Vlad, page 26
Vlad and Ion watched him go.
“He will not come,” said Ion.
“I think he will. He knows what will become of his family and himself if I succeed and he has failed me. But if he doesn’t…” He turned, handed his sword to Stoica, who sheathed it, bowed and ran ahead. Vlad began to follow, walking slowly up the slope towards his own encampment. Ion could see how weary his friend was, now the course had been set. “If he doesn’t, then you will be there to kill him and lead his men yourself.”
Ion stopped. “Me? I shall be guarding your back as ever.”
Vlad halted, too, looked back. “Not this time, old friend. I need your sword in Gales’s back or through his throat. I need the second attack to happen.”
“Then why not let me lead it?”
“You will, truly. But Gales must be seen to lead it. The other boyars are wavering. In Targoviste especially. If Turcul jupan sees his brother still fighting by my side, they might hold firm a little longer. Then my back truly will be safe.”
They had reached the ridge. Paths furrowed the ground within the thick oak and beech forest of Vlasia, hiding the Wallachian army from Turkish eyes. One led, in a few short steps, to Vlad’s tent.
And to the two men standing before it. Ion could not see their faces at first, so swiftly had the gloom taken the woods. He hurried forward, preparing to shoo them away, whatever their news, for his prince must rest if he was going to lead his army into battle in a few short hours. But then he saw who they were, and he could not speak.
– THIRTY-FIVE –
Vows
Vlad saw them, too. “Your Eminence,” he said, kneeling to kiss the Metropolitan’s ring, “what make you from Targoviste?”
The churchman was tall, and lean with it, taking his spiritual role of God’s Appointee far more seriously than many who had grown fat on the profits of the position. His serious face was troubled now. “I have news, Prince. And I could trust no one else to bring it.”
“I see. A moment.” He turned to the other man, who stood in battered armor encrusted with dust, his face so filthy it was barely distinguishable. “And you, Buriu, most loyal of my boyars? Could you trust no one with your news, either?”
“Alas, my prince,” the man replied, “I had no one left alive to trust.”
Ion flinched. Vlad had been forced to send Buriu east with half his army to defend the key fortress of Chilia. Not from the Turks. From his own cousin, his former fellow fugitive, Stephen of Moldavia, who had chosen this moment to betray him, and Christ, by trying to seize what he most desired. That Buriu was here again, alone…
Vlad must have realized the same. “Inside, friends. And speak quietly, I pray you.”
The old boyar’s news was spoken quietly enough and swiftly. There was not much to tell.
“My scouts failed to return. I knew I must proceed with speed, lest that accursed Moldavian seize the fortress. But it must have been him who warned the Turk…” Buriu’s voice cracked. “They waited for us in reeds either side of a bridge. They let half my men across then attacked from both sides. They had five times our numbers. I…was with the rearguard. I still don’t know how I escaped, why I was spared…”
The older man began to weep. Vlad sat beside him, put a hand on his shoulder. “You did not die, Spatar, because I needed you beside me, Dracul’s oldest friend.”
The man looked up, wiped his eyes. “Is it true what I heard? That you ride this night against Mehmet’s camp?”
“It is.”
The old boyar rose, every joint creaking. “Then I must go and knock the dents out of my armor.”
“My lord.” Vlad rose, too. “You have done enough. Rest this night.”
“When the Dragon banner flies against the enemy?” A little smile came. “Your father would never forgive me.”
He stooped under the tent flap, was gone. Stoica entered, with bread, meat and wine. Vlad turned. “Will you pardon me, Eminence, if I…?”
The priest gestured him down to his truckle bed. “You will need sustenance, Prince, for what you attempt tonight. And, alas, for what you must hear.”
Vlad sat, drank and chewed. “Go on.”
“You know that when you took the throne, I was uncertain of your intentions. I thought that perhaps you were just another in a line of voivode, seeking power only for your own glory.”
“And now?”
“I have seen what you have wrought. I may have questioned some of your methods…”—the prelate swallowed—“…but I have seen the results. A land free of brigands, where men and women can live without fear of another man taking their little. A land where the Church flourishes, for you have been a keen benefactor. And what you are about now, this crusade…”
Vlad interrupted with a sigh. “Your Eminence, I am glad you approve. I have always tried to follow the Church’s dictates—with a few personal adaptations.” He glanced at Ion. “But in hours I will face my greatest enemy and all my work may be undone if I do not succeed. And the look in your eyes fills me with fear. I do not need that. So please, tell me why you have come.”
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.
