He sent men around to other doors, the one that led into the kitchens, the one that let out into his mother’s lavish gardens.
But he himself went in through the massive front doors, straight into the great hall, with its long feast tables and its unlit iron chandeliers.
Men came to apprehend him, swords gleaming.
Vlad cut them down, Malik at his side. The janissary stood beside him, back-to-back, both their blades dripping blood down onto the stones.
Vlad cocked his head, listening. Running footsteps, up above. He tested the air, but the scents of wolf were faint…as was the scent of his mother. If anything had happened to her…
“This way.” He led Malik to the stairwell.
It was like a dream. The same stone steps he’d tread as a boy, worn from years of boots and slippers. The curved walls, the iron sconces that held torches, the windows that looked out on the gardens, the grounds, and toward the Tîrgovişte rooftops beyond. How many times had Fenrir thrown him over his shoulder like a sack of turnips and carried him down these stairs, laughing uproariously all the way? How many times had he pelted down, ducking under the arms of amused wolves and startled maids, hell-bent for a day in town with his friends? He’d been away from this place for seven years, but it was the same; he was a boy again, sprinting, legs burning pleasantly.
But the scents were wrong. Instead of Helga’s honeycakes, it was blood he smelled; and dirt, and filth, and humans he hated.
A pair of guards met them at the top of the stairs, and they fell like young trees beneath sharp axes. Vlad wasn’t even sweating.
He heard the creak of a door, caught a whiff of scent–
A familiar round face peeked out of a room, and stared at him, wide-eyed with surprise, as he moved toward her, armored and bloody and furious.
His face was changed, longer, thinner, his hair tied back in a regal way, his clothes Turkish and strange. But her nostrils flared, and then she knew him, and her face crumpled.
“Master Vladimir,” Helga cried, stepping out into the hallway, tears glittering as they spilled down her cheeks. “You’ve come home.”
~*~
It was almost painfully easy to secure the castle. Vladislav had obviously taken his best men – if they even existed – with him, and left only a skeleton crew behind to guard the palace. What had he to fear, after all? Hunyadi was on his side, his rival was dead, and as far as he knew, Vlad was still learning arithmetic in Edirne. Or so he thought. The first of what Vlad hoped would be two fatal mistakes – the second of which would be underestimating Vlad himself.
Vlad left none alive, and his foot soldiers arrived in time to take over at the gate and to search the rest of the grounds for any cowards who might have fled.
Helga crushed him to her ample breast and burst into wet, noisy sobs, clutching at his cloak and kaftan. “Master Vladimir,” she said, over and over, until he’d patted her shoulders and eased her back.
He offered over his lace handkerchief, and after she’d blown her nose and wiped her eyes on it, she composed herself once more. “I didn’t mean to get you all wet and make such a scene, your grace,” she said, patting at the damp silk over his heart. “It’s only that it’s such a shock to see you, such a happy shock! When things here have been so terrible. Ever since…” She bit her lip to stop it from trembling, and shook her head.
“I know about Father, and Mircea.” He cleared his throat, but that didn’t help the roughness of his voice. “But what of my mother?” He knew fear then, cold and sharp in his belly, when he’d been nothing but angry while killing the men downstairs.
Helga sighed. “The princess,” she said, meaning Father’s true wife, and Mircea’s mother. “Didn’t take the news about His Grace Mircea very well. And then Vladislav, he…well, gods bless her, she got away from him, and she leapt out of a window. One in your father’s old study. She’s dead.”
He ground his teeth. “I asked after Mother.” He had no love, nor even affection for the princess. But still it seemed an unfitting end. Father would not have wept – he’d never loved the woman – but he would have been outraged.
Helga nodded. “She is well. She is grief-stricken.” A grief that echoed in Helga’s voice. Her mistress’s mate was dead, and she grieved alongside her. She managed a smile, tremulous, but warm. “She will be glad to see you. To see the man you’ve become.”
“Take me to her.”
When Father was alive – when Vlad was still a boy in the palace – Mother had held her own suite of rooms on the second floor of the palace, overlooking the gardens, with shelves loaded with her favorite books, and tables where she could display cut flowers and herbs by the windows; as airy as could be found in a stone building, full of light, redolent with the scent of fresh, growing things.
But now, Helga led him up to one of the high turret rooms, four floors from the ground below. A room where he and Val had played as boys, kicking up dust as they scuffled, reading books in the light that came through tall, thin windows. Oh, Mama, he thought as they climbed the stairs.
“Did Vladislav send her up here? I’ll–”
“No,” Helga said, holding a candle to light the dim stairwell. Even during the day, the passages up here afforded little light. “You know your mother: lovely as spring roses. With that flaxen hair, and that delicate face. Vladislav rounded up the whole household on that first day; they’d a wolf – I smelled it on them. But they never brought him in here. So no one save us wolves knew what your mother was – nor who she was to the master. It was your mother’s idea: we dressed her up as a maid, and we drew a frightful birthmark on her with charcoal and crushed flower petals. Put padding under her clothes so she’d be lumpy and unlovely. He never looked at her twice.”
She paused a moment, and looked back over her shoulder at Vlad, expression grave. “’Twas undignified, I know, considering what she was to your father.” Mates trumped marriage for immortals. Every time. “But it spared her Vladislav’s lust.”
Vlad nodded and motioned for her to continue. Inwardly, he thanked God. Perhaps he’d become a religious man after all.
They arrived, finally, at the door at the top of the stairs. Heavy wood. He’d wondered at it as a boy, but now he knew: it was to keep something locked inside. In this case, it was a blessing.
Helga knocked. “My lady,” she began.
But it swung inward, and there she was. Eira wore a maid’s costume: simple brown dress, apron, and cap, golden hair tucked away. She looked too thin, hollow-cheeked and wan, with dark circles under her eyes that marked long, sleepless nights.
She’d scented him, of course. “Vlad,” she whispered, hands braced on the door and its frame, white-knuckled.
“Mama.”
She lunged at him, and he caught her.
~*~
With her kerchief unwound, Eira’s hair spilled in riotous golden curls down her back, each strand a different hue, sunlight from the small window glinting off the thick mass of it, brighter than any metal. She stood looking down at the palace grounds below, little lines of tension at the corners of her eyes. I’m beautiful, she’d told him once before, without any pride. That is a good thing, because it means that the people around me always underestimate my mind…and my sword. She studied the movements of his troops now with keen eyes; he could almost hear her thoughts, the calculations and questions forming.
He’d forgotten, at times, as a boy, that she was a shieldmaiden. Seeing her now, with older eyes, he didn’t think he’d ever forget again.
She looked so much like Val in that moment.
“How many do you have?” she asked, turning to look at him. Her eyes shone like polished blue glass in the sunlight, hard and ready.
“Two-hundred-and-fifty foot. One hundred cavalry.”
“That won’t be enough.”
He sighed. “I know. But it’s what I have.”
“Then we shall make use of them.” She paused, tilted her head. “You shall make use of them.” T
hen her expression softened. “You look like a man, now. And so much like your father.”
He inclined his head in thanks, but found he couldn’t speak. Not about Father. Not even about himself.
“You have the castle,” she said. “How do you intend to keep it?”
“By any means that I can.”
A knock sounded at the door, and Helga poked her head inside. “Your grace.” She winced in apology. “One of your men wishes to see you.”
Vlad knew who it was by scent. He nodded. “Let him in.”
She stepped in, pushing the door wide, and Malik entered behind her.
“Sir.” His gaze darted to the window, to Eira, resplendent even in a maid’s simple dress, and then hastily back again. Vlad stepped in front of his mother, a physical barrier, and he thought he heard Eira breathe a laugh behind him. He knew what she must look like to a mortal: young and beautiful, certainly not Vlad’s own mother. And she wasn’t the princess.
“What?” Vlad snapped.
Malik straightened another fraction, heels clicking together comically. “The palace grounds are secure, your grace, and we’ve raised the bridge and closed the gate.”
“Good. Find a scribe and tell him I wish to dictate a letter to Vladislav as soon as possible.”
“Yes, your grace.” He stole one last, covert glance at Eira over Vlad’s shoulder, and then quit the room.
Helga shut the door behind him with a thump and a sour expression that seemed to say good riddance.
Eira let her laughter bubble out, and Vlad ached hearing it. She’d smelled of tears when he’d come in the room, long-dried, but her skin tainted by the salt of them. She’d loved Mircea, even if he wasn’t her son – if only because he was loved by his father and brothers. And Father…Papa…he’d been her soulmate. Her grief was a fourth presence, a shadow lurking at the edges of the room.
“Your new captain?” she guessed as he turned to her, her eyes dancing like old times – even if they were shadowed.
“Yes.”
“Does he know what you are? What we are?”
“Perhaps. He’s clever. But I haven’t told him outright.”
“Do you trust him?”
Vlad considered.
“He’s Turkish.”
“No, Mother. He’s a janissary, fighting for the Ottomans. But he is most definitely not Turkish.”
Expression thoughtful, she moved away from the window to sit at the foot of the narrow bed that occupied most of the room. She folded her hands in her lap. “How complete is the sultan’s support of your campaign here?”
He understood the question. Propped a shoulder against the edge of the window and let some of the tension bleed out of him. “Depends on which sultan you ask,” he admitted with a sigh, finally letting his doubt come through in his voice. He might be a man, one on a sultan-sent mission, one hell-bent on revenge…but this was his mother, and he was only seventeen; a boy to her, and always her son and baby.
“Murat abdicated several years ago,” he said, and saw her brows lift in surprise. “It’s not something widely known outside the Empire, I don’t suppose, because the heir – the new sultan,” he said, scowling, “Mehmet, is so terrible at ruling. Their decisions are not always unified. Murat is old and tired, and he wants nothing to do with warmongering anymore. He’s content with the lands they already hold, I think. He’s the one who gave me Malik Bey and what forces I brought with me here. He wants me to retake Wallachia and rule as Father’s rightful heir. To know that Wallachia is still a vassal state, and, more importantly, a barrier between Hunyadi and the Ottoman lands.
“Mehmet, on the other hand.” His voice grew dark. “Is an expansionist and an egomaniac. He wants glory, and lands, and–” He bit his tongue on his next words: innocent little boys. “He sees himself as Romulus’s heir, and I supposed he is, since Uncle’s the one who turned him.”
Eira made a quiet sound of shock, but her brows slanted downward, enraged. “I knew that bastard was up to something when he started coming here. You’re sure of it? He’s Mehmet’s sire?”
“I tasted his blood. I’m sure of it. And then the fool bragged about it.”
She shook her head, lips pressed into a thin, pale line. “He stopped coming, right after the three of you were taken. He made one last visit, the night after we received the note from the sultan. He wanted to…to console me. To share in my grief.” She looked up at Vlad, defiant, hands balled into fists in her lap. “I kicked him in the bollocks and sent him packing.”
He managed a smile at the thought.
“Vladimir, I had no idea,” she whispered, voice breaking. “I didn’t know that he–”
He waved her to silence. A lump was rising in his throat, and he couldn’t do this now, here, in the daylight, when there were things to learn and men to command. “It’s been done for a long time. Now, we have to fight.” The next question had him shrinking down into his own collar, terrified of the answer. “Mother…what of the wolves?”
~*~
Helga led him down. She knew the way well. Down the long hallway past the kitchens, and the storerooms, through the heavy door that marked a staircase that spiraled down, down, down beneath the palace, the way marked with sputtering torches. She carried a lantern, its meager light reaching out in tentative fingers to probe at the gloom – unable to penetrate it.
Vlad could see well enough, the rough shape of things, the edges of shadows left untouched by the crackling torches. And his nose alone could have guided him: it smelled of wolf down here. Angry, tired, miserable wolf.
They reached the dungeon, and Helga paused, pulling the lantern in tight to her chest, drawing in a shaky breath. “I…” she started.
Vlad laid a hand on her shoulder, and she turned to him. “It’s alright,” he told her, as gently as possible. “I’ll turn them loose.” He took the keys – taken off a dead guard – from her unresisting hand, and stalked forward between the rows of empty cells.
They were kept together, at the very back of the cold stone room, chained by both hands a good ten feet apart.
“To hell with you,” Fenrir spoke first, and Vlad heard the sound of someone spitting on the ground. They both smelled frightened, but defiant. “You bas…” He trailed off.
Vlad was close enough that the he could see the shapes of the two wolves, the lines of their faces: thin, sallow, but stern. Their arms up above their heads, the lines of the chains.
Close enough to scent one another.
“Gods,” Fenrir breathed.
And then Cicero: “Your…your grace?”
Vlad couldn’t speak, his throat aching. He rushed to them in turn, opening their cells, and then their cuffs. Fenrir first, and then Cicero. He fell to his knees in front of Cicero, his father’s most loyal Familiar. The wolf was far too thin, dirty, and he was missing an eye, his arms heavily scarred.
Cicero bowed his head, shaking. “Your grace. Oh, heaven bless us, you’ve returned. Prince Vlad.”
Vlad pressed his forehead to his, skin-to-skin, close enough to scent without barriers.
Vlad felt tears sting his eyes, and closed them tight.
Cicero sobbed. “Your grace.”
“I’m here, I’m here.”
It was a long moment before he could stand and lead them up to the light.
~*~
Vlad had a boyhood memory – he’d been five, maybe six – of playing with a set of hand-carved wooden animals on the rug in his father’s study, light from the hearth flickering over his hands, and the carefully-wrought horses, and cows, and the more exotic creatures. An elephant; a bear; a giraffe. And a set of wolves, more detailed than the others, their tails streaming behind them, legs extended in a graceful lope, jaws open, tiny teeth sharp to his fingertips. The eyes had been painted: rings of gold and blue set in deep black.
Father had stood at his desk, sighing, rubbing at his temples, talking over treaties with his wolf captains.
Among the household wolves, Fenrir w
as notoriously upbeat. The massive, jolly uncle figure always up for a game of tag or hide-and-seek, endlessly affectionate with his masters and the young princes alike.
By contrast, Father’s wolves were stern. And in the case of Cicero, alpha of his small pack, severe, even.
But that day, with Mircea at a lesson and Val napping, Vlad had been the only child in attendance, out of the way and silent, playing quite contentedly by himself.
Someone had knelt down across from him, suddenly, with a creak of tall boots and a rustle of a cloak, a sudden rush of comforting wolf-scent. Cicero. He extended one hand, its wrist laced up tight in a leather bracer, sword-calluses marking his skin. But on his palm, a freshly-carved wooden animal. A fantasy creature: a sinuous dragon, painted green and red, with fiery eyes. His face, strangely gentle.
“Here, your grace,” he’d said, softly. “To go with the others.”
Vlad wondered, now, if that dragon, so precise and clever in its design, still lurked at the bottom of the hope chest in his old room, hidden away in a velvet pouch alongside other useless childhood treasures: toys, a striated pebble, a bright red feather.
The man – the werewolf – who’d made the dragon looked half-made himself, now, hunched over a steaming bowl of stew at the long plank table in the palace kitchen. Vlad tried and failed to tear his gaze from the ruined eye. The lid was closed, and sunken; the eye itself was obviously gone. But the blood had been allowed to run down his face and dry. No one had attempted any sort of medicinal arts to help with pain, or cleanliness. Vlad suspected that it was only a wolf’s healing abilities that had kept him alive and free of infection.
Across from him, Fenrir sat as a shadow of his former self, thin in a way he’d never been, the knobs of elbows and knees visible beneath threadbare clothes, his massive shoulders too spare, squared off like a picture frame. His beard lay in tangles on his chest, his hair knotted on his shoulders.
Helga sat beside him, working at the snarls with a comb and a little pot of oil, clucking her tongue and muttering, brows drawn together, hiding her relief and fear and grief behind mothering, the way she always had. Fenrir was weak, and furious, and he mourned the loss of Father and Mircea, doubtless, but he was not broken.
Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3) Page 33