“What – how – but–” He clutched Constantine’s sleeve and tried to drag him away. “A demon! This is a portent of disaster! The Turks–”
Constantine stood and clapped a hand over his friend’s mouth, silencing him. His own mouth smoothed, a smile barely suppressed. “George, how long have we been friends?”
Sphrantzes made a gesture with his eyebrows that left Constantine nodding.
“Yes, exactly. And in that time have I lied to you? Deceived you?”
He deflated with a muffled sigh and shook his head.
Constantine removed his hand and gestured to Val. “This young man has been visiting me for several months now,” he said, his smile fond enough to ease some of Val’s panic. “George, meet Prince Valerian, son of Vlad Dracul, Prince of Wallachia. Valerian, this is my closest friend, George Sphrantzes.”
Val sketched a shaky, but correct bow.
“And Val,” Constantine said, gaze narrowing, “I think there’s some things you’ve neglected to tell me, isn’t there?”
Val took a deep breath, and, ignoring the look of utter disbelief on Sphrantzes face, decided that he had to tell the truth. He trusted Constantine, for better or for worse. He’d come to him for a reason, he was convinced.
He said, “Well, actually…”
11
A BRACE OF HARES
1441
“It’s because of what you are,” Mother explained one sunny afternoon. She was in the kitchen garden, gathering sprigs of herbs and laying them gently in the basket she carried hooked over one arm. In her simple blue dress, hair bound in a loose braid, she looked more like a palace maid than the mother of two princes. Which, Val conceded with a pang of sadness, was exactly what everyone beyond the household wolves thought she was. He hated the charade, hated it for her most of all, but whenever he expressed concern, she brushed it off.
“Do you see that rosemary?” she asked, pointing to the raised bed situated behind the tomato stakes. “Fetch me a pinch of that, darling.”
Though six now, Val was still helplessly tiny, and he slipped right between the stakes, sure-footed as a deer. Vlad’s friends called him a fairy. Mother called him beautiful, and perfect, and golden, so it was no small wonder he’d sought her out in her garden, rather than accompany Vlad into town.
Also, he’d had questions.
His day’s language lesson had concluded with his tutor leaning back in his chair and blinking at Val in obvious surprise. “Your progress is…remarkable. For someone your age,” he’d said.
Was it? Val had been brought up speaking Romanian in the palace, the informal, unwritten dialect of Wallachia. But he could also speak and read Slavic, French, Hungarian, Greek, and Italian. He could read Old Church Slavonic and was fluent in spoken Slavic. He could speak Russian, and was working on his Cyrillic letters now. Vlad had the same gift for languages, and they tested one another, holding conversations that flitted from one language to the next, probing and teasing and searching for weak spots, for badly conjugated verbs and mispronunciations. Mircea had been taught the same languages, but he struggled at times, especially with Greek and Italian.
“Is it remarkable?” he asked his mother.
He returned to her side and laid the rosemary sprig gently in the basket, on top of bundles of sage, and lavender, and lemongrass.
Mother raked her long nails through his hair, tidying the pieces that had slipped from the loose knot gathered at his nape. “You’re a vampire, darling,” she said, fond and patient, smiling down at him brighter than the midday sun. “One day you’ll be much stronger, and faster, and agile than any human. It only stands to reason that you learn quickly, too.”
He cocked his head to the side. “I never thought of that.”
She rested her palm on the top of his head. “That’s because you’re humble, darling, and that’s a very good thing.” Her hand shifted to his shoulder and squeezed. “We’re different from humans, but we aren’t better. Always remember that.”
He nodded. “Yes, Mama.”
She looked at him a long moment; he had the sense she was really trying to drive the point home. Then her hand fell away and she turned back to her thriving plant life. “Come,” she said in Russian, “let’s hear what you’ve been learning.”
~*~
Where he excelled at languages, swordsmanship was another matter entirely.
The next afternoon, he sat on a wooden bench in the practice yard, sweat gathering beneath his dirt-smudged tunic, watching Vlad spar with Fenrir’s son, Vali.
The boys were mismatched in size, Vali a good head taller than Vlad, but when the blunted practice blades clashed together, Vlad more than held his own when it came to strength.
Sunlight flashed along the steel. A parry, a block. A step forward, a step back. The bright ring of metal meeting metal again and again. Dust kicked up around their boots, clung to the shiny sweat on their arms and faces.
Vlad’s braid kept coming loose, one wisp at a time, and he reached up impatiently to swipe his arm across his forehead. Hair clung to his temples; a muscle in his jaw clenched as he lunged again, powering past Vali’s intended block and catching the wolf boy in the arm with the blunted edge of his sword.
“Agh!” Vali’s arm went limp – Val knew from experience the awful pins-and-needles sensation that came with being struck there – and he staggered back, clutching at his wrist with his free hand. His face was red, and he breathed in ragged bursts. “Yield, yield!” he exclaimed when Vlad made to advance again.
Vlad nodded, quietly pleased, and let his sword arm fall to his side. He smoothed the loose hair back from his face with his other hand and a stable boy hurried forward with a water bucket and a ladle.
“Excellent,” Fenrir said, hands propped on his hips, beaming. Then he turned to Val. “Alright, young sir.”
“Ugh,” Val groaned.
“Come now, let’s see a little enthusiasm.”
Val dragged himself upright, his sword weighing heavy on his arm and shoulders. Or maybe that was just the dread.
Vlad passed him on his way to the bench, and knocked their shoulders together. “Don’t be a baby,” he said lightly.
Val kicked dust at his retreating back.
“Valerian,” Fenrir sang. “Front and center, let’s go.”
Grudgingly, Val took his place, and saw that he’d be facing off with Vali, too. Vali, who was sweaty, tired, and still wincing from Vlad’s blow, but for whom Val wasn’t enough of a challenge to warrant sitting out this bout.
A discouraging notion.
Vali offered him a tired smile. “It’s alright. I’ll go easy on you.”
Val frowned. “You don’t need to.”
Vali hefted his sword. “Alright.” But his smile was still kind and placating.
Val shored up his stance, trying desperately to mimic the sure way that Vlad stood. Rolled his shoulders, gripped the pommel of his sword in both sweat-damp hands.
“Make your move, Val, on the offensive,” Fenrir said.
Val moved. Too slow, too clumsy. Hesitating. And Vali put him on his back in the dirt with seemingly no effort.
Val stared up at the sky, tried to catch his breath, and sighed. He was a third son, and what was a third son good for if not as a soldier?
He’d have to find another way to earn his bloodline, he supposed.
~*~
Riding, though. Now there was a talent. In that he and Vlad were evenly matched.
A half-length ahead of him, Vlad wound his finger’s tight in his horse’s mane and leaned low over the gelding’s neck, urging him faster.
Val laughed, a sound snatched immediately away by the wind, and pressed his face into his mare’s neck, knees gripped tight to her bare sides. He fed her another bit of rein, clucked, and urged her on with a gentle press of his heels.
Vlad’s horse, Storm, was fast.
But Val’s Dancer was faster.
She took the extra rein with relish and lengthened her st
ride, neck stretched out flat. Val held on for dear life, laughing wildly as she managed to overtake Storm in just a few strides.
Vlad glanced over as they past, teeth bared, lips forming angry curses Val couldn’t hear.
Val laughed and Dancer surged ahead, the bit in her teeth.
They rode in a field, the sky a vast blue stretch above them, birds flinging themselves up from the tall grass and taking flight as the thunder of hooves approached. The horses, well used to these races, didn’t spook; they carried their boys across the long, flat stretch, already slowing as they neared the tree line.
Val sat back, closed his thighs, and checked the reins with reluctance. Dancer slowed to a canter, then a trot, then, true to her name, danced in place, tossing her head a few times. He patted her damp neck. “Good girl. What a good girl.”
She danced a little more, preening.
Vlad reined up beside them, boy and horse both blowing through dilated nostrils. “You cheated.”
Val laughed. “How?”
“That horse would do anything for you,” Vlad said, sulking. “And you know it.”
“That’s not cheating. That’s good horsemanship.”
“Brat.”
They turned the horses around and settled them at a walk, reins loose. Storm and Dancer stretched their necks out long and low, blowing, catching their breath. Val felt the familiar heave of the mare’s ribs beneath his legs.
“Can you, though?” Vlad asked, out of nowhere.
When Val glanced over, he saw that his brother was playing with bits of Storm’s mane, scowling at his own hands.
“Can I what?”
Vlad flicked him an impatient look. “Talk to her? To Dancer. You can – you can dream-walk. Can you talk to animals too?”
“Oh.” The question caught him off guard. “I don’t think so.” He frowned. “No. We can’t talk. But I can tell she loves me, and I think she knows I love her. I get on well with animals.”
“I noticed.” It could have been a scoff, but wasn’t. Vlad glanced away, out across the waving grass, thoughtful line pressed between his brows. “You’re only six, and you can already do so much. Who knows how much power you really have?” He sounded melancholy. “I don’t think I have any power.” The last just a whisper.
Val’s sudden shock was so strong that Dancer came to a halt, head lifting. She craned around and nudged the toe of his boot with her nose. “What?” It was almost – almost distressing to hear Vlad say something like that. “What are you talking about?”
Vlad shrugged and wouldn’t look at him.
“Vlad, you’re a vampire, and a prince, and you’re going to be the best warrior in all of Eastern Europe. You’re the best archer, and the best swordsman, and you could probably beat Fenrir up with your bare hands right now. What do you mean you don’t have any power?”
“I–” Vlad started, and then went still. Storm came to a sudden halt. “Shh.”
Slowly, slowly, slowly, he unslung the bow from his back and drew an arrow from the small quiver buckled around his shoulders.
They returned to the stable a half-hour later with a brace of hares slung over Storm’s withers. They hadn’t had a chance to resume their conversation about power, but Vlad seemed looser after the two kills; the line had smoothed between his brows.
At least until Vali came running up to them, red-faced, panting. He stopped and pitched forward, braced his hands on his knees.
“What?” Vlad snapped, and sounded every inch the lofty prince.
Power, Val thought with an inward snort. The way Vali’s eyes widened in a brief flicker of panic was all the proof anyone needed that Vlad was destined to be the most powerful creature in the whole palace.
Vali straightened. “Your mother – sent for you – guests tonight – banquet.”
“And she wants us to wash the horse smell off ourselves,” Vlad said, already sliding down off Storm’s back. “Yes, tell her we’re coming.”
Vali hurried off.
Val lingered a moment, idly stroking the fine strands of mane at Dancer’s withers. Watching his brother drag the hares off his horse and stroke Storm’s nose with a rare, fond smile. He smiled less often, now. He had grown lanky, thin, pale. Dark shadows lingered beneath his eyes.
“Come on, little brother,” Vlad said.
Val shook himself and slid down to join him. “Who do you think the guests are?”
“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”
~*~
Freshly-scrubbed, pink-faced, and buttoned into fancy dinner velvets and glossy boots, Val joined his brothers, father, and Princess Cneajna at the high table that evening. His eyes sought his mother, first, an old familiar spark of guilt and longing flaring in his chest.
Two long wooden tables sat perpendicular to the high table, creating a horseshoe shape in the midst of the wide hall. Candles blazed in the iron chandeliers, and in the candelabrum along the walls, and on the tables, suffusing the room with warm, flickering light. Eira, dressed in rich gold, sat at the near end of the table to the left, surrounded by the family wolves and their mates and offspring, smiling in response to something Fenrir had said. She caught Val watching her and sent him a reassuring smile.
He smiled back, weakly, wishing she was up here with the rest of his family. Their family.
The high table was packed to capacity, though, even if it had been appropriate for Eira to join them. Father’s guest tonight was the governor of Transylvania, John Hunyadi.
A tall, sturdy man with a bull neck and a headful of thick auburn hair, he sat between Mircea and Dracul, gesturing animatedly as he spoke.
Val kept leaning forward to peek around Vlad and sneak glimpses of him. Politically-motivated dinners were a near-constant thing in the palace, but Hunyadi was an anti-Ottoman hero of near-mythic proportions at this point.
Val kept playing Uncle Romulus’s words over and over in his mind: Give them whatever they want. And now Father was at table with a man who believed just the opposite.
Nervous sweat began to gather between his shoulder blades.
Which of course Vlad could sense. He elbowed him. “What?”
Val shook his head.
Vlad kicked him under the table. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Vlad sulked a moment, and then his brows jumped and he leaned in closer. Val could smell the supposed great idea lifting off him before he said, “I’ve got a great idea.”
Val groaned.
“No, listen.” A tiny smile tugged at Vlad’s mouth now, and the dark circles beneath his eyes faded in the sudden glow of his eyes themselves. Once he set a goal, he followed it through, no matter how ill-advised. “They won’t talk about anything serious until later, in Papa’s study. You have to dream-walk and spy on them.”
Val’s stomach shriveled. “But–”
“You do it all the time!” Vlad hissed. “You go all the way to Constantinople! And you’re too afraid to go into Father’s study?” He lifted a single brow in challenge. “Coward.”
Val huffed in irritation. “Last time–”
“Listen.” Vlad leaned even closer; his breath smelled of the wine he’d snuck from Mircea’s cup. “Everyone always says you’re a baby.” His eyes blazed. “Don’t prove them right.”
Val forced himself to take a measured breath. To think.
After the incident with eavesdropping on the night of Romulus’s first visit, Val had been expressly prohibited from dream-walking his way into private conversations. If he wasn’t asked into Father’s study, then he wasn’t allowed.
But as the only dream-walker in the family, no one knew which means to take to prevent him from doing it again. There were no wards, no silver tokens – that would have hurt everyone. So Val technically could…
If he wasn’t a baby.
Vlad’s gaze was stern – and desperate with curiosity. He wanted, viciously, to be a part of the discussion, to be a prince who could contribute to the family, to the principal
ity. Power, he’d said. He was a child, still, and not the heir, and he felt powerless.
Val sighed. “Alright, I’ll do it.”
Vlad’s grin was manic. And grateful. Val would do anything for that grin, even stupid things. Maybe especially stupid things.
~*~
Vlad was obvious and an idiot. After the third fake yawn, Mother shot him a narrow-eyed glance.
“Long day, my Vladimir?” she asked, reaching to smooth his hair.
“We went riding,” he said, and smothered another massive, pretend yawn in his elbow.
Val rolled his eyes from his fireside chair.
“I shot two hares,” Vlad continued, slumping sideways across the sofa, head propped on one listless hand. “Val beat me in a race, the little shit.”
“Don’t call your brother that,” Eira said, immediately, and Val hid his laugh in his shirt collar.
Vlad huffed a quiet “sorry, Mama” under his breath. Then made a great show of dragging himself to his feet. “I should probably turn in.”
“Yes, dear, if you’re really that tired.”
Vlad trudged toward the doorway, dragging his toes. His faux exhausted face was the dumbest and funniest thing Val had ever seen. He paused with one limp hand on the doorframe, and turned to look back over his shoulder. “Val should turn in, also. He’s tired. Right?” His façade slipped a moment, dark brows slanting down at threatening angles.
Val bit the inside of his cheek, but managed not to crack a smile. “Yes,” he said, levelly, “I’m very tired.” He got up slowly, to prove the point, but without Vlad’s theatrics. Here was another area in which he succeeded over his brother: acting.
Eira sighed once, short and sharp, and when Val darted a glance to her found that she looked terribly unimpressed. “Whatever you boys are doing, I don’t care so long as you don’t break anything, hurt yourselves, or anger your father.”
Well, Val could say they weren’t going to do two of those things.
“Yes, Mama,” they said as a unit, and then ducked out into the hall.
Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3) Page 12
