Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(98)
Author: Anne Rice

Blake and Talmage were talking together rather heatedly in the corner. Hollingshed joined them. As far as Marklin knew, they were in their late fifties. Where were the other novices? No other novices. Not even Ansling and Perry, the officious little monsters. What does your instinct tell you? Something is wrong, very wrong.

Marklin went after Elvera, quickly catching her elbow.

“Are we supposed to be here?”

“Yes, of course you are,” said Elvera.

“We’re not dressed.”

“Doesn’t matter. Here, do have a drink.” This time she put the glass in his hand. He set down his plate on the edge of the long table. Probably a breach of etiquette, nobody else had done it. And, God, look at this spread. There was a great roasted boar’s head, with the apple in its mouth, and the suckling pig surrounded by fruit on its steaming silver platter. The mingled fragrances of the meat were delicious, he had to admit it. He was getting hungry! How absurd.

Elvera was gone, but Nathan Harberson was very close to him, looking down at him from his lofty mossback height.

“Does the Order always do this?” Marklin asked. “Throw a banquet when someone dies?”

“We have our rituals,” said Nathan Harberson in an almost sad voice. “We are an old, old order. We take our vows seriously.”

“Yes, very seriously,” said one of the pop-eyed twins from Rome. This one was Enzo, wasn’t it? Or was it Rodolpho? Marklin couldn’t remember. His eyes made you think of fish, too large for expression, indicative only of illness, and to think it had struck both of them. And when the twins both smiled as they were doing now, they looked rather hideous. Their faces were wrinkled, thin. But there was supposed to be some crucial difference between them. What was it? Marklin could not recall.

“There are certain basic principles,” said Nathan Harberson, his velvety baritone voice growing a little louder, a little more confident, perhaps.

“And certain things,” said Enzo, the twin, “are beyond question with us.”

Timothy Hollingshed had drawn near and was looking down his aquiline nose at Marklin, as he always did. His hair was white and thick, like Aaron’s had been. Marklin didn’t like the look of him. It was like looking at a cruel version of Aaron, much taller, more ostentatiously elegant. God, look at the man’s rings. Positively vulgar, and every one was supposed to have its history, replete with tales of battle, treachery, vengeance. When can we leave here? When will all this end?

“Yes, we hold certain things sacred,” Timothy was saying, “just as if we were a small nation unto ourselves.”

Elvera had returned. “Yes, it isn’t merely a matter of tradition.”

“No,” said a tall, dark-haired man with ink-black eyes and a bronzed face. “It’s a matter of a deep moral commitment, of loyalty.”

“And of reverence,” said Enzo. “Don’t forget reverence.”

“A consensus,” said Elvera, looking straight at him. But then they were all looking at him. “On what is of value, and how it must be protected at all costs.”

More people had pressed into the room, senior members only. A predictable increase in soft chatter. Someone laughing again. Didn’t people have the sense not to laugh?

There is something just flat-out wrong with this, that we’re the only novices, thought Marklin. And where was Tommy? Suddenly in a panic, he realized he had lost sight of Tommy. No, there he was, eating grapes from the table like some sort of Roman plutocrat. Ought to have the decency not to do that.

Marklin gave a quick, uneasy nod to those clustered around him and pushed through a tight press of men and women, and, nearly tripping over someone’s foot, landed finally at Tommy’s side.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Tommy demanded. He was looking at the ceiling. “For God’s sake, relax. We’ll be on the plane in a few hours. Then we’ll be in …”

“Shhh, don’t say anything,” said Marklin, conscious that his voice was no longer normal, no longer under his control. If he had ever been this apprehensive in his life, he didn’t remember it.

For the first time he saw that the black cloth had been draped everywhere along the walls. The two clocks of the great hall were covered! And the mirrors, the mirrors were veiled in black. He found these things totally unnerving. He had never seen such old-fashioned funeral trappings. When people in his family had died, they’d been cremated. Someone called you later to tell you that it had been done. That was precisely what had happened with his parents. He’d been at school, lying on his bed, reading Ian Herning, when the call came, and he had only nodded and gone on reading. And now you’ve inherited everything, absolutely everything.

Suddenly he was thoroughly sick from the candles. He could see the candelabra everywhere, such costly silver. Some of them were even encrusted with jewels. God, how much money did this Order have stashed away in its cellars and its vaults? A small nation indeed. But then it was all the fault of fools like Stuart, who had long ago willed his entire fortune to the Order, and must surely have changed that will, all things considered, of course.

All things. Tessa. The plan. Where was Stuart now—with Tessa?

The talk grew louder and louder. There was the tinkling of glasses. Elvera came again and poured more wine into his glass.

“Drink up, Mark,” she said.

“Do behave, Mark,” whispered Tommy, unpleasantly close to his face.

Marklin turned. This wasn’t his religion. This wasn’t his custom, to stand about feasting and drinking in black clothes at dawn!

“I’m going now!” he suddenly declared. His voice seemed to explode from his mouth and echo throughout the room!

Everybody else had gone silent.

For one second, in the ringing stillness, he almost gave in to a scream. The desire to scream was more pure in him than ever in childhood. To scream in panic, in horror. He didn’t know which.

Tommy pinched his arm, and pointed.

The double doors to the dining hall had been opened. Ah, so that was the reason for the silence. Dear God, had they brought the remains of Aaron home?

The candles, the crepe—it was the very same in the dining hall, another cavern of grimness. He was determined not to enter, but before he could act upon this decision, the crowd moved him slowly and solemnly towards the open doorway. He and Tommy were being almost carried along.

Don’t want to see any more, want to leave here …