by Dan Davis
“Of course not,” I said, confidently. “Dracula was raised as a knight.”
Outside of Bucov, Dracula assembled his men about the huge clearing which had dense trees on every side. Most of the servants and many of the soldiers were set to work felling tall pine saplings from those trees all around and trimming off the spindly branches. Other men dug a series of narrow, deep pits in rows.
Naive as I was, I believed they were working to prepare the materials for a palisade to keep the prisoners safe in overnight rather than keep them in Bucov itself.
Almost three hundred years old, having seen and done evil that would break the heart of any sane man, and still there was the remnants of innocence in me. But there was some evil, even then, that I had not yet seen.
Sheep shit was everywhere underfoot though the sheep and their shepherds were nowhere to be seen and I wondered idly if Dracula had not discovered the field through his discussion with the passing locals.
However he had found the secluded spot, once all was prepared, he assembled his men in an arc around the prisoners and declared that “Albu the Rotund” was a traitor and a friend to Turks.
“Lies!” Albu shouted over Dracula’s speech. “You are the Turk, Vlad Dracula. You and your father before you. And your Turk brothers. It is you who are traitor! God knows it. All honest men know it.”
Dracula stared at Albu with an unreadable expression on his face. It might have been anger but there was such coldness in the young man that it was difficult to be certain.
“For your crimes, Albu the Bloated, I sentence you and your family to suffer death by means of impalement.”
The women in the party began wailing and Albu and his brothers cried out, begging that their children be spared. If not the sons, then the daughters at least.
“I am merciful,” Dracula said, holding up his hands. “All daughters present who have less than twelve years shall be spared.”
There were but two who met this criteria and they were carried off from their wailing mothers by rough-handed soldiers. There were four young boys and three older girls who were not so lucky as that. Albu’s entire family were trussed up and some or all of their clothing removed.
“We have to stop this,” Rob said, appalled.
Stephen crossed himself and mumbled endless prayers. Eva took my hand and turned her back on the scene.
“Ain’t right,” Walt muttered. “God knows, this ain’t bloody right.”
I nodded but I knew there was nothing that could be done.
The prisoners were impaled through their backsides. Each person writhing and screaming in agony as the sharpened stakes penetrated deeper and deeper into their bodies. One by one, they were heaved upright and the bases dropped into pits so that the impaled body was held aloft. Many were already dead or unconscious by that point but others remained alive, if it could be called living. They writhed in mindless agonies, causing their bodies to slide down the poles and the points to work their way deeper inside them until the tips travelled through the guts and into the chest causing the victim to suffocate or burst their heart.
The Wallachian soldiers did their work grimly but without hesitation, even with the children. And grim though they were, they took great pride and pleasure in the occasions when a stake could be forced through a body to emerge through the mouth so that they resembled a pig being roasted vertically.
Dracula appeared, throughout the entire event, to be almost uninterested in what he was witnessing.
Albu was saved until last, so that he witnessed the appalling death of his entire family, his entire clan, and would know that he had brought his line to an end by his folly. He cursed and growled at Dracula, his tears all shed and his throat ragged from wailing.
“Make sure his stake is sturdy enough,” Dracula quipped to his men. Most were too appalled by their own actions to even pretend to find it amusing but there were plenty still who grinned and jeered at the broken man. For they had prepared a longer, and wider stake for Albu than for any of the others. Holding him down, they smeared blood from his wife onto the sharpened point of the stake to make it penetrate him more easily, and they prepared the way by first stabbing his arse with a spear to split him open wider. His screams of agony and rage were the only sound while Dracula’s men worked the timber deeper into him, three grim soldiers twisting and heaving the stake in unison until Albu, mercifully, fell silent.
When they heaved him upright, he was the tallest of all the bodies. The weight of his body caused it to slide further down. Not fast enough for the soldiers, who pulled on his ankles until the point emerged from Albu’s mouth, ripping off his jaw. They were proud of their precision and shook hands.
Even to the end, Vlad seemed entirely unaffected by the horrors he had witnessed.
Once Albu was dead, Dracula ordered the bodies cut down and burned, and the remains buried.
“Why?” I managed to ask the prince before we set off for Târgoviște. “Why perform such an appalling spectacle at all if it is to remain a secret?”
“It was to ensure that Albu suffered as much as a man can suffer for his betrayal. It was also necessary to spread fear amongst my enemies, for the tale shall certainly be told to all in time. You think my men, yours, and our servants will hold their tongues about this? And finally, simply, my men needed the practice.”
“What practice? You mean impalement practice? What are you planning, my lord?”
He smiled, though there was no mirth, nor even pleasure, in it. “Come, Richard, we must hurry home. It is almost time for Easter, and we cannot miss the festivities.”
***
The Easter celebrations were lavish and rather joyful. Vlad had invited more than two hundred of the boyars to the palace, along with their families, and a great and delightful time was had by all. I was honoured with a high place, though there were so many nobles in attendance. Not just boyars from across the country but leading citizens from Târgoviște were invited also.
“I am sorry that you were witness to the recent unpleasantness in the woods, Richard,” Vlad said after I was invited to sit by him at the end of the meal. “Do you understand why it was necessary?”
Unpleasantness, I thought, recalling the screams. “In part, my lord,” I said. “Though there is some of it that I wish I had not seen.”
“Come, Richard, you must have seen worse things than that in your time.” He peered at me, his look loaded with significance.
“You mean in my time as a mercenary?”
“But of course, Richard. What else could I mean?” He drank from his wine, looking over his goblet at me with his dark, bulging eyes. “You do understand that ruthlessness is a most desirable trait in a prince, do you not?”
“I understand that a king must be the dispenser of justice in his kingdom.”
“Ah, so you disapprove? How interesting.” He frowned, not in displeasure but in what seemed to be genuine curiosity. “How is it that you have retained such squeamishness over your long life when your older brother has embraced all aspects of personal and political tyranny?”
I froze, preparing to grab one of the knives at my belt or within in my sleeve.
Dracula glanced at me just for a moment, as if we were good friends having a pleasant conversation.
“So it is true,” I said. “William gave you the Gift of his blood. And in return you will give him Wallachia.”
Dracula bent his head and looked at me through his thick, raised eyebrows. “You have misjudged me, sir. Sorely misjudged me.” He sat upright and clapped his hands before rubbing them together. “We must, of course, discuss this further, Richard, but would you be so kind as to excuse me for a few moments? I must speak briefly to my honoured guests.”
He got to his feet, and I made ready to fight off any assault. But none came. Instead, Vlad nodded at his seneschal who raised his voice and roared for silence.
It took mere moments for the conversation in the hall to die away into nothing while all eyes turned to
Vlad III Dracula, who smiled and raised his hands, palms up, in a gesture of welcome.
“My comrades, my brothers, my friends. Once more, I thank you for honouring me with your presence on this most holy day of celebration. This feast of feasts, celebration of celebrations, is a joyous occasion on which we praise Christ for all eternity. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs, bestowing life. And so it is that Wallachia rises once more into greatness. My friends, it has been a trying time for our people. You have known such disruption, from the times of our fathers and our grandfathers.”
Vlad picked out an old man and pointed at him with a smile. “Michael, my lord of Giurgiu, you are as venerable as many here.” Vlad glanced at me before smiling broadly at Michael of Giurgiu once more. “Barring perhaps one or two exceptions. Tell me, my lord, how many Princes of Wallachia have you known in your life?”
The old man shifted in his seat. “Difficult to say, my lord. Seems at times like it may be thirty of them.” He finished with a grin and many in the hall laughed lightly.
I glanced at Vlad, but he laughed also. “You would have to be two hundred years old for it to be thirty, my lord, but you are not wrong in spirit.” Still smiling, Dracula picked out another older man on the other side of the hall. “Alexander? What say you? How many princes have you served?”
This old man did not smile and he his eyes were dangerous. “In my lifetime, perhaps ten or so. My lord.”
Dracula clapped his hands, grinning. “You are close to the truth, Alexander, very close, but it is in fact more than ten. Even the youngest of the lords here have likely known seven princes. Tell me, my lords, how do you explain the fact that you have had so many princes in your land?”
Vlad looked around the silent hall, while the smile on his face died away. The smiles on the faces of the boyars died away, also.
“As I see that you are all too afraid to speak, I shall tell you,” Dracula said, his voice hardening. “The cause is entirely due to your shameful intrigues.”
The lords protested, while their sons and their wives looked from man to man, worried about the sudden turn of events.
“No longer!” Vlad roared, his voice filling the hall like thunder, silencing hundreds of people. Dracula looked around the room, fixing man after man with his bulging eyes. “For the sake of my kingdom and of the people of Wallachia, I sentence every person here to death.”
The soldiers must have been waiting at every entrance around the hall for they filed in at that moment from all directions and surrounded the boyars and townsfolk. A number of the boyars, unarmed though they were, attempted to fight the soldiers but these great lords were immediately murdered by spears and axes, bringing screams of terror and outrage from their women. Soon enough, the lords held their wives and children close while the soldiers escorted them from the hall.
“Come,” Vlad said to me, still as a cat before it pounces and yet raging with cold fire behind his wild eyes. “You must bear witness to this, also, Richard.”
There were close to a thousand prisoners in all, including the wives and children who had not attended the feast but who had been dragged from their lodgings throughout Târgoviște. All were rounded up and marched through the city and out of the gate to the assembly fields before the walls and beyond the suburbs.
When I reached the top of the wall and looked out over the battlements, it was just as I had dreaded. A thousand great stakes, twenty feet long or more, had been prepared and without fanfare or ceremony, Dracula’s soldiers began impaling the great lords, their wives, and their children.
Just as I had witnessed in the clearing near Bucov, they were partially or entirely stripped and held down. Many were split first by sword, spear, or knife, and then the sharpened stakes were pushed within while the victim was held in place by up to four men, one on each limb. I noted that the points of the stakes were being smeared with white lard or oil to facilitate the ease of passage. The sheer mundane practicality of it filled me with revulsion and I wanted to turn away but I could not.
The wailing and screaming that filled the air was unbearable. Others around me walked away, and others stood watching but with their hands over their ears. One of Dracula’s veteran bodyguards, sturdily built and old enough to be a grandfather, loomed nearby with tears streaming into his moustache.
Worst of all was the silent terror and confusion on the faces of the children and their mothers’ futile attempts to shield their eyes and ears from the fate that awaited them.
Beside me on the wall, Vlad watched the scene wordlessly, and with a complete lack of expression on his face.
“You spared the youngest children before,” I managed to say to Dracula. “You must do so again.”
It seemed to amuse him. “You are truly unlike your brother. That is good, Richard. He said that you were yet limited by archaic and idealistic notions of morality instilled in you by hypocritical mortals centuries ago but I assumed that was down to William’s rhetorical tendencies toward hyperbole. And so, I will admit to being surprised to see it in action. But it pleases me to see I was wrong. Yes, you are different indeed.”
“The children, Vlad.”
He sighed. “Very well.” Dracula turned to his seneschal. The man’s face was ashen and he had vomit on his embroidered silk doublet. “Have the children under ten years of age separated. Chain them, one to the other, in view of their parents. Tell them that their youngest sons and daughters will be used as labourers on my new castle. They shall be slaves until they die from the work. Ensure each man knows that despite this act of mercy, his line is ended. Do this now.”
The seneschal bowed and hurried away.
Below, there were dozens and then hundreds of dying bodies hoisted aloft and fixed in place. The sounds of men begging for the lives of their sons and the screams of women and the stench of blood and shit aroused in me the most profound horror I have ever felt.
“You think me a monster,” Vlad said quietly from beside me.
“This is monstrous,” I said, slapping the top of the crenel in frustration. “The boyars and their eldest sons, I can understand, but their wives and daughters? They should not be made to suffer this.”
“You are at liberty to feel outrage at my actions because you are a knight,” Vlad said.
“So are you!” I snapped.
“I was raised to be a prince,” he said, speaking so softly it was difficult to hear his words over the screams. “And now I am the ruler of Wallachia. I cannot afford the sensibilities of knights, nor commoners, or boyars.”
“Kings are not above God,” I said. “And God says what is just.”
“Oh? I thought you said that law and custom are paramount?”
“And what does your law and custom say about this?” I said, jabbing my finger at the carnage.
He turned and looked at me with those bulging, dark eyes. He seemed utterly calm and entirely unaffected by the unfolding scene of inhuman horror beyond his walls. “When the laws of the land are leading your people to destruction, it is time that those laws be changed, is it not?”
I had no answer for him. But I did have questions.
“How then does this act help to save your people?”
“I shall kill every Turk in the world and every man who stands in my way.” He nodded at the dead and dying.
“Every man, and his family?”
“Precisely this.”
The sheer barbarity of it, the totality of it, was stunning to me. His unwavering certainty, his seeming lack of guilt or shame for the acts of slaughter he had instigated, was breath-taking. He reminded me of my brother.
Vlad stayed to watch until most of his victims were dead and then he turned to the men around us. “You may all return to the hall where we shall complete our feasting. The cooks have prepared an array of fried pastries, marzipan cakes, and sweet custard. I shall undertake a brief perambulation about the walls and join you shortly, my friends.”
Dracula walked away along the walls with his bodyguards, as if the air was pleasant to take in, and his remaining companions left for the castle.
I stayed on the wall and watched until every person had taken their last breath and still I watched as the flocks of crows came swarming onto the bodies from the darkening sky. Watched as they feasted on the eyes and entrails of the people who had earlier been feasting themselves.
“That’s that, then, Richard,” Walt muttered at my shoulder. “We’ll have to kill him now and be done with it.”
“Not yet,” I said, watching a crow stabbing its mighty black beak into the wound around a neck where the stake had emerged on its passage through the victim’s body. A long piece of skin stretched impossibly before it snapped and the crow gulped it down.
“He returns,” Walt mumbled, covering his mouth. “We can do it now and flee.”
I placed two fingers on Walt’s sword arm and watched as Dracula returned from his tour around the walls of Târgoviște. “Richard, you are still here. If I had not been told so much about you, I would have thought you were revelling in this scene. But that is not it at all, is it?”
“Is it not?” I said, aware that Walt was like a coiled snake beside me.
Dracula took up position beside me, leaning on the crenel and looking out through the battlements to the scene of death that he had wrought. His flank was exposed to me and I knew I could run my dagger into his kidneys, force him down onto his chest across the parapet and strike his head from his shoulders before his bodyguards could reach me.
“William told me that you were prone to melancholia, brought about by a surfeit of personal responsibility and a desire to do penance for the sins of yourself and all of mankind, combined with the guilt of never carrying out said penance on account on your choleric nature.”
“Utter nonsense,” I snapped. “What is he now, a physician or a priest?
“He is a demon, Richard,” Dracula said, speaking softly. “A demon that walks the earth in the form of a man. You think me evil for my actions here today? I did this evil only because I must overcome the greater evil of another.”