Chapter 13 – The Wives

I followed Aro up several flights of stairs. My legs never felt tired, but it took longer than it should have because of the constant distractions along the way. The stone steps themselves were new to me, and I marvelled at the construction of the building I was now in. As we gained height there were narrow arrow slit windows built into the stone walls, through which I caught fascinating glimpses of the city beyond. Even up here I could faintly smell the scent of human blood, and I paused for a moment, standing on tiptoe to see out. The Volturi castle was built into the walls, and the rest of the city spread out before me.

"It's all people?" I said in disbelief. "Under all those roofs?"

Aro nodded. "More people than you've ever seen in your life. I promised you more than you had in your little corner of the world, and you've only begun to catch a glimpse of what more means."

I breathed in the scent again. At this distance it didn't raise the harsh burn of the thirst, but it still smelled very appealing. "I'm thirsty."

"You can wait," Aro said implacably. "You must wait, now that you are here in Volterra, because the humans of the city are not to be touched. Ever."

I looked at him indignantly. "But they're right there! I want them!"

"You'll have more than your fill when it's time, little one," Aro said, sweeping up the stairs ahead of me. "No one here in my castle will go without, but the humans of Volterra are under our protection. Saint Marcus drove the vampires from Volterra you see…now it is the safest city in the land and no one need fear the dark bite." Aro smiled in amusement.

The stone staircase we were climbing ended in a short hallway lit by torches in wall brackets. Two vampires in grey cloaks immediately stood at attention as Aro strode towards them, looking at me inquisitively.

"Felix, Appius," Aro greeted them cordially. "I trust all is well with the ladies?"

"Of course my lord." One of the vampires bowed his head to Aro. "Your lady will be glad to see you returned."

I was a little surprised at their obsequious behaviour. I had deduced that Aro held power, but Philippe had questioned him and Caius had not hesitated to argue with him. These two could barely meet his eyes and neither of them asked about me, although I could tell by the quick, darting glances sent my way that they were wildly curious.

The doors that the two vampire guards hurried to open for us were inlaid with shiny stones and bright metals, and carved with exquisite detail. I couldn't help but stop and run my hands over the fantastic creatures I saw there, like nothing I had known from my own forest, and wonder if they existed in this world that I was now part of.

"My lord, it's so lovely to see you again."

I looked up sharply at the soft, sweet tones. It was a woman coming towards us, smiling at Aro with affection, her red eyes bright. She wore a gown of dark green, slashed through to show the cream linen of her shift, and her dark hair was uncovered like a maid's and hung down past her waist, although she was not young.

"My dear." Aro took her outstretched hand, raised it to his lips and kissed her. "I have returned after a successful journey. A very successful journey," he added in pleased tones. "I have someone I would like you to meet."

He beckoned me forward and uneasily I stepped closer. I wished Alec were with me. I couldn't remember the last time I had been forced to experience something new without him by my side, and I felt off balance and even slightly afraid to be alone.

"My lady, this is Jane, who has come to join us. Jane, this is my lovely wife, the lady Sulpicia." Aro did the introductions.

I didn't say anything as the woman looked at me. Her smile slipped a little as she took me in from the top of my head with my tangled hair down to my bare feet, and she looked at Aro a little doubtfully. "I'm sure you know what you're doing my lord, but she…"

"Of course I know what I'm doing." Aro's voice was light, but his wife saw the same steel in his gaze that I did and subsided. "She is small and slight, but she and her twin are mine and will be made welcome here."

"Welcome Jane." Sulpicia took my hands and smiled at me warmly. "How lovely to have another girl here! Athenodora will be so pleased to meet you. And Corin of course, oh, you'll love our sweet Corin, everyone does!" She looked down at me again, with a faint frown. "But your clothes…they won't do at all! My lord, you must allow me to take our guest and make her clean and comfortable."

"Of course my dear, no one will do so as well as you," Aro smiled indulgently. "Take her to your bathhouse and find some suitable clothes. Introduce her to Athenodora and Corin, and I believe Chelsea will be coming up to pay a visit soon also. Jane, my sweetling, go with Sulpicia and enjoy yourself, and I shall see you again in time." He kissed his wife's hand again, and then his dark robes swished as he vanished from the room.

Sulpicia's smile faded, to be replaced by a look of concern as she looked at me. I took a defensive step backward.

"Don't be afraid, child," she said gently. "Where did he find you?"

I named my village, but she showed no recognition. "It was over the water," I said at last. "We went in a boat."

Sulpicia nodded at that. "Welcome to the tower of the Volturi. This is where Athenodora and I live, accompanied by many of the other ladies and gentlemen of the guard." Sulpicia waved a languid hand around the room.

I became more conscious of how dirty I was and how coarse and burned and filthy the clothes I wore were as I looked around the beautiful tower room. The windows were larger than the narrow windows that had lit the stairway, and through them I could see the darkening sky. The beautifully laid, smooth stone floor had all kinds of exotic animal skins scattered about, and the walls were hung with heavy, embroidered tapestries. The furniture was made of dark, carved wood and there were soft, plump cushions and soft fabrics everywhere. There were books, and an unfamiliar object that might have been a musical instrument over by the window. It would have been inviting if I had not been so intimidated and felt so terribly out of place.

"Come," she said gently, taking my arm and leading me across the room to another carved and adorned door. "We have our own bathing room up here, although there is also another on a lower floor. You will enjoy it my dear."

It seemed each room was going to be more wondrous than the last. The bathroom I stepped into was dazzling with its walls covered in tiles of gold and white and blues and greens, laid down in fantastic mosaics, and a floor of some slick black stone. In the centre of the room was a pool of still, reflective water with the same gleaming black stone forming steps to enter it. The lanterns reflected from all the tiles and the mirrors and the light made my skin shimmer.

I moved across to the polished silver mirror. I had never had anything other than the Goddess pool to look at my reflection with, and never had I seen myself so clearly as I did there in the tower of the Volturi women. For a long moment I stared at what everyone else around me was seeing, a small and filthy girl with a ragged, scorched tunic and stolen hide leggings and long tangled hair, and I felt ashamed. But my eyes were red and my face was hard, and I remembered how I had made them all scream and I stood straight as another women entered the room.

"Oh Sulpicia, what has Aro done this time?"

She wore a long gown of deep blue and her hair was bunched up in curls on her head, which she shook in dismay as she drifted over to me. "She's only a little girl."

Sulpicia appeared at my side, her delicate fingers unfastening the clasp of the cloak and letting it drop to the floor. "I know darling, but he says she is one of us now."

The woman shook her head. "I thought they were trying to crush out the practice, not take it up themselves! I doubt Caius is pleased."

"But he is pleased with so little," Sulpicia murmured, effortlessly tearing the neck of my shift and tunic so that they slid unhindered off. She knelt and began to untie the laces of the leggings.

"Look at her!" The other woman was staring openly at my naked body, fully revealed as the leggings were tugged off too. "She has barely grown into her womanhood Sulpicia! Have you even had your moon blood child?"

I was so confused I didn't even know what to do. Certainly I had not grown a woman's body like Mother, but my breasts had budded and I wasn't exactly a little girl anymore, although I had not yet had my moon time. "No, not that," I mumbled.

"Oh stop, both of you." A third vampire woman appeared soundlessly beside me, nudging me gently towards the deep pool of water. "Pay no mind to them. Jane, is it? A new lady is always something interesting here, but there's no need to fuss so, Sulpicia and Athenodora! You're making our guest feel quite uncomfortable. Slip into the bath Jane, and refresh yourself."

The bath had seating around the edge, but the water in the centre was deep enough that I was fully submerged when I stepped in to it. For a moment I closed my eyes in the water and pretended I was back home, in the river with Alec, and none of this had happened.

The lady who had pushed me into the water was smiling at me over the edge of the bath when I swam back up to the seat. She was younger than the other two ladies and her red hair was bundled up inside a net studded with sparkling stones. "I'm Corin. It's lovely to meet you. Welcome to Volterra."

I couldn't help smiling back. "Hello."

"Athenodora, perhaps you could go and look for a gown for Jane? We can alter it as needed, that won't take long. Sulpicia, help me here."

It seemed I had no choice but to sit docilely in the bath as I was scrubbed and combed and brushed and massaged and oiled and rinsed from head to toe. The experience was bewildering. Bathing had only ever happened in summer, when Alec and I swam in the river. Occasionally we'd scrubbed hands and feet with sand and water when we'd been climbing trees for birds' eggs and had too much sticky sap glue itself to our skin. But now I was in in warm, scented water being fussed over by two ladies, washed and anointed with their oils, and I didn't even muster a single objection. Even when Sulpicia sat behind me with an ivory comb and worked every single tangle and mat from my hair I simply sat there, swirling my hands idly in the water and waiting patiently for her to be done.

"There," Sulpicia said with a sigh, laying aside the comb and pouring several jugs of clear water over my hair. "Your hair is a beautiful colour child. We'll need to take the scissors to the ends and neaten it I think, but it will look quite lovely."

Compliantly I rose from the water when they told me to, and let them wrap me in the softest linen robe I had ever seen while they sat me before the mirror. Sulpicia wielded the scissors and, with Athenodora and Corin watching anxiously, cut the ragged ends of my hair so that it hung, straight and silky and the colour of butter, halfway down my back.

"It won't grow back," Corin explained. "That's why we want it to be perfect."

"I didn't even know it was like this," I said wonderingly, combing my hair through my fingers. I looked quite different in the silver mirror now.

"Thirteen years of dirt scrubbed off, child," Sulpicia said with a pleased look. "They'll hardly recognise you when they see you again. Athenodora, the dress?"

The others… "What's my brother doing?" I asked, as the three women pulled a white linen shift over my head, followed by a sky blue under tunic with a darker blue over it, slashed to show the lighter colour beneath. It must have belonged to somebody else before Athenodora altered it, but it fit as though it had been made for me.

"He's downstairs with Philippe."

It was a new voice. Another vampire had come into the room, a tall, slender lady with brown hair carelessly braided, wearing fine woollen hose below an embroidered tunic. It was more like the simple clothes I was used to seeing at home, although the fabrics and embroidery were far finer. This vampire girl smiled at me easily.

"Hello everyone! I'm Chelsea, Jane. It's nice to meet you- I've been hearing all about you downstairs. It's not every day Lord Aro brings us a baby, and now there are two of you!"

"I'm not a baby," I said, but unlike before I wasn't angered by term. "Aro said it to everyone, I'm not a child."

Chelsea laughed. "I'm not talking about your human age. But in vampire terms you're a newborn, and we haven't had any for a little while so you and your brother are causing something of a scandal." She looked across at the other women with a grin. "I can see you've made Corin's acquaintance already! You must go down and meet the brother Corin, I've done what I can but the poor thing is far more agitated than he need be."

"I'd like to go and see Alec now, please," I said politely. "I've never been so clean ever in my life, you can't possible get even a speck of dirt off me now, so I'd like to see my brother and make sure he's okay."

Sulpicia kissed my cheek. "Of course. Chelsea will accompany you. Come and see us again soon Jane, we'd love to get to know you more."

Chelsea chuckled. "Come on Jane. Alec is downstairs in the library, and I'm sure he and Aro would love to see you again. You too Corin, I'm sure Jane would love to introduce you to her twin."

Corin giggled, and held out her hand to me. Without a word, I nodded goodbye to the ladies and followed them out of the tower room.