“But then, after his death, you journeyed here, to the cave upon his mountain, did you not?”
No reply came.
“Tell it swiftly!” Petru barked. There was a last task he had to perform and, after a night of sitting, he was eager to be about it.
“I came here.”
The Cardinal, rotating his fleshy neck, looked down. “A special curiosity among the many. Why would you do that?”
“Because I thought that perhaps here, in this place he loved, his final thoughts might be heard.” A laugh came, the first he’d given, a strange sound. “And was I not right?”
“Enough,” snapped the Count, rising. He turned to the man beside him. Horvathy was as exhausted as he had ever been; yet he knew his only hope for a sleep without ghosts lay in the gift of the man beside him. “I ask again, Your Eminence—is there anything more, beyond the satisfaction of your curiosity, that you need to hear?”
The Cardinal looked back into the Count’s one, hope-filled eye. “No,” he said.
Horvathy hesitated, looking down at the smaller, rounder man, his unreadable face. Then he swallowed. “And can you tell us what your conclusion might be?” He lifted his hand, rubbed the socket of that one eye. “I know we have heard a tale of horror here tonight. But we have also heard of a crusader prince, Christ’s Warrior, slaying His enemies under the Dragon banner. Dying finally, under that banner, still killing Infidels. With the exoneration of the Pope, and our gold to counteract the lies that have been told—and to mitigate the worst of the truth—the Dragon’s son could rise again. Then, so could the Dragon and all its brood.” He paused, searched the eyes before him for some sign. When none came, he blurted, “Well, Grimani? Does my Order rise or fall?”
The Cardinal looked up at the Count, then across at the younger man, whose hope shone as clearly upon his face; finally down at the three confessionals. “Neither,” he said, then overrode the gasp that came, “for now.” He stepped off the dais, moved towards the door. Stopping before it, he turned. “Really, Count Horvathy, you cannot expect a decision based on such tales and after such a long night, in a moment. And you know that it is not, finally, my decision to give. I represent authority, but I am not its highest voice. I will read again all that has passed here tonight. Then I will talk to the Pope. From that conversation”—he looked again at the confessionals and made the sign of the cross—“a shriving must come. Or not. Only the Holy Father can forgive such a sinner as Dracula from such…spectacular sins.”
Horvathy approached him. “May I hope? For myself? For the sacred Order of the Dragon?”
“Well,” replied Grimani, “there are precedents. So ready your gold for your Order. And hope for yourself.”
Horvathy nodded. He had done all he could. “We will collect the confessions. We will mark all three with our three seals. Then you may take one with you. I will take one to Buda, for secret printing. And we will leave one here, where the tale was told.”
“Good.” Grimani glanced again at the three confessionals. “And, uh, the other business?”
“We will deal with matters here, Your Eminence,” Horvathy replied, looking at Petru.
The Cardinal stared back at them for a moment. “Of course you will,” he said softly. “Each to their own skills, eh?” He raised two conjoined fingers. “Dominus vobiscum,” he intoned, making the cross.
“Et cum spiritu tuo,” Horvathy said, bowing.
With a slight inclination of the head, Cardinal Grimani left the hall.
The wiry frame of Bogdan, Petru’s lieutenant, replaced him in the doorway. He raised his eyebrows and Petru nodded. Bogdan turned, beckoned two soldiers; one young and eager, the other older, edgy.
Behind the guards came another man. He was dressed quite differently, with a leather apron covering him from nape to ankle. His face was streaked in soot and he held a sword. The hilt of the weapon was level with his chin while the blade’s tip rested on the ground.
Horvathy smiled. “The Dragon’s Talon,” he said. “I had forgotten that it was being re-forged.”
He beckoned the smith forward, took the sword in both hands, lifted it high. “What a weapon!” he marvelled, turning the blade to catch a beam of sunlight that came through the arrow slit. It played on the pommel and made the Dragons on each side seem to fly. “You know, Petru, those who have never held a bastard sword think it must be heavy, because you wield it with two hands. But it is forged so exquisitely that it is light, can be lifted again and again. Can kill again and again.” He threw it up, caught it, sighed. “With this alone I feel I could take back Constantinople.”
“My lord?”
Horvathy looked at Petru. The younger man held out his hands. When the Hungarian did not lower the sword, Petru said, “It is the sword of Wallachia, my lord. It belongs to my prince.”
The Count’s one eye narrowed. Then he shrugged, brought the weapon down, handed it across. Petru took it and held it for a moment before laying it flat across the arms of the center chair. Then he waved the blacksmith out, closing the door behind him.
The Count breathed deeply before stepping off the dais. “The testament,” he snapped, and immediately the curtain on the priest’s side of the first confessional was drawn back. The monk within blinked up at the brighter light of the hall. He had already rolled and ribboned the papers. Horvathy took them. “Thank you for your work. You will be rewarded.” He nodded. “Please step out and wait over there.”
The monk rose, stretched, walked over to stand before Petru and his men. The Count approached the second and third confessionals, where the same actions and words were repeated. The three monks like the prisoners, had only been allowed out twice in the proceedings, and they looked tired and hungry. Petru gestured to the smaller table at the other end of the room: “Food and wine are provided. Help yourselves.” Eagerly the monks, shadowed by the soldiers, moved to the far end of the hall.
Horvathy clutched the three rolls of testimony to his chest with one hand. With his other, he slowly drew back the first of the remaining curtains. Ion blinked up, raising a hand to shelter his eyes from the glare. In his short time out of his cell, his eyesight had come back a little bit more. He could even see the features of a face, an oval above him, etched in brightness.
Without a word, Horvathy moved on, drew more material aside. Ilona did not look up, did not open her eyes. Her mouth moved, but whether in prayer or in the lament she had recently sung, as she had sung it over Dracula’s body, Horvathy could not tell.
In the last confessional Dracula’s confessor did not raise his head. Within the hood, all the Hungarian could see was the man’s shadowed mouth and chin, his lips, like those of the Abbess, moving silently.
He hesitated for a moment, then he swallowed, turned away, laid the testaments on his chair. He took Petru’s arm, leading him to the door. “Do what must be done,” he whispered.
“I…” The younger man looked back, ran his tongue over his lips nervously. “I only regret…the woman,” he muttered. “It seems a sin.”
“You have heard her confession. Her sins are innumerable.” The Count squeezed his arm hard. “And remember this—all our sins will be forgiven in crusade. When the Dragon and the Cross fly side by side again and sweep the Infidel from the Balkans.”
Petru swallowed, nodded. “What must be done,” he echoed. Horvathy reached for the door handle—but Petru put his hand against the door. “You will not stay, my lord, and bear witness?”
Horvathy looked in the younger man’s eyes; saw duty there, some apprehension. But there was hunger, too. Petru had scrupulously, loyally carried out his Voivode’s strange wishes—but Horvathy knew he also aspired to be inducted into the Order of the Dragon, if it were allowed to rise. And indeed, if it did, if all they had done there that night were successful, then it would be no bad thing to have a Dragon commanding such a valuable frontier post as Poenari in the crusade that would follow. The young Spatar had shown organizational ability. But could he kil
l? It would be worth knowing.
Horvathy took his hand off the door. “I will stay. But be quick!” He lifted the rolls of parchment he held. “These must be signed and sealed before Grimani takes one to Rome. And the Italian is anxious to be gone.”
Petru nodded, shot the bolt on the door, then turned to gaze for a moment at the confessionals and their three silent occupants. Then he looked to the other end of the hall, where monks feasted and soldiers watched them. “Bogdan,” he called, and when the man looked up, he raised his hand.
It was done quickly, without too much suffering, Horvathy judged. He was watching the confessionals, to see if those within reacted to the sudden noise, the gasp, the peculiar suck of metal on throat, the gulping. None seemed to hear, just carried on with what they were doing—muttering, mouthing, staring sightlessly. When he looked again, the guards were standing over two, still-twitching, bodies while Bogdan was lowering his in order to raise the flagstone near the wall by the metal ring set into it. Petru and Horvathy watched him bend, drag, shove. The first monk’s body disappeared fast. The man whose confession they had heard told tonight had built the sluice out over the precipice for the clearing of filth. No doubt it had also been useful to get rid of bodies unseen. It still was.
When the last body disappeared—an arm flailing as if waved in farewell—the soldiers joined him. “Come,” said Petru, his voice cracking on the word as he moved to the confessionals. “Come,” he said again, more firmly. “You have done well, all three of you. Food awaits at the end of this hall, and a comfortable place to lie for a few days. Then you will be returned to your abodes. Though you, Ion Tremblac, will now have an honored place by a hearth in Suceava.” The lies soothed the speaker, his voice growing stronger. He even smiled. “You have been about God’s work this night and day. Come.”
In his confessional, Ion appeared not to have heard, to be gazing at shapes within his eyelids. At Petru’s nod, the young guard reached in and pulled him out. He hung there, his weakened legs not supporting him, so the soldier let him slide onto the floor.
Ilona rose unaided, stood before the confessional, turning to see the man beside her for the first time. His voice, his weeping, his mad laughter had prepared her a little—but not for the wreckage she now saw. “Oh, Ion,” she murmured, kneeling, winding her arms around him. Tears squeezed between their tight-pressed eyes.
“And you, hermit…Father,” Petru corrected himself. The man he’d thought of as just another lonely madman had been a priest once. Like the Abbess, he would be harder to kill for that reason.
The hermit did not move, his head still lowered, only his jaw and mouth revealed under the hood. He was smiling slightly, and then Petru remembered the madman not the priest and said, more sharply, “Get up.” Annoyed, he turned, nodded at Bogdan who came forward. But as he did, the hermit rose, took a step beyond the confessional, stood there as still as he’d been sitting, head downcast, hands at his side.
It would be better to kill them where they’d killed the monks. Even if they were not going to use the sluice—for there must be no danger of these bodies ever being found—it was still best to keep the bloodstains in one area. Besides, up there near the dais was where they dined; and his wife, since her pregnancy, was easily nauseated. “Come,” said Petru, calm again, “to the feast.”
They moved away, and he followed.
Ion had begun to drag himself slowly. Bogdan stepped in, grabbing an arm, pulling. The second soldier took the other arm. The third walked beside Ilona, and Petru saw that the eager young fool already had his knife out, albeit hanging at his side. You didn’t spook animals bound for slaughter, and that was doubly true for humans.
It was then that the hermit spoke. “Wait,” he said.
His voice was low, the word softly spoken. Yet it carried, and everyone paused. At the door, Horvathy straightened. In the silence of the hall, the only noises came from outside, of men preparing horses for departure. And beyond it, the cry of a single bird.
“Kree-ak, kree-ak.”
The hermit turned to it slightly, then turned back as, on Petru’s nod, the older guard left Ion and came towards him. The man did not have his commander’s subtlety. “Come on, you,” he barked, reaching and stepping in, then stepping back and looking down. “What?” he asked, puzzled. And then he sat down suddenly, one hand wrapped round the knife that was inside him.
The hermit stepped around him. It had happened so fast that none of the guards were quite sure what they’d seen. It was Petru who reacted first. Drawing his sword, he shouted, “Stop,” took a step forward. But the hermit ducked low under the rising blade and closed with him, placing his left hand in Petru’s armpit, reaching with his right to the sword-hand, twisting it hard against its inclination. Petru grunted in shock, in sudden pain, dropping the sword. The hermit caught it as it fell, his grip on it reversed, the blade pointing back behind him.
The others began to move. The younger guard threw Ilona down, leapt for the wall, upon which hung a crossbow, a quarrel ever in its groove, a ward against sudden attack. He seized it, as Bogdan screamed, “Let him go,” drew his own sword, ran forward. But the hermit moved into Petru, driving his shoulder into the man’s chest, pivoting as he did. The sword was still held in that reversed grip and it preceded the spinning bodies but not enough for Bogdan to see it properly, or do anything about it. His leather jerkin did nothing to resist the steel. He shrieked, dropped his own sword, staggered back, fell, clutching at the weapon the hermit had released.
Petru jerked, nearly freed himself from the grip. “No,” he screamed, as the guard levelled the crossbow and snapped the trigger, just as the hermit stepped back, pulling Petru close.
The bolt passed through Petru’s throat, taking his next command and, a few moments later, his life.
The hermit let the dying Spatar fall. He landed close to where Bogdan lay. The lieutenant’s hands were wrapped around the grip of the sword whose blade projected a forearm’s length from his back, as if he were deciding whether to pull it out or not. Then, before he could choose, he fell sideways and closed his eyes.
The hermit looked back. The guard who’d first come for him was still sitting up, but his eyes were also closed and he was no longer struggling. The younger guard dropped the crossbow, took a step back, realized there was no way out there, tried to come forward. But the hermit stepped towards him, bending to pick up the knife the youth had dropped when he’d reached for the crossbow. “Help! For the love of God, help me!” the youth wailed at Horvathy. But the Count had not moved, could not. And those above were no doubt expecting such cries, and ignoring them. When he reached the far wall, as the hermit came closer, the guard realized that there was only one place left to go. With a last, despairing cry, he threw himself down the sluice.
The cry continued for a little as the man fell down the mountain; then it was suddenly cut off. The bird’s cry came again, then that too ended sharply. And when it did, the four people left alive all looked at each other.
“Who…?” whispered Ion, though he knew, even if he could not believe it.
Horvathy knew, too. Suddenly, clearly, without question. And it was he who breathed the name.
“Dracula.”
“Yes.” The reply came softly from within the hood.
“No,” said Horvathy, dropping the parchment rolls he held. He only had a knife in his belt. After what he’d just seen, it didn’t seem enough. So he moved fast toward the dais, to the central chair, to the sword lying across it. He lifted it, turned…
…and Dracula was standing a sword’s length away. “That’s mine,” he said softly.
Horvathy raised the sword before him, lifting the point till it was a hand’s breadth from the other man’s face. “Don’t…” he whispered.
“Don’t take what’s mine?” Dracula said.
As he spoke he stepped in, and Horvathy could not thrust, strike, cut. Could do nothing but look in the man’s green, reddened eyes; watch him as he reache
d up, took the grip and pulled the weapon from the Hungarian’s hands.
Dracula stepped back, lifted the sword high, squinted along its planes. “He has done good work, the blacksmith of Curtea de Arges.” He smiled. “And now I feel whole again.”
He looked back at Horvathy. And the Hungarian saw what he expected to see in that green stare—death. And seeing it, fear left him. He felt calm and he said, “Do what must be done, Dracula. For you send me to join my wife.”
But Dracula shook his head. “Your wife was a pious woman, I heard, Count Horvathy. No doubt she sits now at God’s right hand. While you are bound somewhere else. To that special circle of hell reserved for traitors.”
Fear returned. Horvathy raised a hand. “Brother Dragon…” he said.
“You called me that once before,” said Dracula.
The stroke came fast, from the high plane. It was halfway through his body before the Count fell to his knees, held up only by steel. His one eye remained open, though, when Dracula stooped to stare into it. “And I am not your brother,” he whispered as he jerked out the sword.
Then he turned and looked back at the two other people alive in the room.
– FIFTY-TWO –
From the Dead
Ion’s eyes were clear at last; yet he was unable to believe what they saw. He had only ever known one man who could kill the way he’d just seen these four men killed. That man was dead. Ion had seen his head impaled on a spike.
Then the answer came. Whoever…whatever…was laying the sword again across the arm rests, was walking towards him now, was that man’s varcolaci—the undead, risen from his grave, come to feast on the flesh of men.
Yet the hand that now dropped upon his shoulder felt real enough, with its three fingers, its thumb, its stump. His own hand closed over it as he whispered, “Vlad.”
“Yes,” Dracula replied, reaching down, lifting the frail prisoner, half-carrying him back to the confessional, lowering him into it.