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The Silver Collar
GARRY KILWORTH
==========
“The Silver Collar” is a departure for Garry, who usually writes contemporary or futuristic
science fiction It is the most traditional of the stories in this volume, a gothic fantasy in which the
vampire main character is never on stage. It shows the folly of those who believe love can
conquer all.
==========
The remote Scottish island came into view just as the sun was setting Outside the natural harbor, the sea
was kicking a little in its traces and tossing its white manes in the dying light My small outboard motor
struggled against the ebbing tide, sometimes whining as it raced in the air as a particularly low trough left it
without water to push against the blades of its propeller By the time I reached the jetty, the moon was up
and casting its chill light upon the shore and purple-heather hills beyond There was a smothered
atmosphere to this lonely place of rock and thin soil, as if the coarse grass and hardy plants had
descended as a complete layer to wrap the ruggedness in a faded cover, hiding the nakedness from
mean, inquisitive eyes.
As the agents had promised, he was waiting on the quay, his tall, emaciated figure stark against the
gentle upward slope of the hinterland a splinter of granite from the rock on which he made his home.
“I’ve brought the provisions,” I called, as he took the line and secured it.
“Good Will you come up to the croft? There’s a peat fire going—it’s warm, and I have some scotch
Nothing like a dram before an open fire, with the smell of burning peat filling the room.
“I could just make it out with the tide,” I said. “Perhaps I should go now.” It was not that I was reluctant
to accept the invitation from this eremite, this strange recluse—on the contrary, he interested me—but I
had to be sure to get back to the mainland that night, since I was to crew a fishing vessel the next day.
“You have time for a dram,” his voice drifted away on the cold wind that had sprung up within minutes,
like a breath from the mouth of the icy north. I had to admit to myself that a whisky, by the fire, would set
me on my toes for the return trip, and his tone had a faintly insistent quality about it which made the offer
difficult to refuse.
“Just a minute then—and thanks. You lead the way.”
I followed his lean, lithe figure up through the heather, which scratched at my ankles through my
seasocks. The path was obviously not well used and I imagined he spent his time in and around his croft,
for even in the moonlight I could discern no other tracks incising the soft shape of the hill.
We reached his dwelling and he opened the wooden door, allowing me to enter first. Then, seating me in
front of the fire, he poured me a generous whisky before sitting down himself. I listened to the wind,
locked outside the timber and turf croft, and waited for him to speak.
 
He said, “John, isn’t it? They told me on the radio.”
“Yes—and you’re Samual.”
“Sam. You must call me Sam.”
I told him I would and there was a period of silence while we regarded each other. Peat is not a
consistent fuel, and tends to spurt and spit colorful plumes of flame as the gases escape, having been held
prisoner from the seasons for God knows how long. Nevertheless, I was able to study my host in the
brief periods of illumination that the fire afforded. He could have been any age, but I knew he was my
senior by a great many years. The same thoughts must have been passing through his own head, for he
remarked, “John, how old are you? I would guess at twenty.”
“Nearer thirty, Sam. I was twenty-six last birthday.” He nodded, saying that those who live a solitary
life, away from others, have great difficulty in assessing the ages of people they do meet. Recent events
slipped from his memory quite quickly, while the past seemed so close.
He leaned forward, into the hissing fire, as if drawing a breath from the ancient atmospheres it released
into the room. Behind him, the earthen walls of the croft, held together by rough timbers and unhewn
stones, seemed to move closer to his shoulder, as if ready to support his words with confirmation. I
sensed a story coming. I recognized the pose from being in the company of sailors on long voyages and
hoped he would finish before I had to leave.
“You’re a good-looking boy,” he said. “So was I, once upon a time.” He paused to stir the flames and a
blue-green cough from the peat illuminated his face. The skin was taut over the high cheekbones and
there was a wanness to it, no doubt brought about by the inclement weather of the isles—the lack of
sunshine and the constant misty rain that comes in as white veils from the north. Yes, he had been
handsome—still was. I was surprised by his youthful features and suspected that he was not as old as he
implied.
“A long time ago,” he began, “when we had horse-drawn vehicles and things were different, in more
ways than one…”
A sharp whistling note—the wind squeezing through two tightly packed logs in the croft—distracted me.
Horse-drawn vehicles? What was this? A second-hand tale, surely? Yet he continued in the first person.
“… gas lighting in the streets. A different set of values. A different set of beliefs. We were more pagan
then. Still had our roots buried in dark thoughts. Machines have changed all that. Those sort of pagan,
mystical ideas can’t share a world with machines. Unnatural beings can only exist close to the natural
world and nature’s been displaced.
Yes, a different world—different things to fear. I was afraid as a young man—the reasons may seem
trivial to you, now, in your time. I was afraid of, well, getting into something I couldn’t get out of. Woman
trouble, for instance—especially one not of my class. You understand?
I got involved once. Must have been about your age, or maybe a bit younger since I’d only just finished
my apprenticeship and was a journeyman at the time. Silversmith. You knew that? No, of course you
didn’t. A silversmith, and a good one too. My master trusted me with one of his three shops, which
puffed my pride a bit, I don’t mind telling you. Anyway, it happened that I was working late one evening,
when I heard the basement doorbell jangle.
 
I had just finished lighting the gas lamps in the workshop at the back, so I hurried to the counter where a
customer was waiting. She had left the door open and the sounds from the street were distracting, the
basement of course being on a level with the cobbled road. Coaches were rumbling by and the noise of
street urchins and flower sellers was fighting for attention with the foghorns from the river. As politely as I
could, I went behind the customer and closed the door. Then I turned to her and said, “Yes madam?
Can I be of service?”
She was wearing one of those large satin cloaks that only ladies of quality could afford and she threw
back the hood to reveal one of the most beautiful faces I have ever seen in my life. There was a purity to
her complexion that went deeper than her flawless skin, much deeper. And her eyes—how can I
describe her eyes?—they were like black mirrors and you felt you could see the reflection of your own
soul in them. Her hair was dark—coiled on her head—and it contrasted sharply with that complexion,
pale as a winter moon, and soft, soft as the velvet I used for polishing the silver.
“Yes,” she replied. “You may be of service. You are the silversmith, are you not?”
“The journeyman, madam. I’m in charge of this shop.”
She seemed a little agitated, her fingers playing nervously with her reticule.
“I…‘ she faltered, then continued. ”I have a rather unusual request. Are you able to keep a secret,
silversmith?“
“My work is confidential, if the customer wishes it so. Is it some special design you require? Something
to surprise a loved one with? I have some very fine filigree work here.” I removed a tray from beneath
the counter. “There’s something for both the lady and the gentleman. A cigar case, perhaps? This one has
a crest wrought into the case in fine silver wire—an eagle, as you can see. It has been fashioned
especially for a particular customer, but I can do something similar if you require…‘
I stopped talking because she was shaking her head and seemed to be getting impatient with me.
“Nothing like that. Something very personal. I want you to make me a collar—a silver collar. Is that
possible?”
“All things are possible.” I smiled. “Given the time of course. A tore of some kind?”
“No, you misunderstand me.” A small frown marred the ivory forehead and she glanced anxiously
towards the shop door. “Perhaps I made a mistake… ?
Worried, in case I lost her custom, I assured her that whatever was her request I should do my utmost
to fulfill it. At the same time I told her that I could be trusted to keep the nature of the work to myself.
“No one shall know about this but the craftsman and the customer— you and I.”
She smiled at me then: a bewitching, spellbinding smile, and my heart melted within me. I would have
done anything for her at that moment— I would have robbed my master—and I think she knew it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have realized I could trust you. You have a kind face. A gentle face. One
should learn to trust in faces.
 
“I want you—I want you to make me a collar which will cover my whole neck, especially the throat. I
have a picture here, of some savages in Africa. The women have metal bands around their necks which
envelop them from shoulder to chin. I want you to encase me in a similar fashion, except with one single
piece of silver, do you understand? And I want it to fit tightly, so that not even your…” She took my
hand in her own small gloved fingers. “So that not even your little finger will be able to find its way
beneath.”
I was, of course, extremely perturbed at such a request. I tried to explain to her that she would have to
take the collar off quite frequently, or the skin beneath would become diseased. Her neck would certainly
become very ugly.
“In any case, it will chafe and become quite sore. There will be constant irritation…”
She dropped my hand and said, no, I still misunderstood. The collar was to be worn permanently. She
had no desire to remove it, once I had fashioned it around her neck. There was to be no locking device
or anything of that sort. She wanted me to seal the metal.
“But?” I began, but she interrupted me in a firm voice.
“Silversmith, I have stated my request, my requirements. Will you carry out my wishes, or do I find
another craftsman? I should be loath to do so, for I feel we have reached a level of understanding which
might be difficult elsewhere. I’m going to be frank with you. This device, well— its purpose is protective.
My husband-to-be is not—not like other men, but I love him just the same. I don’t wish to embarrass
you with talk that’s not proper between strangers, and personal to my situation, but the collar is
necessary to ensure my marriage is happy—a limited happiness. Limited to a lifetime. I’m sure you must
understand now. If you want me to leave your shop, I shall do so, but I am appealing to you because you
are young and must know the pain of love—unfulfilled love. You are a handsome man and I don’t doubt
you have a young lady whom you adore. If she were suffering under some terrible affliction, a disease
which you might contract from her, I’m sure it would make no difference to your feelings. You would
strive to find a way in which you could live together, yet remain uncontaminated yourself. Am I right?“
I managed to breathe the word ‘Yes,“ but at the time I was filled with visions of horror. Visions of this
beautiful young woman being wooed by some foul creature of the night—a supernatural beast that had no
right to be treading on the same earth, let alone touching that sacred skin, kissing—my mind
reeled—kissing those soft, moist lips with his monstrous mouth. How could she? Even the thought of it
made me shudder in revulsion.
“Ah,” she smiled, knowingly. “You want to save me from him. You think he is ugly and that I’ve been
hypnotized, somehow, into believing otherwise? You’re quite wrong. He’s handsome in a way that you’d
surely understand—and sensitive, kind, gentle—those things a woman finds important. He’s also very
cultured. His blood…”
I winced and took a step backward, but she was lost in some kind of reverie as she listed his attributes
and I’m sure was unaware of my presence for some time.
“… his blood is unimpeachable, reaching back through a royal lineage to the most notable of European
families. I love him, yet I do not want to become one of his kind, for that would destroy my love…”
“And—he loves you of course,” I said, daringly.
For a moment those bright eyes clouded over, but she replied, “In his way. It’s not important that we
 
both feel the same kind of love . We want to be together, to share our lives. I prefer him to any man I
have ever met and I will not be deterred by an obstacle that’s neither his fault, nor mine. A barrier that’s
been placed in our way by the injustice of nature. He can’t help the way he is—and I want to go to him.
That’s all there is to it.”
For a long time neither of us said anything. My throat felt too dry and constricted for words, and deep
inside me I could feel something struggling, like a small creature fighting the folds of a net. The situation
was beyond my comprehension: that is, I did not wish to allow it to enter my full understanding or I
would have run screaming from the shop and made myself look foolish to my neighbors.
“Will you do it, silversmith?”
“But,” I said, “a collar covers only the throat…‘ I left the rest unsaid, but I was concerned that she was
not protecting herself fully: the other parts of her anatomy—the wrists, the thighs.
She became very angry. “He isn’t an animal . He’s a gentleman. I’m merely guarding against—against
moments of high passion. It’s not just a matter of survival with him. The act is sensual and spiritual, as
well as—as well as—what you’re suggesting,” there was a note of loathing in her tone, “is tantamount to
rape.”
She was so incensed that I did not dare say that her lover must have satisfied his need somewhere , and
therefore had compromised the manners and morals of a gentleman many times.
“Will you help me?” The eyes were pleading now. I tried to look out of the small, half-moon window, at
the yellow-lighted streets, at the feet moving by on the pavement above, in an attempt to distract myself,
but they were magnetic, those eyes, and they drew me back in less than a moment. I felt helpless—a
trapped bird—in their unremitting gaze of anguish, and of course, I submitted.
I agreed. I just heard myself saying, “Yes,” and led her into the back of the shop where I began the
work. It was not a difficult task to actually fashion the collar, though the sealing of it was somewhat
painful to her and had to be carried out in stages, which took us well into the night hours. I must have,
subconsciously perhaps, continued to glance through the workshop door at the window, for she said
once, very quietly, “He will not come here.”
Such a beautiful throat she had too. Very long, and elegant. It seemed a sacrilege to encase such beauty
in metal, though I made the collar as attractive as I made any silver ornament which might adorn a pretty
woman. On the outside of the metal I engraved centripetal designs and at her request, some
representational forms: Christ on the cross, immediately over her jugular vein, but also Zeus and Europa,
and Zeus and Leda, with the Greek god in his bestial forms of the bull and the swan. I think she had been
seduced by the thought that she was marrying some kind of deity.
When I had finished, she paid me and left. I watched her walk out, into the early morning mists, with a
heavy guilt in my heart. What could I have done? I was just a common craftsman and had no right
interfering in the lives of others. Perhaps I should have tried harder to dissuade her, but I doubt she
would have listened to my impertinence for more than a few moments. Besides, I had, during those few
short hours, fallen in love with her—utterly—and when she realized she had made a mistake, she would
have to come back to me again, to have the collar removed.
I wanted desperately to see her again, though I knew that any chance of romance was impossible,
hopeless. She was not of my class—or rather, I was not of hers, and her beauty was more than I could
ever aspire to, though I knew myself to be a good-looking young man. Some had called me beautiful—it
 

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