The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar's Tale

by Reggie Oliver

  After a moment’s thought I decided to brace myself against one of the brick pillars and thrust with my feet against the metal doors. They grated against the stone lintel at the first thrust and opened a fraction. I saw a column of dazzling moonlight ahead of me and drank in a mouthful of cold air. One more thrust with my feet and the doors were open just as a further deluge of tiles and plaster began to rain down on me.

  I scrambled out feet first onto the floor of a narrow vaulted passageway lit by high glassless lights. It was perilously cold, but the relief warmed me. To my left was a staircase going downwards, to my right and some distance away, one which led upwards. I looked for a moment on these two alternatives with an absurd and exquisite light-heartedness, much as a man might look at a roast capon or a sucking pig wondering which to taste first. But the matter was decided for me.

  I heard voices coming from my left. Presently I heard the flickering light of a torch ascending the stairs. Who were they? What would they say if they found me here? Was this too a forbidden part of the castle? One of the voices belonged to a woman. I decided it would be wise not to meet them.

  I turned and ran along the passage then went lightly up the stairs on my toes. Would they hear me? Would they see the open door of the hypocaust?

  The staircase turned and reached a little landing with a door in the wall. I could hear the voices coming up the stairs behind me. I turned the handle of the door, which opened towards me, and passed through, then I shut it behind me and found myself once again in darkness.

  Moving forwards, my way was almost immediately blocked by a dusty piece of material which I took to be an arras. I worked my way along it until it came to an end, but I was still in darkness. The musty decayed smell was familiar and I realized I must be back in one of the Old Queen’s rooms. The voices were now outside the hidden door. I had to get out of the room.

  Moving forward quickly I ran into something, a great bed. I was in the bedroom of the Old Queen again. I heard the door behind the arras open. I dived under the bed, nearly choking on the dust there as I did so just as the voices entered the room, a man and a woman.

  “Then why was that metal door open?” said the man.

  “How should I know?” replied the woman. “The wind, I suppose.”

  “How could the wind do it?”

  “I tell you, no-one knows of this place. The only way in is through the Royal Apartments.”

  “There is a secret entrance.”

  “That has never been discovered. We are safe. Besides, the Old Queen keeps them away.”

  “That man Alexander of Glem knows more than he pretends.”

  “Or perhaps he pretends to know more than he pretends.”

  “Do not hold the candle so far from your face.”

  “I am getting older. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “Do you think that matters to me?”

  “So I am getting older.”

  “I saw Prince Vlad on the wayside with that schoolmaster as we came in. Our eyes met. I might have been looking into a mirror. I did not know. Is he...?”

  “Yes. I thought you had guessed.”

  “You never told me.”

  “You were away so often. Yes, he is ours.”

  Now I knew the voices. It was Ragul and the Queen. I heard the rustle of a silken dress as it slid to the floor.

  “You still have the shape of a girl,” said Ragul.

  “I’m like a withered apple. There is no juice left in me. I am frail. Be gentle.” More clothes fell. A shoe was kicked into my mouth.

  “Does Xantho know? Slowly, my dearest.”

  “About Vlad? About us? No. But he hates Vlad all the same. He sees something in him that is not his.”

  “Does he hate me? Let me lift you.”

  “He is jealous. He hates you winning his battles and being right about the Turks.”

  “But I will never succeed to the throne.”

  “Perhaps your son will.”

  “Don’t dream, woman. Mircea is odiously healthy.”

  “No. Delay no longer. Come to me now.”

  And so there began much sighing and heaving. I prayed the bed would not break. I tried to slither out of the way but found myself making too much noise. I hit my head against a chamber pot. The sound was like a tolling of a great bell to me. But their passion was not interrupted. I felt a terrible shame at my ignominious position, and at the same time a great longing for the comfort of a woman of my own.

  Presently their sighings and endearments died down and they began talking again, much to my relief.

  “What would Xantho do if he were to find out?” said Ragul.

  “He would kill you.”

  “And you?”

  “And me... Eventually.”

  “He must agree to this arrangement with Bohemia.”

  “He will agree. But the gold will not go towards paying the troops.”

  “Then he will be defenceless against the Ottoman and incur the hostility of Bohemia.”

  “My husband’s idea of being clever is to be cunning.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Refuse to lead the armies unless money is provided. Insist that Mircea goes to the wars with you.” There was a long pause.

  “Do you want him to die?”

  “No! I am not as unnatural as that! Mircea will be safe. He is a coward. He’s a big lad, but he’ll shrink from a rat in a barn unless he has a terrier with him. Did you really think I wanted him killed?”

  “No. No. My dearest, forgive me—”

  The forgiveness took some time during which I fell asleep. I was awakened by a shriek. It was the Queen.

  “What is it, sweetheart?” asked Ragul.

  “Didn’t you hear it? Oh, my God, it was her. Listen.”

  We held our breath and listened.

  “What did you think you heard?”

  “I did hear it. I did. It was the Old Queen. Breathing.”

  “Nonsense, my love.”

  “It was almost as if she was snoring. A terrible sound.”

  “Where did the noise come from?”

  “That was the horror of it. It seemed to come from inside the bed.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t me?”

  “No. No. Yours is a man’s snore. And it was muffled as if it came from under the bed.”

  “It could be a rat.”

  “No, it was no rat. It was a person. The Old Queen is still here. I can feel it.”

  “I’ll look under the bed for you.”

  “No. No. It was her. I know what she was saying. I’m as bad as her, that is what she was saying. Committing a sin with my own stepson. Living for the moments when he returns. Oh, the shame of it! I feel so foul and dirty.”

  “Then in God’s name have this place cleaned.”

  “And betray its secret to a servant? Where is your sense? We must never use this bed again. I have been degraded.”

  “You wanted it.”

  “I am not blaming you, but, oh, the horror of it! If only I could go down on my knees and thank the Old Queen for saving me from myself. We should have ended it years ago. No, no. Say nothing. Let us go quickly. We must never meet again.”

  “But—”

  “Quickly. Let us go. Say you forgive me.”

  “Damnation and Hell, I ...”

  “Sssh! We must leave. Goodbye. Pray for me. Will you take the candlestick? Help me with my dress. Mind that table. Watch the candles in case they blow out on the landing.” Then they were gone.

  It was some minutes before I emerged from my hiding place. I felt the warmth of the bed. No, I had not been dreaming. I blushed in the darkness at my absurdity. Then I began to grope my way back through the anterooms, down the stairs and into the library. Nothing would have induced me to return to the bathhouse to retrieve my candlestick.

  I had no idea how long I had been away, but I noticed the first cold lights of dawn at the windows of the library when I returned. I twisted the hand and head on the carve
d fireplace. The wall slid back. It was as if there had never been an opening. I felt safe at last, and suddenly a great exhaustion overwhelmed me. I sank back into a chair closing my eyes as I did so.

  “What have you been doing?” said a voice. I started up violently.

  Standing before me was Alexander of Glem.

  XIV

  “Where have you been?” he asked.

  I mumbled something incomprehensible.

  “Your gown is covered in dust. There is blood and dirt on your face. What has happened? What have you found out?” He fidgeted with excitement and his eyes glittered; the little smile came and went.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Don’t ask me questions. How dare you! I am here to ask you. And you will answer. Be warned, I can make life very terrible for you.”

  I blinked at him, still too exhausted to be afraid.

  “I know you found your way into the Old Queen’s apartments,” he said. “I saw you returning. I want to know what you saw there.”

  “I saw what you must have seen when you went there.”

  Alexander crashed his fist down on a table and thrust his face into mine. “Don’t bandy words with me, you young animal! Tell me what you found!”

  “Dust and cobwebs.”

  “Why were you there so long?”

  “I fell asleep.”

  “Do you take me for a fool, doctor?”

  “As you noticed I had no candle when I returned. The fact is, I dropped it and it was lost in the dark. I was so exhausted by the search that I crawled onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep. Then I woke and made my way back. It sounds foolish, but that is the truth of it.”

  “You saw and heard nothing?”

  “What should I see and hear? The ghost of the Old Queen?” He scrutinized me closely. I could see he disbelieved me but was not certain enough of his disbelief to challenge me openly.

  “You must never enter those rooms again.”

  “I have no desire to,” I replied with conviction.

  “And you must never reveal how you entered them.”

  “I have no reason to.”

  I could see that he felt thwarted. He had not been able to terrorize me. He smiled and patted my shoulder. “This shall be our secret eh?” I nodded.

  I suspect that had I not been discovered by Alexander, I would never have thought of returning to the Old Queen’s apartments but the man’s odious behaviour towards me, by turns wheedling and imperious, determined me to defy him. Besides, forbidden knowledge is like strong wine: after a while you long for more.

  From that moment I also knew that Alexander was wary towards me. Unquestionably, like all lovers of power, he was jealous of his secret knowledge and angry that it should be shared; in addition, he was tormented with uncertainty about how much I knew and by the possibility of my knowing more than he. That he looked on me as an enemy in consequence was made clear to me sooner than I expected.

  One day I was standing with him at King Xantho’s noonday audience when an old peasant man came in and bowed low. He had a white beard and a dignified manner, evidently the headman of his village. In his bony hands he held an embroidered cap which he knotted into a hundred shapes. The King asked him what the trouble was.

  “Your Majesty,” said the old man. “I am from the village of Stroesti in the valley and we have been suffering from the depredations of a murony.”

  A murony, I should say, is a most frightful creature, half way between a vampire and a werewolf. It may change its shape into any beast it cares to, excepting the dove or any kind of fish. The old man continued.

  “There was a certain farmer in the village by the name of Pojok. He was a most terrible blasphemer and feared neither God nor man. In the prime of life he decided to marry and chose for himself a very pious girl in the village. The mother of this girl, a most holy and devout woman, objected strongly but her daughter was of age and she married him, doubtless thinking to reform the villain, but it was not to be. His violence towards her grew so that she fled in terror to her mother who had become a hermit in a little hovel above the village. Enraged, Pojok came and dragged his wife back. He beat her senseless and threw her in the mill race.

  “When we discovered the wretched girl’s corpse we went in a company to Pojok’s farm, seized him, tried him after the manner of our village and then hanged him from a tree on his own land. As the rope was being put round his neck he swore with a great oath that he would have vengeance on us all, but we took no account of this at the time.

  “Three days after the hanging the corpse was taken down from the tree and buried in an unmarked site. It was noted at the time that though the body had hung for three days together outside in the heat of summer yet it had suffered no decay and no odour came from it. But this curious fact was also ignored.

  “Pojok’s land was divided amongst the villagers, there being no relatives or heirs to inherit, and for some months all went on as normal. The harvest came and those who reaped in Pojok’s field found their efforts unrewarded. A plague of slugs and other insects tainted the crops.

  “One evening a harvester in one of Pojok’s fields was going home from his work, when he suddenly remembered that he had left his sickle behind. He returned there and saw in the middle of the field what he took to be a large boulder that had not been there before, grey with a smooth humped back. Suddenly it began to move, and the harvester saw that it was not a boulder but a man on all fours, crouched like a cat. The peasant went towards the man thinking he was wounded or sick and needed some help as the crouching figure moaned and made strange sweeping movements with his arms along the ground. Then it looked up and the peasant saw with horror the round, white face of Pojok, the lips liquid and dark red, the eyes glowing like coals in a bread oven.

  “The peasant stood transfixed as Pojok laid his face to the ground, opened his mouth and began to cram his face with what he gathered by the sweep of his arms. At first, Your Majesty, the peasant thought that it was the earth he was eating, but then he saw that the stuff writhed and glittered even in his bloated mouth. Pojok was gathering to himself all the slugs and insects of those fields to gorge himself. Indeed they were probably returning by means of some diabolical attraction to the source from which they had come.”

  There was a deep silence in the audience chamber. The old man had stopped twisting his cap for he saw that he had the attention of the whole court.

  “At first we thought that the man who told this story had been drunk, but the next day we heard a terrible thing. Pojok had entered another peasant’s house, your Majesty, he had thrown furniture about and attacked the woman of the house who was left half dead from the encounter. There were teeth marks on her left breast and indications that blood had been sucked out of her. At once we resolved to find his grave, dig him up and destroy the corpse by fire. But we encountered a difficulty; for, to dishonour Pojok, we had buried him in an unmarked grave, the exact location of which no-one could properly recollect.

  “The priest of our village, Father Athanasius, proposed that he should at midnight pronounce the service of exorcism on Pojok in the open space in front of the church of St Michael. Many said that this would have no effect, but the good Father is a most pious and holy man, so we believed that he could dispel the spirit of Pojok.

  “All night we prayed and rang bells and swung incense. Father Athanasius pronounced the exorcism with great fervour impressing all who were there. Just before dawn, as the ceremony was about to finish, I looked up to the brow of the hill which overlooks the village. Upon it, and sharply drawn in black against the greying edges of the sky, was a man. He held his sides and rocked backwards and forwards with a convulsive motion. It seemed to me that he was laughing. Then he was gone. I could not tell who it was, but others with me swore that it was Pojok.

  “Our worst fears were confirmed when, just as we were dispersing, an old woman was seen staggering down the hillside. It was Pojok’s former mother-in-law who
had vowed to undertake an all-night vigil of prayer in her hermitage to help the exorcism of the murony. She babbled something about having been assaulted by Pojok in the night, but this courageous woman exhibited not so much signs of fear as of great anger that she had been violated by her dead relation. Your Majesty, to this day the attacks continue upon the mother-in-law and upon others in the village who offended Pojok in his lifetime. Yet no-one has caught him or found his grave, and by his supernatural strength he overcomes all assailants. We come to you, Great King, as the fount of all wisdom, the source of all strength, to deliver us from this terrible curse.”

  When he had finished the old man stood there, looking up at the King expectantly, like a dog waiting for a bone. Xantho gnawed his lip, seeming much perplexed. Twice he opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. Alexander who was standing by him muttered in his ear. Xantho nodded and Alexander spoke.

  “His Majesty is most distressed by the plight of your village and it is certain that he will deliver you from this curse. There is in this court, by order of the King, a man whose learning in all things, he assures us, is so great that he is renowned throughout the world as Doctor Polymathus.”

  The blood rushed to my head; the next minute I felt as cold as ice. The head peasant looked puzzled. Alexander continued inexorably: “that means Doctor of All Learning. Lead him to your village and he will deliver you from this curse. If he does not, then assuredly he is no Doctor Polymathus and all that we have heard of him is untrue.”

  Alexander turned to me with that bland smile on his face and a look of pure malice in his eyes. I felt the rest of the court staring at me too. I looked towards Xantho, and he was studying me as well with a quizzical, half guilty look on his face. He gave me an almost imperceptible nod: I was expected to say something.

  “Your Majesty,” I said, “His Excellency Alexander of Glem has done me too much honour. I am sure that his own knowledge in these matters is the equal of mine. Nevertheless I shall be happy to undertake this task, but to accomplish it successfully I shall require two associates, my companions Razendoringer and Matthew Verney.” I speculated that if our endeavour failed we could escape together, but Alexander anticipated this.