House of Bathory

by Linda Lafferty

  His foot slipped on the hoarfrost of the stone floor.

  “No!” he cried, his cargo launching from his arms.

  The chest belched out its contents, metal ringing on the rock.

  The white stallion reared in his stall, his hooves tearing at the air.

  Aloyz stared at the objects strewn across the stable floor.

  In the torchlight, the blades of sharp knives glittered. Needles as thick as his little finger littered the stones. Scissors, their blades brown with dried blood. Pincers black with char gaped wide-mouthed.

  “What meaning is this?” asked a voice.

  Aloyz recognized the barracks cook, who, like the stable boys, stood wild-eyed in horror. “She takes these tools in travel? What wicked occupation does she practice?”

  “Keep silence!” snapped Kovach, whirling around to face the cook. “If you value your life, you will forget what you see, all of you!”

  “Blindness, you demand!” said the cook, spitting on the cold, dirty stones. “I have turned a deaf ear to gossip, but now I see murder spread out at my feet!”

  Chapter 95

  HIGH TATRA MOUNTAINS

  SLOVAKIA

  DECEMBER 28, 2010

  Night had snuffed out the pink glow on the horizon. In the beam of the taxi’s headlights, the curtain of falling snow mesmerized the Polish driver.

  “You have friends or family here in Tatras?” he asked. He had not spoken to his strange passenger since they crossed the border of Slovakia.

  Morgan hesitated. “Yes.”

  He waited for more, but there was only silence.

  The driver shrugged, resolving not to try to communicate further. He had a sour taste in his mouth. He almost wished he hadn’t taken the fare.

  He thought of his family and warm grog and smoked kielbasa at home. A smile crept across his face.

  He felt the green eyes staring at him from the blackness of the backseat. His smile vanished. His hands tightened around the steering wheel as he drove through the storm.

  Suddenly, after what seemed like an endless silence, Morgan gave a barrage of directions.

  “Turn left and go uphill three kilometers. Turn right at the church with two steeples.… Look for a private entrance, a gate. Maybe a guardhouse.”

  The driver did as he was told, squinting against the gusts of snow, swirling across the narrow roads.

  “This is it?” he said at last. He pointed to a black spiked gate, ten feet high, with a guardhouse beside it. A guard emerged from the dark, a flashlight in hand.

  The taxi driver noticed a black holster on his hip, even from a distance.

  “Let me out here,” said Morgan. “Don’t go any further.”

  “But, Slecna,” he protested. “Let me drive you to the door. The storm—”

  “Let me out here! Stop!”

  The driver jammed on his brakes, skidding. Morgan dug through her purse and stuffed his hand with euros.

  The driver snapped on the cab light, counting the cash.

  “It’s all there,” she muttered. “And then some. To help you forget you ever saw me.”

  She slammed the car door and heaved her backpack on her shoulder, walking away from the taxi.

  The driver watched her red hair speckle with snow as she trudged toward the guardhouse.

  Chapter 96

  ČACHTICE CASTLE

  DECEMBER 28, 1610

  Downstairs, the kitchen was in an uproar. Brona stood in the midst of the chaos, her face beaded with sweat from the blazing hearth. She and her scullery maids were readying plum-wine cakes, roasted chickens, stuffed goose, and clove-studded hams—enough to last the long, cold journey to Transylvania.

  “What doings are these to depart in the middle of the night?” the cook growled to Hedvika. “How can I roast the fowl in such haste without scorching? The fire is newborn and the hot flames char the skin.”

  “It is the Countess’s wish to depart at once,” said Hedvika. “It is not your position to question her decision. Make haste!”

  Brona muttered, giving the big maiden the evil eye.

  “Do not forget to pack cheeses and butter,” added Hedvika, turning her back on the cook. “And the jars of goose fat. We will keep it warm by the heat of the coach brazier.”

  While Brona and Hedvika sparred, Janos and Vida crept down the hall into the Countess’s bedchamber.

  The room was in disarray, the bed covers awry from the rush of packing. Heavy chests still gaped open.

  “Her writing desk,” whispered Vida. “Hurry!”

  “Stand watch,” said Janos.

  He rifled through her drawers: blotting papers, sharpened quills, pen knives. He pushed aside sticks of red sealing wax and bronze stamps embossed with the Bathory wolves’ teeth, encircled by a dragon eating his own tail.

  Stacks of letters were tied up in scarlet ribbons. He saw the Bathory seal broken open on a parchment, folded into perfect quarters. He unfolded it quickly and read: “My Beloved: I have found her. Your Cousin and Servant, Gabor.”

  “Hurry!” whispered Vida.

  He jiggled the last drawer. It was locked.

  He pulled out the short, sturdy knife he used to trim reins and hooves.

  Vida looked at him, terrified.

  “You will scar the wood!” she said.

  He shook his head, sliding the blade carefully into the gap at the top of the drawer. He wedged the blade down gently, springing the lock.

  As the velvet-lined drawer yielded to his hand, he gasped in horror.

  Inside, he saw locks of hair, tied in ribbons. Dozens of bundles in an array of colors, some strands dull with age, others still glossy.

  He snatched his hand away as if he had touched a viper.

  “Someone is coming!”

  The shadows in the corridors obscured the approaching figure. Vida, knowing that Janos had not found the ledger, emerged and stood blocking the chamber door.

  “What are you doing here?” demanded a voice.

  It was Brona, her palms open in astonishment.

  “Did I not tell you to stay hidden?”

  “I bade her to accompany me,” said Janos. “Come inside, Brona.”

  The big woman crossed the threshold. Janos closed the door silently behind her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I am searching for the Countess’s ledger. The book that holds the names of her victims.”

  Brona stared back, her eyes glinting in horror at the words. “ Victims? She is—a murderer?”

  “There is no question. Have you not wondered at the disappearance of so many maidens?”

  “She punishes them, I know. She burns their hands, whips them. A cruel mistress—Vida—”

  “Brona, no,” said Janos, his hand on her shoulder. “She murders them.”

  Brona shook her big head, the words working their way into her brain.

  “No,” she muttered, though she knew in her heart it was true. Brona knew she was dull-witted; her late husband had often told her so. But she realized she had known the truth about the Countess all along. She had refused to admit it, even to herself. Now she was forced to face the truth, and it was shattering.

  With her peasant knowledge of local herbs and cookery, she had won a place long ago in the Nadasdy household, as had her mother before her.

  Now she looked down at her cook’s hands, fire-scorched, callused, and worn. These hands had given sustenance, warm soups and scraps of roasted meats, to hundreds of girls. She had fed them like so many geese, her pockets full of corn.

  “There is a book, a record of her crimes penned in her own hand,” said Janos, watching her. “We need it as evidence.”

  Brona licked her lips and then set her jaw, as tight as bulldog’s on a bone. “She is not so stupid as to leave something so valuable lying about. If she has such a book, it will be on her person, always.”

  She remembered the orphan girl Paula, a scullery maid. The girl had been sent to Brona’s kitchen when she
was only eleven. She worked scouring the blackened pots with ash, fat, and water. The girl worked night and day at Brona’s side and soon became the cook’s pet.

  One day little Paula did not show up at the kitchens. Brona had searched the castle grounds and Čachtice Castle for days, looking for the girl.

  At last Brona had broken down and cried, holding her head in her hands.

  “Why are you weeping?” demanded the Countess, sweeping into the kitchens unannounced.

  “I cannot find the orphan girl, my scullery maid,” said Brona. “She has disappeared. Countess, I am so worried.”

  Erzsebet’s eyes lit up.

  “Ah, yes. And that girl’s name was?”

  “Paula.”

  “I need the surname as well.”

  Brona’s forehead wrinkled.

  “Paula Cerveny.”

  The Countess nodded, drawing a bound vellum book from her apron pocket. She flipped through the pages.

  “Cerveny,” she said. “I only recalled the name Paula. Quite slight, inappropriately weak. Blonde. Thank you, Brona.”

  She slipped the book back into her pocket, leaving the cook bewildered.

  Now Brona understood, and her sorrow and guilt turned to rage. Her sooty fingernails dug into the palm of her hand.

  “I will get the book for you,” she said. “And may she burn in eternal hell, as Christ is my witness.”

  She made the sign of the cross, closing her eyes. She lumbered out of the Countess’s bedroom, her big shoulders heaving.

  Chapter 97

  BATHORY CASTLE

  SLOVAKIA

  DECEMBER 28, 2010

  The guards brought in their struggling prisoner. She twisted violently in their arms.

  They pushed her into an overstuffed armchair and stood on either side of her. One drew a gun, looking at his master.

  “Why are you here, little witch girl? Why do you stick your nose into my business?” said the Count. “You are a constant annoyance.”

  He poured himself a glass of red wine, swirling the stem as he observed the contents. He smiled in satisfaction.

  “You disappeared from the tower, into thin air. Now you have followed me.”

  Daisy said nothing.

  “Perhaps you are indeed a witch. How did you find me? What do you want?”

  “You kidnapped a girl in Bratislava, at the nightclub,” said Daisy, raising her rope-bound hands. She could barely keep her eyes open, the men had injected her with some soporific drug. Still, her anger boiled, giving her stamina. “Let her go.”

  The Count studied her face, her white makeup streaked with dirt. He chuckled, though his eyes had a menacing glint.

  “My dear, you are certainly in no position to make demands. Perhaps you are a circus clown with your white makeup, yes? Not a witch at all, just a silly clown.”

  “And who do you think you are?” said Daisy. “Count Dracula?”

  The Count pressed his lips to the rim of the crystal glass, taking a sip.

  When he met Daisy’s eyes, his own were hardened, the light extinguished. “You are a fool, witch girl! Amusing with your black funeral clothes and white corpse makeup. You intrigue me. But still…a fool.”

  The Count saw a glint from the open neck of her woolen coat. The left corner of his lip curled up, twitching.

  “Remove the—”

  Daisy followed his eyes. Her cuffed hands reached up and she touched the crucifix on her neck.

  “This?”

  “Take it off, I said!”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Take it off!”

  Daisy stared back at him. “You take it off. How am I supposed to do anything with my hands cuffed, dickhead?”

  The Count let out a scream, so anguished and shrill that Daisy ducked her head between her shoulders like a turtle. The two men who had kidnapped her stepped forward.

  “Give her the full dose,” the Count said, between clenched teeth. “Dress her for the games. And remove that damned cross.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  They turned, one grabbing her from behind.

  “Keep your goddamn hands off me!” Daisy ordered.

  The last thing she remembered were thick fingers snapping the chain on her neck, and the little crucifix falling to the floor.

  The Count stared at the fire. The witch girl had unsettled him. He still felt the inquisitive stares of his subordinates, astonished at her insult.

  Who do you think you are, Count Dracula?

  She would regret that. Oh, yes.

  The shrill beeping of an alarm cut the silence. Bathory turned away from the fire and walked toward the screens showing the surveillance cameras.

  On the monitor showing the castle gates, Count Bathory saw a girl, auburn hair blowing across her face. She squinted hard against the wind, but he knew that face.

  He knew that face!

  He shot a look at the portrait of the Countess and back at the monitor screen.

  A vein pulsed erratically in his forehead. He pressed his fingertips to the cool skin as his eyes closed, his lips moving silently.

  Chapter 98

  BATHORY CASTLE CAVERNS

  HIGH TATRA MOUNTAINS, SLOVAKIA

  DECEMBER 28, 2010

  Betsy shone her light up at the stream of trickling water. The liquid sheen disappeared into a small hole in the rock, past the splintered remains of timbers. There was a cluster of bats roosting at the entrance, rubbery wings crisscrossed around their faces in slumber.

  “Here,” the cook whispered. “Way to cave, tunnel. To castle.”

  Mathilde was barely able to stand on the slippery rock. Her labored breath sent puffs of vapor, illuminated in the beam of her flashlight.

  “Ano,” grunted the cook. “Yes. I think. Maybe. Yes. You go there.” She shook her head. “But I cannot. As child—yes—but now—” She gestured to her wide girth.

  “No, it’s OK. I can,” said Betsy.

  “Be care. There are holes, different places from dungeon. Down, down, down. You fall, you die. Stay this path. No turn. At end, door. Wood.”

  Betsy scanned the rocky walls with her headlamp, looking for footholds. She planned her route up to the hole where the water emerged.

  “I think I can do it,” she said.

  There were only about five moves to climb the rocky wall before she could reach the opening. She was wearing her winter hiking boots, and she had climbed pitches a lot tougher than this one.

  The treacherous part was the slick rock. Not quite ice, but slippery all the same. Her foot slipped twice when she was trying for a toehold, but she always had two hands supporting herself and the other foot squarely positioned.

  When she reached the rotten timbers and the narrow opening, she nodded to Mathilde below her, sending a bobbing flash across the cave floor.

  Now the entry.

  Betsy approached the bats with caution. She had no alternative but to crawl under them. The opening was barely two feet tall, which meant squirming beneath the creatures.

  She thought about rabies. She remembered stories about bats entangling in women’s hair.

  Were those stories real or only myths? Myths, she told herself. To frighten children and fools.

  She snapped off her headlight to avoid startling the bats.

  In the darkness, she suddenly felt the weight of the small ledger in her front pocket. It would interfere with her climbing, pulling her weight across the rocky tunnel.

  Betsy pulled it out of her pocket, the plastic rustling. She slipped it into a zippered compartment against the small of her back.

  She did not know where she was crawling to, or how far she had to go. She did not know what other creatures might inhabit the cave. Snakes? She remembered a story her father had told her about a viper biting a woodcutter in Slovakia. Had he died? Do snakes live so far underground?

  Only if there were rats.

  Her fingers splayed out tentatively, inching blindly along the wet rock.


  Above her she heard the rustle of movement.

  Bats used echoes, didn’t they? Did they sense her movement beneath them?

  She heard another rustle. She crawled ahead, trying to move past the bats as quickly as possible.

  Suddenly there was a high-pitched cheeping sound and a fluttering roar. She snapped on her light to see scores and scores of bats coming toward her, making a mass exodus from the cave.

  She ducked flat, her interlaced fingers across her head, her hands clasped tight against her ears.

  A few deep breaths later, Betsy inched ahead in the darkness, pushing her fingertips forward, feeling her way through the cold, wet tunnel. Her bare hands tasted the edges of the jutting rocks and ledges.

  A faint mineral smell evoked a memory of a tomb she had visited in Egypt many years ago with her father.

  Her father.

  She could not think of him now. He could not help her. He was dead.

  In the tight space, the only trace of life was her own body and the smell of her sweat, sharp and acrid.

  She flashed her headlamp on at long intervals, relying on her sense of touch rather than sight. She could not risk anyone seeing the light when she finally reached the dungeon. The passage squeezed her tightly, then widened and released her, then squeezed tight again and tighter yet. Push your right shoulder through, twist your head, pull your torso on through the hole in the stone, she told herself over and over. She used muscles long untested, moving more like a serpent than a human.

  She flashed on her light, trying to negotiate the impossibly tight tunnel. With her face pressed against the gray-red rock, she could feel the edges of the raised veins that meandered through the stone. She was climbing now, the passage angling upward. She used the deep muscles of her back, shoulders, and arms to pull herself up. She snapped off the light, pushing on.

  The blackness enveloped her, a dense velvet hood. The darkness took on a dimension of its own, becoming much more than the absence of light. Texture and depth forced her to look harder—further—into the inky distance.

  Her eyes strained to see further.