Vladimir was feeling rather pleased with himself. He was getting a little .. long in the tooth , these days, but the women still melted at his feet. It had been interesting spending time with Magenta, a time of reflection, of self examination, in the highest sense, of course. Somehow she had made him think about things from a long time past..

Magenta was getting impatient. She liked the look of him, tall, bone ivory skin and those piercing eyes. But he did rabbit on so. What the hell was he talking about now?

"In my younger years, Draconia took me often to Paris, for my political education. Often would we stroll through the charming Place de la Concorde, where we observed more than 1300 beheadings. You may think I was mere rabble, stalking the blood, screams and stench of the guillotine. But I admired the technical art of the machinery of the thing, and the quickness and efficiency of its technique. As one of your own poets put it so well…

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven!....
Domestic carnage, now filled the whole year
With feast-days, old men from the chimney-nook,
The maiden from the busom of her love,
The mother from the cradle of her babe,
The warrior from the field - all perished, all -
Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks,
Head after head, and never heads enough
For those that bade them fall.

As he spoke, the familiar calls of Yoshikazu whirled through Vlad's brain, and recalled those tumbling heads, calling like crows into the blood sprayed air..