Bathory's Secret: When All The Time In The World Is Not Enough (Affliction Vampires Book 1)

by Romina Nicolaides

  “What’s the Countess like?” She seemed more enthusiastic with this question.

  “I haven’t really spent that much time with her to be honest,” answered Kati, knowing that it wasn’t a good idea to tell the girl that she was afraid and quite uncomfortable here. It’s probably going to be different for her anyway, she’s of high birth.

  “My parents sent me here to be educated by her, but I didn’t really want to come,” she was looking at the floor now and dangling her feet from the bed.

  Even though there was only four years’ difference between the two of them, Kati didn’t fail to see the frightened child within this elegantly dressed and coiffed girl. Her skin was rosy pink and her hair was a dark blond common to girls in this area. Her eyes, like her hair, were honey in color and warm and inviting. Her features were elegant and though her mouth was small and unremarkable, when she smiled it lit up her entire face. Kati sat on the bed next to her, though she knew it was a breach of protocol. The other girls didn’t fail to notice and commented about it amongst themselves.

  “You’ll get used to it, you’ll see. All these girls will become your friends and you’ll have so much fun learning new things about becoming ladies that you won’t even think of home. I promise.”

  “I don’t want to become a lady!” She was pouting now.

  “Don’t say that. You’re very fortunate to be receiving this education and advancing in the world. I wish I could learn what you'll be learning. I can’t even read, while I bet you have so many books with stories and poems that you couldn’t possibly live without.”

  Oriana looked at her with a look of absolute wonder.

  “You can’t read at all?”

  “Not a word,” said Kati shaking her head from side to side.

  “That’s terrible! Maybe you could come to lessons too!”

  Her innocence made Kati smile. For a noble child this girl seemed to have none of the arrogance her new classmates were exhibiting, which was typical of the rich.

  “I can’t due to my rank, just as I shouldn’t really be sitting on this bed and treating you like my equal, please forgive me." She stood up and curtsied to Oriana and the other girls.

  At that moment there was a knock on the door and someone simply said the word, “food” before leaving. Opening the door Kati was greeted by a large trolley filled with tea, spice cake and other delicacies which she wheeled inside the barn. Serving them all what they requested she left them to rest informing them that she would be back shortly to take them to evening classes and returned to her binding duties. When the time came, Kati returned to the barn and escorted the girls to the Library like she had been instructed to and left them to the Countess’s able hands. Oriana was the last to enter the room so just before closing the door Kati leaned down and whispered into her ear, “It’s all going to be fine, you’ll see.”

  Oriana smiled and entered the room a little happier than she had been on the way. Closing the large library doors Kati couldn’t help but admire the sumptuous room fitted with large mahogany bookshelves lined with rows and rows of books she wished she could read. She pictured herself sitting underneath the elaborate tapestries that hung from the wall reading a book while being comforted by the warmth of the fireplace and the seasoned smell.

  At the end of the class she escorted the girls to their dormitory while the Countess gave Kati express orders to continue binding into the night without fail. She could sleep in the morning but the binding must continue. Sleeping was to be restricted for the day. Once again the unusual time schedule made Kati wonder but she didn’t question the Countess, who disappeared to her chambers for the rest of the evening. As she was instructed, Katalina returned to the binding room where she was now on the third book. All her finished work was in the vice setting and she was happy to be making some progress despite the tedious nature of the work. It must have been a couple of hours before dawn when her body won the battle it had been fighting against her fatigue all through the night and she fell asleep on top of a few of the pages she had folded. She was woken by a chilling scream coming from somewhere in the castle which made her sit up immediately. In her sleepy haze she was uncertain if she had really heard it or if it had been her imagination but the goose pimples on her arms told her that something had happened.

  Peering into the corridor from the door of the binding room she saw nothing but some very large blow flies caught in a spiderweb behind one of the family portraits struggling to break free. More horrible flies. The beeswax candles were almost depleted but the flame still flickered a little at the base. By dawn they would be completely gone. Seeing nothing suspicious around her, she returned to her wing of the castle where the tallow candles had long expired. Guided only by the light of the moon she noticed that her bedroom door was ajar and walking inside she hoped to find Miloš waiting for her.

  On the bed, with her knees folded up to her face, Oriana sat crying. Puzzled, Kati quickly lit her bedside candle, approached the girl and sat next to her placing a comforting hand on her back.

  “What’s the matter, Oriana?”

  “I couldn’t sleep; I kept having the same nightmare over and over again, so I came to find you.” Her eyes were red and her nose was running.

  Dipping her face cloth into the bucket of water that was by the now inoperative fireplace Kati wiped the girl’s eyes and nose.

  “What dream did you have?”

  “I dreamed I was never going to see my parents again and started to cry in my sleep.”

  “Of course you’ll see your parents again. Before long, the Countess will be sending you home for Easter, I am sure of it. I’m hoping to be able to see my mother then too."

  Having stopped crying Oriana blew her nose into the dirty face cloth.

  “How did you find my room anyway?” Asked a puzzled Kati.

  “I watched you leave our dorm earlier and saw which part of the castle you came into. When I couldn’t sleep I thought I could come teach you to read but you weren’t here so I fell asleep and then I had the awful dream.”

  Kati looked at the book Oriana had placed on the bedside table, its golden letters twinkling under the flickering flame. It was bright red and beautifully decorated with squiggles and letters and a large cross in the middle.

  “You want to teach me to read?” Kati was very touched by the little girl’s gesture.

  “Yes, I thought about what you said today and realized that everybody should know how to read the words of God.”

  “You are such a clever girl,” said Kati squeezing Oriana into an uncomfortable cuddle. “I would like you to teach me to read very much but the Countess will not like you doing that. We’ll have to be careful and quiet so no more screaming the castle down when we have bad dreams, understood?”

  “But I didn’t scream; I just woke up in your bed crying.”

  Kati’s skin crawled again. “You’re certain you didn’t scream, not even in your sleep?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “And you didn’t hear a scream?”

  “No,” answered the girl.

  Kati realized now that the distance between this part of the castle and where the binding room was, was quite long, and the thick walls would’ve no doubt muffled the sound if it had been Oriana. Did I really hear someone scream or did I dream it?

  She turned to Oriana, “I think it’s time you went back to your own bed, because we’re both very tired and it's affecting us. Take your bible so that no one finds it in here and if the other girls ask, say you were in the chapel praying. Tomorrow we’ll come up with a good time to do this. Alright?”

  “Alright,” confirmed Oriana picking the book up.

  “And Oriana?”

  “Yes?” Asked the girl as she was about to close the door.

  “Thank you.”

  Oriana smiled her beautiful smile and went out into the quickly disappearing night to finally rest.

  Five

  It was mid-morning when Kati woke up. The forced d
aytime sleeping was really confusing her body clock. No matter how late she went to bed she could only ever muster three to four hours of sleeping before waking up and even then it was bad quality sleep. She always felt tired. She sat up in her bed and stretched extensively before getting up and washing her face and underarms in her basin. The soiled washcloth on the floor reminded her of Oriana's offer. I could learn to read, she thought to herself and wondered if she could take up this wonderful opportunity without being discovered by the Countess.

  Looking out her window to the barn she saw that the shutters were closed so the girls were still asleep. If she was going to learn to read, she would have to push herself to make sure that none of her other duties were neglected. Getting dressed quickly, she rushed up the stairs to the west wing eager to get some binding done before having to tend to the girls. Touching her pocket for the key as she constantly did, she was alarmed to find it wasn't there. Her heart started beating very fast and she ran up the stairs and towards the binding room. I can’t believe I’ve lost the key; she's going to kill me!

  She reached the binding room and was relieved to see that the key was in the door where she had forgotten it the night before, and everything inside the room was just as she had left it. The huge wave of relief was felt all over her body as neither the precious key nor the secret journals appeared to be missing or damaged. To her good fortune, no one had seen the key hanging from the lock despite its large iron ring. She took it out of the lock and put it in her pocket. Thinking back to why she hadn’t locked it, she remembered the scream that had led her downstairs. The scream wasn’t Oriana. Did I dream it? She often had frightening dreams when she was under pressure but normally they included people she knew. The man at the vegetable market was a frequent inhabitant of her nightmares, though now he seemed small and insignificant compared to the Countess. Removing the key from her pocket once again she locked the door behind her and got to work.

  At the chapel bells’ afternoon chime she took a break from her page sewing and went downstairs to check on the girls. She would have to get them up, feed them and help them dress which was quite a time-consuming exercise. The shutters were closed so they were still sleeping. At least they were doing better with the nighttime schedule than she was. Miloš had also followed instructions and had delivered the breakfast trolley which smelled of delicious eggs, bread, meats and some kind of fruit. She could feel her tummy protest.

  Gently opening the doors she wheeled the trolley inside and called out to them.

  “Good morning girls, it’s time to get up and get ready for class.”

  She headed for the fireplace and rekindled the almost dead fire. She then proceeded to open all the shutters as the girls slowly came to.

  “It really is incredible how much mess four little girls produce,” Kati said as she collected shed underclothes, bonnets and socks from the floors and bedposts. What she thought was still clean she folded and placed on each girl's trunk and the rest she put aside to wash while they were going to be in lessons.

  It was late afternoon by the time they were all ready and Kati diligently escorted them to the Library. As the others ushered in and found their seats Kati pulled Oriana aside.

  “I’d love for us to start what we talked about yesterday, if we can,” she whispered into the girl’s ear.

  Oriana smiled and nodded frantically, without saying anything else. They all entered the large room and opened their books and began to revise until the Countess arrived. She could come at any moment so they all had to keep busy quietly. Kati cleared the ash in the fireplace and lit a new fire. She wiped down the lacquered tabletop as much as she could considering the girls were sitting around it and left the room as soon the Countess made an appearance. She quickly returned to the barn to finish tidying up after the girls and hastily washed their clothes focusing only on the stained parts. The frequency with which these spoiled girls changed their clothes meant that they weren’t particularly soiled so she could get away with a quick rinse in soapy water.

  Hanging them up to dry, she remembered to place a small bowl of water for her little kitten who had seen her and after a languorous stretch and yawn came happily to greet her. Whatever the girls had left from breakfast, which included some very fine sausages, she cut up in tiny pieces and gave to him after having a sneaky bite herself. The sound of his purring soothed her incredibly as did the fact that he looked much healthier since she had started feeding him.

  “You’re looking very well Mačka,” she said scratching his ear, which he was particularly fond of.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me I have more work to do.”

  Back at the binding room she continued to puncture precise holes in the folds of the journal pages. This part of the binding process was the most time consuming and tedious, followed closely by the sewing of each group of pages to each other to form the basic book shape. Nevertheless it was a job she didn’t mind doing, she found it quite meditative and rewarding when the bunch fattened and began to resemble a book, though a naked one. She truly loved books, despite the fact they were an absolute mystery to her. She had been around them since childhood and had always been told by her uncle that they were very important. She held them in reverence and it pained her to know that she could not decipher their contents.

  The last bell told her it was midnight. Conveniently, the castle’s chapel bells rung four times each day: 6:00 am, 12:00 pm, 6:00 pm and midnight as opposed to the three chimes of other chapels, which neglected the midnight ring. This meant that before long the girls would be done. Because it was spring the sun had set early, around 6:30, meaning they had been in lessons for over five hours, so they would soon come out tired and ready for bed.

  At some time after 1:00 am Kati abandoned her binding and went to the Library to fetch them. The doors were still closed but she could hear the Countess’s authoritative echo from within. She stood around for a few moments but nothing happened so she sat down on the cold stone floor to wait. There were no Turkish rugs here. Her eyelids felt terribly heavy and she battled to stay awake. Shaking her head worked but only for a few moments. Slapping her cheeks did the same for a few moments more. Biting her tongue also worked but for a little longer still.

  ***

  Opening the door of the great Library the Countess ushered the girls outside. On the ground huddled in a little corner was Katalina fast asleep on the ground.

  Furious at this impertinent sight the Countess marched towards her and grabbed her squarely by the roots of her hair. The girl woke instantly and cried out in pain, lifting her body up by Erzsébet’s pull.

  “You dare sleep when you’re meant to be working?”

  “I’m sorry Your Grace, it’s only been a few moments, I swear!”

  The Countess released the girl and simultaneously whacked her in the face with the heavy book she was carrying.

  “Take them to their room immediately and return to your binding the moment you are done!”

  “Yes mistress,” replied Kati cradling her face.

  ***

  After she helped the girls get undressed and into their nightclothes and then their beds, Kati took another bunch of soiled clothes for washing and left the room. She couldn’t look any of them in the eye; she felt very embarrassed at having been found sleeping and being chastised by the Countess. She hadn't even exchanged any words with Oriana.

  Leaving the barn she closed the door behind her, placed the clothes in the basket outside to wash in the morning and returned to her binding. She worked for another hour or two before her weariness was too strong to ignore and wondered whether she should just go to bed or take a walk outside to wake up a bit. It was obviously very important to the Countess that she change her sleeping schedule so she was going to try to teach her body to stay up at night. She decided to go to her room, wash the sleep out of her eyes, and take a walk in the yard. It was really beautiful at this time, the air was crisp and the moon shone.

  When she lit the candle on her
bedside table she was greeted by the sight of Oriana on her bed once again.

  “Oriana, what are you doing here?” She shook the girl awake.

  She opened her eyes and yawned, slowly adjusting to the change. “I came for our lesson,” she said through another yawn.

  “Really? You’re not afraid the Countess will find us?”

  “Did she hurt you earlier?” Her eyes were filled with genuine concern.

  Kati touched her face instinctively and felt pain all across her cheek. Looking in her little mirror she saw that the upper part of her cheek was red and the fine skin under her eye was starting to blacken.

  “Oh my, I hadn’t looked at myself before now.”

  “She’s very mean,” pouted Oriana.

  “I deserved it; I fell asleep when I shouldn’t have.”

  “She didn’t have to beat you for it, though. I’d leave right away if she ever did that to me.”