Her heart lurched. They only had a small escort, enough to deal with any wild animals and frighten off any hardy, enterprising robber, but this was not a dangerous road, especially at this time of year. Although there had been a few Ottoman raids from Wallachia toward the end of autumn, the Ottomans never fought in winter…
The men seemed to loom out of nowhere, black, menacing, and terrifyingly silent in the muffling snow. They sprang out of the trees, armed with javelins and bows, and then stood perfectly still, covering each of the helpless men-at-arms and, by the look of it, her drivers too. More men ran beyond them, quickly and just as silently surrounding the carriage.
“Oh my lady, my lady!” wailed the maid. “What’s happening? What can we do?”
Her voice cut through the dreamlike silence like a knife.
One of their attackers spoke, low and irritably. “Somebody shut that wench up.”
Ilona dragged her head back inside the carriage, urgently pressing her finger to her lips. It made excellent sense not to annoy their captors until it would help their cause. But before she could speak to warn the maid, the door was wrenched open and a man said, “Be silent, or you die.”
The maid moaned, and Ilona didn’t blame her. His words were hardly comforting. He held a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. But this paled into insignificance beside one other fact.
Ilona frowned at him. “I know you.”
“You’ll know me a damned sight better if you don’t…” He broke off, his eyes widening with recognition. His name still eluded Ilona, but abruptly he fell into place. “Lady! Oh the devil. I beg you, be silent and shut the woman up. No one here will hurt you. Sir,” he hissed over his shoulder, “it’s Hunyadi’s niece.”
Ilona’s hammering heart lurched. Through the carriage door, she saw the legs and body of a horse, flanked by stirrups and long, leather boots which pressed the animal farther forward. She saw a tangle of black hair as the rider bent in the saddle, and then the face of Vlad Dracula. His eyes blazed in his vital, arresting face.
“Ilona Szilágyi. Come to fight the Ottomans?”
***
The Ottomans, it seemed, had crossed the border from Wallachia to set a trap specifically for Vlad. But forewarned, Vlad was surrounding them before he rode openly into their trap. Ilona’s carriage would not only have drawn Ottoman attention in the wrong direction but driven straight into a nightmare she didn’t even want to think about.
“The Ottomans have come in winter? Especially for you?” Ilona repeated as she walked with Vlad through the snow into the cover of the trees. He moved like a wolf, covering the ground efficiently, silently, speedily, his eyes never still. Behind them, the carriage wheels grumbled softly; the horses’ hooves were muffled.
“There may be Ottomans there,” he allowed. “It’s a myth we keep up for national pride. Most will be Wallachians, and both come on the direct orders of Vladislav.”
Of course, Vladislav must fear this pretender to his throne now he was the openly preferred candidate of John Hunyadi, who’d even taken him to meet the Hungarian king and reswear the Dragon oath of his father.
Casually, Vlad said, “He’s been trying to attack Sibiu for months, to punish the town for ‘harbouring’ me. In fact, once we’ve dealt with the ambush, we need to return quickly to Sibiu in case their forces split to draw me away. I advise you to accept my escort but warn you it will be an uncomfortable ride.”
Energy seemed to surge through him. He spoke briskly, his eyes and his mind clearly busy on the forthcoming fight. Ilona, unused to war at quite such close quarters, felt her stomach churn and twist. And yet the excitement wasn’t all unpleasant.
“Do you have enough men to defeat them?”
He didn’t laugh at the naïvety of her question. He simply said, “Yes.” And stopped. “Don’t come closer than this. Keep as silent as you can.”
The drivers were hooking nose bags to the horses, feeding them to keep them content, at least until the fighting started, when any more noise would scarcely matter.
Vlad nodded to her and spun on his heel, searching for his horse. Someone gave him the reins, and he vaulted lightly into the saddle.
“Be careful,” Ilona urged, and this time he did laugh, briefly, soundlessly.
His men surrounded him once more, almost like some silent, magical materialization. Attuned to his deep voice, low yet commanding, Ilona heard him give his final instructions. Most of the words were lost, but she did hear the clearly spoken, “No mercy.”
“For the Ottomans,” one of his men amended.
“For anyone. Kill them all.”
***
Kill them all. The words stayed with her, chilling her to the bone as the cold could not. While the maid stayed huddled in the carriage, Ilona paced around the outside of it until she had worn a ring of snow almost completely away.
What exactly had she expected of him? A stranger, an exile by his own admission bent on revenge. She lived in a ruthless, war-torn world, but it had always seemed an honourable one before, at least on the side of good, where men who surrendered to greater odds or to better men were treated with mercy. Vlad, it seemed, had none of that particular commodity. Infidel or Christian, Ottoman or one of his own people over whom he hoped to rule one day, all would die.
Unless he did.
For the first time, she began to understand her aunt’s misgivings about him, her father’s ambiguity. Hunyadi, it seemed, had unleashed a terrible weapon in his war against the Ottomans and their collaborators.
And yet if he lost, would the Ottomans or their Wallachian allies show any more compassion? If Transylvania fell, what then would happen to the Christian world? What would happen to her home, her family?
She had lived with this issue for so long that it had become a background to her whole life. It came as a shock now to be actually thinking about it—the possibility of losing everything to the Ottomans. The old childhood belief that neither her father nor Uncle John Hunyadi would ever let it happen no longer rang true. And that made her feel very small and very cold. The possibility was suddenly real, frightening, compelling, brought powerfully home by those three callous words. Kill them all.
“That’s it,” said one the men-at-arms suddenly. “Listen.”
Ilona paused in midstep. In the distance, muffled by the trees and the snow, men’s voices shouted. She couldn’t distinguish war cries from the screams of soldiers or horses. The men-at-arms listened intently, visibly torn between conflicting desire to be in the thick of the fight and relief to be well out of it, guarding their charge in safety with all honour.
Is he dead or victorious? She knew it had to be one or the other. It would be such a tragic way for him to die, so young, before he had even done more than wait.
Pain gripped her stomach like a claw and squeezed until she forced herself to breathe and loosen it. Men died all the time. It was one of the things women endured. And in her heart, she knew he’d survive. He’d set out like a hunting wolf, with such confidence, such brisk efficiency that he couldn’t lose. Could he?
Which meant the forest would be full of the dead.
He rode back into their little makeshift camp at the head of his victorious troop. A little bloodied, a little torn around their clothing, the men buzzed with excitement and triumph, their laughter occasionally too boisterous but never undisciplined. Vlad himself didn’t laugh. There was blood on the knuckles of his right hand, trickling between the fingers which so effortlessly held his agitated horse in check. His eyes still flashed with the same restless excitement, and Ilona soon realised why. His task was not done until he returned to Sibiu and saw it safe.
She didn’t know if he read the relief or the accusation in her eyes when he met her gaze. Certainly, he didn’t appear to care.
Dismounting, he said, “We must leave now. We travel at speed, so the carriage may get stuck behind. Either way, it will not be a comfortable ride. I suggest alternative transport.”
Frowning with incomprehe
nsion, she followed his gaze to his men—and the two vehicles they guided.
Vlad said, “This is how they covered the ground so quickly.”
“Sleighs,” said Ilona, stunned.
“I haven’t driven one of these since I was a child playing on the hills of Sighisoara,” Vlad said happily.
It couldn’t be resisted. In spite of everything, fun bubbled up from her toes as the horses were quickly harnessed to the sleighs. Ilona found herself seated on the bench of one while the prince in person laid the countess’s blanket over her knees.
He winked at her, more like the boy who’d climbed the wall at Horogszegi than the man who’d just slaughtered umpteen other men in battle, and climbed onto the bench beside her. There was an instant when she remembered exactly who and what he was, and excitement spiked through her, overwhelming the sudden, unspecific fear. Then Vlad yelled a challenge to the sleigh on the other side and let his horses go.
It was exhilarating, swishing through the snow at high speed. Sometimes they moved off the road and swerved among the trees to avoid the carriage, which careered along beside them. Ilona clung to the side, ridiculously happy to be thrown from side to side, sometimes unable to avoid bumping against him. Vlad’s attention was necessarily on the road and the horses, but she caught an occasional flash of his teeth as he grinned.
The emphasis was on speed, though Ilona noticed the frequent arrivals of lookouts and their reports yelled to the prince without stopping.
“I think we’re clear,” he called to her once. “No sign of any other parties. We can slow down if you want.”
“Oh, no,” said Ilona, and he laughed and urged the horses faster. He was like some god of ancient legend, and yet giving her more fun than she’d had in years.
Her stomach twisted with inconvenient protest. “Vlad?”
He glanced at her.
She blurted, “Did you kill them all?”
He twitched the reins, and the horses swerved left. The sleigh flew between two trees with inches to spare.
“Yes,” said Vlad. “I killed them all.”
It felt like pain, only she didn’t know where. “Why? Why no mercy?”
It was none of her business. Even from the privilege of marriage, her mother had never questioned any of her father’s military decisions. She wasn’t even sure why it mattered so much, except that it was he who’d done it. In her mind, foolish and childish, she’d made him into something he wasn’t. Because she’d understood him once, she’d forgotten she didn’t really know him at all.
The hooded lids swept down over his eyes, veiling whatever he didn’t wish her to see. His lashes, long and thick, curved over his cheek. Unerringly, he guided the horses through the trees at high speed and spilled back onto the road.
He spoke conversationally. “What do you want me to say, Ilona? That they deserved to die? That they were only a few infidels and traitors, no loss to the Christian world? That I did it for God or for John Hunyadi? To teach my people to fear thwarting me? Or just that I wanted to, because I’m a cruel and callous bastard?”
She swallowed. “Whichever is true.”
She couldn’t even be sure he heard her over the rushing air and the whisper and crunch of the sleigh over the snowy ground. His breath streamed out, long and steadily.
“All of them.” His glance was like a knife stab, and yet for some reason she thought the mockery there was aimed not at her but at himself. “Apart from the God bit. Let me not take his name in vain.”
As if God heard, there was a sudden jolt as the harness snapped and they were thrown backwards. Ilona gasped. One of the horses whinnied as if struck by flapping leather, and then both animals began to draw away from their slowing sleigh, which skidded off the road once more. The coach and the other sleigh and the troop of riders got smaller.
For an instant, Vlad stared straight ahead. She thought he would say something more, prayed that he would. And then he jerked forward, hard, and she realised the sleigh was picking up speed once more. His hand caught at a passing tree. It was only later she realised he wasn’t trying to slow them down, but pushing them faster, and now, alarmingly, they were on a wooded incline, which was turning into a steep slope.
Ilona squeaked with sudden fear. “Vlad!”
Vlad laughed. “Hold on to my belt,” he said and pushed himself forward to grab the wooden bar along the front. The sleigh gathered speed, bumping and sliding faster and faster toward a tree which filled Ilona’s vision. She closed her eyes and grabbed at Vlad’s belt. Beneath her knuckles, she could feel his warmth, the movement of his skin and muscles as he wrenched his body forcefully to the right.
Ilona opened her eyes. The tree was no longer there. Just yards and yards of snowy hill descending sharply before her, and beside her, Vlad who let out a huge, exhilarated yell.
Ilona couldn’t help it. Her stomach was still somewhere at the top of the hill, her heart surely wrapped around the tree. But she laughed aloud and held on as the sleigh careered down the hill, controlled only by the weight of Vlad’s body, drawing hers with it to left or right to avoid bushes and boulders.
At the foot, although the sleigh began to slow again, it still came to rest with a jolt that threw Ilona hard into Vlad’s shoulder, winding her.
He didn’t move, didn’t turn to look at her.
She gasped, “You did that deliberately!”
“Yes.”
She dragged her fingers free of his belt to punch his shoulder. Something caught at her breath—fury, joy. “Can we do it again?”
His body began to shake. Turning at last, he flung one arm around her and hugged her to him. It lasted only an instant, but still there was time to register the shock of his strong, hard body, to fear and to rejoice in his closeness.
“Another day,” he said, still smiling. She imagined his lips in her hair, felt her own leaping response—and then his arm fell away to wave to his men approaching from around the foot of the hill. “We won!” he called with satisfaction.
***
Sibiu looked different. Even through the freshly falling snow, Ilona could see that Vlad had strengthened the town walls. But mostly, she thought it seemed different because she was.
Somehow, like last year’s dinner at Hunedoara, she couldn’t simply enjoy his company for the remainder of the journey. There was an edge to his companionship that churned her up, disturbed her beyond belief, and yet she wanted the journey to go on forever.
Reharnessed to the recovered horses, it didn’t take long. Vlad didn’t say much, and Ilona, lost in thought and feeling, spoke even less. Mostly, she watched him surreptitiously from the corner of her eye. Either he himself changed like the weather, or her perception of him did, for in the fading light he seemed sterner, more austere, a faint frown between his thick, black brows. For much of the time, he even forgot to tease her.
But once in Sibiu, he brought the sleigh to a sliding, gentle halt in the correct street. With perfect civility, he handed her out of the vehicle and conducted her into the house of her hosts for the night. Miserably, she sensed his desire to be gone as he bore the half-alarmed, half-gratified greetings of her parents’ friends.
“Oh!” she cried, remembering only when she caught sight of her trunk being carried upstairs. “I have a letter for you from my uncle! One moment!”
“Let the maid…!” began her hostess, almost outraged, but Ilona could not be still.
She almost expected him to be gone when she returned with her uncle’s letter, but he still waited patiently in the cramped hall, refusing all offers of refreshment. He even inclined his head to her as he reached for the letter.
Placing the crumpled paper into his hold, Ilona glimpsed again the dried blood on his knuckles. But now she saw something else too—the fresh trickle that came from his sleeve, that had already stained the white cuff of his shirt a bright red and continued to drip down his wrist and along the back of his hand.
Her eyes widened. “You’re hurt!” she blurte
d. No wonder he’d been so silent in the second part of their journey. Looking back, she should have recognised the pain and the growing weakness in his secretive face, in his very silence. The signs had been there, only she, in her confusion, had been too wrapped up in her own foolish concerns.
“A scratch,” he said distantly.
“I didn’t know…”
“How could you?” He sounded amused now, until his hostess bustled over, demanding to see and treat his wound. Then he drew himself up until he seemed far taller than his actual average height.
“That won’t be necessary. My own people will deal with it. Thank you for your kindness.”
Cowed, poor Mihaela stepped back. Vlad bowed to Ilona. “Until tomorrow morning. We’ll conduct you beyond the danger area and set you on the way to Sighisoara.”
“There’s no need,” Ilona protested.
“It will be my honour,” Vlad said implacably and waited for no more before sweeping from the room.
“Goodness,” whispered Mihaela. “What a very alarming young man!”
“Hush!” said her husband, flapping his arm.
Ilona’s laughter was decidedly shaky.
***
The morning brought not Vlad Dracula but a messenger with the bad news that rock falls and bad weather were blocking much of the road between Sibiu and Sighisoara, and that the prince suggested postponing her departure until tomorrow.
Ilona, anxious to be with her family, and convinced there would be a way round such obstacles, was all for travelling immediately, with or without her military escort, but her hosts absolutely forbade going against the advice of the governor of the city—especially now that they’d met him. And before Ilona, laughing in spite of herself, could talk them round, she had another visitor—Stephen of Moldavia who came, he said, to show her the city.
Mihaela, clearly seeing a distraction from Ilona’s determination to leave, bundled her into fur cloak and muff, all the while pretending to be outraged. “My goodness, the Szilágyis have come up in the world. I remember when you were ordinary like us, and now you have princes at the door every day.”
A Prince to be Feared: The love story of Vlad Dracula Page 9