NORMAS DE OPERACIÓN PARA AERONAVES EXPERIMENTALES CONSTRUIDAS POR AFICIONADOS

Jürgen wasn’t the least bit upset when he woke the next morning and found the kunigaikstis dead. He was, however, rather surprised to find Jovirdas holding the sword.

The Sword-Bearer had risen immediately upon wak- ing at sunset, donned his armor, and summoned up his knights to bring Geidas out and burn him. When he en- tered Geidas’s “throne room,” he’d found the tysiatskii standing over his sire’s decomposing body. Jürgen noted with some satisfaction that he’d been correct in assuming that Geidas was a young Cainite—the body decayed slowly enough to give off a noticeable stench.

Jovirdas turned and faced Jürgen and his knights. “He was a weakling.”

Jürgen nodded. “I know.” “I am not.”

“So I see.”

Jovirdas took a torch from the wall, with some effort. “I do not intend to die easily, Lord Jürgen. I also do not intend to drink of your blood.”

Jürgen took a step into the room, but waved to his knights to stay close. “I hope you don’t flatter yourself to think, Jovirdas, that—”

“That I could best you? I don’t. But I hope you don’t think that I am the only Cainite remaining in this forest not marching under your banner. What one starts, another can finish.” He set his sword on a table, still in easy reach, and shifted the torch to his right hand. “I do not wish to burn tonight, but I’ll sooner taste cinders than your boot.” “Admirable.” Jürgen began to peer into the man’s mind, but Jovirdas leapt forward and shoved the torch at the Sword-Bearer’s face. Jürgen’s Beast cried out in alarm and screamed at Jürgen to run; Jürgen slapped it down, but did jump backward. Jovirdas took a step back, right hand extending the torch, left hand hovering near his sword.

“Stay out of my mind, Teuton.”

The insult at being so addressed paled next to the bit- terness in Jovirdas’s voice. “Geidas was in the habit of—?” “Yes!” Jovirdas’s voice twisted into a snarl, the fangs extended, his grip on the torch tightening to the point that Jürgen could see the wood fracturing. “I never drank of him, for he had no need of the oath. He saw all he needed to know.”

Jürgen sheathed his sword. “Go on.”

Jovirdas shook his head as though trying to clear it. “He claimed me as his childe, but that was a lie.”

“I guessed as much.”

“He made me take this post as his tysiatskii, but he never made me drink of his blood. He looked into my mind and took what he needed to know, and forced me to serve him.” Jürgen nodded. Jovirdas was evidently unaware that the ability to read minds was not the same as the ability to command them. “So how, then, did you manage to sum- mon the strength to destroy him?”

“I…” He stopped, his voice catching in his throat with a strange hiccuping sound. “I felt… everything… grow cold.”

Jürgen’s eyes widened, and his hand slipped to the hilt of his sword. “Go on.”

“I don’t know.” His voice seemed to return to nor- mal, and the tysiatskii lowered the sword. “I approached him with no ill intention, but then the hatred I felt for him came up around me, as though I were dropped into the river in winter.” Jürgen nodded. “And I felt nothing. No pain, no hate, nothing but the need to kill him.”

Jürgen dropped his eyes momentarily. “And the Beast? Did it guide you in this?”

Jovirdas looked shocked. “My Beast does not guide me, Jürgen. Ever.”

“Never?”

Jovirdas lowered the torch, but eyed it uncomfortably. “Geidas would indulge in play with his meals. He would break his oaths and treat those beneath him like shit on his boot. I cannot do this. It sickened me to watch, and yet I could do nothing.”

Jürgen smiled. “I understand how you feel.”

Jovirdas’s eyes narrowed. “That does not mean, Sword- Bearer, that I have any intention of bending knee before you or anyone, ever again.”

Jürgen cocked an eyebrow at the Tzimisce. From his talk of oaths and treatment of lesser, Jovirdas followed Jürgen’s ethos, but this was strange behavior from a Scion. Most of them were willing to swear oaths when necessary, especially if the result were advantageous. But Jovirdas seemed posi- tively repulsed by the idea—why? It couldn’t be because he fancied himself a tyrant and ruler absolute; Jürgen guessed he had never ruled his own fief. More likely, then, he equated being a vassal with being a slave, as he had been to Geidas.

Jürgen, of course, treated his vassals much better than Geidas, and Jovirdas’s less-than-perfect knowledge of Cainite politics would make him an acceptable, if not ideal, minion. This fief wasn’t important enough to leave one of Jürgen’s knights to rule, but for an experiment, a place- holder like Jovirdas…

Of course, the problem remained: How to convince the Tzimisce that he would do well to accept?

“Jovirdas,” said Jürgen carefully, “who mentored you on your road?”

Jovirdas replied only with a blank stare.

“What I mean is, after your Embrace, you must have been taught the methods of keeping the Beast under con- trol, especially to excel at it as you apparently do. So who taught you? Obviously Geidas walked a different path, possibly taught to him by his sire, but you’ve never met Visya, have you?”

“No,” Jovirdas shook his head slowly. “No, and I never mean to.”

“Yes, I understand. So who was it that fostered you and taught you? For that matter, Jovirdas, who is your sire?” The tysiatskii turned and replaced the torch on the wall, and gave the only response that could have truly shocked Jürgen. “I do not know.” Seeing the Sword-Bearer’s expres- sion, he continued. “I came across this fort shortly after Geidas had taken over. I don’t believe Visya ever knew of me.”

Jürgen shook his head. “He must have. If he kept such loose control over Geidas—”

“And yet, I don’t think he does. The communica- tions between them were brief; I always assumed that Visya was busy and perhaps in danger.”

“Possibly so. You were saying—your sire?”

“I was a guard, once. Under the command of a true tysiatskii, serving a true kunigaikstis, not these unliving mockeries.” He sat in Geidas throne, trailing a foot through the dust that had once been his master. “One night my company was attacked. I know now it was by a Cainite, probably my sire. But I have no idea why he left me alive.” “He did not,” Jürgen muttered. Jovirdas nodded wea- rily.

“I left and made my own way. When the Beast raged, I remembered my training and the discipline that my com- manders had taught. I arrived here and… you know the rest.”

“Amazing,” said Jürgen softly. “The letters mentioned Cainites such as you, but I never believed it.”

“What letters?”

Jürgen smiled. “I carry with me the Letters of Acindynus. Have you heard of him?” Jovirdas shook his head. “He is a Ventrue scholar of the Via Regalis. His let- ters are a collection of his thoughts on my road—our road—with annotations from other Cainites.” Jürgen paused to gauge Jovirdas’s interest; he looked rapt. “Some mention is made of Cainites who have found the Road of Kings—or something much like it—independent of any mentor, but I confess I always thought the road too com- plex, the teachings too difficult, to be mastered without a guide.” A tiny worm of jealousy crept into Jürgen’s heart; he crushed it with the thought that Jovirdas’s precocious- ness could well be the means to elicit an oath from him.

Jovirdas shifted uncomfortably. Jürgen decided to spare him the embarrassment of asking to see the letters. “I’d be happy to share these documents with you, but I must, of course, ask for something in return.”

“You have much to learn, Jovirdas, about the differ- ence between vassalage and submission. Becoming a vassal to a noble Cainite, a true Scion, does not involve losing yourself or submitting your free will because the oath of vassalage must be undertaken freely. Likewise, I must swear an oath to you as well, and both oaths are binding.”

“Why?”

“Did you swear to serve Geidas?”

Jovirdas looked at the floor, fingers clenching into fists. “I promised him I would aid him in exchange for the right to feed here. He violated that agreement.”

Jürgen shook his head. “Not if all he promised was that you could feed, though I must admit that subjugating the will of a vassal is disgraceful behavior for a Cainite.”

Jovirdas looked at Jürgen with a sardonic smile. “You have never dominated the mind of an underling, then? Your vassals do as they please?”

“I do not take steps that are unnecessary, Jovirdas. I do not destroy the wills and souls of even my lowliest ser- vants, because I value the ability in those servants to choose to serve. The choice to eat from the Tree of Knowl- edge was a bad one, yet God let Eve do it, because she so chose.” Jovirdas nodded hesitantly; theology was appar- ently not his strong suit. “My vassals may do as they please so long as what they please does not violate what they have sworn, or their station. This restricts some of them more than others, but I have found that binding Cainites too tightly in service simply spells,” he gestured to the dust on the floor, “disaster.”

Jovirdas stood and spat in the dust. “You mentioned a price for reading those letters.”

Jürgen nodded. “Several, really, and all in the form of oaths.” Jovirdas glowered, but not with nearly the same intensity as before. “First, I would ask that you swear that no harm will befall the letters themselves—they do not belong to me and I am honor-bound to return them in the same condition they were given to me.”

“Done,” said Jovirdas.

“Second, I would ask for your word that some of my retinue, including Lady Rosamund, may remain here for

the time being. I have urgent business farther north, and I can take only my knights with me. You must swear to me that no harm shall befall her or any of my other compan- ions while in your care.”

“Done, but I should like to know where you are go- ing.”

“Of course. That actually ties into the third oath somewhat.” Jürgen drew himself up to his full height and stepped over Geidas’s remains to stand in front of Jovirdas. The two men were nearly the same height and Jovirdas showed no sign of backing down. Jürgen did not look him in the eye, not yet—Jovirdas would still equate that with mental domination, and Jürgen did not wish to frighten him. Instead, Jürgen focused on himself, willing himself to become regal, inspiring, the very picture of the warlord and noble leader. Jovirdas did not meet his gaze, but stared at his face. The Tzimisce’s stony countenance softened somewhat; Jürgen laid a hand on his shoulder and spoke quietly, as though to a trusted lieutenant, or even a friend. “I would like you to swear fealty to me, and I in turn would take you as my vassal.”

“Which, of course, requires tasting of your blood.” “It does.”

Jovirdas did not respond, and Jürgen did not press the issue for the moment. “If you swear this oath, you are there- fore under my protection, ruling this domain in my name. When I take Livonia for my own, the rewards will be great.” Jovirdas met Jürgen’s eyes for an instant, but then looked down at his chin. “And what of the Voivodate? Rustovitch and his ilk? Geidas feared them; I think even Visya did.”

Jürgen smiled. “I fought Rustovitch once before, and I failed. I have no intention of failing this time. I do not ask you to come into battle beside me—I’m best served by you remaining here so that I have a base to return to.”

“What makes you think I will not swear an oath and then break it when you leave, slaying your lady and her guards and calling for help from the Voivodate?”

Jürgen recognized the true purpose behind the ques- tion. “Because, Jovirdas, while I may not trust you any

more than I trust any Cainite, I do trust that your adher- ence to loyalty has served you well. You are in no hurry to begin fouling the well that has sustained you on the nights—and I know you have had them—when the Beast threatens to make a true monster of you.” Jovirdas nod- ded. “And in any case, should you break the oath, I shall know. Just as your former master could see into minds, I can hear a breaking oath from miles off.” Jovirdas looked skeptical. “How else am I able to hold territory in Acre, in Magdeburg, and elsewhere?” Jovirdas nodded. Jürgen still wasn’t sure the other believed his boast, but he also didn’t believe Jovirdas would test his luck in any case. “If I should fall in battle,” Jürgen continued, “Rustovitch won’t know your loyalties and you may do as you please without dis- honor.”

“But you don’t intend to fall.”

“Of course not.” Jürgen smiled, but did not relinquish his grip on Jovirdas’s shoulder and did not allow his bear- ing to fade. “I intend to win, and become lord of this land as I am Prince of Magdeburg. It is no less than God in- tends, as both you and Rustovitch will see.” He leaned in closer, and spoke directly into Jovirdas’s ear. Jovirdas’s hand reached up, unconsciously, as if to clutch at Jürgen’s side, and then fell. “Will you swear fealty to me, Jovirdas of Kybartai? Will you taste of my blood, and bend knee to a leader who sees your worth, who prizes your strength, as a warrior and a true Scion?”

Jovirdas took a step back, nearly tripping over the throne. He regained his footing—and his dignity—and looked Jürgen squarely in the eye.

“I will, Jürgen of Magdeburg, but I have one other requirement.”

Chapter Twenty-Six