Carpe Jugulum

In the middle of it, holding a bucket and a shovel, was Igor.
    “Igor!”
    “Yeth, marthter?”
    “You’re putting down dust again, aren’t you…”
    “Yeth, marthter.”
    “And why are you putting down dust, Igor?” said Vlad icily.
    “You’ve got to have dutht, marthter. It’th tradi—
    “Igor, Mother told you. We don’t want dust. We don’t want huge candlesticks. We don’t want eyeholes cut in all the pictures, and we certainly don’t want your wretched box of damn spiders and your stupid little whip!”
    In the ringing, red-hot silence Igor looked down at his feet.
    “…thpiderth webth ith what people ecthpect, marthter…” he mumbled.
    “We don’t want them!”
    “…the old Count liked my thpiderth…” said Igor, his voice like some little insect that would nevertheless not be squashed.
    “It’s ridiculous , Igor.”
    “…he uthed to thay, ‘good webth today, Igor…’”
    “Look, just…just go away , will you? See if you can’t sort out that dreadful smell from the garderobe. Mother says it makes her eyes water. And stand up straight and walk properly!” Vlad called after him. “No one’s impressed by the limp!”
    Agnes saw Igor’s retreating back pause for a moment, and she expected him to say something. But then he continued his wobbly walk.
    “He’s such a big baby,” said Vlad, shaking his head. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
    “Yes, I think I’m sorry too,” said Agnes.
    “He’s going to be replaced. Father’s only been keeping him on out of sentiment. I’m afraid he came with the old castle, along with the creaking roof and the strange smell halfway up the main stairs which, I have to say, is not as bad as the one we’ve noticed here. Oh dear…look at this, will you? We turn our back for five minutes…”
    There was a huge and very dribbly candle burning in a tall black candlestick.
    “King Verence had all those oil lamps put in, a lovely modern light, and Igor’s been going around replacing them with candles again! We don’t even know where he gets them from. Lacci thinks he saves his earwax…”
    They were in the long room beside the great hall now. Vlad lifted the candlestick up so that the flame’s glow lit the wall.
    “Ah, they’ve put the pictures up. You ought to get to know the family…”
    The light fell on a portrait of a tall, thin, gray-haired man in evening dress and a red-lined cloak. He looked quite distinguished in a distant, aloof sort of way. There was the glimmer of a lengthened canine on his lower lip.
    “My great-uncle,” said Vlad. “The last…incumbent.”
    “What’s the sash and star he’s wearing?” said Agnes. She could hear the sounds of the mob, far off but growing louder.
    “The Order of Gvot. He built our family home. Don’tgonearthe Castle, we call it. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of it?”
    “It’s a strange name.”
    “Oh, he used to laugh about it. The local coachmen used to warn visitors, you see. ‘Don’t go near the castle,’ they’d say. ‘Even if it means spending a night up a tree, never go up there to the castle,’ they’d tell people. ‘Whatever you do, don’t set foot in that castle.’ He said it was marvelous publicity. Sometimes he had every bedroom full by nine P.M . and people would be hammering on the door to get in. Travelers would go miles out of their way to see what all the fuss was about. We won’t see his like again, with any luck. He did rather play to the crowd, I’m afraid. Rose from the grave so often that he had a coffin with a revolving lid. Ah…Aunt Carmilla…”
    Agnes stared at a very severe woman in a figure-hugging black dress and deep-plum lipstick.
    “She was said to bathe in the blood of up to two hundred virgins at a time,” Vlad said. “I don’t believe that. Use more than eighty virgins and even quite a large bath will overflow, Lacrimosa tells me.”
    “These little details are important,” said Agnes, buoyed up by the excitement of terror. “And, of course, it is so hard to find the soap.”
    “Killed by a mob, I’m afraid.”
    “People can be so ungrateful.”
    “And this …” the light passed along the hall “…is my grandfather…”
    A bald head. Dark-rimmed, staring eyes. Two teeth like needles, two ears like batwings, fingernails that hadn’t been trimmed for years…
    “But half the picture’s just bare canvas,” said Agnes.
    “The family story is that old Magyrato got hungry,” said Vlad. “A very