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

accident. Today the executioners, as they sometimes did, were arrogantly refusing to heed the occasional shouted demands for a better view. They had, no doubt inadvertently, created obstructions by piling a couple of extra body-baskets, along with spare parts for la mechanique, on either side of the platform.

      But Radu, along with the great majority of the audience, was not in the least inconvenienced. As the tumbrils began to unload, and the slow one-way parade started up the stairs in single file, he still had a perfectly clear view of one head after another, coming through the lunette, then rolling, with no more dramatic flourish than a potato dropped by a kitchenmaid, into the waiting basket. No doubt even a breather would soon get used to it, if he were here every day attending the show. And yet, where else in Paris, or in the world, was there anything like this to be seen? One raw neck-stump after another spurted blood, then was pulled away to make room for the next, all to the accompaniment of raucous and rhythmic cheering by the crowd.

      Had Radu been writing a critical review of the event for the newspapers (he had considered doing that, if the business could have been managed anonymously), he would have been forced to inform his readers that today’s level of technical skill was not of the highest. The two workers on the high stage mishandled more than one of their victims, depriving each of whatever last moment of dignity he might otherwise have been able to attain. And here came Radcliffe at last, face pale with prison and the terror of death, hands bound and collar torn open like the rest, short dark hair surrounding a small white bandage, clumsy and stumbling in his terror—or quite possibly, thought the observer, he had been given strong drink as he climbed into the tumbril, in an effort to numb his awareness. A petty effort to spoil Radu’s triumph, perhaps—and now the man in his fear, or his drunken stupor, had fallen to the platform—but the two workers, demonstrating strength and dexterity for once, had their client up again in a moment, and were putting him on the plank.

      Radu’s pink-lipped mouth hung open in anticipation, as if he were about to kiss some morsel of human flesh. His eyes drank in his triumph as Radcliffe’s dark hair, showing the little bandage in the midst of the close-cropped scalp, was pulled and pushed through the little window. For a moment, regrettably but inevitably, the body of the assistant who was pulling on the ears largely cut off the audience’s view of this process. Then the wooden lunette slammed closed, and the executioner moved out of the way.

      As always, the machine was disconcertingly quick. Whoever was ultimately in charge of these events, the original designer no doubt, had really little sense of drama. The peak of Radu’s triumph came and went so swiftly that if he had blinked, he might have missed it.

      But of course he had no need to blink. He heard the usual double-thud, of falling knife and head, and he saw the head go tumbling into the wicker basket.

      The executioner’s tall assistant lifted it out carefully, by the short dark hair; the red flow drained out visibly for the crowd to watch.

      The raw neck spurted red, adding its stain to the day’s previous spatterings, before the headless body was withdrawn.

      Radu, looking on, had to squint into uncomfortable daylight. But he was focusing his entire attention on that face, and had no trouble at all in making certain that it was Radcliffe’s. Unable to contain his joy, Radu spun round slowly, once, twice, performing a little dance of triumph.

* * *

      Since yesterday Melanie had known, through a certain private line of communication, that this was the day when the man she had come to love must escape, or perish in the attempt.

      Today Philip Radcliffe, following in her father’s unwilling footsteps, was to be taken to the scaffold. But she did not go, could not have forced herself to go, to the place of execution. Legrand had assured her that her presence there would be neither wise nor useful. And to be there, a witness, watching the worst happen, would have been unbearable.

      Instead she put in another day of waiting at the museum, spending part of the time in the modest living quarters she shared with her son, part in the workshop where there was always plenty to keep her busy. She waited under the greatest tension imaginable. Someone had promised to bring her a report.

      But before any report could reach her, there came a warning.

      Men, armed soldiers, agents of the Committee of Public Safety, were coming to the museum to arrest her. She had barely time to hide.

      Quivering with fear, cowering in a storeroom among wax figures and listening from her improvised hiding place to men’s raised voices only a few steps away, she heard that they were going to look for her in the cemetery, too.

      Eleven years ago, in 1783, at a time when the childhood playmates Melanie Romain and Philip Radcliffe had already been separated for about eight years, Curtius had modeled a life-size figure of Benjamin Franklin, who had then been in residence on the edge of Paris. The effigy had been placed on display with those of other celebrities in his museum. And Melanie Romain, grown woman and mother, found herself hiding behind it now.

      Melanie, fourteen years of age at the time of Franklin’s sitting, had been an assistant to the artist, beginning to learn the art and craft of modeling, at which she was later to excel.

      And the young girl had received some grandfatherly attention from Franklin, who would have expressed his sympathy on seeing that she was in a family way. And especially when she introduced herself as the childhood playmate of one of his favorite illegitimate children, the old man, with his lifelong susceptibility to feminine attraction, was said to have, scattered around the