
He could hear the heartbeat, too faint, too slow, Still Herbert's grip on him was feverishly strong, threatening to tear the fabric of his clothes.
His fangs sank into his son's neck far too easily.
He tasted the dark poison in the blood as he heard the pained gasp, but the bitterness did not stop him. What danger was the rot to one that was already a corpse?
He forced his clenched throat to swallow. This close, with the same blood running through them both, a thought sufficed to bridge their minds, another thing he had not done in many years. He near-shook under the weight of the pain, but still he took it into himself with the blood and the life, leaving nothing but ashes in his wake.
Herbert's breathing slowed, evened out. His fingers flexed once, twice, then slowly slipped from his father's shoulders.
The last draught of blood was sweeter, untainted. The blood of the heart, he remembered his Sire's words, and the last you're allowed to take if you would have another made in your image. That time, the lesson had come too late.
He raised his head with a gasp. The incisions on Herbert's neck were small, bloodless. He leaned his forehead against his son's, letting their hair mingle on the folds of his cloak under Herbert's head, and listened for breath.
None came.
He wanted to hold the body in his arms again, stroke the golden hair, but there was no reason to, not now that there was no-one to feel the comfort. Instead, he straightened and leaned against the headboard of the bed, looking into the shadows. He pressed his palms against each other in the gesture his mother had taught him long ago, but of all the books on religion in his library, not one sacred name came to his mind.
The candle burned and flickered as the melting wax pooled below it, sending the shadows dancing. They floated over Herbert's pale skin, dark eyelashes, the pale gold strands scattered over black cloth. He knew the body would be cold by now, colder than his own skin.
He knew dawn would come soon, but he did not move. In the distance, the bells of a hundred churches tolled the rhythm calling the faithful to prayer at the first ritual of the day, though the sun had yet to rise.
He wondered whether any of the bell-ringers knew, the passing of how bright a soul these bells were mourning.
* * *
There were enough candles in the suite to read easily even once the last twilight had faded from the horizon. The Black Swan spared no expense on its guests' comfort, and they in return certainly did not spare money by lodging there. Von Krolock made a note to pay another retainer for the suite before he left; this was the most comfortable set of rooms in the guesthouse, and he had no desire to lodge anywhere else in Vienna.
He turned another page. His favourite publisher had proven as reliable as always, and while he got his hands on a fresh English Rosicrucian text that was even more interesting than this heretic treatise, the book had engrossed him completely. It was from the Netherlands, so he would have to hide it carefully on the way home, but the ideas were fresh and interesting. It was a pity it was so short.
Someone was whistling on the staircase, taking the stairs two - no, three at a time. The melody was the latest unofficial hymn of the University of Vienna, something unprintable and rife with rumours about the private habits of various faculty members. The door creaked as it opened.
"Did you have a pleasant stroll?" von Krolock asked.
"Just delightful." Herbert chuckled and twirled on his heel. The Brussels lace at his cuffs was even paler than his skin. "The weather's great, too. Refreshing."
Von Krolock reached out and grabbed his son's right wrist on the next rotation, ignoring the protesting yelp. He pushed back the lace, revealing a cross-shaped burn.
"Hey, I did that," Herbert pointed out. "Darling Janos was Hungarian and an altar boy. I wanted to see the fear in his eyes. I would have done it in front of both of them, but I only saw the crucifix after I'd put Heinrich's eyes out."
"You'll have to wear gloves for the next few days."
"I like my gloves. Are you done with that book, father? It really is a pleasant night."
Von Krolock gave the book a rueful look, then closed it. "I'll finish it later. What did you have in mind?"
"You've heard of the Spanish theatre troupe in town? The one doing Vega's plays?"
"The one whose performances are by invitation only?"
Herbert brandished two squares of pasteboard triumphantly. "It appears dear Heinrich had used his parents' influence. Since he won't be using them..."
Von Krolock smiled as he followed his son out of the suite. He could see a hundred thousand nights like these, stretching out into eternity.
The nights were theirs to seize, after all.
=FINIS=
