Son of the Dragon

by Victor T Foia

  The first to recover from the shock was Cardinal Cesarini. The prelate shouted at Hunyadi, choking out his words, “How could such a disgrace... such a...? You don’t really intend to set free these brutes, these footmen of the Devil, these—”

  “I made them a promise, Your Excellency,” Hunyadi said in a weak, apologetic tone. He stood in his box half-turned to the cardinal, but his eyes remained fixed on the Sipahis. Vlad saw disbelief on Hunyadi’s face.

  “A promise made to an infidel isn’t worth shit,” Cesarini screamed.

  That was wrong, Vlad wanted to say. A promise was a promise. He looked at his father and was gratified to see he was shaking his head in disapproval of Cesarini.

  Norbert stood up, his demeanor stately. “The governor had my permission to make the promise. Therefore, I’m the one beholden to it.”

  Cesarini tore off a crucifix hanging on his breast, and held it up to Norbert. “By my authority as a papal legate, I absolve you of your moral obligation.”

  Word that the governor and his guests were deliberating the Sipahis’ fates spread around the field. Isolated shouts of “Kill the infidels!” soon gathered momentum, and within moments became a rhythmic chant.

  Hunyadi whispered something into Nestor’s ear. Vlad saw his cousin nod, then rush out of the stand and speak to an officer on the ground. The man huddled with a few subordinates, and moments later a drumroll let the crowds know a new development was afoot. Curiosity trumped hatred for the moment, and the spectators fell quiet. A group of about fifty pikemen detached themselves from the line and advanced onto the field. As they approached the Sipahis, the men spread out and encircled them with pikes held at the ready. The Turks’ calm enthralled Vlad. They must have known all along what would happen. He recalled Father Gunther’s saying that a Turk would trust an Armenian twice, a Greek once, but a Hungarian never.

  The Sipahis waited until the points of their enemies’ weapons were about to reach their horses, then charged with shouts of “Allah!” They hacked at the pike shafts and split open a few heads but were unable to break through the encirclement. The unequal contest degenerated into a confused mass of rearing horses, broken spear shafts, and flailing arms. In a few moments, the Sipahis disappeared from view as if sucked into a voracious sinkhole. The drums beat again, and the pikemen fell back into formation. Spectators rushed onto the field by the hundreds and fought among themselves for the Sipahis’ weapons and clothing. Where the Turks had fallen, nothing remained but bloody piles of mangled flesh.

  Hunyadi’s breaking his promise to the Sipahis left Vlad feeling soiled. Honor was Michael’s first lesson to him, and though he was only five at the time, he never forgot it. “The only thing a man owns in the world is his honor,” Michael had told him. “Everything else he’s got is on loan. He’s born with honor, but rare is the man buried with it. Most men sell it off along the way, piece by piece.”

  Hunyadi had just sold a chunk of his honor to appease a rabid priest and a hateful crowd. Vlad was glad now he’d been left out of the fight.

  Vlad found Marcus in their sleeping chamber, lying facedown on his bed. The back of his shirt was dark with blood.

  “My skull’s cracked,” Marcus moaned.

  Vlad probed his brother’s nape and found a large bump. The hair on it was wet and sticky. “You got your kill, and the only price you paid is a welt on you scalp.”

  “You don’t think I’ll die?” Marcus whined. “It’d be a damn shame, now that I’ve earned an officer’s commission in the crusade. Nestor said I’ll get to command twenty mounted crossbow archers.”

  “You’ll never ride a horse again if Father finds out what you did.” Vlad turned Marcus onto his side and propped his head on the pillow. Then he took a pitcher of wine from a cupboard and poured it over Marcus’ face and chest.

  Marcus gagged and coughed. “What the fuck—?”

  The door flew open and Dracul stood on the threshold, grinning. “In truth, I’d rather have you two get drunk and piss yourselves than fight. Now get cleaned up for the royal banquet. That’s why you came on this trip, isn’t it?”

  Dracul left, and Vlad heard him chatting with Michael next door. He threw a cover over Marcus and left the room. In the hallway he ran across two Gypsy girls, towels in their arms, heading for his father’s room. Servants wheeling a copper tub of hot water followed the girls. Some people traveled with their cooks and pantries. Father traveled with his Gypsy girls.

  Vlad walked onto the terrace and looked down into the yard, where kitchen hands were roasting pigs and mutton for the evening feast. Despite not having eaten since breakfast, the smells rising from the roast didn’t entice him. He felt an emptiness that no food or drink could fill.

  It had become dark, but he could still make out the outlines of the tournament field in the distance. Now that it was over and Marcus was safe, Vlad tried not to think about the melee anymore. But dark thoughts crowded in on him. No armor for the Turks. Or for their horses. How could the Hungarians do that and still pretend it was a fair contest? What about the broken promise to the winners?

  The faces of the six Sipahis facing the stand, waiting to learn their fate, haunted him. Tired, dirty, hungry—yet undaunted. Vlad would have loved to fight any one of them on equal terms. But as he remembered them, waiting calmly to be mobbed and torn to shreds, he knew he’d have preferred to fight on their side.

  When he stepped back into the hallway, a soldier in King Brankovich’s colors almost knocked him down as he hurried by. At his father’s chamber, the man barged through the door without knocking. Vlad followed him, and found his father lying in the tub, sunken in water to his chin. The Gypsy girls, naked and wielding soapy rags, rode on top of him, chirping in their tongue.

  “I beg your pardon, King Drache,” the man said, distracted by the sight of the girls. “Regent Elizabeth’s been taken ill. My master bids you come quickly.”

  “Get our horses ready,” Dracul ordered Vlad. “Just you and me.”

  Vlad returned to his room to check on Marcus and found him asleep. He placed his own clean pillow under his brother’s head, then descended to the stables.

  The first thing that struck him upon entering Elizabeth’s parlor was the stench. Yesterday’s smell of pomades and perfumes that had enchanted him was gone, replaced by that of vomit and feces. The second thing was the rasping of labored breathing, coming from behind a curtained partition. Norbert, Ulrich, and Brankovich stood in the room’s middle, listening to a man dressed in the black tunic of a physician. The man was explaining something in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. All held kerchiefs to their noses.

  “What’s going on, George?” Dracul asked Brankovich. “How’s the regent?”

  “Come, Drache,” Brankovich replied, and took Dracul to the partition. Vlad followed them. A woman standing vigil there offered them perfume-soaked kerchiefs before she raised the curtain to let them pass. Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting were there, hovering with agonized faces around a canopied bed that filled most of the chamber. The odor became more pronounced, and at close range Elizabeth’s breathing had the sound of a wooden rattle. Brankovich shooed the women away, and they retreated to the far side of the bed. Vlad gasped when he saw Elizabeth lying there, eyes closed and mouth open, her face and body bloated.

  “The doctor says her humors are out of balance,” Brankovich whispered. “That’s why her skin is so yellow. And she’s been having diarrhea all afternoon.”

  Elizabeth wore a flimsy gown that was stained brown around the hips and groin, explaining the foul smell. Only her golden hair, spread over the stained pillow, shone like a reminder of her beauty.

  “This man says it’s poison,” Brankovich said, pointing to the physician when they rejoined the other men in the parlor.

  “Couldn’t it be something she ate?” Dracul said.

  “She didn’t touch anything her cook didn’t taste first,” Ulrich said. “And he’s just fine.”

  “Besides, her chambermaid
got ill the same way,” Brankovich said. “And the girl didn’t eat Elizabeth’s food. She ate with the kitchen folk. None of them is ill.”

  The physician said with a scholarly air, “Since food can be ruled out as the means of poisoning, we must conclude someone’s given them something to sniff, or to rub on their bodies.” He looked around the circle, swollen with the importance of his observation.

  “Something poisoned?” Norbert asked. He appeared on the verge of tears.

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “Perhaps flowers, a perfume, a cream... anything that could deliver the poison.”

  “Well if you know it’s poison, do something about it, man,” Norbert said. “Don’t you have an antidote?” He tried to sound commanding, perhaps even threatening. But all he managed was the piteous tone of a frightened boy.

  “Perhaps, if I knew what the poison was, Your Grace,” the physician replied.

  “Why not ask the chambermaid if she and the regent sniffed the same perfume?” Vlad said.

  “The girl died this afternoon,” the doctor said.

  That seemed to be news to Norbert. “Oh, God,” he said, “then there is no hope for Elizabeth?” He pushed the doctor to the side and rushed to the regent’s bedside. They heard him sobbing and speaking to her in Polish.

  Vlad took a candlestick and walked around the parlor, looking for anything that might appear suspicious. But there was nothing out of ordinary: a few hanging tapestries; the empty wooden chest that had held Norbert’s gift; the stools Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting had used; and her armchair. On it lay the ermine cloak, probably discarded by Elizabeth on her return from the tournament when she had her sneezing fit.

  When she sneezed, and couldn’t stop.

  Both Elizabeth and the chambermaid had overwhelming fits of sneezing, in fact. Both had worn the ermine cloak. Was there some dust on the fur?

  He walked over to the chest and lowered the candlestick inside. When he scraped the bottom of the chest with his dagger, the blade turned white under a coat of fine powder.

  Vlad lifted the blade to the flame to examine it closely, but even as he did this he felt stupid. What was he expecting to see? The powder looked like any ordinary dust. Yes, dust like that would make one sneeze. But surely that meant nothing. He blew the dust off the blade over the flame and it burned, throwing tiny sparks. Then the room filled with a pungent odor reminiscent of forest after the rain.

  “What’s that?” the physician shouted. “That smell. Who did that?”

  Vlad turned to the group of men, still holding the blade over the candle.

  “How did you cause that scent, young man?” The doctor had turned pale and his hands began to shake. “That’s the smell of death cap, the deadliest mushroom known to man.”

  Vlad pointed to the chest, and they all piled around it. The doctor repeated Vlad’s maneuver; a fresh puff of poisonous smoke spread around them. “It’s not dangerous when burned,” the doctor reassured the men when they stepped back, nervous.

  “Do you have an antidote?” Dracul said.

  The doctor shook his head. “There isn’t any for death cap.” Then he scurried away with a scared glance over his shoulder.

  “If the man has any sense, by morning he’ll be telling everyone who’ll listen it was tainted food, not poison,” Dracul said.

  “Was it Norbert who did it? It’s his chest.” Ulrich’s lips quivered as he spoke. “Are we safe?”

  Dracul tapped the raven painted inside the chest and gave Ulrich a meaningful look.

  “What would Hunyadi gain by poisoning Elizabeth?” Brankovich whispered. “He wanted a truce and she signed it.”

  “The truce gives him the Pope’s backing for the crusade,” Dracul said, grim. “And Elizabeth’s accidental death leaves him in control of Norbert. It hurts to admit it, but Hunyadi’s a genius when it comes to manipulating the powerful.”

  “Why did you come to Eisenmarkt, Drache?” Ulrich said. “You had no intention of joining the crusade.”

  Vlad stepped closer and pricked his ears. This was something he was eager to learn.

  “My intent? Just looking for a way of saving Wallachia from Hunyadi and his crusade.”

  “You don’t think the crusaders would dare attack a Christian country like yours, do you?” Brankovich said, shaken. “If Wallachia’s at risk, then why not Serbia?”

  “Why not indeed?” Dracul said. “The Catholics don’t see us Orthodox as much better than heathen. Two hundred years ago, another crusade set off to rid Jerusalem of the Muslims, and ended up sacking the most Christian city of Constantinople. Do you have reason to believe this crusade will be different, George?”

  Now Brankovich became deeply worried. “You must tell me! Did you find a way to keep your country safe—?”

  That moment, the rasping sound of Elizabeth’s breathing ceased. The men raised their heads, expectant. A cry came from Norbert, and was followed by piercing wails from the ladies-in-waiting. It was over.

  Vlad walked out of the tent troubled and confused. In the span of two days he saw the coward hailed and the valiant scourged; he saw beauty dazzle, then molder and stink; he saw betrayal wear the cloak of hospitality, and dishonor that of righteousness. The men he admired proved unworthy, and those he hated drew his sympathy. A longed-for opportunity was dangled in front him, then snatched away in an instant, only so later he’d be grateful he missed it.

  God seemed bent on humbling him for thinking himself ready to be a man. It was as though God Himself was saying, “You think you know about life and death? Loyalty and honor? Good and evil? Bravery and fear? Not so fast. I’ll show you how little you do know. How nothing is what it seems.”

  In the darkness, he took out his medallion and rubbed his fingertips over the carvings. “It’ll ward off the evil of forgetfulness,” Oma had said. The problem was, some things needed forgetting. And Eisenmarkt proved to be full of such things.

  CHAPTER 15: Dar al-Harb, The House of War

  Omar sat cross-legged on the grass and watched Zekaï survey the river for the barge’s arrival. Zekaï’s upper lip, shaded by the fuzz of a mustache, was sweat-beaded despite the chill in the air. Not scared, just anxious, Omar told himself with more hope than certainty. Like a hound pulling at the leash and pawing the ground, ready to pounce on his prey. Being afraid wasn’t an option. Not today, and not for the next three weeks, while they would be in hostile territory.

  “They’ll be here soon, Zekaï,” Omar said. “No need to fret over it.”

  “What if they don’t come?” Zekaï wiped the sweat off his face with a kerchief. “You shouldn’t have paid them in advance.”

  Omar chuckled. “Your first crossing, and you already know better than I what I should or shouldn’t do?” He wasn’t angry with his brother; every kid thought he knew better than the grownups. “You forget I’ve done this with Father many a time, and never had a problem with the river people. Bulgarians are honest folk. Once they take your money, they keep their promise. Besides, I gave them only a small advance, and they’ll be eager to get the rest.”

  Omar remembered his own first crossing into Wallachia. He’d just turned fifteen when his father declared him ready to be an Akinci. “You ride well and you aren’t bad with the sword and the bow. It’s time for you to kill infidels.” What a thrill Omar had felt, hearing that. When they landed on the Danube’s north shore, and Omar set foot for the first time on Christian land, his father pointed to the Bulgarian side and said, “There is Dar al-Islam, the House of Islam. Everything there belongs to the sultan. But here, is Dar al-Harb, the House of War. Everything belongs to those strong enough to take it. Allah, Al-Qahhār, the Subduer, be praised.”

  He also remembered asking his father whether their band was big enough to make the raid successful. Without a word, Father slapped him hard for presuming to question Allah’s will.

  In those days there was no peace treaty with Wallachia, so raiding parties could do whatever they pleased. It was rare a foray i
nvolved fewer than fifty men. Yet despite the large numbers, crossing the Danube was never a problem. Turkish marcher beys were ready to provide barges and rowers, in exchange for five percent of the plunder. Even with another five percent going to the sultan, raids were profitable.

  But this accursed peace with King Dracul had fouled things up for the Akincis. The best they could hope now was for the marcher beys to turn a blind eye to their illegal crossings. And for that, the beys would take a ten-percent toll. Imagine, having to sneak along your own borders like a burglar, then find transport yourself, and still pay a fee. Only twice as big as in times of war. But even at ten percent, the beys would only tolerate small bands of three or four raiders. Did they care that increased the Akincis’ risk a thousand fold? The cowards were afraid the word would get around, and Dracul would make a formal protest in Edirne. No bey was willing to risk his head for what he saw as a bunch of unruly slavers.

  Omar couldn’t wait for the peace treaty to expire so things could return to normal.

  “Father told us never to trust the infidels,” Zekaï said, looking at their other two brothers for reinforcement. “You heard him say that too.”

  Redjaï and Sezaï were tightening the wagon canopy by pulling together at the line that secured it to iron hooks screwed into the sideboards. They stopped working and looked at Zekaï, laughing. “You’re like a boy waiting his turn outside a whorehouse for the first time,” Redjaï said. “Can’t decide what you want more: go inside, or run away.”