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

by Reggie Oliver

  The first principal town we came to was Vacaresti where there had evidently been trouble, for a detachment of the palace guard was billeted in the fortress. It was here that Vlad was first recognized. The Captain of the guard was Sigismond, the son of Stanislaus who had killed himself in that place almost a year before. When we came into the guardroom at the fortress he froze as if he had seen a spectre.

  It was difficult at first to extract any coherent information out of him. He simply repeated over and over that he thought we were dead; he had been told we were dead. Vlad seemed mildly amused at being a dead man.

  “Well,” he said, “your Prince is returned. Behold, the heir to the throne is not dead, but is alive. Rejoice!” At this surprisingly florid remark Sigismond looked even more stupid.

  “But sire,” he replied, “you are not the heir to the throne.”

  Vlad went pale and then seized the collar of the unfortunate captain. Sigismond was bigger than the prince who was not yet full grown, but he cowered before the sheer force of the prince’s rage.

  “Dog! By Gutruna’s silver buttock, you lie!”

  “I only meant, sire, that Prince Mircea—”

  “Mircea! Mircea is dead!”

  “My lord, have you not heard? Prince Mircea is not dead. He lived and tomorrow at the cathedral church of Bistritsa he is to be married — to the Lady Rozelinda of Bohemia.”

  Two spots of livid red formed on the cheekbones of the Prince. As he stood there a shudder convulsed his whole body. Then he looked at both of us and for a moment a despairing, lost look passed over his features, then he was himself again; or perhaps it would be truer to say that he was no longer himself, but a boy driven by a devil.

  “We ride now for Bistritsa. All night if need be.”

  That day and that night we rode. It was such a ride that I never hope to repeat. Vlad would not allow a single moment’s rest. At midnight he forced a wretched farmer at sword-point to take our exhausted horses in exchange for fresh ones of his. Why he wanted us with him I could not say except that some corner of his battered soul still demanded the comfort of human companionship.

  As I discovered later, what had happened was this. Xantho, jealous of Ragul’s success, and wishing to come to a comfortable conclusion with the Turk to end the war, had betrayed the secret way into the castle to Sokolly at the suggestion of Alexander, and abetted by Mircea who wanted vengeance on Vlad. It was arranged therefore that Mircea should seem to die in combat while Sokolly accepted Vlad as a hostage. To this end Matthew Verney devised a potion which would render Mircea’s body insensible and apparently dead for three days.

  When the three days were over Mircea was kept secretly in the Old Queen’s apartments for several months — most reluctantly, as he was still terrified of seeing her ghost — until his miraculous recovery was announced. The memory of the people is short and, accordingly, there was great rejoicing at this news. Vlad, on the other hand, was officially announced dead, killed while attempting to escape from the Sultan’s clutches. Little did anyone in Transylvania know that at that very moment Sokolly was plotting to betray the King and put Vlad on the throne.

  Meanwhile the peace with Bohemia still held and a marriage between Mircea and Rozelinda had been arranged. Her great reluctance for the match had been broken down firstly by the news of Vlad’s death, secondly by continual demands from the Emperor and pressure from her parents. She bowed finally to necessity and then resolved to make the best of it.

  By morning we could see the towers of Bistritsa in the distance. Our second batch of horses was by now exhausted, but we flogged them on until Vlad’s finally collapsed in the road. For a while we walked until three more horses were found, this time grazing in a field. The owner was presumably gone into town to see the wedding. By this time we could hear the sound of countless church bells jangling in the city. Vlad spurred his horse and we rode as we had never ridden before.

  The city itself was washed and garlanded, but its outskirts seemed deserted. The sky was white and overcast which lent the whole scene a slightly unreal aspect, as if it had been drawn on a sheet of paper. As we approached the cathedral in the centre of the town we saw more and more people, all walking towards the centre drawn by the lodestone of great events.

  We spurred our way through these crowds much to their resentment until we came to the cathedral square itself where guards with pikes held back a crowd so densely packed that not even a flea could penetrate it. Bells were ringing madly, the people were shouting and waving in an orgy of senseless enthusiasm; flags fluttered, plumes nodded. Vlad looked at all this in silent incredulity. From the open doors of the cathedral we heard the faint pure sound of a choir in full voice. Vlad’s eyes blazed, he drew his sword and spurred his horse straight into the crowd.

  “Let me through,” he shouted. “I am Prince Vladimir, come back from the dead!”

  There was a murmur and somehow the crowd parted. The guards were astounded but did nothing to hinder his movements. One or two recognized him and assisted by escorting us into the empty core of the square in front of the cathedral. There we stood on our horses, the three of us alone in that space, the crowd now utterly silent.

  A flourish of trumpets from within the cathedral, then boyars and dignitaries began to flood out, bright as butterflies. Each of them, as they emerged full of self-congratulation and smiles, noticed our threatening presence, stopped, looked about them and then shuffled to one side as if to leave space for the final confrontation.

  Then came Cantemir and his wife, then Xantho, then the Archbishop of Bistritsa, and all of them in turn were struck dumb by the sight of us. I began to feel awkward at being a party to this consternation.

  Finally the bride and groom emerged into a transient shaft of sunlight which had shot momentarily through the clouds. Rozelinda, now a Princess, looked pale but exquisite, all the promise of her young beauty fulfilled. The rich colouring of her hair, the lustre of her brown eyes, the two faint blushes of her cheeks were set against the cream satin of her dress and skin. A bouquet of white and pink blossom was in her hands.

  Her train was held up by the Lady Dolabella in cream satin and dark green velvet. I mention Dolabella, because her face, and that of her husband were the only happy ones I saw that day. It must have required a great effort to prevent them from running across that silent square to meet each other.

  Princess Rozelinda saw Vlad and dropped her bouquet. Blossom scattered on the cathedral steps; Mircea glared and, as if in sympathy, the bells stopped ringing. Vlad dismounted, walked across the square and up the cathedral steps at the top of which the couple stood. He picked up the spray of blossom and handed it back to the princess. Then he took her hand and kissed it, and having done so, without so much as a flicker of acknowledgment in Mircea’s direction, he turned and walked back to his horse. Then he rode back through the crowd away from the cathedral while Razendoringer and I followed as best we could.

  We rode out of the city and made our way to Castle Dracula in the mountains. I believe that the wedding celebrations after we had left were somewhat muted. On reaching the castle the Prince walked away from us and disappeared for several days. Fearing suicide, I instituted a search but there was no trace of him. On the third day I went up to the library in Glem’s tower to find him there, calmly leafing through Cornelius Agrippa.

  He nodded in recognition of my presence and it was then that I remembered the document which his mother had entrusted me to give him after her death. Not knowing its contents, I thought that it might offer him some consolation, so I gave it to him and left the room.

  Some hours later it was reported to me that Vlad had left the castle. Once again I feared suicide, but I need not have done. He had a fierce, tenacious grip on life which enabled him to endure anything. Some days later I heard that he was with the black monks of Snagov, protected from the world in that awesome island sanctuary.

  I wondered if his mother’s testament could have affected him in some way. Return
ing to the library, I found the document lying on a table, just as it was when he finished reading it.

  I picked it up and began to read and when I had done so I hid it among my papers, intending to destroy it, but somehow I never did. It remained among my papers, almost though never quite forgotten. That is why I can now release its terrible contents to the world.

  XXIX

  “My son, you will read this when I am dead. Now, beyond the grave, I can ask from you something that I could never ask while alive, and if you can pray for me, I am sure the angels will moisten my tongue a little as I lie bound to my red-hot iron bed in the furnaces of Purgatory, or Hell. Even now, my anguished soul calls across time to your future self to beg for a whisper of pity, and the peace of reconciliation. Already my soul is on the rack for my past misdeeds, my old body is scorched with the whip of self punishment, and the black shadow of my terrible shame falls between me and my prayers.

  “Last night, half way between sleep and waking, he came again. The noise of his coming filled my head like the buzzing of a thousand wasps. At first I could see him only as a tiny pin-point of darkness, a little hole in the clear sky. Then the thing grew and took shape, till it was standing by my bed, still buzzing. I thought it might be voices, thousands, millions of them, squeaking their futile complaints out of the very mouth of Hell, turning everlastingly in those winds, but never touching, never again.

  “Then he was standing by my bed, a black monk, a tall man, but I could not see his face. In the hood there was nothing but an empty hole, a vast hole in which the wasps of hell buzzed. The wasps are the souls of the eternal damned, though some have called them bats. Maybe, for I have heard the squeak and a flap of wings.

  “I should begin at the beginning. I was Eupraxia, Princess of Saxony, destined from birth to be a Queen and Mother of Kings and Queens. My parents, the Prince Albrecht and the Princess Mechthilde, expected that I should submit to the unenviable lot of being a diplomatic parcel, to be given in marriage for their benefit. This was the custom. Nevertheless they were, after their fashion, extremely pious people and they put me under the tutelage of nuns, members of the notable order of Discalced Carmelites. I was myself much disposed towards contemplation even then, and it was at the convent, in what I took to be the heart of holiness, that I received the first shock of my young life.

  “The nuns of this sacred order were most holy people and the Abbess, Mother Baptista, as near to a saint as I have ever met. She was sixty years old when I met her, with a wizened, timeless face full of kindness, but also, as I discovered, innocence. There were other boarders there whom I got to know only too well.

  “Two or three days after I had entered the convent I found myself in the gardener’s hut with three of the older boarders. The biggest of them was called Helena.

  “‘Girls!’ said Helena, ‘You sit in a circle in front of me and we’ll play a game of forfeits.’

  “‘Oh, yes! Yes!’ cried the others.

  “She told us to repeat, one after the other, an obscene rigmarole that I blush even now to recollect. Unless we repeated it correctly we were to pay an unspecified forfeit. First to make the attempt was a large handsome girl with flaxen hair called Rosalie, the daughter of a great Saxon noble. She failed dismally, having little intelligence and even less modesty.

  “‘A forfeit! and a good one,’ cried Helena. ‘I command that Rosalie show us whether she already has hair under her... Chin!’

  “At once Rosalie turned round, tucked her skirts right up to her chin, showed us her exquisite white thighs and... There was some hair, though not much to speak of... She was virtually as smooth before as she was behind.

  “‘You next, Agathe!’ said Helena, but Agathe, from whom I expected better, slipped up just like Rosalie... Another forfeit.

  “Then Helena said: ‘I order that Agathe should take the Lady Eupraxia, lift up her dress, her underskirt and remove her bodice, come up behind her on her knees, humbly, take her buttocks in both hands and kiss them...’

  “The girl took me, laid me down in the middle of the circle, carefully took off my dress, my underskirts, my bodice. She caressed my behind in a hundred ways... She took my buttocks in her hands and kissed them repeatedly a score of times... This, besides outraging every moral sense that I possessed, caused such an extraordinary tickling sensation that I began to scream. ‘You’ll pay for this!’ I shouted. I took her. I pulled up her dress. I turned her upside down so that you could see how beautifully made she was, but that is beside the point. I chastised her buttocks as she deserved, I pinched them, I rubbed them in the dirt, I sent her head over heals. I kissed her buttocks, I bit them... Really, I do not know what I did in my rage and indignation.

  “‘Are you biting me?’ screamed Agathe. Even as she was she seized hold of me, she pulled up my dress and started to beat me quite hard. Rosalie joined in and started beating both of us. Helena joined in on top of Rosalie. From then on it became every girl for herself.

  “At that moment the door of the shed opened and Sister Matilda, the Prioress, entered. Where there was once confusion and noise silence reigned. We were all terrified of Sister Matilda who was renowned for her strictness and the harsh asceticism of her piety. I cannot say which emotion predominated in me at that moment, horror or shame. I like to think that it was shame.

  “I will not dwell on the severity of our punishment. Suffice it to say that it was well-merited, though I hardly think that it was just that I should be held to be the prime mover of the whole affair on account of my being the daughter of a Prince and the rest of them being the scions of mere nobility, but it was on account of this that I was summoned one day to the cell of our Venerable Abbess a week or so after the incident I have described.

  “She was sitting at a plain table with the window behind her through which flooded the morning sun. The beams bathed her in a heavenly light turning the few white hairs that strayed from her wimple into threads of gold. She smiled, though her clear blue eyes, looking so young and simple in that ancient face, were sad. She motioned me to sit down.

  “I declined as I was still suffering from the effects of the Prioress’s severe but just chastisement. Mother Baptista nodded and then looked at me long and searchingly. All the agonies of the physical pain that I had endured were as nothing to that glance, so compassionate and so sorrowful on account of my sins. Unbidden the tears sprang from my eyes and began to course down my cheeks.

  “‘My child,’ said the Abbess gently, ‘I believe that you have suffered enough for your transgressions and that you are sincerely repentant.’ I nodded and she handed me a white linen kerchief that was so heavily starched that it served more to scratch my eyes than to dry them.

  “‘Besides,’ she went on, ‘I believe I am more than a little to blame for what has happened. Gentleness is a great virtue, but her sister is Laxity which has been my great fault. My eye should have been on you, for it is you, my princess, who must set the example. Your confessor, I believe, is Father Euphorbius?’

  “I nodded.

  “‘He is a good and holy man,’ she said, ‘but perhaps over-disposed to gentleness. Besides, he is old and his understanding of the corruption of manners in this age may be slight, such is his innocence. Sister Matilda has recommended that you should be put under a younger and more zealous confessor, one who will wrestle boldly with your sinful flesh. She suggests one Father Manfred, a Capuchin Friar with a stainless reputation for austerity and firmness.’

  “‘As you wish, Reverend Mother,’ I replied.

  “‘As God wishes, my child,’ she said. Did I even then feel the cold grip of foreboding on my heart?

  “And so, every Friday, Father Manfred came to the convent. I would kneel in the little room of the confessional and whisper my humble faults while he stood on the other side of a grille and gave me my penance through it. The first thing I noticed about him was his voice. It was strong and dark, but there was a softness about it which seemed to belie the harshness of the punish
ments he gave me. Beyond the grille I could see nothing but a hood covering a dark cavity where his head was. The first time I came to him he made me repeat in detail the circumstances of my shameful debauch with Helena and her friends.

  “I was the only one of the boarders who went to Father Manfred, though he attended to the spiritual needs of many of the nuns there, including the Prioress. I felt honoured, and under his eager and exacting tutelage made what I fondly imagined to be great spiritual progress. Soon I was enjoying the blessings of the illuminative stage, which occurs after one has come through the First Night, as the mystics call it, which is the night of the body. I began to see visions and dream dreams.

  “One night I woke up to find that my cell was filled with light, as bright as day. All my gloom and shame had been lifted and thrown away. It all seemed to have been a prelude to this moment which was filled with an inexpressible joy such as I have rarely felt before or since. My life, my concerns, all the things that weigh you down and support you in everyday life seemed of no importance. I could have moved mountains in that moment; I could have lived for ever without touching food or drink. My cell was not a tiny room but a universe, crammed with blazing suns and ebon darkness. I never felt so solemn; I never felt so light-hearted. My back, still sticky from the scourge I had used according to Manfred’s detailed instructions, began to tingle with exquisite pleasure. I felt the blood dancing through my body, running up my legs and putting sweet fire into my cheeks like an internal caress.

  “Then the whole room seemed to vibrate and fill with a music like the harmony of the seven spheres. I remember being astonished that it did not wake up the whole convent. I was aware of a presence in the room, vaster even than the universe that was there before, but somehow contained within a human body, the body of a man. I looked up and saw him.