His prince didn’t say anything now. Just watched the man till the light left him. Then he stood, murmured, “A pity. I had something better planned to reward his…loyalty.”
Behind her dying husband’s chair, the Lady Udriste suddenly knew what it was her father’s ghost had been trying to tell her. With a screech, she leapt forward, hands plucking at the arrows that fixed her husband to the chair, that would not shift. Gregor stepped forward, grabbed, lifted. Kicking, the lady was dragged from the hall, her screams finally cut off by his hand placed over her mouth.
“And what do you have planned for me, Devil’s son?”
Vlad looked at Albu cel Mare, the huge man staring defiantly at him. Took time before he replied. “Something worthy.”
“Would you dare to fight me, Vlad Dracula? Here, now, with knives.” He reached slowly towards the dagger at his waist. All heard the bow-strings tauten, until Vlad’s raised hand halted them. It stayed up even when Albu drew his blade.
“Dare?” echoed Vlad. “I might dare. But what purpose would it serve if I killed you that way?”
“It would prove you a man.”
“Oh, I think everyone knows I am that.” Vlad shook his head. “But it would give you both a chance and an honorable death. When your treason deserves neither.”
Before Albu could reply, Ion stepped in, brought the pommel of his own dagger smashing down upon the fat wrist. The boyar’s weapon fell to the floor.
“So kill me then,” howled the boyar. “Chop off my head, why don’t you? It was the death I gave your father, the Dragon,” he jeered. “And he was twice the man that you will ever be.”
“A head for a head,” Vlad replied, “and so I am revenged?” He nodded as he came slowly forward, paused. “Yet…again, it is too honorable, too swift. Besides, vengeance means nothing if it is only for its own sake. Vengeance must say something to the world.” He looked up, from Albu’s pain-riven face and around the hall, at the other faces averted from him. “I cannot make you love me,” he said. “Men and women love as they please. But they will fear as their prince pleases. And if they fear enough, they will not dare to betray me.” He turned, to the main entrance, to four of his men standing there. “Bring her,” he said to them. “Bring it all.”
Everyone heard it, the strange sound in a hall full of men and women, the steady strike of iron on stone, the snort revealing what it was before the horse was led down into the room. “This is Kalafat,” Vlad said, crossing to her, taking the bridle. “I have ridden her since my days amongst the Turks. She can be as fleet as the wind and fight like the Devil’s child who rides her.” He reached up and scratched between her eyes. “Yet she can also be gentle and move slowly to my bidding.”
More men were coming down the stairs, bearing rope, pulleys, wood. Others used halberds to herd the crowd back to one end of the hall, while more cleared its center, pushing aside the table, chairs, coffin, leaving Ion with Albu, Vlad with Kalafat, watching his men proceed with what he had taught them, binding ropes to wood and saddle. When all was ready, he turned to the man Ion held. “Will you forgive us, Albu cel Mare, if we are a little clumsy? I only saw this done the once.”
And Vlad laughed.
Above, unable to move eye or fingers from the grille despite the agony that was building inside her, Ilona marvelled. Her prince did not laugh. Not like that. Her prince did not stand there while Ion took his knife and slit a man’s clothes, ripping them from his huge body. Her prince did not kneel between the naked legs of the man—legs that were fat, blue-tinged and mottled—whom his guards had thrown face down.
She could see the dagger descend, could not see through him. But she could hear the terrible scream that grew louder, more terrible, as other men lowered a blunted stake, bent over the huge naked body while Vlad went to his horse’s head, whispered in her soft ear. As Kalafat began to move slowly forward, she did manage to close her eyes; but she could not close her ears—to the weeping of men and women, to the deep bellowing of Albu cel Mare that rose, suddenly, to a high-pitched shriek.
“My lady!” It was Elisabeta’s voice coming through the sound, horror in it. But her lady-in-waiting was not seeing the blood below, but the blood pooling at the base of Ilona’s chair. And then hands were on her, trying to lift her, and she opened her eyes again, saw hands lifting wood below, other hands pulling on ropes. She heard her prince say, “This is the most difficult part,” as Albu cel Mare rose up, slipped down, his flailing feet caught, held, nailed down…and then she fell, slipping through her maid’s hands, hoping for oblivion, though it did not come straight away. Not before she heard that voice again, clear, calm, cutting through the screams.
In the hall, Vlad unstrapped the ropes from Kalafat’s saddle. “Do you have it now, Ion?”
“I think so, Prince.”
“Then I will leave you to it. His wife and son will not need a horse. Anyway, for speed’s sake, we must learn to use only men. Place them on either side of the Great One. Since he still seems to be living—a rare fortune on my first attempt!—he can watch them die.”
Vlad mounted, turned Kalafat’s head, looked back to the crowd, most now weeping on the floor; then past them and the man on the stake, to the man on the cross. Suffering Jesus.
“Christ is risen,” he cried, tapping his heels into Kalafat’s flanks, riding from the Great Hall.
– TWENTY-SIX –
Penance
The dirge filled the room, as heavy to the ears as the incense was to the nostrils. Both came from the priest who stood over the bed, swinging the heavy censer, chanting the song of death.
He wore gray robes, a contrast to Ilona’s white shift, the fourth she had worn and the only one she had not stained because, finally, her bleeding had ceased. Too late, her women thought, and summoned the priest. While they’d waited for him, they’d tied her hair back from a face whiter than her garment, clasped the limp hands around a sprig of rosemary and a length of beads.
Now the man sang and swung. Two of the maids wept, though not Elisabeta, the boyar’s daughter.
There was a pounding, then boots upon the stair. The door crashed open. The women rose from their knees, huddled, shrieking, at the black-clad, blood-spattered man heaving breaths in the doorway. Vlad gave a cry and staggered across the room, elbowing the priest aside, seizing Ilona’s hands, crushing rosemary, rosary and all.
“Ilona,” he murmured, laying his head upon her chest. Then, after a moment, his head shot up. “She lives,” he cried.
Elisabeta stepped forward. “She does, Prince, she—”
“Then what pickings does this crow seek here?” Vlad turned to glare at the priest.
“I was summoned and so I came,” the man replied quietly. “And though I am no physician, I have seen many cross between life and death. This woman hovers at the border and I prepare her for her passage.”
“If you are no physician, then I will not take your word that she is ready to go over yet.” Vlad looked at the women. “Has one attended?”
“My prince, he came an hour since and left. He did what little he could do.”
“Which I am sure was nothing.” Vlad looked past them, to Black Ilie standing in the doorway. “There is a wise woman who lives around the corner in Strada Scaloian. Her name is Marca. Bring her.”
The big man bowed, left.
The priest gasped. “You summon a witch? When I stand here with God’s words flowing through me?”
“She is of the Roma people and tells fortunes, yes. That is how I know her. And she heals with herbs and prayer. If that is witchery then I will have it here.” He rose, stepped so close to the priest that their noses almost touched. They were of a height, perhaps of an age, too, though the priest’s thick beard made him look older. “And I tell you, I will make a compact with Satan himself if he helps my Ilona live. So you had best go.”
But the priest did not move. Instead, he said, quietly, “No, Prince. I had best stay. Someone must remain to defend this child�
�s soul from the Devil’s son.”
Elisabeta gasped. Stoica and Gregor stepped closer, the quicker to respond to their prince’s certain order to punish this defiance. But Vlad gave no signal, just continued staring, finally spoke. “Do you know what I have done this night?”
“I have heard. And I can see. Blood is still on your face.”
Vlad reached up, rubbed, studied the brown-red flakes on his fingertips. “Albu cel Mare’s.” He looked at the man before him. “I could order his fate for you.”
“I know you could command it, Prince. I think that you would not.”
“Would not dare?”
“No. But Dracula kills when he needs to. To demonstrate his strength. There is no necessity to kill me. No strength would be proven.”
Vlad leaned back, the better to study. “You think you know me.”
“A little. I have watched you. I marched in your army last year, when the comet was in the sky.”
“A soldier and a priest?”
“Just a priest now.” The man closed his eyes. “What I saw on that campaign made me one.”
“Lightning on the road to Damascus?”
“No, Prince,” replied the man softly. “Just too much blood.”
Vlad stared a moment. “What is your name?”
The man hesitated. “I am now called…Brother Vasilie.”
Below, the street door opened. There was creaking on the stairs. “You interest me,” Vlad said, turning away. “Stay.”
Ilie pushed an old woman into the room. Her dress was a dazzle of overlapping cloths in different hues, and her headscarf, woven through with silver thread, glittered with tiny mirrors. A wealthy one then, rewarded for her skills of prophecy, the reading of fate. And for other skills, the ones she was summoned to practice now. She was followed by a girl, similarly but less richly dressed. Both bobbed a curtsy to Vlad, crossed themselves when they saw the priest, before the elder moved stiffly over to the bed. There she lifted Ilona’s eyelids, put a hand to head and heart, bent close to sniff her breath. Then she turned to the maids, babbled a question in her own tongue. The youngest, darkest one there obviously had some Roma blood. She answered, pointed, and the woman rose, went to a pail in the corner of the room, lifted its lid, studied what was inside. Replacing the lid, she said something to the young girl, who nodded and ran down the stairs.
Vlad blanched, pointed. “What…” One of the maids began to sob. “What? Tell me!” Roaring, he crossed the room, seizing Elisabeta by the arm.
She cried out as his fingers dug into her. “Prince! It is…was your child.”
Vlad released her, sagged as if struck. Brother Vasilie passed him, bending swiftly to lift the pail. “I will take this. That gypsy has seen it. All know that the Roma use the fat of unborn babies in their hellish potions. I will—”
Vlad reached out, held him. “Let me see,” he whispered.
“Prince…”
Vlad looked at him. “I will see what Ilona and I have made. What God has taken from us.” He nodded. “Open it.”
With a sigh, Vasilie did. Both men stared. After a long moment, Vlad nodded. “A son,” he said. “With the black hair of the Draculesti.” He glanced across to the prone figure on the bed. “I told her that this time I would have a son.”
“This time?” The priest slid the lid back onto the pail. “You have committed this sin before?”
Vlad looked back. “Sin?”
“You have other children?”
Vlad, his eyes glazed, nodded. “Two daughters. That is all that I know.”
“And you were not married to their mothers? Nor to this woman?”
“You know that I am not.”
“Sins.”
All waited for the storm to lash upon the priest’s head. It did not come. “You think that this is the punishment for my sins? When so many sin thus daily, yet gather their bastards around their knees?”
Vasilie shook his head. “I cannot claim to understand the will of God. Whom he chooses to punish and why. But perhaps a prince is held to a higher standard.”
“Sins,” murmured Vlad, looking again at Ilona. Then he raised his eyes again to the priest. “And if I were to atone for my sins? Would God spare this woman’s life?”
“You do not bargain with God.”
“Really?” Vlad shook his head. “I think we do exactly that each time we pray. We say, ‘I will give up this, Lord, if only you will give me that.’”
“Prayer is only a part of it all. You must confess, do penance—”
“Confess?” Vlad interrupted, stepping forward. “Yes. I have not had a confessor for years. So I appoint you my confessor.”
The priest stepped back, shock clear on his face. “Prince, no. I am not…equipped. I am new, inexperienced. I have my parish…”
“And you may remain there. You just have a new parishioner.”
“But…” The priest shrugged helplessly. “Why me?”
“You are a former soldier. You have lived a man’s life. You will understand a man’s sins. Besides…no one has spoken to me as you just did since I was a student at the enderun kolej.”
“I cannot…”
Below, the door opened again. Footsteps sounded. Vlad’s face drained of color, of light. Darkness returned as he looked at the bed. “Enough,” he said. “It is decided. I will confess to you and I will atone for this sin. And even if God is not to be bargained with I swear this to Him—and he knows how I keep my oaths—if he lets my Ilona live, I will have no more children out of wedlock.”
The girl came in, bearing a small pail. Steam issued from beneath its lid. The older Roma took it from her, went straight to the bed, sat. Lifting Ilona’s head onto her lap, she raised the pail to her bloodless lips, mumbling the while. Most of the liquid spilled. But Ilona gagged, swallowed.
Vasilie sighed. There was nothing more he could do. “Let us pray,” he said, “for a prince’s word, given to God. And for the life of this poor woman, in His hands.”
All there knelt, except for the priest, who set down the other pail behind him and picked up his censer again. Swinging it, jerking the chain to a sudden halt to force out the sweet-smelling smoke, he began to intone, the others responding. Somewhere close, a church bell tolled the six.
They were still kneeling, still praying, when seven bells began to strike. But only three had sounded when a groan came from the bed. In a moment Vlad was up, across, kneeling again, taking the deathly white hands. “My love?” he said softly. “Come back to me.”
Her eyes fluttered open. “My prince,” she sighed. He saw light in them before they closed again.
Vlad stared at her for some time, then turned to the old gypsy still cradling Ilona’s head. “Will she live?”
A shrug. “If you will it so, Prince.”
The priest stepped closer. “She is in God’s hands.”
“And in mine,” said Vlad, clasping tighter.
– TWENTY-SEVEN –
The First Confession
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.”
“Prince, rise up!”
“No. Upon my knees—here, now. This first time at least. I cannot guarantee we shall always have this luxury—a quiet chapel, a carpet to kneel upon. But now, this first time…”
“Then I will kneel, too. So we can pray together.”
The two men faced each other at the doorway of the altar screen. The church was empty now, the congregation had come, chanted, partaken of the host and the mystery, departed refreshed, renewed in faith and hope. Vlad had not tasted the holy wafer, the holy wine. It had been too long since his last confession. And there were sins to discuss first.
Upon the walls, frescoed saints gazed down in various stages of beatification or martyrdom. Behind the priest and the screen, above the altar, Christ hung on the cross, agony rendered in color and sculpted in plaster upon his face. Before him, incense smoke rose in a steady plume. Beside the censer stood a gold communion cup that Vlad h
ad presented to the church only that morning.
“Prince,” said the priest, “before you begin I must ask you again—is it me you want? Surely the Voivode requires no one less than the head of the church in Wallachia, the Metropolitan, to be his confessor? Someone who understands high matters of state, the context of your supposed sins? I am but a simple man…”
“Who was once a soldier?”
“Yes.”
“A sinner?”
“All men are born sinners.”
“But you are one who has killed?”
“May God forgive me, I have.”
“Loved a woman?”
“Yes. I have committed most of the common sins. And some uncommon ones.” He coughed. “I hunted with hawks.”
“You think that a sin?”
“It is when you do it obsessively. When you give up everything to find the right bird.”
“Then we are more alike than ever. And we are of an age, are we not?”
“Close, I think. But—”
“I do not need an old man who has forgotten a young man’s urges and ambitions. Who thinks mostly of eternity. I need one who lives now. And as for the context of my sins, it is simple.” Vlad leaned forward. “I must rule.”
“You do.”
“No. I sit on the throne. It is placed at the center of the most lawless land in the world. And I have been placed upon it to change that. That is my kismet.”
“I do not know that word.”
“It is a word of the Turks. It poorly translates as ‘unalterable destiny.’ Given by God at birth.” He closed his eyes. “There is a saying of Mohammed, one of the haditha, ‘Every man’s fate we have tied upon his own neck.’”
“Are you saying you cannot help what you do?”
“Yes.”
“That is not the teaching of our Church, of your faith. Each man has a choice, to work good or evil.”
Vlad Page 19