ADOILE I - TAXES

Birktal was a fairly small town to the south, near the border with Rahab's territory. It was nestled in slowly undulating hills, once heavily forested, now barren and covered in snow.

"It's a horrible disease, slowly waning the sick until they have no strength left."

"They have lost many, especially the young."

"I am certain it is not for lack of loyalty, my Lord. They have offered to compensate in coin..."

The snow creaked underfoot, the road had not been travelled since yesterday. The morning was crisp and clear, the biting smell of frost not unwelcome to a nose used to smoke and soot. The march to Birktal was long, but pleasant. The hoar-covered, straggled trees pleased Raziel, there was a beauty to the deathly stillness like to that of marble saints. The cold did not bother him, he was wearing a fur-lined topcoat simply because it fit the season, and because of the relative anonymity it allowed him. Marching alone, without his name-signet visible, his people would not know him, though his alabaster skin, dark lips and cloven hands clearly marked him out as a powerful vampire. He did not disbelieve that Birktal and its neighbouring villages were plagued by a disease, but he wanted to see the state of things for himself before he would exempt them from this season's blood taxes.

From a distance, the village seemed as still as its surroundings. Raziel passed a tall sign bearing the town's name, as well as his clan's sign, which meant 'protected by' and 'property of' at the same time. There was no one out on the dirt streets, shutters were closed, only the smoking chimneys indicated there was anyone left alive at all. Raziel made his way to the main square without meeting a single soul. The small brick and wood houses looked old, dilapidated. An empty pigsty leaned wearily against a cracked wall. He could sense the disease, as if it had seeped into the dirt of the roads itself.

He stood, looking down into the frost covered well when hasty footsteps made him turn around. A burly man with large hands and grey streaks in his beard approached him.

"My Lord!" He bowed deeply. "Welcome to our humble village. To what do we owe this -- unexpected visit?"

"And you are?" Raziel asked without being unfriendly.

"Janek Janesson, Lord, a butcher. At your service." He bowed again.

"I wish to hear about the disease that plagues this village. How many were lost; who they were. Can you tell me these things?"

"Yes, of course, my Lord. Please follow me to my home, the hearth is warm and my wife will be honoured to recieve you."

Raziel nodded regally and made to join the man back down the street he had come down. Just then, his sharp ears picked up a snatch of an ethereal sound -- voices singing. It stung his ears like a false note and he stopped dead in his tracks. The man looked at him fearfully. Raziel turned one ear in the direction the sound was coming from. Up ahead. It seemed to grow stronger as he concentrated on it, it echoed chillingly inside his mind. He gritted his teeth.

"What is that?" he growled. "What's up there?" He pointed up a gravel street that led up a slow incline, seemingly into the more well-off part of town. The houses were bigger, with tiled roofs instead of thatch. They looked as neglected and dilapidated as anything in the village though. The man stared at him, terrified.

"My Lord, please forgive them," he gushed. "In these troubled times, they turn back to their false God, they --"

Raziel interrupted him with an abrupt gesture demanding for him to lead him there. Raziel did not wait, and started walking, the mortal stumbling on behind him.

"They are but simple countryfolk. Please, don't... don't let the Lord know! They don't know what they're doing!"

The building the voices were coming from looked like an ordinary house, with dark wooden beams interrupting the cracked plaster. Although it did not bear any holy symbols, Raziel knew it for what it was immediately. The man's fear was not groundless. He had dealt harshly with the religious, in the past. The hymn was like a stinging insect trapped inside his head. Its buzz was sharp and insistent, but he was determined to ignore it. "Are they praying for the sick?" he asked.

"No," the man said, "they pray for the soul of Fransson's little girl. She died these four days hence. Please, let us leave these people to their grief. They do not deserve your wrath, my Lord." He bowed his head, aware of the impertinence of his words. Raziel had always had a weak spot for people who did not hide their hearts' feelings.

"I am not angry," he said, "but I do not like this. This God, I fear, will do nothing to relieve their suffering, but he will turn them away from their true Lord and leave them without comfort in the end." The man nodded. "The people who till my lands are my concern," Raziel said. "What grieves them grieves me as well."

"Your lands? You mean you're.... You are Lord Raziel?" The man fell to his knees in the snow and stammered incoherently.

Raziel put his hand on the man's winter cap for a moment. "I am. Now get to your feet, Janek Janesson, and go open the door for me."

As the door opened, the singing stopped abruptly. Raziel was grateful for it. He did not hesitate on the threshold; he knew he would not burst into flames if he entered this holy place, as some of the wilder legends claimed. And yet, there was a palpable sting -- a subdermal twinge of pain as he stepped inside. There was only one large room under this roof, with rows of simple wooden chairs all facing the far wall. There was a simple altar there, with only the barest religious accoutrements. In front of the altar was a man with a long face and a bald head, who regarded him with surprise, but no malice. Every chair in the building was occupied, and Raziel finally realised why the village had seemed so deserted. As he walked up the short aisle, he could hear his whispered name proceed him. Although his eyes seemed fixed on the plain wooden coffin in front of the altar, he could see the stares from this ragged crowd, some fearful, some hateful, some openly admiring.

"Don't you dare!" a sharp, ragged voice called from the first row as he approached the simple casket set up in front of the altar. A gaunt woman had stood up and turned around to face him. Perhaps she had once been beautiful, but now she looked old beyond her years; sorrow had worn deep grooves into her face. Her mourner's garb hung from her bones like strips of dried meat, but her eyes burned intensely. "Stay away from her, vampire, her soul belongs to the Lord!" Raziel had never hated the word vampire, but from her lips, it sounded like a curse.

"But I am her Lord," he answered. The woman was forcefully pulled back down into her chair by the man beside her.

"You are the lord of beasts!" she yelled, before her cries were muffled by the hands of her beloved.

"Please, don't listen to her," a man's voice called. The husband, perhaps. Raziel did not see him, he was looking down at the deceased girl. "She has lost five children these two years, the grief has driven her mad!"

"She knows not what she says!" another voice added.

They had neatly laid out the dead, with the hands on her chest and the head slightly propped up. The wasting effects of the disease were still visible, she was almost skeletal. The eyes were sunken and dark, and her skin looked brittle and dry, but he could still see the beauty that she had been. Her auburn curls must have been rich and lively, her lips were excuisitely shaped and her tender face was still childlike, though she stood at the threshold of womanhood. He gazed down on her corpse, moving around the coffin slowly, while the entire assembly seemed to hold its breath.

"I forgive you your madness, woman," he said softly, but loud enough to be heard. "It would pain anyone to see such beauty -- die." Suddenly, following an impulse he had not recognised, he put his hand on her chest. He had to know if she was still there. He reached out in spirit, but was immediately recoiled by the same sting he had felt on crossing the threshold, but much stronger now, penetrating his very soul. He gritted his teeth, and gripped the edge of the box tightly, his claws grooving the wood. When he opened his eyes, he noticed there was a plump hand on his forearm. The priest.

The man looked at him, imploringly. "My Lord," he said softly, and shook his head. "This one has suffered enough." His eyes had the calculated meekness of the true believer; they smiled with the knowledge that he was right, and that that was more important than loyalty, or power, or nobility. Raziel bared his teeth, and jerked his hand away.

"Then I will make sure she shall suffer no more," he said, and lifted the lifeless girl out of the casket. The mother howled, and a scandalised whisper swept through the church. Holding the limp corpse in his arms, he walked back to the door. It was held open by Janesson, who avoided his eyes. Just before he passed him, he proclaimed: "Come spring, you will pay your taxes as usual." The only reply was a despairing silence, and he left.

Back outside in the crisp winter air, he found he could breathe more easily. No one followed him, but his ears were sharp enough to pick up the storm that broke loose after he left. He smiled down at the pretty corpse that was soon to be his daughter. "Don't worry, he whispered to her slack face. I won't let you suffer any more."