Benjamin showed them to a set of rooms he was renting from a none-too-curious old landlord who seemed to assume that Benjamin, up all hours of night, was up to no good even in his basic daily functions, as a sort of principle. This suited Benjamin, as he was, and turned out to work for Harry and Remi as well, as the landlord treated them with the same morally superior (and thus unquestioning) Puritan disdain when they finally met him.
Inattention was good, and arrogance as good as inattention, though the fact that even Remi couldn’t charm the landlord (too obviously Catholic, assuredly) gave Harry hope he could be quietly eaten before they left.
For the time being, Remi was given a room on the first floor, with sturdy furniture and its own lock, which he pronounced to be set in very fine wood, as if this were a great diplomatic overture worthy of signaling an armistice. Harry was, sadly, and with much regret, quite unavoidably, really, relegated to an upstairs bedroom.
Benjamin himself slept somewhere else in the first floor – but alas, most of those rooms near the other two were not provided with beds, and all had a deuced tendency towards unshuttered windows and the landlord’s constant (surreptitious) inspection. Harry had to sleep in an inconvenient corner – again, a terribly shame – and had to get settled soon, for any second dawn would come...
So Harry, with little protest, laid himself down, window firmly shut, on a musty bed in a tiny attic room, whose multiple verminous occupants fled rather than dare his nature. As was usually the case, unless resisted with great determination, his eyes closed with finality as dawn lit upon the square outside.
Unusually and with little preamble, Harry dreamed....
Other than the fact that vampires shouldn’t have dreams, it was a startling enough dream in itself: a clear-cut slice of his memories, the details exacting and plentiful.
He had long assumed he didn’t have the means to compile images like dreams anymore, and their absence had not bothered him. It seemed fitting; he had once heard vampirism described as a sudden loss of conscience. That had suited him – conscience had done little for him, he had not had much to begin with – but still, it made a sort of sense beyond his conceits. A vampire was once a man, and a man becoming a vampire became a predator of his own species. He went, all of the sudden, from dominance over all the creatures, great and small, to at once finding out, and becoming, the beast that hunts the hunter.
So fitting, too, that this dream wrought havoc with his sleeping senses. The mien of a predator was the hunt. His senses played very poorly with the role of predator and prey reversed, which unpleasantness now his own nature forced irresistibly upon him, for he could not wake.
His mind, once so long subject to the vagaries both of humanity and philosophy, did nothing unwillingly anymore. As much as his pride wanted not to admit it, anyone, when dreaming, would be honest to his emotions, if not to himself, and he knew that he was frightened. Frightened of the trap he knew to be coming; unhappy that his mind, apparently, acted without him when necessary.
So he was, in his dusty attic room, trapped and still and feeling...
...Feeling the wrought iron against his palms, and willing his eyes to ignore the dark bars, force his perspective as if he were on the inside. The only thing reminding him he was not was the chill of metal gathered in his hands. He at once recognized that he stored that chill away, somewhere deep in his heart, the same instant his hatred warmed his skin. Soon, the metal would not be cold anymore. He would lose interest.
“Hey, what are you doing here?”
He stood back and lit a pipe, feet spread like a theology student’s, standing on the rock of ages. Taking his time, he glanced over his pipe through one eye, not yet sure whether this was the ‘run away’ sort of situation or the one where he made someone else run away.
It was the second – a student, an academic, robes and all, stood there looking slightly uncomfortable as his nonchalance wore on in silence. As if he didn’t know this was his world.
More than usual was it Harry’s act to put on, as looking up had greeted him with a merry twinge of the stomach. Harry pulled upon his hatred, but it fizzled, twisted and died, and the situation changed from being simple to being complicated, and from being the one kind to the other kind – but, lacking the proper ideas of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ he knew [and was reminded of that] so many [others] were raised with, he also knew he wasn’t going to ‘run away’, as he should. He really should. He really shouldn’t play odds this way. But... damn.
Oh damn. The student was a little cute. Maybe Harry wouldn’t mug him. He had a few days coin to make it on. And there were a hundred others he would take greater pleasure in mangling.
“What’s it to you?” he said, gritting his teeth behind his lips at how... urchin it sounded. He would have to put on his accents. Maybe it was too late... unless this student was a larker, liked slumming about... well, then all sorts of ideas cropped up that didn’t have much to do with survival, in any way...
The student put on a look of confusion and hurt, and then graced it with a smile and with a blessing bow discomfort took its leave from his face and left behind pearly white gates of god-hot sin.
“Nothing, friend, nothing,” he said.
Harry twitched uncomfortably under the pressure of four days of solid goodness beating through his blood. He was practically awash in the stuff. You could hardly smell the swill of the street clinging to his cuffs and the fresh blood and bruises had healed to the yellow pallor of the recovering ill.
They said a man’s looks revealed his life, and if that were so, then Harry was on his way to redemption. They also said that God himself set things up to run, and so the people he met along the way were the people he was supposed to meet by some great decree. If an’ that were true, why, his scheduled journey towards redemption seemed to hold a few more stops along the way.
“No harm, meant, I’m sure,” Harry heard himself saying, staring out his own eyes from a comfortable little covelet where he kept his wishes and wants. “Have a smoke, by way of apology for such sharp talk.”
With the practiced ease of those who have no care for their goods he tossed his [exceeding precious] travel stained [someone else’s travels] leather tobacco pouch [stolen] towards the student, with nary a care to how it landed, but turned himself to rest with feet apart [open fourth position] with his arm folded, staring at the school as if it had morally offended him. Which it had, but no one was asking much about Harry’s morals, anyway, so neveryoumind that.
The student caught the pouch, with some fumbling, and, oh, how Harry wanted to watch the thin eyelashes fall over those blue –iris eyes. It would be a real shame when he robbed him. He ought to rob him, anyway, to prove it to himself that he wasn’t acting a fool for a pretty face.
Youngbloods always resisted, though, and resisting meant a well earned beating, but Harry would get little succor out of it. Blue and purple’d go well together, anyway.
“Good sir, I say, your offer’s well taken but I haven’t a pipe to smoke it in, not being privy to latest fashions,” and he laughed. It was a sprite’s laugh, a cheerful laugh, loud and good for pubs and in spite of ruining the delicate picture that Harry’s built up in his head about the student he found its shift of ground most pleasant.
The student tossed back the bag, and in a fit of showmanship, Harry caught it without looking before he turned around. The fluidity of the gesture was that of the survivor, the urchin, the skilled, but he turned the flow like Moses turned the riverbanks and set the Sea on itself; what had been sharp and skillful became fluid and delicate and like a creeping vine he gave a short nod to the student that had been worthy of gilding had they been in France.
And it worked. He saw the dazzle in the student’s eyes. Like throwing gold before an urchin child. With the same breath cursing and praising himself, he smiled, taking the pipe out of his mouth and turning it round.
“Pay no mind. Have one on me.”
The student... the student (but how he wanted to call him elsewise), crooked his grin and reaching forward, did but brush the back of Harry’s fingers in the smallest way, to take the pipe. When he had it, it was all his own, and so he stood, arm resting upon arm folded over his chest and blew out silver smoke incautiously, tossing out his hand after the silence of breath passed between them.
“My name’s Benjamin, and forgive me if I do not put on full flourish and greet you arms akimbo. I am but a simple student, and beg your patience, milord.”
He performed a little hand waving flourish, all effrontery swept under the raised corner of a mercurial lip and kept stolidly between them. Harry felt a twitch in the back of his mind, that back that bit and scratched when cornered and spat spitefully at the school walls, that twitch screaming quietly to him that this young man was as good a manipulator as he was.
But Harry was watching tobacco smoke, letting his pipe [also stolen, different cove] be handed back to him, letting the student Benjamin stand next to him and stare up at the walls with an appraising look, shaking out of his collar a rampantly curly and entirely natural blonde tail. Like an empty barrel out of a sinking ship, it hit Harry right in the throat that he desperately wanted to get his hands in that, fit curls to fingers like golden rings and pull...
“You must be new? Not a classmate? You’re Cambridge, perhaps?”
His questioning look was too easy to answer, but Harry didn’t quite have the lie in him. He had to turn away and stare at the building, feeling under all of his hatred and envy his desire laid bare to the bleak stone walls, looking weak and small but stronger and more lasting than his certain other desires, such as the one he was avoiding right now, leaping like an eager hound in his chest.
“Perhaps is as good a term as any.”
Benjamin smiled and chuckled. “Well, I should perhaps now take up arms against mine enemy, but somehow I can’t strike up an urge to duel a fellow who’s just lent me a smoke. Curse my weak principles.”
“Aye, the same from me, o stalwart enemy. There’s just no damning a fellow who’s going to head over to the pub across the street and buy another fellow a pint as a return of the favor.”
Harry and Benjamin locked eyes for a moment, both with wrinkled brows though one with doubt and the other incredulity. If this worked, all the better; if Harry wasn’t going to mug him, then he could at least get a pint or a meal out of him. Benjamin laughed, that merry, hearty, good, full laugh, and slapped Harry’s shoulder.
“You do drive a hard bargain, but I suppose I ought to – it wouldn’t do not to return insult for insult, and I have a feeling that even so early in our acquaintance, we shall do plenty of that.”
“Oh, we shall have to keep up appearances after all. I’m certain we can have some fit argument over Descartes should anyone grow suspicious.”
“Indeed, for if you put any stock in that mad Frenchman we’ll have plenty to argue over. Come, I believe I owe you a pint.”
With another mocking flourish, Benjamin conjured an unwilling smile onto Harry’s face. The cynical parts of him were breaking down like old timber. His smile lacked artifice, though the pompous return bow he sent to Benjamin was full of it, and elicited another hearty laugh.
They crossed the street together, and Harry hardly glanced about to see which alleys would be good to mug his companion should relations turn sour.
He was thinking of becoming Cartesian just to prolong a conversation.
He was certifiably losing his mind.
He was also young – so very young, mourned the dreamer, the older Harry lying prisoned in sleep. Harry, watching himself, knew he was not the 20 –year –old youth he dressed himself as, presented himself as – he saw the seventeen –year –old that he was. Seventeen, and only five years escaped from the master who had promised to beat him to death to save on his allowance for food (Harry remained somewhat proudly bad at taking orders, though counted himself fortunate to have lived to have grown savvy enough to avoid them).
Only four years acquainted with his own oddities. Consequently, four years in vigorous pursuit. Also, he was almost certain, having been a difficult child from the beginning, seventeen years into thinking he was right about everything.
Though thinking was perhaps not the right word. Harry had, of course, thought a great deal. Having taught himself to read, there was very little else he felt was out of reach of his mind, and therefore had reached to everything it had yet occurred to him to touch.
Which was an apt metaphor for his process; not thinking, Feeling – Feeling was it. How strongly he had felt! He remembered it now, felt its shadows moving over his heart like the great umbra of the hawk crossing the sun.
He had had no particular skill at survival, no knowledge of the cities or their streets, yet had felt that he should leave. The enormous stupidity of this action was mitigated in his mind by the fact that he had somehow managed to survive it – and with minimal damage to himself.
Soon, he discovered that no one would pay him to be clever, and that being paid for his charm was hazardous at its best, and undesirable at its worst. He had rapidly figured out that you could make money by hitting people and taking theirs, and had pursued this with retrospectively disturbing élan.
His youthful self did not stop to consider where this mode led him, whether it was good or ill, and he could witness one of its most inglorious downfalls now. How quickly it was that he let his emotions convince himself away from the cold, criminal detachment that aided his survival, convince him to let caution go because of a face he liked and a charming manner.
How much Harry wanted to relegate that mistake to youth.
So his hard won survival instincts fell by the way.
He hadn’t thought of his own death then as something worth fighting against, doomed as he was from every corner of society. Fatalism was the opposite of his foolishness; he had no qualms departing from a society that had no place for him, but nevertheless knew his submission would come about in one way or another, most likely a jaunt on Tyburn’s three-legged mare. Such that it was, he went after whatever it was that he wanted with a vengeance and a healthy irreverence, and expected, at any moment, to find death waiting wherever it would.
He was only right once.
His youthful self was none the wiser to the fact that his philosophy of life would change. He had no plans to change in any way. Here he was, nigh a hundred years after, trapped by a dream, while he watched himself in bygone days, equally trapped by his youth.
Harry groaned and fought and tried to avert his proven fate, but it was to no avail. Was this the sort of dreaming then, that he was left? A recitation of memory? Let those who argue that their days are too short suffer it, then, for the memory-dream went through in sequence every lasting hour, every minute, and he felt, oh how he felt it all reoccurring in a heart that was no longer meant to take the strains of frivolous emotion.
Let the days be too short, then! Let them end early! For he and Benjamin charmed and fought and argued for intermittent hours of the evening in different public houses about different philosophies that they never could resolve the difference between (Harry had very soon given up Descartes, though it turned out that Benjamin had only been insulting him, in hopes he was one of the plentiful Cartesians, to lure him into conversation. Benjamin was himself, in fact, Cartesian and so the argument went on throughout the evening with bashfully hurt feelings on either side repeated).
Harry was thrilled to have a mind to argue with, thrilled that Benjamin not only kept pace but did often outsmart him, and knew more of what was current than he, though Harry would never admit it. He reveled in the excess of mind between them, went plunging unthinkingly into the most stolid of debates with charm and vigor and a predatory need to be both vanquished and victor – and Benjamin responded the same, as Harry could see, when blotchy color marred his pale skin and he crossed his brows with moody and savage contemplation, ruinous of his vanity.
He was vain. So was Harry. He should have seen it coming.
Reliving the late evening gave him no joy. Laughably, he thought, his younger self had mourned having been without relief for four days. Now his memories invited him to that relief, which he had not had since meeting... well, since a very long time, and it only filled him with aversion.
The regret of his older self and the younger self of his dream-memory mingled under the perverse early dawn of that gray long ago’s wee morning hours, when he shook his head and cradled it, feeling first the pain of waking and then the cold that was not cold, but lack of warmth, so similar to what would later be the temperature of vampirism. It was with foggy puzzlement his younger self looked at the rumpled pillow of the empty half of the bed. He had been pretty careful not to push him out – they hadn’t gotten a single bed room (drunk as they were) in order to allay suspicion, but the other bed found its purpose unfulfilled, though it meant the space for romp had been damnably small.
The shine on the desk caught his eye. He wandered naked out of bed, trailing sheets half-heartedly. His sensible mind had already killed pleasure from the pain of aching muscles – a preemptive and instinctual mercy that he never would get around to thanking. Vaguely, he rubbed his eye and wondered if what he saw was gold, pulling a scrounged piece of paper out from under its weight.
The writing was fine and high, with all the thinness and brittleness of the trained pen. Harry couldn’t write, not really, not that he would show to anyone. Teaching himself to read had been difficult enough. His hand lacked grace, as yet, in that venture. Looking at Benjamin’s penwork, however, didn’t fill him with jealousy. He smiled. He liked that absence. He read:
Harry –
Thank you for a most charming evening. I’d say it’s a shame that rank and etiquette shall separate us, but I profess no flattery when I say your ruse is good enough to fool a dean. Should we re –encounter one another, I would be pleased to partake of your company again, though it’s general custom to establish the bill beforehand. Sorry about the coin – I assume that silver would be more useful to you, but I had none. I’m sure the innkeep will change it for you.
–Benjamin
He looked down at the desk at the shining golden sun of a new sovereign coin, the figures stamped rising to his eye like Phaeton and his burning steeds, laying still as the dreamed morning daylight.
He opened his eyes. Night had fallen. His own inert and natural command had rescued him from his dream. He sat up, in a room unfamiliar, and stared out the window at night-cast Oxford, falling to black under the remains of a gray dusk.
That first time, he had not seen Benjamin again until he had entered in some years at Cambridge, and, though some years wiser, still himself. He remembered the rising flame of hatred that had burned to its full brightness then, when they sparred again. The contest was inconclusive, or at least, unsatisfying. Benjamin’s refuge had been his rank, to which he always sunk when in need of defense.
His rank, and knowing where Harry had come from. Thinking that Harry cared about his own low birth.
It was and remained the only time Harry had ever been paid for his company.
Harry performed his nightly ablutions, such as they were, and turned up his cuffs, lightly powdered scent rising above the smell of earth that tended to linger about old houses and the perniciously unburied, and bidding Ate to stand beside him, gently turned the knob and slipped out of his high attic bedchamber, whispering to himself as he trotted down the stairs,
“Havoc.”