A Sharpness On The Neck (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 9) by Fred Saberhagen (book suggestions TXT) 📕

whenever the conversation touched on her personal life. When pressed, she said she had been away to school, but seemed reluctant to provide any details.

      “So,” said Philip, drawing a deep breath and ready to try again. “Now you’ve heard all about me. I do believe I’ve told, my entire life story several times over in the course of the night. And I’ve learned from you all about the state of things in France—and about what’s happened to your father. But it would please me to hear of happier days—how you spent your time before the great upheaval. How long did we decide it must be since we last saw each other—? Yes, eighteen years. I’m twenty-five now, and you’re—twenty-four? Of course. So we must have been about seven and six when we last played together.”

      “Yes, 1776—that was a big year for revolutions,” Melanie commented, smiling. Her companion could not help noticing that she had once more evaded the question.

      When he continued watching her in silence, she added: “My life would make a dull story, I’m afraid—until the Revolution started. Since then all lives in France have been exciting.” She mentioned that she had spent some time working with her father, the physician. “Until he was arrested.”

      “I am really so sorry, Mellie.” The old childhood nickname had come back effortlessly. “I remember the good doctor well. At least I think I do.”

      Again she sipped her wine. She had consumed several glasses over the course of a whole night, and so had he, though not enough to have had any noticeable effect on either party.

      Melanie, while visiting in the village yesterday, and at her wits’ end as to where to turn next, had heard that someone was occupying the house again. One reason for her visit had been to warn whomever had come here against the local republicans, or Jacobins, who committed desultory acts of terror.

      From the moment she had heard of the reported stranger, she said now, she had wondered whether he might possibly be her old playmate.

      She had driven out from town in her father’s light carriage. Greeting her at the door, Radcliffe had at first not recognized her—nor she him.

      “Yes, Mademoiselle, how may I be of service?”

      “To begin with, it will be safer for you to call me citoyenne—but stay, M’sieu, have we perhaps met before?”

      The couple had spent the night in each other’s company, under conditions of deepening intimacy, though as yet there had been only casual physical contact between them after a kiss of greeting at the moment of recognition. They were beginning to fall for each other in a serious way. They had, as it turned out, a very great deal to talk about.

* * *

      “And what do they say that you must do, this local Commune, or Committee—or whatever is the latest name they give themselves?”

      “They call themselves the Committee of Public Safety, having adopted the same title as the men in Paris who last year proclaimed themselves our new masters. You will be wise to treat these local people with politeness when you meet them, but here they have nothing like the power of Robespierre and his gang in the city.”

      She was looking out the window again. “It appears that we are going to have a visitor.”

* * *

      Vlad Dracula, dragging himself along, struggling to stay on his feet—more than once slipping to his knees and fighting his way erect again—had almost reached the house. This would have been the moment for dogs to rush out barking, but it seemed there were no dogs. If they had come, he was ready, thinking he still had the power to quiet them.

      The harried fugitive, staggering with fatigue and loss of blood, had fallen from sheer weakness several times during the last half hour. He knew that he would not survive the first minute of full sunlight under these conditions, not even the slanting, early morning rays; such shelter as he might find under a tree or in a hedgerow was not going to be enough in his condition.

      Seen at close range, the building’s dilapidation was all the more apparent. Obviously the house had been neglected over a period of years, but it had not deteriorated to such a degree that a man could expect to find a hole large enough to climb through. As far as the visitor could see from where he tottered, doors and window shutters remained intact.

      When he saw a trace of smoke rising from the chimney, he knew that some chance existed that he might be invited in.

      It was not in his nature to give up. He approached and knocked on the door.

* * *

      Inside the house, Radcliffe had earlier seen to it that his primitive firearms and other weapons were loaded, and was keeping them within reach. His armament included two pistols which Old Jules had kept hidden away, so they had not yet been confiscated by any Citizens’ Committee of Public Safety.

      Philip now checked the pistols’ flints and made sure the weapons were loaded and primed. The couple looked at each other, and exchanged whispers. This could very likely be the rural sans-culottes.

      Holding a loaded pistol in each hand, Radcliffe called out: “Who’s there?”

      Old Jules had awakened and was standing beside the door, watching Radcliffe for instructions while gripping an ancient sword.

      Melanie on hearing a knock at the door had calmly hefted one of the big meat knives racked in the old stone kitchen.

      The male voice from outside sounded weak but clear. “Only a hunter. I am lost, and seeking shelter.”

* * *

      In the east, to which I had my back, I could now sense the sky-glare brightening relentlessly, belaboring my senses with its urgent warning. Behind that silent augury there burned the unshielded furnace-fury of the Sun, relentlessly advancing just beneath the shoulder of the slow-spinning Earth, ready to sear and blast my life away.

      Radcliffe put down one pistol to open a small judas hole in the door. “Who’s there?” he