Radcliffe watched her working on the gash in the visitor's right side. "Ugly gash," she muttered. "I would think it needed stitches, and the one in your forehead too, but already they seem halfway healed. How did you get them? It must have been days ago."
"Would you believe I suffered a hunting accident?"
The American shook his head. "Not without a considerable effort. Were you hunting with spears and swords? And you said that you might be pursued."
In reply the victim only grinned, stretching the taut skin of his face, making it even more skull-like.
They offered him various items from their modest supply of food and drink—Old Jules's granddaughter had made delicious soup—but the patient firmly declined. Even in his condition, he could be very firm. When pressed, he rinsed out his mouth with a mixture of wine and water, then spat out the red stuff violently.
After sunset came, the main event of the evening, as far as the weakened, hunted vampire was concerned, was the return of the doctor's daughter. Melanie was accompanied by the servant girl, who was carrying a lantern, a jug of water, and some soup. Even at midday the room remained very dim.
The servant girl paused in the doorway, while Melanie, advancing across the room, knelt down on the stone floor and murmured softly: "Is there anything I can do for you, Citizen Legrand?"
"You and your husband have done very much already. You have saved my life." The victim's voice was stronger than his deathly appearance suggested.
For some reason Melanie thought it necessary to make the situation clear. "He is not my husband."
The visitor only looked at her, and again she felt it incumbent upon her to explain.
She sat back on her heels. "Philip and I are friends. We knew each other as children. Philip is an American now, but he was born here on this estate. The land is—was—in his mother's family. Before she took him to America, he and I often played together in this house, on these grounds… that was almost twenty years ago… so we are old friends." Pause. "That is all."
"Ah." And something in her listener's eyes seemed to alter. "I think that 'Radcliffe' is not a French name."
"Philip was telling me about that last night. His mother married an American called Radcliffe years ago, and her young child took that man's name."
After a moment's pause she added: "Philip's natural father was Benjamin Franklin."
Almost any resident of France would have been interested at the mention of the late American celebrity, who had lived in France for so many years, and the wounded vampire was no exception. His low voice murmured: "Now that you mention it, our host does bear a certain resemblance to Franklin, around the eyes."
"You were privileged to meet the great M'sieu Franklin, then?"
"Once, years ago, I had that honor… and how is the elder statesman now?"
"I regret to say that he died four years ago, across the sea in Philadelphia. I am surprised you did not know."
"It is the world's loss." A thin arm bent and straightened in an elegant gesture. "One falls out of touch with many things."
With the situation now a little clearer to both Vlad Dracula and Melanie (though in fact each still labored under a fundamental misunderstanding), the kneeling woman at last slid closer and reached out to inspect the patient's bandages. At her gesture, the silent young girl who had been hanging back in the doorway now brought the light closer. The patient made no effort to sit up, and to examine him the doctor's daughter was compelled to sit right down on the stone floor, which she did with a natural and very non-aristocratic movement.
But it was an awkward position in which to try to work, and in a moment she asked irritably: "Can you not sit up?"
The patient shook his head slowly. "At the moment, you must believe me, I am vastly more comfortable, and even stronger, as I am. Healthier, lying flat on this stone floor, whether you examine me or not. It may seem strange to you, but it is so."
"Come, though, at least turn over a little and let me see," At first glance, she could tell that the main bandage over the ribs had loosened notably, as if the man could have lost weight over the last few hours. The physician's daughter, a briskly persistent nurse, looked under the bandage, then blinked her eyes at what she saw. "Mon Dieu, but you heal fast! There is a notable difference from just a few hours ago."
He grunted. "At times in the past, when I have been injured—others have told me that I heal with great rapidity."
There was a persistent hesitancy between them, and at last the young woman, having pulled off and thrown away the patient's bandage which was no longer really necessary, decided to deal just as firmly with the other matter, the one lying unmentioned and unresolved between them.
Sitting back on her heels again, running a hand through her long hair, she announced briskly: "Citizen, I think that we have seen each other before."
Once more settled in the unlikely looking position that gave him greatest comfort, he blinked at her benevolently. "That is possible. Perhaps we shared a dream."
"No." She shook her head, being firmly practical. "You must know what I mean, and it was not a dream at all. This morning, even while you still were standing outside the house, I recognized you. We met in Paris, one night near midnight, at the cemetery of the Church of the Madeleine, the place where the bodies from the place of execution are brought to be buried."
"Yes, I am familiar with it."
"We had a very strange conversation in that cemetery, you and I. I still remember it pretty well, though it took place a year ago, or even more. I was there with my cousin, my teacher, Marie Grosholtz."
The man on the floor did not comment. He waited, as if withholding judgment.
"You came upon the two of us while we were at our work there in the churchyard, and you startled us."
"For that I apologize."
"You are forgiven. But the good God knows what you must have thought that we were doing. With the heads." Melanie tried a little smile, which brought no response. "You made a strong impression on me."
He watched her, steadily.
She drew herself up a little and tried again. "From certain remarks you made at the time, Citizen Legrand (I think that then you may have given us a different name), I understood you to be completely convinced that my cousin and I were up to some… that we were cutting up dead bodies in the pursuit of some kind of black magic. But I want to tell you that was not the case at all… and it occurs to me that now, meeting Citizen Radcliffe here with me, you may believe he is also involved in that sort of wickedness. But the accusation is not true of either of us. I can explain."
Slowly the supine man shook his head. "I make no accusations. You may have noticed that I offer no reason for my own presence in the graveyard."
Melanie Remain looked at her patient—if it was still possible to call him her patient—carefully, studying him for the space of several breaths. Then she said: "I do not think you were there on any business of witchcraft either."
"Certainly I was not." There was more than a touch of asperity in the answer.
And somehow, without either party seeming to be fully aware of the fact, he had taken her hand in both of his, and had absently begun to stroke her wrist, a procedure to which she made no objection—indeed, she hardly seemed to notice.
Then abruptly he released the hand of the young woman, saying: "And it is all one to me, whatever the cause may be for your unusual interest in the bodies of the dead."
Meanwhile the young servant girl, who was still faithfully holding the light, had inched a little closer, and a little closer still. She continued watching in silence, fascinated. Her gaze had become locked on the dark eyes of the man lying on the floor, who was taking no notice of her at all.
Melanie too was gazing intently at the visitor, and now she shook her head decisively. "I see you do not believe me, M'sieu Legrand, when I protest my cousin's innocence and mine. But I tell you no, it is not what you are thinking. Some deluded folk may still believe that bits of flesh and bone cut from rotting corpses have magical value, but to me that is all superstition. Did I say anything to you at the time, to give you the wrong impression?"