Since Vlad had ruthlessly captured and impaled several Ottoman recruiting commanders trying to steal Wallachian children, his meaning was abundantly clear. One or two of the Wallachian nobleman grinned openly, as proud of their prince’s wit as of his cruelty in defence of his most vulnerable people.
Although the smaller Turk’s lips tightened, Zafer didn’t bat an eyelid.
“But that is why His Sublime Majesty sent me. As Your Highness knows, I push my own point very effectively.”
Ilona’s gut twisted. For an instant she thought she would vomit and had to swallow down her own bile. The ambiguity of Zafer’s words was more lewd than Vlad’s, but by everyone else they were taken as a feeble boast to try to rival Dracula’s reputation. Only Ilona picked up the sexual allusion, and that because she saw Vlad’s involuntary twitch. And at last she understood the nature and extent of Zafer’s abuse.
The beating he could and did endure. The other assault was the one he had longed to rip out Zafer’s heart for. The one he had saved Radu from. Although rumour said Radu was not immune to manly charms and had given himself willingly to none other than the sultan himself. The protection he had not wanted from Vlad.
And Vlad, face-to-face with the unrepentant, the boastful abuser of his childhood, merely smiled.
“Not as effectively as you imagine. Your courtesy, whether as host or guest, leaves much to be desired. However, since you feel you know best, let me help you keep your own customs in my country.” His eyes flickered, in some lightening signal to the soldiers who guarded the door. They strode forward.
Vlad stood and said disdainfully, “Kneel.”
And for the first time, alarm truly did cross Zafer’s face. The other ambassador gasped out, “You cannot kill the representatives of His Sublime Majesty!”
“Of course not,” said Vlad, stepping down from the dais. Turning to one of the soldiers, he tossed something into his hands. “Make sure these gentlemen’s turbans remain well attached to their heads.”
The soldier looked down involuntarily. Several carpenter’s nails lay in his palm. He grinned.
The Ottomans fell to their knees unaided, crying out for mercy, crying out the sultan’s anger at such an insult and much more in their own language that Ilona couldn’t understand.
Ilona had seen enough. Moving quickly, she returned to her mother and led her silently out of the hall. They didn’t quite make it before the screaming started.
***
As the palace grew quiet and her mother retired for the night, Ilona continued to gaze out into the darkened gardens. Unless he didn’t want to be found, she knew where he would be. Even in the summer storm. With sudden decision, she seized her cloak from the back of the chair and walked quickly to the door. Once there, with her hand on the latch, she paused. For the first time, she felt uncertain of her ability to deal with Vlad Dracula. Those agonies of their relationship that had once eaten her up now seemed completely trivial in the light of today’s revelations. Learning to know the Prince of Wallachia was not unmitigated pleasure.
But her path was chosen and couldn’t be abandoned, even if she wanted to. And she didn’t. There was nothing he could do to make that happen, God help her.
Lifting the latch, she hurried out into the rain, crossing into the palace section of the gardens and hurrying down to the willow tree near the pond.
But no figure leaned there against its branches. There was no Vlad-shaped bulge against the trunk. It seemed he didn’t need the fresh air—or herself—as much as she’d imagined he would. What had she expected? Vlad had learned to live with this long ago. And his acts of cruelty, his “minor atrocities” were not so few that they could be allowed to eat him up. He was a strong ruler, unafraid to take the road he’d chosen.
It was she who needed the fresh air, to remind her of the goodness in the world. Who needed to see him, to assure herself he was still the Vlad she’d always thought him.
And so, gasping, she grasped at the willow branch and let the rain run into her mouth and trickle down her hair into her neck and down the front of her cloak. She looked down slowly, her gaze drawn by invisible strings to the ground behind the tree.
He sat there, in his shirt and doublet, soaked through without any further protection from the rain, his back pressed against the tree trunk, his knees drawn up under his chin. Her heart gave two powerful beats before she realised that his eyes were turned up to her in the darkness.
Without thought, she slumped down beside him. She thought he smiled, but she didn’t look.
She said, “Are they dead? Is Zafer dead?”
“No. He was right. I can’t go around killing the sultan’s representatives. Or at least not yet. But their headaches should keep them from going home too quickly.”
“You always meant to do it. You had the nails with you.”
“The carpenter left them lying in the hall. It struck me they were miniature stakes. It appealed to my sense of humour. And so I picked them up, although I wasn’t certain what I’d do with them.”
She leaned her head back, turned her face up into the rain. “Why didn’t you tell me? About Zafer?”
He was silent. The rain pattered down on the ground, splashing up over her hand, cascaded onto her face in a thousand tiny blows.
He said, “There are things I don’t tell you. The blood of battle, the harshness of justice and punishment. They are my cross, my burden. Not yours. And not fit to be yours.”
She turned her head to look at him. “But this is you, Vlad. Not what you did, what was done to you.”
He gazed straight ahead, his black hair plastered against his face and shirt. “Still my cross, my burden.”
“But not your shame.”
She thought his breath caught. She couldn’t tell where, if anywhere, tears mingled with the rain on his face. She reached out and covered the hand which lay clenched in his lap. It turned in hers and gripped.
“I know that. And yet to cover it, I took on another. I shouldn’t have done it when you were there. And yet you know what I am. You’ve always known.”
“No saint,” she whispered, turning into him. “And no monster.”
His arms closed around her, holding her hard to his sodden chest. The rain continued to fall, but still they sat there, soaking it up like comfort, like love.
***
Winter closed in on Wallachia, partially stemming the flood of letters from Miklós and from Countess Hunyadi recommending Ilona’s and her mother’s return to Transylvania, if not to Hungary itself.
By spring, Ilona had been granted a foretaste of what her life with Vlad Dracula was likely to be: risky, exciting, exhilarating, punctuated with alternating periods of total fear and utter bliss. Like the sleigh ride Vlad had once described it.
With the colder weather and longer residence at Tîrgovişte, there were fewer opportunities for physical intimacy. But Vlad still made it possible, taking her on horseback through the snow to a cave he’d discovered as a boy beneath the overhanging roots of a willow. There, wrapped in cloaks and horse blankets, to the rippling sounds of the lake that threatened to flood them, he made exquisite love to her before leaving for Giurgiu and another meeting with a very different representative of the sultan, the soldier and chief falconer, Hamza Pasha.
No one was happy about this meeting. Originally, it was planned for Tîrgovişte, but at the last moment, Hamza requested the prince come instead to a place nearer the Ottoman-held fortress of Giurgiu. Presumably to help allay any fears of an Ottoman trap, a Greek-born Ottoman scholar called Thomas was sent to escort him.
“I don’t care that the actual meeting will be on Wallachian soil,” Carstian said firmly, when Thomas—who’d made a point of removing his headgear well before entering the princely presence—had been duly greeted and sent away to refresh himself. “It’s a trap.”
“Of course it is,” Vlad agreed.
“So don’t go,” Ilona commanded, stung by his lighthearted response. To her, the matt
er was simple.
“Forewarned is forearmed,” Vlad said. “This way, I find out more—and put the Ottomans firmly in the wrong if they do try anything. Carstian, I need the cavalry to follow us at a discreet distance. With the usual scouts. But stay out of sight.”
There were no fond farewells. The interlude in the lakeside cave that morning had to serve as that. With no more than a formal hand kiss for herself and her mother, Vlad rode off with Thomas and their very few attendants.
By nightfall, messengers returning from the cavalry unit had confirmed the ambush. After a wretched night of fear, Ilona learned that Vlad had survived it and that both Thomas and Hamza Pasha were on their way to Tîrgovişte as prisoners. But still there was no sign of Vlad, and Ilona, discovering partial news to be worse than none, feared for life-threatening injuries instead.
Eventually, Vlad descended on the palace without warning, sweeping into the hall in a wave of euphoria and plans. Although he spared Ilona a quick smile of apology and comfort for herself alone, it was clear that his mind was elsewhere.
“It’s begun,” he told his boyars, who scuttled from all over the palace in his wake to sit at the table informally with him. “I’ve taken back Giurgiu.”
“With so few men?” Turcul stared at him. Everyone stared at him, except the officers present who had been with him, who grinned with pride in their prince. “How did you manage that?”
Vlad winked. “I speak fluent Turkish. When I commanded them to open the gates, they imagined I was one of their commanders. By the time they discovered their mistake, it was too late. We were inside, and they, taken by surprise, were easily defeated.”
“Was that wise?” asked one of the older boyars uneasily. “A bold move, I agree, but it alienates the sultan beyond…”
“The sultan is already alienated. Some letters of mine to the King of Hungary fell into Ottoman hands—so the sultan knew I wasn’t negotiating in good faith. That much I learned from Thomas. The sultan knows about my marriage and my commitment to force this crusade against him. So, taking Giurgiu is a first and necessary step.”
His gaze swept round the assembled boyars, glittering but deadly serious. Ilona, still partially numb from relief at his return, felt her stomach begin to churn all over again.
“Because he will come against us now,” Vlad assured them. “Between now and the spring, I want all the Danube crossing points destroyed, and all the river fortresses in our hands. It gives us a head start. And with the sultan busy fighting in Trebizond, it’s likely we’ll have a few months’ grace.”
His excitement was infectious. Ilona felt it, rose with it. And yet she wondered if he even remembered now that spring was to be the time of their wedding. Instead, it seemed likely to be the time of a major war.
Chapter Twenty-One
Wallachia, 1462
Timing, Vlad knew, was everything. Familiar prebattle excitement galloped in his veins, urging him to immediate action, to assuage the battle yearning of his restive soldiers. But through the darkness, his eyes and his mind still operated with crystal clarity. They had to if he and his men were to survive this night. And so he held them back and made them wait in total silence until the time was right.
From the hill forest, he watched and listened until the sultan’s busy camp drifted slowly into the same silence as his men. The village of tents was a mere blur in the night, but the pattern was already carved in Vlad’s mind.
He’d hoped never to let them come so far, had hoped to frighten them from ever crossing the Danube by a show of force made up of his own and the Hungarian army. But Matthias had dragged his feet, and the sultan had managed to cross the river by night several miles away from where Vlad watched.
There had been an inevitability about that. Sultan Mehmed, the Conqueror of Constantinople, having earlier sent a lesser force against Vlad and seen it easily defeated, had come in person with a vast army to avenge the humiliation. And so the two forces had glared at each other across the mighty river, the Ottomans unable to cross because Vlad had destroyed all the major crossing points over the winter. Not well enough, it seemed, for the Ottomans had secretly moved position, crossed by boat, and surprised him by night.
Well, now it was his turn to do the same. And if he succeeded, there would be no more retreating, no more burning of his own country, his own crops, no more poisoning his own wells and rivers to keep them from sustaining the invaders.
The time was right.
Raising his hand high and holding it there for a count of ten, he thrust it forward, and without further invitation, his horse began to move under him.
Exactly as planned, they began slowly, silently, picking their way free of the forest cover. The sky was on their side: a new moon and plenty of cloud made the night as dark as possible, veiling the attack until the danger of being spotted by lookouts was just too great.
Vlad gave the order, low voiced, heard it repeated among the men following. In an instant, it seemed, the torches flared into dazzling light. The path to the sultan’s camp was clear, and when his bodyguard raised his torch high, he knew with relief that it could be done.
As planned, the slow advance turned into a gallop. Even before the sentries were properly awake, they were dead, and Vlad’s cavalry stormed into the sultan’s camp. Now the shouting began, not just the panicked screams of the Ottomans, but the deliberately blood chilling cries of the Wallachians, the blare of trumpets and drums.
Vlad wielded his sword with efficiency. He knew he did because it dripped dark red in the torchlight. But the slaughter was almost automatic. His real attention was on maintaining the tight formation of his men—if they spread out, they were more likely to be killed by the wakening Ottomans—and on leading them unerringly to the sultan’s own tent.
Vlad knew his enemy. He knew he already inspired terror in their hearts. Although his force was far smaller, they never knew where he would attack next, and his raids were always devastating. Because he had killed Hamza and Thomas, they called him Kazugli Bey—the Lord Impaler. He played on that, leaving them other such “presents” whenever he attacked and captured anyone of importance. He knew its effect on his impressionable enemy.
But more than that, he knew the probable layout of their camp, and observation had confirmed the sultan’s whereabouts.
“Here!” he yelled in triumph. It had to be. The biggest and best-guarded group of tents in the camp. At once, his men formed up, and the real killing began. Using every weapon they had, from swords and daggers to rearing horses’ hooves and the vilest war cries, they attacked the terrified guards. As planned, torches were thrown onto the tents as people spilled out of them, and Vlad, galloping from tent to tent in the searing heat, searched desperately for anyone resembling Mehmed. They’d been boys together once, not friends perhaps, but there had been a certain guarded respect amid the fierce rivalry. It made no difference. None of that would stop Vlad killing him.
But Mehmed also knew Vlad. By the time the prince realised his mistake, the best of their advantage had vanished. The sultan had swapped tents. Vlad knew it when he became aware through the smoke of the Ottoman soldiers forming thickly around one of the lesser tents close by.
Probably, Mehmed hadn’t really believed it would happen, but he’d taken the precaution anyway. Now Vlad’s task was more or less impossible, but it wasn’t yet time to give up. Yelling orders above the din of battle and the crackle of fire, he wheeled around and led the charge on the sultan’s protectors.
The battle waged for hours. Several times, Vlad glimpsed the petrified face of the sultan behind the rows of fallen and fighting soldiers. The man for whom Ottomans and Romanians were dying. He even sent his dagger flying straight and sure into the melee, but a soldier took it in the breast for him.
Another glance at the sky told Vlad it was time to go before the failure of his task turned into a rout of his soldiers. He called the retreat.
“What now?” gasped Gales, who had become one of his most trusted c
ommanders, as they withdrew speedily back to the forest, still in good order.
“Now?” Vlad repeated. “The war goes on. We will harry them out, with or without our allies. For the moment, you hold the men here, stay in cover. Do not attack without my order. I ride to Tîrgovişte, to do what I must before the sultan arrives.”
***
Ilona, still not Princess of Wallachia although many of the lesser people had begun to call her so, didn’t feel that she was still waiting. Matthias had again postponed the wedding until the war was over, forcing his decision by adding a new insistence that Vlad change his religion rather than Ilona hers.
Which was a wily trick. At a time of national crisis, with the Ottomans at his door trailing his brother as an alternative prince in their wake, Vlad could not afford to offend his people by renouncing Orthodoxy in favour of hated Roman Catholicism. But almost to her surprise, Ilona found it made little difference to her. Living in a country both torn and lifted by war waged against a cruel invader, she adopted that country fully as her own. She made her own tasks, organising hospitals in Tîrgovişte for the wounded who drifted in from the surrounding countryside, making sure the available food in the city was evenly and continually distributed.
In the beginning, Maria had been a huge help in this work, but as time went on and the Ottomans grew closer, she became increasingly less use. Instead, she bent all her energies on persuading Ilona and her mother to flee into the mountains with her.
Though Ilona refused without a struggle, she did agree that Mihnea should be taken to a place of safety. And so Maria took her son and stepson into the latter’s mountain lands to wait for the end of the war.
Maria wasn’t the first to advise her to leave. In the spring, Countess Hunyadi paid an unexpected visit to Tîrgovişte. Officially, she brought Vlad Matthias’s love, encouragement, and support. Unofficially, she told her sister-in-law and niece to come home with her immediately. And when Ilona refused, she had simply taken the battle to Vlad.
A Prince to be Feared: The love story of Vlad Dracula Page 26