As for the supposed 'princess' of my dreams: where was she? One filthy bundle huddled to the fire looked much like the next to me. It annoyed me that my dreams had lied to me; I felt that I had failed in my oneiromancy; I hated failure, especially in myself.

So I stood and gloomed over these dregs a while, and finally asked, 'Which one of you is Grigor Zirra?'

He stood up: a nothing, a wisp, pale from the snow and his suffering, the loss of his people. He was not old, but neither did he look young. There had been strength in his leanness once, but now it looked washed out of him. Unlike myself, he was entirely human, and he had lost much.

'I am the Ferenczy,' I told him. "This is my castle. The people about are my people, Szgany like yourself. For the time being it pleases me to give you shelter. But I have heard there is an observer of times among you, and it also pleases me to contemplate such mysteries. Where is this witch - or wizard?'

'Your hospitality is vast as your legend,' he answered. 'Alas that in my sorrow I cannot more fully declare my appreciation. For something of me died this day. She was my wife, swept from the cliff. Now I have only a daughter, a child, who reads the future in the stars, in the palm of your hand, and in her dreams. She is no witch, lord, but a true observer of times, my Marilena, of whom you have heard.'

'And where is she?'

He looked at me and there was fear in his eyes. But I felt a tug at the sleeve of my robe, and started that someone dared touch me. None of my own had laid finger on me unbidden since the day I rose up from my sickbed! I looked and saw one of the rag bundles risen to its feet to stand beside me ... its eyes were huge, dark beneath a fur hood ... its hair was all black ringlets, spilling about a heart-shaped face ... its lips were the colour of cherries, bright as blood. And upon my arm her tiny hand, whose fingers numbered only three, as I had seen them in my dreams!

'I am Marilena, lord,' she said. 'Forgive my father, for he loves and fears for me; there are some in the land distrustful of mysteries they cannot fathom, and unkind to certain women whom they term "witches".'

My heart felt staggered! She could be none other! I knew the voice! I saw through all her clothes to the very princess of my dreams, knowing that what was in there was a wonder. And: 'I ... know you,' I said, my voice choked.

'And I you, lord. I have seen you in my future. Often. You are in no wise a stranger!'

I had no words. Or if I had they were stuck in my throat. But... I was the Ferenczy! Should I dance, laugh out loud, pick her up and whirl her all about? Oh, I wanted to, but I could not reveal my emotions. I stood there thunderstruck, like a great fool, frozen, until she came to my rescue:

'If you would have me read for you, lord, then take me aside from here. Here my concentration suffers, for there is much sadness - aye, and various comings and goings, and likewise much fuss and to-do - oh, and many small matters to interfere with my scrying. A private place would be to some advantage.'

Oh? Indeed it would! 'Come with me,' I said.

'Lord!' her father stopped us. 'She is innocent!' The last word was spoken on a rising note - of pleading, perhaps? My nature was not unknown among the Szgany.

But... didn't he know his own daughter? It was in my mind to say to him: 'Lying Gypsy dog! What, this one, innocent? Man, she has licked my entire body clean as if bathed! I have fired my fluids into her throat every night for a month from the coaxing of her tongue and tiny, three-fingered hands! Innocent? If she is innocent then so am I!' Ah, but how could I say these things? For the fact of it was that I had only ever dreamed my love affair with Marilena.

Again she rescued me:

'Father!' she rebuked him before I could more than pierce him with my eyes. 'I have seen what will be. For me the future is, father, and I have read no harm in it. Not at the hands of the Ferenczy.'

He had seen my look, however, and knew how far he strained my hospitality. 'Forgive me, lord,' he said, lowering his head. 'Instead of speaking as a man sorely in your debt, I spoke only as a father. My daughter is only seventeen and we are fallen among strangers. The Zirras have lost enough this day. Ah! Ah! I meant nothing by that! But do you see? I trip over my own tongue even now! It is the grief. My mind is stricken. I meant nothing. It is the grief!' And sobbing he collapsed.

I stooped a little and put my hand on his head. 'Be at your ease. He who harms you or yours in the house of the Ferenczy answers to me.' And then I led her to my quarters...

Once there, alone, where none dared disturb, I lifted off her coat of furs until she stood in a peasant dress. Now she looked even more like the princess I knew, but not enough. My eyes burned on her, burned for the sight of her. And she knew it.

'How can this be?' she said, full of wonder. 'I truly know you! Never were my dreams more potent!'

'You are right,' I said. 'We are not... strangers. We have shared the same dreams.'

'You have great scars,' she said, 'here on your arm, and here in your side.' And even I, the Ferenczy, trembled where she touched me.

'And you,' I told her, 'have a tiny red mole, like a single tear of blood, in the centre of your back...'

Beside my fire, which roared into a great chimney, there stood a stone trough for bathing. Over the fire, a mighty cauldron of water added steam to the smoke. She went to the tripod and turned the gear, pouring water into the trough. She knew how to do it from her dreams. 'I am unclean from the journey,' she explained, 'and rough from the snows.'

She stripped and I bathed her, and then she bathed me. 'And how is this for a private reading?' I chuckled. But as I opened her and went to slip inside:

'Ah!' she gasped. 'But our mutual dreams took no account of my inexperience. My father told the truth, lord. The future is closing fast, be sure, but I am still a virgin!'

Ah!' I answered her, moan for moan, the while gentling my way inside. 'But weren't we all, once upon a time?'

How my vampire raged within me then, but I held him back and loved her only as a man. Else the first time were surely her last...

Now let me make it plain. What had happened was this:

As much out of idle curiosity as for any other reason, in my oneiromantic dreams I had sought Marilena out, become enamoured of her and seduced her. Or we had seduced each other.

But (you will ask), how could she, a child, inexperienced, seduce me? And I will answer: because dreams are safe! Whatever happens in one's dreams, nothing is changed upon awakening. She could indulge all her sexual fantasies without reaping the reward of such indulgence. And (you will also ask), how could I, Faethor Ferenczy, even asleep and dreaming, be anything less than Wamphyri? Ah, but I was a dreamer long before I became a vampire! Indeed, I was once a mere man! The things which had troubled me in my youth still occasionally troubled me in my sleep: the old fears, the old emotions and passions.

I am sure my meaning is not lost: all of us know that long after an experience has waned to insignificance in the waking world, we may still review it afresh in our dreams, with as much apprehension - or excitement - as we did when it was new. In my dreams, for example, I was still wont to remember the time of my own conversion, when I had received my father's egg and so been made a vampire. Aye, and such dreams as those still horrified me! But in the cold light of day that horror was quickly forgotten, lost in the grey mist of time where it belonged, and I was no stripling lad but the Ferenczy again.

The meeting of Marilena's dreams with mine had been more than mere chance, however: I had sought her out, and found her. And once insinuated into her dreams, I had dreamed (as any man might) of knowing her carnally. And again I say, these were not simple dreams! I had Wamphyri powers and she was a prognosticator. These were talents akin to telepathy. We had in fact shared each other's dreams, and through them known each other's bodies.