A Discovery of Witches(62)

“Smell it,” he commanded, handing me one of the glasses, “and tell me what you think.”

I took a sniff and gasped. “It smells like caramels and berries,” I said, wondering how something so yellow could smell of something red.

Matthew was watching me closely, interested in my reactions. “Take a sip,” he suggested.

The wine’s sweet flavors exploded in my mouth. Apricots and vanilla custard from the kitchen ladies tumbled across my tongue, and my mouth tingled with them long after I’d swallowed. It was like drinking magic.

“What is this?” I finally said, after the taste of the wine had faded.

“It was made from grapes picked a long, long time ago. That summer had been hot and sunny, and the farmers worried that the rains were going to come and ruin the crop. But the weather held, and they got the grapes in just before the weather changed.”

“You can taste the sunshine,” I said, earning myself another beautiful smile.

“During the harvest a comet blazed over the vineyards. It had been visible through astronomers’ telescopes for months, but in October it was so bright you could almost read by its light. The workers saw it as a sign that the grapes were blessed.”

“Was this in 1986? Was it Halley’s comet?”

Matthew shook his head. “No. It was 1811.” I stared in astonishment at the almost two-hundred-year-old wine in my glass, fearing it might evaporate before my eyes. “Halley’s comet came in 1759 and 1835.” He pronounced the name “Hawley.”

“Where did you get it?” The wine store by the train station did not have wine like this.

“I bought it from Antoine-Marie as soon as he told me it was going to be extraordinary,” he said with amusement.

Turning the bottle, I looked at the label. Chateau Yquem. Even I had heard of that.

“And you’ve had it ever since,” I said. He’d drunk chocolate in Paris in 1615 and received a building permit from Henry VIII in 1536—of course he was buying wine in 1811. And there was the ancient-looking ampulla he was wearing around his neck, the cord visible at his throat.

“Matthew,” I said slowly, watching him for any early warning signs of anger. “How old are you?”

His mouth hardened, but he kept his voice light. “I’m older than I look.”

“I know that,” I said, unable to curb my impatience.

“Why is my age important?”

“I’m a historian. If somebody tells me he remembers when chocolate was introduced into France or a comet passing overhead in 1811, it’s difficult not to be curious about the other events he might have lived through. You were alive in 1536—I’ve been to the house you had built. Did you know Machiavelli? Live through the Black Death? Attend the University of Paris when Abelard was teaching there?”

He remained silent. The hair on the back of my neck started to prickle.

“Your pilgrim’s badge tells me you were once in the Holy Land. Did you go on crusade? See Halley’s comet pass over Normandy in 1066?”

Still nothing.

“Watch Charlemagne’s coronation? Survive the fall of Carthage? Help keep Attila from reaching Rome?”

Matthew held up his right index finger. “Which fall of Carthage?”

“You tell me!”

“Damn you, Hamish Osborne,” he muttered, his hand flexing on the tablecloth. For the second time in two days, Matthew struggled over what to say. He stared into the candle, drawing his finger slowly through the flame. His flesh erupted into angry red blisters, then smoothed itself out into white, cold perfection an instant later without a flicker of pain evident on his face.

“I believe that my body is nearly thirty-seven years of age. I was born around the time Clovis converted to Christianity. My parents remembered that, or I’d have no idea. We didn’t keep track of birthdays back then. It’s tidier to pick the date of five hundred and be done with it.” He looked up at me, briefly, and returned his attention to the candles. “I was reborn a vampire in 537, and with the exception of Attila—who was before my time—you’ve touched on most of the high and low points in the millennium between then and the year I put the keystone into my house in Woodstock. Because you’re a historian, I feel obligated to tell you that Machiavelli was not nearly as impressive as you all seem to think he was. He was just a Florentine politician—and not a terribly good one at that.” A note of weariness had crept into his voice.

Matthew Clairmont was more than fifteen hundred years old.

“I shouldn’t pry,” I said by way of apology, unsure of where to look and mystified as to what had led me to think that knowing the historical events this vampire had lived through would help me know him better. A line from Ben Jonson floated into my mind. It seemed to explain Matthew in a way that the coronation of Charlemagne could not. “‘He was not of an age, but for all time,’” I murmured.

“‘With thee conversing I forget all time,’” he responded, traveling further into seventeenth-century literature and offering up a line from Milton.

We looked at each other for as long as we could stand it, working another fragile spell between us. I broke it.

“What were you doing in the fall of 1859?”

His face darkened. “What has Peter Knox been telling you?”