“You were too eager in this,” she told Vlad severely. “The king’s first priority is to bring home the Crown of St. Stephen from the Emperor Frederick. Until that happens, I doubt he’ll be able to give you the help you want. Countess Szilágyi and Ilona must return with me for their own safety until this matter is resolved.”
But Vlad, even as a boy, had never been the sort she could influence by intimidation or her own brand of good sense.
“I have every faith in the king to do what is right,” he’d said smoothly. “As for the countess and Ilona…”
“We will be staying here,” Ilona had interrupted flatly. Her presence in Wallachia, after all, might force Matthias to intervene against his will. Aunt Erzsébet’s presence here proved the possibility.
“That is entirely a matter for your mother,” Vlad said coolly. “If she wishes to depart, I can spare a small escort to the Transylvanian border. For myself, I can only assure you that when the Ottomans come, I will be ready. They shall not have Wallachia, and from that one circumstance, Hungary will remain free.”
While Vlad and Erzsébet had stood glaring at each other, Countess Szilágyi had glanced uncertainly at Ilona, who shook her head imperceptibly.
“We will remain until the wedding,” she said.
And so Countess Hunyadi had departed alone. And Matthias, still negotiating for his crown, had been no help whatsoever. Vlad and his people fought alone, a war that involved huge sacrifices from everyone. Masses of people had been evacuated into the mountains to keep them safe and to keep them fed, for Vlad burned everything as he retreated, leaving neither food nor clean water nor people. It broke Ilona’s heart, as she knew it broke his, for he was destroying much of what he had achieved for his country. And yet he did it without regret, because the alternative was unthinkable.
Ilona hadn’t so much as laid eyes on Vlad for weeks. Carstian was in charge of Tîrgovişte’s defences, which had been massively strengthened over the winter and spring. He’d prepared for a long siege, which everyone had hoped would never happen, though with every passing day, it seemed more likely that it would.
And then, when she least expected it, Vlad rode into Tîrgovişte with a substantial part of his army. Emerging from the hospital one morning, she saw them trot smartly past in a long, bristling line. If Vlad was among them, she’d already missed him, but a quick search of the thin, exhausted faces closest to her told her much of what she needed to know.
Hurrying by backstreets and alleys, she arrived at the palace as the soldiers made their way to stables and camps. Anxiously, she dodged through them. Once, recognising a face, she couldn’t resist asking, “Is the prince with you? Is all well?”
“Yes, the prince is here. And it could be worse,” was the laconic response. A smile of some pride in the exhausted face gave her some relief, some hope that all was not yet lost.
Even before she entered the hall, she heard his voice. It might have been sheer relief or the fact that she hadn’t seen him in weeks, but her heart began to beat faster. And when she saw him, her legs suddenly stopped working.
He stood with Carstian and some of the other boyars and commanders, accepting a cup of wine from a servant. Others were scurrying to put food on the table. While he talked with all of his old energy, giving news and demanding it, Ilona stood still and gazed at him.
Still in half armour, as if he lived in it these days, he’d uncovered his head, letting his hair flow around his powerful shoulders. Like his men, he looked tired and lean, but there was no defeat in his glittering green eyes and only humour and mild regret in the story he was telling of a night attack on the Ottoman camp, which had only just failed to kill the sultan.
“It’s a pity,” he allowed. “Because even now they’d have been on their way home if we’d got him. But still we achieved something, and all is not well in the Ottoman ranks. They’re starving and thirsty and completely demoralised. Unfortunately…” Uncannily, he glanced away from Carstian and saw her.
At once, the glitter of his eyes melted into something much warmer. He didn’t smile, but his gaze continued to hold hers as he continued. “Unfortunately, they are heading now to Tîrgovişte. It’s time to put our plan into action, Carstian. We may yet avoid a siege here.”
“And you, sir? Are you staying?”
Please stay. Please.
“I’m better employed with the cavalry,” he said after a significant pause. “What news here?”
“More messages of support and admiration from all over Europe,” said Carstian wryly. “From England and the emperor, from the pope himself. Nothing from the King of Hungary.”
Like the others, he had found the direction of the prince’s gaze, and with their joining it, the spell was broken. Vlad took a step nearer her, and her own legs managed to move forward again.
His fingers were warm on hers. Stupidly, she felt them tremble in his light grasp. And yet it was a formal greeting before his people. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. Perhaps it was imagination that felt secretly ardent pressure.
“I have missed you,” he said softly, and having no words except to repeat his own, she could only blush. He began to smile. But, remembering where he was, he added, “However, it is time for us to bid farewell. You and your lady mother must go now into Transylvania until the war is over.”
She’d known it would come. And yet it struck her like a blow.
“Mihnea and Maria must go too,” he ordered relentlessly.
“They’re already in the mountains. Let us go to Poenari,” she asked in a rush. Because she’d thought it all out already. “We’ll be safe there, surely, and if the Ottomans do come, it’s closer to the border for escape into Transylvania.”
Something changed in his eyes then, a leap of emotion that went beyond gladness that she wanted to stay; it was almost recognition, though of what she didn’t know, only that it warmed to her toes.
Then his heavy eyelids came down, and he said ruefully, “That one I must leave up to your mother…” What more he would have added, she never found out, for the clattering of horses’ hooves and a shout in the courtyard outside distracted his and everyone else’s attention.
Ilona shivered, for no reason except it seemed no news was good news. Unless Matthias…
Slowly, Vlad’s hand fell away from hers. The door swung open, and Turcul strode in.
“Sir, thank God,” he uttered as his wild gaze fell at once on his prince. “I thought I might have to ride south to find you.”
“What’s happened?” Vlad snapped. But he knew. He must have known, because Turcul had been in command of the troops at the Moldavian border.
Turcul drew in his breath. One of the few admitted into the inner sanctum of the prince’s friends, he knew the blow he was about to deal. Ilona could see it in his eyes.
“Prince Stephen has attacked Chillia. With Ottoman help.”
***
He’d been expecting it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have divided his forces as he had and left Turcul to watch his back. Stephen had allied with Poland, accepted Ottoman suzerainty, and was therefore the enemy of Vlad’s new friend, Hungary. Worse, Matthias was sheltering and supporting the unspeakable Petru Aaron, who had slain Stephen’s father. Such politics made it difficult for the cousins to remain allies.
But they had remained friends. Stephen had been to Tîrgovişte in May, to discuss their differences, including the strategically valuable fortress of Chillia, held for Vlad by a Hungarian garrison that was Matthias’s only contribution so far to the fight.
Once, during the formal banquet, she had found the Prince of Moldavia watching her with a strange expression on his handsome face.
Stephen had changed from the open, friendly youth she remembered. He had lost his hero worship of his cousin and learned a little wisdom and a lot of native cynicism of his own. In short, Stephen had matured and learned to stand alone.
He said, “I’m jealous, you know. But I believe I’m glad he has you.” He li
fted his recently refilled glass and took a sizeable swig of the rich, bloodred wine.
“Why?” Ilona asked, because she wanted to know.
Stephen shrugged. “I don’t know.” He drank some more and laid the glass down too precisely for an entirely sober man. “I could see something. Even at Hunedoara. You were like—two halves of the same whole.” He smiled at that, pleased with himself. “No wonder I loved you both. I still do, God help me.”
And yet, when it mattered, he would not stand by that love. He’d chosen Moldavia first, as perhaps a prince should. All she knew was Vlad would not have done so. And now Vlad had to fight his cousin as well as the sultan.
He left at nightfall, taking his exhausted troop after the briefest of rests to march to the relief of Chillia. Ilona stood by his stirrup to bid him farewell, wishing futilely that there had been more time, that she could reach and soothe the storm of emotion behind his blank, determined eyes. When he remembered to turn to her and reach down to take the cup she held, she said, “I’ll be in the castle at Poenari.”
And he managed to smile. After a quick sip, he gave her the cup back and touched her cheek instead with his gloved fingers. He whispered, “I’ll find you there.”
And then he was gone in a cloud of dust and noise.
***
Ilona and her mother left in the morning. Already Vlad’s preparations for repelling the siege were well under way.
“Don’t look,” she urged her mother, but it was too late. Countess Szilágyi’s gaze was riveted on the forest of stakes which had grown around the outside of the town walls. Several men and women worked feverishly, hanging bodies onto the sharpened sticks any way they could. Skeletons, foully rotting corpses, people of all ages and sizes who might simply have been asleep.
“Dear God…”
“They’re dead,” Ilona explained. “They’re dead already. Dead prisoners, the battle dead from both sides, homeless dead. The rest are exhumed skeletons from unconsecrated graves. They’re impaling the bodies to frighten the Ottomans, who’ll believe this is what he does to his own people…”
The countess dragged her eyes away and swallowed. “I don’t know about the Ottomans, but it certainly frightens me. Can you really marry this man?”
Ilona stared. “He’s saving his capital city.”
And, in fact, he did. When the sultan came in sight of Tîrgovişte, he was so appalled by the huge forest of rotting corpses impaled before him that he turned his troops east and headed for home.
By then, the news didn’t make so much impression on Ilona as it should have, for the sultan had already defeated Vlad’s main army under Gales. Against the prince’s orders, Gales had attacked in Vlad’s absence and suffered huge losses. In short, Wallachia had lost most of its army. Vlad, having ensured possession of Chillia, abandoned the fight against Stephen and chased after the sultan instead.
But too late. The sultan hastily invested Radu as Prince of Wallachia, left him a contingent of Ottomans to protect him, and turned his own nose toward home. And there was nothing left for Vlad to do but harry the Ottomans’ miserable departure. They were already dying of hunger, thirst, and plague, but still triumphant, because they’d done what they set out to do—put Radu on the throne.
***
The war hadn’t changed Poenari or the prince’s castle on the Arges river. Here, gazing out over the forest where Vlad had first made love to her, Ilona could put the horrors of war to one side, forget her fears for the future, and daydream of the previous summer when all that had concerned her was her next assignation with Vlad.
While her mother rested in bed, recovering from the arduous journey and the threatening return of the illness which had laid her low a few years earlier, Ilona rode out in the countryside and spent hours at the top of Vlad’s favourite tower, just gazing along the road in the hope of finally seeing him.
In the end, he took her by surprise once more, arriving after dark, unannounced and unexpected as she finished eating in the hall with the two ladies who’d accompanied them from Tîrgovişte.
A blast of cool night air hit them as the door was thrown open, and abruptly their quiet, feminine companionship was invaded by maleness. Vlad and two officers all but fell into the hall, bringing Ilona to her feet in alarm.
“Forgive us,” Vlad said at once. “We’re just exhausted.”
But Ilona was already across the floor to him, and it seemed no restraint in the world could prevent his arm from circling her waist. For an instant, she thought he would simply crush her in his arms and kiss her, but though he pressed his cheek hard against hers, he drew back almost immediately, calling for more food and wine.
Then, seated, he spilled out the latest news. That although Radu was crowned prince, the boyars stayed away from him. He could not form a council, since the only nobles he had were the handful of exiles he’d brought with him.
“What will you do?” Ilona asked.
He shrugged. “Wait it out. The country is exhausted by war. I have few enough soldiers left to fight Radu’s Turks. I could do it, but God knows I don’t want to lose anyone else if it isn’t necessary. When the Hungarians come, I’ll just walk in and Radu will flee.”
Ilona bit her lip. “Will the Hungarians come?”
Vlad nodded once, and finished his wine in one draft. “Apparently the King is finally on the move.” His smile was twisted. “To rescue me.”
Ilona frowned. “Do you know, I wish I’d smacked Matthias when we were children.”
Vlad laughed aloud, and when she glanced at him in wry appreciation, his eyes were much too warm for company. Flushing, she looked away. It struck her that she’d never eaten with him under so little chaperonage.
As if he heard her, though, Vlad said, “Where is your lady mother?”
“Asleep. She hasn’t been well since we came here. Travelling isn’t good for her anymore.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said with civil but genuine concern. His gaze was too intense, lingering on her too long before it flickered across the other women. “I know you have finished your meal, so don’t let us detain you. We are poor company tonight in any case, fit only for sleep.”
One of his officers was asleep already, facedown in his plate. Vlad and the other pulled him out, and he jerked awake, crumbs and grease trickling down his dazed face into his moustache. Vlad gave a lopsided smile and stood.
“I think the feast is over. To bed, men. We’ll eat tomorrow.”
The ladies curtseyed and scuttled away, giggling at the unfortunate soldier, whose friend was already dragging him away to their own quarters. Ilona gave Vlad her hand, smiling. She felt bold yet safe, knowing that tomorrow, at least, they would be together. It added a curiously calm contentment to the excitement of being all but alone with him now in this precious instant.
Perhaps he felt it too, for when he took her hand, he closed his eyes as if imagining a different world, a different setting. Or perhaps just falling asleep…
He said, “It’s madness. I’m so tired I can barely walk, and yet all I can think of is loving you.”
He opened his eyes, gazing into hers like a man drowning. “Come to my bed,” he whispered. “Please.”
She nodded, once, unable to say more, and he smiled, touching his forehead to hers. “I’m covered in travel dirt and fit only for sleep.”
“Is that how you seduce all the girls?”
He kissed her, still smiling. “Of course; but for you, I’ll bathe, tomorrow.”
It seemed neither his tiredness nor his dirt mattered. He led her by the hand to his dark, deserted private chamber. He didn’t light a candle or even undress. Instead, he tumbled with her onto his bed, fully clothed, and fell instantly asleep.
Ilona cradled him in her arms, consumed with love, and watched him until, finally, sleep claimed her too.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Poenari, Wallachia, 1462
When Vlad awoke at dawn, he was naked. Which was curious because he d
istinctly remembered falling asleep in all his clothes, in Ilona’s arms. Smiling, he opened his eyes. She was gone, leaving only a depression in the pillow. Vlad shifted and laid his head where hers had been, inhaling the scent that was uniquely Ilona.
He remembered a sweet dream of wakening in the dark and making sleepy love to her… In the light of his nakedness, he could probably assume it had been no dream. His smile widened as his body stirred all over again.
Sometimes, when he was at his lowest, the prospect of “coming home” to Ilona had been what kept him going. This curious mixture of contentment and excitement that he found only and always in her presence…
His body, his mind, his very spirit needed her healing to enable him to return to the fray. Although he acknowledged the selfishness of that, of letting her stay here when his life and his position were so uncertain, he still could not forego this time with her—not least because it seemed Ilona needed it too.
Turning onto his back and stretching, Vlad Dracula thanked God for the woman who was still not his wife. Then he rose and shouted for a servant and some bathwater.
After he’d bathed and dressed, when he went down to the hall, it was empty, although someone had been there before him. The loaf had been neatly cut, and the jug of water was half-empty. Vlad tore what was left of the bread in half and wandered restlessly about the hall while he ate it. He wanted to relax, to let his mind go blank and think only of Ilona, but his thoughts were wayward, still relentlessly going over what had passed and planning for what was to come.
He knew her footsteps before he turned and saw her. She was beautiful in the morning sunlight, a faint flush rising through her pale skin, which seemed to be stretched taut over the fine, delicate bones of her face. Her thick auburn hair was tied loosely behind her head for convenience, her gown clean and pretty, but plain enough to be scorned by the ladies of his court. If he still had a court.
Her murmured good-morning sounded husky, as if she was having trouble dealing with his presence. That would have bothered him if he hadn’t read the gladness in her eyes.
A Prince to be Feared: The love story of Vlad Dracula Page 27