IMMORTAL CASTRATI 

 

    "Ready?"  The student seated at the pipe organ asked.

     The boy standing in the center of the church's stage looked around at the empty sanctuary and turned back to his friend, nodding.  He also smiled at the little boy standing ready to turn the pages of the script of music, although he doubted that it would be necessary.   It was the first time that he had ever sung alone in the church, and his teacher was curious as to how his voice would sound with no one else there to detract from it.  The church was empty and still, and the vast sanctuary would provide the acoustics the teacher needed to make his judgments.  For the last two years, this boy had been his best singing student - a true virtuoso - and this was to be his final test of voice before the operation.  From the very back of the huge room, he waved and called out, "Begin!"

     His voice echoed throughout the sanctuary as the warm light from the torches and candles flickered and danced upon the walls, casting shadows this way and that.  It was time.

     The boy, Pietro, drew in a deep breath and began to sing as the organ filled the room with a delicate sound, a relatively simple piece of church music to which the boy needed no score to read.  He had sung it hundreds of times, and although it was simple and easy to remember, it was a beautiful piece that would test the limits of his clear soprano voice.  He went through the first verse with no difficulty, and growing more sure of himself and comfortable with his surroundings, he dove into the second verse with more confidence and conviction.  He was watching his teacher, the Maestro, who stood at the far back end of the sanctuary the entire time.  Pietro could not see his face in the dim light, although he tried very hard to do so.

     As he entered the third and final verse, smiling, he glanced sideways at his friend, Giovanni, at the organ.  The older boy's fingers flew over the keyboard with the same confidence as Pietro's voice as they came together and filled the deserted church with a sound that could only be described as priceless.  Giovanni did not let the organ drown out Pietro's voice with its power; rather, he carefully limited the playing to compliment it and kept the instruments power in check.  The little boy, Marco, was enraptured and had forgotten his page-turning duties; not that Giovanni needed him to, anyway.  His dark eyes were wide and his mouth agape.  He sat still, impossibly still for a little boy, reaching up only now and then to scratch his nearly bald head.  The Maestro was smiling and nodding, gesturing for Pietro to summon up something more for the ending - as if that were possible.  Pietro caught the gesture and nodded, never missing a note.

     As he began to end the song, he turned only slightly to aim his head at the glass of water from which he had been drinking and had left sitting on the edge of the priest's small stand near the pulpit.  He came to the brief pause very near the end of the song and drew up as much breath he could fit into his lungs.  When he released the final note, it was with every ounce of his soul pouring into it.  Giovanni was no longer looking at the music, nor poking Marco in the ribs to remind him to turn the pages.  His hands were automatically stroking the ivory keys as Pietro's flawless voice rose to a note so high that it was almost unreal.

     The glass shattered.

     The test was over.

     The Maestro ran down the center aisle towards the stage, bounding up the few steps to sweep the boy up in his arms and spin him around.  There were tears standing in his eyes as he tousled the boy's hair and turned to Giovanni who sat shivering at the now silent organ.  Marco looked stunned.   Both of them knew the boy had been holding out on them; never before had he produced such sound at the conservatorio during the seemingly endless lessons.  Neither of them, student-composer nor teacher, had expected this - not from a boy only nine years old.

     "And are you pleased, Maestro?"  Pietro asked as his feet touched the floor once again.

     The answer came only in the form of a nod, as words escaped the astounded teacher.

     Finally, composing himself with great effort to his usual teaching demeanor, he stepped back to announce to the boys, "The test has been a great success, Pietro.  More than a success."

     Pietro smiled at Giovanni, who was still looking a little shaken, and trying to clean up the mess of shattered glass and water.  Marco had not moved.

     "Let us go then and thank the priest for the loan of his church at this odd hour," the Maestro said, "and then retire for the evening.  We have much to do tomorrow and will need to be rested up for it."

 

     The three of them paid their respects to the priest, who admitted to having been eavesdropping on the practice.  Marco was silent.   The priest's voice was quavering as he told them he had never in his sixty-odd years of ministry heard such a voice.  Truly, it had to be a gift, he had said, laughing at the story of the shattering glass.  They took their leave of the priest then, with offers to practice in his church if ever they needed to again.  And would the Maestro be so kind as to mention to Pietro if he might perform solo for the congregation sometime?  It seemed a shame, he thought, to keep such a talent hidden away at the conservatorio or blended in with the many other voices of the boys’ choir.

     It was much to think about as they set out on foot for the conservatorio, which they called home.  It was only about a half hour's walk from the church, and the sun had just gone down.   The sky seemed to be on fire in the west, and the evening was crisp and cool with the promise that autumn was not very far away.  A cool wind blew softly against their faces as they walked, their eyes darting from the purples and oranges of the sunset to the road in front of them and back.  There was a faint scent of smoke on that wind as well as Pietro sniffed at it, his unruly blond hair blowing this way and that.  It was almost perfect.

     “You need a haircut,” the Maestro commented.

     “Yea, a haircut!”  Marco added, running out ahead of them and rubbing his own shaven scalp.

     But Pietro was distracted and did not hear them.

     He could feel eyes upon him as they walked, and he unconsciously stepped up the pace.  It was not the mere exhilaration of what had just happened in the church, nor the words of praise from the priest.  It was not the anticipation of tomorrow's plans, nor was it the feeling of arrogant pride.  Someone was watching him, and the feeling of being of being stared at was unnerving.  He was reminded of the feeling of having to do oral reports for school, in front of the whole class, and he didn’t like it.

     Pietro didn't hear the Maestro dispatch Giovanni to go and tell the doctor to come to the conservatorio as they had discussed, and when he placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder to slow his accelerating pace, Pietro jumped and yelled.  Marco was out ahead of them, exploring, oblivious to whatever Pietro felt.

     "What is it, Pietro?" his teacher asked, "What is wrong?"

     The boy looked around in confusion.  "Where is Giovanni?" he asked, his voice suddenly harsh and full of fear.

     "Pietro, I just sent him off to go and confirm with the doctor that he will be coming to the conservatorio tomorrow afternoon for your operation.  Where is your mind, boy?"

     “I … I … d-don’t know, sir.  I’m sorry," the boy stammered.

     "Come now, Pietro, we've been planning this for months and you have surpassed all of our expectations.  Do you not want to preserve this angelic voice of yours?  You have known since you were very small that the operation is done to many boys … you've even asked about it and wondered when it would be done to you as well.  Are you frightened, now?  It's a bit late for that, you know," the Maestro chided.

     Pietro looked all around him as the sunset began to fade away and saw the gates of the only place he had ever called home coming into view.   The heavy iron of the gates and the high and thick stone wall did nothing to allay his fears, however.  Nor did the sight of the rambling old building that was their home, their school, and their life.  It wasn't the impending operation that terrified him; it was the feeling - but how to explain it without sounding childish or frightened?

     "It's not that, sir, no, " he explained, "it's just - I don't know - I feel like someone is watching us.  Don't you, Maestro?"

     The Maestro stared at him for a moment and shook his head, then laughed.

     "Nerves, my boy.  It's always like this the night before.  I promise you, Pietro, you won't feel a thing.  The doctor will give you a hot bath and some opium dissolved in warm spiced wine.  You'll sleep through the whole thing, " he told the boy, “and when you awaken, it will all be over.”

     But it wasn't that at all.   Pietro had no fears over his impending castration to preserve his boyhood voice; the procedure was routine and the doctor very experienced.  Thousands of boys were castrated each year for that very reason, and the few that died of it usually did so from inept surgeons or clandestine attempts made at home.  Of course, there would be reasons given to explain it  -other than the sake of his voice - for the operation having been performed.  There always were.  Fully half of the boys at the conservatorio were castrati, and not one of them would ever admit to having submitted to the operation willingly; there was always a medical reason - something very bad, to be sure.  Kicks from a badly behaved horse or a bite from a dog or pig were the most common.

     Then he saw the shadow move beside the huge tree near the corner of the stone wall.

     At first he thought it was Marco, but the small boy had come around behind them and was standing there quietly.

     It was a boy of about his own size.  It had to be!

     "Maestro, look! " he shouted and pointed, "Someone is outside the wall!  I saw him!"

     The teacher looked around, but saw nothing.  He put his arm around Pietro and pulled him close as he drew his key and unlocked the gates.  "No one would be out this late, but us," he said reassuringly, "Would you want to be the one caught sneaking out at night when you should be in bed?"

     The Maestro cleared his throat and threw a glance at Marco, who had begged to come along.  Then he smiled at the boy who was almost Pietro's "shadow."

     Pietro thought about the beating whoever it was would surely receive if caught.  Still, it didn't convince him that he had not seen someone there - a very small someone.  He looked again but there was nothing.

     "You are going straight to bed, now, young men, " the Maestro ordered as they entered the front door, "Now, off with you both!  Get some rest and settle down!"  He ordered jovially, giving them each a smart smack across their bottoms as they fled.

     Pietro ran up the stairs to his room with Marco right behind him, and not bothering to undress, locked his door and jumped into bed.  He shouted a hasty goodnight to Marco who had just slammed his own door and then pulled the covers up over his head.  He curled up into a ball, trembling and still feeling eyes upon him.  It was very late before he went to sleep.

 

     From a wide limb high in the ancient oak tree, a small dark form sat watching the terrified boy through his only window.  It did not matter that it was dark, as he could see everything well . . .

 

     The sun was streaming through Pietro's window and falling across his flawless face, giving it a warm glow, which seemed unearthly somehow.  Yet no one was there to see it, and the boy awoke slowly.  He rubbed his eyes, yawned and stretched, and slowly sat up.  He stared out the window into the bright light, squinting, realizing that they had let him sleep very late into the day.  It was almost noon! 

     Thinking himself late, and still a bit groggy, Pietro jumped up and realized that he had slept in his clothes.  He had never done that before, and wondered why.  Then the memory came back to him as he stepped over to the window to look down from his second story room onto the grounds below.  He could see the huge oak tree by the thick stone wall of the conservatorio, and thought himself silly for having been so frightened by what he thought he had seen the previous night.  He sighed and then remembered that today was the day! 

     The doctor would be here sometime to prep him for the operation that would keep his voice from ever changing - he was to become a castrato singer that very day.  Pietro shook his head and stripped off his wrinkled, slept-in clothes.  He had worn a gray suit over a white-laced shirt to the church last night, instead of the customary plain, peasant looking clothes that the non-castrati usually wore.  The castrati, of course, all wore the long black robes with the customary red sash that labeled them for what they were, a sign for the entire world to see.  Soon he would have one (actually, several) of those same robes and the thought intrigued him.  He had been dreaming of it for so long.

     He deposited his slept-in clothing in his laundry basket and pulled a plain gray tunic from his closet and put it on.  There wasn't much point in dressing up, after all.  Not today.  As he descended the stairs, he could hear voices coming from the office of the Headmaster.  It sounded as if the Headmaster, the Maestro, and someone else whom he did not know were having a very heated discussion.  Pietro was not a rude boy, but he simply could not resist a bit of eavesdropping.  He padded silently on bare feet up to the door and listened.

     "I tell you, I found him this morning, " the stranger was saying, "It must have been right after he left my house."

     "Poor Giovanni, " Pietro heard the Maestro say, his voice catching, "who could have done this?"

     "We are grateful for your story to the authorities, however, doctor, " the Headmaster was saying, "this could have meant total disaster for the conservatorio."

     Pietro gasped.

     The doctor was already there!  Now he recognized the voice.   And 'poor Giovanni’?  What did that mean?  Had he been injured or suddenly fallen ill?  The boy had to know.

     "We have been friends too long for me to betray you, " the doctor replied, "I could not bear to be the one responsible for the end of this centuries-old institution and its beautiful music."

     "But who could have done this and why? " the Maestro was asking.  Then Pietro heard one of them gasp.  "You know, Pietro thought he saw someone outside the wall last night after the test of his voice in the church.  Do you think it might be something?"

     "The authorities have no idea right now.  Right now all they are concerned with is that there is a murderer in this town and his first victim has been a student of this school.  We must be very careful.  I do not want to see any more of my boys torn to pieces!"  The Maestro stated.  There was a pause, and then Pietro could hear the choked sobs.

     Enough was enough.  He had deduced that Giovanni was dead, and he had to know the whole story.  Forgetting his manners, he pushed the door open and walked in on the three men.  "Tell me, " he demanded.  They all looked at the small boy standing in the doorway.  The Maestro crossed the room and picked him up and held him for what seemed like a very long time.  When he went back to his chair, he held the boy on his lap with his arms enfolded around him protectively. 

     Then, to Pietro’s surprise, he kissed his cheek.

     "Pietro, " the Headmaster began, "Last night, after your performance in the church, Giovanni went to the doctor's home to confirm your appointment and give him the news.  He left with a letter of confirmation stating he would be here today to see you.  However, he never made it home.  The Authorities found him this morning.  I am sorry, Pietro, but your friend was murdered last night . . . horribly.  I am still sick from identifying him."

     Pietro could feel the Maestro's arms tightening around him as his teacher was overcome with another wave of grief.  The boy twisted around in his lap and buried his face in the Maestro's shoulder.  He cried for a while, but when he turned back to face them all, there was a strange look on his face and a light shining in his eyes that took them all aback.  The men realized that the boy was not only saddened at the loss of his best friend, but that he was angry.  The look on his face was one of pure rage.

     "When will his services be?" Pietro asked, sliding down from the Maestro's lap and approaching the Headmaster. 

     "We don't know yet, my boy, the authorities have . . . " he paused for a moment, and the doctor nodded at him from his place opposite them.  "Pietro, they have him on ice to keep him … fresh … to examine his body for clues.  They must, you see.  It is possible that his attackers might be identified in this manner."

     Pietro nodded and turned to the doctor.  The look on the boy's face had become unreadable.

     "Is everything ready?" he demanded in a flat, defiant tone.

     Mutely, the doctor nodded.

     "Good, then let us get to it.  The sooner it is done, the better."

 

     Pietro and the doctor had left the room.  The Headmaster was staring at the Maestro, who was staring at the door.  "Did you see his eyes? " The Maestro asked, turning to face the Headmaster.  “I have never seen such a look on his face before.”  The older man nodded and then rested his head in his hands.

     “I have seen that look before,” he replied mysteriously.

     "Do you think we should have told him?  He is but nine years old!"

     "Almost ten and very intelligent, " the Headmaster added, "so much so that he frightens me at times.  His report on the possible outcomes of the Churches attitude towards women and castrati amazed me.  Have you read it?"

     "No.  But we had to tell him, " the Maestro stated, "they were so close, both orphans, and  just like brothers!   But his eyes . . . I tell you, my friend, something has changed in Pietro just now.  It was as if I could almost feel it as I held him.  I could almost feel it slip away."

     "He is sad and angry, but that will pass."

     "No, " the Maestro disagreed, "I do not think that it will.  I think even after this is all over, Pietro will never be the same.  Why now and why him?  Do you think he will be able to continue?  Perhaps we should stop the operation!  It's just too much all at once!  Too much for a boy to bear!"

     The Headmaster's face was a study in concentration.  After a moment, he shook his head.  "Those two were the finest here, Giovanni writing and playing and Pietro singing.  Even the smallest of the students knew it when they would watch and listen.  One can especially see the adoration on young Marco's face.   No, Pietro will continue.  He is too intelligent not to.  This I know.  For his lost friend, if nothing else, he will go on.  He has even more motivation to be the best he can be now.  One might as well ask the planets to stop in their orbits."

     The Maestro slowly nodded and bowed his head, taking leave of the Headmaster.  "I must go and see if he needs me, " he murmured, "he shouldn't be alone right now.  And YOU, my friend, should not speak such heresy.  Everyone thinks that the sun is the center of the Universe!"

     The Headmaster smiled wanly as the Maestro departed his office.  The look that had been on young Pietro’s face hung before his eyes, however, and he struggled to remember the last time he’d seen such a face.

 

     Pietro's mind was racing as he followed the doctor down to the basement rooms where the baths were.  His friend was gone, they had told him, murdered and terribly mutilated by some crazed killer.  A killer who, it appeared, was after boys from the conservatorio.  He wondered … there would surely be singing at the services that would be held in the same church in which they had practiced only last night.  But he was only moments away from the castration that had been planned for months.  Even if the authorities kept Giovanni’s body for two more days, it didn't give him much time.  It was not winter yet, and Pietro knew that they would have to act fast.  Ice was expensive, and Giovanni could not be kept forever. 

      He had made up his mind by the time the doctor was done inspecting the bath and his tools.

     "Sir, I must make a request,” he stated flatly.

     The doctor turned and faced him.  "And that is?"  He asked, cocking an eyebrow.

     "Sir, I know you are a fine doctor, but I must be recovered from this by the time of the funeral."

     The doctor stared at the boy for a moment, and then shook his head, "Pietro, it will be in two days at the most.  You must stay in bed afterwards for at least a week!  And then you must not move around too much for another week or two, perhaps.  We are talking about castration here, not about setting a broken finger!"

     "I must be able to sing for him, doctor, " Pietro said with that cold look in his eyes again, "He would still be alive, here with us, but not for me!  I am responsible for his death, and I will make it up to him, somehow, if only by being the greatest singer the world has ever known!"

     The Maestro had entered the room just as Pietro's voice had risen to a commanding tone.  The boy was shaking, and he looked pale and fragile.  Had madness overtaken him, or was it just terrible grief?  Certainly, he was not himself right now!  He wanted to sing at Giovanni’s funeral?  He felt it was his fault?  This had to be corrected, and quickly!  The Maestro, again at a loss for words, came up behind Pietro and placed his hands on the boy's slight shoulders.

     Pietro flinched a bit, but his face softened.

     "Do not be rude to the doctor, my boy, he knows his business well.”

     Pietro was unlacing his tunic, however.  It was clear that the boy was determined to go thru with the surgery.  For an instant, the Maestro saw a vision of this boy standing by his best friend's casket in a black robe with the red sash and using his voice to atone for a sin that was not his.  He could see the boy holding his small black beret in his little hands, crying.  The Maestro imagined him taking a single flower from one of the sprays and bouquets and coming home to the conservatorio to his lonely room.  It was not a pleasant vision.

     But that cold look was still in the boy's eyes as he picked up the glass of red wine that had been laced with opium.  He let his tunic fall to the floor and, staring at the steaming bath, gulped the wine down in one long draw.

     The Maestro had just enough time to grab the empty glass from his hand as Pietro coughed once and fell back into his arms, his cold shining eyes glassing over as he lapsed into senselessness.

 

     From a hidden corner of the basement, off in the dark recesses, another pair of cold eyes took in the scene and began to cry.

 

     The Maestro gently placed the unconscious Pietro into the bath, arranging a small pillow on the lip of the wooden tub just behind his head.  He stroked the boy's wild and untended blonde hair, and found himself on the verge of tears again.  Pietro had been left on the conservatorio steps, he remembered, an abandoned baby that no one seemed to want.  The Maestro had been working on a new score at the time - God it was so clear now - and had been distracted by the wailing sound coming from the direction of the front door.  He had flung the door open in a rage, and gazed upon the infant Pietro's face for the first time. 

     He had fallen in love at that very moment.

     He recalled carrying the crying baby into his study, where six-year-old Giovanni had been harassing the harpsichord.  Giovanni had been one of those stray and half-starved looking children who just wandered up to the conservatorio gates one day and stayed for a meal.  He had never left.  The Maestro, skeptical as usual, had soon discovered, however, that the little dark-headed waif was a musical genius!  He began reading music in a day, and by the end of the week was playing incredibly well at the keyboard.   Somehow, over time, the three of them had become an odd little family.   Then Marco had been dropped off at the conservatorio some years later and no one had ever come back for him.  The Maestro instructed, Giovanni played, and over time Pietro sang.  Marco simply watched and slowly began to sing and learn, showing much promise as well.  It had helped to assuage the Maestro’s secret loneliness, filling the empty spaces in his heart that came with being a childless man.

     He was shaken out of his reverie by the doctor.

     "It is time, " the doctor announced, pulling his dripping arm out of the bath and drying it off.  “He is ready.”

     Stirred from his reverie, the Maestro nodded and lifted Pietro out of the water.  He placed the boy's limp body on a linen covered table, and stepped back to let the doctor do his work. 

     Very carefully, the doctor tied a soft string about the unconscious boy’s middle, securing his uncircumcised penis up and out of harm’s way.  Choosing a short, thin scalpel, the doctor then opened a short cut down the line that ran the middle of Pietro's scrotum, which has been loosened by the hot bath.  He reached into the wound with what looked like a crocheting rod.  When he pulled it back, the small hook at the end of the rod held the cords and veins leading to Pietro's left testicle and exposed it to the air.  Then with a deft and skilled hand, he looped a length of silken thread around them and pulled it tight.  He then severed the cords as high as possible and placed the disconnected testicle in a wooden bowl next to his tray of instruments.  The procedure was repeated on the remaining right testicle, and then the wounds of the cords were cauterized with a small red-hot poker that had been waiting in the fireplace.  The scrotal wound was stitched shut with a fine line of delicate sutures that looked like the work of the best seamstresses that the Maestro could name.  There would be little scaring, and it time, the empty scrotum would shrink up to almost nothing.   

 

     The doctor paused as he heard what sounded like a choking sob coming from somewhere in the room, and the perplexed look on the Maestro's face said that he had also heard it.  Both men looked around, but saw nothing.  The Maestro, however, began to lend credence to Pietro’s feeling of being watched the previous evening.  He shuddered.

 

     The doctor returned to his work, pouring pure grain alcohol over the wound and then covering it with a small bandage.  Pietro moaned softly in his sleep, but did not stir.  Then, after only a slight amount of blood had soaked into the bandage and through it, the doctor changed it and covered the boy with a white blanket.   "Take him to his bed, Maestro, and be very gentle.  Keep him covered and warm, and have someone watch him at all times.  He will no doubt run a fever, but that is to be expected.  When he awakens, make him drink all of this," the doctor ordered, handing him a small bottle.  "It will put him right back to sleep.  He must rest, and you and I have much to discuss."

     The Maestro gently lifted the boy from the table and carried him up the stairs to the main floor and then up to his room.  Each step he took was carefully placed, and his eyes never left his feet.  He placed Pietro in bed, on his back, with his legs spread apart and covered him with another blanket.  He then fetched a second and added that, tucking it up under his smooth chin, which would remain forever beardless.  He paused to brush the wild blonde hair out of Pietro's face and softly kissed his forehead.  There were tears standing in his eyes as he murmured, "My castrato, Pietro . . . ah, I must be getting old and senile, so emotional!" and left the room to find someone to watch over the sleeping boy.  He had to speak again with the doctor.

    

     As he closed the door to Pietro's room, however, he suddenly felt eyes upon him again.  Thinking Pietro had awakened already, impossible as that was, he looked back at the boy.   Pietro was unconscious.  The Maestro Lorenzo Penzatti dismissed this as fear over the welfare of the boy who was, in his eyes at least,  like his own son and went out.

 

     "He cannot sing on Thursday, " the doctor stated flatly, after telling the Maestro of Pietro’s demands. "He must stay in bed and be still for a week!  Am I mistaken, or has the news of Giovanni’s death damaged him?  He was almost rude to everyone today, and I have never known Pietro to be like that … or to any of the other boys here, for that matter.  Such impertinence usually garners a slap to the mouth!"

     The Maestro shook his head and poured more wine for the both of them.  He sniffed the dark liquid in the tall and slender glass and handed the other to the doctor, trying to put his mind at ease.

     One of the older students, a castrato by the name of Frederico, had volunteered to watch over Pietro for the remainder of the day.  Frederico was one of those eunuchs who was becoming chubby as he approached his 18th birthday, and although his voice was nothing fantastic, he had a great spirit and would do well just the same.  His only problem seemed to be in the area of food, and the doctor had pointed that out to him right before he had left for Pietro's room.  The young castrato had blushed and nodded, promising to do better in the future.

     "I cannot say, my friend, what has come over him.  It is terrible that we gave him the news on this very day, to say the least.  He and Giovanni were like brothers, inseparable!  Often in the mornings, when he was little, I would find Pietro in Giovanni’s bed, the marks of dried tears still on his face from some unknown nighttime ordeal, bad dreams, childhood fears, I don't know.  I cannot imagine what would go through an orphan's mind when the closest thing he has to family in this world is suddenly ripped away," the Maestro mused.  "But what can we do?  He will be devastated to miss the services, yet he must stay confined to bed.  Therein lies our problem."

     "We could have him carried by litter and then carried in your arms to the services, Lorenzo, " the doctor thought aloud, finally dropping the formalities that he found so important.  The wine seemed to be loosening him up, the Maestro observed.  "But he will want to sing, and after sleeping for almost two days straight, his voice will be a disaster without warming up.  You and I both know that."

     “A warm up would be out of the question.”

     After several minutes of deep thought, the Maestro agreed that their plan seemed to be a good idea.  Pietro would be carried to the services, but would NOT be allowed to sing.  Though it might break his heart, it would surely not harm him as much as getting up early and warming up in his present condition.

 

     The sun was just setting as Pietro stirred in his sleep.  He was dreaming now, hearing a voice choked with sorrow calling to him to come outside.  Someone was there, near the old oak tree … someone calling, crying.

 

     Frederico looked up from his Latin textbook as Pietro moaned.  He had lit a lamp some time before by which to read his assigned chapters, and the shadows played over the room with a bright yellow-orange glow that seemed so soothing, so relaxing.  Frederico yawned and stretched, setting his book aside.  He thought he heard something outside the window, but he had to watch Pietro and decided not to go and look.  The smaller boy was opening his eyes, the glaze from the opium almost gone.  He blinked several times and looked around slowly, trying to find the sound of the crying which had followed him up from his dreams … what he saw was the round face of Frederico, a study in observation, and he smiled.  Then he laughed weakly and began to cough.

     Frederico held him up and softly patted his back between the shoulder blades until the coughing fit subsided and then handed Pietro the glass of water as he had been instructed to do.   The smaller boy looked at the glass, shook his head, and handed it back.  "I really have to pee, " he whispered, his face flaming.

     Frederico was not sure what to do, so he called down the hallway for someone to go and fetch the Maestro for instructions.  Very serious about what had happened, about six boys ran from their rooms to the stairs and took off to fetch him.  It was, naturally, Marco, the small dark-skinned boy from the south, who returned shortly with what looked like a clay flower vase.  He had smirk on his face.  "The Maestro says to have him go in this and NOT to move any more than he has to, " Marco announced, "this should be a neat trick!"  Frederico shook his head and laughed.  Pietro, now fully awake, was not impressed, however.

     "I have to do what?!" he demanded, "I don't have time to stay in bed, I have to be up and practice for the funeral songs!  This is insane!  And what day is it, anyway?!"

     "Quit showing off your intelligence and just do it, Pietro," Frederico ordered, "I don't want to get my ass beat over your disobedience!  In case you've forgotten, you just had your balls removed, and I remember when they took mine out that I was more than happy to stay in bed for the week!"

     "You didn't kill your best friend the night before, either," Pietro retorted, making a face that caused Marco to flee the room and Frederico to shrink back.  "And what is that noise?!"

     "I don't hear anything, " Frederico answered.

     Pietro cocked his head.  "Then you’re going deaf.  Well, then, just turn around while I do this!"  He ordered in an exasperated tone.

     Frederico grinned and turned his back on Pietro, gazing out the window.  He gasped when saw a small shape of what looked like a boy sitting on one of the broad limbs and gazing into the window.  There was barely enough light coming out of the conservatorio to see by, but the chunky eunuch was convinced that he saw someone out there.  Suddenly he felt very tired as he stared at the black shape in the tree.  He yawned, returned to his chair, and began to nod.  "What's wrong?" Pietro demanded, just covering himself back up and placing the vase on the night table.

     "I don't feel too good," Frederico replied, "I think I saw something out there …"

      THAT got Pietro's attention.  He swung his legs over the edge of his bed and leaned towards the window, wincing in pain.  He couldn't see out for the glare, but he could hear the sound, the crying, and he could feel a pull of some kind.  "You can't get up," Frederico protested weakly, his eyes barely open, "We'll both get it so bad if you get caught!" 

     But Pietro had to know.  The call was too much to resist, and he got to his feet and slowly made his way to the window.  He could feel the dull ache in his groin and the bandage rubbing on his thighs, but still he had to know!  He was only vaguely aware that he was now a castrato, one of the special students at the conservatorio, and that what he had hoped for had finally come to pass.  He had been found worthy.  No, more than that, and they were impressed with him.  He had been castrated, his clear high voice protected from the ruination of manhood, but that was incidental now.  Someone was calling so urgently …

 

     Frederico had fallen asleep in his chair, his double chin touching his chest.  The glass of water he had offered to Pietro, the water with more opium dissolved in it, sat full and forgotten upon the table.  The lamp continued to burn and throw shadows all around the room as Pietro opened his window to let in the cool night air.  He felt it blow against his face as the crying sound seemed to subside.  There WAS a shape in the tree, and as his eyes adjusted and the clouds blew away from the silvery half moon, the light revealed a small boy of Pietro's own size.  He was sitting on a limb of the great tree, as if waiting.

      "May I come in?"  He asked in a gentle voice.

 

     -2-

 

     Dumbly, Pietro nodded and pushed the window fully open.  The boy stood up on the limb and appeared to take a step that Pietro just knew would send him tumbling to the ground (and likely to a broken bone as well).  Suddenly, this strange child was standing in the room next to him.  Pietro swallowed hard and shook his head, but when he opened his eyes, the boy was still there.

     "So much for the opium excuse," Pietro said.

     But this new arrival did not laugh at the joke.  He merely stood there, looking all around the room.  He took in the sight of the bed with its bookcase headboard and many books, the small night table, the wardrobe and the small writing desk.  He nodded.  “Nice room,” he commented, “Small but nice.  And private.  You must be a good pupil.”

     Pietro didn’t reply, unsure of what to say, his mouth still agape.

     The newcomer was the same height as Pietro, and obviously very close to the same age.  As he began to move around the small room, studying everything in more detail, Pietro noticed that he moved with a fluid grace, almost like a dancer.  What really stood out was his skin, however.  It was so pale, and not even the glow of the lamp seemed to give it any color.  His hair was also white and thick, not reflecting any of the warm glow either.  The room seemed to be growing colder, and Pietro shivered in his nightshirt and closed the window.

     "You will catch a chill if you don't cover up or put on some more clothes, " the strange boy stated.

     "Sorry, I'm a little distracted, " Pietro replied, "I just killed my best friend last night."

     He was surprised by how easily he had said it.  The pain was still incredible, and he felt the tears welling up in his eyes.  He did not, however, begin to fully cry.  The emotion passed, leaving him startled as he pushed it down.  He was not about to cry in front of a stranger.

     "You get used to it, " the strange boy said coldly, turning to face Pietro, "That's better.  Such emotional outbursts are so tiring, and I've tired myself out a great deal today."

     Pietro could see the tear stains on the boy's face, and he realized that this was the source of the crying sound that he had been hearing.  He also saw that boy's eyes were a pale gray, utterly devoid of color.  Pietro shivered again and stared.  Something was wrong here.

     "The name's Roberto, by the way, nice to meet you, Pietro."  The pale boy offered his hand, and haltingly, Pietro shook it.  The pale white skin was so cold to the touch.  He pulled his hand back and felt at it in confusion.  Roberto’s accent was strange as well, and Pietro couldn’t place it. 

     "Are you sure you're fully awake?" Roberto asked.

     Pietro just stared at him, the pieces slowly falling into place, but with far too many questions remaining unanswered.  Then Pietro noticed the boy's clothing.

     Roberto was wearing a long black robe with a red sash and soft black slippers.  His pale white hair was pulled back and tied in a ponytail that reached to between his shoulder blades.

     "You're a castrato," Pietro blurted out.

     Roberto faced him, looked down at his own robe, and then looked back up at Pietro.  "And so are you, now, " he replied.

     Pietro knew then that something wasn't right.  If Roberto was a castrato, wearing the robe and sash, then he was obviously away, at night, from his own conservatorio and Maestro.  There also wasn't another conservatorio in the area within walking distance, not for at least three days, and then only by horse!  Why had he come here, and why at night?  What did he want, and why did he look so strange?

     About then, a sharp pain shot up through Pietro's groin and doubled him over.

     "I know how that feels, " Roberto mused, "I think you need to go back to bed."

     Pietro was crying now, the pain combined with the fact that he would be in no shape to attend Giovanni’s funeral, much less sing.  He didn't know what to do, so he let Roberto help him back to bed.  "You've only been asleep all day, you idiot.  They cut you around Noon, and it's on towards Midnight now.  Drink that water in the glass like you were supposed to do and sleep some more.  You'll make it to the funeral, I'll see to that.  Trust me."

     "How do you know of that?" Pietro demanded.

     "You just mentioned the funeral and thought about it.  That was enough, " replied Roberto.

     Pietro took the glass from Roberto's pale, cold hand and drank it down.  The strange boy took the glass back, pulled the covers up over Pietro, and slapped the sleeping Frederico across the cheek.  "Wake up and get out of here, fat boy!"  He shouted. 

     Frederico opened his eyes, seeing nothing, and made his way out the door.

     "Don't worry about him, he won't remember a thing," Roberto promised.

     But Pietro was already asleep, so Roberto picked up Frederico's forgotten Latin textbook and sat humming a strange hymn as he read.  The rhythm and tone were very old, and the sounds impressed themselves through the fog of the opium and onto Pietro's memories.  Roberto read through the book in a few minutes, sat it down, and began to sing softly a funeral dirge that had not been heard in that part of the world for more than a century.

     "Sleep, my friend, " Roberto whispered in Pietro's ear, his breath making the small fuzzy hairs on the sleeping boy’s nape stand up.  “Sleep the sleep of sweet dreams and forget your pain and loss.  It wasn't your fault, Giovanni’s death.  It was mine!"

 

     The Maestro was standing over Pietro's bed as the boy awoke around Noon the next day.  He had interrogated Frederico mercilessly that morning, and had been satisfied that the hefty young eunuch had done a good job in tending to Pietro; for his services, Frederico had been given the day off to amuse himself as he saw fit.  Images of the chunky castrato hitting the pastry shops in town filled the Maestro's head, and he made a mental note to consult the doctor again.  Frederico was getting too heavy for his own good, but that sometimes happened with eunuchs, no matter when they were cut.  The Maestro sighed and returned his attention to Pietro.

     He looked so weak and pathetic lying there in bed, so helpless. 

     But the Maestro knew better.  The light had come back into Pietro's eyes, that cold light of determination that said that he was going to start arguing at any minute.  He knew the look of love when he saw it in someone's eyes, having seen it in Pietro's and Giovanni’s so many times; he was sure that they had seen it in his own eyes as well.  Marco, for all his usual little-boy-faults, had that look all of the time.  This thought brought a smile to his face.   He was so fond of these boys, and now one was dead and one was lying in bed in pain.  Why has this happened, he wondered, and have I done the right thing?

     Pietro looked him in the face, once more fully awake, and slowly sat up.  Any moment, now, the Maestro thought to himself, get ready.  "You need your bandages changed, boy," he began, trying to summon up his most stern teaching demeanor.  It would not come, though.  He loved this boy too much and was hurting too much himself to be brusque.

     "I can do it myself, sir, " Pietro answered.

     "The doctor left me instructions, boy, and besides, I changed enough of your diapers when you were a baby - it's nothing I haven't seen before."

     Surprisingly, Pietro relented without a word.  Actually, his thoughts were wandering as the Maestro removed the bandage and cleansed the area.  Pietro winced a few times, but the stitches were good and there was not yet any sign of infection around the red and slightly swollen scrotum.  The boy was staring out the window and did not hear the Maestro tell him to stay in bed and read a book if he got bored.  It took a kiss on the forehead and a tousle of his wild blonde hair to get his attention.  "You really need a haircut, Pietro," the Maestro stated, as he left the room and closed the door.

     Pietro couldn't focus his mind, however.  Had last night been a dream?  Who was this 'Roberto', the sickly looking castrato who roamed all over impossible distances at night?  Why had he come here, and what did he want?  Had he even been real, or simply a figment of the opium induced sleep?  Pietro shook his head and picked up a copy of some sheet music from his shelf by the bed.  The first few notes on the yellowing page brought him out of his daze, however.

     The funeral!  It has to be tomorrow!  The music he had picked up was the same song he had sung in the church with Giovanni playing …right where he’d left it.  But he was unwell, and he knew it.  Injured in body and sick in spirit, he began to cry once again, his tears falling onto the score and making the ink run.  He so desperately wanted to sing for his 'brother', the boy who was closer to him than anyone else in his short life, and he realized that he could not.

     That realization was almost more than he could bear.

     "Why couldn't you have waited, " he demanded of the uncaring pages.

    

     He had eventually cried himself back to sleep that afternoon, having harshly dismissed any of the other boys who had come up to see him.  It was Marco who had reported this to the Maestro, who had in turn given instructions not to disturb Pietro anymore that day.  Since it was warm and sunny outside, the Maestro also decided to take the choir outside to practice, hoping that the sounds of their singing would not make their way up to Pietro's room.  Too many of the boys who were not yet castrati were curious, and if there was anything Pietro did not need it was questions; keeping them all busy was suddenly very important to the Maestro.

     The boys sang outside in the farthest reaches of the conservatorio's grounds all afternoon, closely watched by a few officers who had been assigned to stand guard until Giovanni’s murder could be solved.  They appeared distracted, however, paying more attention to the songs than to watching the grounds for signs of anything wrong.  Their eyes were on the boys, however, and the Maestro and Headmaster approved.  Certainly they were safe, at least in the daylight.

     The night was worse, though.  Even with officers patrolling the grounds and the doors bolted, no one really felt secure.  Someone who killed was still out there, and several of the students did not sleep that night.

 

     Someone who knew what the authorities could not figure out, however, was indeed already inside the conservatorio.  As the sun went down, he emerged from the basement and slipped up into Pietro's room.

 

     Roberto stood beside the sleeping boy's bed, noticing that Pietro had been crying again.  Roberto had felt it, even in his own haunted sleep, and knew that he had to do something.  The death of Giovanni combined with Pietro's inability to attend the funeral was tearing the new castrato to pieces emotionally, and the emotional outpouring was tearing Roberto apart.  But it was always like this - cold, empty loneliness or the emotional onslaught of those close to him.  Roberto sighed.

     He so desperately wanted a friend.  He had been alone for so long.  He tried to remember a time when he had been a normal, common peasant boy with a family.  The memory was so old, so faded, like a fine painting left hanging in the sun for too long.  It grew harder every day.  Roberto sighed and sat down in the chair next to Pietro's bed, waiting for him to wake up.  He had a plan, Roberto did, and he also had only about twelve hours to put it into action.

     He decided not to wait. 

     Roberto reached out and shook Pietro awake.  "Get up, " he ordered, " You and I have work to do."

     Pietro gasped and sat up quickly, staring at the castrato beside his bed.  His eyes were wide and his mouth hanging open.

     "Come on, let's move!  I hope you can get some sound out of that mouth of yours, otherwise, you're really in trouble!"

     "You're real!"  Pietro shouted.

     "Quiet down, you idiot, you'll wake the whole damn school!  Many of them can’t sleep the way it is.   Of course I'm real!"

     "I thought you were a dream, or an opium hallucination," Pietro replied.

     "You're too damn smart for our own good, do you know that?"

     "WHO ARE YOU?"  Pietro demanded in confusion.

     Roberto sighed and reached into the bureau.  When he turned back around, he tossed a black robe and red sash at Pietro.  It appeared that someone had already delivered his new wardrobe. 

     "Get dressed, you and I are going out," the pale boy ordered.

     "I can't get up, remember?  Much as I want to, I can't.  The funeral's in the morning, too …”

     Pietro choked on the last words and Roberto felt the pain coming back. 

     "Now is NOT the time, " he snapped, "I can get you there in one piece, but you have to practice first."

     Pietro got up and pulled off his nightshirt, unperturbed by his nakedness in front of another boy.  He got dressed, and stood staring into his mirror at the small boy in black staring back at him.  One boy, not two. 

    He turned to face Roberto, who was standing right beside him.

     "Just call me 'Roberto', please.  I don't remember my last name anymore; it's been too long.  And please don't scream!"  The pale boy asked.

     Pietro was trembling.

     He faced the mirror again.  Pietro was reflected in his fine, new black robe and shining red satin sash.

     Roberto was not.

     A wave of sudden fear welled up in Pietro as he realized what was happening.

      He heard a soft noise and turned to see Roberto sitting on the edge of the bed.  He was resting his pale head in his small hands.  "Please don't send me away," he begged, his previous bravado all but gone.

     "You're not from this school, " Pietro began, his mind racing, "and it's too far for you to walk from the next conservatorio to here every night.  You're staying here, somewhere.  And that thing with the window the other night, and Frederico, and the mirror …you're …you're a …” Pietro couldn't say it.

     "I am a castrato, " Roberto replied softly, "and I am lonely.  Your torment drew me here like a lodestone draws metal.  We are of the same Mind, Pietro.  We are both driven by the music, and drawn to it.  You have your Maestro and the school, but I have no one.  No one, and it's been so very long!  Do you want me to say it?  I'll say it then - I am a vampire!  An Immortal Castrato, who sings only to himself and to the creatures of the night!  I have the songs and dreams of the last few centuries in my head, and no one to sing them to.  I am one of the Damned, but not by my own choice!

     "I flee the sun, and watch the world sleep.  Every day I fall asleep somewhere dark and unknown, usually as close to a church or conservatorio as I can get.  I heard you singing in the church the other night from so far away that you couldn't believe it.  God, how I wanted to come in and join you - but I couldn’t!  I was exhausted and starving by the time I got here, don't you see?  You're so damn smart, they say, figure it out … Please don't make me say it."

     Roberto was staring at him now, his eyes glowing a dull red that matched his sash.  His canine teeth protruded down over his lower lip, which was trembling.  There were tears standing in his eyes, those red eyes, which looked sunken into his even paler face.  He looked nothing like the vampires of legend that Pietro had heard about, soulless bloodsucking monsters. 

     He looked pathetic.

     Pietro could not help but be moved, despite his own suffering.  Suddenly, he felt his mind open up to all the things he had never believed in … anything was possible … there was nothing that he could not accomplish if he set his mind to it!  He felt the dull pain between his legs disappearing, and felt an elation such as he had never known before rising up within himself.  Something was happening.  The stiffness in his body that had come from laying in bed for two days was fading, and he could feel some sort of new energy flowing through him.  His and Roberto's eyes were locked on each other's now, and something was passing between them.  Something impossible.

     And then it passed.

     Roberto looked down at the floor and let out an explosive breath which chilled the entire room.  The lamp sputtered and almost went out.  Then the little vampire collapsed onto his side, trembling violently. 

     "What is it? " Pietro demanded, going to Roberto's side and shaking him, "Are you alright?"

     "No, " Roberto gasped, "No, I'm not alright.  I'm sorry, Pietro, more sorry than you can know, but it had to be done.  Please … I have more to do for you, I must … just give me a moment."

     Pietro stared at the boy (or what was left of the boy that he had once been) curled up in a ball on his bed.  He honestly did not know what to do, having only had proof that vampires indeed existed for all of about five minutes!  Then an idea came to him.  "Don't go anywhere, " he told Roberto, I'll be right back!"

     Roberto tried to smile up at him, but failed.

    

     Was it really possible?  Pietro was running on instinct now, and acting on an idea that must have surely come from Roberto's mind and slipped into his.  He ran on bare feet through the sleeping conservatorio to the kitchens, trying not to make any noise.  If he were caught up out of bed, even though he felt perfectly fine, he would no doubt be in a great deal of trouble.  But a vampire, and in his own room?  A vampire that had been drawn to him?  "Why me?" Pietro mumbled, as he rummaged through the ice box, "And why now?"            

     Finally he found it - a large chunk of fresh beef that had been brought in for dinner after Giovanni’s funeral.  There were always great meals after funerals, it seemed, and the cold meat had something that Pietro 'knew' that Roberto had to have.  He looked in the pan in which the meat was sitting and nodded.  There was a great deal of blood in the bottom of that pan.

     Taking a wine glass from the cupboard, Pietro carefully filled it with all blood he could pour from the pan and wring out of the cold meat.  He then raced back to his room.  He was very careful not to spill any. 

     When he arrived, Roberto was stretched out on the bed with his hands folded on his chest.  Pietro gasped.  Roberto looked like a corpse.  Had Giovanni been laid out so, he wondered?  Would he even see him tomorrow?  Suddenly he realized that he could indeed go to the services, and that Roberto had given him of his own strength!  But what had it cost him, and why was the young vampire so sorry?  Sorry about what?  But the questions would have to wait.  At that moment, he somehow knew, Roberto was very close to … what?  Dying?  But vampires were supposed to be immortal until either staked through the heart or burned.  Pietro put the thought out of his mind and lifted Roberto's head off of the pillow. 

     The dead-looking little castrato's lower lip was dropped just a bit, and his gleaming white fangs hung down to just touch it.  Pietro carefully lifted the glass to Roberto's lips and tipped it.  Seemingly revived a bit by the smell, Roberto drew in a breath and swallowed.  Pietro tipped the glass up a little more, pouring all of its contents into Roberto's mouth.  The vampire swallowed it all in one gulp, moaned a soft little sound, and opened his eyes.  Slowly, very slowly, the red glow of those haunted eyes began to fade back to the pale gray that they had been.  He still looks like a corpse though, Pietro thought.

     "Thank you, " Roberto said very softly, "that will do for the moment."  Then, with a great effort, he sat up to stare out the window.

     "So, " Pietro began, somewhat at a loss for words, "what was that plan you were talking about before the mirror got in your way?"

     Roberto turned his gaze from the window to stare at Pietro.  How alive he is, the vampire thought, how alive and so sure of himself!  Would that I could know that feeling for only a moment again!

     "You're well now, Pietro.  You're well and you're going to your friend's services in the morning.  How I wish I could go with you, but I cannot.  You cannot know how I long to see the sun reflecting off of the dew on the roses in the morning, or to see that light come pouring through this very window to shine on your face and awaken you.  It must look so grand … but, yes - we do have work to do.  Where was I?"

     Pietro wasn't sure either.  "I think we were going out, " he offered.

     "Ahh, yes, we were.  I figure we've got about seven hours to sunrise, maybe six.  That isn't much time for me to teach you how to sing," Roberto stated.  He sounded very much the like the Maestro, Pietro thought.

     "Teach me to sing?"  Pietro repeated, unsure of what Roberto meant.  “I’ve been a student here for, well, all of my life!  I think I’ve picked up something in nine years.”

     "But not enough, Pietro, my friend.   It's the least that I can do for you, and frankly, I'm surprised you haven't figured it out yet.  I guess I'm going to have to say it after all - you didn't 'kill' Giovanni like you feel you did.  You are not responsible for his death.  I AM!"

     Pietro felt his knees go suddenly weak.  Roberto had just admitted to killing the boy who had been like a brother to him!  And now he wanted to repay that?!  A terrible rage combined with the resurging sorrow and loss was building up in Pietro, and communicating itself to Roberto.  As the young castrato became more outraged, the vampire castrato seemed to become more tangible.  Pietro could feel the emotion pouring out of him and into Roberto, and he was powerless to stop it.  It was almost as if Roberto were feeding upon his emotions, drinking them in, as he would drink the blood from someone’s body.

    "Yeeeessss, " Roberto hissed, "Let it out!  Pour out your rage upon me, for the monster that I am, for what I have taken from you!  Hate me if you must, but let it out! "

     Roberto was indeed feeding on the emotion as much as he had fed upon the glass of blood.  Pietro could feel him growing stronger by the second, and feel something growing stronger within himself as well.

     Pietro pulled in his thoughts, trying to get control of himself.  He ranged through his musical repertoire, singing aria after aria in his mind; it was the method that he had been taught to calm himself.  Once again, it worked.  The emotional storm subsided. 

     Roberto seemed impressed.  He shook himself and laughed, but the sound was hollow and artificial.  It was not the sound of a happy child filled with delight. 

     Then, suddenly, he stopped.  "Oh, yes, Pietro, there is fire in you, alright!  Now that you're over the guilt part, would you like to really know what happened to your friend?  Time is short …"

 

-3-

 

     They were walking across the conservatorio grounds towards the stone wall and near the huge oak tree where Pietro had first seen Roberto's shadow a few nights before.  The little vampire was busy explaining the circumstances surrounding his arrival and Giovanni’s death as they walked.  It was a story beyond belief, but somehow, Pietro believed it.  Something told him that Roberto would not lie to him, and although he could not define it, he was certain of it.  He had no idea of what time it was, but the nearly full moon lighted the grounds quite well.  Roberto, of course, had no trouble seeing where he was going.  He walked close to Pietro as he spoke, and every  now and again his robe would brush up against Pietro’s with a shimmering sound.

     "He was so happy for you, Pietro, " Roberto was saying, "so happy that he was being careless.  I don't think he knew that he was being followed.  Giovanni was attacked by common cutpurses, not by me!  I was going to set off following you and the Maestro and that other little boy, and I have to admit, I was planning to attack.  Certainly not Giovanni, after hearing him play for you, but had someone else come along … well ...  I heard him playing for you, after all, and I felt so much.  He dearly loved you, Pietro.  I could see the adoration on his face. 

     "But I had heard your voice, as I said, from so far away and I just had to come.  I was so tired and hungry, Pietro, you cannot know how it feels!  When I finally caught up with Giovanni, he had already been beaten almost senseless and left for dead.  He was indeed very close to it when I found him.  One of his arms was broken, the bone protruding through the skin, and so many of his ribs were broken as well that he could hardly breathe.  And his face was such a mess.  I knew, Pietro, I knew that he was going to die, so I did what I had to do.  Can you understand that? "

     Pietro stared dumbly at him.

     "He was bleeding so terribly, " Roberto continued, "the blood running from his nose and mouth.  I've seen a great deal of death and injury in my life, Pietro, and Giovanni was dying.  There was only one thing I could do, and I had to do it!  I couldn't go for help, even though I wanted to.  I had come too far too fast and was exhausted.  Too much to even try to begin healing him as I did for you.  Yes, maybe you can say that it was your fault that he left for the doctor's house.  Maybe I can say that it is my fault for taking advantage of him.  Maybe it's no one's fault.  Blame yourself, blame me, or even the Maestro for sending him.  Blame God, if you wish!  Who knows?  I don't.  But this I know, Pietro - I did not kill him outright!"

     "Did he say anything before he . . . ?"  Pietro asked quietly.

     Roberto nodded and turned to stare up at the moon.  "He said, 'Tell Pietro I wish him all that his heart desires, and that I love him.'  I think he recognized my clothing and mistook me for one of your fellow students.  Afterwards, I ran down the men who killed him and repaid them generously.  I fed, and fed well."

     “So you d-drank his bl-blood?”  Pietro stammered weakly, his face going pale.

     Roberto nodded.  “I was able to convey to him just what I was before his Mind slipped beyond my reach.  I made him a promise as well, to repay his final kindness to total stranger.  I intend to honor my word, Pietro.  That is why I came to you, even after that.”

     Pietro was silent for a long while and then reached out to touch Roberto's shoulder.  The cloth of the little vampire's robe was rough to the touch, much rougher than Pietro's.  The weave was different as well.  He let his hand rest there for a moment, and in that touch he could almost hear his friend’s last words and feel his final outpouring of emotion.  He was in pain, dying, yet his last coherent thoughts were of Pietro and not himself.  He knew that he was dying.  He knew what kind of creature had come too late to his rescue.

     And he was giving freely the last thing that he could possibly give – his life’s blood – in hopes that the partaker would be able to aid his young friend.

     It was a stunningly clear vision, and it was too much for the boy.

     Roberto gasped, catching Pietro in his surprisingly strong arms as the boy collapsed, sobbing, into them.  He buried his head in the immortal castrato’s shoulder, and Roberto embraced him.  He held him for a very long time, stroking his wild blond hair as the boy’s heart broke and his body trembled.  Tears soaked through Roberto’s black robe, and their touch was like nothing he had ever felt before.  He held the boy tighter, and although his own gray eyes began to sting, he did not cry.

     He could not cry.

     He tried to remember being held, being comforted.  His mind reached back over time and distance, to the time before, but it was simply not there.  The emotion coming from Pietro was not new to him, but the emotion that he was giving to Pietro was.  He wondered at it as the boy’s sobs began to weaken into soft whimpers and, finally, sniffles.  Eventually, Pietro raised his disheveled head and wiped at his nose with the sleeve of his new robe.

     They both found that amusing and laughed.

     "You said you wanted to teach me something, " Pietro offered, smiling as he squeezed Roberto’s hand.

     Roberto could feel the emotions through the boy's touch, and knew that he understood.  Suddenly exonerated, he smiled anew.  Pietro noticed that his appearance had returned to almost normal, and he looked more like a little boy than a miniature monster now.  It was as if a great weight had fallen from both of their shoulders.

     "Long ago, " Roberto nodded as he began, "before your Maestro and even the old Headmaster were born, I was taught a song.  It was the first song I ever sang in public outside of my own conservatorio, and no one has heard it for a century or more."  Roberto paused and sighed.  "I sang it at the funeral of my cousin, and I moved the entire gathering to tears.  Strange, how I should think to pass it on to you at this time.  But it seems right, somehow.  If you will do me the honor, I shall teach it to you; you have already heard it, however."

     Pietro raised one eyebrow.

     "When you were asleep that night with that chubby castrato … Frederico, was it …watching over you?  I put him to sleep, in a way, and sent him out.  I watched over you that night, and I sang it softly over and over until the sun came up.  It is a part of both of us now, so just listen and join me when it comes to you.  You need only to concentrate."

     Slowly, the vampire castrato composed himself and drew in a deep breath.  As he lifted his pale gray head to the sky, a soft gentle note began in his throat and gradually climbed its way up the stars, filling the night with a sound that silenced barking dogs, insects, and all other manner of night creatures.  The song continued in its mournful pace, rising and falling as Roberto poured what was left of his very soul into it.  Pietro, with tears standing in his eyes, suddenly felt the compulsion and joined in.  He was amazed at how the words came to him, as if he had practiced this melody note for note for months.  It was so easy, and when it was finally over, the two castrati - one young and one very old - began it again.

     The moon made its trip across the night sky as the boys sang her on her way.  Finally, as they finished the sad song once again, Roberto held up his hand to signal a stop.  "Enough, " he whispered, "it is late, and the sun will be up in an hour or so.  Go back to your room, Pietro, and I will seek shelter after …"

     Roberto hesitated.  Pietro knew from the look of the little vampire that he was yet weak from the healing that he had given earlier.  Pietro could see it - Roberto was hungry.  When Roberto turned to go, Pietro caught a flash of moonlight off of the boy's fangs.  "Explain to the Maestro any way you can, Pietro.  Honor your friend.  Do not let this night be spent in vain … if nothing else …"

     But Roberto's voice was already fading off into the night.  Pietro could not help but wonder if the vampire castrato was off to kill someone, or simply off to find an unsuspecting farm animal somewhere.

     Not sure if Roberto would hear him, Pietro looked up into the night sky and spoke three words:

     "Please come back.”

 

     When the Maestro arrived in his office that morning, he was not happy.  Standing at his desk, in black robe and red sash, was Pietro.  His blonde hair had been trimmed to a manageable form which even revealed his small and round ears, and his smooth face was fleshy and glowing with health.  He smelled of a recent scented bath as well.

     "Have you lost your mind?"  The Maestro roared, "You aren't supposed to be out of bed for another three or four days!  Are you trying to kill yourself?"

     Pietro had decided that there was no point in arguing.  He simply shook his head and untied his sash.  He then opened his robe and pulled down his undergarment.

     The Maestro gasped.

     Pietro, castrated only two days before, was fully healed.  The empty scrotum was shrunken flat up against his body, and the cut had transformed into a hairline scar that was barely visible.  There was no swelling, the stitches were gone, and the boy looked as if the operation had been done years before.  He also looked to have gained a few pounds, and his flesh-tone was near perfect.  His face almost seemed to glow, and his eyes shone with mischief.  He smiled then, dimpling his cheeks, and his red lips parted to reveal shining white teeth.   In short, the Maestro found him beautiful.

     "How is this possible?" the stunned Maestro Lorenzo asked quietly, remembering just how much he loved this boy that he had found on his doorstep one night.

     "Call it a miracle, if you like, Maestro, " the castrato answered.

     The Maestro was speechless.  It simply was not possible, but being a man of faith, he found himself with no choice but to accept Pietro's explanation.  Thinking he ought to say something for the benefit of his position, the Maestro cleared his throat and said, "Don't be contrary, boy."

     Pietro smiled back at him, but also saw the look of pain in his teacher's eyes.  It was the pain that Pietro had seen in his own mirror, and surprisingly, the pain that he had seen in Roberto's eyes.  It was Loss personified, the Grief and Suffering of the Departure of someone who is never coming back - a Brother left alone, a Father with one less Son … or an Orphan boy with no one to call his own.

     Pietro closed his robe and tied his sash.  He smiled faded as the Maestro stepped forward, his arms outstretched.  Pietro ran to those arms, and the Maestro hugged him close.  Both of them cried a bit, but most of Pietro’s tears of grief had already been shed on Roberto’s shoulder the night before.

     "When are the services, Maestro?"  He asked in a resolute tone.

     "Immediately after breakfast, Pietro.   Have you eaten since the operation?"

     "No, sir, " the boy replied, “Only some juice and water, and I’m very hungry, sir.”

     "When are you boys NOT hungry?  Then let us go to try to eat something, for we must have strength and there is food in plenty, " the Maestro suggested, "but first we must inform the Headmaster."

     Pietro nodded and could not help but wonder if Roberto had had his own breakfast, and what or who it had been.

    

     The Headmaster was just as surprised as the Maestro Lorenzo had been, and Pietro was obliged to repeat his revealing show of evidence.  The Headmaster, whose nerves were not those of a young man anymore, had collapsed into his overstuffed chair making the sign of the cross repeatedly.  He and the Maestro had also inspected Pietro’s wound very closely, the old man even taking out a magnifying glass and gasping in wonder as he stared at the perfectly healed flesh.

     Pietro found that amusing.

     "Very well, " the old man announced after several minutes (and several deep breaths), "You will sing, Pietro.  You will make no mention of this miraculous healing of yours, not even to the doctor.  When the services are over, you will take to your bed and play the part of the suffering new castrato.  I cannot understand this, but it is surely a sign that the world is not yet ready for.  Now, what is it that you will sing?"

     "I wish to keep that in secret until the services, sir, " the castrato replied.

     "Then you will do it a cappella then?"

     Pietro nodded.

     "He always was one to go for the hard parts, " the Maestro stated.

     The Headmaster nodded.  

     "Well then, let us get underway.  Maestro Lorenzo, carry Pietro to the dining room and make this whole charade look good.  After you have eaten, and you will eat only half of a usual breakfast, Pietro, the Maestro will carry you to the coach and we will go to the funeral.  There you will sing this mysterious song of yours and amaze us all.  Try to look suitably sick when you are finished, " the Headmaster concluded.

     "God help us, " the old man whispered, as the Maestro picked up the slight boy and carried him off to breakfast.

     

     There were many surprised looks when the Maestro deposited Pietro at an unoccupied table in the dining room.  Most of the stares and whispers came from the castrati students, all of whom recalled having spent the week following their own operations in bed.  The 'intact' students, the musicians and composers, only gave a few looks and approving nods.  Someone, after all, had to sing their compositions.

     Pietro waited quietly while the Maestro fetched their breakfasts, returning only a few of the looks with his eyes half closed.  He wasn't sure how to act, and didn't want to appear overdramatic.  While he waited, he folded his arms on the table in front of him and put his head down.  It was Marco, the boy who had ran for the Maestro when Pietro had first regained consciousness, which came over to talk to Pietro.  Not a castrato himself, yet, Marco was very curious.  He also tended to chatter and follow Pietro like a puppy.

     Pietro turned his head slightly to face the boy, who was about a year or two younger than he.  Any minute now, Pietro thought, I can hear him already … But Marco did not launch into a barrage of questions as Pietro had expected.  He merely placed his small hand on Pietro's shoulder and asked one simple question, "Was it like they say it is, Pietro?  I'm afraid."

     Marco's face was unusually pale for someone so dark-complected.  Pietro glanced around to see the Maestro headed back to the table with two plates of food and answered quickly, "It doesn't hurt when they do it, Marco.  If they have mentioned it to you already, you must show some promise then.  We’re not supposed to talk about it, you know.  But the doctor is very good at what he does and you will sleep through the whole thing.  You have nothing to worry about."

     "What is this?" the Maestro questioned, setting the lesser-filled plate in front of Pietro.

     "Marco was just concerned about me, " Pietro replied, "and about himself too." 

     The darker boy was staring at the Maestro with a look of unconcealed fear on his face, but surprisingly, the Maestro smiled and said, "Go get your plate and finish your meal with us, Marco.  If Pietro will answer, you have my permission to ask.  Are you up to eating and talking at the same time, Pietro?"

     Marco had scurried off to get his half-eaten breakfast before Pietro could reply.

     "We mentioned it to him yesterday, " the Maestro said, "and he almost turned completely white!"

     Pietro nearly choked on a bite of toast, and the Maestro was chuckling.

     "He's frightened, of course, " Pietro said, taking a long drink of his milk.

     "Well, the last boy we did certainly wasn't, " the Maestro responded quickly.

     Pietro blushed and then moved his chair slightly to accommodate Marco, who pulled his own up close to him.

     The Maestro simply could not resist.  Perhaps there was a sadistic streak in his nature somewhere, but the look on Marco's face was too priceless.  He was studying Pietro as he ate, as if searching for some obvious change in his friend.  The only differences, really, (other than Marco's coloration) were the clothes.  Pietro in his black robe and red sash, and Marco in a simple, short gray tunic.  "Have you thought about the castration, then, Marco ?" the Maestro asked.

     Marco, who had just taken a drink from his glass of milk, reached for his napkin and sneezed into it.  His eyes teared up, he choked once, and they all knew that the milk had not made it to his stomach.  The Maestro was smiling openly, and Pietro was shaking his head and grinning.

     "All night, sir.  I didn't sleep very much!"  Marco's eyes were wide.

     The Maestro nodded and set his fork down.  "You show me talent, Marco, and that is rare.  Of all the boys here, no, even of all the castrati here, few can invoke the feeling we look for when they sing.  You are untrained and very amateurish, Marco, but I can hear the beginnings of power in your voice.  You have far to go, and much work to do, but you will be one of the best.  I have been at this for a long time, and I can see these things."  All traces of sarcasm and playing were gone from the man's voice now as he continued his lecture.

     "So many boys are cut, and then prove unworthy.  It’s especially hard for boys from poor peasant families.  Some years ago, many poor boys were automatically castrated on the thought that the surgery itself would make them great singers.  It doesn’t.  It comes from years of hard work in a school like this one.  That is why the law reads as it does, making some small effort to protect boys.  Technically, it is against the law to castrate a boy unless there is some valid medical reason for it.  The Church, however, and many of the Authorities, tend to turn a blind eye towards it.  You have nothing to fear, Marco, for I believe you will not be one those eunuchs who winds up singing in a local choir for the rest of his life or apprenticed to some boring profession.  You, my boy, show enough promise of a future already.  There is just something in your voice that I feel!"  The Maestro had finished his little speech, and had gone back to eating.

     Pietro was amazed, suddenly, by the caring tone of this teacher's voice.  Certainly he had heard it before, but only to himself and Giovanni.  It was strange, and somehow wrong to hear these words directed at this other boy.  But it also seemed right somehow.  Giovanni had been working on some new simple training pieces only last week, and Marco had been the very first to sing them.  Pietro decided it was right after all and leaned over to place his arm about Marco’s shoulders.  “You’ll be fine, IF you decide to do it,” he whispered.

     And the time was drawing nearer.

     They all finished eating in silence.

     "I am done, Maestro, " Pietro said.

     "I'll take your plates, " Marco offered.

     The Maestro thanked the boy and patted his head, which had just begun to fill back in with hair.  The Headmaster had been after Marco for some time to do something with his unruly mop of black curls, and the little boy had taken it to heart by having his entire head completely shaved.  He looked a bit silly.

     "I tell him to get a boy's haircut because he looks like a little girl and what does he do to me?" the Maestro announced, trying to sound as tragic as possible.

     Marco blushed a bit and hurried off with the dirty plates as the Maestro picked Pietro up and carried him outside to await the coach.

 

     The church was not filled to capacity, in fact, it was hardly a quarter filled.  Giovanni had been an orphan, after all, and most of those in attendance were from the conservatorio.  There were a few Socialites there, those who were patrons of the conservatorio and fond of Giovanni and his compositions.  Many of them knew Pietro as well, and their hollow condolences grated on the boy’s nerves.

     Pietro had finally fled, with the Maestro’s assistance, to an alcove just off the stage to rest.  It was more for show than anything, and the students and staff of the conservatorio drifted in in small groups.  The choirboys had assembled in the box, and were studying their music sheets one final time.  The priest, one Father Carlo Fellini, the same one who had seen them off only a few nights before, was to officiate.  He was talking with the Maestro and Headmaster as Pietro peeked out of his alcove.  There were also a few officers in attendance, ever wary for any sign they might find.

     But it was the closed casket, covered in flowers, that held Pietro's attention.  Giovanni, they had said, had been nearly torn to pieces.  Roberto had told him otherwise, but still - there was a lack of closure somehow.  Pietro so desperately wanted to see the boy who had been a brother to him one last time, to hold his hand, to touch his face, perhaps even kiss his cheek in farewell.  But it was not to be.

     He cried a bit, softly, and as he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his black robe, he heard a faint voice whisper, "No, Pietro, you don't want to see him.  Remember him as he was … and sing for him …"

      The voice was Roberto's, and Pietro gasped.  Certainly Roberto was asleep, hidden in the conservatorio somewhere!  A strange calm suddenly fell over Pietro as he began to feel detached from his surroundings.  His nervousness at singing in public was gone now, and there was only determination left.  Determination to move those few people in attendance to something they had never felt before.  He would sing, and they would not forget it.

     He would raise his voice up so that even the Saints in Heaven would hear him and take notice.

     Pietro was ready.

     The Maestro was on his way to the organ to play for the choir's invocation.

     The Priest was in his place at his pulpit.

     The Headmaster was sitting with the non-singing students on the front row.

     Giovanni was in his coffin, his soul departed for a better place.

  

     And Roberto was asleep under Pietro's bed, having pulled the shades down, wrapped in a dark colored blanket and crying as he dreamt of green grass in the sunshine.

 

     The sun had just risen to the point of noonday when the choir began to sing.  He let his mind drift, and found himself humming along with them.  The song that Roberto had taught him, no - more like 'given' him, was also running through his mind.  He could hear the organ playing, the Maestro's skilled hands flying over the ivory keys to bring forth the most of the instrument.  Unlike a few nights ago, the organ was not being held back by Giovanni’s gentle touch; it was being unleashed by the Maestro’s rough touch to fill the church with its ethereal sound.  The soft, high voices of the boys in the choir, trained well enough for church singing, rose to fill the sanctuary with a music that competed with, and rivaled, the sound of the organ that brought back the sorrow over Giovanni’s death.

      But Pietro swallowed his own pain and thought of Roberto.

      The priest took his place in the pulpit as the choir sat down.  He spoke of life, naturally, and quoted the usual scriptures about death having no real power.  He then went on to speak of Giovanni, his life and his dreams, and his untimely demise.  Pietro sighed as the obvious was stated over and over. 

     And then he finally introduced Pietro, making much over the fact that the boy was ill and risking his own life to be with them, all for the sake of the memory of his dear friend.

     If he only knew, Pietro thought.

     Straightening his robe and checking his red sash, Pietro stepped from the alcove to the center of the stage.   He stood in front of Giovanni’s closed casket, and ran one small hand over the polished wood.  The conservatorio had spared no expense for its star-composing student.  Certainly, Giovanni had sold enough of his own work and skill of hand in copying to have paid for it all himself.  He had seen his friend’s purse once, hidden under a slat in the floor of his room.  Pietro smiled.  I will mark your resting place with a fine marble statue of a weeping angel, he thought as he drew in a breath.

     There was to be no music, the priest had said.  The song would be a capella, which was odd, but interesting.  The title of the song was also a secret, and the audience, still in sorrow to be sure, was no doubt curious.  The Maestro had pushed his bench back from the organ and sat staring at Pietro.

     The young castrato did not return his gaze.

     Then he began.

     The song started off softly, and sounded as if it were in Latin.  But it was Latin and something else so old that no one could really recognize it.  A few key phrases were familiar as Pietro's voice began to grow in power, mimicking perfectly the painful tones that Roberto had uttered.  Pietro felt himself becoming one with the sound of his own voice.  It was as if his own miraculously healed body were falling away, and only the sound remained to carry his consciousness on up to Heaven . . . where Giovanni surely was.

     The choirboys were weeping openly as Pietro went into the second verse, his mind filled with the memory of the night that he and Giovanni had performed there - the memory of the song that had secured his castration, and in a way, Giovanni’s death.  But all of that was past now.  There was only Roberto's song, the immortal castrato's loneliness, and his terrible pain that was so very much like unto Pietro's.  The end of the second verse had left the priest pale and shaken, trembling on his bench behind the pulpit.  The Maestro sat behind the silent organ, his mouth hanging open and his brow sweaty.  He wrung his hands, but otherwise did not move.

     Still, Pietro went on.  He was bodiless now, oblivious to the stares of the audience.  His voice was louder than ever, filling the church and passing through the sunlit windows of stained glass.  People on the street outside were stopping, and a few strangers had ventured into the back door to stand and look.

     The final verse was nearly over when the feeling flooded through Pietro so utterly, so unexpectedly, that it nearly destroyed him.  As his voice cried out of suffering and pain too horrible to imagine, in a language no one could totally understand, he knew.  He knew of Roberto's life and the song and what the vampire castrato had paid to learn it … he knew the pain of never seeing the sun, of sleeping in cold and damp places, hidden from the light of day.  He knew of the loneliness that was beyond loneliness and that which bordered on horror. 

     Pietro was gone, replaced by something that was not human.

     Roberto is not human, the thought flashed into his mind.

     The candles all flickered and died, and a chill swept through the sanctuary as a great cloud covered the sun.

     And as his voice rose to new heights that brought the Maestro to his feet to run and embrace Pietro's trembling body, the windows of stained glass suddenly exploded, blowing outwards in thousands of multi-colored shards to fall upon the passers-by in the street below.

    

     Back at the conservatorio, Roberto still cried in his sleep and murmured, "Please, Pietro, please don't send me away!"

 

     The Maestro Lorenzo Penzatti was sobbing openly as Pietro finished his last note and collapsed, senseless, into the arms of the man who loved him like a son.

 

     Father Carlo the priest, whose surname Pietro could never remember, was clutching his chest and gasping, trying to make the sign of the cross.

 

     Several of the choirboys had fainted, and the other students were stunned into motionlessness.

 

     The Socialites and the other onlookers had fled, many of them screaming.

 

     The Headmaster was praying desperately, gasping for every syllable.

 

     Giovanni was gone . . . utterly gone from the World, carried away by the mortal castrato Pietro's voice and the song of the immortal castrato, Roberto.

 

     Roberto was sleeping soundly, at last.

 

-4-

 

     It was much later in the day. 

     They had all gathered in the Headmaster's office: the Maestro Lorenzo Penzatti and Doctor Paolo Florenti, and Father Carlo Fellini.  There was not much speaking taking place, only shared looks of fear and amazement.  Pietro was back in his room, in bed, unconscious.  Unknown to the stunned group, Roberto was still UNDER Pietro's bed.

     The only member of the group not too shaken to speak seemed to be the doctor, who had not attended the funeral services and seen what Pietro had done.  He was also bordering on a state of inarticulate rage.

     "How dare you take that boy to the service and let him sing!"  He had shouted when he had arrived.  His outburst had been cut short, however, when Father Carlo had produced a small pouch filled with shards of shattered church window glass and had told the doctor the story of Pietro’s performance.

     "I cannot believe it, " the doctor said.

     "Then go and see it for yourself, " the Headmaster whispered, "God, how I wish I had not seen it!"

     "What is this boy now, " the Maestro asked of the group, "to do this?  How is it possible?"

     "By all rights, he should not have been able to walk down the stairs by himself, much less sing and sing well enough to blow out windows!"  The doctor stated.  “We’ve all seen the trick of shattering a thin glass with the voice, but this is unheard of.”

     Father Carlo was shaking his head.  "It was not natural, I tell you, " he stammered, as if the words were causing him pain, "and it is not a gift, that which destroys in the House of the Lord!"

     "You think that he did it intentionally then?"  The Maestro asked in amazement, "How?  Can you not understand his pain and loss, Father?  Giovanni was like his own brother, and he feels responsible.  Besides, what malice could that boy, or any other here, hold for you?"

     "It is not enough, " the priest replied, "there has to be a reason.  Surely …" but his voice trailed off.

     "What?" the Headmaster asked.

     Father Carlo was shaking his head and making the sign of the cross again.  "What if the boy is doing the Devil's work?"

     Doctor Florenti snorted.  "That boy couldn't be doing anyone's work in his condition."

     The Maestro exchanged a quick look with the Headmaster, who discretely shook his head.

     They must not mention it, they had agreed, and surely now they could not.  Talk of the Devil?  It could begin a witch-hunt, and Pietro would be the first one burned at the stake.  There was already enough dissention over the issue of castrati in general, and neither of the men could even begin to imagine what would happen if one of their students were to be accused of practicing the dark arts.

     "I don't suppose we could just accept the fact that you all witnessed a miracle?"  The doctor asked.

     They all turned to stare at him.

     "We could blame it on wind and structural flaws of the church," he offered, “Which combined with the abuse of all the sound and so many years of vibrations from the organ … It’s just a thought.”

     "Bad glass, poor workmanship, perhaps?" the Maestro continued.

     "The glass maker of those windows IS dead, " Father Carlo agreed, still running his fingers over the well-worn rosary he clutched tightly in his fist, “But to lie?”

     There was a long pause.

     "Then that is what we will do, " stated the Headmaster, "And we will circulate this story as quickly as possible.  The inquiries have already begun, and the boy is not even awake yet."

     "You'll be lucky if he wakes up at all, judging from the looks of what I saw of him," the doctor said.

     Much to his chagrin, the Maestro had vehemently objected to the doctor's examining Pietro's wounds.

     Explaining the miraculous and impossible healing that was evidenced in Pietro would be almost as difficult as explaining the church's windows.  Finally, after an intense argument, the Maestro had convinced him that Pietro had no infection and no new bleeding and that his bandages were fresh and clean.  The doctor has seen the look in the Maestro's eyes and relented. 

     As they all got up to leave, shaking each other's hands, the Maestro pulled Father Carlo aside.  "A moment, if you will, Father."

     The priest nodded.

     The doctor and the Headmaster had gone off in search of Marco, citing that if he was really ready and if the Headmaster was in agreement that it would be a good time.  There would certainly be onlookers, and the chance of someone finding out about it.  It was, after all, technically illegal since Marco was not injured nor ill.

     "I truly believe, " the Maestro stated matter-of-factly, "that we have all been witness to a miracle.  We cannot understand the Will of God, and Pietro has suffered so much.  Abandonment, loneliness, and the loss of his truest friend and companion.  Not to mention his recent castration.  Can you not accept that, Father, that perhaps he is to be truly rewarded with such power of the voice?"

     Father Carlo said nothing.  Instead, he turned and stalked away.  His rosary was having a rough day.

 

     The sun was heading on towards evening as Marco drank his glass of warm spiced wine and settled into a very hot bath in the cellar.  Doctor Florenti went about his work as he had with Pietro, his practiced hands soon adding yet another castrato singer to the conservatorio’s ranks.  Marco’s eyes had just closed as, up in Pietro's room, Roberto's eyes opened. 

     Pietro, however, had not stirred.

     Roberto waited patiently, watching the sunlight falling on the floor of Pietro's room.  Slowly, the bright patches of light receded towards the wall until, at last, they disappeared.  Roberto rolled out from his dark shelter and stretched.  He yawned.  Then he folded the spare blanket he had taken from Pietro's closet and replaced it.  He sat in the chair next to the sleeping castrato's bed and watched the eyes moving quickly this way and that beneath the closed lids.  Roberto smiled.  Pietro was simply asleep now, asleep and dreaming, and not unconscious.  Roberto smiled.  "From half a world away, " he whispered in Pietro's ear, "I would have heard that song!  I could not have sung it better myself.  Very well done, my friend."  He then leaned over a bit to rest against the arm of the chair so that he could reach out and hold Pietro’s hand.

     Pietro moaned softly in his sleep and rolled over.

     But are we really friends?  Roberto wondered, and what will he say to me when he awakens?

 

      Night had fallen over the conservatorio.  The moon was rising full in the east, and a gentle breeze was rustling the leaves of the huge old oak tree by the stone wall.  A very few of them had begun to turn color, and the acorns were beginning to fall.  Roberto was still sitting in the chair, waiting for Pietro to awaken.    He had not moved for hours.

     The Maestro Lorenzo had gone to bed early that night after conferring with doctor Florenti over Marco's condition.  The dark-skinned boy's operation had gone well, almost as easily as Pietro's, and the doctor expected no complications.  He was, however, very strict about Marco's physical restrictions.  The boy would remain in bed for a week, with absolutely no excuses, funerals or not!  The Maestro had seen the doctor off to his carriage, checked in on Marco - who was being observed by Frederico - and sought his bed.  The day's events had left him exhausted, and he was asleep in no time.

     The Headmaster had also retired early, but he hadn’t gone to sleep.  He had searched for, and found, a very old book in his vast collection and sat sipping some warm milk as he searched for elusive information within the old volume.

     Father Carlo had tried to do the same, but was awakened by bizarre dreams of castrati with fangs that dripped blood who were bent upon destroying his church.  Upon awakening, he had instantly given up hope of a good night's rest and gone to the church to stare for hours at the damage done by Pietro.

     It was a peaceful and almost perfect autumn night in every respect.

     Roberto sighed, still waiting.

    

     It was somewhere around three in the morning when Pietro awakened.  He rose towards wakefulness very slowly, not sure of where he was.  The room was lit only by the full moon, and he saw Roberto sitting in the frame of the open window with his legs pulled up to his chest and his hands clasped around his knees.  The dull silver light of the moon made it look like Roberto was glowing with a strange and pale aura.  His hair, pulled back into the long ponytail, was almost pure white in the moonlight and his black robe looked more like the total absence of light than the color black.  The red sash appeared gray.

     Slowly, the little vampire turned to face Pietro.

     The light danced upon his fangs for a moment, and his eyes were glowing red.

     Pietro gasped.

     "The funeral is over, my friend, " Roberto began, "and it is almost morning of the day after.  You have spent much of this week asleep, you know.  The song was beautiful, by the way.  I cried all the way through it.  I did not expect such a performance from one so young.  I am impressed, my friend."

     Pietro had gotten out of bed and walked over to stand barefoot beside his strange friend.  A part of him still did not want to believe it, though. 

     "I had the strangest dream," Pietro said, "I was at the funeral, and when I sang your song all of the windows exploded out of the church.  Father … uh …"

    "Carlo, " Roberto offered.

     "Yes, Father Carlo was there, terrified and staring.  The young castrati fainted, and the Maestro carried me off of the stage when the song was over, " Pietro mused.

     Roberto's eyes stopped glowing.

     "It was no dream, " he stated, "It really happened."

     Pietro gasped.

     "Oh, yes.  That priest is screaming witchcraft, the doctor is angry but doubtful, and the Maestro and Headmaster are keeping your healing a secret.  They’re trying to pass you off as miracle or a sign from God or something.  So far, no one but you knows about me."  Almost as an afterthought, he added, "And they castrated Marco a few hours ago.   That fat eunuch is babysitting him.  He’s resting comfortably and dreaming of screaming fans of the opera throwing roses at his feet."

     Pietro stared.

     It was real?  All of it?  He HAD blown the windows out of the church with his voice and Roberto's song ?  How was it possible?  It was all too much to think about, that and his castration and healing.  And now there was Marco, and the accusations … Pietro sighed and sat back down heavily on the bed.

     "Come, " Roberto offered, extending his thin, pale hand, "Come with me and go away from this place if only for a few hours.  The sun is yet far away, and we may share in this most perfect night."

     Pietro shook his head.

     "Please, " Roberto whispered, "Please come with me, if only to talk.  I promise you, I do not need to eat now."

     "Where will we go? " Pietro asked.

     "The tree, the church - well, not IN the church, but close so that you may see it.  Perhaps over the roofs of the buildings in town.  Who knows?  The night has much to offer us."

     Somehow, to Pietro, the pale castrato did not sound too sincere about the night's offerings.  He could feel the desperate loneliness once again.  He could understand it.  And suddenly, he wanted to eliminate it.

     "What should I wear?" Pietro asked.

     "It's chilly, " Roberto thought for a moment, "Put on your heavy black robe over your nightshirt and wear your boots.  A traveling cloak might be a good idea too."  There was a smile spreading over the vampire's face, but his fangs had pulled back in.  His colorless eyes almost sparkled, and his cheeks dimpled just a bit.

     Pietro dressed quickly and headed for the door.

     "Not that way, " Roberto said, gesturing towards the open window.

     Pietro nodded and turned around.  The two castrati climbed up to the windowsill and sat with their legs dangling over the edge.  Roberto put his arm around Pietro's shoulders and took a deep breath.  Pietro felt a peculiar lurch, and found himself seated on the highest limb of the great oak tree staring down at the conservatorio grounds.  It looked almost like day instead of night to him now.  Roberto was smiling very openly, his face happy.

     "That was good, " he stated.

     Pietro yelped and tightened his grip on Roberto, shaking the limb and sending a shower of acorns down to the ground.

     The vampire didn't seem to mind, tightening his own grip on Pietro as well.  For a moment, Pietro felt that he had no intentions of ever letting go.  It was a strange feeling, but fleeting.  There was something there, he could almost grasp it, but it seemed as if Roberto were hastily pulling it back away from him.  He didn’t pursue it.  Instead, he looked around and whistled softly in amazement.

     They were up so high that the entire roofs of all the conservatorio's building were visible.  He had no idea that the great tree, one of the most talked about things at the conservatorio, was so big. 

     "It helps for one to have a new perspective, " Roberto offered.

     Pietro composed himself and looked around.  He could see for so far in every direction, and it felt as if the tree itself were aware and welcomed him to its spreading limbs.  The feeling permeated his mind, and the tree was suddenly more than a landmark or a curiosity.  It was alive, tangible, and something with awareness.  The sensation made him even dizzier.  Suddenly he had an image come to his mind of falling off of the limb, and of the other limbs reaching out to grab him and save him.

     Roberto was laughing softly.  "Welcome to MY world," he said.

     Pietro ran his hand slowly along the rough bark of the tree and said nothing.  He stared out over the conservatorio grounds, and then up at the shining moon.  Everything was as bright as noonday to him now.  It was remarkable.  The night was so alive, so full of sounds and things to see; things that the daylight would not ever permit.  The young castrato had never felt anything like it.  And the tree … the tree was - what? – Laughing at him?

     "It's really very happy," Roberto said, "and it IS laughing.  You remember the day last summer when Marco climbed up to the second branch?"

     Pietro nodded.  He had been there and seen it all.  Marco had always wanted to climb the tree, and the Maestro and Headmaster and all of the other boys were forever trying to keep him from it.  Pietro remembered it well.  Marco had fallen off of that second branch and had hit the first branch with open legs.  He had almost become a castrato that very day by accident.  There were, after all, stranger stories being used to explain some of the boy’s castrati status.

     "How did you know about that?"

     "The tree told me, " Roberto replied, "It found it very amusing."

     Pietro laughed in spite of himself.  Poor little Marco had spent two days in bed over that adventure, his testicles swollen and aching.  Dr. Florenti had NOT been impressed, either.  He’d estimated Marco’s chances at half and half for a successful recovery, wondering if the boy would develop normally into manhood after such an injury.

     The point was, however, moot.

     "Well, he won't have to worry about that anymore, I guess, " Pietro said.

     Roberto smiled that inviting smile of his, the one that Pietro had seldom seen.  There were no traces of the creature that he really was on his face; Roberto was simply a little boy having fun.  At that moment, anyway.

     "Flying is nice, " Roberto stated, "but it takes a lot out of you."

     Pietro was still gazing around at the incredible view.  He could understand Marco's desire to climb the tree now.  He could almost make it out, the feeling becoming words from the great tree itself, He never comes to see me anymore, that dark-skinned little boy.  Is he all right now?  Why does he not come back?  Why do none of the boys come to see me anymore?

     "Just tell it, " Roberto said helpfully, "it will hear you and understand.  All living things in the night will understand you when you are with me."

     Pietro opened his mind to the tree, assuring it that Marco had not forgotten.  He explained the accident in detail, and the tree seemed to shiver in laughter when it understood.  He tried to explain the rules about climbing the tree, and the fact that avoiding it was probably the best for the boys.  It seemed to understand.

     "There is more, my friend, if you will come and see it with me, " Roberto asked, holding out his small hand.

     Pietro looked around and nodded.  He still had a few days left to play the role of the sick and bedridden child, so the night was his and Roberto's to do with as they pleased.  As long as they were back by dawn. 

     He returned the smile and took Roberto’s hand in his.

 

     From the tree, they took flight and circled the conservatorio once.  Pietro held onto the little vampire for dear life, but his fears slowly faded away as Roberto held him with a strength that was unsuspected for his thin, weak-looking arms.  The passed over the town, stopping to rest and walking across rooftops occasionally.  Pietro was impressed with some of the artwork incorporated into the buildings, especially the gargoyles and rain gutterings.  He wondered how it was that he had never noticed such things before.

     "You don't look up," Roberto answered the unspoken question, as if reading the thoughts from Pietro's mind, "No one ever looks up, lucky for me, I guess."

     And then they arrived at the church.

     Roberto sat them down across the street from it, in the moon-shadow of an apartment house.  The windows, devoid of the beautiful glass, stared at them like vacant eye sockets of an empty and long-dead skull.  Pietro shivered.  "I did that?" he breathed, crossing the street to get a closer look.

     Roberto nodded, but did not follow.

     Then they saw the light.

     It bobbed and moved through the dark church, slowly.

     "Lantern!"  Pietro gasped.

     Roberto spat out a rancid oath, and grabbed Pietro's arm.  The movement was unexpected, and Pietro was jerked off of his feet.  When he got his bearings again, they were up on the roof the apartment house across the way.

     "Damn priest, " Roberto muttered.

     Pietro stared at him.  Roberto was not telling him something.

     The little vampire castrato was paler than usual and shaking.  He was rubbing his face with his hands, as if trying to dry off after washing.  He seemed to be in pain, and Pietro could feel a burning sensation on his own face.  "What is it? " he asked.

     Roberto stared at the light as it came through the church door.  Father Carlo was there, looking this way and that, muttering his prayers.  He moved off down the street, in the opposite direction of the castrati hiding in the shadows.

     Roberto let out an explosive breath.

     "That was hard, " he said, "Priests are so hard to 'suggest' things to."

     "You made him go the other way? " Pietro asked, hardly believing it.

     The vampire nodded. 

     "What else?" Pietro pushed.

     Roberto sighed and shook his head, still rubbing his cheeks.  "About 60 years ago, give or take a decade, Father Carlo and I had an incident.  He was just out of the seminary, looking for his own church to lead.  I met him on the road just as the sun was setting.  I had been sleeping in an old hollow tree - a very nice tree, I might add - when I set off on foot.  I was hungry and moody and tired, and then we met.  He was leading a scraggly pony behind him, and I really tried to be nice.  Really!  What?!"

     Pietro was shaking his head and smiling.  "Just go on, " he said.

     "Anyway, " Roberto continued, "he was nice enough to me when we met up at first, but his questions got more and more involved and I couldn't truthfully answer them.  When he finally wanted to know what conservatorio I had run away from, that was it.  I was frightened, and well, I sort of lost control and 'showed' him what I was.  He didn't take it well.  He started praying at me, invoking scripture, and then, THEN he threw a vial of holy water in my face!"

     Pietro looked confused.

     "I'm not exactly the Angel of the Lord, Pietro.  Have you any idea what holy water does to a vampire?"

     The mortal castrato shook his head.

     The immortal castrato turned his head, and when he turned back, his face was raw and steaming.  One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his lower lip was split.  Tendrils of steam and smoke rose from the numerous lesions of his pale face.  He shook his head and the damage disappeared.

     "That was an illusion, by the way, but it really happened.  It took me three years to heal up from that."

     Pietro was stunned.  "What did you do? " he asked tentatively.

     "I sprang upon him, punched him in the face until he passed out, and then ate his pony for breakfast.  Then I went back to the tree and cried for days, " The vampire explained, "You cannot know the pain."

     There were tears in Pietro's eyes as he felt the emotion, the memory, communicating itself from Roberto to him.  He felt the burning of the holy water, the pain of the fresh and oozing wounds, and finally … he felt the loneliness.  It was almost too much to bear, curled up the hollow of the old tree, all alone and suffering.

     "How long?" Pietro asked softly, "How long has it been like this for you?  Not the holy water thing, but all of it?  ALL of it, Roberto?  Please tell me."

     The little vampire turned his back on Pietro and shrugged.  "A little over two or three centuries, I think.  Maybe more.  I really have lost track.  This town was here, but it was much smaller.  I came from the north originally, up near the border where the dialect is so different.  My family moved around a great deal, and I don't remember a real home.  I hardly remember them.  Hell, I can't even remember my own surname!  I can barely recall the faces of my brothers and sisters, and I don't know how many of us there were.

     "We were poor, but the church was always kind to us.  I remember spending hours haunting the shadows when I was a boy, listening, humming, and finally singing.  I loved to sing, Pietro, as much as you do.  It made me feel so good inside, and to see the faces of the people when they listened.  I sang every Sunday, and at all the services.  They even provided me with a good suit of clothes and shoes to wear.  The old priest at the time, long dead now, suggested to my father that he enroll me at the conservatorio - your conservatorio, Pietro, when it was just starting up."

     The boy stared at the vampire in disbelief. 

     "I was there for about six months, singing and impressing my teachers.  They had me move in to live on campus.  I was so good that my father did not have to pay tuition.  It wasn't long before the doctor came one day and examined me.  I didn't know I was ill, in fact, I was not.  He checked me all over, and then told me to come to the basement with him.  He put me in a hot bath, and had me drink some warm wine.  You know the rest, my friend, you've been there."  Roberto was looking deeply into Pietro's green eyes now, as if searching for something. 

     "You were once a student here!"

     "I just said that, yes, " Roberto replied.

     "A century?"  Pietro gasped.

     Roberto shook his head and smiled.  "Longer.  I remember when the oak tree was a sapling, and I helped to carry the stones in that built the wall.  I knew it would be hard to accept.  Try, for my sake."

     Then it dawned on Pietro what Roberto wanted.  The immortal castrato had come home.  Driven by loneliness, or perhaps something else, Roberto had finally come home after so many centuries.

     "Why?" Pietro asked in a voice so low and choked with emotion that he wasn't sure if the vampire would hear it.

     "I'm not sure now, " Roberto answered in a quavering voice.  "First, the call of your beautiful voice was what got my attention.  As I traveled, following what was only a sound in my mind, I found out you were here and I almost did not come.  But I had to.  Then, as I drew closer, I started to remember the conservatorio and my life here.  I was happy here, Pietro, can you understand that?  I loved to sing, I loved the town, and life itself.  It didn't matter that they castrated me without telling me why.  Back then, the boys were never told.  Oh, there were rumors of course, but no one could believe that he would someday get his balls cut out!  The castrati always had a story - hernias, accidents, diseases, the list goes on and on.  I was told that my own were malformed and defective.

     "I was actually healthy, but I never suspected a thing.  After all, I was young and innocent.  I had no idea what those things between my legs for used for!  Only that it hurt if something hit me there!  Then I woke up in bed the next morning after that hot bath with a bandage between my legs. 

     “But I didn't care, Pietro.  My voice was everything to me then."  Roberto had tears in his eyes, and the terrible feeling of longing, of searching, was there again as well.  He sniffled, and wiped his nose on his sleeve.  “Now it’s all I have, but there’s no one to listen to it.”

     "Please, " he implored, "Not the rest of it, not tonight."

     Pietro took a step towards the little vampire and put his arm around his shoulders, pulling him close and letting him cry on his shoulder as he done a few nights before.  Roberto’s tears, however, were cold.

     "Come, " he offered, "walk with me a ways and show me more of YOUR world.  Tell me only what you want, and I promise, I will not press you,” he added, offering his hand as Roberto wiped at his eyes.

     Roberto was leaning heavily on Pietro as they set off down the street towards the conservatorio that Pietro did, and that the immortal castrato had once, called home.

 

-5-

 

    Pietro was asleep in his bed the next morning when the Maestro Lorenzo came in to check on him.  It was more to continue the fiction of the young castrato's convalescence than anything else.  The Maestro knew very well that Pietro was fully healed, but the truth had to be kept a secret.  The boy would have to stay in bed and act suitably ill for the next few days, at least.  The Maestro came into the room and bent down to look closer at the sleeping castrato's face.  He was pale, the Maestro thought, even though he had no reason to be.  The room was somewhat chilly, even with the autumn sun streaming through the windows. 

     He paused for a moment, his breath catching in his throat as he stopped to simply watch the boy – his boy – sleeping.  The soft light pouring through the thick glass of the old window fell across Pietro’s smooth and flawless face and just down to his half-uncovered bare shoulder.  His freshly cut blond hair, just trimmed off above his small round ears, seemed to cactch that light and glow with an aura that bespoke pure innocence and invited a gentle touch.  His lips were slightly parted, and his breath whistled softly as he took slow and even breaths. 

     The Maestro stepped carefully up to Pietro’s bedside, running his hand over the delicate features and bending down to kiss his smooth cheek.  He pulled the blankets up close under Pietro's chin, smoothed his golden hair, and turned with a sigh to go.  He did not know that there was another tenant in the room, curled up in a blanket UNDER the bed.

     His next stop was Marco's room, and he found the dark-toned boy already awake and asking to be let out. 

     "You will get your breakfast here, Marco, " the Maestro reprimanded, "and if you so much as sit up, I'll have you tied down to the bed for the next six days!" 

     That ended that argument.

     Marco calmly accepted the fact that Frederico would bring him his meals, eat with him, and keep him company in the evenings.  He was a little dismayed to learn that the Headmaster would be bringing him his lessons to study while he healed, and that his teachers would also be visiting to collect his homework.  His castration, it seemed, was not turning out to be a vacation.

     Satisfied that everything was well with the two newest castrati, the Maestro Lorenzo went for a bit of breakfast and then returned to his office.  The youngest of the boys would soon begin their daily lessons, filling the halls of the conservatorio with sound.  The Maestro sighed.  Some of it was good; some of it was all right, but a great deal of it was dreadful.  The combination of Giovanni and Pietro was gone for good now, and the Maestro could not help but remember the song in the church.  Where did he learn that? the teacher kept asking himself.  And how could a boy, especially one so recently cut, summon such power as to destroy windows and make onlookers flee?

     The answers were not there, however, and the Maestro sighed as the little boys began their scales in the next room as an older student studying composition played for them on the old harpsichord.  Farinelli began this way, he kept telling himself over and over again.  But he longed to hear Pietro sing again, and yet he feared it.  Something had changed in his favorite student, his almost-son, and he was not sure what it was.  He wondered why the boy had not called for breakfast, and why he slept so much during the day.  Heal quickly, Marco, he thought half aloud, “Heal up and take a place at Pietro’s side so that I may again hear something of the like.”

      Finally, after two hours of five and six-year-olds destroying his nerves, he decided to go and wake Pietro and try to find out some things.

 

     The boy was still asleep when he reached his room. 

     The Maestro felt the chill again, made a mental note to check the window seals, and went to Pietro's bedside.  He reached out to touch the still-sleeping boy's shoulder to shake him, but flinched back when Pietro's eyes popped open.  His hand hung in the air just above the boy’s skin, and he trembled.  For a moment, the Maestro swore he saw traces of blood red in the pale grayish-green irises.

     Pietro yawned and stretched, groaning softly.

     "Well, my boy, you certainly can act.  That is good, and will help you in your stage career!  A career you will NOT have if you do not start moving around within the next two days, " the Maestro dug in, "You and I both know you are not ill, that you have been somehow healed overnight, but let us not take this to extremes!"

     There was a small sound somewhere in the room, and the Maestro turned to look for it.

     Pietro coughed, distracting him.

     "I really don't feel well, Maestro, " the castrato said, "even though my wounds are healed.  I am tired, more than I can explain, and it is so bright in here!  What time is it?"

     "Almost lunchtime, are you hungry yet?  You really need to eat more, Pietro.  You are losing weight."

     "But I am not hungry, " the boy replied.

     "Well, you're going to eat anyway - lunch at least.  If it makes you sick, I will not force it on you.  I could call doctor Florenti to see if you are really ill somewhere else, " the teacher suggested, smiling.  “Perhaps a tonic to gripe your belly or to cleanse your bowels?”

     "When do we eat?" Pietro replied quickly, his eyes wide and his head shaking in a gesture of ‘no’.

     "I will go and see the cook now, " the Maestro replied, tussling the boy's blond hair.

     He left the room quickly, and Pietro rubbed his aching eyes.

     From under the bed, Roberto yawned and stretched as well.  "Is it dark yet?" he asked.

     "Not yet, it's only noon, " Pietro answered.

     "Damn."

     There was a rustle as Roberto turned over, and Pietro could tell that the little vampire was again asleep.

     Thanks Heaven he doesn’t snore, Pietro thought.

     He could hear the sounds of the practicing students from the floors below, and the young castrato suddenly felt the need to be among them.  If it were noon, then the littler students would be outside for their midday break and the older ones, closer to his own age, would be just warming up after morning chores and academic lessons.  His voice wanted to be let out, but he had to wait.  The Memory of what had happened in the church was becoming clearer to him, and the thought of it frightened him.  What was the reason?  The ancient song?  Roberto's presence?  He did not know.

     He got up and went to the window, opening it.  The tree was staring back at him, it seemed, and he smiled.  Last night had been quite an experience, and he had no doubt that it had not been a dream.  He bent down and turned to look under the bed, just barely able to make out the sleeping form of Roberto.  He sighed and went back to the window, climbing up to sit on the sill as Roberto had done the previous night.  The Maestro would be back anytime with lunch, and all he could do was wait.

     He tugged at the hem of his nightshirt, and clasped his hands about his knees.  He leaned back against the wooden casing of the window and listened to his classmates singing on the floor below.  A squirrel emerged from somewhere in the great tree, its cheeks stuffed with acorns.  It stopped, sat up and twitched its tail, then scampered off to another lower limb.  Pietro smiled and watched it, humming along to the sounds of his practicing peers, just as they’d done every day for every day of his life that he could remember.

     The sudden silence alerted him to the fact that the time for lunch had come.  The music and singing, if one could call some of it that, stopped abruptly.  There would be a break after the meal, and most of the students would go outside to enjoy the day.  Pietro found himself hoping that someone would go and visit the lonely tree.

     Maestro Lorenzo arrived a few moments later with two trays of food.  It looked to be some sort of meat in gravy over potatoes with bread.  Pietro felt his stomach lurch, and was surprised by how good it smelled.  It had indeed been a long time since he had eaten that meager breakfast before the funeral.  He smiled at the Maestro and hopped down from the windowsill. 

     "Don't sit up there like that, " he said flatly, "it scares me.  You'll fall and break your neck!"

     Pietro smiled and assaulted his lunch with vigor.  The Maestro seemed to approve.

     Then the questions started.

     The Maestro was asking the same questions Pietro was asking himself.  He also found he could not answer them.  When he had finished his meal, he sat back with his hands in his lap staring at his teacher.

     "So you have no idea how you did it, then?  And you expect me to believe that this fantastic song just 'came to you’?  The Muse visited you in the night perhaps, or some divine messenger delivered you a scroll with the words written out for you?   I am sorry, Pietro, but I need more than that, " the Maestro argued with heavy sarcasm, "The stories about the windows of the church being defective and shabby workmanship are starting to be accepted, but Father Carlo is not doing all that he could for us.  There could be trouble, you know."

     Pietro nodded and stared back out the window.  He could hear the sounds of some of his classmates’ rough housing.  "If you choose not to believe me, Maestro, then that is your prerogative.  But I have never lied to you, and I never will.  Something IS changing in me, I can feel it.  The death of Giovanni, the guilt, perhaps - yet something more.  Blame it on the castration if you like, but we both know that it is not the reason.  One does not build up the power of voice overnight, as it takes years.  You’ve always told me that.  And I expected to be cut, remember.  I even hoped for it, sir."

     "Then what?" the Maestro groped, "There has to be something more.  We cannot simply write it all off to a gift, or natural talent.  No nine-year-old boy could do what you did, Pietro, no matter how smart you are.  For God's sake, boy, I have castratos twice your age that cannot do that!   Hell, no one can do that!   One just does not go about blowing out windows with his voice!  The Headmaster and I cannot keep up this charade for much longer.  Even some of the students here are afraid of you now.  Did you know that some of the younger ones already don't want to sing with you in the same room?  Were you also aware, that while you’ve slept, none have wanted to come and see you?"

     Pietro gasped.  The memory was clearer now, but he had not intended to do any harm.  They were afraid of him?  Did no one understand him, or what he had lost, or simply what he had wanted to do?

Yes, the young castrato thought, there is one person who does understand, and he left this conservatorio centuries ago.  Suddenly, Pietro longed for the cold night, the insulating darkness, the sounds and sights that no one ever saw.  He had the noonday sun, but he longed for the midnight moon.   It was only midday though, and the students were coming back in from their break.  Already, the sounds of tuning up were drifting up the stairs to Pietro's ears as the compositional students readied for practice with the singers and those taking lessons on an instrument as well.

     "I must go now, " the Maestro said calmly, "Think of what you have done, Pietro, and what will come of it.  We do not know how this will turn out.  Find a way to explain yourself."

     The Maestro Lorenzo left the room and closed the door as Pietro returned to the windowsill.  Thankfully, a large cloud had covered the sun.  The young castrato still found the day much too bright as he waited for the squirrel to come back.

 

     He spent the rest of the day in bed, sending for Frederico only once to simply ask how Marco was and to refuse dinner.  That and he wanted to see someone, anyone, just to prove to himself that someone would come and see him.  The chubby eunuch replied that Marco was healing fine, with only a bit of residual pain and intermittent fever. 
     "Keeping him still and in bed is the biggest problem though, " Frederico had said, "did you know that the doctor had to tie his ankles to keep him there?"  Frederico had laughed at that.  "I remember when they cut me, I was more than happy to just sleep it off."

     Pietro had been polite, despite his contempt.  Frederico had a voice that would never bring him fame or a following, and Pietro felt that the castration had been carried out upon the heavy boy simply because the possibility was there and his family had been poor.  He could not help but wonder if Frederico had been tested before he had been cut.  It was no secret that many boys, a few of them at this conservatorio, should never have been cut in the first place; the talent simply was NOT there. 

     What becomes of a eunuch who can't sing ?

     The thought came unexpectedly, and just on the heels of it was another: What happens to a eunuch who sings so well that he is feared of his voice, and driven out?

      Roberto came to mind, and Pietro sat on the windowsill for the rest of the day and evening pondering all of it: boys with no talent castrated simply because it was the thing to do, eunuchs who could not sing, the suffering and pain of the orphaned boys there, and the fear of being sent away upon graduation.  To Pietro, the conservatorio was home; it always had been, and he’d never known another.  The Maestro had raised him there, had always been there for him.  But to many of the students, he was simply a teacher or taskmaster who was so hard to please.   He ran these thoughts over and over again, but no answers came to him.

     It seemed an eternity before the sun went down and Roberto awoke.

     The sky was once again on fire with the beauty of the orange and purple sunset as Pietro heard the rustling of the blanket and the soft sounds of bare feet on the hardwood floor.  He did not need to turn and look - he could feel Roberto's presence behind him, waiting, wondering.

     "You are upset, " Roberto stated.

     Pietro nodded.

     "The Maestro?" the little vampire asked.

     Pietro nodded again.  "And not just that, there is more.  I have been deep in thought all day over it, Roberto.  Frederico made me think of it, you know.  He really is not talented at all, but yet he is a eunuch."

     Roberto was staring at him now, and past him, out into the deepening night.  The sounds were coming alive again, and the call was irresistible.  "Pietro, thousands of boys are gelded every year for the sakes of their voices, some even for the possibility of their voices.  Some because their parents are greedy or simply need the money and have too many sons.  Boys are literally sold into musical slavery, others are contracted out to Maestros that are nothing like the loving one you have.  Few, a very few, choose to undergo the operation of their own desire.  And, believe it or not, a fewer still actually do HAVE to have it done for health reasons.  But there is more, is there not?  Remember, I am a vampire, my friend - I can read the thoughts of mortals."

     Pietro smiled and climbed down from the windowsill.  He embraced Roberto, not caring about the sudden wave of coldness that enveloped him.  The young, overly intelligent castrato was feeling terribly lonely at the moment, and Roberto would understand.  As the hugged the strange and pale boy closer, he let all of his concerns and worry flow out of him and into Roberto.  A great weight seemed to fall from his shoulders, and Roberto sighed.

     "I know, " he said finally, pulling away but still holding Pietro by the shoulders, "I know too well."

     Roberto's voice was shaking now, and his eyes were glowing red.  His incisors had appeared, just protruding over his lower lip.  "You are correct, you know.  If the story about the windows is not accepted, and when they hear you, they will do to you what they did to me."

     "Tell me, please, " Pietro whispered, "I have to know."

     Roberto turned to stare out at the gathering darkness as the last bits of color began to fade.  "We will go, " he announced, "and I will tell you about it somewhere other than here.  I had so dearly hoped it would not be like this."

     

     They dressed and waited a for about an hour, and when the conservatorio had fallen to almost total silence, Roberto took Pietro's hand and led him to the window once again.  They did not stop at the tree this time, instead going farther out past the town and deep into the ancient forest beyond.

 

    They sat high in another huge and ancient oak tree, far older than the one at the conservatorio.  Pietro could feel the age of the great tree as he sat on an impossibly wide limb and leaned against the trunk.  The limb upon which he was perched was larger than most of the trunks of the other trees in the forest.  It was a quiet, relaxing place.  Roberto had promised to return shortly, citing the fact that he HAD to have something to eat.  He had promised, however, to limit his hunting to non-human prey.

     Pietro waited patiently, his eyes adapted totally to the darkness that seemed like daylight to him.  Roberto returned after a few moments, looking quite pleased with himself.  "I just had a turn of luck, " he said gaily, "it seems that some farmer let one of his cows stray a bit.  OH, " the little vampire interjected, "I had a VERY interesting talk with a very upset horse at that farm too when I passed over."

     "And?" Pietro demanded.

     "It seems a priest whom we both know had been to the farm yesterday to visit the sickly goodwife.  He had some things to say to the farmer out in the barnyard, leaning on the fence.  The horse spilled it all in exchange for his life, I guess.  He was very chatty."  Roberto explained.

     "WILL you get on with it!"  Pietro said impatiently.

     Roberto tried to look hurt and failed miserably.  His toothy grin was far too much.

     "Well, it seems that our dear Father Carlo was telling this farmer, and his horse, all about the funeral services and what you did to his windows.  It also seems that our dear Father is having some bad dreams.  He thinks that the Devil is loose in our quaint little town."  Roberto laughed.  "I am sooo flattered!"

     "Am I going to have to drag this story out of you piece by piece?" Pietro demanded.

     Roberto laughed, and the sound was like nothing Pietro had ever heard before.  There was actually a sound of hope and expectation to Roberto's usually dismal and sad outlook.  Then the look on his face turned serious.  "You have two more days, at the most, before your 'convalescence' is technically over, you know.  They are going to expect you return to practice and singing.  Father Carlo loved your voice before, but now you scare him.  He isn't supporting the story at all, Pietro.  He thinks you're a witch or something worse."

     Pietro felt his stomach roll.  Somehow he had to tell this to the Maestro and Headmaster, but how?  They would never believe him!  His worries had come true, it seemed, and soon he would have to do some serious explaining.  It did not look good.

     "I'm sorry, " Roberto said, "This is all my fault.  I should never have come back."

     The fire was still in the little vampire castrato's eyes, however, and Pietro could see a plan forming.

     "What are you about?" Pietro asked.

     "I thought we would go and see the good Father and explain it all to him, " Roberto answered, his teeth shining despite the darkness.

     Pietro waited for the rest, and Roberto seemed to sense this.

     "Alright, " he began, "the rest of it.  As I told you, I attended your conservatorio about a century or two ago.  I loved it, as I told you, and music was everything to me.  Now that I think about it, I don’t think that my parents wanted to get rid of me.  Perhaps that is wishful thinking, I don’t know.  There were a lot of us, but I don’t’ recall ever starving.  I just remember some priest finding me lurking in the shadows of the church and softly singing along with the practicing organist.  The next thing I knew, I was having lessons and performing for the other priests and sisters.  Later on, it was for the whole congregation and then I was enrolled in the school.   I didn't expect the castration, nor understand it then, but I accepted it and realized that it would keep my voice high and beautiful for all time.  I just didn't know then how much TIME that would be!  The years weigh heavily upon me, Pietro, and when I heard your voice, it was just too much.  I haven't had a friend in so long, and that was really all I wanted."  Roberto's smile had totally disappeared, and there were tears standing in his red eyes once again. 

     Yet he went on …

     "It was so hard, you know.  You had the school and the Maestro and Giovanni and even Marco.  You looked like a little family, something that I can barely recall now.  I really didn't want to harm that, Pietro, really I didn't.  But when Giovanni was murdered and I could do nothing for him because of my own failings, my own weaknesses, I felt I had to repay you for it somehow. 

     "Instead, I have ruined your life and your future.  I healed you, gave you the song and the power to sing it, that wonderful song which had not been heard in so very, very long.  Perhaps I was after vengeance after all, I don't know.  It really isn't his fault, Father Carlo's, but he's acting just like the rest of them … people never change, it seems.  They fear that which they do not understand."

     Roberto's voice trailed off as his thoughts crossed the passed centuries to recall something that had happened to him when he was a real boy, not a vampire.  Something terrible that he had pondered for that same past century.  It was becoming clear to Pietro now, as he seemed to lose himself in Roberto's mind.  Their thoughts were merging, becoming one, and the idea forming in Roberto's mind was monstrous.  Roberto had said that he had come home out of loneliness, but that had not been the entire truth.  The little vampire had a hidden agenda as well.

     He continued his story, but the light was fading from his eyes.

     "When I first began to sing in the church, and after my castration, the priest there was totally enraptured by the castrati singers.  He took a liking to me especially.  After all, he and the Maestro and Headmaster of my day had planned it all, you know.  I don't really blame them for making me a eunuch.  In fact, at the time, I was glad of it.  What I do blame them for came later.

     "I was singing privately for the priest, his name was Father Alfonso Fellini.  Sound familiar?  He was Father Carlo's great-something-uncle and family roll model, the pride of the family - the first priest in their line.  It was on a night much like the one when you and Giovanni sang and played for the Maestro at your test.  After a few hours, whatever was bothering him seemed to have been soothed away by my voice and he was taking me back to the conservatorio."  Roberto paused and drew in a great breath. 

     Pietro could feel the anger and sadness coming off of the little vampire in waves.

     "On our way back, Father Alfonso was telling me of what weighed so heavily upon him.  He felt guilt over what he had had done to so many boys for the sake of the music, and that surely the Lord was repaying his sins by laying a hard task upon him at such a young age.   He said he could feel an evil lurking in the town, waiting, and that he felt compelled to find it and destroy it.  There had been a few murders, which was odd for the day - here - and he thought that he knew something.

     "I was young and still a child at the time, so I didn't understand all of it.  I just walked along and held his hand and listened.  I nodded from time to time and smiled up at him.  I really loved that man, the new life I had, and I felt that he loved me in return.  How was I to know that because of him and his stupid guilt that I would be condemned to an eternity of lonely darkness? "

     Pietro stared at the vampire castrato and understood, he thought.  Father Carlo was out to condemn him now, driven by the same obsession as his great-uncle Alfonso.  Father Alfonso, it seemed, had worked closely with the conservatorio and was responsible for suggesting the castrations of so many boys.  How many of them, Pietro wondered, had proven failures and gone on as eunuchs without voices?  Was that it?  The thoughts coming from Roberto were scattered, fragmented, as his anger mounted.  It did not all make sense yet, but Pietro was sure it would.  Still Roberto spoke.

       "We were almost home, to my home, when the Father stopped and pulled me close to him.  He said he could feel an evil nearby.  Then there was a man in the road ahead of us, merely an outline in the night.  He was staring at us; even I could feel it then.  He moved closer, and Father Alfonso told me to run, run back to the church as fast as I could and stay there.  I remember crying, and running.  I could hear a struggle, and then thunder.  It was a clear night, though, Pietro.  It was so clear even the stars weren't twinkling, and I could hear shouts, more thunder, and then screams of sheer terror.  Those screams turned to rage, and then I heard Father Alfonso cry out to God …"

       Roberto choked on the last word, collapsing into Pietro's arms as the image of branches catching their fall filled his mind.  It almost felt like soft hands upon him, holding him, settling him gently back to earth.  They were on the ground now, and the tree was relieved.  Roberto, however, was sobbing uncontrollably, his frail looking body racked by terrible spasms.

     It seemed like hours before Roberto was able to go on.  Pietro held him close and the terrible sadness filled his own mind as the vampire castrato let go of something that he and he alone had known for so long.  There was more though, and Pietro had to hear it.  He had to know what to say when they went to see Father Carlo about his rumoring.

     Composing himself with a great effort, Roberto continued his story.

 

-6-

 

     "I never made it back to the church.  I ran until my sides ached.  I had only been a eunuch for about six months, so I hadn't grown enough to have the huge lung capacity of most castrati.  That and I was only about nine or ten years old at the time.  I had to stop just short of the town limits; the pain was so bad.  I hid under an abandoned wagon beside the road, but he found me, that stranger. 

     "Whatever passed between him and Father Alfonso was over, and I had the awful feeling that this man was the evil that the Father had spoken of.  Indeed, he was more so than you could know.  He pulled me out from under the wagon and held me up to stare into his baleful red eyes.  I had never even heard the vampire legends before, and I was convinced that the Devil himself had captured me!  He read everything in my Mind in that stare, and he laughed at me.  He said, 'your priest is dead, little one, and I still hunger!  I have never before fed on one so young, so you should feel honored.  It's not like you will have much of a life, anyway, little castrato!  Better that you meet this end than suffer the life that they have condemned you to.’ "

     Pietro still listened, enraptured by the tale, watching Roberto's tears fall onto the forest floor.  He pulled the vampire closer and whispered, "Go on, and get it out."

     "I couldn't tear my eyes away from his gaze, Pietro.  He held me so tight I could hardly breath.  I was so scared, and I just knew that I was going to die.  You can't know how many times over the last century I have wished that I had!  He just smiled at me with those awful, long yellow fangs of his.  Then he pushed my head back and opened his mouth up all of the way.  I swear to you, Pietro, it was like looking straight into hell!  His breath smelled like a reopened grave, and I remember feeling a horrible ripping pain in my neck.  Everything went dark, and then nothing.  When I awoke, I was in bed in the cellar at the conservatorio." 

     Roberto paused to stare at Pietro for a moment.  "I was there that first night, you know.  After they cut you.  You reminded me so much of myself when you were sleeping, still wounded from the surgery.  You looked so sick and helpless, and I really thought that I could help and that you might … might … Now look what I have done!"  He cried, unable to finish the sentence and holding his pale head in his hands, unable to face the boy that he so wanted for a friend.

     "What you have done, " Pietro objected, "is to give me the gift of song that no one has had nor heard in almost a century.  You have come to be my friend when my best friend was dead, and absolved my terrible guilt that would have destroyed me.  You also took vengeance on his killers.  His death even proved to be a help to you, and you gave me the power to send his soul away from this world as none has been sent away for God-knows-how-long.  You have not wronged me, Roberto.  Together, we will overcome this all somehow."

     The little immortal looked up at Pietro, his colorless eyes puffy.  "I wish we could, my friend.  You have no idea how long I have waited for someone to say that to me," Roberto replied, his voice still choked with emotion.

     "What happened, my friend, when you awoke?" Pietro felt that he had to know. 

     "I remember waking up in the cellar, where the baths are.  Where they always do the castrations.  At first, I thought that it was a dream from the opium and that I had just then been castrated, but soon my head cleared.  It should have been dark down there, but I could see so well.  My own Maestro and Headmaster - and to think I cannot even recall their names - were standing over me with the doctor who had cut me.  There was a bandage all around my neck, and I felt so weak.  I could not sit up, and I could barely talk.  Everything looked so strange in the dark cellar, so animated, and I thought that they were almost glowing as the examined me.  I had no idea that it was my own vision that had changed.

     "They told me that the Father was dead, found murdered on the road.  They had been in a panic to find me, and they had thought me dead as well when the doctor had brought me in.  They wanted information, and I spent hours trying to tell the authorities what had happened.  But all I wanted to do was to sleep, and my throat hurt so badly when I tried to talk.  Finally, I just wrote it all out for them.  I did not think they would ever go away.

     "But it got even worse.  I wasn't getting any better, and all I did was sleep.  I could not get up, and my body just got weaker and weaker.  I couldn’t eat, as I vomited up anything that I swallowed.   Finally, the doctor came to me late one night, and I was wide awake, as usual.  I was sleeping all day it seemed, and staying up all night long.  He simply said something like 'I know what you need,' and he gave me a large glass of something dark to drink.  I didn’t want it, because I knew that I would puke it back up, but he insisted and threatened to hold my nose and pour it down my throat, so I took it.   I found out later it was blood, from where he did not say.  But when I had finished it, I felt my strength returning.  It tasted so sweet!  I had no idea what it was that first time, but I wanted more and he gave it to me. 

     “I think he must have known how frightened I was, because he sat down on my bed and held me.  I remember how he rocked me and stoked my hair.  He didn’t say anything for a long time, then he removed my bandages and helped me out of my nightshirt so that I could get a bath.  I’d not had one for a long time, and I guess I must have needed it badly.  He cleaned me up, as I was still too weak to move, and examined me from head to toe.  Then he put me in a fresh nightshirt and tucked me back into bed.  I thought he was going to go then, but he didn’t.

     “He stayed and talked to me all night, explaining what had happened and how he had run across me and the vampire who had killed Father Alfonso.  He had been returning from delivering a baby late that night, and had come upon us, taking the vampire by surprise.  I could hardly believe it, that he had staked the horrible stranger through the heart, but he knew, Pietro, he knew all about vampires and what they are and what they must do!  He said that the evil one dissolved into the ground in a puff of smoke, leaving only a few ashes that blew away on the wind.  He even took the stake back, and he showed it to me.

     "I did not believe him at first, of course, so he proved it to me.  I initially thought that maybe he was trying to just tell me a story to help me go to sleep, or to frighten me into mobility!  Then he grabbed my arms and pulled me up close to his face to study me.  He told me he could see the beginnings of the change, and that he had seen it before.  I can still remember his saying how I would never grow old, that I could not be killed except by burning or by a stake through the heart.  I would never get sick, and I could never die, but for those two things.  What could kill a mortal man would have no affect on me.  I can still remember 'hearing' his thoughts as he held my face in his hands, and I knew his words before he even said them aloud!  I thought that he was quite mad!

     "I was still a child, remember, and I didn't believe it.  Certainly I was frightened, but he told me that I would no doubt have to learn the hard way.  It was pure random chance that brought me the proof.  He left me there that night with another large glass  and a small jug of what he told me was blood, and by morning I had drank it all and gone to sleep.  I still didn’t believe him, though.  It tasted too good, and I thought that it must be some kind of thick juice for sick people. The Maestro came in that next night with the Headmaster again, and they told me that I would have to make a try of resuming my normal life.  But I was so weak.  I begged them to leave me alone until I felt better, but they moved me back up to my own room instead.  I couldn’t even climb the cellar stairs unaided, and the Maestro had to carry me.  His face was so strange, Pietro.  It was if someone had just told him that a friend had died.  His eyes were so haunted, and I could hear him thinking over and over, ‘What will we do with him now?’

     "I remember being up all night, again, and when the sun came up, I was sitting up in bed reading and trying to catch up on my schoolwork.  I watched it, fascinated for some reason, as the bright patch of yellow light crept across the floor towards my bed.  It fell upon me, and I began screaming.  It hurt me so, the light was burning me!  My skin was red and there was smoke rolling off my nightshirt when the Maestro and Headmaster came to see what was wrong.  I had the covers pulled up over my head, but it was so hot and it hurt so bad!  I think the Headmaster knew then, because he threw yet another blanket over me and carried me back to the cellar.  I was frightened and angry, and when they pulled the blanket off of me, they both gasped and turned pale.  They backed away from me, but there was a look on the Headmaster's face I will never forget - the fear, the realization, and the contempt.  The contempt was the worst, I think.  I knew what he was thinking, even though I did not understand the words  ‘demon-seed’ and ‘hellspawn’.

     "They left me alone then, and I cried myself to sleep as the practicing students began to sing and play.  No one came down to see me, and they ordered me to stay where I was.  Of course, I was not about to go back out into the sun after what had just happened, but I wondered where my friends were, why they did not come to see me when I was ill.  I knew then, somehow, that I would never join them again.  Somehow I knew, I just knew that I was different – changed - and that my life there had come to an end.

     "That night, the doctor came again with the Maestro.  They told me that they knew, and that there was nothing anyone could do.  Father Carlo's great-whatever-grandfather, you know, Father Alfonso's brother, came also.  For some reason, I did not like him being there; I was afraid of him, and the sight of him made me want to run.  He took one look at me and fled, saying something about his brother's mad ravings having been correct after all.  It seemed that Father Alfonso knew a great deal about all of the different forms of evil that inhabit this world and the next.  His writings confirmed it.  They also confirmed his guilt over his castrati fascination, but no on held that against him.  Not in those days. 

     "He came back later, and they all stayed up all night with me.  I got used to his presence, eventually, and because I was so lonely that I welcomed any company that came.  The doctor said that I was finally healed up enough from my attack.  He was the only one who would touch me, Pietro.  The only one who get close to me.  I didn’t start to believe their tales until the Father pulled a small cross and held it up to my eyes.  I stared at it for a moment, but it repelled me!  I wanted to run from it and him as well!  It made no sense to me, as I had always gone to church and enjoyed it!  The church had always been kind to my family, and me, and I had no REASON to fear it – yet I did.  Finally, as dawn was coming on - brace yourself for this part - the Headmaster came right out and said that I had a choice: I could leave and make my way in some distant part of the world, or…” Roberto's eyes had become strangely distant, and he was on the verge of tears again.    It was as if he were actually looking back through time, seeing it all happen to him once again.

     "… Signore Fellini offered to drive a stake into my heart and put me out of my misery.  He just sat there and said it so calmly, Pietro.  He sat there on the edge of my little bed with his hand over my heart holding me and offering to kill me all in the same breath.”

 

     Pietro was livid with rage.  Somehow, the knowledge of Father Alfonso had found its way to Father Carlo who was reading the signs he had seen.  Stupid, Pietro thought, stupid.  You are gelded, then you perform at a funeral the day after and amaze them all, blowing out windows with your voice!  You frighten a priest who loved your singing, and you alienate the entire conservatorio.  You sleep all day, and stay out all night … you may as well have a sign reading I AM A VAMPIRE hanging from your neck!

     But Roberto was one step ahead.  "You are not a vampire, Pietro, not yet.  What you are feeling now is merely a side affect of my company.  If I were to leave, it would cease.  But if I leave, you will be alone to face your persecutors.  We must go to this Father Carlo and set him straight, one way or another.  We must make him believe that what happened in his church at Giovanni’s funeral was not an act of the Devil, and that YOU are not the servant of evil that he takes you for."

 

     Father Carlo Fellini was sitting at his desk in his study.  The windows of the church were already being replaced, the first few already in place,  but the priest found that he could not go along with the lies about poor workmanship and degradation from the deep sounds of the organ and the pitch of the high choir voices.  He thought of Pietro, the young castrato whose voice he had once loved - and now feared.  There was evil at work in the boy, the priest believed, and an evil that he had heard of before and discounted.  But now it seemed so true.  Before him sat the journal of his great-something-uncle, Father Alfonso Fellini.  It described in detail his uncle's work in the field of the pursuits of mythical evils and his convictions that he had been assigned this terrible task as retribution for his intense interest in the conservatorio and the castrati singers.

     Father Carlo sighed.  His great-uncle (he was unsure of how many ‘greats’) had been the family roll model for generations, and though he had been a priest for nearly sixty years, as had some male member of the family been before him, there was something else.  He recalled the little boy he had met on the road one evening so very long ago, that sickly looking little boy who had turned out to be evil incarnate itself - a vampire castrato.  He had indeed run up against a creature of the night, immortal, and with an immortally perfect voice.  It had been a terrible shock to his sensibilities, and he had deemed himself lucky - if not weak of faith - to have survived the encounter.

     He remembered the face of the vampire, a pale small face that was not the face of the innocent child as it appeared to be.  It had been a face of something unnatural, something unholy.  He recalled that he had been a priest for only a short while, not long out of the seminary and indeed, a foolish young man in his overconfidence.  He had come up against his first true test of faith, and had failed.  Quoting scriptures and throwing holy water, indeed!  What a fool!

      The little monster had let him live!

     And eaten his pony as well.  For some odd reason, Father Carlo found himself more upset over the pony than anything else.  “I loved that pony,” he muttered, shaking his balding head.

     The priest rested his head in his hands and sighed.  Now that same evil had returned.  He knew that his great-uncle had been murdered, in fact, torn to pieces.  Father Carlo was convinced that Giovanni, the fantastic composer-player student, had fallen victim to the same evil.  And now the young castrato Pietro had come up off of his sick bed not two days after his castration to sing a song that had left everyone in shock and taken out all the windows of his sanctuary.  He could feel it, the very presence of it.  Evil had returned to his town, to his people, to his church.

     It was his time to act, and he was determined not to fail this time.

     His great-uncle had failed.  He would not.

     It was the sudden rap on his door that brought him out of his reverie.

     "Who's there?" he demanded.  Someone was coming to confess at this late hour?  Unlikely.  But who could it be, then?  Were there not such a terrible drive to locate this evil that he felt, not even Father Carlo would have been out at that late hour.

     There was no answer to his question.

     Again, the rapping.  Harder this time.

     Trembling, the aging priest got up and approached the door.  He was praying intently, a feeling of confrontation flowing through him.  He held in his right hand the Bible, and a large crucifix hung about his neck.  His robes were wrinkled from the day's activities, and his eyes were red and itchy.  He desperately needed sleep, but could not.  And now … someone, no - something - was there.

     Again, the rapping.  It was a pounding now.

     Father Carlo braced himself and pulled the door open, praying fervently.

     Pietro stood in the doorway with his hands clasped in front of him.  His black robe was clean and only slightly rumpled and the sash was such a red as to resemble blood.  His blonde hair was windblown, and his face very pale.  His green eyes sparkled with mischief, and he was smiling.  He looked very much, however, like a little boy who had had a typical boy's day and should be home in bed.

     But this was NOT what Father Carlo saw.  Before him stood the little monster, the little castrato who had defied nature by coming to the church to sing and destroy it in the process, hardly two days after his castration.  Father Carlo did not share in his late Uncle's beliefs on that subject though - he felt that the castrati were also something unnatural, not girls and no longer boys.  They were an androgynous lot, freaks of nature made by the hand of man.  And even though their voices were sublime and the music and song so moving, Father Carlo could not condone them.  He did not even like them.  His trips to the conservatorio for whatever reasons always unnerved him, and seeing all those boys - no, not boys, eunuchs - in their black robes with red sashes made him uneasy and somehow angry.

     Wasn’t it a sin to mutilate the body?

     And before him stood the worst of them all. 

     Pietro.  Pietro the castrato.  Pietro, singer of mysterious songs never heard by anyone before.  Pietro, the destroyer of his church, the very stuff of nightmares!

     Before Father Carlo stood a boy almost ten years old, confused and hurt.

     Pietro, the boy who MUST be consorting with the Devil to have this voice.  Ah!  But his voice, Father Carlo thought, how I so loved the sound that night he practiced here in this very church.  But nothing had happened then – and he had been intact then - now he is a castrato!  That is it!  A sign!  God had spoken to him in his own church, giving him a Sign from Heaven that the practice of castrating little boys for the sakes of their voices was wrong and must be stopped! 

     And then it dawned on him - standing before him was something that so closely resembled the evil little castrato he had met some sixty years before that they must be brothers!  The memory came back clearly now after so long, and standing in the doorway of HIS church office was pure Evil itself.  Holy Father, he’s perpetuating his line, spreading his evil infection!  Father Carlo prayed.

     Standing in the doorway was a boy with tears in his eyes who had only wanted to sing for his dead friend and see him off to Heaven.

     Father Carlo stared at the little monster who was staring back at him.  Tears?  But why were there tears in his eyes?  Was it some kind of trick?

     Pietro asked simply, breaking the terrible silence, "May I come in, Father, please?"

     Father Carlo took a step back and gasped.  "You are already in, little monster!  You are again in the House you have tried to destroy once already!  Have you come to mock me, or have you come to try and save what is left of your soul?"  The priest's voice was full of power now, his fear evaporating rapidly, and Pietro was stung by his words.

     "I meant no harm, Father, " Pietro objected, clasping his hands behind his back and bowing his head.

     The light from the fireplace on the far side of the priest's office threw shadows around the room, and the orange light fell upon the little castrato's face.  The orange-yellow glow made him look angelic, even serene.  He was almost glowing.  And then Father Carlo's mind was filled with the image of the boy (the eunuch) burning at the stake as the evil, which infested him, was purged by the fire.

      In that very moment, Father Carlo passed judgment - in violation of the scriptures - that this creature who stood before him in the guise of innocence was beyond all hope of any redemption.  His Uncle had known it, he had seen it sixty years ago himself, and now it stood before him again.

      It was his Sign!

     "Come in, boy, " the priest offered in a humbled tone, stepping back a bit, "Come in and let us talk."

     Pietro stepped into the office and stood before the desk.  He glanced at the open book lying there and saw a few passages mentioning "evil in the guise of childhood" and "those in black robes with the voices of Angels."  He took his eyes off of the book quickly and stared at the priest.  The man's face was a mask of calmness covering a terrible rage.  Pietro could feel it.  Talking would do no good, he knew.  Father Carlo was convinced now, and there was simply no point.

     If I can catch him, I can kill him, the thought came to Pietro, and he gasped and took a step back.

     "I'm sorry I bothered you, Father, " the little castrato began, now on his guard, "but I have learned that since Giovanni’s funeral that you have been saying things about me - terrible things.  I came to reason with you, but I see now that that is out of the question."

     The priest had taken a step towards the fireplace, and Pietro could hear his thoughts as if he were speaking them aloud.  Now is my chance to destroy him!

     Father Carlo made an indelicate sound and stepped closer to the fire.  "You read my Mind!" he shouted.

     "Yes, " Pietro replied calmly, "I can … now."

     "And you are here, at this hour!  How is it you can enter this holy place?" the priest demanded.

     "I am a little boy, Father, nothing more.  Surely the church is open to children."

     "You!?  You are no little boy!  The little children who come here are innocents!  They do not blow out the windows with their unholy voices and come seeking revenge in the middle of the night!"  The priest shouted at him.

     "I came to ask you not to attempt to send me away, " Pietro replied softly.

     "Send you away?  I would not seek to send you away, Pietro.  There is only one course of action left to take with you and your unholy talents!"  The priest stated flatly.

     It was too late.  Pietro could see that Father Carlo was beyond reasoning.  He had taken the funeral performance as a Sign from God, and now Pietro knew that things would never be the same.  The priest would surely continue his campaign of crying "evil" and "witchcraft" all over the town until enough people were rallied to his cause.  Pietro could see the image in Father Carlo's mind, an angry mob storming the conservatorio some morning to haul him out and burn him at the stake. 

     "No one has been burned for witchcraft in very many years, Father, " Pietro said in a whisper.

     Father Carlo flinched and stared intently at the little monster, the little creature of the night standing before him.  "Stop that!" he screamed.

     "No, Father, it is you who must stop.  If you would only admit that I am nothing more than a little boy with an extraordinary gift, then this would all blow over with your blessing.  How can you think such horrible things about me?"  The tears had begun to fall down Pietro's cheeks.

     "I will not be swayed by your false tears, evil one, " the priest stated, his voice rising up almost to a shout, "And I will not follow after your trail of lies and deceit!  This time, you and your … whatever he is, will both die!"

     The Memory crossed Father Carlo's mind again, and Pietro intercepted it.  He saw Roberto sixty years ago, simply walking down the road.  He was stunned as he realized that Roberto’s appearance had not changed at all.  He saw Father Carlo, young and fresh from the seminary, meeting up with him.  He also felt the revulsion, for the first time, which Father Carlo had held in secret for all castrati.  He could feel the joy at the music, yet at the same time, the priest's secret loathing and disgust of the singers. 

     In the Memory, young Father Carlo was asking the boy in the black robe many questions.  The boy was trying to answer, and then the young priest's feelings towards his kind took over.  Pietro saw the look on the young priest's face, and the sudden red glow of the boy's eyes.  The castrato had grown fangs and pulled back from the priest, who was throwing a vial of water at him.  No, not water, holy water!  Pietro saw the smoke rising from Roberto's disfigured face, saw the little vampire's blood running from between his fingers and he covered it with his hands.  He heard Roberto's cry of anguish, not only physical pain, but the rejection … and that was by far the worst thing.  The poor little immortal had already been alone for generations, and once again, Humanity was rejecting him. 

     He saw Roberto attacking young Father Carlo, flying at him and beating him senseless with an inhuman strength. 

     He saw the pony become Roberto's breakfast.

     Finally, he saw his friend; he was slowly staggering off towards the forest sobbing.

     So Father Carlo knew of Roberto and had made the connection.

     "Yes, " the priest began, "I saw you both the other night when you were walking back to the conservatorio.  I figured you must have been in town, gloating over your handiwork here.  I was unable to sleep and I could feel the eyes upon me.  I followed you a ways, you know, but I was tired.  I had failed once again, and I turned back.  I will never forget the face of that little monster, a face I see now before me!  You are keeping company with evil, Pietro, and you are even starting to look like HIM!"

     Pietro took a step back, flinching at the onslaught of the hateful emotion pouring from the priest.

     He has harbored this thought for so long, Pietro thought, and it has driven him mad! 

     Father Carlo was advancing on him now, holding something he had pulled from behind the desk.  Pietro swallowed hard when he saw that it was a large wooden stake, sharpened at the end.

     There could be no doubt as to what the priest intended to do with it.

     "You must be destroyed, you little … you … you," but words escaped the priest.

     "Is 'vampire' the word you are groping for?" Pietro asked.

     The idea was so simple that Pietro smiled when it came to him.

     "Well, you'll have to catch me first!"  He yelled, and turned to run towards the sanctuary and the front doors of the vast church.

     He could hear Father Carlo's snarl of rage behind him, and Pietro ran for all he was worth.  He scarcely took note of the still-broken windows hanging in their frames or the ones already replaced.  A few new ones were also leaning up against the wall beside their intended frames, but he scarce noticed them either.  He had a lead on the priest, having surprised him; that and Father Carlo was old.  As he ran, he saw the funeral services in his mind once again.  He heard his own voice filling the church, saw the adoration and awe on the faces of the audience.  He even felt the departure of Giovanni’s soul as it sought the way to Heaven as the glass shattered from all the windows.  He felt it all again, that bodiless sensation as he had felt when he was singing.

     Pietro risked a glance back over his shoulder and saw the priest following him, waving the stake in his hand.  The look on the man's face said it all - I WILL DESTROY YOU!

     And then, deliberately, Pietro stopped just short of the door and began to sing.

     He opened his Mind to the night, reaching out for Roberto, wishing that he could stand beside him and sing in this church once again and be loved for his voice as he had been before.  His own voice rose up and all of the sadness he felt over the whole terrible ordeal poured into it and out into the sanctuary.  It was a song no one had ever heard before, and it came up from the depths of Pietro's very soul.

     Father Carlo slid to a stop only a few paces from the singing castrato.

     The waning moon filled the sanctuary with barely enough light to see by, but the priest could see the horror before him well enough.

     Standing before him was a sad little boy who only wanted to sing.

     Standing before him was an unholy monster, an unnatural thing!

     Father Carlo dropped his stake and fell to his knees, praying in screams to Someone who was not answering him.  All of his life had been dedicated to his Faith, and now that the utmost test of that Faith was finally there, it all seemed for nothing.  Images of the funeral also filled the priest's mind, as well as images of young boys in black robes with red sashes.  They were all singing, mocking him with their voices.  Their song was beautiful yet sad, sad beyond all words, and they were pointing and laughing at him. 

     The images coming from the foreign language of Pietro's song continued.  Father Carlo found himself paralyzed by that unnatural voice, so beautiful … and so totally evil, he thought.  There were images of boys, frightened and separated from their families.  There were feelings of pain as boys were gelded for those voices. 

     Still, Pietro sang.

     Make him stop!  Father Carol prayed, folding his hands and shaking his head frantically, Father in Heaven, remove this evil from my sight!

     But if God was listening, He made no effort to intervene.

     Pietro’s  song brought scenes of eunuchs who proved unworthy, without manhood or their conservatorios to shelter them -  their voices simply not the stuff of greatness.  And finally, the song brought the illusion of being so completely different and so gifted that the boys - two of them - were driven away from all they had ever known by a frightened and angry mob.

     As Pietro came to the end of his song, Father Carlo was sobbing and clutching his chest.  On that last and highest note, Pietro once again felt himself disembodied and without form.  He was once again only a voice, a power without form - and the new windows of the church blew out once again, covering the street below with multi-colored fragments of shattered glass.

     The hundreds of candles all around the alter burst into sudden high flames, and the sanctuary glowed with their light and the light of the waning moon.  Pietro moved to the center of the stage, drawing himself up and holding blond head high.

     "Abandon this insane notion of yours, Father, " Pietro thundered with a voice that could not possibly be his alone, "Abandon it, lest ye die!"

     Father Carlo had recovered himself a little and was staring madly around the sanctuary.  All he had ever wanted, all he had devoted his life to, was here.  It was all he had ever needed.  It had all been so perfect!  He was the priest of the church, and the people loved him!  They were his family.  He had loved them back, and everything had gone so well.  His life in this town had been full and rewarding.  His career as a priest had been more than he had ever hoped for.  And yet now, now in the midst of the life he had worked so hard to build, stood a monster.

     A short, pale monster in a black robe with a red sash and an unholy voice.

     The candles were all burning, even the ones not intended to be burnt simply for light.  And the light was playing all across the icons and the horror standing in their midst.  It was a scene from his worst nightmares.  The windows were ruined once again, and the chill night air was blowing through them now.  The flames on the candles bobbed and sputtered, but none went out.  Still Pietro stood in the center of the stage, looking at the same time like a cherub of Heaven and a demon from Hell.

    Father Carlo got to his feet and stared at the vision before him.

    "Leave us alone, " Pietro commanded, his voice still great and full with some power that the priest could not even begin to understand. "Put aside your hatred and loathing and irrational fears.  We mean you no harm, none of us, and never did.  How much damage must we do here to make you see that?"

     It seemed like Eternity, trying in vain to pass, as the two stared at each other.

     Pietro could tell that Father Carlo's mind had gone vacant with shock, and he stepped down from the stage to leave.  As he passed through the doors and into the night, he heard the priest's strangled sobs coming from the sanctuary.

 

     Roberto was waiting on the lawn as Pietro exited the church. 

     "Nicely done, " the little vampire complimented him, "but do you really think it did any good?"

     Pietro sighed and shook his head, putting his arm about Roberto’s shoulder, who returned the gesture.

     "I didn't think so, " Roberto replied, "he has been obsessing on it for far too long.  What do we do now?"

     "I don't really know, " Pietro said, "but we should be getting home.  It will be dawn soon."

     They spoke but a little on the walk back to the conservatorio.  They didn't need to, really.  Finally it was Roberto who broke the silence. 

     "We may have to do more, you know."

     The mortal castrato turned to look at the immortal castrato.

     "I know."

 

     Pietro had only been in bed and asleep for a few hours, and Roberto under the bed and asleep, when the Maestro awakened him to announce that doctor Florenti had come to examine him.  Pietro's head felt like it was filled with sand, and the Maestro had to place some bandages on him to make him look the part.  "Try to wake up a bit, boy, " he ordered.

     But Pietro was incoherent.  His body was screaming for rest, and he could barely sit up unaided.

     "The doctor is going to think there is something else wrong with you if you do not give up this act!"  The Maestro said in a stern tone.

     Pietro moaned and fell back onto his pillow.

     "I have put him off as long as I could, " the Maestro stated, "but he is insistent.  He is coming here right after he gets done examining Marco's wounds.  How we are going to explain this healing of yours is beyond me.  Will you please? "

     But doctor Florenti was already at the door.  He came in and sat his bag down at the foot of Pietro's bed.  "I see he isn't up yet, " the doctor observed.

     "I believe he has taken this bed-rest thing far too seriously, doctor, " the Maestro joked.

     "Could be, " the doctor agreed, "a lot of boys seem to enjoy the rest afterwards.  Well, not all of them.  That little Marco down the hall is more than ready to be up and at it again.   He has bit of an infection and some swelling, but nothing to worry about yet.  He begged me to untie him and let him up, but he still has a few days to go!  I have never seen anyone like him.  Is he always that wound up?"

     The Maestro nodded.  "Pretty much, " he agreed, "we have to watch him all the time.  You wouldn’t believe the trouble he can get into."

     Doctor Florenti nodded his own agreement and pulled Pietro's blankets back.  He gently pulled the bandages away from the boy's groin, and gasped in alarm as he saw the wounds totally healed.

     "This is impossible!"  He breathed, "I do not understand how he could be so completely healed in such a short time!  The skin is smooth and healthy, and there’s almost no scar!"

     "Well, he was always robust and quick to heal, doctor.  You remember the time you had to stitch up the back of his head when he was four years old?" the Maestro asked, trying to change the subject.

     Pietro opened his eyes, but did not appear to see anything.

     The doctor thought for a moment, and then said, "Ah, yes.  When he whacked it on the fireplace in the main hall.  He DID heal up very quickly, now that you mention it.  Perhaps he is blessed with this as well, Maestro, but still - this is very unusual.  I should write up a case study, with you help."

     "There is one thing that bothers me, however, doctor, " the Maestro began, "And that is the fact that he does not seem to want to eat nor to get up out of bed.  He sleeps all of the time.  In fact, he has hardly been awake for more than only a few hours at a time since his surgery.  Even now, he seems to be sleeping through all of this.  Look at him!"

     Thinking that that would get Pietro's attention with the threat of a complete examination, the Maestro had hoped that it would rouse the sleeping boy.  It didn't.

     "Let us give him one more day, perhaps two, good Maestro, " doctor Florenti suggested.  “Get him up by noon at least, and MAKE him eat.  Then keep him up.  He looks well enough to be up and about.  Make him go out and get some fresh air and exercise.  That may be all he needs.  If he is not acting more like his old self by tomorrow morning, or the next at the latest, send for me."

     The doctor covered Pietro again, not replacing the bandages that the Maestro had placed there for show.  It seemed to have worked.  "Oh, " the doctor said as he was heading out the door, "I almost forgot this."  He handed the Maestro a piece of paper with a great deal of writing on it.

     "What is this?" the Maestro asked.

     "Diet restrictions for Frederico.  He's fat, Maestro, too fat!"

 

     Pietro was literally dragged out of bed around noon and forced, by the Headmaster, of all people, to eat a large lunch with him in the privacy of his office.  Even though he knew of the boy's surprise healing and impossible voice, the Headmaster was seemingly unperturbed by all of it.  He watched the young castrato closely as they ate, and talked in a calm, low voice the whole time.  Pietro listened to the old man as they ate, wondering at his tales of “you know, when I was a boy …” until he was almost ready to scream.  He slowly came to realize that his nightlife and his real life were simply not going to mix.  The thought disturbed him.

     "I know what you have been up to, " the Headmaster said suddenly, pushing his plate aside.

     Pietro nearly choked and the old man pounded his back several times.

     "Old men like me do not often sleep well, my boy.  I have seen you sneaking out with that little vampire the past few nights.  I can only imagine what you two are up to, but you are starting to look like the walking dead, " the Headmaster stated matter-of-factly.

     Pietro stared at him in amazement.

     "Oh, come now, Pietro! "  the old man said, "You must realize that someone as old as me has been around and seen it all.  I got a pretty good look at Roberto the first night you two went out, and something about him looked VERY familiar.  So …"

     "But this is impossible!"  Pietro interjected, "We were so careful!  And you!  How could you know, sir?"

     The old man was smiling now, something that Pietro had seldom seen before.

     "As I was saying - if you will let me finish, that is - that I am old man who has been around.  I've met up with some vampires before and Roberto is nothing new to me.  In fact, he's mentioned in some of the old logs of the conservatorio.  He was listed as a runaway about 200 or so years ago.  Sometimes boys do run away, Pietro, as you are planning to.  It’s not uncommon."

     The young castrato simply stared open-mouthed at the Headmaster.  He could not believe what he was hearing!

     The old man continued.  "When you sang that song at Giovanni’s funeral, I thought I recognized the tune and some of the language.  Something about it sounded familiar, as if I’d read it before, if not heard it performed.  So I went digging through the history books that night.  It seems that this Roberto was enrolled by his parents at this school at the insistence of the local church, did very well, and soon became their star singer.  He was always in demand, and he had this gift of coming up with original songs that no one had ever heard before.  Just made them up, jotted them down in his school notes!  A real virtuoso.  Well, someone got industrious back then and started the daunting tradition of keeping records.  Paperwork.  How I despise it!  We Headmasters are a very industrious lot you know, but sometimes it gets tiring!

     "It seems that young Roberto got so good that people began to fear his voice.  He had some sort of power that came from within that no one had ever heard before.  He sang a great deal, and then he is listed as becoming suddenly and very ill.  The performances all stopped, and then he is listed as 'runaway' a few weeks later.  No one ever saw him again, " the Headmaster finished.

     "He was bitten, " Pietro offered, "attacked by the vampire that killed Father Carlo's great-uncle, the Father Alfonso Fellini.  Roberto told me that the town doctor was coming home late that night and found him by chance.  He staked the vampire and rescued Roberto.  But the poor boy changed, Signore – and he did not run away.  He was transformed and they sent him away !  They wanted to kill him!"

     "I surmised as much, Pietro.  You wouldn't believe the things I've seen in my long life.  Forgive me if I am not sufficiently surprised, " the old man stated, “But it’s old news to me.”

     Pietro stared out the window, wondering.  Why had the old man waited so long to say something?

     "Things are not looking good for you right now, my boy, " the old man said, "Father Carlo is not in the best frame of mind.  Even now, he is preaching throughout the town about evil and the servants of the Devil running loose!  You are going to have to come back to your old life, Pietro, and make a go of it.  Try to convince everyone that you are just a normal little castrato with a fine voice.  And please, don't go blowing out any more windows or terrorizing priests!  We’re in deep enough trouble as it is,” he sighed, “But maybe we’ll get lucky and the old goat will die of a heart failure."

     "But Roberto …"

     "NO ‘BUTS’!"  The old man shouted, "You could easily bring down this institution, and I will not stand for that.  If Roberto stays, and you continue to change, then the school will surely know.  You cannot lead both lives.  And if you do not resume your normal life and let the Maestro and I try to repair the damage you both have done, Father Carlo is going to hunt you both down, and he’ll get the whole town to help him!  Do you understand me?"

     Pietro nodded.  "Is there any chance of silencing him, sir?"

     The old man shrugged his shoulders.  "I do not know.  He has gathered quite a following, and he is sending some parishioners out today to see you.  You will get dressed now, come down to practice, and sing just like any other boy, or castrato, here.  You will not unleash this power of yours upon anyone, and you will try to make up with some of the other boys.  Do you realize that almost every student here, even the older ones, are terrified of you now?"

     The boy was still staring out the window, on the verge of tears once more.  The conservatorio was the only home he had ever known, the only place he ever remembered being.  He had been told that he had been left as a baby in a basket on the doorstep one night, and that the Maestro had taken him in and raised him like his own son.  He did not want to lose that, but he did not want to lose his friend either.  The young castrato did not know what to do.

     As if knowing what were going through the boy's mind, the Headmaster came around the desk and laid his hands on the Pietro’s shoulders.  He simply said, "Get properly dressed, come down and watch the others - join in if you like.  Act it out well for the observers, for you are very much under suspicion.  We can get through this, Pietro, and I for one do not believe that you are evil."

     Pietro nodded and went back upstairs to his room to dress as the Headmaster left the room.  He pulled off his gray tunic that was for chores and play and threw it onto the unmade bed.  He was very conscious of his nakedness for some reason as he stepped over to the bureau to pull out a fresh robe.  All of his other plain brown and gray tunics, except for a few more worn ones left for the rare play opportunities, had been taken away after his castration.  There were red sashes to go with them as well, however, and a new black beret for formal occasions. 

     I am marked, he thought as he looked down as his groin, devoid of what would have made him a man, I am marked for all to see and know what I am now.  But what is that?

     Quickly he pulled on the black robe and tied the red sash.  He put on the slippers that he usually wore while inside, and started towards the door.  He was startled by Roberto's voice.

     "Comb your hair, Pietro, you look like a haystack."

     "What are you doing up?" Pietro said in the direction of the bed.

     "Who could sleep with that old man rattling on like he did?  I could hear him a mile away! So he found me on the old books, did he?  I'm not surprised.  Those Headmasters keep track of everything!  A runaway indeed!  What choice did I have?!  It was that or the stake!"  The little vampire complained.

     "But you have me now, Roberto, and no one will drive you away this time, " Pietro said.

     Roberto laughed.  "If I could get out from under here right now, I'd almost smack you, Pietro.  Did you not hear what the Headmaster said?  You have to prove to them that you are not some demon come up out of Hell to destroy them.  You have to admit, you and I are not exactly on Father Carlo's list of favorite people right now!'

     "Wait and see, my friend, I have a plan," Pietro replied, and went out the door.

     He stopped on his way down the hall, listening to the sounds of the younger boys practicing.  The older, more experienced singers were taking a break.  Most of them were strolling about outside, taking advantage of the lingering warm weather.  The nights were chilly, of course, but the days were absolutely fine.  Then Pietro heard a familiar voice.  It brought a smile to his face.

     "But just for a little while!"  It was Marco, of course. 

     "No, " Pietro heard Frederico reply, "for the thousandth time, no!  I am not going to untie you and let you up!  If you had obeyed Dr. Florenti's orders in the first place, you wouldn't be in this state.  You're stuck, Marco, face it.  Until he comes and takes your stitches out and gives you a clean bill of health, you're stuck.  At least he isn't trying to starve you!"

     Pietro could not help but laugh.  Frederico had obviously been introduced to the diet restrictions already.

     He stopped and knocked on the door.  "May I come in?" he asked softly.

     Silence.

     So, this is how it is to be, Pietro thought.  "Never mind, " he said aloud, turning to go.

     But then Marco's high and piping voice called out "Wait!  Come back!"

     Pietro turned and went back to the door and looked in.  Frederico was pale and shaking as he stared at Pietro, but Marco's face was alight with joy.  "You are well!" the dark toned boy shouted, "You are up and back!  I thought you had hurt yourself badly after the funeral!"

     Marco was winding up, Pietro could tell.  "Frederico, why don't you go and see if you are to be in on any practice sessions today?  I will stay with Marco, and, oh, if anyone is looking for me, send them up will you?" 

     The husky eunuch stared at Pietro, his mouth agape.  Pietro sighed.  "Frederico, I am NOT going to bite you or do anything bad to you.  I don't know what went on at the funeral, it just happened.  Please don't look at me that way."

     Frederico went to the door and glanced back.  Pietro had sat down on the bed beside Marco, and was examining the soft sashes that they had used to secure the little boy's waist and ankles.  "I'm sorry, " Frederico offered, "I didn't mean anything by it, really."

     Pietro turned and smiled.   "That's alright, I think I would have scared me too."

     Frederico smiled and left.

     Marco was smiling as well, and he sat up to catch Pietro in a tight embrace. 

     "I hate this, " he said.

     "Hate what?" Pietro teased.

     Marco smiled and then wrinkled up his nose.  He gestured at the sash about his waist and the one binding his feet, one to each bedpost.  He was wearing his nightshirt, which had been slit up the back to accommodate the waist binding.

     "Well, you should have stayed in bed after the operation, " Pietro reprimanded him.

     "You didn't, " Marco countered.

     "That was different, Marco.  At the time, I felt that if I killed myself with it, it did not matter.  I didn't want to go on without Giovanni, but that is all different now."

     The younger boy was staring at Pietro now.  "They say you might have to go away, " he said, his expression becoming one of bewilderment.  Marco had been following Pietro and Giovanni around for about the last two years, almost like a little shadow.

     "I know, " Pietro replied, staring into the younger boy's eyes.  How full of trust they are when they’re so little, Pietro thought, how full of trust with no idea of how bad things can really be.

     "Well, if you leave, I want to go with you, " Marco announced.

     Pietro was shocked by that remark, and he bent down and took the boy in his arms and embraced him again.

 

     After taking his leave of Marco and sending the 'starving' Frederico back to watch him, Pietro made his way down the stairs and into the main hall to listen to the little singers practicing.  They were all dressed in gray or brown peasant tunics, none of them having proven worthy of a black robe as yet.  Pietro sighed and listened to the untrained voices.  It felt soothing somehow, yet it also felt wrong.  There were a few glances in his direction, but none of the boys stopped singing.  A few even smiled and waved.  There were no smiles from the opposite end of the hall, however.

     Seated along the back wall were twelve adults, men and women, watching.  A few of them had papers in hand, and were taking notes.  They stared as Pietro pulled up a chair next to the Maestro at the harpsichord.  Pietro did not return the looks.

     The practice went on for almost another half hour, and then the Maestro dismissed the little boys for their afternoon break.  They resembled a small stampede as they made their way to the door and out into the yard.  A few moments later, the boys near Pietro's age came back in and took their places.  Of course, not all them were castrati.  Some of the boys were training in composition, and some to play instruments.  Still others were training to sing the tenor and bass rolls that were also required.  Pietro noticed that fully half of them were wearing black and red, however. 

     "Join them, " the Maestro suggested, "as if nothing had ever happened.  They have all been told."

     Pietro shook his head.

     "GO!"  The Maestro replied.

     The young castrato jumped up from his chair and took his usual place in the middle of the front row.  Group practice always came first.

     The Maestro struck up the usual songs for practice, moderately difficult pieces that didn't really challenge the boys.  As they warmed up, he moved on to different pieces of more difficulty.  Pietro sang as usual, his heart not really in his singing.  He tried to look bored, and he was.

     The group at the back of the room stared and took more notes.

     When the time came for individual practice, Pietro did his best to go last.

     As he finally stepped up to the center of the practice stage, the Maestro began to play the piece that he sung as his final test to determine his status.  The piece he had sung as Giovanni had played in the church.  The young castrato could almost feel the sadness rolling out of Maestro's flying hands at the keyboard, and he felt the now-familiar power rising up within him as his sublime voice filled the hall.

     As he headed into the second verse, he heard Roberto's voice within his own mind.  "NO!"  It shouted silently, "Do not do it!  Sing, and be a typical castrato … I know, they did it to me too … push it down, pull it back in!" 

     And Pietro did.

     The spectators took more notes, and there were tears in the eyes of some of the women.  One man was shaking his head in disgust.  "Is that the best he can do?" the man called out.  Pietro smiled, and the Maestro scowled.  The castrato put a little more into his effort, but only a touch more.  He was thinking of Marco, for some reason.  The man had sat back down and was listening, his arms folded across his chest.  After a moment, he began to nod and smile.

     Finally, after a seeming eternity of singing and being studied, it was over.  Pietro stepped down and went back to his seat next to the Maestro.  "Nicely done, my son, " he whispered in the boy's ear, "but a little weak in the low parts, too soft and delicate!"

     Pietro grinned.  "We cannot afford new windows, Maestro, " he joked.

     The seeming leader of the group, the man who had heckled Pietro, stepped forward.  He did not, however, move with the determination of a man out to prove anything.  "So, this is the so-called demon-seed who knocks out church windows and terrorizes priests with his evil voice?" he asked.

     Pietro blushed and nodded.

     "I am not impressed, " the man said flatly, "pity they cut you, boy."

     The Maestro stood up abruptly, cracked his knuckles and stretched to his full height.

     "There is no need to be rude, signore, " he said.

     "This is a ridiculous waste of time, you know, " the man said.

     "I agree, " the Maestro replied, "but Father Carlo seems determined."

     "My name is Ricardo, " the man stated, "and I have much to do.  To me, the good Father seems unhinged.  Perhaps it is his advancing age, but I respect his wishes and his request to come.  Thank you for your time, Maestro.  Work with this poor boy and make it worth our while to come and sit here all day!"

     Pietro was angry now.  Pity they cut you, boy?  He thought.  PITY?! 

     "Maestro, " the castrato demanded in a firm tone, "something very high and difficult, if you will.  I think I am suitably warmed up now."

     Ricardo returned to his seat.  The other boys and castrati had gone off to practice individually, some with composition and some with instruments, but all the other sounds stopped as Pietro began to sing. 

     He did not slip into the language in which Roberto sang, but as he progressed through the aria that the Maestro had selected, he began to put as much as he dared into his voice.  As he ranged through the song, restraining himself on the high notes, yet pulling it off beautifully, he began to form a plan.  One of the ladies was drinking from a tall, thin glass.  As she placed it on the end table by which she sat, Pietro came to a series of tempting highs.  He moved closer, with practiced fluid grace as he danced across the hall with an invisible partner in his arms.  When he was in range, he aimed his head at the glass and shattered it with a smooth and piercing high note.

     Ricardo jumped from his chair as the lady and a few others fainted.

     "It takes a while for pitiful little castrati like me to warm up, sir," he snarled at Ricardo.

     Pietro then stalked slowly towards the door, as the spectators and students watched him go.

 

     The rest of Pietro's day was uneventful.  A few of the other castrati sought him out to tell him that he had sung beautifully and that they wished that they could shatter glasses so easily.  A few commented on how daring he had been to talk back at an adult.  Pietro took it all in stride, being polite and nodding graciously.  It was at the supper table when the Headmaster found him sitting all alone and came to sit next to him that he began to worry a bit more.

     The Headmaster never ate with the boys in the common dining room.

     "Well, " the old man began, looking around the dining room, "I had thought that things might have been different tonight.  You’d think what you have is catching.  I have here a detailed report from the observers today, Pietro.  Would you like to know what they thought of you?"

     Pietro nodded.

     "It says, 'the castrato singer in question, Pietro, seems to have all of the natural ability of a well-trained singer and the potential to become a very good opera performer.  He sings well, moves with grace, and seems to take pleasure in cheap parlor tricks: acting, shattering glass, making ladies faint, etc., all the things one sees at the opera houses.  He also demonstrates the arrogant attitude of famous singers, and could well be another Caffarelli in time.  He already has the attitude.  Further observation is warranted, however'."

     The Headmaster laid the paper down and smiled.  "You teased them, " he accused.

     Pietro nodded again.

     "This could be good, you know.  Just keep acting like a cocky little miniature opera star and perhaps they will grow bored and go away, " the old man mused.

     "You do not believe I'm bad, " Pietro stated bluntly.

     The Headmaster sighed, noticing a few strange looks from the other boys.  "I do not know what to think, but I do not think that you are an evil thing, Pietro.  I think what we saw was a sign of some kind perhaps, but nothing more, " the old man mused.

     "But you know about Roberto, " Pietro accused.

     "As I said to you before, I know about a great deal of things, boy!  We will continue this discussion in my office after you are done eating."  The old man got up and walked out.

     There were a few strange looks cast in Pietro’s direction, and he soon gave up on his dinner and left.

     When Pietro joined him a few moments later in his office, the Headmaster was sitting at his desk.  He was resting his head in his hands.  "It seems that one of my predecessor had a kind heart, even towards little vampires, " he stated as if observing the weather and nothing more.

     Pietro closed the door and pulled up a chair.

     On the desk before the old man was a thick book, written and added to over the years by the former headmasters of the conservatorio.

     The Headmaster pushed the book towards Pietro, who made no move to take it.

     "This old bastard lived to be almost 95, did you know that?" he asked the boy.

     Pietro shook his head, but said nothing.  He did wonder if the Headmaster in question, long since dead, was a castrato, however, since it was common knowledge that eunuchs generally lived longer than ‘intact’ men.  After all, 95 was OLD.

     "It seems that our little immortal castrato friend was the pride of this school once.  When he was attacked, the old people weren't too shocked, but the younger generation didn't believe such things.  The old folks back then just got out their charms and went vampire hunting until they either drove it off or killed it.  But witches, werewolves, vampires?  ‘Come now, they said, we do not believe that.  You must all be old and crazy’.  I can just hear them, " the old man went on, "They didn't believe it, but the old Headmaster did.  He and the doctor.  Would you like to read what is in the book, Pietro, and understand your new friend better?"

     The old man pushed the heavy book closer towards the castrato and he took it in his lap.  He read the old, fading script on the yellowing pages as it described in detail how Roberto had fallen ill after being attacked and badly beaten.  The book told of how Roberto was the best singer that the conservatorio had seen in years, and of the high hopes all the staff had for him.  It told more of his suffering, the doctor's efforts to save him, and finally, of how the doctor took the ailing boy away to his own home.  The chapter ended with the fact that the old Headmaster doubted that anyone would ever hear Roberto sing again.  No one was sure what had become of the young castrato, and the book listed him as a runaway and moved on to other affairs and business.  The doctor was only named again in lines that cited things like, “Lorenzo, orphan, aged 8 years old, castrated for hernias.”

     The details were amazing, if not tedious.  Things like hernias and the mumps and tree-climbing accident appeared often, and Pietro thought of Marco.  He made a mental note to ‘ask’ the old tree about that excuse.

     Pietro skimmed over a few more of the crackling pages, but there was not a mention of Roberto anywhere to be found after the ‘runaway’ listing.

     "But they let him live, " Pietro whispered.

     The Headmaster nodded.  "My predecessor could hardly cover a murder of a castrato here, you know.  They had to do something, and Roberto promised them that he would not come back until he had been forgotten."  There was another book on the desk, and the Headmaster pushed it at Pietro as well.

     It was a medical journal.

     It was the journal of one Doctor Aldo Florenti!

     Pietro gasped.  He read quickly through the marked chapter, and suddenly burst out, "You knew all along!  You and Doctor Florenti!  You knew when you saw me sing!  And this … this …” words failed Pietro.

     "Yes, " the Headmaster agreed, "I told you I knew a great deal.  My own great-grandfather founded this institution, and our good Doctor Florenti comes from an even longer line of physicians.  Someone has to watch and maintain order, you know.  Roberto wasn't the first, and, obviously, won't be the last."

     “The first WHAT?”  Pietro cried.

     “Vampire,” the Headmaster replied calmly.

     "You know, and you watch? " Pietro asked, awed.

     The old man nodded. 

     "Me and a few others like me, " the old man replied, “Every now and then, you’ll recall some little waif stopping by in the evening, or perhaps an old lady with a cat with nowhere to stay?  They’re usually gone in the morning, but they know to come here, to me.  I met Roberto, in fact, when I was just starting my position here.  He stayed the day in the cellar, visited his tree, and then moved on.  I for one listened to my old grandfather and uncles and aunts.  The old may appear silly at times, boy, but they know a great deal and will gladly pass it on to those who will only listen and learn.”

     Pietro nodded in wonder.  "And what will you do now, sir?  Send us away and hope that we never return, or kill us both?" the mortal castrato whispered.

     "I do not want to send you away, Pietro.  Just as they took pity on Roberto so long ago, I would do the same if you choose to go with him.  I can only imagine the living hell they consigned him to.  Sometimes I think that he would have been better off dead, but who could kill a boy that young?  He was frightened and confused, but even though he was becoming a creature of the night, they could see he was no killer.  Perhaps it was wrong, maybe more than wrong - abominable even - but it is too late now.  He has come back again out of longing for companionship, and you have given him that.  We will handle Father Carlo and the townsfolk as our predecessors did, and besides, does anyone REALLY believe in vampires and such anymore?  Werewolves and witches, shades and ghosts?

     “No, they don’t.  They laugh.  Father Carlo will soon find himself all alone in his quest, and eventually fail, " the old man stated, "I’ve seen it before.  But, you must NOT encourage him.  Your last visit did more damage, and the observers will be here for a long time, you know.  This will not go away overnight."

     Pietro thought for a moment.  "May I stay and read this all, Signore? " he asked.

     The old man nodded and got up to go.  "Take all the time you need, Pietro, " he said, rising to go.  "I will send Roberto down when it gets dark."

     Pietro almost dropped the book. 

     "I know where he is, I can feel the chill of his presence, " the old man said, unperturbed.

     "But how can you know so much, sir?" Pietro asked, "and not fear him?"

     "Keep reading, " the Headmaster replied, "You'll see.  Besides, he knows me, and he’s a pleasant little fellow once you get to know him."

     Pietro smiled and fell upon the book as a starving man at a feast.

    

     It was just past sunset when there was a rap at the door.

     "Come in, Roberto, " Pietro said.

     The little vampire stepped into the room and closed and locked the door.

     "He is a remarkable old man, do you know that? " Roberto asked.

     Pietro nodded and placed the book back on the desk.

     "You left a letter with the doctor when he let you go, " the mortal castrato said.

      The immortal castrato nodded.

     "You are not evil, and neither am I, " Pietro stated, “And you’ve come back here before.”

     Roberto crossed the room to climb up on the sill and sit staring out of the window.  Pietro got up to join him.

     "It's going to be a long week, " he mused, laying his head on the immortal castrato’s shoulder.

 

     Pietro threw himself back into his practices and resumed his normal routine.  The observers came every day, took their notes, and eventually began to bring others with them.  Pietro spent his days in study and practice while Roberto slept, and by night - when Pietro was sleeping - Roberto roamed the darkness alone as he had for so long.  He realized that his only friend needed rest and to resume the airs of convention if all was to pass smoothly.  Still true to his word, he never killed any people.  The cattle around the several farms began to look anemic after a few days, though, and the little vampire prudently extended his range.  Marco had been released from his bed, much to his delight, and Frederico complained endlessly of starving to death.  Father Carlo's church was repaired, and the Maestro busied himself in rigorous instruction of the students.   Life seemed to be returning to normal.

     It was several Sundays later, however, when things heated up again. 

     Father Carlo gave a blistering sermon on the many faces of evil, and Pietro felt the priest's eyes on him every time the Father looked towards the choir section.  The rest of the services were uneventful though, except for Marco having to excuse himself quickly to run outside and be ill.  He had been running strange fevers off and on for weeks and looking paler than usual, combined with a serious lack of energy; Dr. Florenti took him home to the conservatorio.

     On Monday the observers were back at the conservatorio, but their attitudes were much more relaxed.  Pietro could not help but wonder if Roberto was 'tampering' with them.  That thought brought a smile to his face as he practiced with the rest of the students, although most of them still treated him coolly and didn’t socialize with him during breaks.

 

     That evening, Pietro anxiously awaited sunset.  When Roberto awakened, Pietro announced that he had the following day off and wanted to spend the night together.  Roberto's smile was enough of an answer, as it had been near two weeks since they’d had time for anything more than an hour or so of time together each day.  Roberto opened the window, offered his hand to Pietro, and the two castrati set off into the night sky.  The moon was waning, but Pietro could see well enough in the company of his immortal friend.  The night air was cold as they flew over the countryside, and it whistled in Pietro’s ears and numbed them.  More often as not, as they continued on, his eyes were on Roberto’s smiling face and not the ground passing below them.

     They went back to that huge, ancient tree deep in the virgin forest and Roberto sang for Pietro.  He demanded that the mortal castrato learn from him, commit his ancient airs to heart, and perform them only when he felt it proper.  Pietro was a very apt pupil, and he learned quickly.  Even the nocturnal animals stopped to listen to the two castrati filling the night with beauty, and they all voiced their approval in various ways.

     "You seem to know them all, " Pietro whispered, amazed at the gathering of wild things around the tree.

     Roberto looked around and turned to his student.  "The animals, the trees, all the world is filled with life and those who can hear and enjoy the music.  If not for these misunderstood creatures of the night, like myself, I would have gone mad years ago."

     A very old and gray wolf had come up to sit on his haunches and stare at them, his pink tongue lolling out as he waited.  His tail swished back and forth on the ground.  Roberto smiled, his fangs just touching his lower lip and said, in the language of wolves,  "Greetings, my friend."

     Pietro could hear the reply plainly.

     "Very nice, " the old wolf responded.

     Pietro smiled. 

     "And who is this young one who is not as you are?" the wolf asked.

     "A new friend, " Roberto answered.

     "Ah, " the wolf replied, dropping onto his belly and stretching out, "I think I shall stay and listen to you more.  I am so very tired this night, and the sound of your voice soothes me."

     Roberto turned back to Pietro and whispered, "He is very old.  Soon he will hunt no more."

     "Then we will sing for him, " the boy replied, touched by the depth of new understanding.

     "We shall, " the vampire agreed.

     The song Roberto introduced was the one that Pietro had sung for Giovanni, only changing as it went, and as their voices filled the forest once more, Pietro could feel all the hundreds of eyes upon him as he felt the intertwining of all the life in the forest with the song itself.  The two castrati’s notes rose to the black and starry sky and echoed off of the trees.  Higher and higher their voices climbed, and Pietro felt that disembodied feeling still once again.  He was one with the night, one with the song, one with Roberto.  Instead of two voices singing in the night, there was soon only one coming from the two singers.  There were only the stars and the thin sliver of a moon to illuminate their performance.

     Pietro wanted it to last forever.

 

     It very nearly did.

 

     When the song was finally finished and he returned to himself, Pietro saw that the old wolf had closed his eyes and that his tail was no longer wagging.

     Roberto, with tears in his colorless eyes, knelt beside the huge furry form and placed a pale hand on the wolf's head.  Then he bent down and kissed the gray-shot muzzle, hugging his old friend about the neck.  The old wolf licked his face once, then laid his head on his forepaws and drew his last breath.

     “I think I will sleep now,” the old wolf sighed, his great head rolling to the side.

     "Then sleep well, old friend, " Roberto replied, and the dead form of the old wolf turned to dust.

     "Shall we go?" the immortal castrato asked.

     Pietro said nothing, but took his hand in his and held it tightly.

 

     They walked slowly towards the town, not intending to go through it for fear of attracting attention.  Roberto was obviously upset over the death of the old wolf, but Pietro did not know what to say.  Just being together seemed to be enough for the time. 

     Finally, Pietro asked, "How is it that all the creatures of the night do not fear you?"

     "Because I am not an evil thing, my friend, " the little vampire replied, "I am nothing like the monster who did this to me.  I am just a lonely night creature, like the rest of them.  All life is connected, somehow, my friend.  I just see those connections is all."

     Pietro nodded and they continued to walk.  The pair skirted a harvested field and bypassed the town, coming back onto the main road quite a ways beyond it.  Roberto was thinking - Pietro could feel it.  "Do you think anyone knows you are out tonight?" he asked.

     Pietro smiled.  "I am sure the Headmaster does.  He seems to know a great deal."

     Roberto smiled, and Pietro found that it no longer unnerved him to see those teeth.  "I find it hard to believe that he and the doctor have all the records from their parents and grandparents.  I think something is going on here, " the immortal castrato mused.

     "From what I read, you are not the only one they have had to deal with, my friend, " the mortal castrato replied, “and the door always seems to be open.”

     "It makes sense, " Roberto went on, "that there would be others like me and men who know about us.  One would think, however, that they would have 'dispatched' me when I changed.  Sometimes I wish they had."

     "Don't say that, " Pietro reprimanded, "Besides, your days of loneliness are at an end now."

     Roberto stopped and turned to face Pietro.  The tears were welling up in his red glowing eyes again.  "But how long will it last this time?" he asked, "How long until something happens that will drive me away again?  I cannot go through it again, my friend, I simply cannot!" 

     The little vampire's words were choked off as Pietro drew him close and held him until the emotional storm had passed.  I won't let them send him off alone again, Pietro thought, not sure if his friend could hear his thoughts or not. 

     “Roberto,” he asked softly, “haven’t you ever met another of your kind?  I mean, someone did this to you.  Surely there are others.”

     Roberto shook his head.  “If there are, and I’m sure that there must be, we’re very rare these days.  I think there are not many of us left.”

     “Oh,” Pietro replied, not knowing what else to say.

     They were startled out of their melancholic state by the sound of approaching hoof beats.  Roberto jerked his head up, his eyes flashing and his teeth shining.  "This is NOT happening!" he snarled.

     "What is it?"

     But Roberto was already dragging Pietro high into the air with him, looking around for a tree in which to hide.  The hoof beats were drawing closer.  The cold night air seemed to cut through Pietro's clothes, and the new rage pouring off of Roberto was sickening.  The boy got the feeling that something was about to go desperately wrong.

     Pietro glanced down and saw a rider coming along the road at a furious pace.  It was Father Carlo.

     "Why now?"  Roberto whispered, still almost snarling, "Doesn’t he EVER sleep?  I hate that priest!"

     Father Carlo brought his horse to such a stop that the animal almost slid on his haunches.  He jumped down and began looking around.  Pietro could feel the contempt rolling off of the priest in waves.

     "Is he out looking for us?" Pietro whispered.

     "No, " Roberto replied, "He's looking for me!"

     Both castrati shivered at the thought. 

     Things had been slowly returning to normal, or so it had seemed, but Father Carlo had not given up.  His demeanor had been nothing more than a cheap facade'.  The priest was out roaming the night during the week, searching for what he considered 'evil'.

     They held their breath as Father Carlo looked around.  In one hand was a bottle of some sort, and in the other was a rosary.  There was a small pack tied to the saddle of his mount, and Pietro had a bad feeling about the contents of that pack.

     "He knows, " Roberto announced.  "I don't know how, but he knows we are here."

     "What do we do?" Pietro asked.

     "You will do nothing, my friend, " the little vampire replied, jumping from his hiding place and moving so quickly to the road that Pietro did not even see him go.

     When the mortal castrato got his bearings again, the immortal castrato was facing the priest at the side of the road.  Pietro could feel the waves of hatred flying back and forth between them.  Roberto seemed to be encased in a pale red nimbus of some kind, and Father Carlo was praying.  The fight was about to start.  This could mean the end of it all, Pietro thought, he'll either kill Roberto, or Roberto will kill him.  Either way, it's all over for both us.

     Slowly, they stalked each other.  Pietro could hear words like 'infidel' and  'demon' being exchanged.  Roberto was trying to explain something, but Father Carlo would not listen to him.  The boy carefully slid down from the tree and moved closer.  He had to know.

     "You have come to corrupt this Godly town, " Father Carlo was saying, "to prey on other innocents for your own perverse delights!"

     "And you are a fool! "  Roberto was shouting, "A fool who knows nothing of me!"

     "I know what you are, child of darkness!"  The priest replied.

     "True, " Roberto replied, suddenly calm, "A lonely little child who lives in the darkness, but not by choice.  I have only come here seeking comfort."

     "You have come here to steal from us, our lives, our children!"  The priest accused, "Even now, you seek to bring one of the castrati over into your realm of darkness!"

     Roberto stepped back, obviously hurt.  He hung his head.

     "I shall bring you comfort, evil one!  Renounce your existence and confess your evils to me!  You may yet be saved from eternal damnation!"

     Pietro was angered and shaking.  But he did not know what to do.

     When Roberto lifted his head again, however, his eyes were two exploding suns and his fangs were like tiny swords, slicing into the night.  The sound that came from his mouth, however, was not the guttural, rasping snarl that Father Carlo expected.  It was the voice of a child.  A child in pain.

     "I have done nothing wrong.”

     Father Carlo took a step back and smiled.  "You lie!  And I will not fall for that trick again!  I am stronger than you in my faith, vampire, and I shall destroy you and the evil that you bring!"

     "And will you destroy Pietro as well?" Roberto asked in a soft whisper, "an orphaned castrato who has also done nothing but try to be my friend?"

     But Father Carlo was beyond reason.  His passions had run away with him.  He was moving towards the pack now, and reaching into it.  Pietro was at a loss, and helpless to intervene.  He would only make things worse. 

     Suddenly, as the priest put his hand into the pack, the horse bolted and ran.  Father Carlo was jerked off of his feet to land unceremoniously in the dirt road.  Roberto was smiling again.  "You may not fall for it again, priest, but your horse did!"

     Father Carlo got to his feet, smiling as well.  "Too late, my evil friend, " he replied, holding a sharpened wooden stake in his hand.

     Pietro gasped.  The situation was definitely taking a turn for the worse, and he could feel the energy that Roberto was expending, trying to overcome the priest's mind.

     It was not working.

     Father Carlo was advancing on Roberto, and Pietro could take no more.  He sprang from his cover as the priest lunged at the little vampire.  He hit the priest in the back at a dead run, knocking him down and landing on top of him.  He pummeled at Father Carlo’s back with his small fists, screaming in rage. 

     "NO!"  He heard Roberto cry, as the priest righted himself and caught Pietro's robe near the throat, pulling the boy up off of the ground.  Father Carlo's eyes were wide with fury, and he drew back and slammed his fist into Pietro's face. 

     Roberto lunged at them as Pietro fell to the ground, blood flowing from his nose and mouth.  Father Carlo spun around, anticipating his attack, and lanced out with the stake.

     There was a horrible tearing sound as the point pierced Roberto's chest and came out of his back.  The fires of the little vampire's eyes flickered for a moment as Pietro staggered to his feet.  The boy tried to scream when he saw his friend impaled so, but he choked on his own blood. 

     It cannot end this way, Pietro thought, pain stabbing at his head, I will not let it!

     He took a step forward as Roberto began to cough, and dashed his foot on rock.  Fresh pain exploded in his toes and spread up leg.  The idea that then came to him was sudden, violent - and the mortal castrato did not care. 

     He picked up the rock, slid up behind the priest who still held the stake in his friend's chest, and brought it down on Father Carlo's head as hard as he could.

     There was a sickening sound of bone shattering as Pietro stepped back and dropped the rock.

     The priest stiffened for a moment, then let go of his weapon.  His mouth dropped open and his eyes went even wider.   He tried to turn, sank to his knees on the ground, and died.

    

     Roberto was lying very still where he had fallen, his pale, small hands grasping the stake that was protruding from his chest.  Father Carlo was also lying still where he had fallen.  Pietro took one look at the priest and realized that he had killed him.  His thoughts, however, were only of Roberto. 

     Still choking on his own blood, he took the little vampire in his arms and pulled the stake out.  He tore open Roberto's black robe, pulling off the red sash and trying to staunch the bleeding of the terrible wound with it.  The cold reddish-black blood of what was Roberto's life spilled over Pietro's shaking hands.  The little vampire was shaking and gasping, tears rolling down his ashen cheeks.

     Pietro's head was pounding, his vision blurred.  Roberto - who was his friend, teacher, and exonerator - lay dying in his arms. 

     He did not know what to do.

     Then a new gush of blood sprayed from Pietro's nose as he sneezed.

     And then it came to him.

     He pulled Roberto's head up and locked his own bleeding mouth over the little vampire's.  Pietro made himself cough and sniff hard at the same time.  He could feel his own hot blood pouring out of his mouth, past his loosened front teeth, and into Roberto's mouth. 

     It had to work.

     Pietro held onto his friend, blowing hard to force his own blood down Roberto's throat.  He held him like the lovers he had seen in town before on one of their nightly excursions, his warm and bleeding mouth pressed tightly to the vampire castrato's cold lips.  He blew again, and tightened his grip.  No matter what the outcome, Pietro knew he could not, would not, ever let go.

     Pietro began to feel his own consciousness slipping away as Roberto suddenly stiffened up and locked his arms around the mortal castrato's shoulders.  The embrace was tight, hurting his ribs, but Pietro could somehow feel life returning to the wounded vampire.  His eyes filled with a shining red light, and he felt Roberto’s fangs digging into his own lower lip.  He ignored the pain, however, sniffling and coughing and forcing as much of his blood into Roberto’s mouth as he could.  He held him tightly, willing him to live as if he could sustain him by sheer thought alone. 

     He had no idea when the sun would be up, as blackness descended upon him and he knew nothing.

 

     fin

 

     Pietro awoke to the sounds of heated discussion.  He could not see very well, and was not sure where he was.  He could make out the voices of the Headmaster, the Maestro, the Doctor, and the man who had been at his every practice taking notes since all of this had started.  One phrase caught his attention however - "Kill them both now while there is yet time!"

     The young castrato jerked fully awake and sat upright, his head pounding.  He was in bed, in the cellar where he had not so long ago been castrated.  There were so many people there, in the room, on the stairs, ones he knew and ones he did not.  They were all staring at him, and standing between him and the men that were arguing was Roberto!

     The little vampire was wearing a brand new black robe and sash, and his eyes were glowing red.  His fangs were fully extended and shining.  There seemed to be a distortion of some type surrounding him, making him look ethereal.  Pietro could tell that his friend was not only alive and well, but also enraged.

     "No more death!"  Roberto was shouting.

     "YOU are Death itself!" someone else shouted, and there were cries of agreement from the mob.

     Pietro clenched his jaw and set his mind to speak, but was distracted by a jab of pain in his lower lip.  Then he remembered what had happened.

      He had killed Father Carlo.

      Murder, he thought, I have killed the town priest! 

      But Roberto was alive!  They were in the conservatorio cellar, and Roberto was alive!

      The young castrato reached up to touch his sore lip, but jerked his fingers back when he felt in his mouth.

     His own canine teeth had extended down like Roberto's, into fangs.

     As if sensing this, the little vampire turned to face him.  Through all of the rage in his glowing red eyes, Pietro could see sympathy - and love.

     "My friend …" Roberto began, only to be interrupted by the Doctor.

     "Don't …"

     "You're alive!"  Pietro blurted, interrupting the doctor.

     "That idiot priest missed my heart, " the vampire replied, "but not by much."

     "You can tell him later.  He will understand, Roberto.  Take him and go!"  The Doctor shouted.

     Pietro touched his new fangs again and his eyes widened.

     "The result of your gift of Life to me, my friend." Roberto offered.

     Pietro smiled.  "Worth it, " he acknowledged.

     "I fixed you nose, too.  It was kinda broken."

     "Thanks, " Pietro replied.

     "Kill them now!"  The angry man shouted, with other voices joining him in his call for blood.  Pietro noticed that most of them were armed, waving pitchforks and shovels and axes.  It was definitely not a warm reception.

     "SILENCE!" 

      It was the Maestro whose own thunderous voice filled the small room, commanding a tone that Pietro had never before heard.  "What has been done this night cannot be undone.  This boy I have raised as my own son, trained him to be a singer, even consented to his cutting for his beautiful voice.  I cannot stand by and watch you murder my son and his friend.  Here in this room we have the two most perfect voices that the world has ever known, and we cannot let them be destroyed!  Look at them!  Do these look like monsters to you?  Are you all murderers of innocent children?  If so, then kill them.  You’re not better than that mad priest if you do, and I must warn you that if you try, blood WILL be spilt this night!"

     It sounded like insanity, letting two blood drinking monsters loose upon the Earth for the sake of Song?  How could it be justified?

     Still, no one moved.

     "There are questions, " the angry man was ranting, "a priest has been murdered by this evil little capon!  This crime cannot go unpunished!"

     Pietro was feeling his teeth again, and a slow anger was rising up in him.  He drew in his breath, and as he opened his mouth, a hush fell over the bickering men.  Roberto stared at him, and nodded.

     "The priest started it, but I will go, " he said softly.

     "My son, " the Maestro whispered, approaching and taking the changed boy, the newly Immortal Castrato, in his arms.  He pulled Pietro close and suddenly began to shiver.  Despite the blankets, Pietro’s flesh was cold to the touch.  It did not stop him from kissing his son and holding him close as he wept.  When he had composed himself, the Maestro placed his hands, one on each side of Pietro’s head and stared into his softly glowing red eyes.  He carefully brushed his thumb over Pietro’s left fang and shook his head.  “Know that I will always love you, my son, no matter where you go or what you become,” he whispered in his ear.  Pietro nodded, his eyes full of unshed tears.

     “And know that I am proud of you, my son.  I was always so very proud of you.” 

     The men looked on, and the Headmaster turned away.  "Perhaps it was meant to be, " he murmured, "I shall assemble the boys …well, not all of the boys."

     That comment set off an alert in Pietro's Mind.  He looked up over the Maestro's shoulder and demanded, "Who?  What is yet wrong here?"

     The Maestro, recovering himself slowly, gently pushed Pietro back and stared into his eyes.  Pietro saw the red fires of his own eyes reflected in the eyes of the man who had raised him, and gasped.  "Marco is dying, " the Maestro said.

     "How?"  Pietro demanded.

     "Delayed infection and slow bleeding inside, " Roberto answered, "it happens sometimes."

     "Pietro, " the Doctor began, "There is nothing I can do for him.  The infection is too advanced, and we did not catch it in time.  It’s spread, and he hasn’t peed in days.  There was some very slow internal bleeding as well it seems.  That’s why his bruising didn’t fade.  Marco seemed so energetic and healthy … only a bit pale and a little tired at times.  I don’t know what else to say.  I’ve never lost a boy like this before.”

     It was too much to bear.  Marco was such a sweet, loving little boy.  He did not deserve to die the terrible death from the infection that had set in due to his castration gone wrong.  Something had to be done, and done fast. 

     As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Pietro found himself charging for the stairs.  The onlookers stepped hastily aside in terror at the sight of his blazing eyes and blood-splattered robe.  He knocked the door open but pulled back with a shout.  It was daylight.

     Tears were streaming down the new vampire's cheeks as he recoiled from the burning light.  "Bring him!  Now!" he thundered in an inhuman voice that no man, woman, or castrato had ever before produced.

     There was a long moment of silence.

     "No!" the Doctor finally protested, "No, please, Pietro.  Don’t do it."

     "Then I will wait, " Pietro replied.

     "What are you about?" Roberto inquired, a sly look playing about his smiling face.

     "The last thing that Marco ever said to me was 'if you go, I want to go with you,' “ Pietro answered.

     Roberto smiled, his fangs flashing in the torchlight.

     "I can't take him with me, not now, yet there is something that I - that we can do for him!"

     Roberto nodded his consent.

     But the Headmaster was already gone, and soon he was carrying the shivering and sweating form of Marco down the stairs.  The little castrato was in his nightshirt, which was soaked in sweat; his usually dark skin was an unhealthy shade of pale.  Pietro could see the swelling in the boy's midsection and thighs as the Headmaster laid the insensate child on Pietro's makeshift bed.  The old man took a step back and murmured two words.

     "Save him."

     Pietro turned to Roberto and Roberto nodded.  The two Immortal Castrati joined hands and bowed their heads over Marco's still form.  Eternity seemed to pass and the silence was deafening.  Time seemed to stretch out forever as the song built up in Pietro's heart.  He could feel it in Roberto as well, his hand warm in his own.  The Immortal Castrati opened their mouths in song, and the song which issued forth was not the song of death that had sent Giovanni and the ancient wolf off to Paradise.  Instead, it was a song unbidden, filled with images of happy childhood days gone by and of sunny days and green grass in that sunlight and rainbows shining in the east after an evening storm.

     All of the things which Pietro would never again know.

     It was not powerful in the sense that it was loud; the sound of the song was hardly more than mere whispers.  The onlookers were listening, their weapons lowered, staring in wonder at the pale red nimbus that surrounded the three of them.

     Not even the officers present dared interrupt.  To them, the murder of Giovanni was as good as solved, and Father Carlo has gotten what he deserved in the pursuit of his madness.

     He was disembodied again, only this time, Roberto was at his side.  They were looking down, seeing only the wasted form of a little boy on the verge of death.  Nothing else mattered then.  The blind faith that Marco had had for Pietro and for the conservatorio itself was enough.  The boy's love of the Song was there, stirring in his fever-wracked brain.  The Immortal Castrati grabbed onto that thought, and held it tightly. 

     There were voices from the top of the stairs.  The students of the conservatorio were there, crowded together, watching as best they could.  There were other voices of more townspeople come for vengeance, but they all fell silent as the archaic song of Life poured out of the little vampires who were pouring out their very souls for the sake of a dying child.

     Time passed, and didn't. 

     There was only the Song, Marco, and Hope.

     And then the boy stirred.  He whimpered as the final verse of the Song fell into silence, never to be heard again in that part of the world.  His eyes opened, and tears poured down his face as he stared at Pietro and Roberto.

     Exhausted, Pietro released Roberto's hand took the crying child in his arms.  Then the Maestro was there, and the sound of applause filled the small room.  They were coming down the stairs now, some in peasant clothes and some in black and red-sashed robes.  They crowded around the three boys in the dark corner and each reached out to shake the hands of vampires who had saved one of their own.  Not a word was spoken.

     Roberto had already begun 'suggesting' things to the crowd, a few ideas here and there; eventually the rumor mill of the townsfolk would do the rest.  The danger was past.  There would be no arrests for Giovanni’s murder, or for Father Carlo's.

     The townspeople turned and left, none daring to intrude.  There was talk of a priest gone mad who beat up on little children and destroyed his own church, and of highwaymen murdering a boy and who had since had some sort of Divine Retribution taken upon them.  They argued the issue of castration of boys for training as singers, and spoke with reverence of one who had just barely survived the surgery.  They were all talking about one thing or another amongst themselves, but they were NOT talking about vampires.  The outspoken one, so determined to find the truth, had also gone away with more truth than he ever wanted.  It would be a long time before he ever attended another theatre or set foot in the church again.

 

     The Maestro sat up with the recovered boy and the two vampires until the sun went fully down.  They spoke but little, and when the last colors of red and orange and purple were fading away into night the Headmaster came back down.  In his hands were the untitled books that told of Roberto's strange tale as well as the history of the conservatorio.  He placed them in Marco's lap.  The old man reached out then and touched Pietro's cheek, then Roberto's.  "I know you will both keep your words, " was all he said as he turned to go.  “Goodbye.  And remember, my door is always open if you pass by again.”

     "Where are you going?" Marco suddenly blurted out, "You … you're n-n-n-ot leaving are y-y-you ?"

     Pietro's heart wrenched at the desperation in the voice of the boy who had been like a little brother to him for so long, this little brother that any orphan always wants but never has.

     Pietro and Roberto exchanged a long look and told the resurrected boy the tale of what had happened and why they had to go.  The darker boy cried all the way through the story, shaking his head and holding tightly to Pietro.  His hot tears soaked the shoulder of Pietro’s robe.  It was more than any of them could bear.

     "There must be a way, " Pietro whispered, choking back tears.

     Roberto sighed, the red light coming back into his eyes.  "There is, " he replied.

     The Maestro Lorenzo sighed as well.  "I am losing much this night, " he said.

     Marco looked at them, not understanding.  His face was pale and tear-stained, his lower lip quivering.

     Finally, the Maestro nodded and said, simply, "Take him."

     The Immortal Castrati could both feel the loss emanating from the Maestro.

     "Somehow we will explain it, " he offered, "although I do not know how.  After all, we’ve gotten away with murder tonight.  This may well be the end of this institution, you both know, but somehow …" his voice trailed off.

     "No, " Roberto answered, "in time, they will forget.  We will see to that."

     “It’s not only that,” the Maestro explained, “Father Carlo didn’t like the castrati.  He spoke often of evil, but how often did he speak privately of his own opinions regarding you?  Is it so wrong, to want to preserve the sublime voices of such beautiful boys?  I do not think so, but many people do, my sons.  Already, there is talk of outlawing the procedure and not so many church officials are overlooking the operations these days.  How many locals has Father Carlo already convinced, and think of all the people who saw young Marco here nearly die this night from his castration?  How long will it be now, until this opinion spreads and someone finally puts a stop to it?  It could be very soon, I fear, and you two could perhaps be the last great castrati that I will ever train up in the arts,” the Maestro mourned.  “And it may be just as well for the tradition to pass and the music to all be rewritten.  Castrati are already discriminated against.  The church will not allow them to marry, nor to adopt children.  And there are far too many narrow minded fools like Father Carlo in the world who hate for the sake of the hatred itself.  No boy deserves to grow up with that.”   

     “Perhaps you are right,” Roberto agreed.

     "We should burn the books as well, " Pietro added, “I’ve read them all, and there’s some pretty incriminating stuff in them.  They logged all the castrations done here, sir.  If anyone reads it, they’ll certainly know that there couldn’t have been enough accidents to explain the castrati status of so many boys.”

     The Maestro picked up the books and slowly climbed the stairs.  His shoulders were slumped like a man who had beaten, and he was shaking his head.  He was mumbling something about the end of an era that he hoped that he would not live to see come to pass and how lonely he would be.

     They watched him go without a word.
     But there was a hope shining in Marco's eyes, and his tears had dried.  It was obvious that the little castrato did not understand what was happening.  He was just happy to be feeling good again and to have his friend back.  Still, it seemed that he could tell that something was amiss.

     Once again, Roberto took Pietro's hand in his, and Marco's with the other.  The two tired little vampires' eyes lit up like blazing suns in their death throes, and they concentrated their wills upon Marco.  The light of understanding - which was not red, but blue - came into the small castrato's dark brown eyes, and he smiled and nodded.  A century and more of knowledge and experience passed from Roberto to Pietro to Marco as the three, in a very deep and secret place within, became one.

     "I understand, " Marco whispered, "I understand why you have to go away, and maybe someday … but for now I'll stay right here.  And I wont’ forget your songs.  Not ever!"

     And more than a century of unbearable loneliness and longing for a sense of family finally came to an end.

 

     There was no moon as the Maestro Lorenzo leaned, still sniffling a bit, against the ancient tree at the conservatorio wall.  The smoke from the fires that were consuming the old record books of the conservatorio had shifted with the wind, and it stung his eyes.  The three Castrati, dressed in their finest silk robes of black with new red satin sashes about their waists were walking away from him.  Their new boots did not even disturb the fallen leaves as he watched them disappear into the night, and he felt a cold and sudden wind blow past him as the tears seemed to freeze on his face.  He sank to his knees, knowing that they were safe and together.   

     A bit of fog began to roll in as the last leaves of autumn fell from the ancient tree, and the Maestro looked to the Heavens, listening hard to the faint airs of a farewell hymn coming from high above the clouds.  The voices, two of which he knew so well, and a third he had only heard once before, comforted him as he lay back on the cold ground to listen.  He stared at the last few embers of the fire as wondered at the past, the present, and the approaching future with its inevitable changes.

     Suddenly, one of the familiar voices was right in his ear.  He jerked his head, with a gasp, to his left and saw the cherubic and dark-skinned face of the fully recovered Marco, his mouth open in impossible song and his eyes bright and dry.  His eyes were their usual dark brown, almost black color, and his white teeth – blunt and not fanged – shone in the fading firelight.  The Maestro pulled the little castrato into a tight embrace and kissed him, looking up at the night sky again.

     "I couldn't go, " Marco said softly, over the slowly fading song, "They healed me, they said I could go with them if I really wanted to, and then they took me flying!  It was unbelievable!  But I couldn’t go.  Roberto gave me his songs, too!  All of them!"

     "And perhaps he has given you even more, " the Maestro suggested, sweeping the child up in his arms and spinning him around until he grew dizzy and Marco and was giggling. "But we shall miss them forever, will we not?" 

     Marco’s face grew serious then as he held his Maestro tightly around the neck, laying his fuzzy head on the man’s shoulder.  He sniffled once and the Maestro could feel him nodding with a small whine. 

     Then he and Marco headed back into the brightly lit building.  The Maestro stopped in the doorway and put Marco down, still holding his hand and turning one last time to face the clear night sky.  His heart was heavy, but the warm little hand that he held in his own lifted his spirits. 

     "Goodbye my son, " he whispered.

    

     "Ah, grieve not, my friend, " he heard a tired and ancient voice saying in his Mind, "you too once longed to fly from my branches so many years ago, but you climbed back down instead.  Let us both sleep a little…”

 

END