House of Bathory

by Linda Lafferty

  Draska hesitated. “Here, good lady,” she said. “Help me correct my English on the computer.”

  “Correct your English?” said Grace.

  “See my homework in English. I have grammar questions. You correct, yes?”

  Draska sat down at the computer, leaning her body close to the monitor. She opened a Word document and typed in:

  MY COUSIN LIVE IN LONDON.

  Grace began to smile, and then checked her emotion. She said, “The first person singular of ‘live’ is ‘lives.’ You must remember to add the ‘s’. Let me give you a few examples.”

  She, too, moved close to the monitor, her back obscuring any hidden camera that might be focused on them. She set down her cup of tea.

  GOOD. YOUR COUSIN SENDS A MESSAGE TO MY DAUGHTER. IT DOESN’T MENTION YOU OR ME. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. BUT SHE WILL KNOW IT IS FROM ME.

  “Now see. I have written three sentences with errors. Can you rewrite them correctly?” said Grace, pointing at the screen.

  Draska nodded, taking her place at the computer.

  COUNT KNOW EVERYTHING. VERY DANGEROUS.

  “Good, but not good enough. Look, you made a mistake here. I’ll correct it and we’ll try some negative third-person singular. Those are harder.”

  WRITE TO YOUR COUSIN. USE A FRIEND’S COMPUTER AND AT THE END, INCLUDE MY MESSAGE. TELL HER TO CUT AND PASTE AND SEND IT ON TO MY DAUGHTER. IT COMES FROM .UK INSTEAD OF .SK. I WILL GIVE YOU TWO LETTERS. TELL YOUR COUSIN TO SEND THEM A FEW DAYS APART SO THERE IS NO SUSPICION.

  “OK. Put the sentences in negative, third person singular.” Grace shifted position, always careful to block the computer screen.

  MUST THINK. COUNT KNOWS EVERYTHING!

  Draska closed the document, no changes saved.

  “Thank you for lesson. Good teacher. Finish tea?”

  Grace looked at the interior of her empty cup. Ancient white porcelain. Kings, queens, or other nobility had pressed their lips to the same gold rim. She stared into the young woman’s eyes, searching for some sign of agreement, some reassurance.

  “I bring you dinner at six o’clock, Madam. Thank you for English lesson.”

  Draska gathered up the teacup, saucer, and ornate silver spoon, placing them on a tray. Grace listened to the bright clink of the porcelain as it rattled away toward the door. She couldn’t help but wince, thinking of such an objet d’art being treated as common crockery.

  She heard the click of the lock as Draska left. Then the hollow click of heels down the hall.

  Chapter 32

  CARBONDALE, COLORADO

  DECEMBER 20, 2010

  John made the plane reservations online to leave the next morning. He alerted the American Embassy he and Betsy were arriving and rented a car in Bratislava.

  All the traits that had contributed to their divorce—his concrete, black-and-white approach to resolving conflicts, breaking down a situation to a mathematical problem—now comforted Betsy. When they were married, she had accused him of handling their relationship with cold calculation, never allowing things to flow naturally, no room for spontaneity or a last-minute hunch.

  “Come on, Betsy! I always leave a margin of error,” he said one night, defending himself in the middle of an argument.

  Margin of error. For John instinct, intuition—the element of humanity and surprise—boiled down to nothing but a margin for error. Betsy had wanted to smother him with a pillow.

  Now, as she watched him print out their boarding passes, hotel reservation, and train schedules and then put their passports and her mother’s e-mails into a travel folder, she sighed with relief.

  “Relax a little, Betsy,” he said, gentleness in his smile. “Get some sleep.”

  “I will,” she said, gratitude washing over her. “Do you need anything in the guest bathroom?”

  “I’m all set, Bets. Everything’s fine.”

  “OK,” she said. She looked up at him and managed a smile. “And, John—thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  She brushed her teeth, her mind reviewing last minute details for the early departure. Toothbrush still in her mouth, she walked out into the den and checked her e-mail one more time.

  “Always multitasking, Dr. Path,” John said, yawning. “Some things never change.”

  But Betsy didn’t hear him. She stood frozen, staring at the e-mail she had just opened.

  Dear Dr. Path,

  The review board of Psychology Today is interested in your proposed article on the use of Carl Jung’s The Red Book as a method of treatment with borderline schizophrenics. We find the work you have done in Jungian analysis quite pro vocative. (We cite specifically the interpretation of the jeweled mandala. True, per your suggestion, the second mandala of hard, flinty stone—the more Gothic representation—would seem to be more suitable as a stimulus presented to a delusional patient, especially one who has aggressive or even murderous tendencies.)

  We are most impressed with your treatise vis-à-vis Jung’s illustration of a snake climbing toward heaven, as if it is scaling a wall to beseech the gods for help. A clue to the mental state of the patient? Returning to the father’s homeland?

  Perhaps you might continue to send us updates on your work. We are leaning toward publication but must review your final results and conclusion. We want to make sure we understand one another (your third ear, as it were) and that your therapy is heading in the right direction.

  We look forward to hearing from you soon. We encourage your work, though you should be aware that if we do not write consistently it is because we have been intercepted by publishing demands here at the magazine.

  It was hard to get us all on board to compose this letter, though we admire your groundbreaking work!

  Edmund S.K. Dangerfield, PhD

  Jane Highwall, MD

  Morris S.W. Castle, PhD

  Betsy sat down at the computer, foaming toothpaste leaking from the corners of her mouth.

  “Ohmgow—” she mouthed, spewing the keyboard with white pasty gobs.

  John looked up. “What is it?”

  Betsy ran to the sink to spit.

  “Read this e-mail.”

  John looked down at the screen and scanned it.

  “Congratulations. But since when do you treat schizophrenic patients?”

  “I don’t! My father did. That’s just it. And I haven’t written a treatise.”

  “Huh?”

  Betsy typed a search on Google.

  “So what’s this all about? A hoax?”

  “Look. None of those names are on the masthead of Psychology Today. Who are these people? Dangerfield, Castle, or Highwall. Someone is trying to give me information. In a way that wouldn’t alert a hacker! A hacker, John, who would be on the look out for communication from my mother. John, someone is hacking my e-mail, I know it!”

  “Calm down, Betsy. You are not making a lot of sense.”

  “My mother sent me The Red Book for my birthday. This message is code. Someone is trying to lead me to Mom!”

  Chapter 33

  ČACHTICE CASTLE

  DECEMBER 21, 1610

  Countess Bathory stared at the young horsemaster, a cat watching a bird.

  The white stallion had entered the castle gates at a walk, as calm as a king’s horse. Excited by the activity of the crowded courtyard, the steed raised its head and began to trot, but Janos reined him in, commanding obedience. The horse ceased its prancing, walking by the blazing fires, hawking vendors, scattered livestock, and laughing children.

  The Countess dropped her gaze and looked at her white hands cuffed in lace, her delicate fingers clasped in her lap. Then she turned her hands palms down and studied the blue veins of age that drew their tributaries across her skin.

  She remembered another skilled rider, long since dead. A shiver coursed through her body. He was a stable boy and she was already betrothed to Ferenc Nadasdy. She—the daughter of both the Ecsed and Somlyo Bathorys, an incestuous inbreeding—was a val
uable pawn in the union of the most powerful and the most wealthy families of Eastern Europe. Her cousin ruled Transylvania, her uncle was the king of Poland.

  A marriage to the Nadasdy clan—not the highest nobility but immensely wealthy—was a propitious alliance. The Countess was betrothed at the age of nine and sent to her future mother-in-law’s castle in the southernmost reaches of Hungary.

  So far from home, in the castle of her future in-laws, she had sought comfort with a peasant boy, a stable hand by the name of Ladislav Bende from the village of Sarvar.

  Promiscuous and willful, she was also a victim of the falling disease. Her future mother-in-law complained that the Ecsed Bathorys of Transylvania had not warned the Nadasdy family of the brain fevers that seized the young Countess, causing the girl’s eyes to roll back in her head and making her soil herself. The fits were preceded by rage—rage that neither the Bathorys nor the Nadasdy family could control. She slapped and scratched her servants, screamed obscenities, and tore at her clothes, leaving them in shreds.

  Then came the pregnancy. But the mistress of Nadasdy would not let her potential daughter-in-law’s defects spoil the union, and neither would her Bathory mother. The alliance was too valuable to the two families.

  She was sequestered in a remote Bathory castle to wait out her shame. The squalling newborn that issued from the Countess’s fourteen-year-old body was banished forever.

  The baby was taken away immediately. Her mother, Anna, could not allow a Bathory’s noble blood to be spilled—even a bastard Bathory. So she gave the red-faced infant girl, wrapped in a woolen shawl, to a peasant woman.

  “Never let us hear of this child again,” she said. “Take her far away and raise her as your own. We will provide money to raise her in comfort, for she is of Bathory blood.”

  The young Countess heard of her lover’s death a month later. Her father had traveled to Sarvar to kill him, but the plague had already carried the young man away.

  The following year she married Ferenc Nadasdy as planned.

  The Countess looked from the young rider to her hands. She reached for her silver mirror and studied her face, the flesh of her eyelids drooping despite Zuzana’s tending.

  Her mind drifted to the night games, and the girls’ young, flushed skin.

  Chapter 34

  THE MEADOWLANDS BELOW

  ČACHTICE CASTLE

  DECEMBER 21, 1610

  It was weeks after arriving at the castle that Janos first caught a glimpse of Zuzana. He rode the white stallion through the meadows below the castle and on beyond Čachtice Village to the edge of the dark forest.

  Zuzana was digging in the banks of the stream, looking for the special gray clay she used in one of her potions for the Countess’s skin. Her straw-colored hair was covered by a kerchief, but as soon as he saw the pocked skin, he knew who she was.

  “Zuzana,” he called, a smile spreading across his face. “Is that you?”

  Startled, she screamed, her hand flying to her mouth. The stallion shied, taking a series of jumps sideways. Janos was a superb rider, but the horse was too quick for him and he tumbled to the ground, still holding a rein.

  “You devil!” he cursed the horse, groaning as he scrambled to his feet.

  “Are you all right?” said Zuzana. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten your horse.”

  The horse, sensing his advantage, reared and pulled at the rein in Janos’s hand.

  “Quiet, now!” urged Janos, grabbing the other reins. “Quiet.”

  The stallion snorted at the girl with muddy hands, eyeing her warily. Instead of retreating in fear, she turned her palm up to his muzzle.

  “Easy now, boy. Easy.”

  She stood her ground, speaking to the horse in a singsong voice. Janos rubbed his sore ribs.

  “It’s not your fault. He is not accustomed to unfamiliar sights and sounds. I am trying to train him, but it’s not an easy task.”

  “The Countess thinks it a miracle you can ride him.”

  Janos’s face tightened. “She does, does she?”

  Zuzana flushed. The mention of the Countess had poisoned the moment.

  “Your father told me you were her handmaiden. I was to look for you to give you your family’s love.”

  “You could have asked for me,” said Zuzana, looking down at the river.

  “If I had asked, everyone would know there was a connection between us. The castle is a nest of spies.” Zuzana looked away, biting her lip. “And I do not trust the Countess with any information.”

  Zuzana looked up at him sharply. “You must never speak ill of the Countess!”

  “Why?”

  “Because—she is too dangerous, too powerful. You must know that!”

  “How can you bear to work with such a cruel mistress?”

  Zuzana frowned, rubbing her muddy fingertips together.

  “I have no choice,” she said, her blue eyes glittering. “She picked me years ago to serve her.”

  “Are rumors true about her? Does she torture innocent girls?”

  Zuzana stared at him, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Does she murder them?” Janos was insistent.

  Zuzana closed her eyes. She clapped her hands over her ears. Janos stretched his hand around her shoulders.

  “Is it true?” said Janos, shaking her hard.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I have never seen it, but I hear screams in the night.”

  Chapter 35

  SOMEWHERE IN SLOVAKIA

  DECEMBER 21, 2010

  The Count’s voice resonated in the library. He spoke as if he were addressing a large audience.

  “Over the years, we have weeded out the illegitimate descendants of the Bathory line, isolating them. Those bastards of peasant stock who sullied the lineage have been, shall we say, dealt with. In some cases, there have been those so bold as to lay claim to the Bathory fortunes. While they were bothersome, they stood no chance of inheriting. Everything was nicely taken care of—until your husband started meddling.”

  Grace’s face creased in defiance.

  “My husband?”

  “He was tracing the descendants of families whose daughters had been eliminated during the Countess’s reign—and he planned to pay retribution. He had to be stopped.”

  Grace looked down at her left hand, at her gold wedding band.

  “Ceslav was admitted to the Hungarian State Archives in Budapest. He argued that his Slovak heritage gave him a right to view papers taken from Slovak lands, and his mother was Hungarian. And—”

  “And what?”

  “And he was presented with hundreds of pages of documents from the early seventeenth century. Record keeping was fastidious in the Nadasdy households. Weekly entries of purchases, salaries, debts.”

  “Why would any of that interest him?”

  “Apparently among the stacks was a ledger the Countess kept in her own hand—a sort of diary. A diary that allegedly documented her…activities. I think your husband stole that ledger from the Archives. On those pages were the names of six hundred women. Six hundred twelve to be exact. Depositions were also written.”

  “Six hundred twelve women. Women that she murdered? My God!”

  The Count’s eyes focused coldly on the gray-haired woman.

  “Your husband,” said the Count, his nostrils pinched up as if there were an evil smell in the air, “took it upon himself to start the Bathory Reparation Project—to track down the descendants of the families of the women who were…dispatched.”

  “I never knew—”

  “Of course you did not. You lived in blissful ignorance. Ceslav was ashamed. Instead of being proud of his Hungarian heritage, of having noble blood in his veins from a family that once ruled Eastern Europe for almost a thousand years, he disguised his roots.”

  “Ceslav? What ‘noble blood’?”

  “Dr. Path—your name should rightly be Dr. Bathory. Even the great Ferenc Nadasdy changed his name to Nadasdy-Bathory w
hen he married the Countess.”

  “Bathory? No!”

  “Your husband was a direct descendant of the first child of the fourteen-year-old countess. She was a bastard child, but still a true Bathory. Your husband’s grandfather changed the family name from Bathory to Path when he moved from Budapest to Bratislava.”

  “I don’t believe you. You are inventing things, just like this insane nonsense of the vampires. You are delusional!”

  “The Bathory name is still revered in Hungary and Poland—the surname of kings, palatines, and conquerors. But Slovaks—Slovaks detest the name.”

  Grace shook her head vehemently.

  “My husband was a psychiatrist in the asylum. He practiced in Vienna before moving to America. Why would he involve himself in this?”

  The Count stared at her, a sudden darkness obscuring the light his eyes. She could feel the chill emanating from him.

  Just as suddenly, the shadow lifted, as he regained his composure.

  “Yes, well, that question is moot. The Bathory Reparations would require all descendants of Erzsebet Bathory to pay retribution to her victims’ families’ descendants. Perhaps ten percent of his income—he called it a ‘tithe’—pledged for five years would not amount to much.”

  “What are you talking about? Ten percent of our income?”

  “Perhaps it was peanuts, as you Americans say, to someone with the income of a mere psychiatrist. But to those of us with properties—real wealth—it was intolerable. He wished to scrub clean what he was so presumptuous as to consider the stain of blood on the Bathory name. As if that great name needed his help.”

  “My husband would have told me if he were involved in anything like you describe. We were—”

  The Count held up his hand, brushing her objections aside. “Of course, none of us were obliged to join your husband in his project. But the word spread throughout Slovakia, Hungary, even Austria. It drew attention to those of us who refused to have anything to do with his project.

  “And I despise having attention focused on me. I have my own projects that I prefer to keep private,” he said. The cold shadow had returned. “Your husband knew that all too well.”