Sucking at his finger—the spur had drawn blood—he nodded. He did not believe they would be necessary. But he did not want to condemn the Spatar’s zeal. Then he noticed, beyond the table, something embedded in the wall. “What’s that?” he murmured.
The younger man smiled. “A curiosity. It is said that the former Voivode punished his traitorous nobles by forcing them and their families to work as slaves here and build this castle. Like so many tales told of him I did not believe it. Until I found…this.” He pulled a candle from his pocket, went and lit it at one of the reed torches burning in a sconce, returned. Lowering the light, still smiling, he said, “See, my lord. And feel.”
Without thinking, Horvathy did both. Knew instantly what jutted from the mortar between two bricks.
It was the jawbone of a child.
He snatched his hand back, leaving a speck of his blood on the begrimed baby tooth. He had heard the story of the castle building, too. Like so many told of Dracula, it had always seemed unlikely. Like so many, it was undoubtedly, at least partly, true.
Janos Horvathy, Count of Pecs, glanced back down the hall at the three confessionals. The tales that were to come from them were going to be similar. And worse. Far worse. Suddenly, all the hope he’d had when he first received the facings from the Dragon’s sword, the hope that had sustained him across the snow-clogged valleys of Transylvania to this remote fortress in Wallachia, slipped away. What tales could emerge here that would exonerate such evil? What confession could be told that would free the Dragon order of its disgrace—and him of his curse?
He raised his finger to his missing eye, placed a spot of blood there, too, rubbed it away. “Send the rest of the sword to the blacksmith. And call them. Call them all.”
With a bow, Petru turned to obey.
– III –
Confessions
The first to come were the scribes, tonsured monks, each carrying their stand of inks, their parchment and quills, their little knives. They went to the priest’s side of the confessionals, placed their equipment upon the shelf, pulled down the hinged writing table that Petru had had fitted, then, settled, drew the curtain.
A moment later, Bogdan, second-in-command at Poenari, appeared. He had been sent to rendezvous with the Count’s party a day’s ride away and guide them to the castle. During the journey, Horvathy had asked him about the prisoners he had collected, by order of the Voivode—the first of whom Bogdan was now half-carrying into the hall. This man—a former knight, Horvathy had been told—crouched for a moment in the doorway, unable to stand upright after five years in an oubliette, a cell that was half his height tall. It accounted for his walk, like a crab upon a beach, and his near-blindness, for he had almost never seen the light. It also accounted for his scent, which even a thorough scrubbing in the horse trough in the castle yard had barely begun to diminish.
Aided by Bogdan, the prisoner pulled himself onto the seat of the first confessional, squatting there, his knees drawn up under the shift he wore. A light came into his eyes, as he inhaled the aroma of incense and polish. He reached up and touched the grille, then gave a gurgle of joy. Bogdan drew the curtain.
The second prisoner, the woman, was also clothed in a shift. Bogdan had told how he’d gone to the convent to seize the abbess, and had found no reverend old lady but a naked lunatic, thrusting a woven plait at him. He had not taken it—all knew that was the first way a witch ensnared her victim. He had not paused to study her nakedness. He had simply wrapped her in blankets and thrown her into a cart.
Her head was uncovered now, and beneath the stubble her skin shone in the firelight. Her eyes were bright, too, as she took in what was before her. Bogdan did not touch or guide her. Petru, standing before the dais, pointed to the middle confessional, stepping well back as she passed. When she had settled, he drew the second curtain across.
And finally came the hermit, a reeking pile of hair flopping forward over his downcast eyes, his thick beard moving around his mouth, words formed on hidden lips, soundlessly. Since Petru had captured him himself—in a cave within the very forest surrounding Poenari Castle—the man had not spoken.
Petru looked up at the Count. “Now, my lord?” Horvathy nodded and Petru turned back to his lieutenant. “Go tell His Eminence that all is ready.”
A bow, and the soldier was gone. Now it was about to begin, Horvathy felt nothing, save a curious lethargy. His one eye glazed as he stared near his feet. Around him, the hall was filled with little sounds. Flame-crackle, of fire and torch, the sharpening of feather quills, a low moaning. Then, through the arrow slits, he heard first the sharp bark of a raven and then the “kree-ak, kree-ak” of a hunting hawk. He lifted his head to it, wished he were hunting, too.
The door opened. A man walked in.
He looked as out of place in that sparse room as a peacock in a hen coop. In contrast to the gray-clad men who waited for him, he was dressed in bright scarlet robes, and compared to their wolf-like leanness, he was fat, a heifer, not even a bull. When he mounted the platform, he breathed heavily, as if he were climbing a tower. When he pulled back his hood, the face revealed was sunk into a neck of jowls, black eyes studded into flesh like raisins into a pastry. His hair was short, blond, thick and held under a red cap. He fell into his chair.
The Hungarian gestured the Spatar to his seat. But he did not sit himself. Instead, he looked before him and spoke directly at the three confessionals. As he did, from each came the scratching of quill on parchment.
“Let it be known that I am Janos Horvathy,” he said, speaking clearly, slowly, “Count of Pecs. I have been sent here by command of my liege Lord, my King, Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, to…to interrogate you.” He stumbled a little on the lie then gestured around the hall. “And though I find this method, all this…somewhat strange, I do not question the commands of the Voivode of Wallachia, in whose realm, and by whose grace, this interrogation takes place.” He nodded to the younger man. “Let it also be noted that Petru Iordache, Spatar of Poenari, has fulfilled his sovereign’s commands to the last detail.” He sat, then looked at the Cardinal.
“Must I?” the bovine churchman sighed.
Horvathy pointed to the confessionals. “All will be noted down. You have those you report to, as have I. We must have an exact record.”
“Oh, a record?” Wincing as he leaned forward and took some weight upon his swollen feet, the man spat, “Well then, for the record, I am Domenico Grimani, Cardinal of Urbino and, as Papal Legate to the court of King Matthias, I represent Sixtus IV. And for the record, I think the Holy Father would be amazed to see me here, in these barbarous mountains, taking part in a…pageant!”
“A pageant!”
The Cardinal did not flinch at Horvathy’s roar. “You asked me to accompany you on this journey, Count. You said I was needed to judge something. But the cold, the hideous inns, the appalling roads—well, they have driven the reason for my being here quite out of my head.” He raised a fat hand to his forehead, assumed a mockery of thinking. “Was it to listen to the tale of a monster? Was it to see if we can rehabilitate Dracula?” The Cardinal laughed, pointed before him. “And all this? Was it so that the secret fraternity he led, and buried with his horrors, can rise again?” He was shaking with laughter now. “For the record…who cares?”
“I do!” roared the man beside him. “Perhaps you forget—though somehow, I doubt it—that the fraternity you mock is “fraternatis draconem”—the sacred Order of the Dragon. Of which I and my father were—are!—proud brothers. Founded for the sole purpose of fighting the infidel and the heretic. Hungary’s enemies, Christ’s enemies, the Pope’s enemies, Cardinal Grimani.” Horvathy’s voice lowered again, in volume if not in passion. “And the man you speak of was not its leader, but its most famous member for a time. He was the one who last rode under the Dragon banner against the Turks. And under it, nearly beat them. Would have beaten them, perhaps, if the Pope, my King and, yes…” he faltered, “…his fellow Dragons had
not forsaken him.”
As the Cardinal had shaken with laughter, so the Count now did with rage. But, breathing deeply, he sat back and went on more calmly. “And I will remind you why you are here, Cardinal. Why you agreed to accompany me to this ‘barbarous’ land.” He leaned forward, speaking as much for the scribes as for the Roman. “It is because a restored Order of the Dragon could once again become Christ’s cutting edge, uniting leaders in every state in the Balkans, and in lands beyond, under our banner. And thereby—need I remind you of this?—helping to lift the scimitar that presses on Rome’s throat.”
“My lord Horvathy,” the Cardinal replied, oil replacing ice in his voice, “I apologize. I meant no slur on your Order, which undoubtedly was once a great weapon for Christendom’s cause. But I am confused—is it not an impossible task, to whiten the name of someone so black? Surely, the whole world knows of Dracula’s infamy, his cruelty, his depravity.”
“What the world knows”—the Count’s tone calmed also—“is the story his conquerors told. And since they controlled so many printing presses, it was their stories that were widely spread.” He gestured to the table, the pile of pamphlets there. “But if the Holy Father were to forgive…why then, are there not presses also in Rome, in Buda, ready to print other stories? A different version of the truth?”
“Ah, truth.” The Cardinal smiled, outwardly this time. “The truth of history. I’ve often wondered what that is. Is the truth what we seek here? Or just a version of it that will suit all our ambitions?” He sighed. “But you are right, Count Horvathy. The presses are weapons as strong as your broadsword and axe. Stronger in some ways. I’ve often thought: if the Devil had a Bible in print, would he be as unpopular as he is now?” A smile came at Petru’s gasp. Then he leaned forward. “So what truth is it you would have them tell?”
“That we will hear,” replied the Count. “What we seek may not be possible. It may be that the monster is all that will emerge from the telling. But since the Turks now have a foothold in Italy, at Otranto, and the Sultan’s standard has been raised before the walls of lost Constantinople—and who knows where he will lead his army?—is it not a tale in desperate need of hearing?”
Grimani sat back, a conciliatory smile now on his face. When he replied, he spoke slowly, clearly. For the record. “Very well, my lord. I acknowledge that the times are perilous. You have asked me here to be a judge. So let me begin with this.” He looked at the line of confessionals. “Who waits here behind these curtains? And why have they been chosen to tell us this tale?”
“Let them answer.” The Count motioned Petru forward.
The Spatar rapped hard upon the first confessional. “Who are you?” he demanded.
The knight had been listening to the voices. He heard so many in a day, it had been hard to tell if these were any more real. But he’d suddenly recognized the voice of one of the judges; more, he’d realized that he had met the man before, in the days of sight and sin. That, and the fact that he now understood just why he’d been freed from the darkness, brought his mind, which had spun in circles of insanity for long years, slowly to a stop.
“My name is Ion Tremblac,” he said. And saying it, he remembered that it was true.
Gasps came, one from the Count as the recognition was returned, one female and from the central confessional.
Petru went on. “And how did you know Dracula, the former Voivode of Wallachia, whose tale we seek to hear this day?”
“How? From boyhood, I took every stride beside him. Rode stirrup to stirrup with him to the hunt, to war. Suffered torture, shared triumph. I was his closest companion.” The man began to weep. “And I betrayed him. Betrayed him!”
A near silence, violated only by the sound of other tears in the second confessional. Horvathy turned to it now, and Petru tapped it once, then crossed himself. “And you, lady,” he asked. “Who are you?”
She too had sat there, listening, realizing. She had always known that one day she would have to give an account and not just in her prayers. She’d been ready, calm, willing…until she’d heard a voice she’d thought never to hear again, of the only man she’d ever called a friend, a man she’d thought long dead. She breathed now to calm herself, wiped her face and when she was ready, spoke. “I have been known for many years only as the Abbess of the Sisters of Mercy at Clejani. But beneath the veil, I have always been Ilona Ferenc. And from the moment I first saw him, when I was slave to the Sultan, till the hour I prepared his body for the grave, I loved him. For I was his mistress.”
It was the weeping knight’s turn to gasp, uncertain again that anything was real, that he was not still in his cell, among his ghosts. For the woman who had just spoken was dead. He’d seen her murdered—viciously murdered. Keening, he began to tap his head against the wood. From the last confessional came no sound, no movement. When Petru thumped it, the hermit did not stir.
“And you? Speak!” he commanded.
Silence.
“My lord,” said Petru, turning back, “I do not think he can speak. He has lived in a cave on this mountain for many years and no one has ever heard him do so.”
Horvathy bent, spoke loudly. “Well, man? You were ordered to be brought here as well. Can you tell us who you are? What you were to the person we are here to judge?”
The quills stopped their scratching. The silence extended. Then, just as Petru was about to reach in and drag the hermit to the far end of the hall, and its tools of coercion, a voice came. It was gruff with disuse, barely there. Yet, because of the perfect acoustics of the hall, it carried.
“I knew him. In some ways, better than anyone. I heard of every deed he did. I heard why he did them.” The voice grew stronger. “For my name is Brother Vasilie. And I was his confessor.”
The quills began moving again, one by one, as the scribes scratched those last few words.
“Interesting,” the Cardinal said. “And leaving aside, for the moment, that you will be betraying the secrets of the shriving…” He settled back into his chair. “Well, who would speak first then? Who would begin the tale of Dracula?”
In the first confessional, Ion Tremblac thrust forward, his face pushing out the curtain. All could see his features in the cloth, his moving mouth. “I will,” he said swiftly. He had waited so long. Five years of darkness. Now, here, at last, he could see some light. There was a priest in the room; he was in a confessional. It did not matter that he had been raised in the Orthodox faith that did not use them. God, in any coat, had forsaken him long ago. But however great his sins, this was his one chance to repent, to draw Him back. To be forgiven.
“I will,” Ion said again, before anyone else could. “Because, you see, I knew him from the beginning…”
– PART ONE –
The Fledgling
It is far easier for one to defend himself against the Turks who is familiar with them than for one who does not know their customs.
—KONSTANTIN MIHAILOVIC, Serbian janissary
– ONE –
The Hostage
Edirne, capital of the Turkish Empire, September 1447
“Well? Is there not one of you dullards who can speak this for me?”
Ion Tremblac stared at the curls and swoops of the Arabic letters on the tablet before him, and sighed. Quietly, for it would not do to be heard in despair. If he could not present an answer, the least required was diligent, silent striving. But the letters he’d copied down were becoming less clear, not more so. His mind was just too full! The boys had entered the classroom at dawn, and the sun was now close to its zenith. First there’d been Greek, then mathematics, then some fiendish Persian poetry. When that was done, the scholars had begun to rise, assuming by the sun’s position in the sky that the day was done and they were free. But then Hamza, their agha, their tutor, had given a teasing smile and said, “Let us end the day with the words of Allah, the Merciful, the All-Encompassing. Just a short verse from the Qur’an.” The Serbian, Mardic, had actually groaned and b
een struck for it. Hence Ion’s inward sigh. He wanted the wooden bastinado that rested beside the tutor’s floor pillow to remain there.
“Come, my fledglings, my young hawks. Your dullness would test the patience of the Imam of Tabriz, whose serenity was undisturbed when barbarians burned his house around him and who only asked: will someone not open the window?”
Hamza laughed quietly and leaned over his crossed legs, gazing down from his raised dais upon the seven bent heads below. He was obviously expecting some reaction to his words. None came.
“No one?” Now it was Hamza who sighed. “Go then, you stones. See if some of the Merciful’s clean air can clear your heads!” Over the scuffle of boys rising, the little groans as limbs too long crossed were released, he added, “But we will return to this in the morning. And there will be no tales from Herodotus until we finish it.”
No one was faster to their feet than Ion. He would have been first through the door, too, leading his orta into the central passageway of the enderun kolej, joining the throng there of other ortas released from their studies. Now that he was standing, he could see them over the low partition walls that divided class from class in the big hall, and he ached to join them. All were silent, as was commanded, but he could see the restraint on the faces, the whoop that would erupt as soon as they cleared the doors. But he could not leave. Not when the one who sat next to him was still studying the words. Ion clicked his fingers in front of his friend’s face, the gesture obvious.
His impatience had no effect. Hamza, who had stood and was stretching his own cramped limbs, looked down at Ion and his prone companion. He studied the bent head, the midnight-black hair falling like a veil over the face, and smiled. “Do you have it, my young man?”