"Treason never prospers... For if it prosper, none call it treason." - John Harington
Three days had passed since Lenore was allowed to return to her own room, and nine since she nearly took her own life. Now, standing alongside Hector by the door leading out of her chamber one morning, Lenore readied herself to venture out once more during the daytime. Prepared this time.
She performed one last check of her clothing. A long-sleeved dress and gloves covered every inch of her skin below the neck. A dark veil shielded the rest, no longer an optional accessory. She and Hector had specifically tested it against daylight earlier using her hand, one of her bedroom windows, and a bucket of water in case anything went horribly wrong. Better her hand than her head.
With a nod, the two of them began walking. Lenore grimaced slightly as they left the room. She never liked daytime. Even indoors in a long stone hallway, a faint sickly warmth crept over her person. Everything seemed too bright, even with her veil partially obscuring her vision. And of course, one slip of fabric in the wrong part of the castle could mean a terrible burn or worse. By this point, Lenore had pushed back her inner demons enough that suicide lost its siren-like temptation. At the same time, she couldn't help but feel like a pet, however much Hector may reassure her otherwise. This was the human's time of day, and she just couldn't shake the image of an invisible collar around her neck with a leash leading to her partner's hands.
She pushed her feelings to the back of her mind and kept her composure. To be an aspiring courtier, a diplomat, was in part to be an actress, performing an eternal play with the court as both cast and audience. The sounds of human activity, repair work to the damaged portions, and other noises grew.
Lenore and Hector reached a section of hallway lit by a window directly facing the sun. She stopped. Her survival instincts kicked in and screamed to turn around. The cruel thing about the sun's deadly effects was that its painfulness was proportional to a vampire's will to live. Intentional suicide would be almost free of suffering, but accidental exposure offered no such mercy. Lenore took a deep breath and hurried across the bright patch of floor. For a second, her dress and gloves felt like they were being bombarded with countless tiny flaming arrows. Her face stung slightly under her darkened veil. But within a few steps, she made it across alive and intact. It was a win.
The pair continued walking. Eventually, they spotted none other than King Isaac himself, conversing about an outlying county with a large, humanoid fly-like entity that Lenore could only guess to be… a sapient night creature? No matter. She'd ask Hector sometime later. The two of them went against the wall and waited for Styria's new sovereign to pass. Hector looked at Lenore worriedly, as if afraid she would spit on Isaac's crown, but instead he saw the vampire's face completely calm and composed. When Isaac passed by, Hector managed to perform a stiff, partial bow. Lenore, though, smiled deferentially, held her dress, and curtsied down low with the grace and elegance of a lady in waiting.
Isaac froze, unsure what to think. The bug-like entity stopped too and seemed to stare at the her through its compound eyes. After a few, painfully awkward seconds, Isaac covered his face with his palm and laughed almost with embarrassment. The king acknowledged Hector with a friendly nod, and then resumed his path.
"My lord," the insectoid creature asked as it walked with him, "was that the vampire Lenore you mentioned earlier?"
"Yes, that is her, the one Hector keeps around." The king and creature soon turned a corner.
Hector looked at Lenore to see how she was doing. She had the same rigid smile on her face that she wore during the incident itself. The only indication of her true feelings was her clenched, shaking fist. When she was sure that Isaac was completely out of earshot, she asked Hector if they may return. They made their way back to Lenore's quarters, at which point she removed her shoes, changed into her day gown, and immediately went to bed, eager to forget this humiliation.
Despite the events of her first daytime walk, Lenore pressed forward. She did reevaluate her tactics though. Hector had warned her earlier that Isaac was not one for court formalities beyond a proper acknowledgement of his title and a show of deference, but like a fool she didn't believe him. Winning an argument with Hector was much easier than proving him wrong. All of the other human courts she had seen were so rigid, so hierarchical. But here, flattery would get her nowhere. Yet what would?
Whatever the answer, there was no turning back now. Every day, Lenore pushed her waking hours a little further in line with a diurnal schedule, unpleasant as it was. Maintaining a presence was critical in her mind. The daytime walks continued. Hector generally allowed Lenore to take the lead. Her paths frequently circled around indoor activity hubs. They invariably avoided the courtyards she so once so loved to take Hector at night.
"Who or what is that… bug that often accompanies Isaac, anyway?" Lenore asked on one walk as they made their way to the library. This destination was, admittedly, less about maintaining a presence than maintaining her sanity.
"That is FlysEyes, one of Isaac's night creatures and a close advisor. And he seems content the way he is," he responded with the slightest smile.
Lenore looked at Hector and saw his expectant expression before remembering their earlier conversation about forging, and the disgust it aroused in her. Of course this was about that. "I know where you are going with this. Please don't rub it in… Not now."
"Okay, fine."
They reached the library. Isaac's assault began here, and plenty of damage was still visible. Shattered glass, broken stonework, and overturned furniture lay everywhere. Wooden boards covered what remained of the large windows. The dead had been removed, or at least the ones whose corpses didn't remain out in the morning and break down into dust. The blood was harder to clean up and still stained the carpet. Hardly anyone else was there, save a solitary hooded figure seated at the librarian's desk deep in work on something.
It was a shame. Despite her people-focused profession, Lenore had always had a soft spot for libraries and their promise of peaceful solitude. And now this. Searching the undamaged isles, Lenore found a book that drew her interest, sat down away from the light, and opened it, hoping for some sort of temporary escape to a less tumultuous literary world. No such luck. She couldn't shake the near certainty that she was sitting on the scattered ashes of some poor civilian, cut down during the assault and then disintegrated the following morning. Her dark veil, which she dared not take off even in the shade, did not help the reading experience.
After making it through a page, she closed the book and went over the person at the desk to ask about borrowing it. She noticed that the person was covered head to toe in fabric. It was quite likely another vampire! Her pace picked up, pleasantly surprised to see one of her own again. Hector remained back, sensing that this was an interaction he might best stay out of. "Excuse me?" Lenore asked.
The person looked up from her writing. Underneath her hood she had a patchwork fabric mask that covered her face save the eyes and mouth. "May I help you-" a pregnant pause before she added with no level of awe or reverence, "Queen Lenore". It was not the usual librarian, probably an assistant.
Lenore blushed with shame underneath her veil. "I was at least. Now I'm a… 'resident' here."
"So I heard." It was indeed a vampire, based on her ears. She looked down resumed writing, apparently far less enthusiastic to interact with Lenore than vice versa.
Lenore found herself getting cross, almost forgetting her original inquiry. She did not come to the library just to be humiliated by a former subject. "Where's the actual librarian?" she demanded.
"Dead."
"The archivist?"
"Eaten alive."
"The print press operator?"
"His ashes are somewhere around here," She looked back up at Lenore. "It really is just me."
Exasperated, Lenore asked, "How did you survive then?"
"I hid in a locked room and then came out begging for mercy when the sounds died down. At first they imprisoned me, but I guess they realized that they needed someone who knew where the files were kept, and so here I am," the woman said sardonically. "Again, can I help you?"
Lenore inwardly fumed. Recent events had bruised her ego enough as it was, without this other vampire's attitude. "No. I don't need anything after all. Goodbye."
As she turned around, she suddenly heard the librarian's assistant say, "wait." Lenore turned around.
"Do you have any spare veils like the one you have. If so, I'll pay you in blood."
"Pig's blood?" Lenore asked, rolling her eyes.
"Human blood," responded the assistant with the slightest smug satisfaction. "We get a stipend."
Before Lenore could respond either way, a man burst into the library. "Hector, the king needs to see you immediately. Present yourself to him at once."
Hector closed the book he had picked out and gestured Lenore over. "Okay. We're coming." Lenore hurried back. She started to follow him out, when the messenger put his hand up in front of her.
"No. King Isaac only requested Hector."
Lenore calmly responded, "I'm sorry. The king has ordered that I must be under Hector's supervision except in my own chambers, which are quite far away. Leaving his side would be disobedience." Her look turned quizzical. "You're not asking me to disobey the king, are you?"
The messenger turned towards Hector, who nodded in confirmation. He stood there in flustered silence before finally saying, "Okay fine. Both of you, come." He began to lead Hector to Isaac's de facto throne room, with Lenore in tow. The pair exchanged a worried glance. Lenore didn't care whatever semi-nice things Hector had to say about Isaac. She did not trust the man who killed Carmilla. They reached their destination, and the messenger led the pair inside. There, sitting in Carmilla's old, relocated throne before a long rectangular table with wooden chairs, was King Isaac himself. FlysEyes stood nearby silently, as did two night creature guards. The king was anything but cheerful.
Isaac looked up. "What is she doing here?" he demanded crossly of the messenger, gesturing towards Lenore.
"I'm sorry, Your Highness," Lenore immediately answered for him, apologetically. "You commanded that I must remain by Hector's side at all times when outside my room. Your messenger found us when we were in the library, and staying put or returning on my own would have been a grievous act of disobedience." She stared up at Isaac with large, innocent, blood red eyes. "I hope you understand."
The king looked incredulously at Lenore. He knew this was a total act, but she had a point. "Whatever, fine," he eventually said. "Have a seat, both of you. Hector probably tells you everything, anyway." Lenore and Hector sat down along the table. "And you," he added to the messenger, "you may leave. Close the door." The man performed an awkward bow and left, leaving Hector and Lenore alone with Isaac and his creatures.
Once the door closed, the king got up and put his fists on the table in frustration. "No, you're not in trouble," he opened. "We are in trouble." He directed his attention to Hector, ignoring Lenore entirely. "Earlier today, a delegation from the Pope and the Archduchy of Austria arrived and demanded an audience. They presented their so-called 'First Ultimatum' with three demands. The first was that I recognize Styria as a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire."
"Which means absolutely nothing of course" scornfully thought Lenore. She hoped Isaac realized what a joke that disorganized gaggle of human princes really was.
"Second," he continued, "that I permit the entry of the Church and exercise of worship among the humans here. And finally, that I end the mandatory blood tax immediately." He was referring to the monthly collection of blood from all humans in Styria, most recently set at one cup per month per individual.
"Wait. Did you… Accept these?" Hector asked.
"I had to," Isaac growled in frustration. "If we did not accept these demands, they threatened a new mini-crusade to kill every vampire and unconverted human in Styria. The quartermaster estimates we have under a thousand proper Styrian soldiers left, almost entirely garrisons in human towns. As far as night creatures go, well, I admit yours took a big toll on mine. The delegation was practically goading war, but we aren't ready for it. We aren't ready to fight off that many humans, not now."
Hector saw his vampiric partner's eyes widen with alarm. "Is- Your Highness," he blurted, "You know that a vampire will only live a decade or less on just animal blood, right? It's like feeding one of us just bread and water." Regaining his composure, Hector quickly apologized and then fell silent.
"I know that, Hector." responded Isaac with moderate irritation. "Figuring out a solution is the topic of my next meeting. The real reason I asked to see you is that I need you back forging new night creatures. We need to rebuild a military, fast. We still have the corpses of those human mercenaries, but there are too many for me to do on my own quickly enough and still attend to other matters. The church is going to be back anytime now, I know it. We have to get ready." Isaac inwardly second guessed the wisdom of allowing a man smitten with a queen he deposed to raise his own night creatures.
"Yes, I can," said Hector.
Lenore could hold her tongue no longer. "You're Highness?" she asked in her most unassuming voice possible.
The room fell silent for a moment. Isaac sighed with exasperation and clenched his fist. "What?"
"Please do forgive me. I know this is not my place, but I was wondering if I might be able offer my services, Your Highness" Lenore responded innocently. "In my… previous role, I served as the council's diplomat. If war is inevitable, I might be able keep certain parties from siding with the or even delay the conflict, giving you more time to prepare, if such is your pleasure." She then added, "I suspect the envoys were probing for weakness. If they truly had armies mustered and ready bear down on us, they would have presented ten demands, not three."
For a moment Isaac's scowl turned into a more contemplative expression, like he was genuinely considering what Lenore said. Then he turned skeptical. "Why should I trust you?" he asked challengingly.
"Your Highness reigns over perhaps the largest intact community of my kind in Europe, and you certainly our most accommodating human ruler here. Your wellbeing is our wellbeing, and I would be honored to help you however I can for the sake of those like me."
Isaac swore, she had to be the only being in existence who could worm her way into a meeting with a king, raise her own agenda, and still appear the epitome of servile politeness. If only her word actually meant anything. "I'll think about it," he finally said in a manner that gave no hint if he actually would. "Both of you may leave. Hector, see me tomorrow morning at your old forge. My night creatures will bring up the bodies. You work it in the day, I'll work it at night. Bring something for your nose, as their collective odor is quite something."
Hector made another awkward bow, while Lenore performed a smaller, distinctly less dramatic curtsy than her first one. As they returned to Lenore's chambers, she made a strange hissing noise with her mouth that Hector doubted any normal human could make.
News spread with unnatural speed. Styria's humans reacted favorably to Catholicism's legalization, but they rejoiced at the end of the blood tax. However, among Styria's vampiric minority, the realm's former and still partial rulers beyond the castle, the ultimatum triggered a crisis. The church, they could see as a grim inevitability, but had this new human "king" really just blithely cut off their staple food source? Styria didn't even produce enough pigs or cows to immediately replace human blood in the short term! Fears of hunger and whispers of unrest spread. Three counties declared their intention to collect the tax on their own, daring Isaac to stop them. The king's human ministers – not a vampire among them – scrambled to find a temporary workaround in the form of more livestock, but until more could be bred or purchased, the long-term ills of animal blood for Vampires were the least of their concerns.
At least that was what Lenore gathered from Hector and what she overheard herself. With Hector put to work making more of those twisted night creatures, and the decree against her movement except under his supervision still in place, Lenore found herself effectively confined to her castle apartments in the day. When he'd return at the day's end, he was often tired, and by now Lenore's forced diurnal transition was past the point of no easy quick return, anyway.
All of her tears, time, and suffering, with nothing to show for it except moving from one cage to a bigger one and watching Styria go from one crisis to a bigger one. In truth, she recognized that Isaac had no good options with that ultimatum, but all that did was make her hate him slightly less than she otherwise would have.
Sitting in her room late one afternoon, Lenore forced herself to gulp down the rest of her weekly cup of pig's blood. It was somehow only week three, using that as a calendar. Maybe she was spoiled, but fears of shortages only made her meal marginally easier to appreciate. Perhaps it was the fact that it was slowly killing her. She sighed, wishing she could so much as look out the window without worrying if the sun was still up. As much as her old job required her to understand the ins and outs of the human mind, their hatred of providing blood never made sense to her. Human lords bled peasants dry through taxes and crop demands. Hucksters posing as doctors would deliberately drain their patients of blood in the name some bullshit treatment, and then throw the perfectly good blood out. Every Sunday, the Church's followers would parade into their chapels and cathedrals and drink wine made out to be the blood of their messiah! But God forbid a vampire take the minimum blood she needs to survive.
Not that "He" gave a damn about vampires, except damnation.
Lenore felt a small amount of anger rising. All her post-human life, she had tried to live as a principled vampire, one who recognized humans as more than just food. Some called her an idealistic vampire, even a romantic. And this is how fate and mankind repay her? Political downfall, fears of hunger, and veiled threats of future genocide? Her anger grew. What had even been the point of trying? Why had she even bothered restrai-!
No! That way lay Carmilla's end, a fine layer of dust scattered across the countryside they once ruled. Lenore remembered her fear of her own nature from the morning she almost killed herself. The words "Like a vampire" flashed back into her head. Were the fears right after all? Was it just her destiny to take and take until nothing was left?
The dark musings returned. Yes, she had promised Hector a month, but was it really too early for her to write a note explaining how this was for the best, throw open the curtains, and let the sun reduce her to a pile of ash on the carpet? It wasn't like she'd made any difference so far, and all she'd been on Hector lately was a burden, a drain, an abyss pulling him in… Like a vampire.
Before Lenore could push these thoughts back, the door opened. She hid her mental troubles away. In stepped Hector. "Sorry I'm late," he said tiredly. "A large swarm of rats beat us to the remaining bodies. We had to use fire. I never want to see one of those fucking rodents again."
Despite the rat incident, Hector kept to an earlier promise to escort Lenore to the library that evening. The sun was just setting. "Just keep it short," he muttered as they walked.
"I will, dear. It's just a… business matter." In truth, Lenore wanted savor the cool air of dusk she had missed so dearly, but she kept it to herself.
They reached the library. The librarian assistant was there, still writing furiously on whatever she was working on. As Hector stayed back, convinced this was best left a vampire-vampire affair or whatever, Lenore steeled herself for unpleasantries and approached, spare veil in hand.
The seated vampire looked up again, still wearing that strange face mask. "How can I – oh, it's you! You came through after all." Her eyes lit up with a genuine delight that seemed incompatible with the unbearable apparatchik of earlier. As promised, the librarian assistant produced a vial of genuine, unadulterated, crimson red human blood. "It's a sort of stipend vampire soldiers and castle employees receive from remaining supplies… I guess to ensure our loyalty."
The veil and vial swapped hands. Unsure what to make of this about-face, Lenore hid her own inward delight over the exchange and kept her guard up as her counterpart immediately darted into a shaded area and replaced her mask with her new gift. The dim light of dusk revealed a diminutive, bookish looking vampire with light grey skin and shoulder length black hair. The veil seemed to relax her. "Thank goodness." she said as Lenore stared incredulously. "My ears kept getting burned or inflamed. Oh. I never introduced myself. I'm Elansa." It was around that point she noticed the ex-diplomat's unimpressed look. "You're… still upset about my earlier attitude."
"Perhaps," said Lenore coolly with her arms crossed. Although she had decided that Elansa was more eccentric than mean, that wasn't a carte blanche for forgiveness.
Elansa sighed. "Yeah sorry. The light makes me irritable, the understaffing doesn't help, and I had reached a particularly hard part on my manuscript." As if suddenly reminded of its existence, she looked back down and resumed her frantically pace of writing.
Curiosity got the better of Lenore. She looked over at what looked like a title page:
"The Decline and Fall of the Vampiric Race: A History for Humans"
The text took Lenore aback. "What – what is this!?"
"You of all people should know," Elansa said with a touch of disappointment. "We're done for. This was the last stable vampire kingdom in Europe. Now we're at humanity's mercy, and they'll have none." Her voice cracked a little. "I don't know how to fight. I'm too inept to flee. I'm trying to push this out while there's still time… because it's the closest thing to immortality I'm ever going to enjoy."
Lenore wanted to respond. Part of her wanted to ruthlessly pick apart this pessimism as premature, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Part of her wanted to comfort this admittedly eccentric former subject, but she had enough difficulty keeping herself afloat emotionally. Somehow, worming her way into a meeting with a king felt easier than figuring out what to say right now.
"I… see. I better go now." Lenore turned back towards Hector. He'd waited long enough. Elansa seemed to want to ask something but stopped herself, just giving a meek wave goodbye.
Lenore and Hector returned to their room. Hector, exhausted, immediately went to bed. Lenore chose to stay up a bit longer. Taking out the vial of blood, she removed the small cork from the top and ravenously drank the contents. It was quite stale, but at that moment it tasted more exquisite than blood drawn fresh from a living human toddler. (She'd never actually had this due to ethical qualms, but the flavor was supposedly unrivaled.) Wondering when she'd next be able to taste her natural staple food, Lenore stared nostalgically out the window for a minute at the moonlit land below, and then reluctantly joined Hector in bed. As usual, insomnia plagued her inverted bedtime.
After an hour or so staring at her bed's canopy, Lenore heard a tap on the window. She looked at Hector, who was fast asleep, and then quietly got up. A swarm of bats fluttered just outside the window, one holding small scroll in its mouth. The one with the paper flew up to the glass and lightly tapped it again. Lenore opened the window slightly, and it briefly flew inside, dropped its message, and then flew off into the night with the others.
Lenore read the small scroll by moonlight. It was a plot against the rule of King Isaac. A trio of discontent vampire lords would facilitate her and "that human" Hector's escape from the castle, spirit her away to their county holdings, and rally Styria's vampires to rise up in the name of their remaining true queen. The letter itself came from a fourth vampire, a "retired" Styrian army captain who had helped save Lenore's retinue during an ill-fated diplomatic mission, losing a hand in the process.
She silently considered the proposal. There was admittedly a certain appeal to being restored as a queen, even if it meant leaving the figurative shadows. Isaac's rule had seen the entry of the church and the threat of famine. At the same time, participation and failure would mean certain death. In fact, if Isaac was as obsessed with loyalty as Hector made out, turning the conspirators over could be a ticket back into politics, where she could actually make a difference…
Ideally a difference beyond just betraying her fellow vampire to the benefit of a human.
In the end, Lenore made an educated guess that the current regime would eventually develop some kind of response to the threat of vampiric malnutrition, however incompetently. With that, it came down to how likely the plot would be to succeed, and its impacts. She evaluated the plan and its conspirators. Would it work? She doubted it. But the thought of handing over her own loyal former subjects to her jailer did not sit well with her. But in the end, the goal was to stay alive, and ensure vampire-kind did as well in some form.
In a way, the situation reminded her of the old Greek human story of Scylla and Charybdis, where a captain must choose between losing six men and the entire ship. As emotionally painful the choice may be, the logical choice was obvious.
Lenore decided.
She gave the message to Hector with instructions to pass it to Isaac or FlysEyes.
By the month's end, three of the four individuals had been executed. The fourth was barely spared. Other vampires and at least one human, oddly, were imprisoned or dismissed from positions. And Lenore was officially freed and given an unofficial role within Isaac's court.
To celebrate, Lenore rushed back to her quarters and vomited her latest blood meal into her chamber pot.
Writing witty dialog about semi-historical power politics is fun, but boy does it fatten the word count.