SHARPEN UP THE BLADE

A SONG IN EIGHT FITS

based on the song 'The Headless Waltz', by Voltaire

The throne room was large and imposing. Towering marble pillars reached up to a high vaulted roof etched with scenes depicting the pantheon of heaven. Those glassy-eyed, benevolent cherubs seemed to stare at her as she crossed the hall, footsteps resounding around the marble room in a flurry of fragmented echoes. The blood-red tapestries and black drapes listed on the walls, filling her peripheral vision with a confused impression of blood and pitch; he had ordered them to be hung there, never mind their protests.

He sat in the throne now, fluid even in complete stillness. Clad in garments unfashionably tight, and trimmed with a delicate collar of pale cream, he was resting horizontally across the massive chair, legs thrown over one armrest while the other supported his head. Watching him, she was reminded of a basking wildcat, edgy and fluid in his never-ending twitches and long, lazy stretches. Hair that was normally the palest, fairest shade of gold was obscured by the strands of a black wig, bringing to mind the impression of a shuttered candle, a nation in mourning for his people.

His pale blue eyes, pale like a shard of cerulean seaglass, focused on the approaching noblewoman, and a small smile graced his porcelain face. "Ah," he said, in an odd fluting, lyrical voice. Something dark churned and lathered at the back of those eyes, formulating into a strange, crooked grin. "As above, so below."

She stopped there, shoes squeaking where they abused the marble, the vast blue folds of her gown sighing where they caressed the floor. Being looked at with such open interest in the middle of such a vast, cavernous, empty space, made her feel intimidated, if not offended. "I beg your pardon?"

His gaze slid away from hers, sliding downwards to focus intently upon the lace-rimmed cuff of his robe. "Place your bets," he said quietly, and drew a small, tarnished silver coin from the inside of his sleeve, "which way the heads will roll."

He flipped the coin, seemingly for no particular purpose. A tiny, bell-like ping rang out from where his nail made contact with the metal, the sound almost seeming to resonate in the room. Standing there watching, she suddenly had the feeling that she had just witnessed something very important. The coin spun, glittering in the light before he caught it again with a deft snatch of his hand and buried it back in his sleeve.

She tried to compose herself. "France, we need your help with deciding who should be the new general of finance…"

"Made in your image," he interrupted her gently. He gave her a crooked smile, black wig slipping several inches down his forehead, and it seemed to her as though he was deteriorating at the seams, a patchwork figure of sombre, faded black fabric and gaudy, listing brocade, crowned with a large wig and a pair of glittering eyes. He opened his left hand, splaying his fingers, and a gold coin set with the profile of Louis XVI glistened in the milky valley of his palm. "We are, at least, as twisted and mean as thee." His tone was almost malicious as he bowed his head, seemingly speaking softly to the coin, not her.

He confused her. "I am sorry, but of what relevance does that have to…"

"'Fore your eyes!" he stood up so swiftly she couldn't hold back a startled gasp.

"What a curious sight," he murmured when he reached her, staring down at her. He was surprisingly tall, taller than she would have believed, and cast such a menacing shadow she couldn't contain a small shiver. She could smell no alcohol on his breath, but that did little to comfort her; his very diction seemed to radiate something strange, something dark, something that she was quickly becoming frightened of.

"Wh-what is?" she quavered, after a second of agonizing silence.

"Your children have turned on you." He said finally. That crooked smile squirmed across his face again. "And you say you don't sleep well at night?"

She could only nod mutely. There was, as far as she could see, no point in responding – he knew everything there was to know about her, or so it seemed, and she had no intention of further provoking his response.

His smirk was quick and brutal; forcing his lips back to reveal a glistening flash of white teeth as he turned around. His robe whirled, the black fabric slapping her face, producing such a rattle of wind she almost missed his next statement.

"Well, we'll take care of that for you." He was playing with the silver coin again; spinning it across his knuckles, flipping it into the air, all while staring at the etched black imprint of King Louis XVI – her husband. His ethereal face contained an expression so rapturous she would have felt threatened had he not been, well, France. Yet something else lurked in his expression too – a sort of sly mockery, as though he was laughing at a terrible fact neither her nor Louis knew of.

She forced herself to answer him. "Who is this 'we' you speak of?"

His reply, when it came, was a gust of mocking, disbelieving laughter.

"Belle Marie Antoinette," he purred in her ear.

France had cornered her again, in her private rooms. The Lord only knew how he managed to breach the thick layers of security she had made sure to wrap it in, but then, he was France. Inscrutable even to his king, with a silver tongue that only made his deceptions seem all the more twisted and convoluted when brought to light. Even the nobility and their respective ranks had been unable to determine his exact agenda, and that fact alone frightened her.

She wrenched herself away, heart pounding. "What?"

He dropped down to recline in a straight-backed red velvet armchair of hers, leg over the armrest, his feline grace made all the more evident in the way he lounged against the rich upholstery. His wig dripped rivulets of blackness into his eyes, marring the perfect porcelain circle of his face. His blue eyes were mocking, laughing at her above a mouth lifted in a seemingly perpetual feral grin.

She hated him.

"What is it?" she asked again, once her trembling had abated.

France lifted a single, slim white finger, and directed it at her throat. "Love the pearls." His voice was devilish and husky, a low growl that seemed to rumble through his chest and burst out his mouth like the waters of a dam.

Her hand dropped to them, those perfect globules of pure white, and she felt her nervousness begin to lessen slightly. "Thank you."

His feral grin made her wish she hadn't spoken. "They'd make a great tourniquet." She hated how his accent dropped to mimic that of the peasantry – she felt he did it just to spite her, as if they hadn't worked hard enough.

She lost her temper then. "What the hell do you mean by that, ungracious charlatan? Straighten your tongue and answer me properly, not in those infernal riddles!"

"Never did as you should," France said softly, paying no attention to her outburst. He climbed to his feet and, as it had all the other times she had mingled around him, his shadow encompassed her, filling her with coldness. "And you claim it was all for our very own good."

The starkness of his comment unsettled her, and left a bitter, unpleasant taste clinging to her tongue. She sat down heavily in the vacated armchair, and tried hard not to let any of her internal frustration show on her face. Her throbbing voice, as always, betrayed her. "If you are referring to the peasantry, they are more than capable of going along just as well as they did before."

France's laughter was that of a madman, and she was forced to cover her ears.

October 16, 1793.

She could feel the weight of the day in her bones. She could see it in the eyes of the peasantry – their brutal, accusing eyes that scorched her as surely as the fires of Hell. Their bodies crowded her, jostling the wooden cart on which she lay but it would be lying to say she cared. So many confused, tangled thoughts were running through her mind like so many snarled balls of string, and her limbs were transfixed by a breathless numbness.

So this is what it feels like to die, she thought, as she caught the cold, sheen of the blade from the midst of the crowd.

When they lead her up to the guillotine, he was standing there. His black wig was squashed slightly, and his porcelain skin perhaps not as clear as it had once been, but the eyes were the same. Those eyes! Ice-blue and burning, they speared her from the opposite side of courtyard, a gaze heavy with accusation, betrayal, and above all, disappointment.

He had never made sense. She couldn't stand it. What was there for him to be disappointed about?

Everything, a tiny voice answered deep inside of her.

She breathed in a gulp of the frigid cold air; it shot down her lungs like icy water, and she could have sworn that gulp crystallized her lungs, transforming them into implements as cold and as savage as the accusing gazes of the bourgeoisie. A cold day for a cold crowd, she thought, and stepped onto the block.

She felt no fear, only lifted her gaze to her nation's.

"Please, Monsieur, I ask your pardon. I did not mean it."

Her reply was only a crystalline, icy smile and a sentence, softly spoken, yet none the more lyrical in the way it was whispered, like a personified lover's caress, with a grinning face and eyes the colour of madness.

"Twas a lie," France whispered, but she heard it. "A magnificent lie, and now your subjects have turned on you."

She felt his wrath, heard his words, and had the bizarre desire to laugh.

So this is what madness looks like.

"And you claim you have lots on your mind." France was saying, but she could barely hear it. All sights and sounds seemed to be reduced in quality, decreased to an inferior buzzing noise that was all she could, and all she wanted to hear. Her nation grinned at her, his smile savage and painful in its familiarity, and continued. "Well, we'll take care of that for you."

"Get that damn thing off her neck," the words were coming stronger now, a rush of hysterical syllables and consonants, reduced to a blurred current of sound in the direction of the black-robed executioner. "I'm the head of the board now. I'm bored of her head." Another white, maniacal grin was flashed, and this time, the sheer sadism of the expression was enough to quieten half the crowd.

"Sharpen up the blade, boys." France breathed in a frenzy to the executioner, and he nodded and stepped to the guillotine.

The crowd held its breath.

"What are you waiting for?" France whispered. He had wandered to one side now and was staring at her, and she felt sure his icy blue eyes would be the last thing she saw. Then she saw his grin and knew. "Here's where we all get ahead."

The blade fell, and the crowd breathed out in a roar.

Austria found himself falling backwards into a pair of very strong arms years later, and hot breath wasted no time in caressing his ear.

"Wipe that damn smile off your face," France whispered, and his words ran along his ear. His words dipped to a low, musical rhythm, and Austria's heart contracted in sudden terror as the lunatic nation sang, words soft and dangerously sweet. "Or we'll lop it off clean with our new guillotine."

"Sharpen up the blade, boys." The kingdom of France said, and Austria had the feeling the same phrase had been said many times before. There was a fanatical gleam in the nation's eyes as he leant closer, fingers running up his chest and tangling with the faded fabric of his cravat.

"What are you waiting for?" France breathed as he pressed a flurry of kisses to Austria's neck, and the musician's throat pulsated in fear. He pressed his lips deeper against the skin, inhaling the rush of heady cologne and musky scent that always accompanied the ever-present Austrian. "Here's where we all get ahead."

His reply was a terrified whimper.

France sat alone in his room that night with only the moonlight for company, and the only thing occupying him was his voice.

It was a laughing, maddened croon, rising high above the tenors of his fellows, gathering and lathering in a seething hive of infected notes.

In the darkened room, with the shadows pressing against him like bars, France rocked back and forth and sang.

"All my troubles, all my pain stems from this thing that you call a brain."

White fingers knotted uncomfortably tight in the strands of a black wig, and a maniacal laugh tore the silence of the room. "Be my guest. Sever me from the source of all my agony."

He stood up and lurched for the desk. The dusk was blurring into an endless tapestry of night through the gilt window, gilt he had tried so hard to scratch away because above all it seemed unfair that he should have to live in opulence while his people suffered. Another heady laugh dashed its way past his lips as he stared down at the piece of paper lying serenely on the desk.

Royaume de France, it read. Then, underneath it, Republique français.

"What a shame," France said softly, tracing the black lettering with a bloodstained finger beneath his glove. "I've forgotten my name without the use of my brain."

His soliloquy lasted for only a minute before it was shattered by another triumphant laugh, becausehe would not allow himself to grieve over a nobility that had only caused his people harm. White wine from the crystal flute splashed the wood floorboards as he whirled around, laughing.

"And I bet I'll sleep well tonight!" He was laughing, harder than he had ever laughed in his life, the heady reek of alcohol accompanying the tears he shed for his fallen nobility. A paperknife was flung without thought in the direction of a portrait on the wall, and embedded itself deep between King Louis XVI's eyes. "Without this head of mine!"

Nighttime descended, and he was still laughing.

"Get this damn thing off my neck."

The revolutionary looked up from his paperwork in surprise. "Sorry, sir?"

France stood before him with the haggard, wearied stance of somebody who had suffered the consequences of a thousand millennia of battles all under the space of a few years. Few times had the young revolutionary seen his country so tired; darkness lined his normally dazzling blue eyes, and the skin around his mouth was stretched in a grimace.

"I'm the head of the board," France whispered, and his voice held the echo of an empty promise. His eyes were listless, staring ahead at absolutely nothing, but the revolutionary felt certain he was seeing something, something so frightening he couldn't even begin to imagine.

France continued speaking and his voice came out in a high, desperate rush. "Now I'm bored of my head." His fingers tore uselessly at his black wig; several long strands came loose and floated gently to the floor beneath them. France didn't seem to notice. "Sharpen up the blade, boys. What are you waiting for, here's where we'll all get ahead!" his last words came out as a hysterical scream.

The young revolutionary laid a hand on his arm, scared, yet just as concerned for his nation. "F-France, monsieur, what are you saying? There are no more ruling classes, we…" he flinched as France turned a baleful blue eye onto him.

When France spoke next, his voice was as cold and as hard as cannon shot. "Wipe that damn smile off your face." His fingers scored a flashburn across his face, sending him stumbling back onto the floorboards. France continued speaking, towering over him, lips taut, eyes rolling in a mad, desperately lost grimace of such pain and anguish it physically tore at the boy's heart.

His nation was speaking slowly now, his tone more reflective, rueful, as if looking over events long past. "Or we'll lop it off clean with our new guillotine. Sharpen up the blade, boys. Bells are now tolling, soon heads will be rolling…"

Clambering to his feet, the young revolutionary fled the room, and the insane nation that laughed and laughed within it.

England found France in a state so strange it was quite surreal. The revolution-shocked nation had discarded his black robes long ago, evidently, and had since replaced them with all the pomp and glamour of a typical, modern-day incroyable, clothes boasting an array of colours so flashy it was quite mesmerising.

Yet the new clothes were not the cause for the island nation's concern. What concerned him most was France's face. Something of the old, monarchy-era sparkle had been lost, drowned forever in the never-fading blue of those eyes, and had been replaced by something that stared dully at England, squeezing his heart with nervousness at the lifelessness. His black wig was faded and moulting dreadfully across the crown; long sheaves of black hair often fell off, and were blown away and disintegrated by the wind.

France smiled wearily at him. As he did so, his wig blew off completely, revealing a head of corn-coloured hair.

England caught his breath and reached out a hand to steady his ally, half afraid the fragile-looking nation would collapse at the slightest touch. France's new gaze was so foreign to him he stumbled over the words. "Ol-old chap? Are you alright?" In his words he caught some hint of desperation, a need for things to be as they were, because nobody liked change in their friends. Least of all him.

France's left eye twitched, and England was treated to a hysterical, desperate flash of that grin. When he spoke, his words were a high-pitched keen. "Please sir, for me sir, won't you see if you see sir?"

"What?" England blinked.

France moved closer, and in that single movement he seemed almost threatening, those blue eyes still staring desperately into his, reaching inside his soul. "Oh dear." His hands went above his head to grope around where the wig once rested, while listless eyes turned to watch it as it floated away down the street. "I dread, I seem to have lost my head."

England couldn't help snorting. "What are you on about?"

France blinked confusedly as his hands. "I think I left it about…" he turned behind him to check the street. "It fell to the ground and I kicked it about." He turned back to look perplexedly at England. "Has anyone seen, no need to be mean, by bloody fat ugly head?" As he spoke, his face twisted into a savage grin, as he slowly pressed his white fingers to his temples.

His words were coming stronger now, filling the air with their nasal consonants, yet England couldn't have felt more like he was talking to a stranger.

France stood in the courtyard where Marie Antoinette had been, and whispered in the exact same spot in which she had been executed.

"Please sis, for me sis, won't you see if you see, sis?" Passers-by were giving him odd looks, but he ignored them. He crouched down to press his gloves against the cobblestones, feeling their coldness through the fabric, and wondered how and why she had done it. He spoke softly to the cold air, voice coming in bursts of hot steam. "It's got black hair, and it's kicking about in the square. I'm really not totally sure, but I think that it might have rolled into the sewer."

The last chains of madness were being unlocked from France's mind and in his heart he knew the wig was a symbol of his vanquished monarchy.

"Has anyone seen, no need to be mean, my bloody fat ugly head…"

Somebody in a nearby house hung a French flag from the window, and France closed his eyes.