That instant he felt a shock to the back of his head, and his face slammed against the side of the wagon. There was no pain, only a hollow sound in his ears and a strange sensation in his mouth. “That’s wrong,” he mumbled in great confusion as his tongue came upon his front teeth pointing inward.
CHAPTER 28: The Loss of a Friend
Half an hour outside Targoviste, Vlad took his company to the shelter of a grove to wait for the dark. He was planning to sneak Omar into the monastery unnoticed by the town folk, then parade him in his Akinci clothing through the market in the morning.
“Go find Marcus and bring him here,” he asked Gruya. “But not a word of what we’ve done.”
When Marcus arrived, Vlad could tell from far away his brother knew something already by the way he was pumping his fists into the air. When he got closer Vlad heard him holler war cries.
“You’ve done it, Brother,” Marcus shouted from fifty yards away. “Sultan Murad had better watch out! There’s a new warrior north of the Danube to take into account.” He barely slowed his mount when he reached the place where Vlad and his companions waited. Instead he rode in circles around them continuing his show of delight. “Don’t give Gruya that bad look,” he said, finally reining in his horse and dismounting. “He didn’t have to tell me anything. The town’s been abuzz with news of your doings since this morning.”
“For a country with poor roads, gossip sure travels fast in Wallachia,” Vlad said, a bit annoyed his surprise had been spoiled.
“Beware you don’t choke on false modesty, Brother,” Marcus said. “Gossip? Three Turks dead, one taken prisoner, and two dozen boys freed from—”
“Twenty-eight, more precise,” Vlad said, and exchanged hugs with Marcus.
“And you got yourself a great nickname too,” Marcus said, unable to stop his excited laughter. “Dracula. Damn... I wish I’d thought of it for myself. After all, I’m a son of Dracul too. Now, tell me how you did it and got away without a scratch.”
“It’s best you heard it from Nestor’s observer,” Vlad said in Hungarian, and pointed at László with his chin. “You know I’m prone to exaggerations.”
László had volunteered to escort Omar for the last stretch of the road. He’d refused to dismount while they waited for Marcus, and kept Omar in the saddle as well. Now he was holding the reins of Omar’s horse in one hand and his drawn saber in the other.
Vlad was amused. László was quite the actor—and brimming with courage, now that it was safe.
“Do I get to claim Omar as my trophy?” László said.
“The hell you do,” Gruya shouted, bumping into László’s horse with his own.
The Hungarian lost his balance and dropped his saber. “Az anyad picsaba, curva bitang,” he cursed, baring his teeth. He let go of Omar’s reins and wheeled his horse around to confront Gruya.
Vlad anticipated László’s move and stepped in front of his horse. “You made it unharmed to this point, László,” he said. “Don’t get yourself killed now. As for the trophy, once I show Omar to Nestor, you can have him if you promise not to murder him.”
“You need me more than I need you,” László said, affronted. “But if that’s how you want to play it, tell your story to everyone yourself. We’ll see who believes you.” With that, he slapped his horse and took off in a spray of dirt.
“Hey, you forgot your toothpick,” Gruya jeered after him.
“So this is the prisoner,” Marcus said as if nothing had happened. He looked up at Omar and whistled. “I see you taught him some respect.”
Omar leaned in the saddle toward Marcus and parted his swollen lips in a ragged grin of toothless sockets.
“I bet the children he abducted would’ve done him worse, had you let them,” Marcus said, and stepped back, repulsed. “What did you do with them?”
“Left them in the care of the folks at Bucur’s Crossing. It’ll take many days to get everyone home.”
“I’m glad you decided not to do that yourself. Father’s already madder at you than a bull at a gelding knife. His guards are still looking for you somewhere in the Kronstadt region.”
Vlad chuckled, pleased the little deception of his whereabouts had worked. “Father has to put on a show of anger for the sake of his authority. One isn’t supposed to kill Turks in Wallachia without his permission.”
“I don’t think that’s it. You’ve caused him to delay his trip to Edirne.”
“What have I got to do with that?” Vlad said.
“Father said he has a special mission for you, but wouldn’t tell me what it was.”
Before Adela’s Twins, being entrusted by his father with any mission would’ve thrilled Vlad. But that day he’d become a man in the very manner he always dreamed of. Once Rostam had killed his first enemy, his days at King Zaal’s discretion were over. “I’ve decided to flee to Hungary as soon as Father leaves town,” he said. “Now that I’ve got the proof Nestor demanded, I don’t want to dawdle my days around here anymore.”
“You can’t do that to me,” Marcus said, heated. “Joining the crusade was my idea in the first place, and now you are trying to steal a march on me?”
“I assumed you’d be coming along,” Vlad said, puzzled at his brother’s apparent change in plans. “It was you who said, ‘If the war doesn’t come to us—’”
“Don’t mess with me, Vlad,” Marcus said, furious. “I’d leave with you in a heartbeat, but Father’s got me roped into his plan. I’ll tell you more about it in the morning. I’ve got to go now.” He mounted his horse in a huff.
“I’ll keep the wenches in Buda busy while I await your arrival, Regent Marcus,” Vlad shouted after his brother, laughing, and was rewarded with an obscene gesture.
Vlad and his party reached the monastery at Compline time. Except for the light from a torch stuck in a sconce outside the door, the massive walls were plunged into darkness. The gatekeeper, a nearsighted, almost deaf monk, examined them at length through a grilled wicket, but didn’t open the door.
“Go with God, my good men,” he said, louder than necessary. “If you come back in the daytime, there might be some free pottage for you.”
“Open up, Father Nikifor,” Gruya shouted, loud enough to be heard all the way inside the courtyard. “Do you want Prince Vlad and his servants to spend the night out here in the cold?”
The monk gasped. Then he stuck his nose through the grille, rolling his myopic eyes about, and said, “Is it you, My Prince? They said you’d be coming home tonight. Praise be to God the accursed infidels didn’t hurt you or—”
“Just get on with it, Father Nikifor,” Gruya said, bringing his face close to the monk’s. “We’re all dead tired.”
“What? What?” Nikifor said, confused, and then began to fuss with his keys. “Some of the children are dead? I was told you saved them all.” When he opened the door his first sight was that of Omar, whom Vlad had pushed in front of him. At the unexpected appearance of the turbaned Akinci, only inches in front of him, Nikifor threw his hands in the air with a sharp cry and dropped his bundle of keys.
“Don’t be frightened, Father,” Vlad said, and laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “This Turk might’ve been a vicious dog a few days ago, but he’s been defanged.”
When Vlad stepped through the door into the arched passageway, he was greeted by the familiar mildewy scent of the cloisters. On returning from a long trip, he was always surprised by the power of this earthy smell to conjure up all that the monastery represented for him: solitude, tranquility, learning. Yes, he’d come home. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t feel he belonged here more than anywhere else. How could he be thinking to leave this place, perhaps forever? But if defending this home meant leaving it, the choice was clear.
He saw no one in the courtyard, but heard the monks chanting inside the church. Their monotonous song seeped through the gap under the door, filling the courtyard with a dull hum. As if signaling the end of a long race, this s
oothing sound released in Vlad, all at once, the stored fatigue of an entire week of hard riding, and it hit him like the waters of a burst dam. Oh, to sleep and think of nothing.
“Take Omar to my cell and tie him up for the night,” he said to Gruya. “I’ll have Lash bring the two of you food, after he tends to the horses.”
“Some wine too, perhaps?” Gruya said, and chuckled. “I think my guest is thirsty.”
“I’m going to spend the night in Father Gunther’s cell. He wasn’t acting himself when I left.”
When Vlad reached Gunther’s room, he noticed someone had hung a cross on the door latch. He realized in an instant he was too late, and felt as if something roiling drained out of his chest cavity, leaving it cold and empty. He’d left his old teacher even as he feared he might die.
Vlad couldn’t have said how long he stood staring at the cross in dumbstruck silence, his befuddled mind groping for something, a word, an image, he didn’t know what. But his thoughts wouldn’t coalesce. Instead, they skipped from memory to memory, never lingering long enough on any one to make sense. Then an owl screech coming from the bell tower broke the silence, and with that, he snapped out of his stupor.
Shahnameh. It finally came to him. That was the elusive something he’d been trying to recall. He pried open the cell door slowly to prevent it from squeaking, as if Gunther were still inside and Vlad reluctant to awaken him. Then he crept in the dark to the bedside and reached under the pillow. The book wasn’t there.
A knock on the door startled him.
“I knew I’d find you here,” Father Lorenzo said. He held a sheet of paper in one hand and a lamp in the other. The cell filled with a warm glow.
Vlad struggled hard to find his voice before he could say, “I wish I’d been here when—”
“Gunther thought you were,” Lorenzo said, and sat on the cot. “I sent a brother to check on him when he missed Vespers. Gunther was already delirious and mistook him for you. Then the other brothers came and kept vigil over his last hours.”
Vlad sat next to Lorenzo. “I feel robbed, yet it was I who robbed Lala of a deathbed friend. The brothers never liked him. I shouldn’t have left him to die alone among them.”
“They’re good souls, the brothers, but uneducated and simpleminded,” Lorenzo said. “You can’t expect them to understand how someone might have an interest in other religions and still be a good Christian. And poor Gunther with his bizarre ideas—”
“He taught me things I couldn’t have dreamed of,” Vlad said. Now that Lala was gone, Vlad felt a window to an intriguing world, vaster and more colorful than his own, was shut forever. “And I did nothing for him in exchange.”
“That isn’t so, Vlad,” Lorenzo said, and put his arm around Vlad’s shoulders. “As we grow old we begin to live more and more through the people we love. You gave a man who had no one in the world someone to live through.”
Vlad recalled the day five years before when Gunther had knocked on the monastery door, an escaped slave looking for a place to die in peace. Forty years of serving cruel masters from Edirne to Tabriz had left his spirit broken, his body scarred and mutilated. But his mind was a universe of knowledge that Vlad was to explore with a glutton’s abandon.
“What happened to Lala’s book? Shahnameh?” Vlad said. He remembered how Gunther carried the book with him that first day: tenderly, as if most fragile; reverently, as if sacred. His sole possession after a lifetime of servitude. “I promised I’d have it buried with him.”
Lorenzo looked at Vlad, embarrassed, and said, “Gunther needs no books where he is now.”
Vlad jumped to his feet in a burst of anger. “The brothers burned it, didn’t they?” When Lorenzo nodded, Vlad felt his guilt over not being at Gunther’s bedside grip his chest so tight, his breathing became a wheeze.
“I found a page lost under this bed after Gunther was taken away,” Lorenzo said, and handed Vlad the paper he’d brought with him.
Vlad seethed with resentment. One page out of five hundred. He crumpled the sheet and tossed it against the wall.
When Lorenzo was gone, leaving the cell in the dark, Vlad stretched on the bed and wrapped himself in Gunther’s blanket. Slowly, Lorenzo’s words began to soothe his pain. Had his Lala really lived through him?
Gunther knew of Vlad’s secret desire to join the crusade under Hunyadi’s banner, and had encouraged it. When Vlad expressed reluctance to part from him, Gunther scoffed at the notion. “I didn’t teach you all those things so you’d spend your life chatting with an old man like me. Go use that knowledge to make a name for yourself.” Gunther had put on a brave face saying those words. But his eyes were inept liars. That day, Vlad recognized in Lala’s face the same pain he felt himself when he thought their parting was inevitable. Did he will his own death, just to set Vlad free?
Now there was nothing left to hold Vlad back. He would, of course, miss Father and Uncle Michael, but he’d see them again one day. As for Gunther, Vlad would take his memory with him wherever he went. That was all he had of Lala.
That, and one page of Shahnameh. He sprang from bed and dug in his sash for a flint to light the lamp. When he smoothed the crumpled sheet on his knee, the richly illuminated borders came to life around a stanza he hadn’t seen before:
If someone wraps a dragon cub in silk
And hides from him the taste of mother’s milk,
He keeps his nature well until he’s grown
And fights the mighty lion all alone
For a few moments, Vlad remained stunned. He was a dragon cub whose mother died without once nursing him. The poem seemed to speak of him, yet that couldn’t be. That book was written hundreds of years before, in Persia.
Then, there was that lion again, as in Theodore’s prophecy.
He extinguished the lamp and lay in the dark for hours, his fatigue replaced by a feverish agitation. No, that page wasn’t lost. It was hidden by Gunther. But for what reason?
After his visit with Oma, Vlad shared all he’d learned about the prophecy with Gunther. He remembered that Lala didn’t appear either surprised or curious, as if he knew everything already. They never discussed the subject again.
What if Gunther left this stanza for Vlad on purpose? It would be a way of telling him he was in the know about Vlad’s destiny; and that his becoming Vlad’s tutor wasn’t an accident, but part of a greater design. This possibility gave Vlad a new perspective on the things Lala had taught him. Zoroastrianism. Manichaeism. Islam. Sufism. The origin of evil. God’s lack of omnipotence. God’s need for man to fight evil on His behalf. They all had to be somehow related to his future. These were things neither Orthodox nor Catholic priests would condone in the education of a Christian prince. But somehow, Lala was guided to Vlad’s doorstep for the sole purpose of teaching these things to him.
CHAPTER 29: Do no Good Deed to an Evil Man
The boatmen cast off the tethers and the ferry began to pull away from the shore. Seeing this, Vlad broke into a mad run down the steep hillside. “Wait,” he screamed at the boatmen, desperate. But he knew they couldn’t hear him because of the wind.
There wouldn’t be another crossing until tomorrow, and by then his father’s guards would have caught up with him. The craft was heavy and could barely inch its way into the river against the headwind; with a good running start, he should have no problem jumping onto the rear platform. If only his weapons and baggage didn’t encumber him so much.
He thought for a moment about abandoning his longsword, which unbalanced him the most. Ridiculous! What kind of an officer would he make without a sword? Perhaps the gunnysack full of spare clothes was something he could do without. He’d wear the clothes on his back for an entire year, if he had to.
He tossed the sack to the ground and ran on. Then he remembered: the only surviving page of Gunther’s Shahnameh was wrapped inside his spare tunic.
He’d turned back to retrieve the precious page when a large sheepdog ran at him f
rom nowhere and sank its teeth into the sack. “Let go you, beast!” Vlad screamed, tugging at his end of the bag. But the dog held fast to its trophy, growling. Vlad glanced over his shoulder at the ferry and saw with panic it had already pulled a foot away from the shore. His dream of leaving everything for a life of adventure was slipping away. A blind fury overtook him. Yet even as he aimed his anger at this miserable cur that stood in his way, he knew the fault for missing the ferry was his own. He’d taken too long getting here, though he couldn’t recall why and where he might have tarried.
Then his anger changed to terror and confusion when he realized the creature trying to thwart him wasn’t a dog but a wolf, the same she-wolf that attacked his father last fall. She stared at Vlad through amber eyes that seemed more wise than threatening, and said, “You’re late because you don’t know what you want.”
“What do you want?” Dracul’s voice thundered only inches away from Vlad. “To see my head hoisted on a pole by the sultan?”
As Vlad tried to sort out dream from reality he registered that his father’s face was purple with anger. When he attempted to sit up Dracul punched him in the chest, shoving him back against the pillow.
“Is this about delaying your trip?” Vlad said, trying to sound calm.
“Fuck the trip,” Dracul snarled. “That’s another issue.”
If not the trip, then what? Vlad was back, unharmed, so why wasn’t his father happy?
“You know I have a peace treaty with Sultan Murad. Do you imagine it has a clause about my son killing his people at will, just to prove he’s a man?” Dracul straightened up and took a step back from the bed, hooking his clenched fists onto his sword belt.
Vlad took advantage of that to stand. Pale dawn light oozed in through the half-open door. Outside, on the arcade, he noticed a handful of castle guards. “Does the treaty have a provision for Murad’s Akincis to hunt for slaves in Wallachia?” Vlad heard himself sound cockier than he’d intended.
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