“Better he hear it from you than a stranger. Now that he’s come of age, keeping Vlad on a leash isn’t the answer.”
“It’s for his own good,” Dracul said, heated. “Dammit, Michael, you know what happens to those who hear voices from heaven. Remember the Old Man of the Forest?”
“Theodore?”
“Yes, Theodore. You told me they burned out his eyes, for coming up with this very prophecy Vlad’s searching for. I don’t want my son hunted down like a rabid dog by ignorant people because of Theodore.”
“But that was nearly a hundred years ago, Ulfer. Something like that wouldn’t happen today.”
“Shit, Michael! You think people have changed so much in a hundred years, they no longer fear seers and prophets? What about Joan of Arc? A scant ten years since they burned that girl at the stake, because she heard voices from the sky.” Dracul turned to Michael and clutched his shoulder. “No. People haven’t changed, and never will. They’d sooner believe such voices come from hell than from heaven.”
“But, Ulfer, Vlad’s not the one who heard the voices. Why would anyone go after him, for something another person claimed? And so long after the fact, at that.”
“Because for those who believe in Theodore’s palaver, Vlad’s the seventh link in an ominous chain of destiny. You have the angel, Theodore, my father, my mother, me, Vlad’s mother. And finally Vlad, whom the prophecy calls the Son of the Dragon. It’s a linkage Vlad won’t be able to escape.” Dracul’s agitation grew. “‘Seventh link’... ‘seven deadly sins’... ‘seven demons’... how long before some dimwit makes Vlad out to be Saint John’s seven-headed dragon of the Revelations? Give people any number and they’ll find evil in it, if they want to. But seven is particularly ripe for sinister interpretations.”
“Well, numbers can be played both ways,” Michael said. “There are plenty of instances where ‘seven’ points to godly things. For example, the seven feast days of our Lord.”
“Not all of them happy occasions, you must admit.”
Michael had to nod at this. “How about the seven times Jesus spoke from the cross?”
“Now, there’s a joyful event,” Dracul said, and sneered.
Michael searched his memory for another example. Dracul looked on, expectant.
“The seven virtues proclaimed by the Church of Saint Peter?”
Dracul gave a derisive chuckle. “If you’re relying on the virtues of the Catholic Church to win your argument, you’re on truly shaky ground.”
“You’re being contrary only because your leg hurts, Ulfer.”
“No, I’m not. You know that some people will claim it wasn’t the Messenger of God who foretold of Vlad’s birth, but the Angel of Darkness. They’ll point to what happened to those touched by the prophecy: the seer blinded, Mother raped, Vlad’s mother dead in childbirth. Add to that the stone that fell from the sky at Vlad’s birth, and you’ve got the makings of a frightening legend. Why shouldn’t simple folk believe all of this is Satan’s work?”
“And you think they’ll take it out on Vlad?” Michael said.
“I don’t want to find that out. I’d rather lock him up in the dungeon, if that’s what it takes to keep him away from the prophecy.”
“It’s not right, Ulfer,” Michael said, and clasped Dracul’s shoulder. “Whether fulfillment of the prophecy is Vlad’s destiny or not, I think he’s got the right to know about it. Besides, try as you may, you won’t be able to change the outcome. Don’t forget, your father tried to prevent you from playing your role in it, and failed.”
Dracul’s face darkened. “Perhaps he didn’t try hard enough.”
The racket caused by the two fighters ceased. Michael glanced in that direction. “The boys have noticed you.”
“It’s about time. My ass has gotten numb on this bench.”
Dracul beckoned Vlad and Gruya, who discarded their armor and walked over. Both were red in the face and drenched in sweat, their black locks in wet tangles.
“God’s blessings on Your Grace,” Gruya said with a respectful bow. “And on you, Grandfather.” His blue eyes smiled at both men. At sixteen, Gruya’s budding mustache and beard stood out against the white of his skin. They were already long enough to be pinched between the fingers, something he did with evident pride whenever his hands were free.
“Good morning, Lord Father, Uncle Michael,” Vlad said, with none of Gruya’s warmth.
Michael noticed that Vlad didn’t glance in his direction. Instead he looked through Dracul, his face impassive.
Dracul must have noticed too. “Let’s have it out, Son,” he said in tired voice. “What’s happened to you, and what grudge are you holding against me and Michael?”
“Leave us, Gruya, and take the attendants with you,” Michael said. He turned to Vlad when the men had left. “His Grace told me you stumbled upon Satan’s Wrath.”
“It was no stumble,” Vlad said, louder than he needed to and with an edge to his tone. He still made no eye contact with Michael. “I’m sure I was meant to end up there.”
Michael exchanged glances with Dracul.
“So, you’ve discovered I knew what happened at Satan’s Wrath and didn’t tell you,” Michael said. “You must know I wasn’t at liberty to speak about it.”
“Michael never lied to you, Vlad,” Dracul said, putting his arm around his old retainer. “I told you he was sworn to secrecy.”
“But you did lie to me, Lord Father,” Vlad said, reproach etched on his face. “You said Oma’s been dead for more than thirty years, and now I’ve got evidence that’s not true.”
“What?” Dracul jerked his shoulders as if he’d been poked in the back.
Michael wondered if Dracul was reacting to the accusation of the lie, or to Vlad’s claim of evidence.
Vlad drilled his father with cold eyes, some inner turmoil making his hands shake. “You won’t deny you said that, will you?”
“What evidence are you talking about, Vlad?” Michael asked.
“I think it’s time I also kept some secrets.” Vlad’s gaze remained on his father.
“I didn’t lie,” Dracul said, flushed. “‘Dead to the world’ is what I said, remember? Not dead. It means she’s taken vows as a nun.”
“But you knew I took it to mean really dead, and you let me believe that. Why?”
Vlad kept his voice low, but Michael heard such anger in his tone as he’d never heard before.
Dracul’s hand darted out and clutched at the breast of Vlad’s tunic. His walking stick fell to the ground with a clatter. “Why, you ask?” he hissed, pulling Vlad’s face close to his. “Because that’s the only thing Mother wanted, after she was raped by the fucking Akincis.” Dracul’s spittle flew onto Vlad’s face. “If she couldn’t die of shame, she wanted at least to be thought of as dead by the entire world. Can you understand that?”
Vlad wiped his father’s saliva off his face, defiant.
But Michael could tell he was shaken. “That’s what ‘dead to the world’ means, Vlad,” he said, hoping to restore calm. “When a woman takes the veil, all that’s outside the convent walls is dead to her, and she’s dead to all on the outside.”
The defiance on Vlad’s face softened, but lingered in his eyes. “I know Oma was alive when I was born. Is she alive today? I want to meet her.”
Dracul, appearing exhausted, glanced at Michael, and then nodded at Vlad. “She’s been cloistered in a convent for over three decades, and has refused to see anyone from the outside all this time. Including me, her only son. She certainly won’t have anything to do with you either.”
“I’ve got reasons to believe she wants to see me,” Vlad said.
“Reasons?” Dracul snarled. “You think she’d care more for a grandson she’s never seen, than the son she gave birth to? Why would she?”
Vlad smiled, cold and superior. “Because she knows of a prophecy concerning me. The same one Opa mentioned to you, I’m sure.”
Dracul’s head jer
ked in Michael’s direction. His look seemed to say, “Now what do I do?”
“I believe Oma wants to pass her knowledge on to me,” Vlad said.
“I’ll have nothing to do with that prophecy, Son,” Dracul said. He picked up his walking stick and pounded the floor with it. “And neither will you, hear me? Enough harm’s come from it already, so I want the matter dropped for good.”
Vlad threw Michael a glance that was a clear plea for help. He would’ve liked to back Vlad in his quest to visit his grandmother, but that would only set Dracul more against it. He chose to remain silent.
“Is a prophecy something you can just walk away from?” Vlad said, turning to Dracul. “I thought a thing like that will take its course, whether you like it or not. The Old Man of the Forest said—”
Michael’s breath caught on hearing the mention of Theodore. He glanced at Dracul and saw his face turn livid.
“I was the one who told you about Theodore, and now you’re telling me what he said?” Dracul said in disbelief. He seemed poised to strike Vlad.
“He said it was my destiny to fulfill the prophecy. And now that he’s dead—”
“He’s been dead for years, fool,” Dracul shouted. He rose halfway, but then flinched and sat again, clutching at his bad leg.
Vlad gave his father a smug look. “No, he died only last fall. And not before he told me about the prophecy. And now I need Oma to explain what Theodore meant.”
Michael was skeptical that Vlad met Theodore. The man couldn’t have still been alive. He concluded Vlad was making up stories to tease information out of his father.
Dracul said, his words hesitant, “Just because your grandmother’s alive, what makes you think she knows anything about Theodore and his ramblings?”
“Because Oma used the same words in her Bible that Theodore said to me. He called me Son of the Dragon, and so did she.”
“Son of the Dragon?” That wasn’t something Vlad could’ve made up. Michael was shaken by the implication.
“What Bible?” Dracul shrieked, his eyes bulging. “Don’t tell me you saw Mother’s Bible too.”
“Now you understand why I must see Oma,” Vlad said, triumphant.
Dracul’s shoulders slumped and the corners of his mouth drooped. He rose with difficulty and headed for the door, leaning on his walking stick. Michael watched him go, his mind dark. Ulfer was beaten, and might as well give up. That boy wouldn’t let go of a thing, once he’d sunk his teeth into it.
As if hearing Michael’s thoughts, Dracul stopped and turned around. “If I don’t help you find your grandmother, you’ll just keep digging anyway until you do, won’t you?”
Vlad nodded. Dracul looked at Michael for help, but he lowered his eyes.
Dracul resumed his stiff walk. “Take him to her, Michael,” he said over his shoulder, crossing the threshold. “Let Vlad find out for himself just how stubborn my mother can be. But then I want this madness about the prophecy to end.”
“So it isn’t only Satan’s Wrath you kept from me, Uncle Michael?” Vlad said as soon as Dracul was out of earshot. His tone had an edge that cut Michael deep. “I could tell the prophecy was no surprise to you either.”
“I was wrong to choose loyalty to a dead man over loyalty to you,” Michael said. He tried to recall the words of his oath to King Justus more than thirty years ago, but couldn’t. “I should’ve found a way to tell you something about all those things without breaking my promise to your grandfather.”
Vlad seemed to take Michael’s admission as a peace offering. “Not too late to tell me what you know.”
“It’s not much, I’m afraid. Snippets, really. Complete knowledge of the prophecy was lost when the record of what Theodore heard the angel say was stolen. That was before your grandfather was born.”
“Then how did he learn about it? Father said the prophecy was the reason Opa sent Father out of the country.”
“Your father said that?” Michael said, taken aback. This was more than a word carelessly dropped by Dracul in a conversation with Vlad. The prophecy seemed to sprout new tendrils in unexpected places, as it sought to break out of its cocoon. “Your grandfather heard it from Theodore himself.”
Vlad clutched Michael’s arm, looking hopeful. “Then you must have learned something of substance about it from Opa. You were his confidant before you and Father left for Nuremberg.”
Knowing that denials were now pointless, Michael told Vlad about the day King Justus met Theodore. The blind man had barged into the king’s tent and recited an outlandish vision, forty years old by then. The king thought Theodore had memorized something from the Book of Revelations, in an attempt to gain his favor, and chased him away. That night, by the fire, King Justus entertained his officers and pages with the prophecy. Fourteen-year-old Michael laughed along with them all.
“With battles to fight and girls to court,” Michael finished, “what did I care about voices from the sky and dragons killing lions?” He hung his head, and let old regrets wash over him. “I had a chance to learn of Theodore’s vision but all I did was laugh.”
Vlad didn’t seem inclined to give up. “What about the snippets you do remember?”
“Those are parts of the prophecy I recalled later, once I saw them come true. They relate to your grandfather, to your father, and to you.”
Vlad’s eyes opened wide. “We were mentioned by name?”
“Oh, no such thing.” Michael let a snicker escape him. “God doesn’t make it easy for His children. Your grandfather was identified only as the king who’d fall for a woman of emerald eyes. That was your grandmother, whom he met the following year.”
“That’s how Opa described Oma in the Bible,” Vlad said, animated.
Michael was about to ask what he meant but decided to keep his curiosity in check. “Your father was to be known as the Dragon. Or, once he entered Emperor Sigismund’s Order of the Dragon, that’s what the Germans began calling him: der Drache, the Dragon. True, we Romanians pronounce it ‘Dracul,’ but it’s the same thing.”
“And you’ll tell me I was mentioned as the Son of the Dragon. But that could have been either Marcus or Radu. They’re both Sons of der Drache, even if from other mothers than my own.”
Michael shook his head. “Neither of them could be the one, when you add the prediction that the Son of the Dragon would have green eyes. You are the only one who fits that description.”
Vlad’s face became flushed and he smiled, satisfied.
Michael mused this would be a good moment to stop the discussion, before he was forced to dredge out that other memory. He was still ashamed of how something clearly foretold by Theodore had escaped his understanding at the time. The fact that King Justus also ignored the prediction didn’t lessen his own guilt. How could he have not seen it coming? How strange that this question had the same power to hurt today as it did thirty-three years ago.
“You’re holding something back,” Vlad said. He took Michael’s face between his hands and gave him a penetrating stare. “Is it about my future?”
Michael shook his head and began to rise from the bench.
Vlad held on to his coat and forced him to remain seated. “Nothing you could say would upset me. Is it the incident? I already know everything about it from Father.”
Would this confession, so long delayed, ease his own pain? He feared the answer was no. “It’s about the incident, but I doubt you know this part.” Michael took a deep breath and held it as long as he could. “I could’ve prevented Satan’s Wrath, had I paid attention to Theodore’s words.” He saw shock in Vlad’s eyes and that made it harder to proceed. Yet he pushed on, determined now to come clean. “In hindsight, the warning was clear: ‘The beast from the Euphrates will persecute the woman of emerald eyes.’”
“The beast from the Euphrates,” Vlad said, incredulous. “You didn’t relate that to the Ottomans, whose cradle is Anatolia, the source of that very river?” His face hardened. “You and Opa laughed at tha
t?”
The jagged shard of guilt lodged in Michael’s chest took another fillip. He closed his eyes and waited for the pain to subside. “You aren’t wrong to hold me accountable for that disaster. I was in charge of your grandmother’s safety.” The weight Michael had hoped would roll off his shoulder remained in place, crushing.
Vlad remained reflective for a few moments. “Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything you could’ve done about Satan’s Wrath,” he finally said. He counted on his fingers. “That was, what? Fifteen years after Theodore spoke to Opa?”
The forgiveness in Vlad’s tone eased his agony a bit. “I wish I had at least memorized more of the prophecy concerning you, so I wouldn’t feel so useless now. With both your grandfather and Theodore dead, you’re right to think your grandmother’s the last person who might be able to help you now.”
When Vlad learned where his oma was cloistered, resentment returned to his voice. “The Cozia Convent?” he said, dismayed. “Why, we were in Cozia five years ago on pilgrimage to Opa’s tomb. Neither Father nor you told Marcus and me we might be within a few yards of our oma.”
“As you know now, I couldn’t. Besides, would either of you have cared then? Boys of nine and eleven aren’t interested in a grandmother absent their entire lives.”
“That’s not the point,” Vlad said. “I know you couldn’t. But Father wouldn’t. Why was he so—?”
“His plan was quite sensible,” Michael said, and tugged at Vlad’s tunic to make him sit. “He was going to see Marissa first—I should say Mother Ilaria, as she’s called now—”
“I saw that name in her Bible.”
That Bible again. “After seeing her, your father thought he’d convince your grandmother to meet you and Marcus. When she refused to see him there was no point in telling you boys about her.”
“So, now Father decides to be magnanimous only because he believes the same thing will happen to me.” Vlad bit his thumb. “And the damn thing is, he might be right.”
“All the same, you’ve got nothing to lose trying,” Michael said. “If she won’t see you, forget the entire matter and go about your life.”
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