Mircea stepped into the Hall. He wore a cloak and his face kept erupting into a grin.
“Is she here?” he asked.
“Not yet, Your Highness,” said Dolabella. “Enter the tortoise now and wait for her. You will not have long to wait, I promise you. As soon as my lady enters the tortoise we will raise you up aloft so that she has no means of escaping your advances.”
“I’ll tame her,” said Mircea gleefully, as he stepped into the tortoise.
He had not long to wait, for at a signal a muffled figure of a woman emerged from the shadows and came towards us. Quickly we introduced her into the tortoise and closed the shell. Razendoringer mounted the shell and gave the signal to lift. I started to turn the winch and soon the winged tortoise was swinging upwards through the air. Lit only by the light of a few candles and the ruddy glow of a dying fire this great reptile surmounted by a dwarf looked a most monstrous sight. The eerie impression was enhanced by the fact that from within the tortoise the most violent noises could be heard, shoutings, bangings on the inner wall of the shell, accompanied by a piercing giggle.
“Who is the lady in there?” I asked.
“One of the ladies of the bedchamber,” said Dolabella. “Otrud.” I remembered Otrud, a widow, and one of the most lascivious and dissipated of all that crowd. A hook of a nose and a sharp tongue marred an otherwise pleasing appearance. She had conceived a great but wholly unrequited passion for Mircea whom she would follow about the Castle like a lapdog. Now she was locked into a tortoise shell with him, thirty feet in the air.
Slowly at first but with increasing venom, Razendoringer began to swing the tortoise back and forth. At the end of one of these swings he leapt lightly off the tortoise onto a rope down which he slid onto the stage. We heard further cries and banging, then a silence, then a sort of scuffling. Mircea’s head emerged from under the head of the tortoise.
“What in the name of the devil is happening? Damn you, woman, leave me alone!” Evidently Otrud was making the most of her enforced confinement with him. Razendoringer winched the tortoise up a little higher. It swung perilously. “Stop that!” screamed Mircea. “Let me down at once. By God, I’ll have you all flogged... No, Otrud, no!”
For a few moments his head disappeared into the shell. It emerged again looking rather the worse for wear. “I think I’m going to be sick,” he said. “Let me down, I beg you,” he moaned; then there was a fresh access of anger. “Let me down, curse you, or I’ll have the lot of you strung up from the castle walls!”
“You will be let down, but on certain conditions,” said Dolabella.
“You dare to bargain with me, you lump of deformity! Have you forgotten that I am a prince—?”
“No, Your Highness, and no prince likes to be the laughing stock of his whole nation which is what you will be if we leave you here for the servants to discover you in the morning.”
“Damn you!” said Prince Mircea, but more halfheartedly.
“These are the conditions, Your Highness. First that you learn your lesson and cease to torment my lady Rozelinda. Second that you refrain from punishing anyone of us. Even Otrud.”
At that moment the tortoise began to shudder in a curious way and Mircea’s face became suffused with embarrassed blood. “Do you agree?” Mircea only nodded. “If you fail to comply with these conditions the story of your adventures in the tortoise — which as far as I could see are still continuing — will be known not only throughout the land, but throughout Christendom and beyond, for the learned Doctor here will write an account of it in Latin elegiac couplets and send it to the Pope!”
“I agree,” said Mircea. “Ten thousand thunders, I agree!”
“Very well,” said Dolabella. “We will come to let you down when the castle bell strikes one.”
And when we did it was a very sober and subdued Mircea who emerged from the tortoise, but he did not seem a dejected man. Otrud, on the other hand, though her clothes were torn quite glowed with satisfaction. She put her arm through Mircea’s and walked away with him without a backward glance. Strange to say, Mircea did not reject her arm. From that day forward Otrud became a favourite of his, and though he enjoyed many other women he would always return to her. Perhaps he was afraid of what she might disclose, but I think it was more than that. I think he had discovered that there is sometimes pleasure in being hunted as well as in being the hunter.
With the thawings of early spring came the end of negotiation and the time of celebration. Suddenly into the middle of pain and turmoil, and before the great deluge, came a small respite of joy, as fragile as the thin sunshine of late winter that turns the ice in the ditches into blades of gold. Mircea was happy with his hunting and the companionship of Otrud; Vlad and Rozelinda met frequently, but kept their encounters discreet. I taught little, but studied much and attended rehearsals of my masque, “The Judgement of Aeschylus.” I made many suggestions for improving the performance, none of which were welcomed by Signior Giardini and his singers, but some of which were adopted. Most of the ladies were occupied in making costumes, either for the masque, or the wedding, or the masked ball which was to follow it.
The one thing that seemed to blight this halcyon period was the occasional arrival of Ragul, gaunt and travel-stained from some remote part of the country. Xantho greeted him always with more than customary coolness and dismissed the Queen brusquely whenever he was to have an audience with him. There were rumours of an Ottoman army massing on the borders. Ragul would ask for more money for his troops, more supplies, more men, but he seldom got them. Only when Cantemir was present did Xantho seem forthcoming, but even then he would sometimes rescind his instructions later. To us at the time the Turks were as distant as the moon.
Then came the fateful day: the last of February 1576, as I remember it. In the morning, which was bright and cool, there was a ceremony in the courtyard. Twenty four maidens — or at least twenty four ladies who laid claim to maidenhead — strewed a path with rose petals up to a small platform. There the final treaty with Bohemia was signed and the last consignment of Bohemian gold was ceremoniously handed to Xantho who looked as if he would have liked to bathe himself in the coins. There was a light lunch. Then, in the middle of the afternoon, began the dwarfs’ wedding.
This was a curious spectacle, for though the people who had devised it had intended to make it as comic as possible, its two protagonists, Razendoringer and Dolabella, behaved throughout with such simple dignity that laughter froze on the lips of all but the crudest spectators, of whom it must be said there were a good many. First of all the pair rode round the castle on donkeys, accompanied by children who were richly dressed, some of them sporting false beards, blowing continually on tin trumpets and banging drums. This cacophonous procession entered the castle and wound its way into the Great Hall where a miniature sanctuary had been set up on the stage with diminutive prayer stools and a small altar. Celebrating the nuptial mass, by contrast, was one of the hugest men I have ever seen, a great barrel-chested man almost seven feet in height; Brother Andreas was his name, one of the black monks of Snagov. His acolyte for the ceremony was almost as tall as himself. Someone in the crowd told me that this was a most holy young monk named Brother Ambrosio, but there was something familiar about him that I could not quite identify.
The monks conducted the ceremony with the utmost seriousness, ignoring the jeers and laughter of the coarser spirits in the crowd. Once I saw Ambrosio look up and direct a look of withering scorn at one of them. Again, that odd sense of having seen him before gripped me. After the ceremony was over and the children had blown a fanfare on their tin trumpets, the united couple were carried round the room five times on a palanquin born by cripples and lunatics and directed by a blind man. This resulted in the vehicle being upset several times. But each time the couple smiled tolerantly and mounted again. They were content, no doubt, to endure this indignity for a day because they knew that they had each other’s respect and that folly belonged to the world outs
ide and not to them.
While this was going on Matthew Verney came up to me in the crowd and nudged me. “You know who the young acolyte is, don’t you?” he said.
“Who? I thought I recognized the face, but...”
“Our friend Armida. Queen of brigands.” The moment he said the words, I recognized her at once, as she stood with Brother Andreas in a far corner of the hall. I caught her eye and she smiled quickly before turning away.
It was a fearful shock. How had she become a Black Monk? I am not a superstitious man, but I felt at once that this was an evil omen, and I was right in many ways, as it turned out, for Armida-Ambrosio was to have a most sinister influence on Prince Vladimir’s young life.
Towards evening the young couple retired with the blessing of some and the ribald comments of most ringing in their ears. The bride was accompanied to her chamber by some of the children who spread perfumes and rose petals on the bed and made a great nuisance of themselves, but without malice.
So the two were at last left to themselves while a great banquet began in the Hall. After the banquet there was dancing, and after the dancing, the performance of “The Judgement of Aeschylus”, a Grand Masque in honour of His Serene Majesty Xantho of Transylvania, words by Martin Bellorius, Doctor of Philosophy, music by Master Felice Giardini.
You cannot conceive what a strange experience it is to have one’s work performed on stage. It is thrilling and harrowing: the slightest error in performance is a torture, the smallest unexpected felicity is a joy. And yet, all the while, one feels curiously detached. It is something into which one has put life and soul, but over which one no longer has any power. It must be a little like seeing one’s child grow up.
Onto the stage stepped Prince Vladimir, looking taller than his years, in black velvet. He stood in front of a great cloth of deepest blue velvet embroidered with gold and silver stars. I had induced him to speak the prologue which explained the argument of the piece in his native Transylvanian, because the Latin in which the masque itself was written would be understood by few. He spoke well and seemed quite without nerves. His final lines, ending with— “Thy glories shall be sung for evermore!” provoked a storm of applause.
This was a good start. Then the blue cloth was drawn up and backwards so that it now formed a starry tent-like roof to the scene which was revealed.
The audience gasped as it saw the peak of Olympus and round it, seated on clouds, the ancient Gods themselves. Here was Apollo, tuning his golden stringed lyre, Pallas Athene in a gleaming silver helmet, Mars in scarlet armour, and over them all, Jupiter in his robe of imperial purple and his beard black as jet.
Maestro Giardini, who was seated with his musicians just to the right of the stage, struck a chord on the virginals and the music began. The audience sat enraptured, making not a sound; but when the flying tortoise appeared the applause was ecstatic. It lasted a full five minutes. Never had they seen such a wonderful thing, and the enthusiasm at the end of my masque was amazing to behold.
No-one was more excited and enthralled than Xantho. The praise that it lavished on him filled him with pride. It was a great work of art, he declared; it was modern, in keeping with the very latest ideas from Italy, perhaps even in advance of them in sophistication and in the ingenuity of its stagecraft. He wanted to see the whole thing all over again at once.
I kept well out of the ensuing debate. Alexander and Giardini tried to dissuade him. The singers were tired, they said; the stage machinery had to be readjusted; the musicians needed refreshment. But Xantho, though in the brightest mood possible, would brook no opposition. He would allow half an hour for the artists to regroup their forces, no more.
So the thing was done again. Not surprisingly, the second performance lacked the sparkle of the first. But it was good enough to evoke storms of applause from the spectators who were still drunk with the novelty of it all.
We had reached the point at which Aeschylus flies in on his tortoise when there was a commotion at the back of the hall. A man in a black cloak, stained and bespattered with mud all over had entered. He strode through the crowd, looking neither to right nor left and went directly to the dais where the King and Queen sat, bowed low, murmured a few words to them, then walked up on stage and commanded silence of the Olympian Gods. The music ground to an unceremonious halt. The man who stood before us was Ragul.
“Your majesties, my lords, good people. I bring terrible news. The Ottoman host of Sultan Murad under his Vizier Sokolly has crossed our borders and is even now ravaging our homeland. An army of near five hundred thousand men is advancing on us. Our hour has come! We must fight or perish!”
Someone in the shock of the moment must have mishandled the stage equipment, for Ragul’s terrible announcement was followed by a grinding crash. Aeschylus’ tortoise had plummeted headlong into Mount Olympus, knocking Jupiter off his celestial throne.
XVIII
I have never known a place so silent as Castle Dracula was during the next few days. People went about as if in a trance and spoke to one another in whispers, even to discuss the weather. There were comings and goings and conferences behind locked doors. I heard many rumours, but my most accurate source of information was Razendoringer.
Ragul had struck while he had the advantage. In Cantemir’s presence he had demanded the Bohemian gold to pay and re-equip his troops, also to muster fresh forces, including mercenaries. Xantho had conceded some of it, but insisted that the bulk remain in safe keeping. Nonetheless, under his stubbornness he was a frightened man and he was relieved when Ragul went back to rejoin his army. The truth of the matter was that the Turk had near half a million men while Ragul could command a bare forty thousand, but an army like that of the Ottoman moves slowly: they were still some distance away.
Xantho, with the encouragement of Alexander, chiefly preoccupied himself with the defence of Castle Dracula. Much of the Bohemian gold was passing into the hands of his chamberlain, for the manufacture of engines of defence as strange and outlandish as the flying tortoise. Verney even took a hand by claiming that he knew the secret of Greek Fire. By this means he was able to extend and aggrandize his laboratory.
Cantemir prepared to leave with an almost indecent haste, but he had to wait a while before a suitable escort was available to conduct him safely into Bohemia. Dolabella, naturally, was remaining behind with Razendoringer, but Vlad and Rozelinda had to part. They found it increasingly difficult to meet in those last days because her father wanted to see that his property got safe and intact out of the country.
Vlad persuaded me to offer the young lady instruction in Latin and astronomy so that they might meet together. Cantemir accepted this, thinking that it would keep her out of mischief while at the same time, I guessed, giving him the opportunity on his return to boast that his daughter had been taught by the great Polymathus Vrajitor, as I was now sometimes known. But I kept my side of the bargain in that I gave instruction. Whether they attended to it or not I did not consider to be my business.
As it turned out, the Lady Rozelinda proved to be a more than able pupil. There were occasions when Vlad had to persuade her to attend to him rather than the Aeneid of Virgil. I was flattered and comforted, for in those days as we waited for news of the Turk, there was little enough to console us.
Occasionally, after supper, my pupils and I were allowed up onto the roof of Glem’s Tower to observe the night sky. One clear, cool evening in early spring we stood on the roof together. I was aligning the great brass quadrant that had been lent to us by Alexander for our studies of the constellation of Orion. The great invention of the spying glass or telescope had not penetrated Transylvania at that time.
As I manipulated the machine I could not help listening to the conversation of my pupils. Even at the time, I was conscious that in it were the seeds of a lifelong tragedy.
“How lovely!” said Rozelinda looking at the night sky.
“There will not be many more evenings like this,” replied Vlad.
“Don’t say it.”
“It’s true. You will go back to Bohemia and I will go to war and be killed by the Turks.”
“Stop talking like that at once.” The girl stamped her foot and assumed a censorious expression. There was a domineering, almost sanctimonious streak in her character — no doubt inherited from her father — which was the one feature of hers that I found less than attractive. Vlad became humble and submissive before her.
“I was only trying to prepare you for the worst.”
“Well, don’t. It isn’t necessary.”
“If only I could live for ever.”
“Why?”
“Then I could tell you everything I feel about you.”
She laughed. “Oh, you fool!” she said. But women often hide their greatest delight under laughter.
“But I wouldn’t want to go on living if I had to live without you. I’d rather die in battle, hacking the limbs off Turks.”
“Oh! Now you’ve spoilt it.” Once more he became submissive. There was something comic and curiously appealing about his manner. Except with her, Prince Vladimir and humility were strangers.
“I didn’t mean to. I’ll only say things to please you from now on.”
“Don’t try too hard. It could be very dull.”
“Why can’t we be together? Why can’t God show us a little gentleness for a change? Why do we have to suffer and be separated?”
“It happens, my love.”
“But I don’t want it to happen!” shouted Vlad. He looked up at the stars. “God! Do you ever listen to anybody but yourself?” Rozelinda smiled. She was not shocked as I suspect that something in her responded to his rage.
“Don’t shout, my love. He won’t hear and he can’t answer. We must make the best of what we have been given. Kiss me now.”
I believe it was the first time they had ever kissed. I turned away and walked round to the other side of the tower. I stood there looking out over the shadowy woods and hills which fringed the sea of stars above. To my surprise I found tears flowing down my cheeks.
The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar's Tale Page 20