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

      The man outside called out again in a ragged voice. From what Radcliffe could hear, he was claiming to be a lost hunter.

* * *

      Peering out suspiciously, Radcliffe could see the self-proclaimed hunter, a lone, emaciated figure swaying on its feet, supporting itself with one hand against the wall. As far as Philip could tell, the man was unarmed, and for a moment the American thought that he was drunk. The morning sky now shed enough light to make it plain that all was certainly not well with him. He was wearing a hunter’s garments, but they were torn, stained with blood and earth. Considering also his pale, almost skeletal, face, he looked more like the quarry than the hunter, in fact like a man who had been buried alive, and Radcliffe muttered as much in English under his breath.

      He glanced at Melanie, who at the moment looked surprisingly like a sheltered young woman who might consider fainting. Taking her turn at the peephole, she started to say something, then was silent. Firmly she nodded. The doctor’s daughter had not lost her instinct to show mercy, to help the underdog.

      Moving back a step, Radcliffe picked up a pistol from the table and checked the priming and the flint. Then, holding the weapon ready, he gestured for Old Jules to unbar the door.

Chapter Fourteen

      When the heavy wooden door swung open, Melanie got her first close look at the man leaning against the wall just outside. She drew a breath and started to speak, but the words were never uttered. Under the stranger’s gashed forehead, his dark, tormented eyes briefly met hers, before both people looked away.

      “Are you alone?” Radcliffe asked.

      The pale-skinned, almost skull-faced figure drew a soft breath. “Very much so.” His French was precise, but Radcliffe, who had absorbed the language at his mother’s knee, could hear traces of some foreign accent, one that he could not identify.

      “I see you have had an accident,” said Philip.

      “One might call it that.”

      “Well, come in, man, don’t just stand there—but stay, do you need help walking?”

      “I think not.” And even as he spoke, the stranger displayed a surprising burst of strength, lurching forward as if his life depended on the advance, and he dared not risk delay. This effort carried him for two or three short steps, just enough to bring him through the door, where he halted, leaning against the wall again, as if in the last stages of exhaustion. He had the used-up look of a man who had just run a long distance. There was one notable anomaly: He did not appear to be gasping.

      And only now, when he moved forward, was the extent of his wounds, and their number, obvious to the onlookers. A drop of fresh blood fell to the floor.

      “Let us help you, sir!” Radcliffe cried.

      A brief nod in reply.

      Radcliffe pulled one of the stranger’s thin arms over his own shoulder and put his own much better-nourished arm around the other’s waist. Meanwhile, Melanie had come up behind Radcliffe and was staring past him toward the visitor. The young woman did not speak, but slowly lowered the weapon she was holding.

      Once more the stranger’s gaze rested on Melanie, and now for a slightly longer time; but his eyes were almost vacant, and there was in them no sign of recognition.

      The old servant Jules, watching, almost unconsciously made the sign of the cross. A moment later his granddaughter Marguerite imitated his action.

      The very first direct rays of the morning sun came grazing through distant treetops to strike first upon the whitewashed outdoor wall, and then the very lintel of the door.

      The visitor, momentarily left standing alone just inside the entry, had managed to get his body entirely in shadow, but still he winced and seemed to shrink within himself. Behind him Radcliffe was pushing the door closed, blocking out the direct sun. Old Jules, at a nod from his master, secured the portal with a bar.

      Oblivious to most of this, the supposed hunter was trying to gather what strength he had remaining. He took off his hat and said, in a low rasping voice: “You had better bar the door behind me. Admit no one.”

      “We have already done so. Are you pursued, then?”

      “Not to my knowledge. But it is only fair to warn you that I may be.”

      Philip and Melanie exchanged a glance. Each would have described the man before them as certainly aristocratic.

      Radcliffe growled: “Damned Jacobins. Republicans, they call themselves. Bandits, I call them—are they close on your trail?”

      “I think not,” the victim repeated patiently. “But it is possible.”

      “And by what name shall I call you, sir?”

      “My name is Legrand.” A year ago the name Corday, that of Marat’s assassin, had acquired attention-grabbing connotations.

      Philip muttered hasty introductions, then, assuming his uninvited guest to be a persecuted aristocrat, impulsively swore that he would never give the man up to his enemies.

      He was not really sure what was available in the way of beds and couches in the house; Radcliffe had not yet had a chance to try any of them for himself. But Vlad, once the freedom of the house was granted him, ignored any suggestions along that line. Instead, he groped his way, weakly but unerringly, as if the location of his goal were somehow clear to him, back through the house to the kitchen, then past the kitchen into a kind of ancient storeroom, to the spot where his cache of native earth had been buried so long ago. He could feel its presence beneath him. His undead bones perceived a certain radiation, like that of fire-warmed stone on a frozen night. With a groan he lay down there, right on the stone floor, directly over this hidden source of joy.

      Even on the brightest summer days the light back here would always be dim, with the room’s one small window on the north side and covered by a heavy wooden shutter.

      Blessed relief flowed through all his ancient