A week passed and I began to wonder if I would ever set eyes upon Lestat again. Despite the constant bickering with my father and the usual day to day events, I found that I could think of nothing else. I wanted desperately to go to him and hear his tale of the battle with the wolves yet something held me back. Nothing would have thrilled my father more than to see me develop a friendship with the local royalty and for that reason alone, I nearly dropped the idea altogether. Ah, but how could I resist him?

I was on my way to my father’s shop when I saw him coming down the road. He was a vision in red velvet and fur. He didn’t notice me and for a moment I just stood and watched as he made his way to the Inn. If it hadn’t been for the tattered rags he was wearing underneath the cloak he might have actually looked like the royalty he was born to be. His head was held high as the cold wind whipped his golden hair about his face. Everything about him exuded pride and confidence. Whether or not it was a thing that he truly felt, Lestat was certainly something extraordinary. I knew that if I didn’t act now, the opportunity to speak with him and to know him would easily be lost. I could have walked away right then and denied my father the satisfaction this encounter would bring but instead I followed him to the Inn, in fact I ran all the way there, yanked open the heavy wooden door and threw myself inside.

The room was small and dingy. It smelled of smoke and wine. My eyes passed over a familiar face or two before locking onto Lestat who had just sat down with a full bottle of wine and was pouring himself a glass. I bowed politely and waited for him to invite me to sit down. Immediately I leaned forward and blurted out, "What was it like, Monsieur, killing the wolves?" I didn’t care how rude it was to accost him with such a question before even breathing a word of greeting. I folded my arms on the table and stared at him, eagerly awaiting his response. My enthusiasm to hear him tell the tale was impossible to hide.

He slid the bottle towards me glancing up from the wine that captured his attention. Smouldering grey eyes perfectly reflected the flames that danced within the hearth, and when they fixed upon mine I was awestruck once again. He eyed me with an expression of absolute wonder and curiosity then his full lips curved into a knowing smile. It was as though nothing else in the world could fascinate him more than I did. His unbounded exhilaration seemed to match and almost surpass my own.

He wanted to know about Paris. He spoke of it as if it were some far away, mystical place that he would never have the pleasure of seeing for himself. He wanted to know what people did and talked about there. I laughed softly at his persistent questioning. I knew Paris. I had even attended school there before I gave it all up for love of my music. I could understand the allure but I had never felt it myself. Paris was a thorn in my side. My father had sent me there to make something of myself so I came to hate the city as much as I despised him. For a short while, I had played the part of the ideal student and the perfect son. I smiled and chatted at the salons, danced at the balls and tried to immerse myself in it. Perhaps there was a part of me that embraced the experience but Paris soon became nothing more than a catalyst to my ultimate failure.

Before Lestat had a chance to protest I had requested a room upstairs and ordered supper for us both, not to mention a few more bottles of wine. The small wooden room was warm and welcoming despite its sparse furnishings. The wind howled outside. I could see the snow blowing against the thick glass of the window, but the small fire provided plenty of warmth as we talked.

I found it difficult to keep up my cynicism. His enthusiasm was wonderfully contagious! I described everything to him as best as I could and he hung on my every word. The wine combined with his fervent curiosity fuelled my words and after so much talk I was amazed that I still had any stories left to tell. My life was hardly as exciting as it seemed.

"I’ll tell you," I said, "it all sounds a hell of a lot better in this room than it really is."

He encouraged me in a vain attempt to hear more about this city of his dreams, but there was nothing more to tell. A few more glasses of wine and our conversation took another turn.

It was as clear to me as it was to the rest of the village, that Lestat did not come from a religious family. Abandonment of god and the church was the latest trend in Paris but Lestat had not forsaken god. He had never believed to begin with. I had lost my own faith. Religion had always given my life an invisible significance, and without it I was left numb and angry. Knowing that Lestat would never have to suffer such a loss brought a sudden bitter taste to my mouth.

"Do you remember the story of the witches?" I asked pinpointing the tender spot, "The time you cried at the witches’ place."

He had a distant look in his eyes, almost as if he were trying to block out the memory. Maliciously, I stabbed a little more at this wound from the past, unearthing the memory of the priest and the ashes. The sudden pained expression on Lestat’s face told me that he remembered the incident all too well. I had been too young then to understand why he had been so frantic. My mother had told me that the witches were devilish creatures who transformed themselves into wolves in the midnight hour to stalk the cities killing sheep and children. She explained that the burning of the witches had been God’s will. I had accepted her words as blindly as my lost Catholic faith.

"And won't the world be better if no one is ever again burnt in the name of God?" I mustered only a weak smile in response. His voice brought me back to the present moment and I suddenly felt awful for resurrecting such terrible memories. Who was I to selfishly want him to share in my disillusion? Maybe I wanted him to feel just a little bit of my pain or perhaps my remark was driven by envy.

I couldn’t bear it. I affected a frown and leaned forward. Perhaps he had been wounded by the wolves on the mountain and would soon turn into a werewolf. The sound of his drunken laughter at my joke eased my guilt a little. He had such splendid and fantastical ideas in his head. The enthusiasm pouring forth in his words was so intoxicating that I could not hold back any longer. I reached out, pulled him close and kissed him. The wine tasted sweet on his lips.

I was blissfully drunk and suddenly found myself overwhelmed by a desire for him that was stronger than anything I had ever felt before. "My lord, the Wolf killer," I whispered in his ear before I fell back into my chair. I had never experienced a connection like this with another soul. It was as if we were of one mind each understanding what the other was saying and feeling.

Then he asked me to fetch my violin. The warmth of the little room welcomed me back upon my return, like a fond embrace shielding me from the winter’s chill. I plucked at the strings for a moment, twisting the pegs to tune the old instrument as best as I could in my present inebriated state. I put it to my chin, the bow poised over the strings, and glanced at Lestat with an awkward grin before ripping into song. I was so light headed that I haven’t the vaguest idea how I played the intended notes. My eyes closed tightly, I was a slave to the music which led me wherever it desired.

When the song came to a close I realised that Lestat was gripping the sides of his head, staring at me wide eyed. I moved closer, unable to understand what was wrong, and he stood up and threw his arms around me, kissing my cheeks. He placed his hands on mine to raise the violin to his lips and kiss its polished wood surface as well. In seconds he was back on the bed, his face hidden under the dirty fabric of his shirt. I was completely dumbfounded! He was sobbing so hard that his entire body trembled with the force of it. I carelessly dropped the violin to the floor and sat down beside him. I could hardly believe that my music had stirred such profound emotion in him.

We did not speak of it again. What could really be said? Instead, we drank more wine and talked softly until our words became slurred and nothing we said made any sense or needed to.