by Dan Davis
“We have a rather fine new hospital building with space enough for all of you with some to spare. It was enlarged due to the beneficence of our generous prince. Come, I shall escort you there myself.”
He led us around the perimeter to the hospital which had beds and even a dining table where guests could take meals separate from the monks’ refectory.
“Abbot Ioánnis,” I said as my men spread out in the dormitory. “May I state my business here?”
“If you wish to do so,” he said.
“It is somewhat of a strange question to ask but I have been looking for certain stories.” I trailed off.
“Stories?” he prompted, a smile on his face.
“Stories of a rather strange nature. You see, I am looking for tales of men who drink blood.”
His smiled faltered and his eyes darted around. “Oh? What could you want with stories like that, my lord?”
I sighed, sensing that I had perhaps wasted my time on the ramblings of a mad old woman after all. “I was told that you collected such tales here. It may be nonsense and if so, I apologise. Have you ever heard of the word strigoi?”
He peered at me, his mouth slightly open. “Well—” he began before breaking off, staring behind me. “Is that you, Serban?”
All of us stopped what we were doing and turned around to see Serban slouching in the doorway, his head down.
“Serban?” I said. “Come here.”
He came forward, almost dragging his feet with every step.
“It is you, is it not?” Abbot Ioánnis said. “Praise Christ, you have returned. Gracious, it must be, what, thirty years?”
“Returned?” I said. “What is the meaning of this?”
Serban bobbed his head. “Father Ioánnis. Long time. You are abbot now, I see. That is well.”
“Oh,” the abbot said, chuckling, as if that was unimportant. “So, it is you who has brought my lord Richard Ashbury to our house. How wonderful.”
“No, no,” Serban said. “It was not me. I did not bring him.”
“Ah,” the abbot said, his face falling.
“Serban, you serve me and I command you to tell me it all, now.”
He shrugged. “Not much to tell. I was here. Then I wasn’t.”
The abbot scoffed. “Oh, Serban, you feel guilty, I am certain. Please, do not. My lord Richard, allow me to speak of it. There is really not much to tell. One day, a soldier arrived on our shore, terribly wounded. He managed to tell us that he was looking for a place to die. Well, we are not unskilled in the arts of healing and in time, the soldier was made whole again. He stayed after and we spoke of God and His son Jesus Christ. You see, the soldier’s body had been healed but his soul was yet wounded from the battles and horrors he had seen. For a time, the soldier embraced life here. He became a novice, wore the cassock and carried his prayer rope and recited in prayer with us. He confessed his sins and, my lord, there were a great many sins to confess, as is the way with soldiers, and I had high hopes that we would welcome him as a full brother.” Abbot Ioánnis smiled. “But one morning as we rose for orthros, we found that the soldier was gone. And we never saw him again. Until this joyous moment.”
I stared at Serban, who was looking at his shoes. “You sneaky little sod!”
The abbot chuckled. “Many novitiates end their time at a monastery in such a fashion.”
“I know that,” I said. “But why did you not tell me this at any point, Serban? Is your shame really so great that you could not speak of it?”
He looked up at me. “I knew that you had to come here. I did not know how to speak of it properly. In the right way. But Ioánnis has done it well.”
I shook my head. “If only your battlefield bravery was matched by your moral courage, Serban.”
“Please, my lord,” the abbot said, “do not be overly firm with Serban. I can understand his hesitancy. But he need not fear us. We mean him well, always. Now, you are looking for stories of strigoi? Then you must speak to Theodore. Your men should remain here and I will escort you to the library.”
Vlad had not been lying about the library at Snagov. The walls were lined with shelves packed with scrolls and there were more codices than I had ever seen in one place. Some of the books were richly ornamented and some even encased in gold and jewels. One wall was lined with windows that opened on to a view of the long lake beyond and there were two monks bent over copying manuscripts. In the corner, sitting by an open window with his face half turned to the view, sat an ancient monk with an enormous white beard.
Abbot Ioánnis dismissed the two scribes and called out to the elderly fellow. “Father Theodore. I have brought with me one of Prince Vlad’s soldiers named Richard Ashbury, the Englishman. He comes wishing to ask you if you have any stories of the strigoi that you may relay to him. Why he wishes to know this, I cannot say, because he has not told me and I have not asked him. Would it be well for him to speak with you about this?”
Theodore turned from the window and stared, glassy eyed, in my direction. The man was quite blind.
He dragged himself to his feet and I was surprised to find he was rather tall and, though his back was bent and his frame was frail, it was clear that his shoulders and chest had once been broad. Theodore surprised me then by offering his hand by way of greeting and when I took it I found his hand was even larger than mine and his grip was like iron.
“Richard Ashbury,” he said, his voice thick with a strange accent. “I am Theodore. Welcome.”
Beside me, the abbot spoke up. “Father Theodore, you will never believe who Richard has brought with him. It is none other than our old—”
“Leave us, Ioánnis,” Theodore said, turning his cloudy eyes on the abbot, who immediately left without another word. “Come and sit by my window, Richard.”
He strode back to his seat and eased himself down into his chair with a sigh, indicating that I take the chair opposite it, also by the window. The evening breeze ruffled the edges of the ancient monk’s snow-white beard.
“Thank you for meeting with me, father,” I began but he just spoke over me.
“What can you see, Richard?”
“Out of the window? Well, I see a small courtyard outside, well paved, with a low wall surrounding it. Beyond that is the graveyard, going down to the water’s edge. A few trees there, looks like alder and a magnificent dark green pine, the top of which is lit by the sun. The trees are not enough to obscure the view of the long lake beyond, however. The water is clear and flat and hardly rippled by the wind. I see the sun setting off over the right bank where there is woodland and fields. I see sheep on the far bank and three shepherds, all boys, throwing stones into the water. Smoke from the village drifts across and catches some of the sunlight high above. It is peaceful. No danger. Everything is as it should be.”
He smiled as I spoke and when I finished, he sighed. “Yes, that is what I see, also. You have good eyes, brother. A soldier’s eyes. I would wager you watch always for danger on distant horizons, am I correct? Of course I am. And that is why you wish to know of strigoi, is that it? You fear these creatures?”
“Fear them? No. I would like to find them. If they cause others harm, I would kill them.”
He seemed amused. “You would kill them, would you? You know that they have strength beyond that of mortal men, do you? So how would you do that?”
“I find cutting their heads off usually works.”
Theodore scowled. “You have killed strigoi? Where? When?”
“I do not know if they were strigoi. What I do know is that I found them everywhere from England to Palestine.”
The ancient monk’s voice rose, incredulous. “And you killed them?”
“Most of them. So far.”
He held himself still. “Well, Richard, if you are an expert killer of strigoi all over the earth, why would you seek stories from a simple old monk?”
Sighing, I sat back and looked at the lake. “All the ones I killed so far were created by one
man. But I have heard there are more in these parts who, I assume, were not created by him. I would like to speak to those men and if you have word of them in your manuscripts then that might help me to do that.”
Theodore eased himself back further into his chair. “You call them men. And yet you also say that you kill them. Is that not murder?”
“They are men, certainly. The ones I killed have all been murderers, also. Murderers who toiled at sedition and treachery and attempted to gain control of kingdoms so that they might rule as immortals for a thousand years. These I killed. If that is murder, then so be it. But you called them creatures. Perhaps we speak of different things.”
Theodore sighed. “They have many names. All people have their own words for what these men are. The Wallachians call them strigoi. The Croats call them mora and the Czechs name them pijavica. In my homeland, they were called vrykolakas. And so on. But they all describe people who are turned from human into one who must drink blood to live. And they come only at night because the sunlight hurts their flesh and their eyes. Sometimes they are terrifying monsters, other times they are tragically cursed people. But they most certainly all describe the same thing.”
“You seem to be an expert,” I said. “I had assumed you would need to refer to some ancient codex. How is it that you know so much about them?”
He smiled. “I know so much about a great many things. All my life, I loved learning. Even when I was a soldier.”
I had to suppress a laugh. “You were a soldier?”
Theodore frowned. “I was a fine soldier. I will wager I killed more men than you ever have, Richard the Englishman.” He sighed. “But I was even better at fighting for lost souls. Alas, my time is almost up. I spent so many years in scriptoria and libraries like this one that I have wasted away into this frail creature before you. Yes, my time is almost up. If you learn nothing else from me, learn this. Never become a scholar.”
I smiled. “Hardly much danger of that. But tell me, what do you know of the strigoi of Wallachia? How many are there here now, today? How might I track them and find them?”
“You do not fear them?”
“If anything, they should fear me.”
“Because you wish to kill them all.”
“No, not at all. If they live peacefully, I would have no quarrel with them. I merely wish to know how they came to be.”
“What do you mean, son?”
“All strigoi were made into what they were by another. Do you know about this?”
Theodore sighed. “The strigoi drink the blood of the vampir.”
“The what?”
“The vampir is the immortal lord who creates the strigoi.”
“He is one man? Where is he?”
“No, no. He is not one man. There have been more than one vampir. No one knows where they come from but only they can make a man into a strigoi.”
“Well then, yes, that is precisely who I seek. How can I find them?”
He hesitated for so long, staring out at the dusk, that I thought his attention had wandered. “I doubt even the strigoi out there know where the vampir are.”
“You know something,” I said, leaning forward. “There is something you are not telling me. Do you know where I can find one of these strigoi?”
Theodore turned his blind eyes to me and smiled. “It has been a joy to speak with you, Richard. Please do return another day.”
“Thank you for seeing me,” I said, annoyed that he was hiding the full truth. “I will come again if I can but it may not be for a long time.”
“If God wills it, I will still be alive. And if not, I wish you peace.”
“I am a soldier,” I said, standing. “Peace is the last thing I want.”
When I returned to the hospital, my men were eating. I sat at the table and gulped down two cups of wine.
“How did it go?” Eva asked.
“I am a vampir,” I said.
“You did what?” Walt called out.
“The monk in the library knows all there is to know about nothing useful at all. I am sorry, my friends, this was a waste of time. In the morning, we will ride for Târgoviște and then into exile.”
***
It was not long before Radu III Dracula was recognised as Voivode of Wallachia by most of the boyars. He was cunning in a way that Vlad never was. Word was spread by his agents in advance of his arrival that under the rule of Radu III, Wallachia would remain completely free of occupation Turkish soldiers. What was more was his promise that the devshirme would never be paid. There would be no Blood Tax under Radu’s rule, no sons of Wallachia would be taken by the Janissaries.
William’s devious hand was behind it, there could be no doubt. Only a friend of the Turks could get such concessions from them in order to secure his throne but the peasantry of any nation are a simple sort and they did not question the whys of this boon. All they heard was the promise of freedom from occupation and the freedom to raise their sons in peace.
And what man or woman in all the world would fight against that?
The only other option for the country was to retain their hero Vlad Dracula who many still loved but who could promise nothing more than a reign of relentless repeated invasions and further destruction of the land.
Before we had even fled far we heard that the people were calling their new leader Radu the Handsome. We did not get close enough to see his beauty but we were not far off. He and his soldiers pursued us right through the mountains and it was a close-run thing. First we raced up the valley of the River Arges and sought shelter in Vlad’s castle at Arges. Radu’s men were so close behind that we barely made it before they were encamped below the castle. By the end of that day they were bringing up small cannon with which to blast through the walls.
But Vlad was never a man to get himself into a situation he could not get out from and there was another exit from his castle that took us across the slopes to the north, with our horses and all.
We headed of all places to Brasov who Vlad—and I—had once terrorised. But after the peace had been secured with them it was neutral ground, of sorts and there we awaited the arrival of the King of Hungary Mattias Corvinus.
Vlad and he met in the town hall at Brasov and came to an agreement.
Radu had already sent word that he would favour and even extend the all-important commercial agreements of the Saxon colony towns and so they were inclined to back him over their old enemy Vlad. And Mattias Corvinus, cautious to a fault, was not one to pick an unnecessary fight. In fact, the king had signed a truce with Mehmed and had officially ended the crusade against the Turks. It was in his interest to do so in order that he could further concentrate his efforts on Frederick III the Holy Roman Emperor who still had eyes on Corvinus’ crown.
Vlad agreed to give himself over to Mattias Corvinus as a prisoner.
It seemed like madness for him to do so but it was likely the safest course of action that he could take. Hiding out in one of his small Transylvanian castles would mean being besieged and taken by an enemy, eventually. And there were already plenty of Saxon enemies in addition to the Wallachian ones.
In spite of everything, it was to be a rather pleasant imprisonment for Vlad. He resided in the king’s summer palace at Visegard overlooking the Danube and the Hungarians treated him well. He was valuable as a rival claimant to the Wallachian crown and that alone would serve to keep Radu the Handsome in check. The implicit and ever-present threat was that the Hungarians could remove Radu if he proved too troublesome and they had a ready alternative always at hand.
What is more, Vlad III Dracula was a name that stirred fear in the hearts of all Turks. He was Kaziglu Bey, the Lord Impaler, and Mattias Corvinus made sure that Dracula was at his side whenever he undertook diplomatic business with the emissaries of the Turks. I am certain that there was not a one of them who did not look upon the Lord Impaler without feeling a terrible itch beneath his turban.
Dracula was also offered a place in the Hung
arian royal family on condition that he embraced Roman Catholicism in place of his Orthodox faith. They gave him an important position in the Hungarian Army where he served as a respected and feared senior captain.
As far as captivity goes, it was as comfortable and honourable as it was possible to get.
The Turks continued their work of encircling Hungarian territory, however, and as much as Radu the Handsome called himself a vassal of Hungary, I knew the truth. He was allowed to reign only by the grace of William de Ferrers, Zaganos Pasha.
Of all the kingdoms that might seek to resist him, the small and isolated kingdom of Moldavia, between Wallachia and the Black Sea, was perhaps the least likely to be successful.
But it was all we had.
15. Moldavia
1467 – 1473
“My cousin writes that you are his finest soldier,” Stephen of Moldavia said as I stood before his throne in the great hall of his palace in the city of Suceava. “Do you agree with that statement?”
“I am not a prideful man, my lord,” I replied. “But it is the truth.”
King Stephen looked rather a lot like Vlad Dracula, with his long nose and wide moustache but he did not have Vlad’s piercing gaze and bulging eyes. Still, it was immediately clear that his men both loved and respected their king and I was sure to show proper deference.
“You are a mercenary,” the king said. “And your men, the sluji, have fought the Turks and beaten them. And so I will have you, gladly. But I will not have you running around my kingdom causing trouble, do you hear me? I can use you but I do not need you. I can expel you at any moment and you must understand this?”
I bowed. “As you say, my lord. All my men want is the chance to kill Turks.”
“All you want is to avoid the retribution of my cousin Radu the Usurper, you mean? Well, whatever you mean, you will have your chance. And perhaps you will have the chance to do both, for what is Radu if he is not the slave of the Sultan and Zaganos Pasha?”
“Indeed, my lord.”