“Of course it is,” Ysabeau said. “I brought the disease into the family. I am a carrier, like Marcus.”
“You?” Sarah looked stunned.
“The disease was in my sire. He believed it was a great blessing for a lamia to carry his blood, for it made you truly terrifying and nearly impossible to kill.” The contempt and loathing with which Ysabeau said the word “sire” made me understand why Matthew disliked the term.
“There was constant warfare between vampires then, and any possible advantage was seized. But I was a disappointment,” Ysabeau continued. “My maker’s blood did not work in me as he had hoped, though the blood rage was strong in his other children. As a punishment—”
Ysabeau stopped and drew a shaky breath.
“As a punishment,” she repeated slowly, “I was locked in a cage to provide my brothers and sisters with a source of entertainment, as well as a creature on whom they could practice killing. My sire did not expect me to survive.”
Ysabeau touched her fingers to her lips, unable for a moment to go on.
“I lived for a very long time in that tiny, barred prison—filthy, starving, wounded inside and out, unable to die though I longed for it. But the more I fought and the longer I survived, the more interesting I became. My sire—my father—took me against my will, as did my brothers. Everything that was done to me stemmed from a morbid curiosity to see what might finally tame me. But I was fast—and smart. My sire began to think I might be useful to him after all.”
“That’s not the story Philippe told,” Marcus said numbly. “Grandfather said he rescued you from a fortress—that your maker had kidnapped you and made you a vampire against your will because you were so beautiful he couldn’t bear to let anyone else have you. Philippe said your sire made you to serve as his wife.”
“All of that was the truth—just not the whole truth.” Ysabeau met Marcus’s eyes squarely. “Philippe did find me in a fortress and rescued me from that terrible place. But I was no beauty then, no matter what romantic stories your grandfather told later. I’d shorn my head with a broken shell that a bird had dropped on the window ledge, so that they couldn’t use my hair to hold me down. I still have the scars, though they are hidden now. One of my legs was broken. An arm, too, I think,” Ysabeau said vaguely. “Marthe will remember.”
No wonder Ysabeau and Marthe had treated me so tenderly after La Pierre. One had been tortured, and the other had put her back together again after the ordeal. But Ysabeau’s tale was not yet finished.
“When Philippe and his soldiers came, they were the answer to my prayers,” Ysabeau said. “They killed my sire straightaway. Philippe’s men demanded all of my sire’s children be put to death so that the evil poison in our blood would not spread. One morning they came and took my brothers and sisters away. Philippe kept me behind. He would not let them touch me. Your grandfather lied and said that I had not been infected with my maker’s disease—that someone else had made me and I had killed only to survive. There was no one left to dispute it.”
Ysabeau looked at her grandson. “It is why Philippe forgave Matthew for not killing you, Marcus, though he had ordered him to do so. Philippe knew what it was to love someone too much to see him perish unjustly.”
But Ysabeau’s words did not lift the shadows from Marcus’s eyes.
“We kept my secret—Philippe and Marthe and I—for centuries. I made many children before we came to France, and I thought that blood rage was a horror we had left behind. My children all lived long lives and never showed a trace of the illness. Then came Matthew . . .” Ysabeau trailed off. A drop of red formed along her lower lid. She blinked away the blood tear before it could fall.
“By the time I made Matthew, my sire was nothing more than a dark legend among vampires. He was held up as an example of what would happen to us if we gave in to our desires for blood and power. Any vampire even suspected of having blood rage was immediately put down, as was his sire and any offspring,” Ysabeau said dispassionately. “But I could not kill my child, and I would not let anyone else do so either. It was not Matthew’s fault that he was sick.”
“It was no one’s fault, Maman,” Matthew said. “It’s a genetic disease—one that we still don’t understand. Because of Philippe’s initial ruthlessness, and all the family has done to hide the truth, the Congregation doesn’t know that the sickness is in my veins.”
“They may not know for sure,” Ysabeau warned, “but some of the Congregation suspect it. There were vampires who believed that your sister’s illness was not madness, as we claimed, but blood rage.”
“Gerbert,” I whispered.
Ysabeau nodded. “Domenico, too.”
“Don’t borrow trouble,” Matthew said, trying to comfort her. “I’ve sat at the council table while the disease was discussed, and no one had the slightest inkling I was afflicted with it. So long as they believe blood rage is extinct, our secret is safe.”
“I’m afraid I have bad news, then. The Congregation fears that blood rage is back,” Marcus said.
“What do you mean?” Matthew asked.
“The vampire murders,” Marcus explained.
I’d seen the press clippings Matthew had collected back in his Oxford laboratory last year. The mysterious killings were widespread and had taken place over a number of months. Investigators had been stymied, and the murders had captured human attention.
“The killings seemed to stop this winter, but the Congregation is still dealing with the sensational headlines,” Marcus continued. “The perpetrator was never caught, so the Congregation is braced for the killings to resume at any moment. Gerbert told me so in April, when I made my initial request that the covenant be repealed.”
“No wonder Baldwin is reluctant to acknowledge me as his sister,” I said. “With all the attention Philippe’s blood vow would bring to the de Clermont family, someone might start asking questions. You might all become murder suspects.”
“The Congregation’s official pedigree contains no mention of Benjamin. What Phoebe and Marcus have discovered are only family copies,” Ysabeau said. “Philippe said there was no need to share Matthew’s . . . indiscretion. When Benjamin was made, the Congregation’s pedigrees were in Constantinople. We were in faraway Outremer, struggling to hold our territory in the Holy Land. Who would know if we left him out?”
“But surely other vampires in the Crusader colonies knew about Benjamin?” Hamish asked.
“Very few of those vampires survive. Even fewer would dare to question Philippe’s official story,” Matthew said. Hamish looked skeptical.