The mention of Benjamin’s name made my blood run cold. Matthew did have a son of that name.
He was a terrifying creature, one whose madness was of unfathomable depth.
Phoebe unrolled another scroll. This genealogy looked ancient, too, though not quite as old as the one we’d all been studying. She frowned.
“This looks to be from a century later.” Phoebe put the parchment on the table. “There’s no erasure on this one and no mention of a Benjamin either. He just disappears without a trace.”
“Who’s Benjamin?” asked Marcus, though I couldn’t imagine why. Surely he must know the identities of Matthew’s other children.
“Benjamin does not exist.” Ysabeau’s expression was guarded, and she had chosen her words carefully. My brain tried to process the implications of Marcus’s question and Ysabeau’s odd response. If Matthew’s son didn’t know about Benjamin . . .
“Is that why his name is erased?” Phoebe asked. “Did someone make a mistake?”
“Yes, he was a mistake,” Matthew said, his voice hollow.
“And Benjamin does exist,” I said, meeting Matthew’s gray-green eyes. They were shuttered and remote. “I met him in sixteenth-century Prague.”
“Is he alive now?” Hamish asked.
“I don’t know. I thought he was dead shortly after I made him in the twelfth century,” Matthew replied. “Hundreds of years later, Philippe heard of someone who fit Benjamin’s description, but he dropped out of sight again before we could be sure. There were rumors of Benjamin in the nineteenth century, but I never saw any proof.”
“I don’t understand,” Marcus said. “Even if he’s dead, Benjamin should still appear in the genealogy.”
“I disavowed him. So did Philippe.” Matthew closed his eyes rather than meet our curious looks.
“Just as a creature can be made part of your family with a blood vow, he can be formally cast out to fend for himself without family or the protection of vampire law. You know how important a pedigree is among vampires, Marcus. Not having an acknowledged bloodline is as serious a stain among vampires as being spellbound is for witches.”
It was becoming clearer to me why Baldwin might not want me included in the de Clermont family tree as one of Philippe’s children.
“So Benjamin is dead,” Hamish said. “Legally at least.”
“And the dead sometimes rise up to haunt us,” Ysabeau murmured, earning a dark look from her son.
“I can’t imagine what Benjamin did to make you turn away from your own blood, Matthew.”
Marcus still sounded confused. “I was a holy terror in my early years, and you didn’t abandon me.”
“Benjamin was one of the German crusaders who marched with Count Emicho’s army toward the Holy Land. When they were beaten in Hungary, he joined up with my brother Godfrey’s forces,”
Matthew began. “Benjamin’s mother was the daughter of a prominent merchant in the Levant, and he had learned some Hebrew and even Arabic because of the family’s business operations. He was a valuable ally—at first.”
“So Benjamin was Godfrey’s son?” Sarah asked.
“No,” Matthew replied. “He was mine. Benjamin began to trade in de Clermont family secrets. He swore he would expose the existence of creatures—not just vampires but witches and daemons—to the humans in Jerusalem, along with the information that I was afflicted with blood rage. Making him a vampire was the only way I could ensure his silence.”
“Blood rage?” Marcus looked at his father incredulously. “That’s impossible. It turns you into a cold-blooded killer, without reason or compassion. There hasn’t been a case of it for nearly two millennia. You told me so yourself.”