He bowed, then left.
Elisabeta kept the door open, but Ilona did not pass through it. “Leave me here,” she said.
“But the Voivode’s order—”
“I will watch a while and then call you again,” she said. “Pull the chair over to that door, and leave me.”
“But—”
“Do as I say.”
“As my lady pleases,” Elisabeta said tightly. She picked up the chair, carried it across. Ilona, following slowly, sank into it gratefully. As the other door slammed behind her, Ilona leaned forward and pulled back the little metal plate. At first, all she could see through the grille was a blue-tinged darkness. Then light came, as her prince began to descend the steps into the Great Hall.
– TWENTY-FOUR –
Resurrection
They did not notice him immediately, so silently did he enter, so intent were they on their guzzling. And he knew that few would recognize him instantly anyway. In the half year since the coronation he had only called the Sfatul Domnesc together once, the day after the crowning. He had sent them back to their estates for the long winter with vague memories of a dark-haired young man who drank little and spoke less. He was sure that if they thought of him at all it was only to compare him unfavorably with his father, the Dragon. Ion had repeated the joke that was being told in castles across the land—that Dracul, even without his head, was a good head taller! Twice the man in every way. This youth would be managed. If he proved troublesome—unrewarding—he would be disposed of. In a land where bastardy was no bar to the throne, another bastard could always be found, another puppet to spin in his strings while the great men divided up the spoils.
He knew what his boyars thought of him. And as he walked among them, dispensing wine from a flagon he picked up, unnoticed as any slave would be, he thought of them again. This class of men who cared little for their country and nothing at all for their prince. Who bent their knee to God, then violated every one of his commandments. Who believed that the sacrifice Jesus made this day—a life-sized, bloodied representation of which hung above the fireplace—was to give slaves hope and thus keep them quiet while their masters thrived. In former days, Wallachia had been the crossroads of the world and the world’s wealth came to the land. No more. Not since brigands and thieves had made the roads impassable to all but small armies. And the chief criminals sat around his table now, faces glistening with pig grease and crimsoned with wine.
They stand between me and my dreams, Vlad thought, pouring another cup, unnoticed still. Tonight I must step over them…or not.
He swallowed, suddenly unsure. He looked up to his reassurance; to Ion, appearing at the archway entrance to the smaller hall, where the nobles’ bodyguards feasted with Dracula’s. Ion was looking at him now, eyebrows raised.
It had to be done. More, it had to be seen to be done. Power, without its demonstration, was power wasted. It was not only the Holy Qur’an he’d learned at the Turkish court. Besides, he thought, running his tongue around his lips, I have waited a long time for this night. I am going to enjoy it.
He looked again at Ion, shook his head, then turned his gaze to the only other man who had been watching him from the moment he entered. He was the guslar, the singer of ballads, who also commanded the musicians. Wondering for a moment if a ballad would ever be sung about this night, Vlad nodded.
The music ceased mid-bar. Yet such was the roar of conversation, it took a while for anyone to notice. The Lady Udriste, sat at that one slightly raised table, tired of the conversation her husband was having about boar spears, finally looked up…and started. Her father had died the previous year, been buried in red and black, and she had seen his spirit three times since. He appeared to have something he wished to warn her about but she could not hear him. However, when she realized who the man was, she tugged at her husband’s sleeve. Irritated, he turned, followed her nod. Whispered to the man next to him.
The roar reduced to a series of whispers, thence to silence. Vlad, standing with head lowered, the slightest of smiles upon his lips, let the silence linger for a few heartbeats before he spoke.
“Welcome, noble boyars and fair ladies, bishops of the Holy Church. Welcome, all my loyal countrymen come to share this day with me, this holiest of holies. When Christ rose again in all his glory and gave us the gift of eternal life. Praise him!”
Amens echoed around the hall. Vlad continued. “I know that we have prayed together this day. I saw you all drink his blood in the Bisierica Domnesca. Praising him”—he gestured to the crucifix, Jesus bloodied upon it—“asking him to forgive our sins. Praying too for another resurrection—for Wallachia to be once again a strong and powerful land. Free of the lawlessness that impoverishes us, where a man cannot ride a mile from his home without fear of brigands. For justice within our borders and no fear of those outside them who seek to use us as fuel for their war fires. For prosperity that is our right, shared amongst our people, not gathered into a few hands or sold to foreign merchants for a pittance. For one land, united under a strong prince.”
Vlad paused, looked the length of the high table, before adding, softly, “At least, that is what I prayed for. What about you?” He lifted the flagon, stepped between a nobleman and the lady who’d first noticed him, poured wine into both their goblets. “Did you pray for all this, Manea Udriste?”
The boyar, his thin face poking out of an ermine collar three sizes too big for him, smiled. “Of course, Voivode. For all these things. And for your continued health.”
“Ah, how loyal of you.” Vlad moved on, poured again. “And you, my vornic, Codrea? Did you pray for your special concern, justice for our land?”
The boyar, his jowly, porcine face flushed with wine, nodded. “As chief justice, my prince, I live by its code.”
“Of course you do.” Vlad moved to the center of the high table, glanced across it. If the man who’d just answered was corpulent, the one opposite was enormous. He occupied nearly three places, his wife half as much again. It was not only his deeds that gave him his name “the Great.” “And you, Albu cel Mare? Were your prayers also as noble?”
“I think they will suffice,” came the reply, the tone bored. “And I usually get what I want. But you know that, do you not, Dracul-a?”
It simply meant Dragon’s son. But all knew it should have been preceded by a title, heard the emphasis on “a.” Further down the table, someone giggled. Smiles came, some hidden again, as the two men, young and older, slim and fat, stared at one another.
“You get what you want, Albu cel Mare.” An equally slight emphasis on “the Great.” “Of course you do. You recently got the villages of Glodul and Hintea, did you not?”
“They bordered my land.”
“They do now.” Vlad tipped his head to the side. “And the people who lived in them?”
Cel Mare snapped his fingers. “Vanished. It was such a surprise.”
“Indeed. Vanished like the gold from the monastery at Govara.”
“Oh no.” The big man leaned forward, his smile broadening. “That is in my cellar. When the monastery mysteriously burned down it was my Christian duty to give its gold sanctuary.”
He’d glanced up at the crucifix while he spoke, crossed himself. More laughter came, less restrained. And Vlad, looking around the hall, joined in.
Above, shocked, Ilona pressed closer to the grille. Her prince would sometimes smile with her. It was a rare thing, worth waiting for. But he laughed so rarely. And never before others. She curled her fingertips into the mesh and felt a pain push her inside.
Below, the laughter faded to silence. Vlad leaned forward, filled the goblet before him. “A toast to that then, Albu. To Christian duty.” The big man did not pick up his wine. “Do you not drink, my lord?”
Albu smiled. “I will if you will.”
Vlad pointed at the small metal trees positioned every few paces down the tables. The light from the single candle atop each of them glistened in the tiny pieces of
red flesh upon them. “Do you not trust the fruit of the tree, my lord?”
Albu grunted. “Snake tongues hung on languiers are one thing. Many say that they can detect poisons. But nothing detects it better than a man drinking what he offers.” He nodded to the flagon in Vlad’s hand. “Will you drink?”
“Of course. What was the toast? Ah yes, Christian duty!” Vlad lifted the flagon, drank, wine spilling round the wide rim. After a moment, Albu took a sip, then put his mug back down.
“Duty,” murmured Vlad. “I wanted to ask you something. All of you.” He looked the length of the high table, then around the hall. “How many princes of Wallachia, in your lifetimes, have you pledged your duty to?”
Men glanced away, avoiding his eyes. Only Albu did not lower his. “Princes?” he said, his voice strong. “I’ve lost count. Ten? Twelve? It’s hard to remember. They come and they go.”
No one laughed now. “They come and they go,” echoed Vlad. “And you remain.” He looked around again. “All of you remain.” Then he looked back at the man opposite, spoke now so softly that those at other tables had to lean in to hear. “There’s another story I heard about you, Albu. That you were there when my brother Mircea died.”
A hiss of breaths. Everyone stared at the two men, who stared at each other. “It is not true,” the large man replied.
“No?” Vlad inclined his head. “Then my informant was mistaken. For he said you were there, along with my loyal Manea here, and my dispenser of justice, Codrea.” He glanced briefly at the two men, who flinched, murmured denials.
“Prove it, Dracula.” Albu cel Mare had pushed himself away from the table so he could look about the hall. But there were no guards to be seen. Only thirty boyars and some of their sons, his own included. Each had a carving knife before him. And there was Dracula, alone, with nothing but a flagon in his hand. Albu, seeing all, eased back, smiled again. “Prove it.”
Behind her grille, Ilona cried out. The pain had come again, doubled, intense. She knew she should call her maid. But she could not leave. Not when she saw her lion surrounded by so many jackals.
“I wonder if I could,” Vlad said softly, laying down the flagon, reaching to the corner of the rich, red damask cloth, one of several that covered the high table, rubbing a gold tassel between his fingers. “Possibly not. But if I cannot prove who was there, perhaps I could prove another story I heard—the manner of his dying. For I was told that he wasn’t beheaded like my father. That Mircea was tortured, had his eyes burned out…and then was buried alive.”
“I heard that rumor, too, Prince,” said Chief Justice Codrea, glancing uneasily between the two men. “I looked into it, as was my duty. Of course, it was impossible to investigate fully because, alas, his coffin was never found.”
“You are right. It never was…” Vlad looked across the hall, nodded once at Ion, then looked down again to the piece of cloth in his hand. “…Until now.”
On the word, Vlad bent and ripped the table-cloth aside. Goblets and cutlery, flagons and snake-tongue trees rose to soak, strike, smash. And then all saw that the noblest of guests had not been dining on a table. They’d been dining on a coffin.
– TWENTY-FIVE –
“Christ is Risen”
All was chaos. The screams of women and men; chairs thrust back hard, bodies tumbling over them; platters and candlesticks crashing to the floor. Cursing boyars, many now with knives in their hands, had bunched before their wives. Only Vlad had not moved, stood there still, staring down.
A bull’s roar cut through the tumult. “What do you mean by this, Dracula,” Albu shouted.
Vlad looked up. “I saw you dancing before, Albu cel Mare. Strange you did not know you were dancing on a grave. A grave you helped to dig.”
“I will not stay to be accused by you,” Albu shouted. He turned to the central archway that led to the other hall. “Miklos!” he bellowed. “Bring the men. We leave.”
All, save Vlad, had turned to the archway, so all saw one man walk through it. He was dressed in a white doublet, marked with a bear’s head, sign of his allegiance to Albu cel Mare. “Miklos!” yelled his lord. “Where are the others?”
The man in the archway didn’t answer. Instead he looked from his master down to the front of his pure white doublet. And as he did, it turned red, flooded from within. Something dropped from beneath it, something he tried and failed to catch though he joined it soon enough, collapsing into his own entrails.
More screaming masked the sound of men marching into the galleries above; drowned the sound of bow-strings being drawn taut. All saw them though, how the thirty picked men—Dracula’s vitesji, as they were called—were dressed in the colors of their master, their black and crimson surcoats emblazoned with a silver dragon. Since an arrow was now aimed at every male chest in the hall, the men there slowly lowered their knives, dropping them onto the floor or table. Only two knives remained in hands—Ion’s, dripping red, as he came forward wiping it on his sleeve; and the one Dracula now drew.
“Codrea,” Vlad called.
The vornic jerked, shrank back into his wife. “My…my…my prince?”
“You said that, had you been able to find my brother’s coffin, you would have investigated the crime more fully?” Vlad laid his fingers on the wooden lid. “Will you help me investigate it now?”
“But…but…” Codrea swallowed. “It…it is ten years since Mircea’s unhappy, uh, disappearance. “What could…” He flicked his fingers at the coffin.
“If it is true that my brother was tortured, his eyes put out, before he was buried alive, there may be some signs of it.”
“S-s-signs, my prince?”
“Shall we see? Your knife, Codrea. No, no, pick it up. Help him, Ion.”
The vornic, sweating heavily, was dragged forward, made to grip a knife. Vlad stuck the point of his dagger into the crack of lid and wall. “You begin that side.”
The nails were gouged out, one by one, Ion doing most of Codrea’s share. When all were thrown aside, Vlad looked once around the hall, then placed his fingers under the rim and lifted it, just a finger’s width.
There was an immediate breath of something foul. Not rotten, the worms had long since done their work on flesh. But decayed, like improperly salted meat. “Hmm,” said Vlad, trying to raise the lid further. “Something’s stuck. Ion, Codrea. Gently now.”
The three men lifted. Screams came as the wood rose, something rising with it—two skeletal hands, their fingers joined to the lid as if welded there, as if whoever within was helping to push it up. Then, suddenly, something snapped and the hands fell back in with a clatter of bones.
Standing the lid upright, Vlad looked at its interior. A single finger joint clung there and he reached, touched for a moment, then snapped it off. “Splinters,” he said, peering closely. “They must have fused his hands to the wood, especially after his nails kept growing. See?” He held the finger joint higher so all could see the yellowed, curling nail. “I know Mircea kept the nails of his right hand long, for he was a wondrous player of the lute. Not this long, though.” He turned the joint into the light. “Strange to think what beautiful music this finger once plucked from a string.” He placed the bone carefully into the coffin, then ran his fingers along the inside of the lid. “And these lines here, Codrea. Gouging, wouldn’t you say? What would you, my Chief Justice, conclude from that?”
The vornic’s eyes were wide, his jaw slack. “That…that he was buried alive, my prince. And tried to scratch his way out.”
Vlad nodded. “I agree. A reasonable conclusion. So,” he said briskly, looking around the hall, “we now know how he died. But before? What else can you note, vornic? Come, you can’t investigate from over there. Help him, Ion.”
The man was dragged forward again, one of Ion’s hands behind his neck, bending him over the coffin. “What do you see?” Vlad continued. “More than my brother did, undoubtedly. For though the jelly has long since melted, this scraping in the eye sock
et, this flaking bone, this blackening. I would say…an iron bar, heated to redness, thrust in, held too long? Is that what you see, Codrea? A man blinded before he died?”
“Merciful Christ!” Codrea yelled, trying to jerk away. But Ion was massive, strong, and had him pinned. At his nod, Ilie and Stoica, clad also in black, came forward. Each took a limb.
“Indeed,” said Vlad, moving to the reed torch in the central sconce, placing his knife tip in the flame. “Christ is merciful. But Mircea Dracula did not receive mercy. And neither will you.”
“No! No! No! No!” Codrea screamed, as Ilie and Stoica bent him over the coffin. The scream rose in pitch as Vlad, quite slowly, slipped the heated knife-tip into the first eyeball, holding it there a few seconds before slipping it into the second.
Two of the watchers fainted, a man and a woman, smashing onto the floor, where Codrea joined them, screaming, palms of hands pressed into what remained of his eyes. “Take him outside,” Vlad said. “His coffin awaits.”
No one else moved, as the two men grabbed him by the ankles, dragging him through the central arch. They flinched though, as they heard his head bouncing on every step. The sound carried clear through the hall, easily reached the room above, where Ilona tried to stand and couldn’t, couldn’t pull her face away from the grille and its view of the man she loved, the man she did not know, her fingers wedged into the mesh, held there as tightly as coffin lid had ever held bone.
The sounds eventually faded. Vlad wiped his blade on his cloak. “And now…” he said.
He was interrupted by another scream. “No!” It came from Marea Udriste, a short-sword appearing from within his ermine-collared coat. He was three paces from Vlad and he made one of them before the arrows took him, one through the neck, one through the chest. They were shot from ten paces, from a Turkish bow that could send an arrow five hundred and still pierce flesh. These more than pierced his, knocking him backwards, pinning him to a chair where he sat, eyes wide in shock.