The Vampire Prince of Iberia

Chapter 1

Crown Prince Affonso was sitting in his chamber, reading a very interesting book about history. Or was it mythology? It was hard to tell fact from fiction. 

Lately, he had been having recurring dreams of a ghostly woman, naked and covered in blood.  One warm and sleepless night he had felt drawn by some force to a hidden corner of the palace library. He had found himself reaching for a seemingly unremarkable tome, its plain leather cover offering no clue to its contents or who wrote it. For some inexplicable reason Affonso felt drawn to find out what knowledge it contained.

In the year 1391, there was a horrible massacre. Across Iberia,  men, women and children died in an orgy of rape and murder. An archbishop named Martinez incited crowds to violence with frenzied, hate-filled preaching. Some people claimed Archbishop Martinez had been possessed by a demon. Witnesses said amongst the chaos and violence they saw the ghostly figure of a naked woman. Sightings were reported many miles apart in different towns and cities seemingly at the same time. 

The words were enough to deeply shock the Prince, because this was clearly blasphemy, and at first Affonso had shut the book and tossed it away. He thought to himself, 'I could get into trouble if someone catches me reading this.' On the other hand, now he thought about it, his tutor had actually told him about this event.   But the old man had described it as a straightforward religious dispute, surely sad for those involved, but nothing to do with the supernatural. 

Who could have written this book, Affonso wondered. Most histories were written by learned monks, but clearly, no man of God could have put these words to paper. Strangest of all was the book's final page, written in a language and script Affonso had never learned, but somehow found he could understand. 

The demon known as Lilith was first mentioned in historical records over 4,000 years ago. According to some traditions Lilith was the first wife of Adam, the first Man. Lilith was cast out of the Garden of Eden for refusing to submit to her husband. In this account Lilith had her revenge by taking all the other Angels as lovers. Feeding off the life force of others, Lilith gained immortality, and became a great mother of vampires and lesser demons. Lilith grows bored of petty civil wars and minor intrigues involving a death here or there and wishes to bring chaos to the world.

A chilling jolt of fear had coursed down Affonso's spine and settled in his stomach. It troubled him to realize that the Massacre described in the strange book happened almost exactly one hundred years ago. In fact he had heard that some of the people wished to hold remembrances for the dead on the hundredth anniversary coming up in a few weeks' time. Yet he found he was paralyzed by what he had read and unable to tell anyone, not even his closest confidant - his mother, about the grim passage.

The book had pictures too, beautiful hand-drawn illustrations that he found himself studying for hours on end. 

Outside the Prince's chamber, the servants were worried.

'Tell Prince Affonso his father is calling for him,' the King's chamberlain said to a nervous-looking page. The man bowed, and made his way to the quarters of the Prince. He knocked tentatively on the hard wooden door of the Prince's chamber.

'Go away!' came the answer.

'Your Highness, the King is requesting you accompany him on the hunt,' the page pleaded.

Silence. Prince Affonso seemed to be considering his response.

It had not been an easy life for Affonso, now aged sixteen and heir to the throne. When he was just a child a marriage had been arranged for him, his bride to be older but herself only ten years old to his five. Affonso had first met Isabelle when he was five and she ten years old. The two children had lived close by to each other for two years, with Affonso's grandmother in the town of Moura. Then they separated, going their own ways but meeting on occasion up until their marriage just after his fifteenth birthday.