A Sharpness On The Neck (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 9), Fred Saberhagen [some good books to read TXT] 📗

and the extensive gardens adjoining, lay between the Rue de Rivoli and the north bank of the Seine. A year or two before I came to those gardens looking for my brother, they had been a favorite strolling place of the French king, Louis XVI (who was always much more interested in his hobby of locksmithing, and in hunting, than in politics), and his queen, Marie Antoinette (an unhappy Austrian spendthrift, who never quite understood anything that was going on). Often the royal couple had been accompanied on these walks by their two small children.

      But in France those apparently tranquil days were gone, never to return. Of late the royal family had not been much seen by the public, except on the several occasions when their privacy had been invaded by an angry mob.

* * *

      That August morning, unpleasantly warm and humid, found me not in the best of tempers; I had been out since around midnight, looking for Radu as usual, and had prolonged my search well into the hours which were counted by sundials. Throughout most of that summer I had spent a great many of my waking hours trying to locate my brother, and with Radu on my mind, what sleep I managed to obtain tended to be very light indeed.

      Wearing my customary daytime costume of broad hat and a flowing cloak, making my way uncomfortably through summer sunlight from one spot of shade to the next, I gradually progressed along the edge of the vast garden of the Tuileries.

      On the tenth of August the traditional function of the place as a parade ground for fashionable strollers had been violently pre-empted. This time the mob was vastly greater than before. There had been cannon fire, and a fierce fight with the Swiss Guards, mercenaries who were more loyal to the French crown than the French themselves were turning out to be.

      From a distance of thirty yards or so, I observed, with disapproval, that the spot I had chosen as my next observation post was already occupied. There beneath a chestnut tree stood with folded arms a lone male figure with a bearing at once youthful and military, though at the moment in rather shabby though well-cut civilian clothes. Here was one man not trying to emulate the Revolutionary prototype of the sans-culotte—no red cap or huge mustache or workman’s carmagnole jacket for him.

      This young man, whose bearing and attitude suggested an army officer in mufti, was sheltering on the fringe of the park surrounding the besieged palace on that bright, hot August, day, in the very spot where I had determined to establish my observation post. I could not tell whether he had noticed me or not; his attention was intensely concentrated on the events taking place in the broad garden space before the palace of the Tuileries.

      The Swiss Guards had looked magnificent in their uniforms of gold, white, and red. And they had fought well, until betrayed by the catastrophic ineptitude of their commanders. And now the fight as such was over, and they were being slaughtered by the mob.

* * *

      As I discovered later, my instincts were not at fault. Only a little earlier, Brother Radu had indeed been gleefully observing the slaughter in those green and pleasant gardens, and even playing some small part in it himself. And he intended to come back. It was hard to believe that the simple smell of human blood carried on the evening breeze would not have attracted him. There were gallons of blood for the taking, from bodies only freshly dead or still barely alive. Having selected the site of my ambush, I waited for a chance to seize him unobserved.

      But I was not the only one in the neighborhood who had determined to have a good view of the horrors, while staying far enough away from them to escape direct involvement. Two of us at least had exercised a canny skill in picking out the perfect vantage point for observation.

      At first my accidental companion and I regarded each other with considerable suspicion; but it was after all fairly obvious that we both were interested in seeing what was happening, and neither of us minded to take part.

      Nor was either of us given to wasting time in hand-wringing or uttering expressions of dread and loathing. Each for his own reasons had come to the conclusion that he would not attempt to interfere with what was happening upon those sunlit lawns and miniature glades, and that was that.

      But we could hardly fail to acknowledge each other’s presence somehow. Presently the short fellow and I began a conversation.

      “Permit me to introduce myself.”

      That day I decided to call myself Monsieur (the day was still two months away when all in France were commanded to claim no title but that of Citizen) Corday. That name had not yet become infamous in republican circles, nor famous among monarchists; young Charlotte, who bore it, was not to murder the Revolutionary enthusiast Marat for almost another year.

      —but I digress.

* * *

      “Napoleon Bonaparte, major of artillery,” my new acquaintance replied briskly, acknowledging my apparent worthiness with a small bow.

      I responded with a similar gesture. “I assume, major, that those Swiss fellows being slaughtered across the street are not—? But no, forgive me, of course they could not possibly be under your command.”

      I thought that a deep fire indeed had suddenly kindled in his eyes, when he perceived what I was on the verge of suggesting: that any soldiers for whom he was responsible might find themselves so outnumbered and disorganized in the face of the enemy.

      This forceful little Major Bonaparte spoke some Italian, but generally conversed in French, accented by his native Corsican dialect.

      Once we had opened a conversation, he seemed glad to have an audience for his professional military grumbling about how the Swiss, given proper leadership, ought to have won.

      Continuing a desultory conversation with the fellow, I heard him speaking his French and Italian with traces of