A Sharpness on the Neck d-9

by Fred Saberhagen

  Napoleon had been able to identify a few of the individuals who played key roles in the day's events.

  There was the Marquis de Mandat, commander of the loyal National Guard—an organization of doubtful loyalty to say the least; there was George Jacques Danton, Revolutionary leader with a massive presence and a booming voice, given to intimidating military commanders; there was the brewer Santerre, and others, each leading his own militia, or some segment of the faceless Mob… all in all, there was much confusion. The Swiss Guards were first ordered to fight, and then to fraternize—and then fighting broke out again, after many of the Swiss had apparently discarded their weapons.

  I was really not much interested in the political, or even the military, details; we vampires tend to take the long view in such matters, thinking that political trends tend to average out over time, while the more fundamental wellsprings of behavior flow on regardless.

  But the young major of artillery who shared my observation post was, unlike most officers of his rank, extremely keen on politics. Also he was obviously in need of someone to talk to. He was not really much upset at the fact that people were being slaughtered; in his chosen profession, that was bound to happen all the time. Human lives were the raw material of his art. But Bonaparte found incompetent leadership in any field intrinsically offensive. Watching that protracted butchery in the gardens, his attitude was that of a great musician being forced to endure a floundering, utterly maladroit performance.

  I do not suppose that even Louis, incompetent leader that he was, intended anything like a slaughter of the only loyal supporters he had in sight. No doubt his only thought, in scribbling an order for the Swiss Guards to lay down their arms, was some muddle-headed idea that further loss of life might thereby be prevented…

  Perhaps it had been the very fact that the Swiss were beginning to retreat that provoked their attackers to such a brutal onslaught. A group of rebellious soldiers from Brest, called federes, fell in the slaughter along with the loyal guardsmen, simply because the rioters could not distinguish their red uniforms from those of the Swiss. A few who had realized what was happening shed their uniforms in time and got away.

  Napoleon and I were afforded the chance to observe some of the high points of the protracted slaughter. But these we endured impatiently. I waiting for some indication of my brother's presence, and Bonaparte thirsting for some event, some sign, that would lend political and moral significance to the whole. Alas, neither of us were afforded any real satisfaction.

  On that afternoon the Swiss Guards virtually ceased to exist. They were hunted down by jackal packs of rioters and practically exterminated. Rioters too weak or cowardly to risk an actual fight followed the death squads and stripped and mutilated the fallen. A few arms and legs were actually cut off. Much more popular, as usual, was the trick of slashing off the genitals and stuffing them into the mouth of the same or a different body. (Why is this such a favorite ploy, down through the centuries, of breathers who are struggling to be as bad as they can be, and who doubtless each time believe they are being inventive?) In all, some six hundred of the Swiss perished.

  Later the events of August tenth were called by Robespierre (who, I am mortally certain, was not on hand to see them) "the most beautiful revolution that has ever honored humanity."

  But let me not get ahead of my story. On that August morning, I had not yet met Robespierre, or any of the other leaders—past, present, or future—of the Terror.

  Much of the beautiful profusion of shrubbery in the garden had by now been trampled down. There were dead bodies, hundreds of them, piled and scattered under the stately chestnut trees. Some were those of Revolutionaries, part of the ragtag force which had launched the first assault, blown to rags and fragments by the few cannon blasts the Swiss got off before they were ordered to cease firing. But most of the dead were the Swiss Guards. Many of these had been stripped and mutilated, and were strewn about like toys after a children's party. A bonfire had been started, fueled by shredded uniforms and other debris.

  As the center of mob activity spasmodically shifted, the outer courtyard and the surrounding gardens were soon occupied only by the dead and a few feebly active wounded. My colleague and I relocated our observation post as well. My thought was that the best place to look for Radu was wherever the most acts of violent dismemberment were taking place.

  As for Napoleon, he was no more interested in blood for its own sake than a farmer is fascinated by acres of topsoil, or a sailor by tons of water; but he remained very curious to see how the whole business was going to turn out in political terms. And if there was one thing Bonaparte could not comprehend, it was the utter failure of leadership on the part of royalty. It was all that such people had to do with their lives.

  At one point, I remember, Napoleon turned to me and took me by the arm. "If I had been king this morning… or if you…"

  And his words, his manner, conferred upon me a great gift, a sense of glorious comradeship, of goals attainable that were worth dying for, which he seemed to have the means of bestowing, whether or not he was fully conscious of what he gave. It was as if I heard a ghostly trumpet call. "There we agree, my friend. The situation at this hour would be much different."

  And we moved a little closer to what was left of the action.

  "What fatheads!" he cried. "How could they have suffered this rabble to get close enough to stab them with pitchforks? It would have been perfectly easy to mow down the first four or five hundred with cannon. The rest would still be running."

  By this time half of the fierce afternoon had burned away, and I had at last been rewarded by a glimpse of Radu from a distance—wearing a mustache, a red hat, and a few other items that must have been intended to constitute a disguise. But I was fatally familiar with that face—and I could have done much better at concealing my identity from him had our positions been reversed.

  I did not think that my brother had caught sight of me, and I hoped that he, absorbed in his enjoyment, would be completely unaware of my presence. It might be possible to take him by surprise…

  I felt I had once more to trust my survival to the lesser shade of hat and cloak—even though the lowering sun was beginning to come in under my hatbrim—to catch up with the man and get a better look at him.

  I invited Napoleon to come with me; I thought Radu would be less alarmed by the sight of a pair of unknown figures approaching than of one only. My brother would be thinking that I would almost certainly be coming after him alone. Also I had begun to be fascinated by this breathing major.

  But Bonaparte declined, saying brusquely that observation had become very difficult, and he had business elsewhere. We exchanged the informal salutes of a silent farewell, and he separated himself from me before I actually entered the palace.

  As I drew nearer, I moved along the fringe of the mob of victorious rioters. Some were holding pikes from which depended ragged bits of red uniforms and other, gorier trophies. Now I took note of how the walls of the palace had been scarred with musket balls and grapeshot.

  As I entered the building through a wide-open servants' entrance, I was greeted by a loud crash of crockery in the huge kitchen adjoining.

  I poked in my head and looked around. Inside, everything had been turned topsy-turvy. Everyone was grabbing whatever he or she could manage to grab, some serious about gathering booty, others seeking only souvenirs.

  Looking down into the wine cellars I beheld a hundred soon-to-be-drunken revelers jostling and fighting with each other, each determined to have the first choice of the King's best wine.

  Standing at the foot of the great staircase, I looked up at an unstained expanse of marble. It seemed strange to me then that this one area should be entirely free of death, and I have no explanation for it now.

  Pink cupids, secure in niches among their rosy clouds, looked down with wide, uncaring eyes from the high, plastered ceilings. Their expressions did not alter when now and then a new scream echoed from the mir
rored walls.

  I moved on, pausing at intervals to look and listen, my feet despite vampirish reflexes occasionally slipping and sliding in a mixture of wine and blood which anointed the floors of tile and polished wood. Boldly I proceeded into the palace, and then strode through one suite of rooms after another.

  It was as true then as it is now, that when a man of robust appearance walks as if he had a right to be where he is, few are going to challenge him.

  The main hallway had been newly redecorated with blood, here and there still fresh enough to be bright red.

  Up the stairs and into the chapel. Here, as if they had been brought as offerings in some profaning black mass, the dead were piled. The air sang with hungry flies. Some indecipherable mess, oozing blood, had been dumped onto the high altar; in the rear, the organ had been smashed.

  No living soul besides myself was present. It seemed to me that I had entered one of those times and places on this earth where the existence of Hell is foreshadowed, as it were, beyond any reasonable doubt. And those are the very places and the times where one is well-advised to seek Radu.

  Here and there a few candles were simply burning in their holders, flames wavering no more than usual with drafts, their light glinting on a thousand facets of silver as if this were a dinner party. I wondered who had lighted these tapers and set them out, and wondered more that no serious fires had yet started.

  In the front of the chapel a well-dressed man was standing in the pulpit, blowing on a horn, and it took me a moment to realize that he was imitating the Angel of the Resurrection. In front of him had gathered a small applauding crowd.

  (Radu, where are you?)

  But my esteemed sibling was nowhere to be found.

  I looked and listened carefully. Some inner sense kept nagging me that Radu was not very far away. And in a long life I had learned that it was usually wise to trust my inner senses.

  Now and then some scream of special shrillness burst out loud enough to be heard above the background roar—in my experience, Hell is seldom silent. Fresh cries of agony burst forth when some poor wretch who had been hiding was discovered and dragged out to death.

  Two unarmed men—who yesterday, to judge by their clothing, had both been laborers—were fighting tooth and nail, sobbing and gasping in their rage, over a hoard of small coins spilled on the floor from God knew where. Might this trove have represented the eight-year-old Dauphin's childish exercise in greed? Now neither of the robbers was able to pick up a single sou without the other striking it from his hand.

  Hundreds of vases, dishes, pieces of statuary, vast mirrors had been smashed to fragments. Half a dozen young girls, part of the invading mob, were haggling and quarreling over the remains of what might have been the Queen's cosmetics.

  Their voices rose in fishwife clamor, and they seemed on the verge of hair-pulling and of blows.

  In rapid succession I visited the Council Room, and then the Billiard Room. It was the same story everywhere, some apartments ruined and deserted, others still crowded with the many bodies of the Mob, staying near one another as if they feared that separation could cost them their vital madness.

  In the dining room, one man, happy with his day's work, was eating jam with his lady friend, the two of them laughing as they smeared the red stuff on each other's faces. Another, enacting the role of a servant, laughing like a madman all the while, was handing out neatly folded napkins to his unwashed comrades and delicately filling their wineglasses. Someone had been using the table linen to clean and test the sharpness of a bloodstained sword.

  Well, no one was going to be washing and mending these tablecloths tomorrow. All that I heard and saw assured me that any servants who had not joined the mob were going to be murdered as the lackeys of aristocrats.

  Other people were methodically smashing plates and glasses. A very young but ugly woman had bared her breasts, and was dancing wildly on a table to music that she alone could hear. A man with a pot of honey and a spoon in hand stood in front of her, trying to attract her attention.

  I pushed on, having forgotten for the time being my recent new acquaintance outside. Now and then someone bumped into me, took a look into my face, and moved on. I patiently proceeded.

  Here was the doorway to what I realized must have been the Queen's private suite of rooms. The way was partially blocked by a row of dead bodies wrapped in sheets and blankets. Such a neat enshroudment must have taken place earlier in the day, when some tidy-minded members of the household staff had still had time to worry about the dead.

  Inside the Queen's rooms, more women of all ages were ransacking the wardrobe of Marie Antoinette, trying on hats and bonnets. Nearby stood a piano, violently bereft of ivory keys, steel strings pulled out and broken. A bust of the young Dauphin, which must have been on the piano, now lay on the floor, chipped and soiled.

  Poor Marie Antoinette! Not that I ever met her, but I doubt she meant anyone any harm, no more than her husband did. There is no shred of evidence, you know, that she ever really said it: I mean of course the famous quote about letting the poor eat cake if they could find no bread.

  Ah! ca ira, ca ira, ca ira,

  Les aristocrates a la lanterne…

  So it goes, so it goes, so it goes. To the nearest lamppost with those damned aristocrats, and hang them high. The ragged chorus dissolved in incoherent noise. Other musical instruments had been smashed also.

  (Radu, where are you? Surely you, as inevitably as the million flies, will be drawn to this scene.)

  "Hey! You, there!"

  The roar of triumph had come from behind me. I thought that the voice of Satan was in that noise. Turning, I beheld the speaker. He was advancing on me, a massive, archetypal figure in a red cap, clad in the rags and wooden shoes of a homeless Parisian, wearing the apron of his trade and waving a butcher's cleaver. Having established eye contact, I raised my eyebrows and slightly shook my head, trying to convey the idea that it would do him no good to pursue me further.

  Normally when I attempt to communicate an idea of this kind I am successful. But not this time. Try to be kind, as folk in the twentieth century are wont to say, and see where it gets you. The man with the cleaver was all enfevered by the carnage surrounding him; he had me cornered, and plainly he was determined not to be cheated of his fun. No doubt in my hat and cloak I did look like some simpleton's idea of an aristocrat attempting to disguise his appearance.

  My righteous butcher, armed with unshakable faith in his own strength and aflame with revolutionary zeal, was at least correct about one thing: He had me cornered, as it was still daylight. Denied the choice of disappearing into nothingness, or of turning into some four-legged or winged beast, I had no really convenient option other than to stand my ground.

  As the cleaver slashed toward my head, I plucked it from his grip and threw it away. A moment later I had seized one-handed the neck of that great cockroach and, with bone-cracking force, smashed his surprised face into the elegant wall paneling.

  On that afternoon in that particular palace no one paid much attention to a little more blood here and there. In fact, I had thought that no one in the rooms nearby was paying any attention at all, or I would have chosen a less dramatic method of pest eradication. My meatcutter's body slid easily down the wall and blended into the similar litter on the floor. Briefly I considered claiming his red cap as the spoils of war, to serve me as protective coloration. But alas, it was already too late for that.

  Unhappily my disposal of this vermin, which might well have gone unnoticed amid the general uproar and carnage, had instead attracted the attention of several additional aristocrat-hunters, no less eager than the first. They were now shouting at me from an adjoining room. These folk I hoped to be able to avoid by retreating into the upper levels of the palace, where I expected to find mostly servants' rooms.

  Kind fortune discovered to me a narrow stair, formerly a path for unobtrusive servants, which went up inconspicuously within the thickness of a wall.
I took this path, and no one immediately followed me. For a minute or two I was able to hope that my pursuers would be distracted, but so determined were they that at last I judged it wise to climb out of one window and up a more or less sheer wall into another one, following a route that few if any breathing opponents could have managed, and none at all if they were carrying weapons.

  Things were going on much the same upon the floor above, except that there were fewer people. On impulse, throwing open the doors in a large cupboard in hopes of discovering one of Radu's breathing helpers, I found instead firstone terrified servant of the royal household and then another, a pair who had been hiding from the mob. When I appeared they were convinced that their last hour had come, and began entreating me in the most disgusting terms for mercy.

  Bah. I shut their whimpering, howling faces and stinking bodies—they had already soiled themselves in fear—back up inside their closet. Whether they ultimately survived or not I have to this day no idea, but I suppose their chances were rather good, as the hunters were more interested in me.

  Once or twice in my prolonged and convoluted passage through the ruined palace, I had observed signs which it would have been possible to interpret as evidence of Radu's passage, things to indicate that he had proceeded me along this route, stopping to take his debased pleasures where and when he chose. For example, here and there a body showed evidence of more than ordinarily fiendish torture. But with atrocity on every hand, it would have been difficult even for him to distinguish himself in this company.

  I had just begun to feel that my stubborn pursuers had given up, when one of them again caught sight of me in the distance, down a long vista of corridor, and raised a cry. I cursed and dodged out of sight, but here they came after me again, pounding on door after door and pausing at a couple of locked ones to break them down. These artistic palatial doors were not stout enough to require a great deal of effort. Five years ago, only madmen had dreamed of a mob that would one day be treading these exquisitely parqueted and tiled floors, seeking the blood of the oppressors of the poor.