Son of the Dragon

by Victor T Foia

  Vlad jumped to his feet and shouted, “Life? What life?”

  Michael recoiled at the aggressiveness in Vlad’s tone.

  “I know Marcus is waiting for Father to die, so he can become king. But as a second-born son, what can I look forward to?”

  “I don’t see how that would change by talking to your grandmother.”

  “But of course it would,” Vlad said, excited. “It’s one thing to believe you’ve got nothing to live for, and another to know you’re destined to accomplish great things. Things important enough to have been spoken about by an angel, near a hundred years ago.” Vlad drew in a sharp breath and became even more animated. “It’s been now four months since I learned I’m not like everyone else... that I’ve got a unique destiny to fulfill. If Oma could tell me what that is—”

  “Deep inside, every man thinks there is something unique about him. Even the lowest gravedigger.” Michael didn’t believe his own words. He’d been too close to the events foretold in the prophecy not to think Vlad had been marked in a particular way. But if he wanted to learn what Vlad knew, he’d have to provoke his confession somehow. “But in the Book of Life we’re all the same.”

  “You wouldn’t think so if you knew what Theodore told me.”

  “I’m listening,” Michael said, believing his efforts were about to be rewarded.

  Vlad’s account of his encounter with Theodore and the discovery of Marissa’s Bible shed new light for Michael. “Your father and I thought your grandmother’s Bible was stolen at your birth. It had lain at your mother’s side until she died. Then it was gone. We suspected a blind beggar—”

  “Theodore, of course,” Vlad said.

  “We had no way of knowing it was he at the time. I’d never met him and your father had seen him only once, twenty years before. Your mother had taken Theodore off the street in Nuremburg, and brought him with her to Schassburg when she married your father.”

  “For a blind man Theodore sure moved about a lot,” Vlad said, pensive. “That bolsters his claims of having a divine mission, doesn’t it?”

  “Theodore became your mother’s constant companion. No one expected him to turn thief.”

  “If he returned the Bible to Oma it wasn’t a theft,” Vlad said.

  “The Bible’s disappearance wasn’t the only thing we blamed on Theodore. He somehow persuaded your mother that before she could give you birth, ‘A star must fall from the sky.’ From that day on she kept repeating, ‘Ein Stern muss erst auf die Erde fallen,’ whenever the midwife urged her to push you out of her womb.”

  The recollection of the struggling young woman, desperate to fulfill a destiny she couldn’t possibly understand, filled Michael with bitterness. Ulfer was right. Step by step, the prophecy would claim its victims. Pitiless, relentless, unstoppable. What would it do to Vlad? And was he himself an accomplice to that celestial tragedy? “She held you back for a week, until the pain killed her.”

  Only when he noticed Vlad’s face turn pale did Michael realize he’d been speaking about his mother’s death as if it had been that of a stranger. Until now, Vlad knew nothing about the circumstances of his birth. The way Michael brought them to him had to seem brutal and uncaring.

  He put his arm around Vlad’s shoulder and was about to say something to soften the effect of his careless words. Just then Vlad bit his lip and turned his head away. Michael sensed that all Vlad wanted at that moment was silence.

  A few moments later Vlad resumed talking, but now his voice was much subdued. “And a star did fall the moment of my birth, just as Theodore predicted.”

  Michael nodded, remembering the fireball that streaked across the sky and hit the side of a hill across the river with thunderous blast. Houses shook, windows shattered, and a dust cloud the size of a thousand haystacks rose into the sky.

  When Michael finished describing his recollections of that moment, Vlad removed something from around his neck and handed it to Michael. It was a medallion of polished black stone with carvings on it.

  “Here’s a chip of that rock fallen from the sky,” Vlad said. “It must be. I believe this is what Theodore meant when he said I should take my ‘promised token of the fallen star.’”

  Vlad hadn’t mentioned the medallion in his story of the encounter with Theodore. “It’s my turn to ask what else you’re holding back from me, Vlad,” Michael said, more amused than offended at Vlad’s new penchant for secrecy. “Last year I couldn’t stop you from talking. Now you’re doling out your secrets in droplets, like a priest running out of the Eucharist wine.”

  “Take a look at those carvings,” Vlad said. “I believe the secret of my future is locked in them.”

  As Michael examined the amulet, he recognized the color and texture of Theodore’s fallen star. A shiver passed through him. But the carvings couldn’t be those of a blind man. Whose, then? “I don’t see what these numbers have to do with you.”

  “I think I do,” Vlad responded without hesitation. “Well, at least in part. Theodore said he waited for me ninety-one years. That’s one pair of 9 and 1. Then, I was born the first day of the ninth month of the year. That’s another pair. Finally, Oma recorded my birthdate in the Bible on the page of Psalm 91. Wouldn’t you think she could explain what these numbers mean?” Vlad tucked the amulet back into his shirt, triumphant. “How long will it take me to get to Cozia this time of the year?”

  “You aren’t thinking to—”

  Vlad smiled. “Not thinking... I’m doing it.”

  “There aren’t any inns open in the winter.”

  “You don’t expect me to let the chance of talking with Oma slip through my fingers. She’s an old woman, she could be dead by springtime.”

  Michael rubbed his chin, wondering what else he could say to make Vlad change his mind. A glance at him, and the determined look he got in return, made him capitulate. “It will take us about eight, maybe nine days, if the snowdrifts aren’t too big.”

  Vlad’s face brightened. “I knew you wouldn’t want to be left behind, Uncle Michael.” Then he left the hall at a run, and Michael heard him sprint up the steps.

  In the deserted hall, about to succumb to darkness as the last candles began to gutter, Michael felt his chest heavy with the uncertainties lying ahead.

  CHAPTER 7: Butterfly in the Snow

  The horses trotted morning till night on frozen ground that was now barren, now covered in two, three feet of snow. Vlad set a pace that was hard on Michael. He refrained from complaining even though the pounding on his lower back sent shooting pains down his legs. His eyes teared with the wind, and his teeth hurt when he sucked in the frigid air. Yet nothing would’ve made him choose the comfort of home over the exertions of the road, as long as he could stay close to Vlad. He’d guided his ward’s steps almost from birth, and now the moment seemed near when the fledgling was ready to fly the coop. Michael would be there to see it, at all cost, and try to protect him. Though at the moment, he had no idea how.

  Michael thought about Dracul at Vlad’s age, but nothing remarkable came to mind. The king had been a normal boy who made the transition from childhood to young adulthood in a predictable way. Michael knew it wasn’t going to be the same with Vlad. A fierce energy emanated from him that told him Vlad was seeking more than just passage to adulthood. He exuded the air of someone on a quest for change, of someone who would bend the world around you to his will, one day. Michael tried to imagine Vlad’s world, but couldn’t, and knew he wouldn’t be around to see it. Just as well, perhaps. The world had a way of turning on those who tried to make it better.

  Dracul was right. It would be better if Vlad chased girls instead of old prophecies. Catch them, love them, forget them, as Marcus and Gruya did. Alas, Vlad was nothing like them. He liked to push himself to the limits of hardship, endurance, even pain. He seemed to live alone in a world of his own, while surrounded by friends and relatives, and once his mind set to something, he couldn’t be deterred. Just like now, when he decide
d to find his grandmother and wrestle out of her the meaning of a vision he was convinced would give sense to his life.

  Michael glanced at Vlad. Jaw set tight, brow knitted, nose pointed in the air like a hunt-dog drawn to the spoor of the prey. So Marissa told him what she knew. Then what? Where would the Son of the Dragon go from there?

  The only time Vlad’s concentration slackened was when the small party came upon four corpses hanging from the branches of an oak tree.

  “Bandits caught by your father’s guards late in the fall,” Michael said. “Those they hanged in the summer have dropped off by now and been devoured by animals.”

  “How many does Father capture every year?” Vlad asked, riding in a circle around the hanged men.

  “A few dozen, I think.”

  “From hundreds?”

  “From thousands,” Michael said. “And he loses a soldier for every three bandits he catches.”

  Vlad seemed dumfounded. “Why doesn’t Father sweep the entire Devil’s Belt one time, and root out the lot of them?”

  Michael wondered how much of the crown’s financial weakness he should disclose to Vlad. And not for the first time. Ulfer didn’t care to explain things to Vlad, and then wondered why his son was poking around for answers on his own. Well, Vlad was a man now, and ought to know.

  “Money. That’s why your father doesn’t wage a widespread campaign against the bandits. The royal treasury’s near empty. Your father can barely afford to keep two thousand soldiers in permanent service. And they’re needed to guard the castle and the borders. Not enough left to cleanse the woods of this human scum, as well.” Michael knew Vlad had disdain for money, and no understanding of where it came from, so he added, “Most royal revenues stem from custom taxes on foreign merchants crossing Wallachia on their way to and from the Ottoman Empire. With merchants scared away by bandits, commerce is at a near standstill.”

  Vlad frowned. “No road safety, no gold. No gold, no road safety.”

  Michael shrugged, feeling helpless, as if he were responsible for the dire situation. “It’s a vicious circle.”

  Vlad chewed his lower lip, poised to ask more questions. Then he seemed to change his mind. He unsheathed his sword and slashed the four nooses, allowing each corpse to thump to the ground. “Let the animals have at them.” He had a look of righteousness that Michael knew well. But this time it was of a hardness he hadn’t noticed before.

  That night by the fire, Vlad didn’t touch his food but sat, seeming lost in thought. Lash, Vlad’s Gypsy servant, never one to speak without a reason, ate his ration in silence. Then he began to sharpen Vlad’s sword with a whetstone, more to keep busy than because it needed it. Michael pecked at food, his old man’s weak appetite further deadened by fatigue. Between bites he warmed himself with sips of palinca, willing the plum brandy to numb the pain in his back. Only Gruya, cheerful as on a summer morning, ate with relish, while he recounted improbable tales of his amorous conquests.

  “Why aren’t the boyars helping Father bring order to the country?” Vlad asked, interrupting Gruya in midsentence. “Are they poor too?”

  “Oh, the boyars have money aplenty,” Michael said with a sigh. “They own villages, pastures, forests, fishing ponds.... And they can afford armed guards for their own caravans, so their private commerce’s doing just fine. You’ll get an idea of how rich they can be when we pass by one of the Alba family’s estates tomorrow.”

  “So the boyars could help Father?”

  “They’ve got no interest in making the crown strong.”

  “Traitors,” Vlad said, morose. “I can’t believe Father lets them get away with it.”

  Michael and Dracul had discussed this issue many a time. “It won’t be forever, Vlad. Your father will deal with the boyars in due time. But he must refill the royal coffers first.” Of late, an idea Dracul had conceived to attract part of the Silk Road commerce to Wallachia appeared promising, but it wasn’t wise to share that much with Vlad. He said only, “He’s got a plan for doing that, but he’ll have to borrow a lot of money.”

  “Borrow?” As if working out a mental image, Vlad snatched his sword from Lash’s hand and slashed at a burning log. “Why not just take it from the traitors?”

  Gruya, startled at first, recovered with a giggle and attacked another log with his sword, in imitation of Vlad. “I’d start with the Albas,” he said, hacking away at the fire. “The money Lord Treasurer’s sunk into his fancy palace in Targoviste alone would’ve been enough to—”

  “The king can’t just take the boyars’ money,” Michael said, amused at the boys’ naïveté. “The law’s on their side.”

  “Traitors,” Vlad repeated, and again fought the burning log with his sword.

  “Traitors or not, your father can’t go against them with two thousand men. If the boyars band together, they can raise an army of twenty thousand. He’s too smart to start a fight he can’t finish.”

  “Father Gunther said Sultan Murad can do anything he wants to the Turkish nobles, and they still follow him blindly.”

  Michael fought a frustrated sigh. Perhaps Ulfer was right to call Gunther an old fool who was leading Vlad astray. “You think your father should learn from a Muslim how to subdue his Christian nobles?”

  Vlad chuckled. “Why not? If the Devil himself showed him how to bring the boyars to heel, he ought to take his advice.”

  Next morning, they rode for two hours before they reached a small frozen river. They were now in the middle of the Baragan Plain, far from the forest and the mountains. Just as Michael remembered from his last journey through, the most one could expect from the scenery here was the small hillocks, sparsely covered in shrubbery, or the shallow gulches cut by summer rains.

  “We’re entering Alba country,” he announced as they rode.

  “I thought the Albas’ holdings lay farther to the west, by the River Olt,” Vlad said.

  “They’ve been acquiring land all over the country for many years now. Dowries, purchases, defaulted mortgages, strong-arming. Anything to increase their power. By now they own more land than the crown.”

  “The rumor’s Dan Alba would like to be more than treasurer,” Gruya said. “They say it’s the throne he’d like to buy next.”

  Vlad reined in Timur and turned to Michael, inquisitive.

  “Rumors, Vlad, stupid rumors only,” Michael said, knowing that when enough gold was involved rumors were never stupid. “No amount of money can buy an Alba royal blood. And the boyars have never sanctioned a king outside the royal House of Basarab.”

  “Not so far,” Vlad mused.

  “Ironically, it’s Alba’s very wealth that prevents him from gaining the backing of the boyars. Treasonous as they might be, the boyars prefer a poor king to a wealthy one.”

  “Could Alba get support abroad?”

  Michael wondered if Vlad had been eavesdropping on his conversation with Dracul. At the present, Alba’s foreign machinations appeared to be the greatest threat to the House of Basarab. “Your father’s got spies at all European courts. He’d hear of any such move before it got legs.”

  This seemed to satisfy Vlad. They crossed the river and entered a village of mud-brick hovels half-buried into the ground, with sod for roofs and no chimneys. At a distance from the village, atop a small rise, stood a mansion of impressive proportions, surrounded by a wall worthy of a fortress. Stretching from one end of the roof to the other, a forest of brick chimneys sent up clouds of smoke.

  “Whoever lives here lives well,” Gruya said, whistling in admiration. “And he’s left little to his subjects in this village to be grateful about.”

  Michael scowled. “It’s Peter Alba, the treasurer’s younger brother. Like Dan, Peter loves the good life.”

  “He must be having lots of company,” Vlad said, “judging by those smoking stacks.”

  “We could probably get ourselves invited for supper if we made our presence known.” Michael thought of how soothing a feather bed would
be to his aching bones.

  “I, for one, wouldn’t mind putting a big dent into the Albas’ larder,” Gruya said. “It’s bound to be well stocked.”

  “We ride on,” Vlad said, angry. “You’ve been talking about what kind of scoundrels the Albas are, and now you’re ready to share their meal?”

  When it came to food and sex, Michael knew his grandson was most forgiving of political affiliations. Gruya himself saved him from answering.

  “I meant it only as a way of undermining their strength,” Gruya said, and resumed riding with a disappointed pout.

  As they neared the mansion’s gate, one of their horses neighed. Two watchmen who’d been sitting on a bench sprang to their feet, startled.

  “Go back to sleep, Grandmothers,” Gruya said. “We didn’t mean to disturb your nap.”

  The two men, bundled in sheepskins and armed with spears and swords, looked at the riders in confusion. From their guilty appearance, Michael guessed they’d been dozing indeed. “Lord’s blessings onto you, good men,” he said. “Don’t mind my grandson. He’s a bit of a jester. How’s His Grace Lord Peter these days?”

  “His lordship’s away on business,” the older of the two said, reassured. “His son Julius is in charge here while the master’s gone.”

  “You’ve got a lot of hearths working up there for a near empty house,” Michael said, to keep the conversation going. He knew simple folks like these could always be enticed to be informative with kind treatment.

  “Not empty at all, my lord,” the same man said. “Lord Dan’s wife, Lady Helena, their daughter Esmeralda, and all their womenfolk are spending the winter here, waiting for the spring to travel to Targoviste.”

  Vlad seemed bothered that Michael would talk to Alba’s men. He spurred Timur and took off at a trot. Fifty yards farther, he stopped his horse abruptly and leaned in the saddle to examine something. Before Michael could follow him, Vlad doubled back on his tracks. When he reached the watchmen he wheeled Timur around, causing the men to be lashed by the horse’s tail.