Meanwhile, I sent out messengers to direct her wanderings aright, describing how when she and her band came within my spheres they would be offered every hospitality, treated with utmost respect, and paid in gold for whichever services they might render unto me. And in the interim, while I waited on the advent of this alleged oracle, I determined to practise what small talent I possessed in casting a few weirds of my own.

I mixed certain herbs and burned them, fell asleep breathing their incense, and sought by oneiromancy to divine the way it would be between myself and this doubtless fraudulent witch, this 'Marilena' (for such was her name). Aye, for in those days I had good reason to be interested in talented folk, and to seek them out whenever the opportunity arose. My son Thibor had been abroad for several human lifetimes now, and might have spawned all manner of curiosities in the land!

And so I sought out all such anomalies, and in so doing prided myself with the discovery of charlatans. But... if I should come across a genuine talent (and if Wamphyri blood should course in the veins of such a one) then he or she was a goner! For while to a creature such as I the blood is - or was - the life, the sweetest nectar of all may only be sipped from the undead font of another vampire! A font, aye, for such a sip is surely holy - to one such as I am, at least.

But... only picture my astonishment when finally my oneiromancy produced results, and I dreamed of this dark angel where I had thought to discover a hag!

What? She was a child! I saw her in my dreams: a lovely child, aye, and innocent I thought (but wrongly, for she was knowing as a whore!). She came to me naked - all curves, creamy and brown, unblemished; dark in her eyes and in her shining hair; the lips of her face red as cherries, and those of her oyster when I opened it the hue of freshly slaughtered meat - to stand before me unashamed. Two centuries gone by, since Thibor destroyed my castle in the Khorvaty, and raped my vampire women and put them down; between then and now I had tasted my share of soft Szgany flesh, spilling myself into such Gypsy odalisques as pleased me. Nothing of 'love' in it, mind you; that word was only applicable to others, never to myself. But now... ?

It was the human side of me, of course, which from time to time held sway in my dreams. I gazed upon this sweet, sensuous Princess of the Travelling Folk through eyes fogged by human weakness. The shuddering of my loins was the love (call it that if you will) of a man, but never the raging lust of the Wamphyri. And to my shame my dreams were wet, and I came in my blankets like a trembling lad stroking the teats of his first girl!

But ... the trouble with oneiromancy was always this: had it been a true and accurate prediction of the future, or was it just a dream? Thereafter, in order to reinforce my findings (and perhaps for other reasons, for plainly I was besotted), night after night would find me burning my herbs and willing myself into divinatory dreams. And always they were the same, except that the better we got to know each other, Marilena and I, the more pleasurable our loveplay became and myself ever more enamoured; until I knew that instead of a mere dream I must have the real thing or go mad!

Which was when she came to me, as it were, in the flesh.

She was of the camp of Grigor Zirra, called 'King' Zirra; indeed, Marilena was Grigor's daughter. And so I had been right: she was a 'princess' of the Travelling Folk.

It was winter when they came, the end of January, and never so biting cold in all the years of my memory. My own Szgany stationed their caravans and carts in clusters close to my walls, banked them in with huge bricks of snow smoothed to ice, pitched their tents within the clusters and tethered their beasts inside with them, for their warmth. Ah, they had known it would be a hard winter, these wise ones! In the caves all around they had worked long and hard, storing fodder for their animals. Even so, men and beasts alike would be hard put to see it through that winter without they relied on the patronage of the Boyar in his castle.

I kept all my doors unbarred to them, and my halls warm with fires everywhere. My good grogs and coarse red wines were made available for the asking, likewise grain to make their bread; it cost me nothing; these things belonged to the Szgany anyway, for in better seasons they'd given them all to me, who had no need of them!

One mid-morning a man came to me. He had been hunting in the mountains, which were my mountains. I did not deny the Gypsies this privilege; if they shot three pigs or woodcocks one was mine, and so on. And he told me of the Szgany Zirra: that they were caught in a pass close by, where an avalanche had carried their caravans away! Only a handful survived, he said, scattered in the tumbled drifts.

I knew his report was true. Last night I had dreamed again my herbal dreams, but this time devoid of carnal delights and filled instead with blizzards and the screams of those swept away and dying. And because I had not dreamed of my Marilena, I wondered... was she one of them?

Then I called for my Szgany chief and told him: "There is a girl trapped in the snows. This man knows where she is. She and her people are Szgany. Go, find them, dig them out and bring them here. And hurry, for if you are too late and she is dead ... the house of the Ferenczy may feel that its hospitality is wasted on such as you and yours. Is this understood?'

It was, and he went in all haste.

In the afternoon my chief and his men returned. He made report: of the Szgany Zirra, which had numbered as many as fifty, he had found only Grigor Zirra himself and a dozen of his band alive. Three of the survivors were broken but would mend, two more were old women and might not, and of the rest... one was Grigor's daughter, called Marilena, an observer of times!

I commanded him: 'Have your women tend them, feed them, give them whatsoever they need. Spare nothing to make them welcome, comfortable, at ease in this place. I take it they have nothing? Nothing of extra clothing, no carts or coverings? So, without me they are destitute. Very well, quarter them within the castle's walls. Find them warm rooms within easy reach of my own, where they may stay apart.' And seeing a puzzled look in his eyes: 'Well?'

'Your own people might think it strange, master,' he said, 'that you treat the strangers so well. That we make way for them, who owe you no allegiance.'

'You are forthright and I like you for it,' I told him. 'I too shall be forthright. I have heard it said of the woman Marilena Zirra that she is comely. If this is true it may be that I shall want her, for you Gipsies are not the only ones who feel the cold of a night! Wherefore treat her people with respect, especially her father and family, if such as these survived. I do not wish that they should find me a cold and cruel man.'

'What? You, master?' he said, with no trace of emotion in his voice, his face utterly blank. 'Cold? Cruel? Who would ever believe it!?'

I regarded him a while, finally saying: 'Forthright is one thing, and forward another entirely. Do you seek to be familiar with me? I tell you honestly, I cannot believe you would enjoy such... familiarity. Wherefore, when you say certain things to me, and in such a way, it should always please you to smile...' I stared at him and rumbled a little deep in my throat, until he grew uncomfortable.

'Master,' he said, beginning to tremble, 'I meant no - '

'Hush!' I quieted him. 'You are safe, my mood is a good one! Now heed me well. Later, when the Zirras are recovered, return and take me among them where they are quartered. Until then, begone.'

But when I went among them, I was not pleased. It wasn't that my instructions had not been followed; they had, to the letter. It was simply that the ordeal of these people had been such that they were mazed and vacant. It would take a little time in the healing. Meanwhile, they sat in their rags and trembled, and spoke only when they were spoken to.