“Are you going to enlist me or not, sergeant?”

“Not usual for a gentleman to enlist as a common soldier, sir,” mumbled the sergeant.

“What you mean, sergeant, is: is anyone after me? Is there a price on my head? And the answer is no.”

“How about a mob with pitchforks?” said Corporal Strappi. “He’s a bloody vampire, sarge! Anyone can see that! He’s a Black Ribboner! Look, he’s got the badge!”

“Which says ‘Not One Drop’,” said the young man calmly. “Not one drop of human blood, sergeant. A prohibition I have accepted for almost two years, thanks to the League of Temperance. Of course, if you have a personal objection, sergeant, you only need to give it to me in writing.”

Which was quite a clever thing to say, Polly thought. Those clothes cost serious money. Most of the vampire families were highly nobby. You never knew who was connected to who… not just connected to who, in fact, but to whom. Whoms were likely to be far more trouble than your common everyday who. The sergeant was looking down a mile of rough road.

“Got to move with the times, corporal,” he said, deciding not to go there. “And we certainly need the men.”

“Yeah, but s’posin’ he wants to suck all my blood out in the middle of the night?” said Strappi.

“Well, he’ll just have to wait until Private Igor’s finished looking for your brain, won’t he?” snapped the sergeant. “Sign here, mister.”

The pen scratched on the paper. After a minute or two the vampire turned the paper over and continued writing on the other side. Vampires had long names.

“But you can call me Maladict,” he said, dropping the pen back in the inkwell.

“Thank you very much, I must say, si—private. Give him the shilling, corporal. Good job it’s not a silver one, eh? Haha!”

“Yes,” said Maladict. “It is.”

“Next!” said the sergeant. Polly watched as a farm boy, breeches held up with string, shuffled in front of the table and looked at the quill pen with the resentful perplexity of those confronted with new technology.