“It’s been bloody awful,” she confessed in a rush. “I know he’s a friend of yours, but Raoul is a sadist.”
His eyebrows shot up. Whatever he had expected from this conversation, this wasn’t it. “He is?”
She nodded. “Ibuprofen has become a staple in my diet, but I can now run for a full hour, although I slow down quite a bit toward the end. I can also strip and load four different guns, and hit the bull’s-eye on the target nine times out of ten. And I still have no idea what the daggers at dinner mean.”
He repeated, “Daggers at dinner.”
“You know, the little ones that are set at the twelve o’clock position at each dinner plate on a formal table setting.” She glanced with undisguised longing at the opened bottle of Chateau Sauvignon sitting on the table beside her chair.
He pinched his nose and smiled. “Do help yourself to some wine. I’ll call for a fresh glass.”
She sat straight and reached for Raoul’s wineglass. “Thanks, don’t bother. I don’t mind using this one. It’s not like anybody at the estate is sick.”
“True enough.” He watched her pour the wine into the glass. Its color wine was lovely in the firelight, red like rubies, like blood. “I’ve asked Raoul to prepare his phlebotomy equipment. It’s past time you offer blood. Unless, of course, you wish for me to take it from the vein.”
She drank half the glass at once. “If you’re leaving the option up to me, I would rather not yet.” Her dark gaze regarded him around the edge of the wineglass. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
“I do not change my mind about things such as this.” He watched her for the tiny tells, and they were certainly there. The slender muscles in her throat flexed as she swallowed, and the way she held her mouth changed. Her expression seemed too complex for mere relief, but perhaps contained a hint of disappointment as well.
Was she disappointed that he did not live down to her worst expectations, or was she disappointed in herself for not agreeing to a direct blood offering? Given her tenacious nature, she must be battling a serious revulsion for the act. Troubled, he frowned down at his clasped hands.
“The daggers at the dinner settings is a very old Vampyre custom, dating back to the early Roman Empire,” he said. “It is meant as a gesture of courtesy from the host.”
“But what does it mean?”
“Often weapons were forbidden in palaces when a ruler was in residence. The dagger was a symbol of trust, a way of saying to the guest, you may go armed in my presence, and we are still at peace.”
She nodded slowly. “So it would actually end up being a really terrible thing to pick it up. Kind of a betrayal against the host?”
“Yes, except on one occasion. The dagger was also used by the guest to prick herself to offer blood in a show of fealty to a Vampyre lord. At large gatherings like a banquet, it simply wasn’t feasible for the host to take a direct blood offering from everyone personally. This way, a cup was passed from guest to guest. They could prick their fingers, add a few drops to the cup and pass it on. At the end of the round, when the cup had made it back to the Vampyre lord, he would take it and drink.”
She frowned. “Was this a ritual for humans, or for Vampyres?”
He stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. “It was for both. For example, Julian could insist on a blood fealty from all the heads of the Vampyre houses along with human officials that live within his demesne, but the ritual is no longer enacted. Still, the dagger is laid out in formal situations as a tradition. In some households, quite a bit of money is spent on the daggers, encrusting them with jewels and gold. They’re pretty baubles, nothing more, and are usually about as dull as a letter opener.”
She had listened intently, her eyes wide with fascination. “Thank you for the explanation.”
“De nada,” he said. When she lifted the bottle of wine and looked at him in inquiry, he gestured for her to help herself to a second glass.
Silence fell between them as she did so, and they sat for a few minutes, each wrapped in thought. He noted that her fear had subsided somewhat as they talked, and he watched the flames in the fireplace as he considered that.
Finally he stirred and sighed. “You present some interesting challenges, Tess Graham.”
She straightened in her chair. “I’m sorry. What can I do to make it better?”
“That is what I am trying to decide.” He set his empty glass aside. “I’ve already told you that you must make a proper blood offering freely and willingly by the end of the trial year, and that is not an arbitrary requirement. There are reasons why it is necessary.”