A Sharpness on the Neck

been present at my first emergence from my first grave—another story I have told elsewhere.

'Vlad Dracula, Prince of Wallachia.'

All the group save Radu and Constantia were strangers to me. I had the feeling of one who had neglected his social obligations and fallen out of touch. Constantia introduced the others, one by one, and I bowed slightly at each name. They were of a wide range of ages, and some bore names I recognized. It was not exactly the sort of gathering I had been hoping for; there were none I would have chosen for my associates.

To Radu I remarked: 'You appear to have rested well since our last meeting. Did you enjoy a satisfying sleep?'

'I feel quite refreshed, thank you,' Radu responded. 'Quite energetic.'

'Would it be impolite of me to inquire how all this energy is going to be employed?'

The stone-arched room before me was high and narrow, not big enough to accommodate many more than the lord of the manor and his immediate family at their devotions. Though partially roofless, on that night it was by breathers' standards very dark, which mattered little, because none of those on hand for the meeting needed much light to see. In that old room, redolent of remembered prayers, the very walls still reeking faintly of old incense, the eyes of a breathing human would have picked out only ghosts of illumination entering by the tall windows, where only fragments of stained glass still remained, making an irregular rim and corners.

Down in the empty cellars and across the occasionally moonlit floors of the old house, rats and mice went scurrying here and there, going about their murine business, accepting vampires as one more fact of life, no more and no less incomprehensible to mice than so many breathing farmers, or tax-collectors, would have been. And spiders, progressing in their eight-fold strides so swift and light that even I needed to strain my ears to pick them up.

And there, standing in the midst of the little gathering, was my beautiful, beautiful brother, beautifully dressed for the meeting in silks and furs, in the style of a century long gone. As our eyes met at last, Radu stood silent for a moment, trying to be aristocratically impassive, and almost succeeding—but I could see that he was afraid.

Was he on that evening a little taller than I, or a little shorter? I find it difficult to remember. In the course of his adult life, Radu has been both. As usual, more slender. Quite young in appearance, as always. Almost always. I sometimes think that Radu would rather die than let himself be seen in public with an aged face, gray hair, or wrinkled, sagging skin at his throat and on the backs of his hands. In vampires these phenomena tend to come and go, largely dependent on the vagaries of diet, and to me they are generally matters of indifference.

In this company of our peers—if that is the right word for them—neither of us felt quite secure enough to move decisively against the other.

Radu faced me solemnly. 'Vlad, we have been enemies long enough.'

I took time to gather my thoughts before replying. 'What do you propose?'

'We are brothers, after all. I have sworn an oath to give you no more cause to hate me.'

'You? Have sworn?'

'Upon our father's grave,' he proclaimed in a clear, convincing voice, meanwhile raising his right hand. 'There is nothing that I hold more sacred.'

'Bah! I doubt that you even know where it is.'

He looked nobly sad. Chagrined at this rebuff, but still determined to make himself my friend. 'I suppose it's only to be expected that you would not believe me. Nevertheless, I have sworn.'

My brother's face was no longer disfigured by the mustache I had glimpsed at the Tuileries on the tenth of August. He would not choose to wear that appearance in this company, nor did I choose to mention our near- meeting then. Nor, of course, was he wearing now either the red cap or the carmagnole.

It so happened that I was now the one in disguise. On seeing me, one of Radu's friends made some harsh jest about the soutane, asking when I had taken holy orders, and a little later inquired whether I intended to say mass.

I gazed at him steadily. 'I dislike jesting about sacred matters.'

The vampire who had spoken fell silent, blinking, not knowing what to make of that dead-serious reply.

'Vlad has had just cause to be upset with me.' Radu was musing aloud. His demeanor was that of one inclined to be forgiving. 'In fact I sometimes fear that he might even nerve himself one day to make a serious attempt upon my life.' Radu turned to our peers and colleagues, wistfully inviting their understanding.

'Do not tempt me,' I growled softly.

Throughout the course of this dialogue, our peers and colleagues were looking at me thoughtfully, and I could see that most of them were not quite able to reconcile the figure I presented with the one they had been forming in their minds, based on Radu's description.

'So, this is the famous Prince of Wallachia?' one demanded suddenly.

Having answered that question with regard to myself, if I thought it deserved a straight answer, I now repeated it, turning it on Radu.

'Thou knowest who is famous and who is not.'

My brother, it gradually became clear to me as I listened, had been telling these potential recruits to his cause that he was the one who had nailed the turbans of the sultan's envoys to their heads. (Remind me to tell you about that, another time). He, the prince who had so thoroughly terrorized the potential criminal elements that a merchant's bag of gold could lie untouched in the streets all night—but that story I have told elsewhere.

At least Radu had been making those outrageous claims before I arrived. Constantia, who had been listening to them, knew better, and Radu of course realized this; but he also knew that she was not going to contradict him.

The subject which had been under discussion before my arrival was soon taken up again: the recent shocking events of the Revolution, and how the profound changes taking place in the breathers' society were going to affect their lives. Opinions were divided on the probable effect of these attacks upon the Church. The consensus was that almost any change was likely to be for the worse—a truer, more spiritually active church would not be a good thing for the villains in the group.

One of them wondered, with a languid laugh, whether under the new regime aristocrats among the nosferatu might be called to account for drinking the blood of the unwilling. I had gathered from the speaker's previous remarks that he was planning a dreadful vengeance on his peasants, who in their ignorance were congratulating themselves on having, as they thought, burned the lord of the manor alive.

Eyes of divers colors, set in a variety of pallid faces, turned in my direction. Some, no doubt, were not impressed with what they saw. Well, it was not my purpose to appear impressive.

One asked: 'And what does our most recent arrival have to say upon the. subject?'

I was reluctant to comment on the Revolution, except to say that the lower classes were not without rights —as long as they chose to exercise them.

'How do the Americans put it now—we are all 'endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights'? In this the peasants of France are remarkably like everyone else. Including us.'

My words were met with a largely uncomprehending silence.

Chapter Eleven

From the moment of my entry I had been aware that the company had already been enjoying some refreshment. The remnants of some hors d'oeuvres were in fact scattered about, as I soon noticed: fragments of a few small human bodies, quite freshly dismembered, none more than three years old. When the bones are young enough and tender—so I am told—chewing by certain ruthless and discriminating connoisseurs extracts from them an essence composed largely of the blood-manufacturing cells which they contain.

One of the infants' lifeless bodies was in plain sight, and still recognizable for what it was. The soft, small bones had been crushed between vampires' teeth and sucked dry. The floor was stained by a few small drops of fresh blood, wasted by some careless gourmet.

The delicate peak of flavor, as I have heard from vampires who pride themselves upon their epicurean tastes,