Vlad, page 29
“That cannot justify—”
Horvathy raised a hand. “Dracula was a pragmatist, Spatar. He needed the boyars to raise their forces and follow him. Men will rarely do that for love. Not even always for God.” He closed his one eye. “But I have witnessed, often, how they will do it for terror.”
“But are we not missing another point, my lord?” The Cardinal said. “In many parts of Italy, we have the Feast of Fools, when madmen are given license for a day to behave according to their madness. Do you not have the same in Wallachia? From what we have heard, Dracula was maddened, then at least. Should we not give him license?”
“Surely you cannot have it both ways, my lords,” Petru whined. “A mad pragmatist does not sound a likely combination.”
“On the contrary, young man. Most of the princes I know in Italy have exactly that combination.” Grimani laughed, continued. “There is something I am curious about, though. Like some of these other horrors, I had heard a version of this one before. But it told of a mistress’s murder.” He turned to look at the middle confessional. “Yet here she is, telling it herself. What are we to believe?”
All now looked at that confessional. Within it, Ilona had not really been listening to their talk but rather to the fall of Ion’s tears within his. Hearing them, she remembered others. Her own, that day, from the agony, from the grief. The two times she had cried since. The first, after the cutting, on the way to the convent, when she’d realized exactly what he’d done and why, and how she would never, could never, be allowed to see him again. And the second time when she’d been proved wrong, and did see him. A part of him, anyway.
Yet the Cardinal had asked a question only she could answer. So she did. “Believe this, so you know it all,” she said softly. “He slit me from breast to breast. Then he completed the crucifix by cutting from my throat down, all the way down…”
“Blasphemy on blasphemy!” Petru stepped before her confessional, arms spread wide as if they could stop the words. “Enough! What more is there to know?”
“Only this.” Her voice grew stronger, for what she had to tell now had sustained her through every night of her darkness. “When he placed his knife…there, when he cut me there, the pain was…” She sighed. “But, in the end, it was not the blade that ravaged me. It was the single tear that dropped onto me. The only one I ever saw him shed.”
Silence, a whisper of flame the only sound, even the scribe’s quills stilled. After a moment, she spoke on, but softly now so that all had to lean closer to hear. “He called me his sanctuary. In that one tear were all his goodbyes. A farewell to the only peace he’d ever known.”
“You forgive him?”
“Is that not what God’s children are meant to do, Your Eminence?”
“But…that?”
How could she make them understand? Wasn’t it so simple in the end?
“I loved him,” she said, “and I have never stopped.”
“It is impossible,” Petru whispered. “No one who received such wounds could have lived.”
Another voice came—Ion’s, rough with grief. “Only he could have inflicted them and let someone live. He had learned the lessons of Tokat too well. He knew, better than any, the border-land between life and death. He dwelt astride it. God forgive me, I helped him straddle it often enough.”
A silence again, longer than any one before. And the cry that finally broke it did not come from within the room, but beyond it.
“Kree-ak, kree-ak.”
All who could, looked up at the hawk’s call. Through the opaque, beeswax cloth that blocked the arrow slit, the faintest of lights came. They had talked and listened for a day and half a night. Yet no one there felt tired.
The Count gestured to the tables. Petru, forcing down his disgust, turned and ordered his servants to take food and water into the confessionals. Horvathy crossed the room, helped himself to wine. Grimani joined him, walking silently on slippered feet. The Hungarian’s good eye was turned away from the Italian, who studied the other, puckered socket before he spoke, softly. “My lord,” he said, as Pecs started, turned. “Before we go on, I have something to ask you.”
The Count took a sip. “Ask.”
Grimani glanced over his shoulder. No one was near, but his voice dropped to a whisper anyway. “You have made clear your desire to see your Dragon Order restored to glory. You judge that such an outcome would be vital to the success of the crusade we hope to launch against the encroaching Turk—leaders throughout the Balkans united under the Dragon banner. You may well be right.” He leaned closer. “But I see something else, Count Horvathy. Hear it in what you say and how you say it. Hear it perhaps most in what you do not say.”
The Count remained silent. Grimani went on. “There is a yearning in you, for something beyond the dream of a restored brotherhood. Greater maybe even than your love of God? And I can see this yearning is rooted in pain.” He squeezed the other man’s arm gently. “Am I not right?”
The one eye was turned fully on him now, reflecting reed torchlight. “Perhaps.”
The Cardinal reached out, laid his hand gently on the taller man’s arm. “My son, I am a priest as well as a judge. And you are a true child of our Holy Church.” His voice was honey. “Before we proceed further with Dracula’s confession, do you wish me to hear yours? Relieve you of the weight I see you carry.” He tipped his head to the confessionals. “We can clear everyone from the room, sit within one of these. Without the need for any of it to be set down on paper.”
Horvathy slipped his arm from the other man’s grasp. “I will speak of it when the time comes. It will not be long, now. And I will speak of it for the record, so all may hear. So all may judge my sins. You. The Holy Father. These people.”
“Very well.” Grimani’s voice hardened. “Then, by the merciful Christ, let us proceed swiftly. For all this sitting is aggravating my arse.”
Horvathy nodded, swallowed another gulp of wine. Setting down the goblet, he strode back to the dais. Grimani joined him, the half-smile gone, settling into his chair with a grunt. The Count waited for Petru to sit, then spoke. “So, who will proceed with this tale? My young friend here has said what all must feel—that what you have just described is blasphemy as well as cruelty. Is there worse? Or was this the ultimate?”
It was a voice less frequently heard that spoke now. “Not the ultimate, my lord,” the hermit said. “Not even close.”
Horvathy nodded, sat. “Speak then.”
“I will.”
– THIRTY-NINE –
The Wedding Feast
When he had finished cutting Ilona, Vlad stood and ripped the white cloth from the altar. He threw it over her and immediately the blood shot through it in the lines of a ragged crucifix. For a moment he stared at it. Then he slowly turned, dagger still in hand, to look at the horrified faces of the boyars crowded at the altar screen’s doors.
“To me,” he cried, as he would in battle, and the noblemen were jostled aside as his twenty companions rushed to his side. He leaned into Stoica, whispering. A nod, and the little man bent, effortlessly lifted the blood-stained cloth and body, and carried it into the priest’s room behind the altar.
“Now,” cried Vlad, striding to the altar screen’s doorway, “are we not here for a wedding?”
Two hundred faces looked up at him in horror. Not all had seen. But all had heard the screams, the witnesses staggering back, white-faced, vomiting.
“Come!” Vlad stepped forward. “I seek a bride. Is that not what you all wanted? Me to marry one of yours? Well, here I am!” He threw his arms wide, laughing. “Who will have me?”
Everyone looked everywhere else. He descended to the nave floor. “You, lady?” He pointed with the bloodied dagger he still held at one woman. “No. You are already married. And yet…is that your husband, my visitier, Iova, cowering behind you? Come, shall I make you a widow first and a bride straight after? You demure? Very well.” He passed on up the nave. “You? No, too old. I need sons, so that the Draculesti will reign in Wallachia forever. You?” A boyar’s daughter, screaming with fear, buried her face in her father’s shoulder. “No! Too young. I have certain…tastes and no time to teach them.”
He stopped, swung in a circle till his gaze rested on one man. “Turcul jupan. So, you got what you wanted, eh? I have not married my mistress. You must be happy. How can I make you happier?” He moved towards the boyar. “Who is that you shelter with your bulk? Could it be…?” He darted round the man. “Elisabeta! Of course. Ilona’s maid, who always hated her. Perfect!” He grabbed her arm, jerked her forward.
“My prince! Please!” Turcul grabbed his daughter’s other arm. “Please. You cannot—”
“I have shown you what I can do, jupan,” Vlad said, his voice ice. “You have seen my sacrifice to Moloch. Now love is dead and only duty remains. Yours to me. Mine to God. Would you stand between me and Him?”
“Prince…” Turcul said brokenly.
But he let his daughter go, and Vlad dragged the weeping woman forward, throwing her down before the altar screen, at the feet of the Metropolitan. “Marry us,” he said.
“I…I…cannot.” The old man thrust the crucifix he held forward as if he were warding off the Devil. “After this…desecration!” He gestured to the screen door, to the thin stream of blood running from behind it, staining the carpet red.
“What?” yelled Vlad. “Concerned by a little blood? What of Christ’s blood? What of His suffering, His sacrifice? Christ knew all about Moloch.” He knelt, pulling Elisabeta down beside him. “And now you do, too.”
“Prince! I…I must not…”
“Marry us,” replied Vlad, in a low voice that still carried to every corner of the church, “or I will burn the cathedral around your ears with all of you inside it. I will abandon God and become forever who you all say I am…the Devil’s son!” His voice rose to a shout. “Marry us!”
It did not take long. Vlad dismissed any pomp, cut short prayer and blessing, allowed only the minimum required. He made his vows, confirmed that the tear-wracked choking that came from Elisabeta were hers. As soon as the Metropolitan had placed the groom’s golden wreath of oak leaf and ivy on his head, the prince was up and turning to the crowd.
“The Turk is a day from Targoviste. I must stop him. No…we must, since we are all now united. Is that not right, Father-in-law?”
Turcul gave a slow, numbed nod.
“So buckle on your armor, gather your retainers…” A murmur came. “…But do not fear. I do not plan to lead you in another night attack. I have different plan now. Moloch has inspired me!” He turned back to the sobbing Elisabeta, still sunk upon the floor, laid his hands again upon her already blood-streaked hair. “We must have a wedding feast. And my bride must have her gift.” His eyes gleamed. “Five thousand gifts.” He straightened. “Ion?” he shouted.
No one moved. No one came. At last Black Ilie stepped forward. “Voivode,” he said softly, “the vornic is gone.”
Vlad swayed, Elisabeta crying out as his hand stayed in her hair. Then he steadied. “You must do this, Ilie. This is my command. Raise the garrison. Empty all the jails. Every Turk we hold. Every deserter, every criminal, man or woman. All.”
“And where shall we take them?”
“To the Field of the Ravens,” Vlad replied.
“My prince.” Black Ilie bowed, turned, signalled half the vitesji to follow, and strode from the church.
Vlad slid his arm around Elisabeta, holding her up. He smiled down at her, then turned again to the crowd. “Come, one and all!” he cried. “Come to the wedding feast!”
—
To the Field of the Ravens, before the gates of Targoviste, the tables were carried. Vlad had them arranged with the precision of a Turkish camp but in a crucifix, not a circle. The high table was placed in the center, where the altar would have been if it were a church. The spaces between, the areas around, were left clear.
The food was hardly sumptuous. The guests, all those who had been at the cathedral, ate what the army ate—every part of the pig, meat that been boiled, roasted, minced, skewered. The largest boar’s head had been baked, so that slices could be taken from its fatty cheeks. To make the delicacy accessible, it stood at the crossway of the crucifix, mounted upon a stake.
It was only the first.
The paucity of the wedding fare scarcely mattered. Only the bridegroom and his soldiers really ate anyway, with the appetite of men on campaign who had seen little food in weeks. The other guests sat almost motionless, clutching implements they didn’t use, eyes fixed ahead, as if salvation lay only in the face opposite.
They stayed like that until the screaming began.
The prisoners came. First, there were the Turks, mostly soldiers, taken from the day Guirgiu fell and whenever there was time in the war of raid and ambush that followed. These proud men, warriors of the Crescent, attempted to march, to revile their guards—until they saw what they were being herded towards. Then prayer replaced curses.
Those of Wallachia followed—men and women, serfs and gypsies—criminals who had sat in their prison cells, suffering certainly—but with a little hope. For since the day Dracula was crowned, justice had always been swift, sinners executed the day they were condemned. Yet not one had been killed during the seven months of the war. So their pleadings now were of the usual kind—for the food they could smell, for the water they craved.
Their cries changed when they saw the stakes. These were laid out in rows, their bases touching the holes dug just behind the tables, running the entire length of the cruciform shape, three ranks deep.
If the wedding guests could close their eyes, they could not close their ears. To the screams. To Dracula, rising now, a skewer of meat in one hand.
“There are two kinds of impalement,” he declared, “and the lie that is spread about me is that I use only the one. It suits to have my enemies believe this of me. But the reality is that true impalement—the ‘trusus in anum’…”—he poked the skewer forward—“…like any difficult skill, takes time, manpower, expertise. It is for the lazy hour. And with the Turk less than a day’s march away…”
He lifted the skewer high, looked the length of the crucifix and the teams of men standing behind the tables. They were grouped in fours, two men holding a prisoner’s arms, two now raising between them a sharpened stake, looking up to their prince. Behind them, other soldiers with pikes controlled the weeping, praying unfortunates who waited their turn.
“Still,” Vlad said, “we will just have to make do.”
He dropped his arm. Then, along every face of the crucifix, pairs of men ran forward and drove their stakes through the prisoners’ bodies.
“The problem with this method is two-fold,” said Vlad, raising his voice above the screams, the retching, the wailing of prisoners and wedding guests. “The first is that most die instantly—as you can all witness. The second is that once the stakes are fixed in their holes…yes, like that one there, a flagon of wine to you and your men, Black Ilie, for being the first!…the bodies start to slip down. With a smooth pole a corpse might follow the entrails to the ground in an hour, which would spoil the effect.” Vlad lifted a goblet, drank, then continued. “But our carpenters have solved the problem by trimming all the branches but only down to the height of a man. See how the sinner is caught upon them? Look, wife, that one, who wriggles but can only wriggle so far? No, no, do look!”
Dracula bent, pulled Elisabeta’s hands away from her face, his other hand turning her head. Sobbing, she looked, then wrenched away, vomiting.
She was not the only one. Up and down the lines women and men were doing the same. “Yes.” Dracula nodded, glancing left and right. “You are all so grateful I have restored law to Wallachia. That the roads are cleared of brigands and beggars, that you can ride in safety from the Fagaras mountains to the Danubian plain. But none of you has ever considered the price. Until now.”
Another wave of prisoners was dragged forward, dispatched; a third. On the field, a forest grew, of wood and blood and flesh. Vlad sat, silent now, staring ahead at nothing while the screaming grew, peaked, ebbed, finally ceased. There was still weeping, retching. But something close to a silence had come by the time Black Ilie stood beside his prince, stooped and whispered.
Dracula nodded, rose, continued talking as if he hadn’t stopped. “But how could I deny you a glimpse of what has made me so…famous. Why you all call me Tepes behind my back. Why the Turk calls me Kaziklu Bey.” He smiled. “So I have reserved three special prisoners. Here they shall be placed, right here, at the center of the crossroads and the cross.”
He signalled, and servants came to clear away tables and chairs, everyone forced to rise, stagger back, though the hedge of stakes prevented anyone leaving. The wedding party stayed closer, held in by a semi-circle of vitesji. Only Dracula remained where he was, eyes downcast.
An entrance had been left at the base of the cross. Now a man was brought through it, dragged forward, thrown down before Dracula, who bent and lifted his face so all could see and gasp when they did.
It was the boyar, Gales.
“Yes, your brother, Turcul jupan. The one whose whereabouts you said you didn’t know? Someone did, and dug him from one hole…” He gestured, to three servants rapidly digging. “…To bring him to another.”
“Prince, I beg you…mercy…” the kneeling man whined.
Dracula ignored him. “This man deserted me upon the battlefield. When victory was in my grasp he snatched it away. He betrayed not only his country and his Voivode but God Himself, whose anointed I am, whose cross I carry against the Infidel.” He looked around at the boyars and their families, at the long line of them stretching down the crucifix made of wood and flesh. “Some of you once saw the fate of Albu who called himself ‘the Great.’ It appears you didn’t learn the lesson. So it must be repeated.”
