Mihály set off at once after the prince, leaving Ilona with Maria. They watched from the rain-spattered window as he rode away. Then, almost gleefully, Maria tugged at her arm.
“Come and meet Mihnea!”
Prepared, Ilona went with her gladly to the nursery where the seven-month-old baby sat amid a collection of bright toys, gurgling happily while his nurse watched over him. When they entered, he reached up his arms immediately to Maria, and something constricted Ilona’s throat.
Not jealousy or pain. Just simple longing.
The child put his arms round his mother’s neck and from that position of smug safety smiled at Ilona.
Her heart melted.
She was twenty-one years old. She would have to marry soon and have a baby of her own to love. It was, Aunt Erzsébet said, the consolation of many women given in marriage to unpalatable husbands, and for the first time, Ilona understood her. Now that she was over her youthful passion, she still hoped for a palatable husband but was realistic enough not to rely on it.
Kneeling on the soft rug, watching Maria with the baby, Ilona said with genuine warmth, “You’re happy.”
“Oh yes,” Maria agreed, dropping a kiss on Mihnea’s bald head. She cast Ilona a wicked smile. “I don’t think I’m cut out to be a nobleman’s wife. I prefer the excitement of being a prince’s mistress. Well, this prince’s mistress.” Her smile faded, and, after glancing at the nurse, she said in Hungarian, “You don’t despise me, do you? For what I’ve done?”
“Of course I don’t.” As the old pain threatened to grip her heart again, she strove to drive it off.
“I’m treated just as a wife here,” Maria said anxiously. “The prince shows me every respect, and if he isn’t…”
“Isn’t what?” Ilona prompted, against her better judgment. God knew she wanted this conversation over with.
“If he isn’t faithful, I know he loves me best.”
She supposed the jealousy was inevitable. She was prepared for that. Even for the indignation on Maria’s behalf. What she hadn’t expected along with them was the fierce surge of satisfaction that Maria couldn’t make him faithful either.
Unworthy, Ilona…
“I’m glad,” she managed to say as she jumped to her feet. Impossible to stay still. She added dubiously, “He doesn’t flaunt other women in front of you, does he?”
“Of course not,” Maria said, shocked. “I never know anything about them, except that they exist. Otherwise, he would be in my bed more often.”
I can’t hear any more of this.
“I’m sorry I haven’t written recently,” she said, plucking from the air one of the many things she had to say to her old friend.
“Of course, you’ve had so many troubles! I’m so glad to see your father free and powerful once more.”
Powerful? Mihály’s trouble was at least partly that he felt himself completely powerless and at the mercy of the child he’d intended to guide. They all were.
***
Vlad reined in his horse at the top of the hill and gazed with satisfaction out over the many lesser hills and valleys. In the distance, he could make out Tîrgovişte with its spires and turrets, nestling among the fertile hills and bright blue lakes.
The wind blew his hair out behind him, and he lifted his face into its sharp coolness. Mihály’s horse snorted beside his own.
Vlad said, “We’ll go fishing tomorrow, if you wish.”
A smile flickered across the older man’s lined face. “A day of leisure. How extraordinarily appealing.”
“I wondered if you’d had too many of those just recently,” Vlad said, alluding to his imprisonment.
“Forced inaction is not the same thing.”
“True,” Vlad agreed with feeling.
For a time, they sat in silence, letting their horses rest while they gazed out over the countryside. Vlad never tired of looking. He loved this land, from the tiniest blade of grass to the tallest mountain.
Mihály said, “It’s like a drug. Like poppy juice.”
“What is?” Vlad asked. Though he knew, he needed Mihály to keep talking.
“Power. It consumes you, uses you up, and yet you can’t bring yourself to lay it down. Being without it is like a physical pain. Like watching someone else violate your wife.”
Vlad reached out and slowly pulled his horse’s black ear. “She isn’t your wife. She’s Matthias’s.”
Mihály smiled into the wind. “I know.” He sighed. “I put his son on the throne. I made John Hunyadi’s son King of Hungary. Is that enough to secure my place in history?”
“A mere trifle,” Vlad said. “You put me on the throne of Wallachia.”
Mihály laughed, as he was meant to do. Then, turning to look at him, with the smile dying in his eyes, he said, “You are generous to remember any small part I played in that.”
“I will always remember.”
Mihály drew in his breath. “The marriage. With Ilona. I behaved ill, drawing back at the last minute. It was never meant to offend you or show disrespect for you or what you’ve achieved here.”
“I know.”
“God help me, I just wanted to keep all my bargaining power where I could use it.”
“And you still haven’t,” Vlad observed.
Mihály urged his horse forward over the ridge of the hill, and Vlad followed.
Mihály said, “And now it’s not in my power any more. The king controls all royal marriages. There will come a time, I know, when he wants to buy your loyalty.”
Vlad’s lips twisted. “My loyalty is not for sale. Ever.”
“Then you are a rare man indeed. For what it’s worth, Vlad, if you still want her, I’ll do what I can to speak for you. When it won’t do you more harm than good.”
Vlad couldn’t suppress the stab of bitterness. If Mihály had only acted on this two years ago… But he wouldn’t waste his time in recrimination or regret. The game was not over yet, and the prize could still be won.
***
Delighted with her purchase in the market, Ilona went directly to the nursery, where, at this hour of the afternoon, she fully expected to find both the child and his mother.
“Maria?” she called, opening the door and walking in. Though she could hear the baby laughing, his usual place on the rug was empty. In her chair close by, the nurse still smiled at her and continued sewing. Before the woman could speak, a movement by the window caught Ilona’s eye. Dazzled her.
Mihnea sat on his father’s naked shoulders, held firmly under the arms while he held on to Vlad’s curls with his stubby little hands and crowed with laughter.
Vlad stared at her, unmoving.
Ilona wanted to die.
His arms and chest were naked, his shrugged-off white linen shirt dangling upside down over his belt, hanging over his hips to his knees. As if he’d just arrived, thrown off the worst of his travel-stained clothes, and come straight to see his son because he couldn’t wait any longer. It was the worst of all possible scenarios and one she had never envisaged, to come upon him in the midst of so domestic and private a scene.
That he was as stunned as she provided no consolation.
“Ilona.” His husky voice drove straight through her. “I didn’t know you were here.” He lifted the boy down from his shoulders, moving him into a more conventional hold. “Mihály didn’t say.”
“I was looking for Maria,” she blurted and at last made her feet move toward the door. “I didn’t know you were here either.”
“I rode in with Mihály only minutes ago. Ilona.”
She was forced to turn, her hand already on the latch. He was walking toward her, shaking her with unreasonable panic. His arms were thick with the muscles of a swordsman. His gaze was on her hands.
“What do you have there?”
The toy she’d bought for Mihnea. With relief, she held it straight out to the baby, regarding it as much as a weapon to ward off his father. It made the odd rattle that had first att
racted her attention in the market.
Vlad took it with unexpected interest and turned to deposit both son and toy on the floor. He crouched down with the baby, and Ilona couldn’t take her eyes off his naked back. Not because it was beautiful—although it was, rippling and golden in the sunlight—but because it bore a mass of long, deep scars, like the marks left on snow after a hectic day’s sledging.
Mihnea grasped the small, carved stone toy, which was shaped like a horse and painted white with brown eyes and black lashes and nostrils. As he lifted it, gazing into its eyes, it rattled faintly again. Mihnea frowned and shook it, and the beads within made a noise almost exactly like a horse’s whinny.
Vlad laughed. Mihnea screamed with delight and jiggled up and down on his bottom to the constant wninnying of his new horse. Vlad looked round over his shoulder. “What a beautiful toy. Thank you.”
“I just saw it in the market,” she muttered.
Again she turned to go, but the old curiosity, the old need to understand him, held her captive. She glanced back to find him still crouched with the baby, still watching her with eyes so veiled they looked black.
She blurted, “What happened to your back?”
A lady shouldn’t have seen his back. She certainly shouldn’t have seen or commented upon the scars. But he didn’t seem to mind.
Rising to his feet, he said only, “A legacy of my stay with the Ottomans.”
“They beat you?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“Many times!”
His smile was twisted. “I never took well to discipline.”
Emotion churned inside her. It might have been pity. “You said they were a gentle people,” she whispered.
“They’re not all gentle.”
His eyes held her, and with despair, she felt herself drowning all over again. He took a step closer. “Ilona…”
The door on the other side of the room, the one that opened onto Maria’s bedchamber, flung open, and Maria bustled in.
“Vlad,” she crooned, walking toward him with both hands held out. Then, taking in the vision of his seminaked form, she dropped her arms in horror. “Vlad!” she exclaimed in quite another voice. “That is a most improper state in which to greet Ilona!”
Vlad’s lips quirked. “Oh, I don’t know. Ilona is quite used to being greeted by me in an improper state.”
Then he remembered. He remembered looking at her like that.
Thank God she was older now and wiser.
“I’m sorry,” she got out. “I’ll leave you alone.” And finally she fumbled with the latch and opened the door. She fled.
***
“I admire what you’ve done here,” Mihály said. From the tower where he stood between Ilona and Vlad, he gazed out on the village of Poenari, at the dramatic cliff that dropped in an almost sheer line from the castle walls to the River Arges. It was one of five towers which guarded the Transylvanian border, commanding views over vast swaths of mountainous land—harsh, spectacular, and curiously beautiful. This was, apparently, Vlad’s favourite.
“I’m fond of it,” Vlad acknowledged. “I come here as often as I can.”
Beyond the prince’s stern profile, Mihály turned his head. “I meant this new prosperity, the land you’ve opened up, the safety of your roads and your towns.”
Vlad inclined his head without either pride or modesty. It was only what he had set out to do.
Mihály added, “I didn’t mean the castle. Though it’s very fine, I’m still not convinced of the morality of your building methods.”
From Vlad’s faint, twisted smile, Ilona surmised that not many men would have had the courage to state such an opinion to him.
Of course, he had a deserved reputation for harshness, not least because his most frequent form of execution was impalement, a barbaric cruelty admittedly still practised in many other countries too. Ilona didn’t like to think of it, though she had heard his subjects speak of it with both relish and perverse pride. Vlad’s policy of “a few atrocities” appeared to work. In all their travels here, Ilona had seen no evidence of crime or of punishment.
Vlad said, “The castle was an interesting experiment. Of course, they couldn’t build it alone. I still needed engineers and experienced builders, but the prisoners made reasonable labourers, in the end.”
“In the end?” Ilona couldn’t help repeating, and then could have kicked herself because as Vlad turned to her, she saw in his eyes that he had expected, even wanted her, to pounce on those words. Never one to refuse a challenge, she asked, “Did they all die?”
“Surprisingly, no,” Vlad said. “Some did. They weren’t used to hard work or to living rough, and it told on their health. And there were accidents, of course, carrying such large stones over such dangerous ground, but those would have happened anyway, killing people who were innocent of any crime.”
Ilona, who’d heard plenty of rumours since her return to Wallachia, wouldn’t let that pass either. “The children were not guilty. You had children here too.”
“I had children here,” he acknowledged. “Rebellion runs in families. If I had left the children free, what would they have done? Grown up, hating me even more for punishing their parents, and from places like Brasov and Sibiu they’d have worked against me.”
“And now?” Ilona asked, fascinated in spite of herself. Mihály, presumably leaving them to fight it out, stepped back and moved to another window for a different view.
Vlad said, “Now at least, there’s a chance. They saw at first hand what it means to oppose me. And they saw that I can be merciful. And their parents now live useful lives as farmers or builders. Some of them,” he amended. “At any rate, they no longer have the wealth or the will to intrigue against me.”
“You broke their spirits,” Ilona murmured aloud, gazing sideways at the massive walls of the castle. Such an outcome seemed incredibly sad suddenly, taking away what made the person who they were.
“Considering the spirits in question, they were no loss.”
If they had been in a sleigh, Ilona thought with dark amusement, he’d have pushed it out of the window and ridden straight down onto the rocks. But there was more to it than that. There was the unbearable pain of his brother’s murder and, she suspected, his long-planned revenge hadn’t given him the release he expected.
“My brother,” he said without warning, “was afraid of the dark.”
Ilona’s heart twisted. Mircea’s murderers couldn’t have found a crueler death if they’d tried. Without meaning to, she reached across the space between them and clasped his hand. His head snapped round; his eyes stared into hers. Hastily, realising her mistake, she tried to snatch her hand back, but his rough fingers moved, gripping hers strongly before he released her and turned away.
Mihály said, “My daughter feels for everyone, good and bad. It isn’t always an advantage.”
Vlad shrugged. “Maybe not. But if I had a conscience, I’d give it to Ilona for safekeeping.”
Unaccountably angry because he was still trying to perpetuate the myth, even with Mihály, even with her, she snapped, “It isn’t detachable. That’s what troubles you.”
Again, Vlad stared at her. His eyes looked like some boiling storm in a dark green sea. His breath hissed out between his teeth. It might have been a laugh.
He began to move toward the steps, saying to Mihály, “Never give this woman a dagger.”
Abruptly, he swung back to the window as if something had caught his eye. Instinctively following his gaze, Ilona saw what it was. A single horseman, riding furiously along the road to the castle gates.
“Something’s happened,” Vlad said. He sounded more annoyed than fearful.
They returned to the castle’s great hall: a spacious rather than a gigantic room, more or less completed to the prince’s satisfaction, with some decorations already adorning the walls—a painting depicting a somewhat excessive feast, a pair of ancient crossed swords, the stuffed head of a wolf
above the door.
Vlad’s visitor was a boyar Ilona recognised. Turcul, slumped against the table, was already gulping down wine straight from the jug when they entered. His clothes were almost caked in mud.
On their entrance, he lowered the jug at once and straightened, giving a low but hasty bow.
“Turcul, you ride as if all the fiends in hell are after you,” Vlad observed, going forward with hand held out, a casual gesture of friendship that Ilona hadn’t expected from the formal prince. It was part of his charm, though, and how he had won so many of even the more reluctant boyars to his side. He used formality to the point of magnificence to impress and overwhelm, yet with those who had begun to win his trust, he relaxed enough to show normal human friendship.
Begun to trust. Ilona, remembering Stephen’s distant words about the few men who had ever won Vlad’s trust, wondered how far that process had gone with Turcul. The boyar accepted the hand with an unexpectedly warm smile, as if the gesture already made up for the awful journey which had clearly exhausted him. After which he remembered to bow to Ilona and Mihály.
“Sit, my friend,” Vlad encouraged. “Food is on the way. Now, why were those fiends after you?”
“I don’t think they’re after me,” Turcul replied ruefully. “You remember my cousin Cazan? He doesn’t come to court, but he has land on the Transylvanian border.”
Ilona exchanged glances with her father. Surely there wasn’t trouble there again?
“I remember him,” Vlad said. His voice and his face were expressionless. As if already preparing secretly to deal with another betrayal. “He does not like me.”
“He doesn’t like anyone very much. He avoids princes and politics. Like those monkeys of legend all at once, he neither sees, hears, nor speaks any evil. However, after wrestling with his conscience, he finally sent me word at Tîrgovişte that Pardo had passed through his lands.”
“Pardo…” Vlad repeated.
“Who is Pardo?” Ilona asked curiously.
“One of those who betrayed my father,” Vlad said. “And one of those I will never forgive. He shelters in the German towns in Transylvania, which occasionally, under duress, agree to expel him. But even then he goes into hiding and eludes me, and during the next squabble with Brasov, he generally turns up there again.”
A Prince to be Feared: The love story of Vlad Dracula Page 19