Part 10 - 1642-1651 English Civil War - Rebirth
Ok, so you already arrived at the conclusion that I somehow survived that otherwise I wouldn't be telling the story right now. Well, yes, you would be correct. However, you would not imagine the pain and fear of being a disembodied head lost in water. For over a hundred years.
After a time the main enemy for me was boredom. I could occasionally feel my body move or twitch as the fish tried a nibble, but mostly it was still. I had no control over it, and yet I could still feel. And as for my head, well unlucky for me I landed face down, so I was not really in the best of situations. Time began to speed up though. I had not fed for so very long that I was weak and hallucinations crept into my mind. I would be back in the lush greenery of Sherwood, or the wet mud of Scotland. But each time I would see that fight, the boot, and the water would be covering me once more.
I honestly don't know how I managed to survive. Perhaps the water preserved me, or the mud I was stuck in. All I know is that I was down there for a very long time.
Vampires do not sleep. Never. But, when we are as weak as can be, moments from non existence, we begin to lose consciousness. And that was where I found myself. Later I would learn that time had moved the waters and my body had become almost visible on the shore of the lake. Fortunately for me the people of Tuscany had never bothered to go near this lake. Again, later, I would find that this was thanks to rumours of it being cursed. Haunted. If you drew too near than the man of the waters would pull you in and keep you forever. I guess that was a story spread by whatever French remained after the battle. But the main thing is that this piece of folklore prevented any development from taking place near to where I rested.
I was dreaming of the warm dessert sand and the glittering new armour when I felt my body being tugged free of the mud. Strange. A sensation so otherworldly. I was static and the world was black, I could not move a muscle, but my body was in the grip of someone on land.
After a few days of wondering if this was just another dream my question was answered. I felt a hand grip the hair on my head and I was free of my watery tomb. I tried to open my eyes but could not. Tried to speak but my mouth would not respond. Then a finger peeled back my eyelids and starlight flooded into my brain. The first image I saw in over a hundred years was the beautiful face of a girl with red hair. I told myself this was it. I had finally expired. It wasn't as though I hadn't been wishing for it for the longest of times. I was ready, happy to be moving on with my experience.
The next part of my story is sketchy to say the least. I was in and out an awful lot, with strange dreams punctuating hours of grim darkness. I felt warm, fresh blood trickle onto my lips, and somehow, instinctively, my tongue twitched into life, slowly, grating like a rusty hinge, it pulled the blood into my mouth and I swallowed.
I can tell you that over the course of the next thirty years I was moved. I was sure that my head had been reunited with my body because it felt close. And it felt right. Things went black again for a while as I was loaded into a coffin. This was during once of my lucid moments. I was able to see her red eyes and faint freckles on a cold white face, concentrating as she carefully moved me into a box. Then it was darkness again. I could feel bumping and movement all around and this continued for a long time. A couple of weeks perhaps. Then we were at sea. This I knew because I could feel the gentle undulations and taste the familiar taste of salty sea air as it crept through the cracks in my coffin.
The blood continued and with it I felt myself gradually more able to drink it. The ritual seemed to be that she would hold her victim over me and slash the artery in the neck so that I could feed. She would tell me later that the entire crew went into making me stronger. The journey by sea was a long one.
Then we reached land. Whitby in the Northeast of England. Of course I only found this out later, but apparently the arrival of a ghost ship caused quite a stir and would play into legend for many years to come. As would a ghoul and a redhead, but that is another story.
And so there I was. Fed blood for a very long time before I began to stir. At first it was just my fingers. The flesh had knitted back together at my neck and the signals were flowing once more. Strange that I had always been able to feel whatever my body went through, but I learned not to question the mystical science that makes me possible.
I lay there in my box, a stone ceiling my only view except for the times when her face swam in front of me, often holding some poor unfortunate victim for me to drink. She never spoke directly to me, and I had the impression that she chose not to look at me where possible. For many a waking moment in the darkness I questioned her motives but could deliver no satisfactory answer.
Before I could move my arms or legs my vocal chords fired back into life. My head had been totally immobile, my eyes always operating fine, but nothing moved. Then I found my lips moving and my eyes flitting around me. I could see the corners of the room and I could feel a faint whisper pass between my lips. When she brought my next meal to me she saw my mouth moving, a dry hiss the only sound I could produce. She looked surprised but most pleased with herself as she held the neck of the young girl down towards my face. Until now she had always broken the skin for me, but it was incredible to do it for myself. Add to that the pulsating flow of adrenaline which reached my nose for the first time. When the fear drenched blood hit my tongue I felt alive. My arms instinctively wrapped around her and held her until she ceased her struggle. Then I was sitting, the dead girl in my lap, my saviour perched on the edge of my coffin eyeing me with delight.
"And here I thought you might never wake up." She said, her grin spreading warmth through my ice cold body.
"Wh.. Aaa... Yuuuu... " Was all I could muster. My muscles my have suddenly fired into life thanks to the intoxicating drink, but my voice would take a little remastering.
She chuckled. "I, my dear, am Victoria." She saw me shake with the effort of speech. "And you are quite welcome."
"Why?" A full word? Progress. Maybe a sentence next?
"That is a long story. But since neither of us have a place to be, I shall tell it." She giggled, high and girlish. "But first, please tell me your name."
It took a minute but I finally got there. "Castor."
Her bright red eyes went wide. "The Castor? The Archer?" I nodded weakly. "Well, it seems I have dug up a legend." She helped me to sit back in my coffin before she continued.
"My life story is something you do not need to know. Suffice to say it is the kind of tale so tragic that becoming what I am today was something of a blessing. I was happy with my sister and our friends until we were confronted by the Volturi." My eyes went wide in question. "Oh, you don't know them? Italians? Black robes?" At this I nodded. I assumed I knew. "They presume to govern us with their laws. They slaughtered my new family and I was the lone survivor thanks to my ability to hide.
"I spent many years hiding from them until I decided to look into some kind of revenge. I tracked them to Tuscany in Italy and while I was there I heard the tale of the man in the lake. A ghostly figure, a disembodied head and a headless body, that kept guard and would consume anyone he caught swimming in his waters. Uomo del Lago. Catchy, yes? I decided to investigate and finally found someone able to tell me that there had been a great battle there between the French and the English mercenaries. I was staring into the waters trying to decide where to go next when I glimpsed a hand. I pulled out your body and then found your head.
"The idea formed that if I should revive you then perhaps you might help me take my revenge, so I stayed in Tuscany for a long time. Then I decided the Volturi would be too strong for two of us and made plans to come home. I had a cousin in Whitby when I was mortal so this is where I brought you." She settled, the talking was obviously something she was not used to.
"You never spoke to me." I whispered.
"Oh, that. Well I didn't want to become attached in the event that you never revived."
"How did you know... That I would?" I was getting the hang of it.
"I didn't. From what I had heard, if a vampire loses their head then they are finished. I think the water kept you safe somehow."
She left me then, to seek her own next meal. In the next few months I was as strong as I had ever been. My armour was neatly piled in a corner but I dressed in the clothes she gave me. When I was strong enough I told her my story, and was fascinated by the way she hung on my every word. To me it had all been business but to her it was adventure.
We hunted in Whitby and I showed her my ability to pass during the day. I also re trained myself to use the longbow. It turned out to be simple and in no time I was firing it again. However, I was hearing talk of a weapon called a gun. Something about this terrified me as well as intriguing me. The parties where I heard these things were attended my Victoria and I in simple but elegant clothes which we stole. We would attend the party, select a victim and take them home to our small house.
When I was fit enough we decided to move. I buried my old armour, deciding to live as a civilian for the time being. We discussed the best place to go, and I suggested London. It was a fine source of food and we could hide there with ease. It was settled. But nothing could prepare me for a hundred and fifty years of progress in the old city. It was bustling and people were everywhere. All the better for feeding. Of great interest to me was the talk of the new world, something that the people seemed to accept now but to me was just amazing. I had thought we would find India to the West.
Victoria was even more interested in the new world than I was. Even though she was free of her past life and she had a companion in me, she still seemed inclined to run and hide, and the word was that this new world was an endless expanse of places in which to hide.
A year or so passed with us moving from place to place in the city. When we couldn't find a house we would spend the day in the sewers. Not an ideal living arrangement but one that suited our need from time to time. We were above ground in a tavern on the look out for our next meal.
"I hear the fighting is becoming intense in the civil war." I said, casually leaning back on a stool, pretending to drink.
"Why should that interest us?" She snapped. Well, I suppose talk of was must not be something she enjoyed.
"War is what I was bred for. I trained most of my life to fight."
"Then go and fight." She said, staring at me in a strange way.
"What is this attitude?" I asked her, shocked by her sudden anger.
"This attitude is the product of your increasing lust for battle. I see you speaking with anyone with news of battle." Her eyes boiled with intensity. "And don't think I didn't see you with that whore last night." Ah, the crux of the matter. We had been enjoying a very physical relationship, and when we could find lodgings with a bed we would spend most of the daylight hours in there. When you have not had sex in over four hundred years you take as much as you can get. She was still staring, annoyed by my daydreaming.
"I needed the adrenaline. You know it makes the blood sweeter for me." She was not appeased.
"For some time now I have been fearing this day would come." She spoke in a soft voice now, the venom gone. "But to hear you talk of war I see that you will always be a soldier at heart, and I will never truly be loved by you."
I thought for a moment before I spoke. "It its something I have spent a very long time being. To become something else is strange."
"I suggest you go and join this army you speak of." She stood, taking my hand and squeezing. "I have decided to explore the new world." I was silent. I had nothing I could say. This was the best for both of us. We had our own desires. "Perhaps our paths shall cross again." And then she was gone into the night.
I immediately found myself in the employ of Oliver Cromwell in the New Model Army. The battles were furious, a new kind of fighting which I was unprepared for. The most interesting aspect for me was that my bow was suddenly redundant. I was handed a musket and told to fire. The aim was terrible and it took forever to load, so I opted to retain my bow, for a while.
To begin with our forces were routed by the royalists, but soon we took control and began winning the war. It was a war that went on for a long while, but ended prematurely for me. I was in the heat of battle, and the advancing cavalry was throbbing with adrenaline. I was unable to control myself, and the next thing I knew I was standing in a pool of blood, several bodies strewn about me and that godly taste upon my lips. My superior officer was standing there, staring at me. I had killed indiscriminately, taking men from both sides. He raised his flintlock and fired, and then when I remained standing he fled. That was when I decided I had to train myself in the field of self control I returned to London, and with no companion to complain I chose life in the sewers. A life that was mine for a long time. Until I met a man who changed me.