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

not even the Incorruptible himself, whose elimination would have broken the fever. Truly it seemed to swell up out of the People themselves. But it eventually proved self-limiting; the very individuals, the cells and organs of the body politic by which the game of guillotining was enforced, were the same ones on whom the blade fell with most dreadful frequency.

      It is, I think, a significant fact that, as one historian has written, no high-ranking Revolutionary authority ever attended any execution but his own.

Chapter Eighteen

      Sensing a great opportunity in the fact of Radcliffe’s sentencing, though not yet sure just how to take advantage of it, the younger Dracula began a personal search of all the prisons within several miles of Paris, trying to locate the American. In this task he proceeded warily, wanting to locate Vlad also, but afraid of being seen by him.

      In Radu’s recent few years aboveground, it had become his habit, when things were dull, to cruise prisons and asylums in search of amusement. There was such a nice variety of such places now to choose from.

      Anyway, the exquisite sufferings of … what had been the name of that last peasant girl? … of dear little Marguerite had put Radu in mind of a certain breathing prisoner he’d met, a year or two ago, in one of the asylums.

* * *

      Radu, having identified the general character of the place from the outside, was not immediately certain whether he was entering an asylum or a prison; the clientele overlapped a great deal between the two kinds of institutions. Many of them were not really surprised to observe a man entering their rooms, despite locked doors and apparently solid walls, then later taking his departure by the same mysterious means. Nor would the authorities pay much attention when some inmates told them this had happened.

      If Radu wanted to know about prisons, the former Marquis de Sade was the one to talk to—the man seemed to have spent most of his adult life in them.

      Radu did not particularly wish to know more about prisons and asylums—only about certain of their clientele. Looking around him now, Radu noted that this place had the look of a converted convent. Religious images had been scrupulously torn down, in pursuit of Revolutionary orthodoxy. What had once been a well-tended garden was rapidly running to seed and ruin.

      The man in the cell was of average height, about five and a half feet, and was now past fifty years of age. A rather jolly fellow, by all appearances. His light chestnut hair was thinning and going gray. His body was comfortably stout, his fair face marked by comparatively few smallpox scars. At the moment his pale blue eyes were wide with surprise under a high forehead.

      Obviously the prisoner had been startled by the silent intrusion of an unexpected visitor. But he needed only a moment to recover.

      “Welcome, Prince Dracula! Or is it Citizen Dracula now? It is more than a year since you have visited me.”

      Radu made himself comfortable, choosing the softest-looking of two available chairs. “Suit yourself as to the form of address; I am indifferent as to which my true friends use— and I certainly hope to count the Marquis de Sade among my friends. Or do you now prefer to be called citizen, along with everyone else?”

      The Marquis was undoubtedly glad to see his mysterious visitor. At Radu’s entrance to his neatly furnished cell, Sade had been seated (in his third chair) at a table, playing with a set of half a dozen little toys on the tabletop. Radu, looking at them with curiosity, observed that they were tiny waxen representations of human bodies, male and female, all naked, in various attitudes of fear, or menace. The two male figures, one a mere beardless youth, were both in a prominent state of sexual arousal. It was not the subject matter so much which interested the vampire—he thought that pretty tame—but the artist’s skill at modeling on such a small scale. The whole body of each figure was no longer than a man’s hand, and yet all the fine anatomical details were exquisitely rendered. Real, fine human hair had been affixed in little tufts in the appropriate places.

      “You are interested in my little toys, prince? Ah, I yearn for the full collection I had with me when I was in the Bastille. There was a prison for you!”

      “Not for me, thanks.”

      “They are frightfully expensive. But what is one to do? One must have amusement.”

      Radu observed him fondling the figures ardently. The pale fingers of the Marquis threatened to crush the wax, and must be heating it to slipperiness.

      Radu raised an eyebrow. “I admit I am surprised that a man of your character must now content himself with wax images. Surely some of your fellow inmates here are women?”

      “Ahh…”

      “Or at least some of the visitors. And the men here must have sisters and daughters and wives. It would be easy to induce some of these fair ones to make themselves available for your enjoyment.”

      “Ah, one would think so! But no, prince, it is not that easy. Besides, as I am sure you would agree, one needs to be sequestered with the women to derive the utmost of pleasure from them—and nothing short of the uttermost in delight is worthy of a gentleman’s devoted efforts. Do you agree, Prince?”

      “The Marquis speaks wisdom, as always.”

      Radu’s gaze returned to the little waxen figures.

      “And who made these, my friend?” he asked. “They show great skill.”

      “Ah, yes.” The former marquis gazed at the images fondly. “At the Cabinet du Cire, number twenty, Boulevard du Temple. You do not know the establishment? A man named Curtius is in charge—he runs it with a woman who is supposed to be his niece. Who models these miniatures I am not sure. Most of the waxen figures Curtius makes himself are lifesize, and, alas, fully clothed.”

      “I see. Yes, perhaps I have heard something.” He suppressed       a yawn; an affectation, now