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

on his sensibilities in the meantime, though, don’t you think?” Constantia often felt genuine sympathy for attractive people. “I mean, he’ll have to ride the tumbril, mount the scaffold, have his hands bound behind him, look through the little window—then I suppose he’ll be able to hear the blade, sliding in its grooves, as it begins to fall—” She gave a pretty little gasp of horror.

      I studied her through narrowed eyes. “I understand your meaning perfectly, my dear. But I expect the real reason for your objection is that, once he is nosferatu, his blood will no longer be tasty in your mouth.”

      I had meanwhile considered and rejected another possible method of releasing a prisoner by trickery: I myself as a last resort might play the role of Radcliffe, and allow myself to be guillotined.

      “Did you observe what happened in Barney’s cell the other day?” Constantia commented when I mentioned this. And she giggled at the thought.

      “No, I did not. Does it have the least relevance to our own difficulties?”

      “I don’t know. Some stupid Englishman—Barton or Garton, some name like that—I suppose he was really tired of living—took the condemned prisoner’s place—quite willingly!—without the guards catching on, and it seems they got away with it.” She provided more details than I cared to hear. “Barton, or whatever his name was, said it was the best thing that he had ever done, or some such nonsense.”

      I thought it over. “It has seemed to me for some time that most English are quite mad; I really must visit there someday.”

      But the day for such a journey lay far in my future. At the moment, I had more urgent matters to think about. One trick could be to convince Radu that we were relying upon a stratagem similar to the one which had saved Darnay—ultimately, to convince my brother that Radcliffe, vampire or not, had had his head chopped off by a wooden knife, his blood perhaps already spoiled by death.

      “So it will seem to Radu,” I brooded, “that neither he nor I have been able to fulfill our respective oaths.”

      “I didn’t know that you had sworn one.”

      “He will assume I have. And whether I have or not, it is still an affair of honor. Unless Radu’s oath is limited to forcing me to go back on mine…”

      Constantia, losing patience with what she called my Machiavellian habits of thought, flounced out, declaring she had more interesting things to do.

      I had considered yet another plan: I might carry in the dead body of a man who resembled Radcliffe, waving an impressive-looking written order, announcing the necessity of a certain prisoner’s identifying this body.

      “And we cannot very well bring the prisoner out to do so,” I would tell the guards. “Though if you would prefer that—?”

      Of course not.

      Then the dead body would be left in the cell, dressed in Radcliffe’s clothes, and Radcliffe in the habiliments of the corpse would be carried out … but there were too many things that could go wrong.

* * *

      Suffice it to say that in the end there were many plans, and variations upon plans, but that necessity decreed that one be quickly chosen.

      I decided that it would probably not be wise to fully explain the finally chosen plan to the man it was designed to rescue. In the first place, the most crucial stages of my scheme, as it was finally formulated, did not require any active, intelligent cooperation on his part. In the second place, I doubted there would be time enough to explain convincingly; and in the third, I could not predict the young man’s reaction if he did understand. There was a possibility that he would even refuse to cooperate with any design so daring and outrageous. Rather I preferred to have him fed on vague reassurances in which the hope of salvation was emphasized.

      With all these possibilities in my mind, my closing words of encouragement, on my last visit to Radcliffe’s cell, were somewhat ambiguous.

      “Listen to me—do not despair. Even at the last moment, when it seems to you that no earthly power could possibly help you, it will not be too late. Even when you hear the knife begin to fall, repeat to yourself: In three weeks I can be in London.”

* * *

      No doubt Radu had also heard of the Englishman Darnay’s escape. My brother could be counted on to block our move, if we should try something along the same line. Similarly he foresaw that the prisoner might be converted to vampirism, and he had his countermeasure ready for that ploy as well: his plan to arrange with the executioner Sanson, or one of Sanson’s helpers, to substitute a wooden blade for the metal one.

* * * * * *

      Radu, unlike his older brother, generally enjoyed playing games, verbal and otherwise, with people he soon expected to kill, or at least to terrorize. Vlad as a rule obtained no intrinsic satisfaction from terrorizing anyone; it was basically the concept that justice was being done that gave him pleasure. Nor did he enjoy conversing with those for whom he felt contempt.

      But Radu, irresistibly attracted by suffering and despair, which in a way drew him more strongly than mere blood, could hardly resist the temptation to sneak into the prison from time to time. He found the atmosphere there, of despair and fear and hatred, almost as much to his liking as the sight and feel of the sharp physical blade, redolent of raw blood.

      Radu would want to drink Radcliffe’s blood before the execution, if he was ever going to do it at all. Doing so immediately after death, in broad daylight, would probably be impossible to accomplish, and later the effort would be futile and disgusting; in fact downright poisonous. Would he be satisfied to see the execution without drinking the blood? Evidently.”

      Would he be able to distinguish Radcliffe’s blood from that of some other man? Probably not.

* * *

      Constantia, doing a favor for