Lestat only broke into another fit of chuckling and laughing.
âSheer nonsense,â he said. âYou and your members were afraid. You never came near St. Elizabethâs night or day because you were plainly afraid of the ancient ones among us who could have put out your light like a match. You were afraid too of the rogue vampires who came prowling, the ones who wouldnât respect the name Talamasca enough to give you a wide berth. As for the daylight hours, you had no clue what youâd findâwhat high-paid thugs might have terminated you and buried you under the concrete basement floor. It was a purely practical matter.â
Stirling narrowed his eyes. âYes, we did have to be careful,â he conceded. âNevertheless, there were timesâ.â
âFoolishness,â said Lestat. âIn point of pure fact, my infamous sleep ended before your declaration of war on us was made. And what if I did show myself sitting âvery boldlyâ in the Café du Monde! How dare you use the word âboldlyâ? You imply I donât have the right!â
âYou feed on your fellow human beings,â said Stirling calmly. âHave you seriously forgotten that?â
I was frantic. Only the smile on Lestatâs face reassured me that Stirling wasnât headed for certain death.
âNo, I never forget what I do,â said Lestat equably. âBut surely you donât mean to take on the whole question of what I do now for my own survival! And you must remember, Iâm not a human beingâfar from it, and farther from it with every passing adventure and every passing year. Iâve been to Heaven and to Hell; let me ask you to remember that.â
Lestat paused as though he himself were remembering this, and Stirling tried to answer but plainly could not. Lestat pressed on in a measured voice:
âIâve been in a human body and recovered this body you see before you. Iâve been the consort of a creature whom others called a goddess. And yes, I feed off my fellow human beings because itâs my nature, and you know it, and you know what care I take with every mortal morsel, that it be tainted and vicious and unfit for human life. The point I was trying to make is that your declaration against us was ill conceived.â
âI agree with you; it was a foolish Declaration of Enmity. It should never have been put forth.â
âDeclaration of Enmity, is that what you called it?â Lestat asked.
âI think those are the official words,â said Stirling. âWeâve always been an authoritarian order. In fact, we donât know much about democracy at all. When I spoke of my vote, I was speaking of a symbolic voice rather than a literal one. Declaration of Enmity, yes, those were the words. It was a rather misguided and naive thing.â
âAh, misguided and naive,â Lestat repeated. âI like that. And it might do you good, all of you in the Talamasca, to remember that youâre a pretentious bunch of meddlers, and your Elders are no better than the rest of you.â
Stirling seemed to be relaxing, mildly fascinated, but I couldnât relax. I was too afraid of what might happen at any moment.
âI have a theory about the Declaration of Enmity,â Stirling said.
âWhich is?â asked Lestat.
âI think the Elders thought in their venerable minds, and God knows, I donât really know their venerable minds, that the Declaration would bring certain of our members back to us who had been inducted into your ranks.â
âOh, thatâs lovely.â Lestat laughed. âWhy are you mincing words like this? Is it on account of the boy?â
âYes, perhaps I mince words because of him,â Stirling answered, âbut honestly, we members of the Talamasca think in language such as this.â
âWell, for your records and your files,â Lestat said, âwe donât have ranks.