The older man nodded. “Then hear this: the boyars plot against you.”
Vlad smiled. “You could have saved yourself the ride from Targoviste. Every time a crow caws in the forest they sing me that same song.”
“But now they believe they have a weapon to use against you.”
“What weapon?”
“The woman, Ilona Ferenc.”
Ion stepped forward. Vlad rose. “She is well?”
“My lord, she is with child.”
Vlad closed his eyes. For a moment, he was not there, a prince preparing for battle. For a moment he was back in her house, on her bed, a lover only, and Ilona was promising him release, with no consequences. “It is safe, my love, safe. I know my times…”
She’d lied. The only one who never would, had.
The priest stared at his prince’s quivering eyelids. He glanced at Ion, swallowed, went on hurriedly. “And the boyars, who have always hated her for her hold on you, for the fact that you will marry none of theirs while she lives, see this as a chance to hurt you.”
Vlad, eyes still shut, nodded. “Because of my vow.”
“Yes. Your vow to have no more bastards, spoken to your confessor, re-affirmed to me before the altar of the Bisierica Domnesca. They think you still will not marry her. That you will break the vow, dishonor her and yourself. Most of all break your covenant with God just when Wallachia needs Him most.”
“I see.” Vlad lifted his head, listened. Beyond the canvas, an army was preparing for battle. The whistle of steel being honed on the whetstone. The strike of mallet on armor as dents were hammered out. Somewhere close a man was singing a doina, a sad lament of a shepherd’s lost love. Vlad listened for a moment to the plaintive tune, waited for the harmony…which came, beautifully, from a higher, boyish voice. Then he nodded, accepted God’s Will and called out, “Stoica!”
His servant appeared. He carried an arming doublet. Vlad began to strip off his Turkish garb. “Your Eminence, when we gather, you will bless the host and kiss the banner of the Holy Cross. Then you will return to Targoviste and make preparations for my wedding.” Stripped to a long shirt, Vlad held out his arms and Stoica slipped the arming doublet over them, immediately beginning to cinch the leather cords. “One week from now, at midday on the Feast of the Saints John and Simeon, I will come to the Bisierica Domnesca. I will either be in my coffin or on my feet. If the first, let a mass be sung for my soul, for I died a warrior Prince of Wallachia. If the other…well, let the wedding bells ring.”
Stoica, his initial task complete, picked up the first pieces of steel, the sabaton and greave for the lower leg. Vlad stared at the black armor piled to the side. A fortune paid for it, to the craftsmen of Nuremberg. Very different from the borrowings he’d worn to take the throne.
Such a long road since, he thought. So many sins.
He stayed Stoica’s reaching hands. “Hear my confession, Your Eminence?” he asked, kneeling. “Though I do not know if I have time for any penance.”
For the first time, the Metropolitan smiled. “Bring the head of Mehmet Fatih to your wedding feast, Prince Dracula, and you will have done penance for a lifetime.”
“I am not so sure. I have much to atone for. With more to come.” Vlad crossed himself. “But I will try. For God’s love, for all my sins, I will try.”
—
They gathered just inside the canopy, on the long ridge-line where forest gave way to sloping meadow. In the clear sky a full moon turned the contours of the land silver, lining them in black. It looked as if a hundred thousand stars were reflected in the center of the plain far below. But it was the Turkish camp, its four roadways a dark cross within the circle.
Vlad nudged Kalafat forward, Ion and Gales following. “It will take us two hours to ride around to the southern side. Then, with the moonlight near behind us, we will charge down that road. Gales jupan, ride to the crossroads of the blasted oak. As soon as you hear the fight begin—and I think the wailing of the enemy will carry clear to you there—charge in along the northern road. With God’s good grace, we will meet again beneath Mehmet’s tug.”
“How will we recognize your men in the fray, in the dark, Voivode?” Gales said. “Your own fine armor is, of course, so distinctive. But many of our men have picked up the enemy’s armor along the way.”
“I have prepared for that.” Vlad raised his voice and it carried clear along the canopy’s edge. “Let each man dismount now and, kneeling, ask for a remission of his sins, paid in Infidel blood. And let each man tie the white ribbon, symbol of Maria the Holy Mother’s purity, to his helm.”
The word spread to those who hadn’t heard. Soldiers dismounted, came beyond the tree-line, knelt on the slopes. Priests in tall mitres, carrying the staffs of the faith, moved among them, uttering blessings, dispensing white, silk scarves, which the men affixed to their helmets.
Vlad and Ion knelt side by side, were blessed by the Metropolitan, rose and returned to their mounts together. Each began checking straps and weapons. “You know who will likely be there, beneath the Sultan’s tug?” Ion asked quietly.
Vlad nodded. “For years I have dreamed of freeing my brother from Mehmet’s embrace. I only hope that, when we meet again, Radu remembers that he is also the Dragon’s son.” He reached for his Turkish bow, the one he’d carried since Guirgui, which no other man there could pull, and slipped the bow-string over his head, making sure the weapon rested easy on his back. Then he turned. “So, Ion. I will see you there.”
Ion’s reply was soft, for one man only. “Right in the middle of the fight, Vlad. As ever.”
His prince smiled, then watched as the white banner with the red cross was waved a last time before being brought back into the forest. Vlad waited for Christ to have His moment. Then he turned to his left side and the huge, dark man there. “Now,” he said.
Black Ilie bowed, then urged his horse forward, halting twenty paces before the forest. Clear to all those within it, he rose in his stirrups and began to swirl the tall pole he held, unwinding the cloth upon it. When it was free, he leaned back, brought the banner shooting forward. Lit by moonlight, the silver dragon soared. “Dracula!” Ilie cried in his huge, deep voice.
“Dracula!” came the echo from four thousand throats. And on the cry, with the Dragon flying before them, the host of Wallachia swept down the slope.
– THIRTY-SIX –
Kaziklu Bey
They had ridden in an easy canter, swung wide around the Turkish camp, paused to re-group at the head of the valley that gave onto the plain. Now that they were again riding downhill, drawing closer, they began to gather speed, though not yet at full gallop. The contours of the land, narrowing down, forced them together, a phalanx of men and horses. When the valley ended and they were on flat ground, his men spread to either side of Vlad in ranks of two hundred men, ten files deep.
Closest to him were his vitesji, the fifty who were left of the original hundred, and closest still his bannermen: Black Ilie, Laughing Gregor, Stoica the Silent. All fifty were armed, like their leader, in finest, blackened Nuremberg steel, the lightest and strongest that could be bought. Behind each of them rode a squire—armored, too, if not so finely. Each of these younger men carried a pitch torch, lit before they began the descent, the flames bent back by the speed of their passing.
All had seen the twin-tailed comet that had torn through Wallachian skies the year the Dragon’s son took back his father’s throne. It was said then that Vlad had ridden it to his triumph. To those who followed now, it looked as if that comet flew again, their prince once more astride it.
The valley floor was as parched as all the land, a few tufts of grass clinging to the dust that rose up and followed them in a great, roiling cloud. It was this the first of the enemy saw, taking it to be a storm cloud, the flames within it the first flashes of lightning, the sound of hooves the growl of thunder. When they saw it, even the Dragon could be explained—for these nomads of Tartary knew that dragons dwelt
on their mountain peaks and would descend to suck the bones of men. They did not even reach for weapons, for no mortal’s blade could kill such a beast. The safest thing was to wait unmoving beside their horses and hope that another was chosen to sate the beast’s hunger. Some died waiting, falling not to a Dragon’s claw but to the arrows that Vlad’s companions shot. Not many. There were more important targets ahead.
It was a yaya from the plains of Anatolia, a poor farmer waking from a dream of crops and the cool water in his own well, who was the first to realize the truth. His brother had disappeared into the dungeons of Tokat, never to return, and he had lived in dread of the punishments practiced there ever since. So when he woke and saw the Dragon banner he knew it was neither beast nor storm but something far worse.
“Kaziklu Bey,” he cried, giving out Vlad’s title in his own tongue.
Impaler Prince.
They had swept in from the side, because there were more guards at the outermost end of the road. But they were through the outer lines now, past the akinci, who slept beside their horses in the open air, and the yaya, who slept in huge tents that could be avoided. Ahead, though, the tents grew smaller and ever closer together, their ropes a snare for flying hooves.
Black Ilie was watching him closely, riding nose to haunch. So when Vlad swerved right, the Dragon banner swerved with him and the phalanx of men followed, heading towards the road.
It was time. Vlad did not need to look for Stoica. The little man rode on his other side, his sturdy tarpan horse almost at full gallop to keep up with Kalafat. Everywhere Vlad looked now, flame edged up to the elbows of his vitesji, who all imitated him now—unshouldered their bows, felt in their quivers for the arrows with the cloth heads wet with oil, drew them out and, in one flowing movement, passed the tips through fire, before notching them to strings, swiftly drawn back. The targets did not require much in the way of aiming. All arrows found their marks: the pavilions of the sipahi horsemen. Their pitch-caulked canvases were afire in moments.
“Kaziklu Bey!” The cry coming from many mouths now, the terror clear.
“Do you hear me coming, Mehmet?” Vlad whispered. His visor was still raised and his eyes moved constantly, seeking targets for his normal, bone-tipped arrows; seeking most for the change in tents that would tell him where he was.
It came. Beyond the smaller pavilions of the sipahis were rows of camel-hair cones that swept up to a larger, single pavilion. A pole stood before it and, in the moonlight, Vlad was able to see the flag upon it, the elephant rising on its yellow and green background. He could even remember—for as a student he had worshipped these men—the orta that the flag represented.
The 79th, he thought, and remembered the last time he had seen that elephant, outside the tavern in Edirne, when he had stolen Ilona. The thought was there, then gone as he yelled, “Janissaries!” then drew and shot, drew and shot again. An arrow struck him, the first he’d received, glancing off the fluted planes of his breastplate. He pushed down his visor. His mount wore little armor, for Vlad did not wish to restrict Kalafat’s nimbleness. But she had a thick, quilted hide coat, studded with small metal plates, and a steel shaffron to protect her head and muzzle. This, with its sharpened spike, the length of a man’s forearm, thrust out above her eyes, transformed her. It was a unicorn the Turks saw, a black devil on its back, galloping beneath a silver dragon.
Waves of shrieking men had fled before the storm, knocking over tent poles, gouging out ropes. Vlad saw them crashing into men trying to rally, saw these janissaries slicing the deserters down. Someone was thumping the great kos drum; and soldiers, some in helmet, some in breastplate, most in neither, but all with weapons, were scrambling to the elephant standard.
His desire was to fight and kill only one man that night. But these janissaries were the heart of the enemy army. And they stood between him and the road to Mehmet.
“To me,” he cried, though there was no need, for his men were still tight with him, his black-armored comrades closest. There was time for a last flight of arrows. Then bows were slung and, in the next instant, swords unsheathed. “Dracula,” they screamed, and charged into the rallying janissaries.
There were perhaps three hundred janissaries, perhaps more. They were scythed like wheat, the vitesji’s blades dipping, rising, a harvest of blood.
And then Vlad was through, most of his men with him, and the road was gained, wide enough to take twenty men abreast. After a little jostling, horses and riders settled, increasing speed, a flaming spear driving straight into the heart of God’s enemies.
Theirs was not the only flame. The avenue was lined on both sides with lanterns, oil-soaked rags burning within them. The speed with which he was moving now made it seem that the lights were moving too, fireballs streaming towards the road’s end—Mehmet’s pavilion.
A hundred men could lie toe to head along its front. He could see the walls he had helped to stitch only the day before; make out the two-tiered gate that was its entrance. He was far enough away yet that he could only see the flagpole, not what topped it, but Vlad knew that the tug had six horsetails, the golden crescent of Cibele and a thousand, chiming silver bells. And he could see that men had gathered at its base. Perhaps one of them was the one he sought.
Two, he reminded himself, as arrows flew from the side and he lowered himself beside Kalafat’s head as he had once lowered himself playing jereed. Where Mehmet was, Radu would be, the brother he’d been unable to rescue. Another surge, the space consumed by Kalafat’s speed, and he would be upon them both.
And then his view changed. Where there had been only a few frantic figures between him and the tug, now his way was blocked by horsemen. He could see moonlight glint on breastplate and helm, men who had been forewarned enough to arm, at least partly. He could not tell the color of their standard but he knew it would be yellow—the silken oriflame of the household cavalry of Anatolia.
He’d told his men they were disaffected, unhappy with their commander, probably drunk. He had not needed to tell them that they were still fine warriors, among the most elite of Mehmet’s guard. And behind them, also rallying, he saw infantry clutching halberds—the spleenless ones, the peyk.
There was no moment to pause, to be daunted. Vlad levelled his sword beside Kalafat’s head, offering a parallel steel thrust towards the enemy—unicorn’s horn and Dragon’s Talon.
He rode at one man, an officer by his crested, feathered helm. His foe held a lance and so outreached him—but there were ways around that, especially as the man only now began to ride and Vlad was still moving fast. When they closed, he feinted right to glance the lance-tip off his rising shield; swerved suddenly left, letting the weapon slide under his shield arm; dropping that suddenly, as he brought Kalafat to an instant halt, pinning the man’s weapon to him, pulling the Turk forward, off balance. He’d dropped the pommel of his sword low, the point angled up. Inserting it between chainmail and chin, Vlad thrust up.
A twist of blade, an enemy falling, seeking another as he turned back into what had become a mêlée. Beside him, Stoica shoved his still-burning torch into the face of a huge Turk who screamed and fell, beard aflame. Behind him he saw Gregor laugh as he crushed a warrior’s metal turban with his mace. The Dragon flew forward in the thrust of the spear-tipped standard Ilie bore; another Infidel dead, gladdening God’s heart. And then the next wave of Wallachians crashed through, and the Anatolians of the left wing were swept aside.
Men on huge warhorses passed Vlad. A touch of his heels and Kalafat was catching up to her bigger, slower brothers. But though Vlad was not in the first wave that smashed into the peyk, he could see the havoc wreaked by axe-headed halberds—their side hooks dragging men from their saddles, the rear hammer crushing helmets, the points thrust through visors. Yet the enemy ranks soon disordered into a series of individual combats, and Vlad’s vitesji had not lost sight of him. They and many more now followed Dragon’s son and flying Dragon, threading through the fight.
I
nto open ground and moonlight and Vlad now close enough to see the horsetails of the tug, the men rallied before it. Recognized solaks there, the janissary archers of the guard, among mounted and dismounted sipahis. As Vlad and his men broke clear of the mob, a thousand points of steel were levelled against them in arrow, spear and sword.
He looked beyond them—and there, at last, were the two men he sought, the purpose of all this death. Mehmet, in a violet night-robe of gold and silver brocade, his great, gilded helmet surmounted by an ostrich plume, stood with a sword in his hand. While beside him, dressed just like him, clutching a bow, was a man Vlad had last seen as a boy. His brother, Radu.
Water came into his eye. He raised his visor to wipe it away, looked left and right at his men. Some were still engaged at points along the way. Some had fled. Many were dead. Of the two thousand who had begun the wild ride, there were perhaps two hundred reining in beside him now. Yet somewhere beyond the Sultan’s pavilion, by now Ion should be bringing two thousand more.
He could not wait to find out. He looked at the men he’d sought, and the men before them. It was not quite a silence, fighting and fear precluded that. But the killing had slackened just enough for Vlad to make something else out—the faintest chime of silver bells.
It lasted but a moment—then the great cry came. “Allah-u-akbar,” the Turks roared, beckoning the Christians forward.
The response came easily to men who had seen what it did to the enemy. “Kaziklu Bey,” the men of Wallachia cried, and followed the Impaler Prince into the charge.
But Vlad and his vitesji had sheathed their swords. Once more bows were in their hands. As bone-pointed arrows began to fall upon them, a score of arrows flew back. These, though, were again flame-tipped, sinking into the Sultan’s pavilion, crisping the lavish silks that decorated the walls in an instant, streams of fire flowing along tarred ropes. As soon as Vlad shot he slung his bow, drew his sword again, lowered his head as if into driving rain, not driven bone. In an arrow storm all he could hope was that the costliest armor in the land would guide death away from his flesh.