by Paul Doherty
On the 16th July, our army had been pushed back to Tirgoviste and straddled the road into the now deserted and devastated capital. The populace had fled, the main gates were wide open and a heavy black pall hung over the suburbs as Drakulya had ordered the palace and church to be stripped of all treasures and records and put to the torch. The Prince then had to decide what to do next. I thought the only choice he had was to inflict as many grievous defeats on the Turks as possible then flee across the Hungarian border, but on the night of July 17th Drakulya called a council of his leading commanders. The spluttering cresset torches lashed to a circle of spears revealed a ring of unshaven, exhausted faces, though none had lost their hungry, predatory look. They listened quietly as Drakulya revealed his final plan of attack.
“Comrades,” he began, so softly that we all had to lean forward to hear. “A few miles to the south sits the Turkish army. They are many, we are few and cannot defend our capital. You have fought well. I could not ask for more.” He paused for effect and stared round at us. “Yet we have one final arrow to our bow. The Sultan Mohammed has decided to lead his armies against us. He is here on Wallachian soil.” He stopped and looked up into the night. “We cannot defeat the hordes he has brought,” he continued, “but if we kill the Sultan then we might win the war.”
The enormity of his suggestion silenced us all. It was very rare for a Sultan to lead his armies in war and so far into enemy territory; if he was killed then his army would retreat, even disintegrate while Drakulya would be regarded as both a saint and a hero. To defeat and kill Mohammed the Conqueror, the despoiler of Constantinople! Drakulya would be the champion of Christendom, the Great White Knight, eclipsing the minor achievements of Hunyadi. I watched the dreamy look in Drakulya’s eyes as he listened to a spate of questions and I knew that he had always wanted this, perhaps even planned it years ago as he sat beside Prince Mohammed at Edirne and listened to the young Turk’s plan for world conquest. It also explained why Theodore had to die when he did, for news of Drakulya’s plan must not reach the Turks.
Drakulya eventually stirred himself and raised his hand for silence. “We will,” he exclaimed, “not plan some secret assassination but launch a night attack on his camp.” He raised his hand again to quell any interruption. “The Turks are advancing. We are retreating. They are relaxed, over-confident and certainly not expecting any attack on their main camp. I have learnt that their guards are careless, especially at dusk. We will also have the advantage of the terrain; their right flank is based on the forest of Vlasie and it is from there that we shall launch our attack!”
15
Once the die was cast, Drakulya began to issue precise details of the assault. With the aid of a rough map, he described how he would divide his force into two; he would attack the right flank of the Turkish camp from Vlasie Forest while Gales, under the protection of the same forest, would travel south, swing behind the Turks, and attack them from the rear. The rest of the next day was taken up with preparation for the assault, Drakulya taking every step to disguise his departure and leave his camp as normal as possible to mislead Turkish spies; late in the afternoon, the cavalry slipped away to their pre-arranged rendezvous in the Vlasie Forest; former outlaws led us deep into the dark forest by secret paths which twisted amongst the thick moss-laden trees. There was a deathly silence broken only by the sound of our march, and this unnerved many of Drakulya’s most hard-bitten veterans. Here, according to local tradition, in the lonely glades and around the deep still pools, lurked the Strigoi, the undead who rested in the cool darkness during the day before rising at night to continue their godless hunt for human blood. Our men were clearly nervous and more than relieved when the guide brought us into a huge sun-lit clearing near some overhanging rocks. Our force then divided, Gales moving further south, having been given strict orders by the Prince on how and when to attack. He watched the Boyar depart, his eyes narrowed, lips pursed. “I hope Gales does what I order,” he muttered to me. “I have reservations about him. I have often wondered if I should kill him.”
He stared hard at me but I only shrugged. The Boyar had proved himself to be a capable commander, I could see no reason for Drakulya’s distrust. The Prince’s mind, however, moved on to other things and, taking a number of his bodyguard and two of the guides, he asked me to accompany him on a personal reconnaissance of the Turkish camp. We rode towards the fringe of the forest, left our horses and went forward on foot. The trees petered out into scrub, bushes and undergrowth which provided concealment for our view of the Turkish camp sprawling across the blackened plain.
Daylight was beginning to fail at the end of a beautiful summer’s day, the sky was streaked with the red-gold rays of the setting sun and the Turks, despite the surrounding devastation, believed they were safe, beguiled and betrayed by the calm weather and the clear bird song from the green, dark forest. Soft summer breezes wafted the smell of spiced, roasted lamb towards us from the cooking pots of thousands of camp-fires, a lonely mullah chanted his prayers to Allah, there was the laughter and chatter of the camp-followers, the beat of tambourines and the neighing of horses from the lines towards the rear of the camp. The soldiers looked rested, free from their restrictive armour, their weapons piled. We noted the classic Ottoman formation of the camp, broad avenues separating the tents, and saw through the haze the scarlet, gold-brocaded pavilion of Mohammed with its green flags and huge horse-tailed standards planted in front of it. There were groups of yellow-coated Janissaries on picket duty but they were relaxed, strolling along the perimeter, chatting and shouting comradely abuse at the Sipahis cavalrymen who rode into the camp. We noted that there was no stockade or trench to break a cavalry charge. Drakulya was right, the Turks might expect outlying camps to be attacked but not their main one.
The Prince watched, motionless like some great hunting cat; the only time he stirred and cursed was when he saw a group of Wallachian Voyniks, probably from Radu’s retinue, pass through the camp. After a while Drakulya whispered that he was satisified and we were about to withdraw when suddenly a young Janissary, accompanied by a figure huddled in a cloak, furtively hastened across the burnt grass and strewn bracken to the very place we were hiding. Drakulya motioned us to stay and we crouched breathless in our hiding-place. The Janissary continued his hasty progress towards our hiding-place and I thought he would simply walk in on top of us. However, just where the ground dipped as it met the fringe of the forest, he suddenly stopped, tore the cloak off his companion, a young nubile slave, and pulled her to the ground. He began to fondle and kiss her before loosing his codpiece and entering her. One of the scouts began to snigger at the sight of the young Janissary’s bare bottom rising and falling while the young slave held tightly on, her arms around his neck, her long, bare legs high on either side of him. He had brought his paramour to this deserted spot because, like all his kind, he was forbidden to have any sexual liaison during a military campaign. I thought Drakulya would either kill them both or leave them, instead he turned to two of his bodyguard and whispered instructions inaudible to the now groaning couple. The two Wallachians slipped quietly from their hiding place and, drawing their long wicked knives, stealthily approached the oblivious pair. Then, while one Wallachian knocked the Janissary unconscious, the other quickly cut the wide-eyed girl’s throat before she could even draw breath to scream. Her corpse was dragged in and concealed in the undergrowth while we took the unconscious Janissary back into the forest and our secret assembly point.
Once we had returned, Drakulya had the Janissary spread-eagled, gagged and lashed to the ground. He roughly revived the man who woke to find himself staring into the ice-cold eyes of Kazikulu Bey. The Janissary, a Macedonian, was a mere novice, and despite the gag was terrified when Drakulya introduced himself; speaking very quietly, the Prince asked about the Turkish camp but the Janissary simply gazed at him and shook his head, so Drakulya cut off one of his fingers. Once again, the Prince asked the question, promising no further punishment and
immediate release if the Janissary gave satisfactory answers and, when the prisoner nodded his assent, Drakulya removed the gag. The Janissary then babbled in pidgin Greek, the lingua franca of the camp, Drakulya sitting beside him and nodding solicitiously as if he was the young man’s father or elder brother. When the flow of information stopped, Drakulya smiled and personally cut the thongs. The Janissary rubbed his wrists and began to rise and gabbled his thanks. I do not think he even saw Drakulya’s dagger, he simply staggered onto it, clutched his stomach and fell to the ground. Drakulya stared at me and grinned. “I kept my word, Rhodros,” he said. “I did release him!” Although sickened I was not surprised; Drakulya never showed mercy to a Turk.
A few hours later, our force mounted and made its way by a number of routes to the edge of the forest. Each group had clear instructions on where to deploy and how to act. The summer darkness was falling by the time we reached the edge of the forest, before us was the Turkish camp lit by its thousands of camp fires and resounding with myriad noises. Through a system of runners, Drakulya learnt that his force and that of Gales was in position. There must have been about six thousand horse with a much smaller group in reserve, long lines of unkempt, fierce and resolute men determined to gamble all on one mad charge. Drakulya was helmetless; behind him his standard bearer held the long ash pole with the cloth wound tightly around it; Drakulya had boasted that he would personally plant it outside the Sultan Mohammed’s tent.
The line of men stirred slightly; here and there the low whicker of a horse and its rider’s hushed curse as he tried to quieten it. The rustle and clink of armour and the squeak of leather seemed to ring out like a bell through the silence. I wondered if the Turks would hear, if they knew already and were preparing some secret ambush. I panicked and had to breath deeply to control the excitement in my chest and stomach. Drakulya seemed to sense this excitement for he turned, leaned across and touched me lightly on the cheek with one mailed hand. He then stood up in his stirrups, listened in to the darkness and muttered instructions to a trumpeter. Sweet and clear like some elfin horn, the trumpet sounded its call through the darkness to be taken up and passed further along the line of waiting men. Drakulya then drew his sword, stirred his huge war-horse into action and charged into the darkness, the entire group following, his standard bearer releasing the clasps and allowing the dreaded silver dragon to curl and turn in the strong night breezes.
Some of the Turks may have heard the trumpet or even the thunder of our horses’ hooves for it was a wild charge with the wind whipping at our cheeks and hair, the horses happy to be released and moving, their riders leaning forward anxious to be in at the kill. We entered the camp, galloping up one of its broad beaten avenues before the Turks knew we had arrived, and so the killing began. It was a night of terror, a feast of killing and death, the blood pouring like wine from split vats, freshening the soil and turning it to a dull red clay which splattered us and our horses. But Drakulya, overcome by blood-lust, made a serious mistake. He did not continue the wild charge into the centre of the camp and the silken opulence of the Sultan’s pavilion. Instead he turned and twisted amongst the tents, killing wherever he went, huge bloody swathes going down before his sword and those of his savage horsemen. The Turks were tired, unarmed, full of sleep, food and drink. Many rushed out of their tents straight under our horses or onto our swords. Many were butchered where they lay or died screaming in their burning quarters, for many of our riders plucked burning brands from the camp-fires and hurled them onto the tents, tinder dry in the summer heat.
The screaming and howls of the wounded and dying rose up from every side. I did my share of the killing, men in their half-sleep, their souls gone before they were fully awake. Yet, most of the time, I was trying to stop Drakulya’s mad rush and killing and divert him to the real cause for the attack on the Turkish camp. I was conscious that Turkish restistance was stiffening; here and there groups of soldiers were beginning to form small phalanxes of spears in an attempt to stem our headlong rush and they were pouring from the very quarter of the camp Gales should have been attacking. Eventually, I managed to attract Drakulya’s attention by screaming and pointing towards the imperial tent. The Prince turned his horse and, yelling to his immediate bodyguard, charged headlong down the avenue leading to the Sultan’s scarlet pavilion. Yet it was too late. Rank upon rank of yellow-coated Janissaries seemed to rise out of the ground in a suicidal defence of their Master’s headquarters, the Imperial bodyguard wearing their distinctive hats and carrying long lances which made their phalanx unbreakable. Drakulya and scores of others rode our horses against this fence of steel but to no avail. Drakulya, a few yards from the gold brocaded entrance of Mohammed’s tent, fought like a wild man but, imperceptibly at first, the Janissaries began to push us back. I looked round and saw that behind us the Turks were also forming ranks and threatened to cut us off. I begged the trumpeter to sound the retreat and with a mixture of threats and curses, persuaded Drakulya’s standard-bearer to turn and withdraw. I then grabbed the reins of Drakulya’s horse and screamed at him to retreat. Only the Gods knew why I wasn’t unhorsed and killed or why Drakulya, face streaked with blood and sweat, froth dribbling from one corner of his mouth and his eyes glazed with the fever pitch of battle, ever listened to me. Yet he did and soon our whole retinue, or what was left of it, were streaming out of the camp back towards the forest. One group of cavalrymen, either because of the darkness, fear or some other distraction of battle, lost their way and the Turkish Sipahis hunted them down. We, however, like bats under the moon, fled into the forest, cursing and checking our horses, crashing into the undergrowth, horse and rider collapsing with exertion or tripping on the many obstacles strewn across our path. Eventually, scarred, lathered in sweat, with heart, lungs and throat screaming for peace, we reached our assembly point. When the attack started there must have been thousands of us but only hundreds returned. Some died but many simply fled into the night seeking their own refuge or exile, once they realised that the main objective of the attack had failed. Indeed, I later learnt that many commanders simply fled, dismayed at our rebuff and fearful of Drakulya’s anger.
16
The Prince was white-faced, speechless with exhaustion and despondency. When we finished our wild gallop and reached our pre-arranged assembly point, he unsaddled his horse and, rolling himself up in his cloak, fell asleep. I posted guards and kept vigil until daybreak; then I roused Drakulya, insisting that we make some decisions about what we were to do next. During these few hours before dawn, I knew many of our troops, despite their exhaustion, deserted by simply slipping away into the darkness. Drakulya listened sullenly to my exhortations and then rubbed his face. “Where’s Gales?” he asked wearily.
“Fled,” I replied. “Fled, captured or dead like thousands of others.”
He nodded. “Good,” he replied, “for if I ever catch him alive I will impale him! He never launched his attack.” He looked at me. “We’ve lost, Rhodros, there’s nothing we can do but flee.”
“Where to?”
“The castle on the Arges,” he replied. “Drakulya’s castle. My wife and baby son are safe there!” He gestured around our camp. “Tell the men to go, Rhodros,” he continued. “Thank them and tell them I shall return. Till then, they must either hide here or cross the border.”
I did so, leaving him slumped head in hands as I moved amongst the men, urging them to leave. Most of them did, some knelt before Drakulya, others left cursing him under their breath. His bodyguard, about three hundred veterans, under a ruffian called Docles, chose to stay. Drakulya accepted their pledges of loyalty and, touched by their devotion, roused himself sufficiently to order our immediate departure for the Arges valley.
We headed south-east, fording the Olt and Dambovita rivers, sheltering in forests, keeping off skylines, always moving fast, trying to avoid the Sipahi cavalry who controlled the plains, river banks and valley passes. Of course we met roving patrols of Turkish horse but we managed to
brush these aside in our headlong rush to Arefu and the deep-gorged valley of Drakulya’s castle. We arrived there in the afternoon a few days later, the sun warming the rocks and boulders which threw off the heat and glare to make us sweat and scratch under our half-armour. The valley had changed since my last visit. The Boyar prisoners were gone; pathetic mounds of stone and small cairns marked their numerous graves. The gallows had also disappeared, probably taken down by the peasants, but abandoned carts, overturned pots and derelict ovens and lime-kilns testified to the building operations which had gone on there. We entered the one long, dusty street of Arefu to be formally greeted by the elders of the village, amongst whom were some of Drakulya’s most fanatical followers. They brought us food and drink, pale wine and half-cooked oat cakes, and we sat squinting in the sun up the cliffs to where the battlements and towers of the new castle could be seen through the afternoon heat haze.
When we had eaten we led our foam-flecked horses up the steep ascent to the narrow plateau on which the castle sat. We walked in single file, the reins of our horse tied securely around our wrists. On either side of the man-made path were signs of the terrible punishment meted out to the Boyars. From the branch of a tree a long skeleton, white and clean in the sunlight, turned and twisted. The bones of other workers lay bleached, startling white amidst the greenery and vivid colours of the wild mountain flowers. The men commented on these and I heard whispers that several prisoners had been buried alive beneath the walls to act as guardians of the castle, while the blood of others had been mixed with the cement to strengthen the fortifications. I ignored them and plodded behind Drakulya, who walked slowly in front of me, head down like some monk lost in profound meditation.
We reached the plateau amidst cries of amazement from the men as the castle seemed to rise from the very rocks, its five towers and walls soaring up into the blue sky. The main tower, shaped like a polygon, housed the main gate and could only be approached by a perilously weak-looking wooden bridge which spanned a sheer precipice. From this central tower stretched the crenellated walls, reinforced with bricks, while at each end rose huge circular towers giving the defenders a clear view of the surrounding hills and the approaches through them. We cautiously crossed the wooden bridge and entered the opened gates, Drakulya wearily brushing aside the welcome of the commander and his small garrison. The courtyard was dusty, with a crude well dug into the centre to reach some underground stream while around the walls were stables, smithies and kitchens. I immediately realised that Drakulya had built his castle on what he remembered of Egrigoz and entering it was like travelling back in time. I almost expected to see fat Barach come slithering out of one of the towers or the enigmatic Selim drilling his yellow-coated Janissaries. Of course the reality was different – four hundred Wallachian veterans determined to resist the Turk and a Prince, pale with exhaustion, who knew that all authority he held was limited to this castle and the bare rock it commanded. Althea, his wife, met him in the courtyard, her face long and wan like an old tallow candle, mournfully welcoming her husband to the castle. She handed a squalling, black-haired bundle to him to be dutifully kissed, then Drakulya followed his wife into the central gate-tower where his apartments were, the rest of us being left to our own devices.