by Dan Davis
“A man?” I asked. “A Janissary?”
The Pole shook his head slowly. “He was bareheaded and unarmoured, in fine clothes. Not a Turk. He had the look of a Frank. Or an Englishman.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “Like you.”
A chill that was not from the night air ran through me. “His name is William. I believe they call him Zaganos Pasha, now.”
“He was taken in the Blood Tax?” the knight asked.
I shook my head. “What happened after he was speared? You saw him die? Or was he merely wounded?”
The knight looked away again. “Your man, Zaganos Pasha, he pulled the king down from his horse as if he was no more than a child. Lifted him, in all his armour, and ripped off his helm with one hand and then he… he defiled him.”
“Did he… forgive me, sir, did he bite the King?”
The man’s eyes glowed. “Bite? He tore his face off with his teeth while the king screamed for God. And then with a long knife he cut his head from his body. The Janissaries cheered this.”
“I am glad you survived to tell me what happened,” I said.
He snapped his head up and glared at me. “I did all I could! My men pulled me away, forced me away, against my will, I would have died to defend him, would have died to defend his corpse from defilement.”
I held up my frozen hands. “I meant no offence, sir, and apologise for having caused it. Others have told me of your bravery on the field and there is no man alive who doubts it, least of all me. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Just leave me be,” he said.
The Polish knight died of his wounds two days later. Like many men in that desperate retreat, he was swiftly buried in whatever suitable site could be found before the pursuing Turks caught up. We left a trail of crusader bodies many weeks long as we followed the course of the Danube, seeking support from the local people of Bulgaria and then Wallachia.
With the survivors of my company, I rode with Hunyadi’s dwindling group of loyal men. Companies broke off at various points so that each group could slip through a number of valleys and passes on our journey back to Transylvania and Hungary without running into enemy forces.
Perhaps I should have abandoned Hunyadi but I wanted to help to defend him until he reached safety.
One morning we were surrounded at both ends of a steep vale by hundreds of Wallachian horsemen. Some of them I am sure were those who had treacherously abandoned us at Varna.
“We are here to escort you to my lord Vlad Dracul, the Voivode of Wallachia,” said the fat nobleman leading them, addressing Hunyadi directly.
Hunyadi was furious but he controlled himself. “My thanks, sir, but we have no wish to do so. We are returning to Transylvania directly without your escort.”
The Wallachian lord smiled through his beard, showing a mouthful of yellow teeth. “Forgive my unpractised Hungarian, my lord, but what I mean to say is that you are my prisoner. And soon you will be the prisoner of the Voivode of Wallachia, Vlad Dracul. Come with me now or we shall kill you here. Is that clear, my lord?”
Hunyadi’s men stirred, some drawing their swords. I walked my own horse slowly forward closer to Hunyadi’s. We were outnumbered three to one and we were exhausted. But I thought we could break through if we fought together and meant to say so.
Instead, Hunyadi gave himself, and all of us, up as prisoners.
“Damned bastard,” Walt cursed him as we were escorted into Wallachia. “Bastard coward. We could have killed these useless dogs and been free.”
“He is mortal,” I said. “And mortals must preserve their lives where we would risk them. We cannot fault him for this.”
Walt was incensed. “You seen this Vlad Dracul with your own eyes. You met his son. Insulted him, to his face. These treacherous Wallachians will cross us and give us up to their friends the Turks, mark my words, Richard. Mark my words.”
Looking up at the forested hills of Wallachia, I thought that Black Walter might just be right.
2. Târgoviște
1444 - 1447
We were escorted northward through the Wallachian plains to the capital of Târgoviște. At the end of a long valley and at the foot of the hills that rose in the north to become a vast chain of mountains, the town had an attractive river running beside it that came tumbling and twisting down into a meandering course that irrigated the fields, then bare and cold. It would be a place I came to know and host to scenes that would haunt my nightmares for centuries, but the first time I laid eyes on it, it seemed a sturdy and well-appointed city in the German style.
Certainly, the defences of Târgoviște had been attended to, for it was protected by a high and thick stone wall with sturdy towers at intervals around the perimeter and over every gate.
Inside, the buildings were well made and of a good size, if far plainer when compared to the grand and intricate stonework of Buda or the ornate richness of Vienna. It had first been built by Saxon colonists and still retained that German character and, indeed, a large Saxon population who were responsible for most of the trade that went on in the city. But it was far more civilised than I had expected and as I entered through the gates I hoped that our captors would likewise prove to be more courteous than I had imagined.
“Vlad Dracul is in residence,” Stephen mumbled, nudging me with his elbow and indicating a great dragon banner hung on the walls of the castle.
“Thought he was supposed to be off waging war on the Turk?” Walt said.
“So were we,” Rob replied.
The ordinary soldiers, including my surviving men, were herded into tents in a huge field outside the walls and they would be damned uncomfortable but I reminded them to thank the Christ that the Wallachians had been so generous. They grumbled but they were hard fellows to a man, squires and servants included, and so they took to their quarters with stoicism.
“Do not attempt to run,” I warned them before I went into the city. “We will play our parts and all will be well.”
“Reckon they’ll have work for us, sir?”
“We shall see.”
As a leading mercenary captain and knight, I was allotted quarters for myself and my servants, those being Eva, Stephen, Walter and Rob and a handful of true servants. We were crammed into two dark rooms inside the castle within the city but it was warm and dry.
“This is the finest prison I have ever been in,” I quipped as the door was slammed shut. “How lucky for us that warlords like Vlad Dracul rely on the services of mercenaries.”
“We need blood,” Eva said, her face ashen and eyes dark. “I will bleed the servants. You must free us from this place.”
“Certainly, my dear.”
I spoke to placate her, because she was suffering from the blood sickness. But I knew it would not be so simple to extricate ourselves. The Wallachians were a people that seemed filled with violence, many appeared to feel vitriolic hatred for the Hungarians and for the people of any other nation who followed the Pope of Rome rather than their own Orthodox Church. We had been captured with Hunyadi and that might have meant we were destined to share whatever fate he would suffer. On the other hand, they had treated us well by providing pleasant quarters.
We bled our servants and my immortals drank, sighing and calming themselves as the blood sickness symptoms retreated. Later, our captors brought bread, cheese, and cured pork, which we devoured, and even jugs of wine. Eva and I shared the main bed, Walt claimed one trundle bed and Stephen did the other. Our servants curled up where they could, and we passed the night in more warmth and comfort than we had experienced for many months. Still, Rob took the first watch and swapped with Walt, who swapped with Stephen. None came to harm us in the darkness. We may have been treated well but that did not mean I trusted our captors.
The next day, I was taken to the great hall where Vlad Dracul sat on his throne with his eldest son, Mircea, beside him on a throne of his own. Light from windows high above the thrones illuminated them, while the rest of the room was lit
only with lamps around the walls. A hot fire burned in the huge fireplace behind the throne but it was still cold in the hall.
Vlad II Dracul was about fifty years old and he looked older but he was yet broad in the shoulder and straight backed. His face was fixed into a scowl, just as it had been when I had last seen him across a hall months before. I suspected from the depth of the lines on his face that the scowl was a permanent feature of it and had been s0 for decades. His dark eyes were narrowed beneath a low brow and his blade of a nose jutted from between them. His black moustache was as wide as his face and the oiled ends were curled up like two iron hooks.
Before the prince and his son, on one side of the hall, stood the boyars, the great lords of Wallachia. In Wallachia, the commoners were made up from the masses of free peasantry and then there were the lords, who were called boyars, above them and then there was the voivode, which was a title meaning the Prince of Wallachia. I did not yet understand just how much power those boyars wielded in Wallachian society, but I was about to.
On the other side of the hall stood the Hungarian and allied knights and nobles that had been captured along with Hunyadi, although Hunyadi himself was not present. There was an empty gulf between the two groups who stood glaring at each other and muttering amongst themselves. I slipped almost unnoticed into the rear of the hall and nodded to a couple of other knights who saw me. The boyars and Vlad Dracul’s personal guards were armed and the Hungarians and other survivors looked about them, wondering what was about to occur.
It certainly seemed to me as though we were to be put on trial.
I did not fancy being subjected to judgements that Vlad II Dracul would make.
Almost as soon as I took my place, Janos Hunyadi was escorted into the great hall and every man turned to watch as he walked the length of the room. His servants were held back, and Hunyadi marched with his head held high to the base of the dais.
He and Vlad stared at each other in silence for a moment that stretched and stretched. Young Mircea glared at Hunyadi with a smirk but the mighty Hungarian warlord had eyes only for Vlad. The boyars began to shift and glance sidelong at each other.
“Janos Hunyadi, the White Knight of Transylvania,” Vlad Dracul said at last, speaking Hungarian, “through your actions, you have brought the great crusade into ruin. And even now, when you have personally caused the death of ten thousand Christian men, and so ruined the crusade to throw the Turk back into the wilderness where he belongs, you stand before me filled with arrogance. I see it upon your features. You dare to cast your eyes at me and be filled with pride, in spite of your utter failure. What will happen now, Hunyadi?”
On the floor before the voivode, Hunyadi made to speak but Vlad spoke over him.
“I tell you what will happen! The Turk shall take his revenge. That old goat-fucker Murad will come to my land. He will cross the Danube and burn and destroy all of Wallachia before crossing into Transylvania and he will do the same there. Your own lands shall burn. After Transylvania, Hungary will fall to the endless hordes of the Turk and his demons. And it was you who did this.” Vlad tore his mad eyes from Hunyadi and looked to his boyars. “I warned Hunyadi of what would happen. Did I not? Some men in this hall heard my words. You do not have enough men to face the Turk in open battle, I said. Your crusader army is smaller even than the Sultan’s hunting party that he takes into the plains from Edirne. Take his fortresses, I said. Take his ports and his castles, one by one, and avoid a battle that you are incapable of winning.” Vlad Dracul whipped his dark eyes back to Hunyadi and a mirthless grin stretched across his face. “Your arrogance is the cause of all this death. You believed in your own prowess more than you heed the advice of other, better men. You thought yourselves above all others and see where your hubris has brought us. Has brought all Christendom. You thought of yourself as greater than your king and now your king is dead, his body ripped apart and unburied. One wonders if this was perhaps not your intention all along? Will you make yourself king, Hunyadi? Is that what you have wrought with your convenient defeat?”
The boyars and watching Hungarians had been mumbling throughout the voivode’s verbal assault, and increasingly so, but this final accusation brought a chorus of angry cries and outraged denials. The Wallachians shouted down the Hungarians and Poles, who roared their protestations in defiance of the threats against them. They loved and admired Hunyadi, who had led them to a hundred unlikely victories in the mountains of Transylvania and elsewhere over decades.
As subtly as I could, I sidled further away from the boyars and placed my hand near the handle of my knife.
Mircea, the son of Vlad Dracul, sat still smirking at the riotous lords. Once I reached the side of the hall, I stayed as still and quiet as I could, feeling utterly adrift in the turbulence of Balkan politics. Also, I could understand only one out of every ten shouted words that filled the hall to the rafters.
“Silence!” Roared Vlad Dracul, slamming his hands on the arms of his throne and standing. He was not a tall man, but he was broad and powerful, with a barrel chest and a herald’s piercing voice. Gradually, the lords calmed themselves and Vlad pointed at Hunyadi before sitting down. “You will now speak, Hunyadi. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Hunyadi waited until silence had settled once more and when he spoke it was with his customary clear and strong voice. “All men here know what happened. All men know who stood on the field and fought with honour and for Christ.” His head turned toward young Mircea, who blanched and glanced at his father. “And all men here know who did not.”
The hall erupted once more, with the boyars on one side of the hall pushing and shoving the Hungarians and Poles and other crusaders on the other. Vlad’s personal guards pulled lords apart from one another and it took even longer for the noise to settle while Vlad stood with his hands raised.
“For your crimes against Christ, the Church, and the King of Hungarians,” Vlad said. “I sentence you to be executed.”
Guards stepped up, ready to stop any violence, as the crusaders raged in shock and dismay at the sentence. I assumed the Wallachian boyars would come to blows with the outraged crusaders. And yet, to my great surprise, the boyars did not argue with the Hungarians. Instead, the boyars sided with them against Vlad and they protested the sentence with almost as much vigour as did Hunyadi’s allies. It seemed the boyars did not wish to anger the entire Kingdom of Hungary over such an extreme act.
I could not quite follow what was said but it was clear that Vlad Dracul and his son Mircea were also shocked by the resistance to the voivode’s order.
And no matter how he raged and threatened, the boyars stood as one and defied their prince. Their stance could not be overcome and so, infuriated, Vlad cursed them and strode from the hall with his son on his heels.
The boyars muttered to each other when he had gone, not at all pleased by their victory. Instead, they seemed disturbed by the implications. And when Hunyadi and his men sought to thank them, the boyars were grim in their acceptance of that thanks. Hunyadi was cautioned to remember what the boyars had done for him and then we were ordered to be removed from the hall.
When I was escorted back to my quarters, my men stood and waited, pained looks on their faces as they tried to read my expression.
“What is it?” Rob asked.
“Are we to be put to death?” Stephen asked, aghast. “We are sentenced to death, aren’t we. I knew it. What are we to do, Richard?”
“Had to happen sooner or later,” Walt said, with a shrug. “Would have been nice to see old England one last time.”
“Be silent,” Eva snapped at them. “Speak, Richard.”
“We are to be freed and sent on to Hungary,” I said. “Along with Hunyadi and all his men.”
***
A week later, we were sent from Târgoviște along with a large escort of boyars and their loyal men, heading north into the mountains of Transylvania. The passes were clear of snow but the mountains were heavy with it and
the thick forest was dense with shadow.
“I do not understand how they could defy their lord,” I said to Stephen as we trekked through a vale with jagged rocks jutting up into mountains on either side. “Why is the prince so weak in his own kingdom?”
“It is a mountain land and they are a mountain people,” Stephen said, wiping his nose and looking miserable. “Precisely the same as mountain folk everywhere. Every valley has its lord and every lord is king of his valley. A hundred valleys, a hundred tribes and a hundred petty kings. Their feuds go back who knows how long and are so complicated that no outsider can ever hope to understand.”
“Same as the Welsh,” Walt observed.
“You would know,” Rob said, quickly, a grin on his stubbly face.
Eva rolled her eyes and kept her own counsel.
The cold was astonishing and for the most part we kept to ourselves until we descended on the Transylvanian side of the mountains. Here, Hunyadi visibly relaxed and our Wallachian escort left us, to head back once they had rested and recuperated. For us, the journey continued, and I found myself invited to dine with Hunyadi in a large and fine town named Brasov at the foot of the hills.
“What will you do now?” Hunyadi asked me, once the wine was flowing. His look was at once penetrating and easy to return. There was no doubt he was a remarkably intelligent man and he had turned all his wits to mastering the art of war. But he had suffered a great defeat on the field and for some men who experience such a thing it defeats their spirit. Whether Hunyadi had been broken by it, I could not yet tell.
“I came here to wage a crusade against the Turk,” I said. “I shall continue to do so.”
His face did not change and yet I could tell that my answer pleased him.