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

by Reggie Oliver

  Then the wind freshened and our boat began to draw away, inexorably this time. The little caique dipped and flew, scattering a galaxy of spray into the morning air. The galley waddled in our wake for a while, then started to fall further and further behind. The rowers had lost heart.

  The four of us looked at each other and laughed. I can only speak for myself but that moment was among the most sublime of my life as we raced along with the sun and wind on our backs. We were in the Sea of Marmara, quite surrounded by the blue coasts of hostile territory, but we were free. Behind us was captivity and death, and the mindless corruption of an ageing empire; before us was an uncertainty so complete that we could not have reflected on it even if we had wanted to. We were in the present, and the present was good. We broke open our store of food and had bread and wine for breakfast.

  With following winds it took us four days to cross the Marmara, stopping every night in some little haven or inlet on the Northern coast to take on fresh water and food. On the fifth day we came through the straits of the Dardanelles and that night we encamped on the deserted island of Tenedos which Virgil says is in sight of Troy.

  I say it was deserted, but we found a few stray sheep and goats there, one of which we cooked and ate. There was also a stream of fresh water. We made a fire from driftwood found on the beach and considered seriously for the first time what our next step would be.

  There appeared from the very beginning to be an assumption that the wishes of Prince Vladimir were of paramount importance. Vlad declared that he must return to his kingdom as soon as possible. This was easier spoken than done since, unless we were willing to retrace our steps across the Marmara, through the Bosphoros and into the Black Sea — which none of us were — we had a long and hazardous land journey ahead of us before we reached Transylvania.

  Inanna proposed that we now sail northwards to the Island of Thasos where her father had been a chieftain. It was from there that she had been taken by corsairs and sold into slavery. Perhaps her father was still alive, but at any rate we would obtain help on Thasos for the long journey across Thrace and the Balkan mountains into Transylvania. This was the plan upon which we settled; furthermore we decided to remain for a while on the island of Tenedos to recover.

  The following day was chiefly spent in repairing our vessel, in killing animals and in salting the meat for our journey. Towards the middle of the afternoon we took a rest from our work. I climbed to the highest point of the island, a little ledge of bare rock from which I could look across the sea towards the Turkish coast. For a moment I imagined myself to be Agamemnon with his fleet waiting for a signal that the horse had entered Troy so that he could return to sack the city. But these dreams of glory and power never lasted long with me. I was made for study not authority. I should have been voyaging across the pages of some ancient text, not the bright Aegean. Those were my thoughts on the ironies of existence, and so deeply was I absorbed in them that I was not aware that someone had quietly come and sat down beside me. It was Inanna.

  She seemed to have grown stronger and browner during the voyage, something which curiously had enhanced not her boyishness but the essence of her femininity. Perhaps it was because in some ways she was ceasing to be a slave. She let out a short sigh, drew her hands round her shins, set her chin on her knees and gazed out to sea. Her mouth had a determined set about it, but her green eyes retained that wistfulness which had first drawn me to her.

  One of the reasons I had withdrawn to this high place was that I thought that by doing so I might avoid her. I wanted some calm of mind, since merely to see her aroused in me a chaos of unresolved emotions: embarrassment, lust, tenderness, jealousy, joy, grief. Now she was here beside me, closer than she had ever been before. Despite the heat of the day I began to tremble. I gripped myself trying to control my feelings and for a moment I even managed to shut her out of my mind; then she spoke.

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  For a moment I felt like shrieking with laughter. I calmed myself, I smiled and looked at her. I said that on the contrary she was most welcome. She nodded, scrutinizing me carefully and I felt myself blushing as I had not done since I was a boy. Suddenly I could hear my heartbeats.

  “You were very brave when we were being chased by the Turkish galley. You saved the Prince’s life.” I muttered some nonsense about it only being my duty. She laid a hand on mine — the joy and the agony! — and said that she thanked me for that with all her heart. Then she said: “I never expected such courage from a man like you.”

  I blushed again, this time more from irritation than shame. What did she know about me and the way I felt! How dare she judge me to be a man incapable of courage! At that moment I could have borne anything rather than this foolish condescension and I wanted to say something that would wound her complacency, which would prove to her that I was a man of action which, for all my adventures, I was not. But nothing came from my mouth. There was silence.

  “Do you think the Prince loves me at all?” she asked. My mind cleared. She was not concerned about my feelings because her whole being was occupied with Vlad.

  “Do you love him?” I asked mildly.

  She gave me a reproachful glance and said: “You know very well that I do.” I merely nodded. Why should I offer consolation to her when she had none to offer me? I wanted to tell her that I loved her but I could not bear the pity she would give me in exchange, so I said that it was difficult to say what the young prince felt. I tried to hint to her that there were dark corners in his mind that could make him dangerous. She nodded solemnly at this, but seemed more fascinated than deterred.

  I tried to draw her into other topics of conversation, her home, the voyage ahead, but for her there was only one subject. If I did not talk about The Prince, as she called him, she would not listen. At last, finding me unable to say more on her chosen topic of conversation, she left me to my own thoughts.

  That night around the camp fire, I was as solicitous to her as I could be, but this was foolishness, as I well knew, because she paid no more attention to me than if I were a sparrow. Vlad was the centre of her universe, a position he accepted, not with the usual arrogance of youth, but a quiet, heartless assurance. On his face was a serenity I had not seen before. He said one thing that night which I remember.

  “If only we could live like this for ever!”

  Hard as I tried that night, I found I could not sleep. At last I rose and began to walk along the shore of the restless sea. The little waves slapped the stones on the beach and then rustled back into the folds of the deep. The rhythm eased me a little: long after we were all forgotten the waves would be doing the same work.

  Presently I was conscious of another sound which was not the waves. It was like a cry of pain, but yet unlike. It came from behind a cluster of rocks. I drew quietly nearer, knowing now what it would be, trembling, every intelligent instinct telling me to turn back, to shut my ears; but I was compelled forward. Now the cry came again, ecstatic, breathlessly repeated, rushing to a climax. It was Inanna, and then I saw them, Vlad and Inanna, their forms vaguely discernible in the darkness, twisting and untwisting within a circle of absolute joy. They were so young and beautiful. Running alongside my pangs of jealousy was a detached happiness at their contentment — at least two people that night were safe from the miseries of the world. I felt hot tears on my cheeks.

  Presently I was aware of a familiar tug at my sleeve. “Come away, learned doctor,” said the dwarf. “This is not good.”

  I turned from him and the shore and I ran. I climbed again to the highest point of the little island; I lay down on a bare rock and gave myself up to uncontrolled weeping. How long this lasted, I could not say, but I thought I felt the dawn before I fell asleep.

  The sun was beating fiercely on me when I woke. I was stiff and dry with thirst. I wiped the lank hair out of my eyes and felt the hideous bristles of my week-old beard. For the present my emotions had exhausted themselves so that I felt curiously lighthea
ded as I walked down to the shore. The sky was cloudy and full of a blustering wind. There would be rain before long, but it was a good day for sailing.

  I was descending the little sheep track, and had come within a few hundred yards from the shore, when I began to hear unfamiliar sounds. My emotional exhaustion had left me incautious so I continued to walk. I turned a corner round a little outcrop of rock and ran into two men, the vilest looking brigands I had ever seen, worse even than Armida’s crew. They at once sprang on me and started to bind my hands together with rope.

  “Here’s the other at last!” said one of them. Once securely tethered I was dragged down to the shore, on the end of a long hempen line, the two men laughing whenever I fell. On the beach I found Vlad, Razendoringer and Inanna all similarly bound. A little way out to sea a great galley was riding at anchor, a fine looking vessel of Venetian make, which had once been gaily painted but whose colours were now faded. The mast bore a black sail and the flag was black with a silver crescent moon on it. Without doubt we were in the hands of pirates.

  Vlad, Razendoringer and Inanna were looking past me, so I turned in the direction of their gaze to see a man seated on a rock. He was stocky, of middle size with a great bulbous nose and shining bald head. His grizzled hair and beard stuck out in all directions. Attached to his hair, which was curled and wiry, were innumerable little golden trinkets of all kinds and he beamed at me with a kind of satanic geniality.

  “I am Borboros the Greek,” he said. “I am the great corsair. This—” he said as he pointed towards the galley “—is my ship, the Emerald. You are now my slaves.”

  With these words began the most terrible period of my entire existence.

  XXVII

  The name Borboros in Greek means mud, or filth, and no more suitable name could be found for this vile man, for we were conducted on board and all four of us, even the lovely and delicate Inanna, were set to row the oars. It turned out that Borboros was constantly looking out for able-bodied persons to row his vessel, because his oarsmen had an inconsiderate but understandable habit of dying on him.

  As soon as we arrived on board, Achmet, Borboros’s second-in-command, a former Christian turned Infidel, had us chained to an oar. The vessel was a large one and in it five captives sat on a bench pulling together at a single oar.

  It is incredible how great the misery of rowing in a galley is; no work in the world could be harder for they chain each rower by one of his feet, leaving him only free enough to stay on the bench and pull the oar.

  When one is rowing it is impossible on account of the heat to pull with any clothing on apart from a pair of linen trousers. Most of the time bracelets or rings are passed over the hands of captives so that they may not in any way resist when the pirate crew is otherwise engaged; and the rings and shackles chafe until one’s wrists and ankles are red and raw.

  Thus fettered hand and foot, the captive must row most hours of the day and night, unless there is a gale, till the skin on the body is scorched like that of a singed hog, and it cracks from the heat. Sweat flows into the eyes from which it cannot be wiped; delicate hands unaccustomed to work develop blisters from which there is no relief. If Achmet ever saw us taking a breath or resting when we should have been wielding the oar he would beat us either with the galley scourge which is made of leather thongs, or with a rope’s end dipped in the sea.

  Our distress was immeasurably increased by a boy of ten years old or so. His name was Kostas and he was the son of Borboros, a plump, overfed creature with a cheerful face and the heart of a devil. He would often dance up and down the rowing deck tormenting the rowers for no purpose other than his own pleasure, and he was particularly attentive towards Vlad who was the captive nearest his own age and whose taciturn, impassive manner seemed to offend him deeply. Once, after the boy had taunted him in some particularly outrageous way, Vlad turned on him with a snarl of rage, upon which Kostas would not let Vlad be until he had kissed his little foot and begged forgiveness abjectly. Thereafter Vlad would follow this boy with watchful, steadfast eyes so that I almost felt sorry for Kostas, knowing that if Vlad were ever given the chance his revenge would be terrible.

  Our food was mostly biscuits and water, though the leftovers from the pirate crew’s dinner were often thrown to us for extra nourishment. Conditions on the rowing deck, what with the disease, the heat, the wanton cruelty and the stench of humanity, are beyond my powers of description. I longed for madness or death, or some kind of mental numbness to lift me out of such endless torture, but it never did. All my faculties, and with them my entire capacity for anguish, were sustained by the presence of my companions, in particular Inanna, and a resolve not to be defeated.

  The voyages of Borboros followed no pattern that I could discern. His main hunting ground was the Eastern Aegean of which he claimed to be the master, though I found little evidence of it. There is a widely held belief that pirates are bold, but I have never shared it and my reason is Borboros who would only attack another vessel if it was very much smaller than his own, while at the sight of any ship remotely comparable to his he would order his rowers to pull away as quickly as possible. Often he would engage quite modestly in everyday honest trade, though usually the goods he offered for sale had at one time or another been stolen.

  He was at his most ruthless when looking for new people to replace those who had expired at the oar benches. Once he landed on the Turkish shore and destroyed an entire village. The houses he burnt, the old and infirm he destroyed, the rest he took on board as slaves to be sold, or as oarsmen.

  But my knowledge of this man’s activities is not detailed. Our world was below the main deck and only fragments of the life above filtered through, like the scraps of food that fell from our master’s table. It was the rape of this village which was to begin to change our fortunes. The pressing of new men onto the rowing benches meant that, at very long intervals, some of us would be relieved for a short while of the task of rowing. It also meant that those unsuited to the task were taken from the benches and put on other duties. These included Razendoringer and Inanna. The dwarf, by virtue of his very short stature, was not an effective oarsman. If he sat down on the bench he could get no leverage with his feet. When he stood on the bench he could pull effectively for a while, but, carried away by his own exertions, he would always end by falling backwards off the bench and into the rowers behind him. Inanna, despite her more than womanly strength, was taken out by virtue of her sex.

  Razendoringer was put to work as a cook and, because he could excel in virtually everything he put his hand to, was soon highly regarded for the excellence of his dishes. He never failed to ensure that Vlad and I were also the beneficiaries of his skills and this he did despite the watchful eye of Kostas who would intercept and gobble up any morsel that he found coming our way. The dwarf was also the conveyor of something even more valuable to our survival than tit-bits, news.

  Inanna was not sold as a slave, but managed to attach herself to the brutish Achmet, Borboros’s lieutenant. This she did to be of help to us when the time came, and I think that I alone appreciated the extent of her sacrifice. Achmet was not a bad looking man, but he had one eye and a foul temper. More than once, when I was crouching in the little space at the stern of the vessel reserved for resting rowers, I would hear her cries for help and the familiar crack of wet rope on flesh.

  Whenever she could be spared from these indignities she would come down to the rowing deck with water and a sponge to bathe the faces of the oarsmen. And if she lingered longest over the face of her prince, who can blame her? Once, when little Kostas caught her at this and had dashed the sponge from her hand, I saw her exchange a look with Vlad. It was not the glance of a lover, but the hard, confident stare of a fellow conspirator.

  I was encouraged by that look, but at the same time dismayed by its lack of innocence. It showed that she had surrendered the last part of herself to him by consenting to share his hatred.

  In these months, which se
emed at the time like years, I had tried to beguile my mind by calculating where precisely we were and in what direction we were travelling. The position of the little shafts of sunlight which came through the upper deck onto our own gave me a clue as to direction. Counting the oar strokes per hour and feeling the direction of the wind gave me further indications. I had thought of it merely as a way of keeping my intellectual faculties alive until one day I suddenly realized that we were turning East and maintaining an Easterly direction. This could only mean one thing: that we were sailing through the Dardanelles and into the Marmara towards Stamboul.

  As soon as I could I told Razendoringer of my suspicions, and he told Inanna. The truth was that Borboros had tired of the Eastern Aegean, or so he said. It may have been that he was afraid of becoming too well known in those parts, but, whatever the reason, he had decided to try his luck in the Black Sea for a change.

  The Emerald anchored for a day off the Golden Horn and Borboros set a heavy guard over us, little knowing that the last thing I or my companions desired was to see Stamboul again. Meanwhile Inanna had been attracting the attention of Borboros, who believed that everything in the ship belonged to him including any women the crew might have. Inanna herself, disgusted as she was by the man, did not repel his advances because she knew that the keys to our shackles were all kept in his cabin. I have to acknowledge, to my shame, that while I was grateful to her I was also shocked by what she allowed herself to undergo for our sakes.

  And so, some six months after we had escaped from the Seraglio, in the late spring of 1577, we entered the Black Sea. A mood of hope had infected everyone in the Emerald, even the rowers. The corsairs looked forward to virgin soil in which to sow the dragon’s teeth of their atrocities; we looked for the unexpected which would give us the chance to escape.