The House of Flame Lilies

Chapter Three: Sparrow, Nightingale, and Lark

Thank you so much to everyone who left supportive comments, favourites and ratings on the previous chapters, I really appreciate it!

For my cub.

Full work summary: Cast out of his village and freezing to death in the snow, Sparrow finds himself rescued by a mysterious and beautiful woman, living in a grand house in the mountains. As he falls under the spell of his strange host, he finds himself brought into a dark world that presents a destiny he never could have imagined. Submission to a vampire is only the beginning.

Previously: Sparrow found himself settling quickly into the manor, awed by its grandeur and the complex of hothouses in the grounds. He met the groundskeeper, Cyrus, and was lured once again into passion by Vestalia, giving into her commands as much as her desire.

Chapter summary: Sparrow is falling easily into a nighttime life of pleasure. Vestalia shows him the wonders of the manor library and indulges in him over and over in the enchanting space. But the arrival of Sandu breaks their bliss. Is Vestalia in danger? Or is she the danger herself?

CW: Description of meat butchery between first and second asterisk. Violence and wound description.

The Latin poem quoted is Catullus 2a, thank you BakedTofu (AO3) for the recommendation!

"Are all vampires evil?"

"Well, Little Bird, what is evil? Vampires cannot go to Heaven, they are abandoned by God, they feast on mortals. But how many gods has mankind abandoned? How many afterlives has he barred himself from? How many creatures does he farm and hunt and eat? The vampire is deadly, yes. But evil? Who's to say? Not me, I'm just a goatherd."

"In Church they say we must love good and hate evil. But if we don't know what is evil, how can we do that?"

"Try not to think of it as hating what is evil. Try instead to think of it as existing in your own world and leaving the vampire in theirs."

"But they live in our world."

"Let me explain, Little Bird. A fish swims in the river. The river is all it knows. The river is its world. Can you imagine if you told a fish that there's a whole other world on land? One it can never be a part of, but swims through everyday? One it can only visit by being caught and killed and eaten, or else kept in a glass prison?"

"Oh, I see."

"Do you?"

"Not really."

*

Cyrus stretched the carcass out on the long, scored table in the back room of his cottage. There was no fire in here, the cold of the fresh, spring day laced the walls, fine veins of dew frosty in the seams between stones. The scent of raw meat permeated the room, mingling with bundles of dried rosemary in the rafters. He tied his apron over his black shirt and swept his mane of wild curls from his eyes. The carcass was lilac-tinged, cold to the touch from being stored out in the snow. He arranged it carefully, the body opened out and the limbs untangled. The organs, head, feet and hands had already been removed, leaving it hollow and smooth. The skinned flesh glistened. There were no windows in this room, but a lantern swung overhead, washing it deep pink.

Cyrus sang melancholically under his breath.

"Passer, deliciae meae puellae quicum

ludere, quem in sinu tenere..."

He picked up the cleaver and drove it into the spine, applying powerful pressure, his face expressionless. When the bone was weakened, he wrapped his thick fingers around the neck and knees and drew them together with a hard clench of his biceps and abdomen. A resounding crack, as the spine broke. He dropped the limp carcass and rolled his shoulders, rumbling back into song. He picked up a long, steel knife and wriggled it under the lean meat along the backbone, strimming it away and leaving the spine clean and glinting. Each slice of meat he freed was laid out on the table, building a red, slick heap.

He pulled the rib cage away and placed the hunk in front of him, exchanging the knife for a saw. His song fell into the rhythm of heaving and squelching, as the saw burrowed through the meat, segmenting the ribs into ruby red, trickling blocks. A metallic, fatty scent spread through the room. Cyrus only half registered it.

"Cum desiderio meo nitenti

carum nescio quid libet iocari..."

The tune rolled out of him softly, like a spell. He sawed under the armpits and over the tops of the thighs, removing the limbs, so the carcass lay dismembered in orderly sections on the table. The lantern swished yellow light back over the cold, keen knife. Meat was cut away in precise slivers. Cyrus worked like an automaton. His body knew the motions as well as his mind, the knife sliding effortlessly along the curves of muscle, glancing the glassy surface of bone, ferreting into joints, severing tendons and ligaments with sharp twangs like guitar strings. The carcass was slowly, surgically demolished, every scrap of flesh lifted away, until the wet bones gleamed under the lantern, as if they'd been retrieved from a lake.

"Et solaciolum sui doloris,

credo, ut tum gravis adquiescat ardor..."

He picked up a bucket and, with a few broad, scooping motions of his arm, swept the littered bones into it, raining onto the metal with a series of loud clangs. The bucket thudded down onto the hard, stone flags. He strode to a basin of water, with a block of herb-speckled soap beside it, and scrubbed his hands. He patted them dry, went to a shelf, and retrieved a chest and a jar the size of his own torso. He hefted them to the table, where they landed heavily. He panted from the weight, but more out of habit than effort. The chest clinked open, empty. The jar popped. The smell of meat was drowned in the stinging scent of salt and black pepper. He poured the preservative powder from the jar into the chest to fill about a fifth. His humming grew in gusto. He laid out a layer of the glistening slices of meat on the bed of salt and pepper, then covered them in more salt. He laid out another layer of meat, and another of salt. He did it again and again, cycling through clockwork motions until all the meat was buried under sparkling crystals. He closed the chest and secured the latch. The salt rubbed into the creases in his palms and fingers and sapped them dry and pruned, so the skin tugged when he flexed them.

"Tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem

et tristis animi levare curas."

The last of his song ghosted over his lips. He picked up the bucket and went outside to burn the bones.

*

"Where are we going?" Sparrow asked playfully, tripping after Vestalia along the blood red carpets of the manor corridors, led like a kite by her gentle hold on his hand.

She threw a glittering look over her shoulder. "You'll see."

Sparrow threaded his fingers into hers and clung on, as her pace quickened, her motions smooth and fluid as molten glass. He couldn't feel a rhythm in her steps. She flowed through the halls, like smoke breathed by the draconic house. Her crimson, Jacquard gown billowed out behind her, the candles catching the shimmering, woven patterns with licks of red light. The gown hugged her torso, shaping her with a complex interlace of ribbon down her strong spine. It left her arms and shoulders completely bare, save for the jungle cascade of her dark hair tipped with tropical red.

She twisted to flash him a smile, her long canines glinting. "Hurry up, Carissime."

He obeyed thoughtlessly, bounding like a fawn, his body full of intrigue and lightness, dancing on the edge of laughter. He felt the eyes of the paintings following them, but they seemed to be watching with affection, the way old couples do young lovers.

They whipped around a sharp corner, rocking a marble plinth bearing a glistening, jet sculpture of Seline cradling the sleeping Endymion. Vestalia pulled Sparrow down a yawning corridor to an arched door, the edges of the wood panels dressed in gold. She finally turned to him, taking both of his hands and bathing him in her scarlet stare. Her smile enveloped him, like sunset. "Close your eyes."

Sparrow pouted. Who could close their eyes when looking at this?

She chuckled, it rumbled through him. "Don't be naughty. Close your eyes."

Sparrow's spine slinked on the word "naughty". He sucked on his lip. His eyes fluttered closed, the darkness stained with strawberry.

A soft tug on his hands. He drifted forward, guided by her through the creak and swish of the door. He stepped into a wash of scent quite unlike anything he had ever known. It reminded him of fresh, split wood and dry leather, of wandering into a forest long days after the last rains. But it was also something else. It was homey and perfumed. It gathered him in an embrace.

"Open."

Sparrow blinked, brightness flooded his eyes. When it cleared, he wondered if he still had them closed and had wandered into a vision.

A triptych of vast, arched windows with the curtains tied back poured misty, lavender twilight into the room, mixing like dye in water with the sparkling candlelight raining down from an enormous, ornate, golden chandelier. They were in a large, tall, hexagonal room, lined floor to ceiling with shelves and shelves of books. The spines shimmered in every colour and glittered with their gold inlaid titles, soaring up the walls, so looking up was like plummeting through a rainbow. The pages whispered with secrets. The density of wonders poured into Sparrow and whisked his breath away. And it wasn't just the books. The room was crowded with marvels; glass cases of artefacts, tables of delicate, brass instruments, globes the size of wagon wheels. A full suit of armour stood stalwart by the crackling hearth, metal hands clasped around a sword three quarters as long as Sparrow, with a hilt as broad as his hips. Blank, slit eyes glared at him in stoic challenge.

Vestalia let his hands go and watched him, as he stumbled forward into the library, his boots tapping on the shining, hardwood floor. He spread his arms and spun, beaming, the colours and scent whirling around him. He faced the dazzling chandelier. Its chain was held in the painted hand of a beautiful, young man adorning the ceiling, reclining in blue clouds and surrounded by women in flowing, translucent clothes. They played harps, brandished styli, and toyed with peculiar instruments, all of them with hair inlaid with gold. Sparrow stopped, dizzy from his spinning, and gazed up into the painted heavens through the veil of candles.

Vestalia eyed him, the light showering down over his small frame, playing in his hair and his joyful, innocent eyes. She trailed her fingers over her neck. "What do you think?"

Sparrow turned to her, stood almost on his toes with the eagerness to explore. "It's amazing!" he exclaimed. "I've never seen something like this!"

She smiled warmly, her porcelain cheeks tinging pink. "I'm so glad, my little one. I wanted to give you something special. It's been so lovely having you here this past few days."

Sparrow's eyes widened. "G-give?"

Vestalia cocked her head curiously. "Of course. Well, it's still my house, but you can come here whenever you like, you can take anything you like away, and..." She sneaked her fingers beneath the silk cupping her breasts and withdrew a small key with a pretty, filigree head. She sashayed to him, her half inch of height on him pronounced by her statuesque elegance. She took his hand tenderly and pressed the key into his palm, warm from being against her heart. "You can hide away here, should you ever need to."

Sparrow raised his eyebrows. "Hide? From what?"

She folded his fingers over the key and kissed his nose, his cheeks blushing. "I don't know. But I want you to feel you have a safe place."

Sparrow melted. He gazed into the ruby nebulas of her eyes, into the down softness of her expression and her body. He threw his arms around her and tumbled into that softness, hugging her so tight that he felt the press of her powerful muscles through the layer of her fat. He nuzzled into her shoulder, crushing his lips to the sweet spices flavour of her skin. She released a fountain of low, heated giggles that thrummed delightfully against him. She caught him up in her arms, running her hands over his back on the fine weave of his waistcoat.

"Thank you," Sparrow whispered, muffled on her shoulder.

For this. For everything.

"Nonsense," she whispered back. She eased him from her and turned him like clay on a wheel, looping her arms around his waist and holding him from behind, so he could gaze around the library once more.

He leaned back against her, her loose tumult of hair tickling his face, teasing him with her burned petal fragrance. He tilted his face and breathed it in, his torso expanding under her hands.

She stole the key from his hand and slipped it safe into his waistcoat pocket. She kissed his temple and spoke against it. "So, Passer, what sort of things do you like to read?"

"Oh..." That question hadn't occurred to Sparrow. He had been so excited to see the books as objects in themselves, he'd quite forgotten there was a skill to enjoying them. "I..." His voice shrank a little. "I can't actually read."

Vestalia's lips stopped petting around his cheek. She drew her head back and drummed her fingers on his belly button. "Oh, Sparrow, how foolish of me. I didn't think."

"No!" Sparrow squeaked. He spun hastily in her arms and hooked his wrists at the back of her neck to look at her with watery blue eyes. "It's wonderful here! I still want to look inside all of them, I bet they're beautiful. And all the other things in this room! What are they? Where did you get them? Do they have stories? Who's that on the ceiling? What's the oldest thing you have? What-"

She stopped him with a kiss. His words crumbled away and were lost in his hungry sigh, as she brought him to her mouth and tamed his busy tongue with hers. His body rushed, then slowed, his heart falling into the steady, hypnotic rhythm of her tongue. She broke their kiss, her lips still dusting over his, and whispered. "Let's show my treasure some treasures."

His heart leaped. She pulled away, enclosing one of his hands in both of hers, her fingers laden with gold and garnet rings and pressing on his skin. She pulled him into the complex of curiosities and couches, her voice rising and echoing in the cavernous space. "The painting on the ceiling is of Apollo and the Muses. He was the god of music and medicine. The Muses were all goddesses of the arts who gave inspiration and learning to humanity."

Sparrow looked up at the swirl of painted cloud and the flawless faces. "What were their names?"

"Oh, there were so many," Vestalia said. "Calliope, Clio, Erato, Thalia, Melpomene..."

"Beautiful."

She regarded him, like she was looking into a scrying bowl. "You like beauty, don't you?"

Sparrow grinned at her with meaning. She gave him an indulgent glance, lifted his hand and nipped his fingertip. She pulled him to the centre of the room. Laid into the floor, under a circular, glass panel, was the image of a sleek, black dog, with narrowed, almond eyes and a scarlet collar and lead, all made of tiny, clay tiles.

"It's a mosaic," Vestalia explained, her fingertips playing on his knuckles. "They were everywhere where I grew up, the whole floor would be a picture. You could walk on water in the kitchen and ride monsters in the bedroom." She squeezed his hand.

Sparrow stepped gingerly around the rim of the mosaic, imagining the dog lapping at his toes. Vestalia pulled him again, this time to the glass cases. Sparrow found himself in a labyrinth of prettiness and mystery. He slipped from her hand and began to flit between the displays, like a bee, his breath fogging the glass and his eyes popping.

Vestalia watched the cycle of awe and investigation on his delicate features, like an otter trying to crack oysters open and guzzling them down when he succeeded. She followed him with a smile, guiding him through the objects, Sparrow torn between the bardic flare on her face and the collection behind the windows. He didn't know which fascinated him more. Actually, he did.

She showed him paper shadow puppets, brightly painted tarot cards, jade amulets, lapis lazuli scarab beetles, pressed plumeria garlands, filigree eggs, a rose spun from coloured glass, tiny mechanical dancers that wound up at the back and pirouetted in tight circles with ticking movements to tinkling music, and a human skull carved with dizzying symbols. Each one felt like a doorway to a new world, and each new world appeared vividly around him, as Vestalia wove tales of daring and adventure and wonder and romance. She dove in and out of stories and memories like a dolphin through the waves. She danced how she had for the King of Spain. She drew a glinting rapier and chased him as she had the villainous Marquis d'Airoux. She hid behind a Noh mask and tickled him with a flamingo feather. She traced the Mehndi patterns she'd learned in India on his palms with her fingertip. She wrapped his hair in a tignon from New Orleans, then made him spin dizzy and giggling out of it and neatened his waves with a long-tined, elaborately carved comb from the Pacific. Every object brought with it a new excuse to touch or tease him, to lure him into another game or trick or opportunity to praise her.

Sparrow's body hummed like a magnet. He kept drifting close to her, sinking into her voice and her touch, a pang in his chest every time she sprang away for some dramatic gesture. The energy the library gave her was intoxicating. Her sultry sophistication turned to flamboyance and flippancy, the great weight of all her experiences incongruous with the girlish glee with which she recounted them. His amazement seemed to stoke that in her, her exuberance growing with every gasp and clap and peal of laughter.

She hurled him to the books and flurried about them like a tornado, skittering up and down the ladders. She weighed his arms down with volume after volume, opening the broad, creamy pages onto vibrant illustrations and diagrams that seemed to stir to life, as her fingers danced about them, indicating bouquets of luscious detail. Each one was a treasure chest, overflowing with more wonders that whipped Sparrow's imagination into a tornado. She was always there, in everything he imagined, pulling him deeper into the fantasies.

He had always known his corner of the world was small, but he could never have dreamed how big the outside really was. Lives upon lives, cultures upon cultures, histories upon histories, and Vestalia seemed to have them all at her fingertips, like she was the thread that stitched them all together. Each time he looked at her face, he saw another mask - the courtesan, the pirate, the artist, the magician, the explorer, the aristocrat, the philosopher. She played a different role in every story. Listening to her was like peeling back the petals on a rose and finding yet more underneath.

"You must have barely spent a moment off the sea, you've been so many places," he said eventually, eyes alight.

Vestalia laughed and swung leisurely off the ladder she was on. She swept to his side and trailed her fingers over his ass. "Life is long, it just feels short because it's so difficult not to waste it."

Her eyes shone so bright they stung him. His heart brimmed. He kissed her, their lips meeting softly, sensuously, slowly.

He almost toppled when she drew away and led him by the hand, saying, "Let me show you something else."

She took him to the huge globe, carved in wood and inlaid and varnished to create an array of sepia colours, etched with precise, mathematical measurements and tangled, physical details. Her finger landed on a mountain range. "Guess what I'm pointing to."

Sparrow grinned and spread his hands.

"It's us."