now realized, my old acquaintance was already only too eager to do so. Constantia, whom I had known almost all her life, was, to put it mildly, a little flighty, and wont to act with dangerous impulsiveness. But I anticipated no difficulty in persuading her to make the acquaintance of a handsome and hearty young man.
I tried to talk over the range of possibilities with Constantia, before sending her to Radcliffe, to make sure my old associate understood precisely how I thought the matter should be handled; but, as the reader must have realized by now, it is sometimes difficult to hold a rational discussion with that dear girl.
Part of her assigned task was to convey the essentials of an escape plan to him, but I should have known better than to trust her with any mission of that kind.
It was my gypsy's own idea, and not a bad one I must admit, that she could talk to him more easily, and be more convincing, if she appeared in the guise of a fellow prisoner.
If she were in a cell next to his and could squeeze her body through a narrow opening or ventilator, much too small for him to pass, she could be something of a bodyguard against Radu. And perhaps establish the habitation defense.
Easy enough for a vampire to break open, by main force or other means, a prison gate or a cell door or window to allow some breathing convict to escape—but to get the escaped prisoner clean away in the midst of a fanatical manhunt would require at least moderate cleverness as well as force.
Any vampire could easily overpower any prison guard, or several of them, then open the cell door with the key and march Radcliffe out as if on some Committee business. It was not impossible for a woman to appear as a prison guard. But the pair almost certainly would be stopped and questioned at several points before they made it out of the prison. I, playing the role of escort, could probably bluff and bluster my way through such obstacles, but success could not be guaranteed.
And Radu might well show up, at the most inconvenient moment, to claim his prize.
Alternatively, a dead body, dressed to look like that of the prisoner in question, could be left in the cell, making it look as if my client had committed suicide. Perhaps by means of poison? Or with a gun, even a blunderbuss, which might make positive identification very difficult. Hanging, strangulation might well discolor and distort the face sufficiently. How would any prisoner have been able to obtain a gun? Of course it was not impossible, but finding one with his brains blown out would certainly have provoked a great investigation. Quite probably at least one guard would lose his head.
I thought I was on the right track with this idea, but did not yet see how to carry it far enough.
Clothes, rings, and so on would tend to confirm the presumption of identity. Radcliffe now had a partially shaved and bandaged scalp, which would be handy later on.
The body of someone freshly executed could be brought back a few hours later into the cell, but it would be hard to pass off decapitation as a suicide, no matter how dull-witted the investigators.
Any dead body found in the cell and accepted as the prisoner's would of course be carried out and guillotined—suicide does not save one's neck from that fate, once the People have commanded it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Radu, counting on my fanatical attitude (as he saw it) in any matter where I considered that my honor was involved, was sure that I was going to try to rescue Radcliffe from the supposedly escape-proof prison of La Conciergerie. And of course he was right.
The obvious way for me to save my client from prison and the scaffold, and strengthen him against further attack, was to turn him into a vampire—and Radu, I was sure, would have no trouble deducing that that was my plan.
I felt confident of being able to follow my brother's thoughts—even though I was not yet aware that Radu already had the cabinetmaker Duplay secretly preparing a wooden guillotine-blade. That fact I learned later, when it was too late to do anything about it.
As I saw it, the main problem in rescuing Radcliffe lay in protecting him, indefinitely, against the evil machinations of Radu. In the course of nature, the young American might easily live another forty or fifty years. And if he were converted, Radu would be forced to abrogate his vow to drink the young man's blood—either that or poison himself. Radcliffe's blood would be safe from drinking, but the time in which I might be required to defend him from other forms of attack would very likely stretch out into centuries.
Another reason to simply kill Radu. But no, my oath blocked me immovably from that course of action.
Radu was ready to try any means by which he might succeed in catching Vlad in some kind of trap. Preferably fatal.
And yet, when he really thought about it, he wasn't sure that he wanted to kill Vlad.
He mused aloud: 'No, I can be perfectly satisfied with less than that… no, rather, his mere death is not enough. I want more.'
The more Radu thought about the situation, the more it seemed to him that he would derive greater satisfaction from forcing Vlad to break a vow than he would from killing him.
But in his heart Radu knew that to be a futile dream. Even if he could somehow force Vlad to fail to keep a solemn vow. Neither brother was one to direct violence against himself.
My little brother had also, through frequent visits, acquired a better knowledge of prisons than almost any breathing person in the world, even among those whose daily work lay in the fields of torture and incarceration. Both my brother and I were well aware that such establishments in general were anything but escape-proof, no matter how they might be advertised. Escape-proof prisons, like unassailable fortresses, exist only in theory. In the real world, such institutions are never any stronger than the weakest human in possession of a key. Bribery was far and away the most common means of getting out of one type of stronghold or into the other.
But true fanatics were exceptionally prevalent among the guiding spirits of the Terror. Many of these revolutionaries qualified. Once a man or woman had fallen into their hands, bribery became much less dependable, and even dangerous. These
Radu had his minions on watch, vigilantly trying to detect any attempt by Vlad at bribery of prison guards and officials. If any such plot were hatched, Radu intended to make sure that it was betrayed.
Radu rubbed his bony hands together, enjoying the game immensely. He considered the possibility that he'd lose touch with Radcliffe, that Vlad could successfully get the young American out of prison and then spirit him away.
But the more Radu considered that possibility, the less he was concerned. He was very confident that he would be able eventually to catch up with his victim again, no matter to what lengths Vlad went to protect him.
It was at this time that Radu swore, or at least claimed to have sworn, his own great formal oath to drink Radcliffe's blood, and also to see that the American's head was cut off. How well he was able to keep it, we shall see. Oaths in themselves, of course, have never meant anything to that scoundrel; the only real purpose of this one, I am sure, was to mock me and irritate me further. Therefore he had to be sure that I knew about it. I could hear him in my imagination, expostulating in mock horror: 'Do you want me to break my solemn oath, my brother? Whatever would our beloved papa say to that?'
Naturally any serious blood-drinking would have to be accomplished before Philip's execution.
* * *
Convincing the Terrorists that Radcliffe had been officially beheaded—with all the necessary paperwork in good order—meant that they would not be looking for him after his escape. He would still need forged papers, of course, but in a new identity.
'Do you suppose he could pass as a Frenchman?'
'I have little doubt of that.'
