by Paul Doherty
So began our self-inflicted exile at the castle of Arges. We were not, at first, cut off from the outside world. I received news from both Mihail and Anna about their relative safety in Moldavia, and other news arrived. Our attack on the Turkish camp had been more effective than we thought. Mohammed had at first fled, and been brought back by his advisers who threatened that he could lose the entire war if he showed any weakness. Nevertheless, never again, so our spies told us, did the Turks encamp so freely; deep trenches were dug and the Janissaries were given the special task of guarding all approaches to the camp. Other shocks awaited God’s self-appointed regent, the Sultan Mohammed. Tirgoviste had been left an open city, its gates unsecured and its populace and wealth safely removed, but the Valley of Shadows with its thousands of macabre inhabitants stayed to terrorise and haunt the Turks. The Sultan himself passed through that silent horrifying gorge where Death itself had set up its throne. Immediately afterwards, terrified by what he had seen, he convened a council and announced his departure from the country. His army would accompany him though he would leave troops to reinforce Radu’s unsurpation of the crown.
Drakulya, still exhausted after the fierce campaign, simply brooded on the past, vowing vengeance for the future. He became withdrawn and taciturn and would then change violently in mood, almost becoming bombastic with wild outrageous strategies to defeat the Turks and bring his brother, Radu, to the scaffold. The castle was crowded and so during the day, he kept to his apartments, but at night he prowled the battlements. He would go there at dusk and lean against the battlements while above him the wide-spanned Wallachian eagles turned and drifted against a reddening sky. He would be still there at midnight, oblivious to the haunting howls of wild dogs or the solitary wolf, while around and above him squeaked the long-horned bats, black shapes against the moon.
I used to watch him and eventually I joined him. We would watch the sun set in a ball of shooting fire behind the Carpathians and talk about the past; about Egrigoz, Radu, Edirne. Drakulya was wistful, wondering if he had done right, if there could have been any other way.
“You know, Rhodros,” he remarked once, peering into the darkness, “I cannot sleep. Every night they come to me.” He paused. “Those I’ve killed, white-faced, purple-eyed, they gather like flies around my bed, hands outstretched. They whisper to me ‘Kazikulu Bey,’ Vlad Tepes, Voivode Drakulya. Come to us!” He stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow and turned to stare at me.
“I’ve consulted the wizards,” he muttered. “They say my death is looking for me but not yet, not here, but on an open place made famous by my father.”
I tried to comfort him but all I could do was to listen as he tried to clear his mind and purge his soul of the nightmares there.
Drakulya and I were on the battlements when we first saw the horse-tail standards and twinkling points of the Turkish advance guard entering the valley. I suppose we had always expected them but not so soon, within a week of our arrival at the castle of the Arges. Mohammed may have retreated to the silken opulent safety of his harem at Constantinople but he had not forgotten his personal grudge against Drakulya. The Turkish force must have been almost six thousand, most of them Sipahi cavalry, a corps of Janissaries and a squad of artillerymen with their cherry-wood cannon. They were in Arefu by nightfall the same day, accepting the fealty of the village elders and the next morning began to climb the mountain of Poenari, the plateau peak which lay directly opposite the castle.
I stood with Drakulya and the garrison commander, watching the Turks manhandle their guns up the mountainside. From our vantage point they looked like so many ants scurrying amongst the rocks and boulders.
“Will they be effective?” I asked, nodding at the Turks pulling at the long ropes. Drakulya watched their frenetic activity.
“I think their cannon, only cherry-wood, will not have the power to do anything against us,” he replied. “Anyway,” he shrugged, “they are only here to contain us.”
“Until?” I asked.
“Until further forces arrive,” Drakulya muttered. “They cannot reduce this castle but they can still starve us out and then launch an all-out attack.” He slapped the grey-stone battlements with the flat of his hand. “That is what I am frightened of. God protect us then!”
17
The following day the cannonade began but, as the Prince said, the Turkish guns were too weak to make any real impact. Their real purpose was to cover the Turks moving part of their force across the valley to the base of the Arges Mountain to hide secure beneath the overhanging rocks. They now posed a threat to us. They had crossed the floor of the valley and controlled the track up to the castle, so they could begin their ascent whenever they wished as well as prevent our secret departure. Moreover, these were also the vanguard of the Turkish assault, for a few days afterwards, led by drum, flying standards and the clash of cymbals, fresh columns of Janissaries entered the valley and camped outside the village of Arefu. Before them, hoisted high against the sky were six naked figures lashed to crude wooden crosses, their white bodies arched, stretched and writhing with pain, their tossing heads hidden by long lank hair and straggling beards. We found it difficult to see who they were but eventually concluded they must be former commanders of Drakulya’s army carried as a living warning to any who opposed the Sultan.
The appearance of the Janissaries with their grim standards drove Drakulya into a frenzy of futile activity. He paced the battlements, refused food and drink and loudly claimed that he could not sleep or rest. No longer the fierce warrior or cunning war leader, he was like a frightened child confronted with the reality of his darkened nightmare, imprisonment and capture by the Turks. He must have communicated his fears to his wife, Althea, who became even more distraught, anxious about her future and her possible fate if she fell into the hands of the Turks. She pined for Moldavia and her terrors increased with every passing hour. Perhaps it was this, perhaps she tripped or, as some of the garrison muttered, she may even have thrown herself, but one morning she was found missing from her quarters and later in the day a sharp-eyed sentry spotted her crumpled, broken body lying concealed amongst some bushes on the rocks below. Drakulya did not appear too distraught at his wife’s death. In fact, the tragedy jolted him back into reality and for the first time since the night attack on the Turkish camp he became his old self, plotting his survival and possible retribution against his brother, other traitors and their Turkish collaboraters.
Mihail, Cirstian and Theodore were gone. The only persons he took into his confidence were myself, the garrison commander and Docles, the captain of his bodyguard. He described the limited choices open to him. If he stayed at the castle of the Arges then the Turks could either starve or storm him out. If they did not, they could simply trap him there for months or even years while his brother tightened his grip upon the principality. The only way open was to flee by stealth. One night he took us to the central courtyard and the well which lay at its centre. With the aid of a rush-light torch he peered and pointed down to the dark depths and we saw rough footholds gouged into the rock-hard side of the well. “This,” he quietly announced, “is how I will escape, the only problem is that we need guides to take us down across the mountains and through the secret passes into Hungary, but that too can be solved.” We were then sworn to secrecy, agreeing that the garrison would hold the castle and allow the Prince and a small retinue to escape. The commander, an old veteran named Ghergina, promised that he would hold out as long as he could before escaping via the same route that Drakulya proposed to take.
Late that night Drakulya invited us to his quarters in the main castle tower. I expected his room to be deserted and was surprised to find four bedraggled and very wet men sitting at the table. I recognised them as elders from the nearby village of Arefu, who must have entered the castle by the secret passageway. Drakulya himself served us with wine, then we became involved in a heated discussion on how we would escape, and the various routes whereby we would cross the
mountains into Transylvania. We knew that Matthew of Hungary had assembled troops all along his borders with the declared purpose of coming to our aid. Drakulya dryly pointed out that if he would not come to us then our only hope of salvation was to go to him, and to do so meant not only escaping the Turkish encirclement but crossing the Transylvanian alps at a place where there were no open roads or passes. We would have to climb the very peaks of Transylvania’s mountain range and even in the summer the upper slopes were rocky, sheer and covered with a thin ice which was fragile and as difficult to climb as glass itself. A depressing prospect and throughout his discussions with the village elders Drakulya kept throwing sidelong glances at me as if he already knew of my reluctance to go into exile yet again and by such a dangerous route.
Nevertheless, once plans had been finalised, Drakulya decided that we would leave the following evening. Our party would be no more than ten, which would include the Prince, his son, myself and five or six of his bodyguard. During the following day Drakulya destroyed all letters and records he could not take with him and whatever treasure left in the castle was secretly buried at a place known only to himself. As soon as darkness fell, dressed in suitable travelling clothes and carrying only arms and enough provisions for a few days, we began our descent into the wall, Drakulya himself holding his young baby son in his arms. The climb down that long black slope was both arduous and treacherous; the footholds were wet and slippery and, time and time again, I thought I would lose my grip and fall into the hollow darkness below. I was seized with panic, believing that we would go on and on down into the bowels of the mountain and wondered if the secret passageway would lie beneath the water line and so challenge the expertise of the strongest swimmer amongst us. However, just when my arms and wrists ached so much that I believed I could not go on, Drakulya’s strong hands seized me by the waist and I was pulled into the darkness. I was so overcome by surprise and panic that for a moment I lashed out and struggled until I realised that the secret passageway had been carved into the wall of the well with the water still a few yards beneath us.
Drakulya lit a torch and ordered me to hold it up, and when the rest joined us we made our stumbling way along the passageway to the concealed cave entrance on the mountainside. There we found two guides with very strong-legged, deep-bellied horses which would carry us as far as they could into the mountains. Our guides whispered that these were the fastest they could gather and the shoes on their hooves had been inverted to leave false signs for any pursuing Turkish patrol. Drakulya had left orders that Ghergina should wait for a signal from the mountainside and then open fire with our few pathetic cannon to distract the attention of the Turks. Before he mounted, Drakulya stepped back and once, twice and then a third time, waved the flaming torch above his head. After a short while, the castle guns opened fire on the Turkish encampment. The damage they inflicted must have been minimal but their cannonade echoed threateningly along the valley and covered the sound of our horses as they picked their way gingerly amongst the boulders and crumpling stones to the valley floor.
The guides quietly assured us that there were no Turkish patrols in the vicinity and perhaps it was this feeling of false security which allowed the tragedy to happen. For as the cannons continued their fire, Drakulya’s horse became nervous and skittish and stumbling on some loose shale, it panicked, bucked and writhed under its rider and then bolted down the mountainside. Drakulya was too good a horseman to be thrown but our main fear was that the horse might run straight into a Turkish cavalry patrol. We followed in pursuit, not caring whether the noise of our charge could be heard as we searched anxiously for the Prince. We reached the floor of the valley and picked our way back to find him standing silently beside his now quiet horse, peering back through the darkness. Darkulya brushed aside our questions about his safety and simply asked, “Did you see my son?” At first the question confused me, then the Prince gripped my arm so tightly that it felt as if it was squeezed in a vice. “Rhodros,” he whispered hoarsely. “Did you see my son? He was asleep, tied to my saddle-bow.” He pointed back. “When the horse bucked and bolted, I lost control. The child simply slipped away into the darkness.” I looked back up the black mountainside seeing only the faint outlines of trees, bushes and rocks. I knew that the Prince wanted to go back, but such a search would be futile. The child could be lying unconscious or dead or, if he had survived, might soon attract the attention of a Turkish patrol. “Drakulya,” I whispered, “we cannot go back for him. If we did, we may not find him. You must choose between your son and your escape!” Drakulya turned and stared wildly into the night and then back at me. He patted me gently on the wrist, turned away, and mounting his horse, rode into the darkness.
Our escape proceeded without further incident, Drakulya wrapped in silence, quietly weeping over the loss of his son, I, saddle-sore and weary, tired and exhausted with the whole affair, half asleep dreaming of Anna, safety, security and the end to the fighting and these long wild rides through the darkness of the night. By daybreak we were approaching the crests of the Fagaras Mountains and faintly behind us, we could hear the rumble of gun fire as the Turks launched an all out assault on Drakulya’s castle. Ahead of us to the north were more mountains and beyond them the city of Fagaras where the traitor, Matthew, and his thousands of troops waited to see what would happen.
I remember we stopped at a place called The Plain of the Sheep. Drakulya ordered us to rest our horses and snatch some food and sleep before we continued any further. He himself promised to keep watch. Our guides and small retinue gratefully accepted but I was surprised when Drakulya came over to me, touched me lightly on the arm, and asked me to follow him a little away from the rest.
“Rhodros!” he exclaimed, not meeting my eye, his attention and gaze drawn south by the faint noise of cannon fire. “Rhodros,” he paused, then looked directly into my eyes. “Do you want to come? Do you really want to come?”
I wanted to make some courtly remark, some tactful comment, the type of diplomatic rejoinder I had become accustomed to, but Drakulya gripped my face between his strong hands and stared at me. “Rhodros,” he whispered. “You have been with me since Egrigoz. You have served me well. I can see you want to go and, if you do, go now!” Perhaps he expected a reply, but he never got one. I gently removed his hands from my face and walked back to my sleeping place, rolling myself up in my cloak. A few minutes later I heard Drakulya approach. He touched me gently on the hand and, when I looked up, passed me a goblet of wine. He looked relaxed, almost a young man. He smiled, and gently toasted me with the cup. “To you, Rhodros,” he said. “The choice is yours!” I drank the wine and watched him walk away and then I fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
18
I awoke the next morning to find the plateau deserted except for my horse standing hobbled, nuzzling the earth for the fresh summer grass. I stood and looked around. To the south, I saw the early sun catch and sparkle on the steel lances of the pursuing Sipahis while to the north a faint cloud of dust indicated the direction of Drakulya and his small group of horsemen. I stood irresolute, one part of me crying out to mount my horse and make my way with all haste to the Moldavian border, the other quietly whispering that I should follow Drakulya, who had left the choice to me. I thought of Anna and the safety and security of Moldavia, silken luxuries, warm palaces and the passionate embraces of a woman I loved. Then there was Drakulya, deserted and hurt, toasting me with his cup, leaving me to decide. Perhaps one more time, the last, and then I would leave. I looked back towards the pursuing Sipahis, their helmets, uniforms and horses becoming more distinctive. I turned my horse and urged it in hot pursuit of Drakulya.
It was a furious ride but my horse was up to the gruelling pace. It had a strong heart, nimble legs and sure feet as we plunged headlong down the pebble-covered hills, picking our way along the hole-strewn valley floors with their secret obstacles and hidden traps, then, sweating and blowing, up the next hill. I had no difficulty following the Prince’
s trail; every so often I would see a line of small pieces of metal winking in the sun, leading me on like a line of beacons. Someone was leaving a trail for me as well as the pursuing Sipahis. The realisation forced me to panic and I pushed my horse harder until it stumbled along, the foam of its sweat covering its neck and withers with a white snow-like lather. My arms, wrists and thighs began to ache and then throb with pain, as the sweat poured down my face and body. The ride became a nightmare, a sense of illusion, a dream-like trance, blotting out the surrounding countryside. All I was aware of was pain, the nodding head of my horse and those treacherous pieces of metal glowing in the sun.