Vlad frowned. “You are leaving?”
“Surely I am needed elsewhere.”
Sergiu left that afternoon. He took only a small bag and very little money, though Vlad offered him much more. Sergiu promised he would stay in touch and that he would visit whenever he passed through.
Vlad searched for a reason for him to stay but came up short. If it had not been for Sergiu, Vlad would most likely be dead. He was much more than a friend; he was a mentor and the face of his business.
Sergiu was certain that Vlad would easily find his replacement for the shop.
That night, Vlad stared at the fire where he was heating water for a brew. The silence was unbearable. Sergiu was not there pestering him into reading the latest book he had come across or offering a history lesson.
The cup in Vlad’s hand was in pieces before he fully realized he had crushed it. He kicked the water pot off the grate in the fireplace. A couple of blows from his fists left large holes in the wooden wall.
Vlad’s chest heaved with every breath as he finished destroying his living room. In a flash he took to the sky.
By morning he was back in his shop. The best thing to do was to stay busy. Vlad had plenty of obligations between the shop and finding husbands for Darius’s daughters, Sabina and Corina.
The following evening Vlad paid a visit to Darius’s widow. Over wine he asked, “Don’t you think it is time your two youngest daughters married?”
The widow’s lined mouth turned downward. “Yes, I suppose so. Yet I will miss their company. They are all I have left.”
“We can find them husbands nearby, so they will not go far. You can help with the grandchildren. Who knows, someday you may find a man — a widower perhaps?”
She issued a weak smile. “Vlad, my dear boy, you are too kind.”
“Well, that is a matter of opinion. The men who work for me would tell you otherwise.”
A glimmer of hope flashed in her eyes. “Are you here to ask for Sabina’s hand in marriage.”
“I am afraid not. I have no intention of marrying.”
Her forehead wrinkled with concern, revealing her age. “This will be difficult news for my little girl. She does fancy you.”
“Once she is married to a fine young gentleman and has a couple of children she will forget about me. Let us start with Corina, as that may be easier. Any prospects for her?”
“I think she may have an interest in a boy down the way. His name is Ciprian.”
“Splendid. I have heard of him — good family. I will speak with the boy’s father tomorrow about the matter.”
“That will make matters easier. Without Darius we must wait for proposals, as it would have been up to him to find husbands for our daughters. Women should never approach a man about such matters.”
And yet women often do, now don’t they? Vlad was thinking of Sabina’s forwardness. “Of course, I am glad to help.” He stood to leave.
“Vlad, please remember that such matters are not simply business ventures.”
“Matters of the heart never are.”
These words — which he had stolen from Sergiu — seemed to ease her mind. She appeared relieved as she rose to show Vlad to the door.
It took some negotiating over the dowry but once Vlad offered to build Corina and Ciprian a home next to her mother, the deal was quickly sealed and a wedding date was set. Corina was excited when Vlad told her the news. One down, one to go, he thought. Although, surely Sabina will be more difficult.
Chapter 23 Wallachia 1262 A.D
Vlad left Martina alone as she had requested — for a time. One day when he knew her husband would be out, he decided to pay her a visit. He waited for the home to fall silent, indicating that her children were napping. This time he entered the back door and did not bother to knock. She was busy sweeping the kitchen. He appeared behind her and wrapped his arms gently around her waist.
Martina jumped. A scream escaped her lips.
Vlad laughed. It had always been amusing to scare people — my mother, Vallachia... he quickly pushed the thought of Vallachia out of his head. As a vampire it was all the easier to startle people.
Martina turned to face him and slapped his chest. “You cruel man!”
He leaned in to kiss her.
“Stop.” She pushed the palms of her hands against his hard chest to no avail.
This caused him to pause and look at her, yet he did not let go of her waist.
“You cannot come here uninvited and ... ” Martina’s eyes filled with sorrow. “You don’t know what it was like — having to face my husband when he came home the evening after your first visit. He was exhausted from a day of hard work in the fields and I had to pretend as if nothing had happened. Then finding myself hoping you would come back. I am a terrible wife to have such sinful thoughts.”
“Do you want me to leave?” Vlad was prepared to go if she demanded it.
Martina banged her fists on his chest. With a helpless sigh, she breathed, “No.”
He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “Then let us enjoy each other while we can.”
Martina pressed her lips to his. He picked her up and she wrapped her long legs around him. That was how he carried her to bed.
Afterwards he rose to leave. Her children could wake at any moment.
“Your heart is as cold as your skin.”
Vlad gave her a genuine smile rather than the usual sarcastic one. “And your heart is as warm as you are. You are a good woman and a good wife. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
For the first time, she returned the smile.
It was indeed more difficult to find Sabina a husband. Vlad first approached a young smithy he had hired. He refused the offer, stating that he had plans to ask another to marry him when he had saved enough money for the dowry. There were not many other unmarried men nearby so Vlad approached the son of a farmer who lived near Martina. He thought this would be acceptable, as Sabina would be close to her oldest sister.
“I will not live outside of town!” Sabina yelled as she ran out of the common room.
Vlad’s heart raced and blood rushed to his face. “You are an insolent child! Surely you would never speak to your father in such a manner?”
“You are not my father!” Sabina yelled down from her room upstairs.
He moved up the stairs. To do what he was not sure, as one strike from him would kill the poor girl.
Sabina’s mother placed her hand gently on Vlad’s forearm. “Please, I beg you, don’t make her move to the country. Give her some time ... to ... get over you.”
Her soft voice calmed Vlad enough to gather his wits about him. She reminded him of his own mother when she had tried to reason with his enraged father. Vlad took a deep breath. “Very well. One year at the most. I will find someone who lives in town and who is from a decent family. Sabina will marry that boy. It is your job to reason with her. She will die an old maid if she continues to wait for me. Do you understand?”
The widow nodded solemnly. “I will speak with her, in due time. She will marry next summer, to whomever you choose.”
“Good woman.” Vlad left swiftly before he killed the widow out of frustration.
Chapter 24 Wallachia 1263 A.D
Sabina was indeed married that next summer. The miserable girl was utterly downtrodden at her wedding. She never smiled and did not so much as acknowledge the groom. However, the groom was elated. No doubt this had something to do with the nominal dowry he had to pay — which was essentially a gold ring for Sabina — and the new home he would be moving into, at Vlad’s expense. It was a great relief for Vlad to have the last of the girls married.
Darius’s widow died within the next ten years. Vlad’s obligation to the family was officially over with her passing and all four of Darius’s daughters having husbands to provide for them. Still, if they needed anything they could find him at the smithy shop. When Corina’s youngest boy fell ill, Vlad paid for the doctor. He rather enjoyed havi
ng the responsibility. It made him feel useful and in control.
Vlad carried on his affair with Martina for that ten-year period as well; until one day she said, “You do not look a day over twenty, how can that be, my love?”
He gently ran his cold hand across her warm face tracing the now present lines around her eyes. “We can’t do this anymore.”
“I feared this day was coming.” A tear ran down her cheek. “I will miss this. I look forward to your ... visits.”
“You are intelligent and brazen. That is why I chose you.”
Martina smiled. “Is this really goodbye?”
Vlad nodded and stood to dress. Her sobs were muffled by her pillow. He had to get out of there. He could not stand the tears. Next time don’t carry on the affair for so long, he advised himself. Don’t allow them to become so attached. Or was it he who risked becoming attached?
Vlad also had to fire his help and rehired new young men. This was a pain and slowed business down as the new help did not know what they were doing. On the plus side, these new men would work for less. This change was necessary in order to avoid the questions about how Vlad had not aged a single day over the past decade.
The years continued to fly by. The business flourished and Vlad eventually became one of the largest landowners in Targoviste, aside from a handful of nobles who had been given their lands by birthright.
By the year 1285, Vlad had begun to avoid people from his past as best he could. He scarcely left the back of the shop during daylight hours. Sergiu’s human replacement, in the front, was instructed to relay messages from the public. Remaining in the back helped him to circumvent the customer who would ask about his youthful appearance. He had to tell a number of people that he was Vlad’s son, Vlad the II. If only he had a bani for every time someone said, “That is remarkable! You resemble your father perfectly.”
It was around this time when Sabina managed to find him in the warehouse. It had probably been over ten years since he had seen her. He heard her approach but figured it was one of his workers. He had let his guard down, as there had not been any word from Darius’s daughters in many years. Normally he would have disappeared if one of them came looking for him, thus forcing them to leave a message with the man in the fort.
Sabina stared at him with an open mouth. “How... ?” she was at a loss for words. “How is it that you look entirely the same?”
She must have been about forty years old and looked it. In fact, he had heard she was a grandmother now. “What can I do for you, miss?” he asked with his usual short tone.
She was momentarily baffled. “Vlad, it is me, Sabina.”
“Vlad was my father. What do you want?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Vlad never married! How could he have a son?”
Vlad was in no mood to make up a false family history. “I’m busy.” He turned back to his work. Is it possible that after all these years I am still breaking this poor girl’s heart? Surely not.
Sabina narrowed her eyes. “Then where is your father?”
“He died a few years back.” He headed for the main shop.
“It is Martina. She is asking for you — er your father.”
Vlad abruptly stopped and turned toward her. “Why?”
“She is ill, very ill. She is adamantly asking for you — for Vlad. Do you have any idea why she would want to see him so badly?”
“No.” He left Sabina in the warehouse.
The front manager stood when he saw Vlad. “There you are, sir. I need to know what you want me to do about —”
Vlad simply grabbed his ever-present cloak by the back door and was gone. He sped to Martina’s home. A handful of her grown children were in the kitchen. With the slightest jump he landed in the second story window to her bedroom. He knew she would be alone — her husband had died several years ago.
Martina slowly turned her head toward him as he approached her bed. She looked dreadful. There was no doubt she was dying.
She greeted him with a smile. “Sabina found you. I’m so glad.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“Aye, I’m here.” He knelt down beside her bed gently taking her fragile hand in his strong youthful one.
“I wanted to know something.”
“What is it?” His voice was soft. He figured it was about his agelessness or his coldness or how he managed to get to her house from town so quickly without so much as a horse or how he could simply appear in her window — any number of the numerous oddities about him.
“I have a confession.”
Vlad’s brows raised with curiosity.
“I always hoped I would have a green-eyed baby. All those times you visited, yet I never did. Why did I never have your child?”
That was not what he expected. He was thoughtful for a moment, as he had never thought about it. “We — well I — must not be able to have children.”
“Oh, you poor dear! Is that why you never married?”
Here she was, on her deathbed, pitying him. “Enough about me. I’m here to see you and to see if there is anything I can do to help.”
“You were always so kind to me,” she tried to sit up but this caused a bout of coughing.
“No, don’t do that. You need to rest.” Vlad helped her lay back down.
Martina placed her hand on his cheek. “Still so beautiful, my mysterious Kamadeva.”
His puzzled expression led her to continue, “When my sisters and I were children a trader from the Far East came into father’s shop looking to have his axe repaired. The four of us girls would often go with Mother to take Father food while he worked. As the man waited for his axe, he sat us down and told us tales of his gods. The one who stood out the most was Kamadeva. The man called him the god of love and desire. This god’s favorite pastime was luring young maidens into the forest in order to seduce them,” she gave a shy chuckle that ended with a cough. “That was when Mother thought we had heard quite enough and she gathered us up for home. Of course, we remembered this part of the stranger’s story the best and my sisters and I often joked and even dreamt of meeting such a god as we grew into women. You were my Kamadeva.”
Vlad ran his hand down her long grey hair. It saddened him to remember how vibrant and red it once was. Most likely he did not deserve such a comparison to a foreign god but he replied, “I’m pleased that that is how you remember me.”
Martina closed her eyes and leaned her head into his hand. Soon her labored breathing stopped.
No, he thought. He stood and a frustrated yell escaped from him. He was out the window in an eyeblink.
I should be dead, as well. Why aren't I dead? I am stuck with this cursed life forever!
Chapter 25 Venice 1354 A.D
It was an unusually cool spring night when Riddick, Elijah and Vallachia left their manor in Venice to feed. They had been in town for quite some time on Court business — as always. They had been cleaning up loose ends from the long battle with the black death. It was important that the Court had a presence in the south. They had to work doubly hard to maintain their few allies in the region. Not to mention they had the best chance of finding Ramdasha from this outpost. Venice marked their southernmost “border” — as loosely defined as it was.
As the members of the Court made their way through a dark street, a large group of men approached. Judging by their slurred speech they had been drinking all night. Not to mention they could smell the spirits oozing from the men well before they could see them.
Elijah and Riddick smiled to each other. The three vampires slowed and let the men come to them.
The ringleader spoke as soon as he spotted the handsome trio. “Well, well boys. Look what we have here; two incredibly rich men, by the looks of them. And a pretty young lady the likes of whom should not be out at this unfavorable hour.”
“I bet they’ve got at least a handful of gold coins on ‘em. Perhaps some silver as well,” another of the men declared. Some of the men brandished their kni
ves and a few had swords.
Elijah took a step forward and tossed his bag of coins up in the air and then caught it. The coins noisily jostled about — taunting the men. “I suppose this is what you are after,” Elijah said.
The men’s eyes were full of greed as they watched the bag of coins. “Think of all the drink and women we could buy with that,” one of the ruffians said.
“Forget the whores. I want to have some fun with this beauty.”
Elijah had had enough. He moved to throw the bag of coins but Val gently placed her hand on his forearm to stop him. With the sweetest smile she could muster, she turned her attention to the group of men. “I’m afraid none of you boys could handle the likes of me.”
This brought a round of whistles and rude heckles.
“But I could,” Riddick said.
Elijah and Val both shot him a glare.
“What? I’m simply stating a fact.” Riddick defended himself.
Elijah’s arm was barely a blur, as he threw the bag of coins directly at the ringleader’s head, knocking him unconscious. The man fell to the ground and gold coins flew in every direction. Blood dripped from the man’s forehead. This sent the remaining men scrambling for the gold. They showed no concern for their wounded leader. Some even stepped on him in their frenzy. The vampires moved in.
“Try not to kill them,” Elijah said.
Slowly and as humanely as possible they rendered most of the men unconscious and fed from the last three as they tried to flee. Once all the men lay peacefully in the street, they gathered Elijah’s coins.
“These men will have severe headaches tomorrow and it won’t only be from too much drink,” Riddick said. Something caught Riddick’s eye. One of the men had a finely crafted sword. Riddick swiftly kicked the sword into his hand with the toe of his boot. “The craftsmanship of this sword is superb. It could almost be one of mine. But I did not make it.”
“How can you be certain? It looks similar in quality to your weapons,” Elijah said.
Of Princes and Dragons: Book 2 (Lords and Commoners) Page 9