Later, when he returned, cheeks and nose reddened and glistening from the cold, to report that the horses should be ready within the hour, I sent him straightway on another errand: “Fetch clothing for me and yourself and bring it here, to my private chambers. We shall go disguised as Turks.”
This gave him great alarm, which he barely stifled. Did I know of the boier plot to send Basarab and the Turks to slay me and my army? Did I suspect him?
In his veiled eyes I saw the machinations of a traitorous mind. I had given no clear sign of suspicion yet; certainly I could have easily ordered the bodyguards to dispatch him had I discovered the truth. Was this one of the fearsome voivode’s fatal games—was I delaying his execution in order to savour it—or was it chance that I had chosen this moment to leave my stronghold disguised, alongside the man who would play my Judas?
He left, and in moments returned with clothing: a peaked cap, tunic and wool cloak to shield against the cold. He assisted me with my dress under the attentive eye of the Moldavians, watched as I wound the turban round my head, and looked askance when I asked him:
“Olmeye hazirmisin?” Are you prepared to die?, for I am as fluent in the speech of my enemies as I am my own tongue, having spent my youth as the sultan’s prisoner. I know their dress, their mannerisms, and can pass for one of them. And I laughed, for though he is their minion—he who serves the boiers serves the Turks—he understood not one word I had uttered. He laughed also, yellowed teeth flashing beneath the drooping mustache so like mine, thinking my mirth sprang from my successful impersonation.
Then I went over to the wall and lifted down from its place of honour a great scimitar, gleaming in the firelight, and with it a curving sheath. This I fastened to my belt, then said:
“Dress.”
He did so, and I looked on in silent approval at a body small in stature, but muscular, broad of chest and shoulder. His scars are fewer—he has not been tested in battle as often as I—and he lacks half a front tooth, but the similarities are enough.
After a time, a boy ran up to say the mounts were ready. But I would not be rushed. I had begun this entry and was obliged to finish it—for this will be my last remembrance as a mortal. I had learned from the Dark Lord in Circle the hour of Basarab’s coming and knew I was still safe, and further, I was not inclined to end Gregor’s anxiety. Let him wait! Let him suffer in uncertainty—which he does to this very moment, pacing in his Turkish robes, praying that I will change my mind and remain here, to be slaughtered.
Were the guards not here, he would risk killing me now. I know that the moment we are alone on horseback, he will seek the first opportunity; for that, I am ready.
I must not die now! Not so close to the touch of the Dark Lord, and Eternity.…
SNAGOV MONASTERY, 28 DECEMBER. To the north we rode upon black stallions, first along the banks of the Dimbovita, then across the frozen ground into the bare-limbed Vlasia Forest, tinged with evergreen. The air was grey with smoke and the approaching storm, and laden with a strange, fleeting smell: of lightning spent, of iron wielded; of blood and snow.
I galloped at full speed, wind stinging my eyes, keeping Gregor well behind me—a danger, perhaps, but I had seen him dress and knew he carried no weapon save the sword at his waist. If he wished to kill me at that moment (and he did), then he would have to overtake me, throw me from my horse, slay me before I could draw my own sword. Perhaps the singular intent in my eyes frightened him; if so, he was wise to fear. He might have turned and hastened away to the south, returned to his beloved Basarab, and warned them of my escape to the north—but that action would have alerted me at once to treachery and bettered my chance of survival.
So we continued apace over hard earth and rocks and dead crackling leaves until at last we reached the banks of a great lake, frozen solidly, its surface opaque grey-white dirtied by swirls of dark suspended flotsam. At its center stood the island fortress of Snagov, the spires of the Chapel of the Annunciation emerging from behind high walls at the water’s very edge.
I dismounted and unsheathed my sword—with a smile to ease Gregor’s growing trepidation—and led my horse onto the ice. “No need to draw your arms,” I told my uncertain companion. “Mine are sufficient to protect us.” I nodded for him to precede me across the river to the great iron gate.
In his eyes I saw once more the moment of decision: Should he smite me now, and return to Basarab’s army a hero? Should he hope for an opportunity inside Snagov’s walls, and venture forth upon the ice? (It was my right as sovereign to require that someone else test the ice’s strength.) Why had I drawn my sword? Was this merely another of the prince’s eccentricities, or had I deduced his deception?
A flicker of fear again crossed his features. I was, after all, Dracula, the son of the Devil, the passionate fighter whose madness and boldness knew no limits. I had ridden at night into Mehmed’s very camp and slaughtered a hundred sleeping Turks with the sword I now grasped. If he drew his weapon now and openly challenged me, would he be the survivor?
With the softest of sighs he swung down from his horse and led the creature onto the frozen lake. So we made our way toward sanctuary, the horses’ hooves ringing hollowly against the ice, displacing small clouds of mist. At last we arrived at the great stone wall I had built during my reign, which had transformed the island monastic village into a more suitable fortress for guarding the treasure of the Wallachian realm. Ringing that wall were trees, their naked limbs clawing at the stones as if pleading for entry.
A cry came from the watchtower as the sentinel spotted us; I cupped my hands round my mouth and called a reply which echoed off the stone. We moved toward the high wooden gate, studded with pales, and waited on the ice uneasily, I maneuvering myself so that I stood behind Gregor. The indecisiveness, the tension, the guilt, could easily be read from the cant of the man’s shoulders. We stood without speaking and watched the first snowflakes sail silently down, stinging my cheeks like cold tears.
At last the great gate creaked open on its rusting hinges and we were received by two armed guards, who immediately bowed low when they confirmed that their guest was, indeed, the Prince of Wallachia. I ordered one to take our horses to the stable and have food brought; the other I bade accompany us, ostensibly to build a fire. The three of us walked together on the ice-and-mud road past the high watchtower, the beautiful chapel, the great monastery, up towards the beautiful palace I had erected in better days. The thought evoked a flare of anger: Gregor did not deserve to set foot in this place built by the blood of loyal subjects, a sanctuary dear to my heart and which I would never again see after this night.
But I held my temper and walked together with my traitor into the palace’s private chambers—which, being long unused, were so cold that our breaths still hung in the air as mist. I moved into my private dining-room, which looked onto a small cell with an Orthodox shrine to the Virgin Mary. The accompanying soldier, a strong young man, set at once to the task of building a fire.
With a flourish, I removed my cape, belt, and sword, setting them all down on the floor near the hearth—and the soldier—and motioned for Gregor to do the same. I saw his swift secretive glance at my weapon, then at the soldier, then back at me; in his eyes shone the reluctance of the coward. Slay me he could, but at the cost of his own life.
“Gregor, my friend.” I motioned for the now-tired man to sit across from me at the ancient dining table. I was cordial, conciliatory. “It is only right that you know the reason for our swift journey. I have need of … funds, and so I came here to avail myself of some of my treasure. There are few I can trust with such a task, even at the castle … and so I did not speak of it to you. We shall be returning shortly to Bucharest, but in the meantime, rest, and eat.”
I saw the mercenary light in his eye which I had hoped to evoke. He could wait until the treasure was in our hands, and once he and I were alone in the Vlasia Forest …
After a time the fire grew, and the room began to warm. I bad
e the soldier stay with us and stand guard. A white-bearded monk with fewer teeth than I have fingers entered with a tray of food—a cold roasted chicken, a flask of wine, bread, cheese. He served us most capably, reaching out to refill our goblets with a hand so gnarled by age—blue veins standing out in bas relief beneath a parchment-thin layer of pale yellow skin—that I was astonished it did not tremble. Even more laudably, he showed no fear, no cringing, before the great prince, only silent dignity. This I found agreeable, for I am usually tended by fawning fools, but his singular self-possession may well have been sparked by disdain for my heresy. (I had spent years under house arrest in Hungary; the only way to gain King Matthias’ trust—and regain my throne—was to convert to Catholicism. It was a political move, nothing more—in Turkey I was forced to kneel upon prayer rugs facing Mecca and pray to Allah—but an unfortunate one, for it has earned me the contempt of my own people.)
Should I have chosen death instead?
No. There is nothing noble about death, even that of a martyr.
Yet the old monk feels I have betrayed God, and therefore deserve His punishment, just as Gregor deserves mine.
Perhaps the monk would be surprised to know that I indeed fear God. Fear Him because I know His heart is like mine—blackened by power, thrilling at the ability to dictate the hour and fashion of men’s deaths; reveling in their suffering.
Nay—His heart is more evil than mine, and more pitiless. He strikes down young, old, man, woman, child, without regard for their loyalty, their wit, their circumstance. I spare the innocent and kill only those who betray me; I kill to instruct the survivors through spectacle.
God has no such qualms. He slays believer and infidel alike, and the degree of suffering He inflicts bears no relation to the victim’s piety. Nor does He concern Himself with justice—He has permitted usurper after usurper to steal my rightful kingdom, and now that I have reclaimed it after years of arduous struggle, He will not help me maintain it. Thus I could never ally myself with Him, especially since He is too jealous to impart the immortality I seek.
Enough of God; I speak now of Gregor. He and I shared our Last Supper in silence, and when he had eaten to his satisfaction and pushed away from the table with a sigh, I told him:
“My friend. My heart is heavy of late, for I know that support for my reign is uncertain. The boiers have turned against me”—and when he began a supposedly innocent protest, I raised my hand. “Do not think I do not know it! And now that Stefan has withdrawn his forces, the situation is more precarious.” This he could not disavow. After all, to spare them danger, I had not permitted my wife and sons to join me at my Bucharest court. I paused and, in a tone of utmost earnestness, asked, “Gregor. Will you pray for me? For your prince’s safety and success? I know you are a man of faith, and I am deemed by some a heretic.…” And here I paused to steal a sidewise glance at the grizzled monk, who stood in readiness to serve (albeit closer to the fire, to warm his old bones). But the brother’s gaze was hooded, his expression unreadable; perhaps he was deaf, I thought, and had not heard. Or perhaps he was simply too wise a man to make open his contempt, knowing that I would not forgive it. “Beseech God and the Virgin on my behalf.”
Of course Gregor could do no else. He nodded, and with solemnity, I rose from the table and led him to the monastic little cell, whose door lay ajar so that its interior was entirely visible from our dinner table. I crossed myself (in good Orthodox fashion, which I had no doubt the old monk noticed) and, stopping at the doorway, gestured for my aide to enter and kneel on the small rug in front of the solitary shrine to the Mother of Christ.
He sank down with a groan and creaking knees; like me, he is no longer young. “Pray for us,” I said tenderly, and gestured to the young soldier by the fire to take up Gregor’s own weapon and stand in my place. I could see my kneeling Judas’ face in profile—how like my own it was! He might have been my brother; my own backstabbing brother. I watched that sun-weathered face, with its sharp but delicate nose and chin, its thin, trembling lips beneath the dark drooping mustache. I savoured the charming slow dawn of terror in those large eyes, black as mine were green, as the soldier lifted the sword. Then I returned to my place at the dinner table—the tableau was entirely visible from my seat, according to my own design (it was not the first time I had made use of the cell, though I suspect it will be the last)—and lifted my glass to drink deep of sweet, stinging wine ere I spoke again.
“Pray, my friend. Pray for my long life … and death to those who would betray me.”
He let go a wrenching sob and pressed his palms together in earnest supplication, turning on his knees to face me. The little rug moved with him, rippling. “My lord, I swear that I have not deceived you!”
I let a long, tortured moment pass for him before I replied, my voice soft, curious. “Did I accuse you?”
His eyes widened; then he blinked, and pressed his quivering lips together. In truth, had he been able to think of a compelling reply, and had I trusted my magic any less, I might have spared him then. But I was certain of the vision that had come to me in Circle, and my own divinations. Even were I not, the look of stricken self-incrimination which descended at that instant upon Gregor’s features would have convinced me. A single shining drop slid down his cheek.
“Oho!” I exulted. “Is this a tear?”
“My lord, I beg—”
“Turn!” I cried, gesturing for the soldier to brandish the sword. His cravenness so fuelled my rage that it would no longer be submerged. “Turn, and pray to the Virgin! Pray that she might grant you mercy, and me victory over Basarab!”
He knit his hands together fervently and once more faced Mary’s shrine; beneath his knees, the small rug bunched up further to reveal a seam in the wooden floor. Yet my would-be deceiver never noticed; his attention had become sincerely fixed on the icon of the Virgin Mother, and he began to babble, knuckles pressed to the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut.
“Have mercy! God and Holy Mother—have mercy! Grant my sovereign long life, and victory, and convince him that I have not betrayed him.…”
“Yes,” I whispered. “Perhaps God will be merciful to you—but He has never been thus to me, and so I will not bargain with Him.”
“My Lord,” he cried, still facing the shrine with his eyes closed so that I was uncertain whether he addressed God or me. “My Lord, I am innocent of any crime against you! What can I say, what can I do, to prove my perfect loyalty?”
“Die with bravery,” said I. “Your life is already forfeit, Gregor. Make your peace, and quickly. I shall not die outside Bucharest as my father did, struck down by an assassin.”
He raised his face towards Heaven, then opened his praying hands as one might a book and pressed them to his eyes, weeping. I studied his reaction to the revelation that all hope was lost: noted the electric agony, the utter desperation, reflected in each aspect of his body, his voice (for his sobs grew resoundingly loud and shrill). I have been my whole life a student of the Death, staring into Its face in hopes that I might understand and be able to accept my own end. How many men have I killed in my life—a thousand? No, it must be more, many more. I know the face of Death; I watched more than a hundred Turks meet their slow deaths in the Forest of the Impaled alone. I have heard men’s sobs and screams, and the slow sighing sound made by a body pulled down onto the stake by its own weight.
And in each instance I have looked into their eyes and tried to understand the Secret hidden there as they passed from life into the Abyss.
But as I contemplated Death—and came to see that God was not just, and that there was no meaning there, only indignity and suffering—I came to know that I could never accept it. I had been cheated of too much that was rightfully mine in this life; I had ruled my father’s, my grandfather’s, kingdom for only a handful of years before I was ousted unjustly. I am royalty by birthright; but I spent my whole youth as a Turkish prisoner, and eight of my middle years as a prisoner of the Hungarian
king. My kingdom has been stolen from me twice, once by my own brother: if I relinquish it a third time, I shall have recompense—I who am shrewder, more cunning, more deserving of my people’s adoration, than Matthias, than Mehmed, than Radu or Basarab.
Death is surely closer to me now than at any other time. Yet God and the angels would not grant me my desire: immortality. There is only One other capable.
As Gregor wept and prayed in vain, the soldier in the doorway turned his hopeful young face (with its thin, patchy boy’s beard on tender pink cheeks and chin) towards me and motioned with his sword, his gaze a question. He will make a fine assassin, that one, for his eyes were bright with eagerness and yearning, much as mine.
I gave a single small shake of my head; not yet. Instead, I rose and walked over to stand beside my cheerful young killer, taking care that my boots struck the floor solidly. As I’d planned, Gregor heard. His back tensed; I knew he expected Death to come up behind him, in the form of the sword gripped in the young soldier’s hand. And though he dared not turn his head completely round to look straight at me—he had witnessed my sensitivity to the smallest presumption in these situations many times, and feared provoking a burst of rage—he inclined it slightly over its shoulder, and swiveled his eyes in an effort to look behind him.
Wild eyes those were, with more white in them than I had ever seen. I was reminded strongly of the bulging, frantic eyes of cattle at the slaughter.
“My lord, my lord, my lord, you kill an innocent man!”
“Indeed?” I asked, my voice once again calm. “Gregor …” And here I affected the utmost sincerity. “I am a hard man and cannot tolerate any degree of duplicity. I am cruel to those who betray me, but just to the loyal. Can you swear before God that you have acted with naught but total faithfulness towards me, your sovereign?”
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