"The Law Hath Slept; Now 'tis Awake" (5/?) - Dracula fan fiction
Title: The Law Hath Slept; Now 'tis Awake
Fandom: Dracula (novel)
Character/Pairing: Mina, Jonathan, Jack, Arthur.
Summary: Six months after the end of the story, Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur find that the government has finally started to take an interest in their recent actions. And under the cold scrutiny of the court, those actions may not seem so reasonable.
Rating: PG-13 (for this chapter)
Warnings: References to sexuality and Measure for Measure.
A/N: See, I didn't forget about this story!
Chapter Four
Chapter Five - An Unacceptable Alternative
The next morning, no one stopped Mina from sitting next to Jonathan, Jack and Arthur at breakfast. What they did do, however, was call out insults and taunts as she did so. She kept her head up, though, refusing, especially with the shameful memory of the Count’s eyes so firmly fixed upon her, to let them have any power over her.
Jonathan, however, seemed to be having far more difficulty doing that. He kept his eyes firmly lowered and fixed upon the food he was eating, and he flinched at the slightest things. That fact worried her far more than anything the guards could have said, because she remembered Jonathan soon after he had returned from the Count’s castle, and his current state reminded her much of that time.
She didn’t have much time to reflect on any of that, however, because the words of one of the guards broke through her thoughts. “Look at them now, the worst of humanity all gathered together! And think of who they were before the ended up here! The doctor, the teacher, the solicitor, the nobleman.” He laughed, and spit in Arthur’s face as he said the final word. “Lucky for the whole world that they’re locked up now, isn’t it?”
The others laughed, and another guard turned his attention to Mina. “And look at her, the adulteress, trying so hard to be modest. Think about it, all those times she’s been disobedient, we never realized that we could easily get a good fuck out of her, if she was so eager to give herself away to that man who testified yesterday.” That guard reached over to touch Mina lewdly, who pulled away instinctively.
Jonathan got to his feet. “Don’t touch my wife.”
The whole group of guards laughed. “The rapist wasn’t so strong willed last night, now was he? I could actually say he almost enjoyed it, didn’t he?”
Mina turned to Jonathan, her plight forgotten. “Jonathan? What are they talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter, Mina,” Jonathan said hastily, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
She was about to protest that, yes, it did matter, but then another guard rushed over to the others, who had been tormenting Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur, this one brandishing what appeared to be a newspaper. After a few moments, the newspaper was flung upon the table, where it was hesitatingly picked up by Jack, who dropped it only a few seconds later, as if unwilling to read its contents.
Although she knew she would regret it, Mina picked it up as well, and, as soon as she saw the headline, felt instantly sick.
LONG-SUFFERING NOBLEMAN TELLS OF ATROCITIES AT TRIAL!
And it continued:
At what will perhaps be the most infamous trial of our age, yesterday, Count Vlad Dracula confessed the atrocities committed against him by Mr. Jonathan Harker, Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker, Dr. John Seward and Lord Arthur Godalming, a group of hardened villains who have conspired together to ruin this poor man’s life…
Mina wanted to read no more of it, and, without a moment of hesitation, ripped the newspaper in half. Almost immediately, one of the guards hit her on the face. “Put her down for destruction of property,” he said almost immediately, and the guards soon moved on to other objects of their ridicule. As soon as that happened, Jonathan put an arm around Mina’s shoulders, holding her close to him, and she knew better than to ask about the previous night at that point.
Across the table from them, Jack and Arthur spoke quietly together, saying what Mina hoped were words of comfort to one another. For this would all be tolerable and perhaps possible to get through if they were able to give one another comfort, as they had back when the Count had waged his first attack on them, by means not so legal. In fact, of that time, it was the silences that she recalled with the most pain, the things she should have told Jonathan, the times she should have comforted Jack, as no one else bothered to, the moments when Arthur lapsed into silently painful reminisces. The rest of the time - when she let Arthur cry on her shoulder, when Jonathan first told her of the things he had experienced in Transylvania - seemed far more tolerable, at least with the rosy haze of memory.
They only had a few moments of that, however, and then they were sent to continue picking oakum - they couldn’t risk paying for more time alone two days in a row, for fear that they might not be able to do so at a time when it was more essential.
As with most things in the prison, the oakum picking rooms, filled with long, hard benches and buckets of tar-hardened rope, were divided by gender. As with the bribery, Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur wordlessly agreed not to attempt sitting together twice in a row, and Mina went to sit with Elizabeth, as she had every day since the first day that they had done this.
As the guard patrolling their area gave the signal for them to begin, and both Mina and Elizabeth reached down to pick up the first hank of rope from their buckets, Elizabeth asked Mina, her voice a practiced whisper, “How did the first day go?”
Mina began to twist the rope between her hands to begin freeing the fibers. She wasn’t very good at it - her motion wasn’t anywhere near as efficient and practiced as Elizabeth’s - but she managed it. “Not…not well at all,” she said, not looking directly at the other woman, and taking a deep breath before continuing. “The man who’s accusing us of the murders also accused Jonathan of raping the women I apparently killed. And me of attempting to…to betray Jonathan with him.”
Elizabeth made a sound of sympathy, sliding her rope across her knee. She was ahead of Mina, who hadn’t yet completely untwisted hers. “Did they rape Jonathan yet, then?”
Mina froze. “What?”
The guard nearest them called loudly, “You, over there, keep working unless you want an hour in the stocks!”
Distractedly, Mina began to roll her piece of rope across her knee, an action which had, in the weeks previous, made her canary-yellow skirt even more tattered than it would have been otherwise. It also had made her hands, which had previously been rather too soft for this sort of work, perpetually raw and bleeding. But she wasn’t paying attention to that, especially as Elizabeth nodded and continued to speak, her voice far too casual for what she was saying.
“A couple of the guards, particularly him -“ she gestured toward an imposing looking man with a thatch of straw colored hair, “like to do that to the rapists. They say it’s…what’s the word…”
“Ironic,” Mina said. Her voice was emotionless.
“Yes, that’s it. Anyway, if they haven’t done it to Jonathan, they probably will soon.”
Mina remembered Jonathan flinching at breakfast, and the guard’s lewd comment. She nodded, but said no more to Elizabeth. Elizabeth, seeing that this was clearly a topic Mina didn’t feel like discussing, returning to focusing on her work, humming slightly under her breath as she did so.
For the next several hours, Mina worked almost automatically, paying little attention to the countless hanks of rope in her hands. For all those hours, a single thought remained at the forefront of her mind. I hate him. For it all returned to the Count, didn’t it? He was the cause of all of it.
Blaming him was so easy then, out of his presence. But sitting silently in the courtroom, his eyes upon her as he spoke lies…how hard it was then not to let fear overcome her hatred completely! For hatred was like a fire; it took energy to keep it burning. But fear was instinctive, especially when faced with the gaze of his red eyes.
After what seemed like no time at all in the void of Mina’s thoughts, she, Jonathan, Arthur and Jack were called out of the room to leave for the second day of the trial. As Mina stood, smoothing her skirts and brushing fragments of hemp off of them, Elizabeth whispered, “Good luck,” and gave her a quick, unexpected kiss of the cheek. Mina tried to smile at her, but failed.
The carriage ride to the courthouse was just as silent as it had been the day before, at least on the prisoners’ side. The guards, of course, spoke just as enthusiastically to one another as always. As they got out, all four of them obediently lifted their wrists to be shackled.
The courtroom looked just the same as it had the day before, except that the Count and Mr. Whitley were both already there, and deep in discussion. Mina expected the Count to say something mentally to her, something terrible and unendurable. To her relief, he did not, and she spent the several minutes until the rest of the courtroom arrived in relative calm, though she glanced at Jonathan carefully every few seconds. Arthur and Jack, seemed to be all right, pretty much.
The seats for the public filled up even faster than they had the day before. No doubt it was the newspaper articles. Corruption, scandal…it all fascinated the public, they were drawn to it as if the journalists were each the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
When the formal preliminaries were over, Judge Brakenbury said in his thin, weak voice, “Now we shall hear the testimony of the defense. Mr. Barrett?”
Mr. Barrett stood, looking rather as though he didn’t want to be there. “Yes, your honor?”
Judge Brakenbury’s hands closed around the wood of his desk as though he was struggling to keep himself upright. “Which of your clients is going to speak first.”
“Mr. Harker, your honor.” Evidently, either Jack or Arthur had explained their intended procedure to Mr. Barrett.
The judge nodded. “He may begin.”
Mr. Barrett sat down, nodding to Jonathan, who stood, looking around him nervously. Finally, he began to speak. “It’s true that I did…I did go to Transylvania to sell a house to Count Dracula. Carfax Abbey…it’s a building, rather old and in need of repair, but still beautiful, adjacent to Carfax Asylum, where Dr. Seward works.” Jonathan swallowed hard, then continued. “I arrived at the Count’s castle on what I learned that night was the eve of St. George’s day. The Count himself arrived to greet me, and, though he claimed that all his servants were asleep that night, it seemed to me that the castle was entirely deserted.
“He was quite cordial to me at first, having a good meal prepared for me, and going so far as to have long conversations with me about the history of his people. But, as the time went on, I began to notice…quite odd things about my host.” Jonathan paused, as if unsure whether he actually wanted to say what he was about to. But he did. “First, he only came to speak to me during the night, and I had no idea where he was during the day. He also reacted very violently when he saw me wearing a crucifix and having cut myself while shaving. And…and once I saw him climbing down the wall of the castle, headfirst.”
There were gasps from almost all of those listening, and the scratching of pen on paper as all the journalists in attendance hastily took note of this most fascinating statement. Mina ventured to look at the Count. He appeared mildly surprised, but more exasperated than anything else. Odd. She had not thought him at all a good actor.
Jonathan continued. “And then, one night, I had fallen asleep in a room of the castle other than the one I was staying in. When I awoke, I saw that three women had entered. They spoke to one another, saying things about how they were each entitled to part of me, or something…”
There are kisses for us all, Mina remembered, the words Jonathan had recorded in his journal returning to her unexpectedly. She almost interrupted Jonathan to tell him, but all the possible disadvantages of that dissuaded her rather quickly.
“I wanted to get up, but I didn’t feel as though I could,” Jonathan was speaking faster, as though in a hurry to get it over with. “And one of the women climbed on top of me, and her teeth were long and sharp, almost like fangs, and then she leaned down and almost bit my neck, but the Count entered, and he yelled at all three of them, and said that I wasn’t for them, but that he had brought something else instead, and he gave them a bundle - I heard crying from it, it sounded like a child - and, the next thing I remember, I was back in my room, but the door was locked, and I couldn’t leave.”
After that, Jonathan calmed down a bit. The worst was over. He told about the rest of his stay in Transylvania, about finding the coffins and the wolves surrounding the castle, and the woman coming screaming for her child, all in relative calm, his words slower and more measured. He ended with telling of his escape from the castle, finishing with a long exhale, as though he had just run several miles.
There was almost perfect silence in the courtroom for a few seconds, though, to Mina, the air seemed heavy with disbelief. Judge Brakenbury broke the silence, his serene expression nearly unchanged. “We shall now pause for a period of fifteen minutes before Mr. Whitely poses his questions to Mr. Harker.” He gestured, saying that they were free to go, and was helped out of the room by the court reporter.
The courtroom cleared, noisily. Mina tried not to listen to what was being said, forcing herself to hear it all as an indecipherable hum, but she was already certain of their reactions; she had felt them herself, when she had first learned of Jonathan’s sufferings in Transylvania. But her opinion had changed slowly, as she read over his diary, watching his handwriting turn messy with fear, and her intuitive trust in him had been confirmed by the reassuring, accented voice of Professor Van Helsing. But, under the gaslights of the courtroom, the story told in Jonathan’s uncertain voice, Professor Van Helsing laid to rest, what could possibly change the opinion of everyone there?
Her companions scattered almost as quickly as the spectators to the trial had. Jonathan was drawn outside to talk to a journalist (she saw Mr. Whitely hurry after them, as though to prevent Jonathan from saying anything too realistic), Jack left to use the lavatory, and Arthur went outside to speak to Mr. Barrett, and, possibly to watch Jonathan and Mr. Whitely. Even the guards left, following the others. Evidently, she was the least dangerous of the four of them.
It wasn’t until the courtroom was completely empty that she realized she was alone with the Count.
She placed her shackled hands in her lap and kept her head lowered, willing herself not to look up at him. Perhaps, if she only didn’t meet his eyes…
But she heard footsteps, growing slowly closer until they were right beside her chair, and she did look up, to see him standing far too close, almost towering over her sitting form.
He reached out, the tips of his fingers barely brushing over her cheek. His skin was as cold as she remembered. “Mina. It’s been far too long.”
She wanted to sound strong and defiant, but the words came out as a plea. “Don’t touch me.”
He laughed. She remembered his laughter. It was an unpleasant sound. “I can do whatever I like, Mina. Do you think anyone cares?” His hand trailed down over her neck, lingering at the veins there. “But I shall respect your wishes, for now.” And he drew his hand back. Somehow, that didn’t feel like a victory on her part.
Without pausing, he pulled out the chair where Jonathan had been sitting, turning it to face her, and sat down in it. His voice and expression were calm, as if he was discussing something entirely inconsequential. “As I am sure you are aware, I can easily control the sentences that you and your dear friends receive. It would be a…simple matter for me to ensure that you see your husband hanged.”
Mina shuddered, an involuntary movement. She hadn’t wanted to react to him at all.
She saw a slight small on his face at her reaction, but it was soon gone, replaced with that same inappropriate calm. “But it would also be a simple matter for me to drop all charges against them, to let them go free.” He laid one of his hands over hers, far too affectionate a gesture. “And I very well might, if you comply with me.”
She didn’t need to ask what he meant; it was written in the very blood in her veins. “Never.”
His hand folded over hers, gripping them as tightly as he had that terrible night. “We shall see how long your resolve lasts, my dear.”
And, in an instant, he had let go of her hands and was on his feet and, quickly, back on the other side of the courtroom, as others began to return. As Jonathan came back, an excited looking journalist leaving his side to go sit down with the rest of the spectators, she asked him, her voice as gentle as she could possibly make it, “Are you doing all right in all of this?”
Jonathan nodded, sitting down where the Count had sat an instant before.
As soon as he was given permission to question the defense, Mr. Whitely stood up theatrically, moving from behind the desk where he had been sitting beside the Count. “Mr. Harker, you said that the castle inhabited by my client seemed deserted to you, aside from my client himself, when you first arrived?”
Jonathan nodded.
“And you arrived there on…the fifth of May, did you say it was?”
Again Jonathan nodded.
“What day would you say that you met these demon women you claim to have seen?”
Jonathan paused. “I’m afraid I don’t quite remember…”
“May fifteenth,” Mina said quietly, but loudly enough that Mr. Whitely heard her.
He continued. “May fifteen. Then, you stayed in the castle for ten days before meeting them?”
Yet again, Jonathan nodded.
“And so you expect us to believe that you remained in a building with four other people for ten days and were completely unaware of the existence of three of them, enough so that you would consider the place looking deserted?”
Jonathan frowned. “It was a very large building, and the Count instructed me not to go exploring through it.”
“Yes, but you did spend much of your time in the dining room and library, and other such places where anyone would have to spend at least some time, is that not correct?”
Jonathan seemed suddenly angry. “Yes, but, I told you, they’re not human. They don’t need to go have supper in the dining room!”
Mr. Whitely smiled indulgently. “Now, we’re all men of science here. We’re not going to be taken in by some foolish tell about demons and werewolves. You might as well just drop that façade and let us discuss the parts of your story that have at least some hope of being slightly accurate.”
There was laughter from the crowd. Jonathan seemed too embarrassed - or angry - to defend himself.
Mr. Whitely moved on to another topic. “Mr. Harker, I do hope you won’t take offense, but I am going to ask you a few questions of a slightly more personal nature. Now, this woman who sits beside you…she is your wife, correct?”
Jonathan glanced at Mina. “Yes, yes, she is.”
Mr. Whitely took a few steps forward, appearing to be contemplating his next words carefully. “Is the marriage between you and this woman…ah, how shall I say this…consummated?”
Mina bit back an angry retort, though, in truth she was baffled by the question. She was proud, however, of Jonathan’s reasonably calm response. “That is between me and my wife.”
Mr. Whitely nodded. “I understand. I merely wished to ascertain that you are…well, sexually attracted to women.”
There was more laughter from the spectators, as well as a few gasps at even the suggestion of such a thing.
Mina nearly sighed. Really, it would be ridiculous if Jonathan got accused of that on top of everything else.
This time, Jonathan sounded completely confused. “Yes…yes, I suppose I am.”
“Because,” Mr. Whitely continued, “the encounter that you describe with these women sounds unmistakably sexual in nature, and yet, you deny that you were at all attracted to them. It seems to me that either you are not attracted to women, or that, contrary to your story, you were attracted to these women who certainly behaved, according to you, in a sexual manner far unlike that of any proper English woman, in which case it would seem to me that you likely acted upon that attraction, which makes my client’s story far more plausible than your own.”
Mr. Whitley’s logic was ridiculous, as it all seemed to be based around a world of completely amoral people who acted on every impulse, but his voice, with its smooth but precise consonants and long vowels, made it all sound far more plausible than it really was. And, Mina had to admit, in comparison with the tales of vampires and shape shifting, any logic must have seemed realistic to those listening.
Things continued in that way for some time, until Mr. Whitely finished his cross examination, which lasted exactly until the time when the court was supposed to get out, as if it was a perfectly timed theatrical performance.
Once Judge Brakenbury declared the court no longer in session, the guards unceremoniously pulled Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur to their feet and began to lead them out of the courtroom. As she walked away, head down, Mina head the Count’s voice in her mind, If ever you change your mind, you need only tell me.
She said nothing in response.
Chapter Six
Fandom: Dracula (novel)
Character/Pairing: Mina, Jonathan, Jack, Arthur.
Summary: Six months after the end of the story, Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur find that the government has finally started to take an interest in their recent actions. And under the cold scrutiny of the court, those actions may not seem so reasonable.
Rating: PG-13 (for this chapter)
Warnings: References to sexuality and Measure for Measure.
A/N: See, I didn't forget about this story!
Chapter Four
Chapter Five - An Unacceptable Alternative
The next morning, no one stopped Mina from sitting next to Jonathan, Jack and Arthur at breakfast. What they did do, however, was call out insults and taunts as she did so. She kept her head up, though, refusing, especially with the shameful memory of the Count’s eyes so firmly fixed upon her, to let them have any power over her.
Jonathan, however, seemed to be having far more difficulty doing that. He kept his eyes firmly lowered and fixed upon the food he was eating, and he flinched at the slightest things. That fact worried her far more than anything the guards could have said, because she remembered Jonathan soon after he had returned from the Count’s castle, and his current state reminded her much of that time.
She didn’t have much time to reflect on any of that, however, because the words of one of the guards broke through her thoughts. “Look at them now, the worst of humanity all gathered together! And think of who they were before the ended up here! The doctor, the teacher, the solicitor, the nobleman.” He laughed, and spit in Arthur’s face as he said the final word. “Lucky for the whole world that they’re locked up now, isn’t it?”
The others laughed, and another guard turned his attention to Mina. “And look at her, the adulteress, trying so hard to be modest. Think about it, all those times she’s been disobedient, we never realized that we could easily get a good fuck out of her, if she was so eager to give herself away to that man who testified yesterday.” That guard reached over to touch Mina lewdly, who pulled away instinctively.
Jonathan got to his feet. “Don’t touch my wife.”
The whole group of guards laughed. “The rapist wasn’t so strong willed last night, now was he? I could actually say he almost enjoyed it, didn’t he?”
Mina turned to Jonathan, her plight forgotten. “Jonathan? What are they talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter, Mina,” Jonathan said hastily, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
She was about to protest that, yes, it did matter, but then another guard rushed over to the others, who had been tormenting Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur, this one brandishing what appeared to be a newspaper. After a few moments, the newspaper was flung upon the table, where it was hesitatingly picked up by Jack, who dropped it only a few seconds later, as if unwilling to read its contents.
Although she knew she would regret it, Mina picked it up as well, and, as soon as she saw the headline, felt instantly sick.
LONG-SUFFERING NOBLEMAN TELLS OF ATROCITIES AT TRIAL!
And it continued:
At what will perhaps be the most infamous trial of our age, yesterday, Count Vlad Dracula confessed the atrocities committed against him by Mr. Jonathan Harker, Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker, Dr. John Seward and Lord Arthur Godalming, a group of hardened villains who have conspired together to ruin this poor man’s life…
Mina wanted to read no more of it, and, without a moment of hesitation, ripped the newspaper in half. Almost immediately, one of the guards hit her on the face. “Put her down for destruction of property,” he said almost immediately, and the guards soon moved on to other objects of their ridicule. As soon as that happened, Jonathan put an arm around Mina’s shoulders, holding her close to him, and she knew better than to ask about the previous night at that point.
Across the table from them, Jack and Arthur spoke quietly together, saying what Mina hoped were words of comfort to one another. For this would all be tolerable and perhaps possible to get through if they were able to give one another comfort, as they had back when the Count had waged his first attack on them, by means not so legal. In fact, of that time, it was the silences that she recalled with the most pain, the things she should have told Jonathan, the times she should have comforted Jack, as no one else bothered to, the moments when Arthur lapsed into silently painful reminisces. The rest of the time - when she let Arthur cry on her shoulder, when Jonathan first told her of the things he had experienced in Transylvania - seemed far more tolerable, at least with the rosy haze of memory.
They only had a few moments of that, however, and then they were sent to continue picking oakum - they couldn’t risk paying for more time alone two days in a row, for fear that they might not be able to do so at a time when it was more essential.
As with most things in the prison, the oakum picking rooms, filled with long, hard benches and buckets of tar-hardened rope, were divided by gender. As with the bribery, Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur wordlessly agreed not to attempt sitting together twice in a row, and Mina went to sit with Elizabeth, as she had every day since the first day that they had done this.
As the guard patrolling their area gave the signal for them to begin, and both Mina and Elizabeth reached down to pick up the first hank of rope from their buckets, Elizabeth asked Mina, her voice a practiced whisper, “How did the first day go?”
Mina began to twist the rope between her hands to begin freeing the fibers. She wasn’t very good at it - her motion wasn’t anywhere near as efficient and practiced as Elizabeth’s - but she managed it. “Not…not well at all,” she said, not looking directly at the other woman, and taking a deep breath before continuing. “The man who’s accusing us of the murders also accused Jonathan of raping the women I apparently killed. And me of attempting to…to betray Jonathan with him.”
Elizabeth made a sound of sympathy, sliding her rope across her knee. She was ahead of Mina, who hadn’t yet completely untwisted hers. “Did they rape Jonathan yet, then?”
Mina froze. “What?”
The guard nearest them called loudly, “You, over there, keep working unless you want an hour in the stocks!”
Distractedly, Mina began to roll her piece of rope across her knee, an action which had, in the weeks previous, made her canary-yellow skirt even more tattered than it would have been otherwise. It also had made her hands, which had previously been rather too soft for this sort of work, perpetually raw and bleeding. But she wasn’t paying attention to that, especially as Elizabeth nodded and continued to speak, her voice far too casual for what she was saying.
“A couple of the guards, particularly him -“ she gestured toward an imposing looking man with a thatch of straw colored hair, “like to do that to the rapists. They say it’s…what’s the word…”
“Ironic,” Mina said. Her voice was emotionless.
“Yes, that’s it. Anyway, if they haven’t done it to Jonathan, they probably will soon.”
Mina remembered Jonathan flinching at breakfast, and the guard’s lewd comment. She nodded, but said no more to Elizabeth. Elizabeth, seeing that this was clearly a topic Mina didn’t feel like discussing, returning to focusing on her work, humming slightly under her breath as she did so.
For the next several hours, Mina worked almost automatically, paying little attention to the countless hanks of rope in her hands. For all those hours, a single thought remained at the forefront of her mind. I hate him. For it all returned to the Count, didn’t it? He was the cause of all of it.
Blaming him was so easy then, out of his presence. But sitting silently in the courtroom, his eyes upon her as he spoke lies…how hard it was then not to let fear overcome her hatred completely! For hatred was like a fire; it took energy to keep it burning. But fear was instinctive, especially when faced with the gaze of his red eyes.
After what seemed like no time at all in the void of Mina’s thoughts, she, Jonathan, Arthur and Jack were called out of the room to leave for the second day of the trial. As Mina stood, smoothing her skirts and brushing fragments of hemp off of them, Elizabeth whispered, “Good luck,” and gave her a quick, unexpected kiss of the cheek. Mina tried to smile at her, but failed.
The carriage ride to the courthouse was just as silent as it had been the day before, at least on the prisoners’ side. The guards, of course, spoke just as enthusiastically to one another as always. As they got out, all four of them obediently lifted their wrists to be shackled.
The courtroom looked just the same as it had the day before, except that the Count and Mr. Whitley were both already there, and deep in discussion. Mina expected the Count to say something mentally to her, something terrible and unendurable. To her relief, he did not, and she spent the several minutes until the rest of the courtroom arrived in relative calm, though she glanced at Jonathan carefully every few seconds. Arthur and Jack, seemed to be all right, pretty much.
The seats for the public filled up even faster than they had the day before. No doubt it was the newspaper articles. Corruption, scandal…it all fascinated the public, they were drawn to it as if the journalists were each the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
When the formal preliminaries were over, Judge Brakenbury said in his thin, weak voice, “Now we shall hear the testimony of the defense. Mr. Barrett?”
Mr. Barrett stood, looking rather as though he didn’t want to be there. “Yes, your honor?”
Judge Brakenbury’s hands closed around the wood of his desk as though he was struggling to keep himself upright. “Which of your clients is going to speak first.”
“Mr. Harker, your honor.” Evidently, either Jack or Arthur had explained their intended procedure to Mr. Barrett.
The judge nodded. “He may begin.”
Mr. Barrett sat down, nodding to Jonathan, who stood, looking around him nervously. Finally, he began to speak. “It’s true that I did…I did go to Transylvania to sell a house to Count Dracula. Carfax Abbey…it’s a building, rather old and in need of repair, but still beautiful, adjacent to Carfax Asylum, where Dr. Seward works.” Jonathan swallowed hard, then continued. “I arrived at the Count’s castle on what I learned that night was the eve of St. George’s day. The Count himself arrived to greet me, and, though he claimed that all his servants were asleep that night, it seemed to me that the castle was entirely deserted.
“He was quite cordial to me at first, having a good meal prepared for me, and going so far as to have long conversations with me about the history of his people. But, as the time went on, I began to notice…quite odd things about my host.” Jonathan paused, as if unsure whether he actually wanted to say what he was about to. But he did. “First, he only came to speak to me during the night, and I had no idea where he was during the day. He also reacted very violently when he saw me wearing a crucifix and having cut myself while shaving. And…and once I saw him climbing down the wall of the castle, headfirst.”
There were gasps from almost all of those listening, and the scratching of pen on paper as all the journalists in attendance hastily took note of this most fascinating statement. Mina ventured to look at the Count. He appeared mildly surprised, but more exasperated than anything else. Odd. She had not thought him at all a good actor.
Jonathan continued. “And then, one night, I had fallen asleep in a room of the castle other than the one I was staying in. When I awoke, I saw that three women had entered. They spoke to one another, saying things about how they were each entitled to part of me, or something…”
There are kisses for us all, Mina remembered, the words Jonathan had recorded in his journal returning to her unexpectedly. She almost interrupted Jonathan to tell him, but all the possible disadvantages of that dissuaded her rather quickly.
“I wanted to get up, but I didn’t feel as though I could,” Jonathan was speaking faster, as though in a hurry to get it over with. “And one of the women climbed on top of me, and her teeth were long and sharp, almost like fangs, and then she leaned down and almost bit my neck, but the Count entered, and he yelled at all three of them, and said that I wasn’t for them, but that he had brought something else instead, and he gave them a bundle - I heard crying from it, it sounded like a child - and, the next thing I remember, I was back in my room, but the door was locked, and I couldn’t leave.”
After that, Jonathan calmed down a bit. The worst was over. He told about the rest of his stay in Transylvania, about finding the coffins and the wolves surrounding the castle, and the woman coming screaming for her child, all in relative calm, his words slower and more measured. He ended with telling of his escape from the castle, finishing with a long exhale, as though he had just run several miles.
There was almost perfect silence in the courtroom for a few seconds, though, to Mina, the air seemed heavy with disbelief. Judge Brakenbury broke the silence, his serene expression nearly unchanged. “We shall now pause for a period of fifteen minutes before Mr. Whitely poses his questions to Mr. Harker.” He gestured, saying that they were free to go, and was helped out of the room by the court reporter.
The courtroom cleared, noisily. Mina tried not to listen to what was being said, forcing herself to hear it all as an indecipherable hum, but she was already certain of their reactions; she had felt them herself, when she had first learned of Jonathan’s sufferings in Transylvania. But her opinion had changed slowly, as she read over his diary, watching his handwriting turn messy with fear, and her intuitive trust in him had been confirmed by the reassuring, accented voice of Professor Van Helsing. But, under the gaslights of the courtroom, the story told in Jonathan’s uncertain voice, Professor Van Helsing laid to rest, what could possibly change the opinion of everyone there?
Her companions scattered almost as quickly as the spectators to the trial had. Jonathan was drawn outside to talk to a journalist (she saw Mr. Whitely hurry after them, as though to prevent Jonathan from saying anything too realistic), Jack left to use the lavatory, and Arthur went outside to speak to Mr. Barrett, and, possibly to watch Jonathan and Mr. Whitely. Even the guards left, following the others. Evidently, she was the least dangerous of the four of them.
It wasn’t until the courtroom was completely empty that she realized she was alone with the Count.
She placed her shackled hands in her lap and kept her head lowered, willing herself not to look up at him. Perhaps, if she only didn’t meet his eyes…
But she heard footsteps, growing slowly closer until they were right beside her chair, and she did look up, to see him standing far too close, almost towering over her sitting form.
He reached out, the tips of his fingers barely brushing over her cheek. His skin was as cold as she remembered. “Mina. It’s been far too long.”
She wanted to sound strong and defiant, but the words came out as a plea. “Don’t touch me.”
He laughed. She remembered his laughter. It was an unpleasant sound. “I can do whatever I like, Mina. Do you think anyone cares?” His hand trailed down over her neck, lingering at the veins there. “But I shall respect your wishes, for now.” And he drew his hand back. Somehow, that didn’t feel like a victory on her part.
Without pausing, he pulled out the chair where Jonathan had been sitting, turning it to face her, and sat down in it. His voice and expression were calm, as if he was discussing something entirely inconsequential. “As I am sure you are aware, I can easily control the sentences that you and your dear friends receive. It would be a…simple matter for me to ensure that you see your husband hanged.”
Mina shuddered, an involuntary movement. She hadn’t wanted to react to him at all.
She saw a slight small on his face at her reaction, but it was soon gone, replaced with that same inappropriate calm. “But it would also be a simple matter for me to drop all charges against them, to let them go free.” He laid one of his hands over hers, far too affectionate a gesture. “And I very well might, if you comply with me.”
She didn’t need to ask what he meant; it was written in the very blood in her veins. “Never.”
His hand folded over hers, gripping them as tightly as he had that terrible night. “We shall see how long your resolve lasts, my dear.”
And, in an instant, he had let go of her hands and was on his feet and, quickly, back on the other side of the courtroom, as others began to return. As Jonathan came back, an excited looking journalist leaving his side to go sit down with the rest of the spectators, she asked him, her voice as gentle as she could possibly make it, “Are you doing all right in all of this?”
Jonathan nodded, sitting down where the Count had sat an instant before.
As soon as he was given permission to question the defense, Mr. Whitely stood up theatrically, moving from behind the desk where he had been sitting beside the Count. “Mr. Harker, you said that the castle inhabited by my client seemed deserted to you, aside from my client himself, when you first arrived?”
Jonathan nodded.
“And you arrived there on…the fifth of May, did you say it was?”
Again Jonathan nodded.
“What day would you say that you met these demon women you claim to have seen?”
Jonathan paused. “I’m afraid I don’t quite remember…”
“May fifteenth,” Mina said quietly, but loudly enough that Mr. Whitely heard her.
He continued. “May fifteen. Then, you stayed in the castle for ten days before meeting them?”
Yet again, Jonathan nodded.
“And so you expect us to believe that you remained in a building with four other people for ten days and were completely unaware of the existence of three of them, enough so that you would consider the place looking deserted?”
Jonathan frowned. “It was a very large building, and the Count instructed me not to go exploring through it.”
“Yes, but you did spend much of your time in the dining room and library, and other such places where anyone would have to spend at least some time, is that not correct?”
Jonathan seemed suddenly angry. “Yes, but, I told you, they’re not human. They don’t need to go have supper in the dining room!”
Mr. Whitely smiled indulgently. “Now, we’re all men of science here. We’re not going to be taken in by some foolish tell about demons and werewolves. You might as well just drop that façade and let us discuss the parts of your story that have at least some hope of being slightly accurate.”
There was laughter from the crowd. Jonathan seemed too embarrassed - or angry - to defend himself.
Mr. Whitely moved on to another topic. “Mr. Harker, I do hope you won’t take offense, but I am going to ask you a few questions of a slightly more personal nature. Now, this woman who sits beside you…she is your wife, correct?”
Jonathan glanced at Mina. “Yes, yes, she is.”
Mr. Whitely took a few steps forward, appearing to be contemplating his next words carefully. “Is the marriage between you and this woman…ah, how shall I say this…consummated?”
Mina bit back an angry retort, though, in truth she was baffled by the question. She was proud, however, of Jonathan’s reasonably calm response. “That is between me and my wife.”
Mr. Whitely nodded. “I understand. I merely wished to ascertain that you are…well, sexually attracted to women.”
There was more laughter from the spectators, as well as a few gasps at even the suggestion of such a thing.
Mina nearly sighed. Really, it would be ridiculous if Jonathan got accused of that on top of everything else.
This time, Jonathan sounded completely confused. “Yes…yes, I suppose I am.”
“Because,” Mr. Whitely continued, “the encounter that you describe with these women sounds unmistakably sexual in nature, and yet, you deny that you were at all attracted to them. It seems to me that either you are not attracted to women, or that, contrary to your story, you were attracted to these women who certainly behaved, according to you, in a sexual manner far unlike that of any proper English woman, in which case it would seem to me that you likely acted upon that attraction, which makes my client’s story far more plausible than your own.”
Mr. Whitley’s logic was ridiculous, as it all seemed to be based around a world of completely amoral people who acted on every impulse, but his voice, with its smooth but precise consonants and long vowels, made it all sound far more plausible than it really was. And, Mina had to admit, in comparison with the tales of vampires and shape shifting, any logic must have seemed realistic to those listening.
Things continued in that way for some time, until Mr. Whitely finished his cross examination, which lasted exactly until the time when the court was supposed to get out, as if it was a perfectly timed theatrical performance.
Once Judge Brakenbury declared the court no longer in session, the guards unceremoniously pulled Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur to their feet and began to lead them out of the courtroom. As she walked away, head down, Mina head the Count’s voice in her mind, If ever you change your mind, you need only tell me.
She said nothing in response.
Chapter Six