House of Bathory

by Linda Lafferty

  The women flattened their thin backs to the wall, feeling their way toward the door without taking their eyes off the Count.

  The Count’s long fingers dipped into a vest pocket. He pulled out a knife and unfolded a thin blade.

  Grace straightened in the chair. “You can torture me all you want, you psychopath, but I am not telling you anything about my daughter.”

  The Count smiled slowly. He waved the gleaming blade near her eyes, and traced a line down her neck with its point. He let the knife trail lower, across her shoulder, down her arm—when he reached her wrists, he made a violent thrust.

  Grace closed her eyes tight, wincing.

  Then she felt the blood return to her wrists and the sensation of cool air on her skin. He had cut her ropes.

  “I will try to offer you the courtesy due a professor of Eastern European history. Come, peruse my library. You may find something worth reading.”

  The Count walked to his desk, tucked away in a far corner of the room. He pressed an intercom by the computer.

  “Send in Almos,” he said into the intercom. “I am going to try to find a way to keep you occupied, Dr. Path.”

  A boy, perhaps eighteen, came in. He bobbed a greeting and adjusted his glasses on his nose. Almos was clearly the Slovakian version of a teenage techie nerd.

  “Dobre den,” he said, his voice courteous.

  “Forgive him, he doesn’t speak a word of English,” said the Count. “I find that useful.” He smiled and went on, “Before you were exposed to such a despicable display by my servant girls, I was planning to give you a surprise.”

  He nodded to Almos, who flicked on the computer. It hummed to life, blinking blue shadows across the boy’s face.

  “Naturally you will not be able to use the internet—Almos is disabling it now—but you will see that I have downloaded many educational programs. History, psychology, physics. Courses and lectures I have selected from various institutions. I thought they might keep you engaged while you are here with us.”

  “Thank you,” Grace whispered, still shaking. How do you feign gratitude to a madman?

  “And please, help yourself to the books in my library here. You may find some interesting reading while we wait.”

  “Wait for what?” she asked.

  The Count didn’t answer, staring straight ahead.

  Chapter 29

  ČACHTICE VILLAGE CHURCHYARD

  DECEMBER 19, 1610

  The rattling of the wagon drew the gravedigger’s attention.

  “Here comes another,” he called down to the man below, who heaved another shovel of earth up to the surface.

  “Ne, Havel! Cannot be,” the man in the open grave shouted back. “We have not finished this one.”

  The gravedigger above shook his shaggy head, scratching his neck. “ ’Tis truth,” he insisted. “They’ve come to dump another.”

  He set down his shovel and wiped the dirty sweat from his face. Despite the cold air, his body was warm from the hard work of digging in the freezing ground.

  Ales scowled up from below. “Does the carriage bear the emblem of the Countess?”

  The first gravedigger squinted. “The damned teeth of the wolf.” He spat viciously, his spittle soaking into the freshly turned soil.

  Havel watched as the driver stopped and waited for the footman to fetch the pastor.

  “Will you look at that?” he said, leaning against his shovel, watching, open-mouthed. Pastor Jakub Ponikenusz strode from the church, followed by another man, clearly a noble. The pastor stopped, arms folded, legs set wide, immoveable, and shook his head vehemently as the footman gestured toward the spiked iron gate of the cemetery. Standing beside him the gentleman listened, staring at the wagon’s load.

  “The pastor is not letting them in!” said the gravedigger, throwing down his shovel. “He stands against the Countess!”

  “You take me for a fool,” said the man in the hole. “Help me out!”

  Havel reached down into the newly dug grave and hauled up his muddy-faced partner. “Look for yourself!” he said.

  The driver had descended now and together with the footman gestured insistently at their covered load. The two gravediggers edged closer, so they could hear.

  “No more of her evil shall find its way into sanctified land of the Church!” the pastor declared.

  The driver protested. “But the girls are innocent! Surely they should have the blessings and comfort of the Church! They were baptized in the Church by Reverend Berthoni himself, God bless his soul.”

  “Yes, and it was Andras Berthoni who warned me of the Countess before his death! His letters are filled with damning evidence against that monster.”

  The driver and footman hung their heads.

  “Come, Lord Thurzo,” said the pastor. “See what innocent souls our Countess sends us day after day!”

  The nobleman approached the wagon, his gait stiff and reluctant. Ponikenusz threw back the coarse blanket with a violent tug.

  “Behold!” he said.

  Thurzo gasped and raised a gloved hand to his face as he looked into the wagon.

  A young woman lay on the bare boards of the wagon. Her face was contorted in agony, dark blood stains soiling her dress. There were small puncture wounds on her neck.

  “What is this?” murmured Count Thurzo. The dried leaves crunched under his boot heel as he turned away from the sight.

  “The Countess reports a rabid dog attacked her,” said the driver. He, too, glanced away from the girl, his right hand making the sign of the cross.

  Thurzo looked again at the girl’s body. Then he stared at the pastor, saying nothing.

  “I will bless those unfortunate girls, with all power instilled in me by the Church,” Ponikenusz said, his voice softening. “Wherever their bodies are buried, God has already taken their innocent souls to his bosom.”

  The gravediggers looked at each other in disbelief.

  “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” the pastor began, bowing his head.

  The gravediggers pulled off their sweat-stained caps, loose dirt tumbling to the ground.

  “So you see the graves—thirty-two in all. Graves of girls who had ‘accidents’ at the castle,” said the pastor, his tone acid. “When the ground freezes too hard in the winter months, we stack the bodies in a root cellar to bury in the spring.”

  He led Count Thurzo through the graveyard to a row of fresh mounds of dirt.

  “This one. Albina Holub. Born here in Čachtice. A knife slipped and cut her wrist when she was slicing vegetables. Cut it so badly that she bled to death. Clumsy girl, it seems. Serves her right, they said, for mishandling the Countess’s fine cutlery.”

  Thurzo tightened his lips, pale as slivers of cheese.

  “And this one, Barbora Mokry. It seems she slipped and knocked her head against the well, only a week after Albina had her mishap with the knife. An unfortunate coincidence. Gashed her head so badly that she bled to death. Nothing, it seems, could be done.

  “And over here is the first maiden who brought me fresh bread and butter when I arrived at the parish. She called me Sir, and bowed as if I were a king. She was devoted to the scriptures, and would sit in rapt attention in Mass. Of course the poor girl could not read, but God’s holy word resonated in her soul.”

  “What happened to her?” asked Thurzo.

  “It seems that she attended to the Countess’s bath when her regular attendant was ill with a fever. The water was too cool, sending the Countess into a rage. The Countess screamed at the girl, and beat her about the head and shoulders until she bled.”

  “And then what?”

  “We do not know. There was a cut on her neck where the Countess scratched her in fury. And a savage bite, ripping the flesh from her breast. She—” the pastor’s voice cracked. He clenched his eyes shut, his face pinched with emotion.

  Then he looked into the Count’s eyes. “The Countess simply wrote she bled to death.”


  Chapter 30

  HOFBURG PALACE, VIENNA

  DECEMBER 20, 1610

  Winter seized Vienna on the eve of the solstice. Hard frosts choked the earth. Brittle leaves clung to branches coated in ice.

  King Matthias II, ruler of Hungary, Austria, and Moravia complained first of the unseasonable cold and then the oppressive heat from the colossal ceramic furnace of the Hofburg Palace.

  His peevish humor was aggravated by thwarted ambition. The summer had seen his army’s bloody advance on Prague. The Brother’s War, it was called, as Matthias’s forces marched toward the Hrad, to wrest power from his brother Emperor Rudolf II.

  Matthias had won control of the lower kingdoms, leaving Rudolf with little more than Bohemia, a scrap of his former empire, a flimsy mantle of dignity to wrap around the once all-powerful ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.

  Then Matthias had felt the surge of power, like young blood flowing in his veins. Now as he cast an eye beyond the frosted glass windows, the dead, frozen gardens and winter silence gnawed at his heart.

  The tributes to the new king were not sufficient to finance his struggle against the Ottomans, who waged ever-encroaching war on the Hungarian and Austrian fronts. If they took Vienna, all of Christendom could fall to the infidels.

  For years, Matthias had served as commander-in-chief of the Royal Habsburg Troops, serving his brother and his kingdom. Rudolf II had squandered the riches of the empire on alchemy, astrology, art, and costly curiosities, while the troops had survived with meager wages and scant rations. The soldiers looted whenever possible in victories against the Turks, but those victories were too few as the Habsburg armies saw their lands conquered by the enemy. The fall of Estergom, ancient seat of Hungary, still haunted Matthias. The old Hungarian capital had been lost under his watch, for he had not the troops to match the Ottomans.

  Now, he held another petition from the Countess Bathory. She demanded repayment of a debt—a debt he could not begin to pay—that had financed years of war against the Infidels.

  Matthias flung the letter to ground. A bowing servant scuttled by, plucking the velum missive from the carpeted floor. “As if I even possessed the gold to repay the Bathory bitch. She owns more land than I!”

  “Yes,” said his trusted confessor Melchior Klesl, nodding. “And more castles.”

  King Matthias scowled, looking out the window at his frozen kingdom. “Send in Count Thurzo.”

  Melchior Klesl motioned to the sentries to admit the visitor.

  Count Thurzo—who had been waiting for hours for an audience with the King—bowed deeply to Matthias.

  “What news do you bring?”

  Thurzo cast a glance around the room. “Might I ask for a private audience with Your Majesty?”

  Matthias glanced to his confessor, who raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly.

  The King waved a hand. All but Melchior Klesl left the room, silently closing the door.

  “Speak, Count.”

  “The Countess Bathory is a murderess, my Lord. I have proof.”

  The King narrowed his eyes. “The accounts of the parish priest are true?”

  “True and more. The church cemetery is filled with the bodies of young women, all of whom have served the Countess. Their bodies were mangled and devoid of blood. I have seen them with my own eyes. They say the Countess bathes in their blood to preserve her youth.”

  “What tidings are these? Is she a witch, Thurzo? I will have her burned!”

  “Forgive me, my Lord. If she is a witch and burned at the stake, the Church will receive her lands,” said Thurzo, daring to raise his head and look steadily into the King’s eyes.

  “He is right, Your Majesty,” said Klesl. “Heresy and witchcraft are the Church’s domain. It will seize all possessions.”

  “I cannot let such a woman terrorize my kingdom! Have we not seen enough mayhem and death by the heathen Turks?” said Matthias. “We will bring the Countess to trial. Have you any witnesses?”

  “With good time I believe I can procure all the witnesses we need. The pastor is willing to testify.”

  “But punishment of her servants, even to the death—all this is within the limits of the law,” said Klesl. “We could not bring a noblewoman of Bathory’s standing to trial for abusing her own peasants. She has broken no law.”

  “There is one servant girl who escaped from the Countess with her life,” said Thurzo. “She may be persuaded to testify. And she has information that is damning, even to a woman as powerful as Erzsebet Bathory.”

  The bishop raised an eyebrow. “Who is this girl?”

  “I met her in the village, a maiden whose hands were scorched for stealing food. The local healer brought her to me as Palatine. The girl exposed her wounded hands to me. They both begged me to stop the torture in Čachtice Castle. The healer said that there are no local girls who will work again in the castle, that the Countess is a monster.”

  “Again, we cannot prosecute a noblewoman for what she does to her own servants,” said Bishop Klesl.

  “Yes,” said the Count, “but this particular maiden was privy to conversations between the Countess and a witch named Darvulia. The Countess insisted the blood of peasants was not pure enough, that she was aging once more. She wanted to attract young maidens of impoverished nobility to lodge in Čachtice Castle, with the lure of teaching them the manners of upper nobility.”

  The Count took a step closer to the King and lowered his voice. “If she dares to harm them in any way, Your Majesty could take action against her.”

  The King moved to the edge of his chair in rapt attention. He sought the bishop’s eye.

  Melchior Klesl nodded. “Yes. Such a crime could be prosecuted under law. If Bathory were convicted, all her property would be confiscated and revert to the Crown. And of course just rewards to the Palatine who brings proof of her crimes.”

  Count Thurzo bent low to the King, obscuring his smile at Melchior’s words.

  Chapter 31

  SOMEWHERE IN SLOVAKIA

  DECEMBER 20, 2010

  The azure-haired girl poured Grace a cup of Earl Grey tea from a teapot of museum-quality porcelain. The historian’s eye studied the inverted trumpet-flower spout, the precision of the Isnik Turkish blue flowers on white background.

  Soft-paste. Medici porcelain. White clay from Vincenza mixed with glass, copied from the Chinese porcelains, design borrowed from the Turkish invaders. The end of the sixteenth century.

  Priceless.

  This could be from Rudolf II’s collection at the Kunstkammer. At the very least it belonged to a house of highest nobility.

  Grace closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply. She was kidnapped, subjected to blood-drinking madwomen, and then served tea from an art treasure. Who was this count, this madman who held her captive?

  At least the blue-haired girl was the only person who now came close to her. The psychotic vampire women had been banished since their meltdown.

  “Sugar?” the girl asked, her Slovak accent soft and lilting.

  “No, just milk, please.”

  How bizarre, thought Grace, that I should be shown such manners in the household of my captor, my husband’s murderer. Sugar indeed!

  “Tell me your name,” said Grace, accepting the cup.

  The girl glanced at the locked door.

  “Draska.”

  “Draska?” said Grace, remembering. A sob rose in her throat, but she checked it. It was the name her husband had called her in moments of tenderness.

  “It means ‘loved one’ in Slovakian,” said the girl.

  Grace fluttered her eyelids, blinking back tears.

  “Yes, Draska,” said Grace, composing herself again. “How could you ever wind up serving the Count?”

  “Excuse me. My English no good. Repeat please.”

  “Why do you work for the Count?”

  “My mother, she cook. She and grandmother cook for he family, family Bathory, many years.”
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br />   “His family, his is the possessive pronoun. Not he family. ”

  Draska smiled brightly, thought better of it, and looked at the carpeted floor.

  “You know I am a prisoner?” said Grace, stirring her tea.

  Draska hesitated.

  “Yes, you guest. Count needs you.”

  Grace flung the silver spoon on the carpet.

  “Damn it! I am not a guest! I was kidnapped.”

  The girl’s eyes flashed open, startled. She bent down to pick up the teaspoon.

  “No understand.”

  Grace fought for control. Screaming would be too easy and too wrong.

  “Why does the Count need me? Why does he want my daughter?”

  “I no know.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Draska smiled at the correction. “Yes, I don’t know. Good teacher. You teach me English.”

  “My daughter will be worried about me. Just like your mother would be worried about you.”

  Draska ducked her head. “Yes,” she mumbled.

  Grace saw the girl’s pity. She seized upon it. “Maybe if I could get word to my daughter somehow.”

  “Send e-mail.”

  Grace stared at the girl.

  “I can’t e-mail. There is no internet on that computer.”

  “Oh.”

  Grace drank her tea, wondering what the girl knew and didn’t know.

  “Do you have e-mail?”

  Draska smiled. “I have e-mail. I have text message. I have cell phone. I Twitter.”

  “You could e-mail my daughter and tell her I am alive and well. You don’t have to tell her your name.”

  Draska shifted her weight on her feet and shook her head vehemently. “Count not like. Count knows everything.”

  Of course, thought Grace. He is probably monitoring Betsy’s e-mail somehow. Maybe the techie nerd has tapped into her account. Bathory then would read any communication that aroused suspicion, especially one sent from Slovakia.

  “What if you were to send an e-mail to another friend, in another country?” Grace whispered, looking around the room for a hidden camera. “Do you have friends in other countries?”