A Sharpness On The Neck (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 9) by Fred Saberhagen (most read book in the world .TXT) 📗

      She explained. “Suspect” had now become, in the language of the Revolutionary tribunals, a category of criminal all to itself. The Tribunal in Paris had recently decided to dispense with the ritual of presenting evidence, since everyone knew that the accused were guilty.

      “What madness!”

      “Indeed.” She sighed, and her greenish eyes went distant. With her only surviving parent facing the executioner, the intervals in which she could forget, laugh, think of something else, were short.

      In fact, Philip Radcliffe at this moment would almost certainly have been repacking his few belongings preparatory to setting out for Paris if Melanie hadn’t shown up last night. Her presence had created a serious disruption of his plans, but in fact he was only vaguely conscious of it.

      Philip and his young visitor had already discussed his mother, who was still alive, across the sea in Martinique. And about his mother’s affair with the great Benjamin Franklin. “I stand before you as living proof that that occurred.”

      And Melanie, from the happy days of her childhood, vaguely remembered Philip’s mother. “She is a gracious lady, and I am glad to hear that she still survives.”

      And why his surname was Radcliffe.

* * *

      Philip, having been in France now for more than a week, had already been challenged several times and forced to defend himself against accusations of spying for the Austrians, or for Pitt, the treacherous prime minister of England, by proclaiming himself the natural son of Benjamin Franklin.

      Franklin had been and still was highly esteemed in France, and Radcliffe had mixed feelings on observing that his father’s portrait, usually with fur hat and bifocal spectacles (his own invention), appeared on all manner of objects. Philip had already seen the familiar face on snuffboxes and chamber pots.

      The story of Philip’s paternity was quite true, and fortunately he had documentation in the form of a worn and dog-eared letter from his father, who had died in Philadelphia in 1790.

      “For all the years he spent here,” he remarked to Melanie, “Father never did master French well enough to feel confident writing it, though he could read and understand the spoken word with some facility.”

      Radcliffe now pulled from an inside pocket the oilskin packet in which he was carrying this letter, opened it and showed it to his companion.

      She murmured: “I remember…”

      “But I forget, did you ever meet my father? I suppose you might well have done so. My mother’s often told me that he visited us here, but I have only the vaguest memories of him here, or none at all.”

      “Then I suppose,” said Melanie, “that I was too young also.”

      “Yes, of course.”

      The first meeting with his father that Philip could remember had not taken place until he was half grown. Then, after Franklin’s return from Europe in 1785, he had seen the esteemed gentleman more than once in America. Franklin had acknowledged his relationship to young Philip, wished him well, and offered to use his influence to help him obtain legal training, if that was his wish. Philip had interrupted his apprenticeship at law to undertake this journey, and his half-resentful attitude toward the old man had mellowed into a sincere liking.

* * *

      Radcliffe was also carrying a letter sent to America by the revolutionary firebrand Tom Paine, inviting Philip to call on Paine if he should come to Paris. Paine was an old acquaintance, if not exactly a friend, of the young man’s father—in fact Benjamin Franklin had once been widely credited with the authorship of Paine’s famous political pamphlet, Common Sense. Phil also had in his pocket another letter that he hesitated to show Melanie; his elders in Philadelphia had impressed on him that the message he was carrying to Paine was something of a diplomatic secret.

      Nor did Phil want to raise Melanie’s hopes regarding her father only to see them dashed again. But he seriously thought that he, armed with the letters of introduction he was carrying, might well be able to exert sufficient influence upon the revolutionary authorities in Paris to be of some use to her father.

* * *

      According to the young woman’s description of the course of local events over the last year, typical of the turmoil which had swept through most of the country, some kind of rural mob had gone through a show of seizing this estate, in the name of the People. Melanie of course had not been on the grounds at the time, or even in the village. The intrusion had taken place months ago. The mob had made a drunken, abortive effort to burn the place down. But the house was constructed mostly of stone, and a timely rainstorm had put out the fire, so only minor damage had resulted.

      Actually the chief culprit in the matter of damage, as far as Radcliffe could see, was only neglect, which over the last several years had somewhat ravaged the house. Still the structure was basically intact. It seemed very doubtful, though, that anyone in his mother’s family would ever have a claim on the place in the future.

      That was too bad, in a way. Philip would have enjoyed a leisurely return, in some peaceful future, to the house and lands that held so many happy memories. On the other hand he was perfectly ready to admit that the local peasants, whose blood and sweat and lives for countless generations had been invested in this soil, had a far better claim on the place than did he or any of his family.

* * * * * *

      The two young people remarked to each other on how swiftly the night had passed while they had done no more than talk and sip a little wine.

      Several times during the course of their nightlong conversation, Radcliffe had asked Melanie what she had been doing all the time he had been gone. He had yet to receive anything like a full or detailed reply.

      Melanie continued to be vague in her answers