by Paul Doherty
“There are exceptions,” he wearily added, sitting slumped on a camp-stool in Drakulya’s tent. “The Pope, Pius II, is sending silver to Matthew Corvinus . . .”
“But none to me,” Drakulya snapped, interrupting him.
“No, your Highness,” Mihail replied.
“And our cousin, Stephen,” Drakulya continued.
“As you must have heard from Cirstian, the Prince of Moldavia,” Mihail answered, “sends greetings and is moving troops down to the border fortress of Chilia.” Cirstian had sent no such messages and this brought a frozen silence to the proceedings. I still remember us all sitting crouched in that dimly-lit tent, our shadows thrown black against the canvas by the light of flickering torches and the glowing charcoal braziers which fended off the spring chill, Drakulya lounging on a divan, Mihail sitting opposite staring nervously at his hands, Theodore chewing nervously at his fat lower lip and Gales, the leader of the loyalist Boyars in the army, pensive and withdrawn, his long saturnine face a mask of impassivity. Drakulya drew in his breath and then let it out in a long-drawn out hiss like a snake preparing to strike. “Well,” he said softly, “and what does our cousin Stephen intend?” We all knew that relations with Moldavia had cooled since Stephen had submitted a claim that the border fortress of Chilia was rightfully his.
“I do not know,” Mihail answered. “There is more news!” He looked nervously at Gales and then back to encounter Drakulya’s heavy-lidded glance. “There are rumours of fresh conspiracies in Wallachia and,” he continued even faster, “there are two great Turkish armies advancing to meet us. Mohammed is leading a great fleet of twenty-five triremes and one hundred and fifty ships down the Danube. He has already navigated the Sulina Channel and taken and burnt the port of Braila.”
“And the other?” the Prince caustically asked.
“Marching north under the Bey of Remelia,” Mihail replied. “Both armies are to meet on the Danube, perhaps at a place not too far from here!”
Drakulya suddenly swung his legs from the divan and sat, hands clenched on his knees. His face was narrow, his eyes wide and thoughtful. He looked around the tent draped with the silks, chests and arms he had plundered. In sealed pots along the tent walls were the putrefying heads of the Turkish commanders he had slain, their captured horse-tail standards propped in a corner.
“We will have to retreat,” Drakulya commented. “We must get back across the Danube and wait for them.”
He looked up and smiled boyishly at all of us. “Come,” he laughed, “the dance is not yet over!”
11
Two days later we recrossed the Danube at the Vidin ford. Drakulya sent parties along the river bank to ensure that every beach-head on the Bulgarian side was destroyed. Then he burnt Vidin and with the flames and smoke rising behind us we recrossed the Danube, men, horses and carts, our banners snapping bravely in the breeze and trumpet blasts ringing and re-echoing from each bank. Once the army was across, Drakulya sent a number of his trusted captains with a large force of cavalry to burn and destroy any place on the Wallachian side of the river which could serve as a Turkish beach-head. Spies were also sent south back across the river to look for the advancing columns of Isaac Pasha, the Bey of Remelia, while more were sent north to spy on movements of the Turkish fleet. A system of look-out posts and beacons were also quickly established. Beside each of them Drakulya impaled the rest of his Turkish prisoners from Vidin, leaving them stark, twisted and naked against the skyline. “A fitting greeting,” Drakulya grimly remarked “for their Turkish Master!”
The army was now withdrawn to Bucharest, the Mosneni levies dismissed to their homes under strict orders to return when summoned. Drakulya kept his mercenaries and Boyars with him; he did not trust the latter, some of whom still bore terrible grudges, although the rest, like the officer corps of his army, were his own creations. Mihail was despatched back to Hungary and Moldavia with fresh pleas for help. Theodore was to go to Tirgoviste and I received permission to accompany him. I wanted to see Anna and, after an uneventful journey, found her safe and secure though still very withdrawn. She asked me about the war and I told her, omitting the more gruesome details, while she informed me that the rumours about fresh conspiracies amongst the Boyars and merchants were true but she knew no details except what she had learnt from town gossip and the tittle-tattle of the wives of leading Boyars and merchants. She knew I would not tell Drakulya. She knelt with her lovely head in my lap and with her large brooding eyes begged me to be careful. “Remember,” she whispered, as if there were secret listeners, “If Drakulya falls, you, too, will fall!”
I reassured her with forced humour and together we prepared a meal, dismissing the house retainers and serving ourselves. We drank deeply from the many wines I had stored in the house and discussed every topic except Wallachia and its ruler. Of course, we became lovers that night. I picked her up and carried her, laughing and giggling, to the bedroom. There I undressed her, marvelling at her exquisite body. She pouted and posed, laughing and teasing me, then we made love. I, like some young courtier, oblivious to the nightmares I had endured, while Anna thanked and loved me with her body, soul and mind. I had never really cared for any woman, only consorting with high-paid whores but on that night I changed, becoming as ecstatic as barren land receiving longed-for rain.
The next morning I rose early, wrote letters and removed bags of gold from secret caches in the house. I then woke Anna, stopping her protests gently with my fingers as I instructed her to make preparations to leave for Moldavia, I explained that she would carry safe-conducts and letters of protection I had written and she must only take a few possessions and the gold I gave her. My friends in Moldavia would protect her but, I urged (and she agreed) she must leave as soon as possible.
I finished dressing, ate a hasty meal and joined Theodore in the chancery room of the Palace. He looked withdrawn and secretive, informing me that he had questioned officials, spies and army commanders about possible unrest but had found no trace of it.
“The only thing I have found,” Theodore added in rather detached tones, “is that certain Boyars have fled to Chilia, Transylvania or even Moldavia.” He looked quizzically at me and for the first time in my life I was really afraid of death, of being cut off from Anna. I suppose that’s what makes death so terrifying, not the going out of life but leaving loved ones behind. The deeper you love, the more difficult it is to die and, at that moment, I desperately wanted to live. I also hated the fat, grinning face in front of me, with his hints and subtle warnings, I hated what I was involved in, was tired of Theodore, his crazy blood-lust and search for power. I stared into Theodore’s shrewd, piggy eyes and decided to kill him. He must have read my look and the thoughts which prompted it, for he grinned, his eyes sliding away from mine.
“Come,” he rubbed his hands briskly, “we will take our leave but first,” he smiled at me, “we must ensure that those prisoners sent back to Tirgoviste have been properly dealt with.”
Theodore and I took our leave of the city and palace officials and, getting fresh mounts, made our way out of the strangely silent city and down into that terrible gorge. It was a natural fissure in the hills, running a mile long and about half as broad; usually a desolate place with its rocky sides and boulder strewn floor, it had been used as a refuse pit for the city before the Prince had adapted it for more sinister purposes. The fat young clerk who is studying this manuscript for that high-sounding idiot, the King of Hungary, is always urging me to write more graphically, to depict Drakulya as some creature out of hell. I only write what I saw. Nevertheless, I cannot find the words in any of the languages I know to describe what I saw in that valley. You must imagine long black poles arranged in rows down the gorge, its two entrances being guarded by the wildest and bloodthirstiest of Drakulya’s troops. Each pole was spaced about the length of a man’s arm on either side and there must have been hundreds of rows each running the full length of the gorge. Some were empty but others still bore their di
sgusting burdens, a few were higher than the rest for, as Theodore sardonically remarked, they bore men of lofty status. The corpses were impaled in a variety of ways; some were punctured with stakes forced into their mouths down through the throat and into the stomach, some through the breast, back, navel or buttocks. They say that babies were impaled but I never saw any. There were many men, Turkish prisoners. Some of the corpses had rotted and been picked clean by the fat sleek blackbirds which haunted the valley; their skeletons hung obscenely as if frozen in some macabre dance. Others were still rotting, the slime of their bodies flaking and oozing to the soil, stomachs ripped open, blue-black entrails bursting out, eye-balls dangling by shreds from blackened eye-sockets. The valley was the feeding ground of every bird and animal in the area but it was a quiet, malevolent place which seemed to balk at our presence and press in upon us. Our horses, experienced to war and the smell of bloodshed, became highly nervous and had to be kept under a tight rein. The pervasive sickly sweet smell of rotting bursting bodies made me gag and I soaked the hem of my cloak in some wine and held it to my nostrils, keeping my eyes down as we passed the silent dead on either side. Even Theodore fell quiet and quickened his pace; only once did he stop by one stake to point out its occupant, black against the sky. I looked up and saw a pair of ornate, leather hunting boots and realised that Drakulya had kept his word to the luckless Hamza Bey. Then we were through the gorge, going back behind the city to find the road south to Drakulya.
Our journey was routine. We were accompanied by a few of Theodore’s own personal bodyguard, a wise gesture on his part for I would have killed him if I had found the opportunity. Theodore knew this and kept himself apart, always well protected even when we stopped to camp at night. On our way south, we encountered groups of soldiers marching back to Bucharest. They informed us that the summons had gone out from the Prince. The Turkish fleet had been sighted on the Danube.
The Prince’s army was camped outside Bucharest. Several outlying quarters of the suburbs had been taken over but the army had spilled out into the fields surrounding the city. Trees had been felled to clear spaces and provide wood for the army as well as for the numerous camp fires, whose smoke was evident even before we reached the city. As we moved through, Theodore inspected the camp, expressing himself satisfied with the number of men and the large amount of stores heaped in certain quarters under a stringent guard. One interesting feature was that Drakulya had kept an earlier promise and bought some more of the new bombards or cannons. These were made of beaten cherry-wood and served by German mercenaries who cherished and looked after them as if they were favourite children, even giving them pet names which were carved onto the barrels.
We found the Prince in his tent poring over crudely drawn maps which indicated the possible fording places across the Danube. He greeted us as if we had only been gone for a short while, full of excitement at the growing prospect of battle against the Sultan himself. He brusquely dismissed Theodore’s account of what was happening in Tirgoviste and, once he had served wine, invited us to join him on his ride to the Danube to reconnoitre the Turkish fleet. He confirmed that there were two Turkish armies, an armada making its way south along the great river and one coming north from Remelia; both would probably meet at one of the crossing points on the Danube’s southern bank and only then would the Turks attempt their invasion.
“Do we have any idea of their numbers?” Theodore querously asked, trying to hide his annoyance at the Prince’s brutal rebuff of his report on Tirgoviste.
Drakulya pursed his lips and scrabbled amongst the pile of parchment which covered the large leather trunk which served as his table. “If,” he replied decisively, “if the Turkish armies join then Mohammed will have a force of sixty thousand while we will have about half that number, though we may have to divert some to protect Chilia. You have heard the news?” he asked, and then answered without waiting for a reply. “Our sweet cousin, Stephen, has openly announced that the fortress is rightfully his and has already begun to lay siege to it!”
“And the other princes?” I asked. “Do we expect any help from Hungary?”
“None!” Drakulya replied. “Nothing except empty promises and assurances of goodwill. I am by myself.”
12
Of course, Drakulya was strangely elated with the prospect of leading the small Wallachian army against the might of the Ottoman Empire. He saw himself as a second Hunyadi, the last of a long line of great Conquerors, the White Knight of Christendom. I believe that he was flattered that the Sultan had personally decided to take the field against him. It was a hidden compliment to Drakulya’s own greatness and warrior prowess. As I write, years later, I now realise that Drakulya really did not want any help. He was too taken up and lost in his own visions and dreams. It was not victory he wanted but the prospect of battle with himself as the sole Champion of Christendom. I later heard that men believed that Drakulya was mad to attempt to challenge the Turkish empire and expect any form of victory. Drakulya was not mad. When I saw him that day outside Bucharest before the final conflict began, he looked younger and more at peace than I had seen him for years. His eyes were clear and had lost that hunted and haunted look. His mouth smiled and his mind was freed from the paranoia about secret intrigue against him amongst his own countrymen.
Late on that soft early summer afternoon in 1463 Drakulya and I, with a small bodyguard and a few scouts, left the camp and galloped southwards towards the Danube. Theodore had refused the Prince’s invitation, quietly grumbling that he had enough saddle sores and needed to impose some order on the undisciplined mass of men now arriving outside Bucharest. A few months earlier, such a remark would have been regarded as offensive criticism but the Prince simply laughed, slapped Theodore on the shoulders and gave him written instructions on how the camp was to be supervised in his absence. We did not make the Danube by nightfall but camped in the open on the side of a hill, our escort grouped around one camp fire, while Drakulya and I sat like two huntsmen around the other.
Drakulya was still full of excitement at the approaching conflict. “You do know,” he exclaimed, his eyes shining across at me, “that brother Radu and about three thousand Wallachian exiles are with the Sultan.”
“No,” I answered.
“Of course you would not,” Drakulya replied. “No one knows the name of my spy at the Turkish court. He gives us a great deal of information.” He paused and looked meaningfully at me, that guarded hunted look returning to his face. “Even about you, Rhodros, and your woman. Is it Anna?”
I suddenly felt cold, gripped my cloak tightly round my shoulder and edged closer to the fire while my hand slipped to the short stabbing knife I kept in my belt. “Who told you?” I quietly asked. “Theodore?”
“No,” the prince replied. “My spy.” He then laughed and picked up a few pebbles and flung them across at me. “Do not be so anxious, Rhodros,” he said reassuredly. “You expect me to be defeated and, to be quite honest, so do I. But the damage we can inflict upon the Turk can be so immense that they might think twice before launching any other invasion.” He got up and came over to the camp fire and sat beside me and put one hand on my shoulder, slipping the other under my cloak and withdrawing the knife I had concealed there. “I trust you, Rhodros,” he said, gripping my shoulder and forcing me to look into his green amber-flecked eyes. “I trust you completely. You can have your woman. What does she matter to me?” His grip then tightened. “It is a pity,” he whispered softly, “that I cannot say the same for my Master of Horse, Theodore!” He put his fingers to my lips to silence my protests. “I know that he is a spy, Rhodros. I also know that you want to kill him, and before we meet the Turkish army I want you to do it, quietly, effectively, and make sure that it looks like an accident.”
I went numb with fear at the extent of the Prince’s knowledge and looking back on my journey to Tirgoviste I realised that Drakulya had probably hoped that my growing hatred for Theodore might actually lead to the latter’s dea
th. On our arrival back at Bucharest such a hope explained the quick flicker of surprise I had seen in Drakulya’s eyes when both Theodore and I had entered his tent. He had evidently expected one of us to be dead and had hoped it would have been Theodore. His secret informant in Constantinople must have revealed that Theodore was in secret correspondence with the Turks and not to be trusted. In ordinary circumstances Drakulya would have had Theodore torn apart but if it became generally known that his own Master of Horse was a Turkish traitor then the effect on the army’s morale would have been disastrous.
The next morning Drakulya himself aroused our small camp and, after breaking our fast with watered wine and cooked strips of meat, we continued on our way to where the scouts claimed we could view the Turkish fleet. We left the Wallachian plain and made our way up the steep red clay hills which overlooked the winding, twisted river. It was a hard climb and eventually we had to leave our horses and continue by foot; at the summit the vision awaiting us was both awesome and terrifying. Beneath us, parading majestically along the Danube as if they owned the river, was the entire Turkish fleet. The early morning mist had evaporated and our vantage point provided us with a clear view of the ships; there must have been almost two hundred, a huge flotilla protected on either side by about thirty huge triremes. Most of the fleet were transports packed with horses, munitions and provisions. They were huge ungainly ships. Around these were the long low sloping galleys which served as reconnaissance craft, the real teeth of the fleet being the great triremes with their three banks of oars and huge sails crewed by ex-Byzantine sailors and Cazi warriors. They carried a cannon and were fast, sea-going fortresses. In the middle of the fleet was the Imperial Trireme with its purple and gold trimmed sails, ornate poop, stern and figurehead with the huge green and silver banner of Islam flying from its principal mast, the headquarters of Sultan Mohammed.