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

for the moment. I want to know all there is to discover about an American named Philip Radcliffe and a young Frenchwoman, Melanie Romain.”

* * *

      Radu the Handsome considered it prudent to invent yet another new identity for himself, to use when he chose to walk among breathers as one of them. He changed his residence as well, moving to humbler quarters though he still remained within the city.

      And now, for the first time in several years, he seriously considered abandoning France, even Europe, altogether. He pictured himself fleeing, to America, or the South Seas, some land in the remotest corner of the earth. Vlad would not kill him; no, Radu felt confident of that when he thought about it calmly. But Vlad was quite capable of inflicting truly terrible punishments, indeed was ingenious at devising them. The thought of another century of nightmares was enough to make Radu feel faint. Yet he never considered abandoning his schemes against Vlad; it was as if he really had no choice.

* * *

      Then Radu heard, through one of his revolutionary contacts, that Philip Radcliffe, an American who was supposedly of an aristocratic family, heir to the very manor in which Vlad had taken shelter, had been arrested at the orders of the Committee of Public Safety.

      Radcliffe was being held in prison, and had already gone through a form of trial on charges of being an aristocrat—there seemed no doubt of that, given his mother’s family. He was also charged with plotting, a vague but generally effective accusation.

      Radu’s informant shook her head and muttered: “They say that he is Franklin’s bastard son, but I doubt that will be enough to save him.”

      Radu continued to find out all he could about the condemned suspect Radcliffe.

* * * * * *

      Knowing Vlad as well as he did, Radu was not slow to assume that Vlad considered himself bound in honor to save Radcliffe.

      The younger brother thought: “Surely I can turn that to my advantage somehow.”

      The more the younger vampire thought about this news, the more it seemed to open a great opportunity. Now the scheming younger brother determined to lure Vlad into a trap, force him to fail in something he had sworn to do, and possibly engineer his death. He knew how his elder brother driveled on and on about what he conceived of as his honor.

      The first step was to make sure that young Radcliffe was indeed sentenced to death, despite any connection that might be shown to exist between the young man and Benjamin Franklin, and/or Tom Paine.

* * *

      For his activities as far back as the 10th of August of 1792, and at a number of other times and places, Radu in one of his identities as a breathing Frenchman had even attained some minor status as a Revolutionary hero and leader. The hero had not been heard of for some time, and was now thought to be dead.

      That was fine with Radu. Of course no vampire wanted to be subject to the intense scrutiny of a breathing public. More than very moderate success, in any breathers’ enterprise, could draw a dangerous amount of attention to oneself, and awaken jealousy in potential rivals. Better to play the role of an almost-anonymous but recognizable and trustworthy sans-culotte. With that goal in mind, he had arranged to be signed up by Robespierre as a spy and special agent, reporting only to the Incorruptible himself.

* * *

      Today Robespierre, cool as always, seeming impressively above most of the concerns of lesser men, was striking a pose of symbolic significance at one end of the green, cloth-covered table of the Revolutionary Tribunal, looming over everyone else including the judges, who were sitting.

      The Incorruptible, chiding some judge for suspicious leniency, was saying calmly: “True innocence is never afraid of public vigilance.” Then, glancing around suspiciously, he added in a private whisper to Radu: “See me later at the house.”

      The Tribunal met for most of its sessions in a huge, cave-like chamber with marble walls that in years past had accommodated the meetings of the Paris Parlement. Candles burned before the court clerk as he labored with a quill pen to keep up with the accusations made by the examining lawyers and the judgments handed down.

      Frequently in attendance at the Tribunal, when bad weather or some other reason kept them from the guillotine, were Madame Defarge, and the rest of the bloodthirsty tricoteuses, the women who sat knitting through all the trials and executions.

      (Narrator’s note: “I don’t see how those women can do that,” Constantia once commented to me, when we were speaking of these women. “No?” “No; I hate knitting.”)

* * *

      Later in the day Radu, doing his best to fulfill his duties as a spy, showed up at the carpenter’s house, bringing Robespierre, for his eyes only, a new list of suspects. Heading the list was a name often used by his brother as an alias—Corday. And a description of Vlad, in his frequently adopted guise of a young breather.

      Then, into the ears of these dedicated, incorruptible defenders of revolutionary virtue, he whispered his poisonous advice, suspicions, accusations.

      Many others were doing the same thing, or trying! But Radu had access to Robespierre in his private lodgings.

* * *

      Everyone in the house had seen Radu coming or going at one time or another, and everyone thought he was there as a companion or associate of someone else. Therefore he could come and go pretty much as he pleased, enjoying the situation immensely.

      Duplay himself seemed under the impression that Radu was a member of the secret police, coming in at all hours anonymously to give the Incorruptible his secret reports. And Radu, struck by an inspiration, gradually maneuvered Duplay into starting work on a wooden guillotine blade, precisely shaped to fit the grooves in the machine, the edge filed and sanded as smooth and sharp as wood could be. Radu wasn’t yet sure just