“There’s been a sort of message at the castle from the bandits, Master,” Lash said, poking his head through the cell’s door. From the smell of fried fish, Vlad knew Lash had brought him supper.
“What did it say?” Before Lash could reply Vlad burst past him out of the cell and was running at full speed. If there was a message, any message, it meant he’d been right. He felt vindicated.
He found his father seated, elbows resting on the desk and hands steepled under his chin. Michael and Baba stood by with long faces. Marcus wasn’t present and Vlad guessed his brother was keeping an eye on Nestor at Father’s request.
“As messages go this isn’t what we were expecting,” Michael said, moving aside and pointing at the desk. “But at least the bandits are communicating with us.”
With a start, Vlad’s eyes fell upon a man’s severed head placed on top of a burlap sack on the desk. His moustache and shaved chin identified him as one of Nestor’s hussars.
“Someone left it on the cathedral steps this afternoon,” Baba said. “I cordoned off the town and had everyone searched but... nothing.”
“How long ago was this man killed?” Vlad said. “It might tell us how far the bandits’ lair is.”
Baba lifted the head by the hair. Then he, Michael, and Dracul, all men of experience in such matters, looked into the stump of the neck. Vlad noticed the cut that severed the head was made with a sharp weapon. Probably a hussar’s saber.
“I’d think not more than twelve hours ago,” Dracul said. Baba and Michael nodded. “I’d guess the person who brought this head to Targoviste would’ve traveled on foot, to look inconspicuous among the peasants coming to the market. That means the killing took place not far from here.”
“They’re hiding just outside a village, I think,” Baba said. “That’s why they gagged the man, so he wouldn’t scream and give them away.”
Vlad looked closer at the head, and noticed a patch of gray fabric between the parted lips.
“Send men to spy on all villages within a days’ ride from here,” Dracul said. The idea of action returned color to his cheeks.
“I’d hold off on that,” Michael said. “If the villagers are complicit they’ll notice our men and give the alarm. Whatever we do, we mustn’t spook the criminals.”
When Baba placed the head back on the desk Vlad took a candle and examined the gag at close range. He realized he hadn’t seen it first because the man’s lips were almost as gray as the gag. He prodded the fabric with the tip of his dagger and found it pliable.
“This rag’s dry,” Vlad said, surprised. “That means they stuffed it in his mouth after they killed him, otherwise it’d be stiff with dry blood.” And Vlad thought he knew why. “It wasn’t meant to keep the man silent, but to have him speak to us. Pry open his mouth, Lord Baba, and I’ll get it out.”
Baba did, with the help of his own dagger, causing two of the dead man’s teeth to shatter. Vlad speared the rag with his knife and pulled it out. A three-inch-wide paper scroll fell out of it. They all gasped.
“A message,” Dracul shouted. He pounced on the scroll, and read the message to himself, mouthing the words.
Finding the message was the easy part. But freeing the hostages... .
“It’s written in bad Latin, by someone not accustomed to the quill,” Dracul said. “An apostate monk, I suppose. There’s also a plea from Piccolomini, but it makes no sense. But at least his Latin’s good.”
“What are they asking for?” Michael said.
“They want a hundred ducats for Piccolomini, ten for László.”
Michael gave a soft whistle. “To ask that much for the Italian means they have an idea of his value to us.”
“It doesn’t have to be so,” Dracul said. “Whoever commissioned this ambush didn’t have to explain to the assassins who Piccolomini was. Once they were paid to kill him, it wasn’t hard for them to guess he’d fetch more money in ransom.”
Baba chuckled. “Only ten ducats for László? So the scoundrels don’t know the boy’s Hunyadi’s child. I bet the governor would pay ten thousand ducats to get his only son back.”
“László wasn’t part of the intended catch,” Dracul said. “He just fell into the bandits’ net because Nestor panicked and left him behind.”
Unless Nestor left László behind on purpose. Vlad remembered his cousin’s boasting about being almost an adopted son to Hunyadi. An accident like this would open new opportunities for Nestor.
“What about the other hussars?” Baba said. “There are still two unaccounted for.”
“No word on them,” Dracul said. “But the note says to expect another message soon with instructions on how to bring them the money. Seeing the murderers’ choice of message delivery, I’d count the hussars lost already.”
Michael took the note from Dracul and scanned it. Then he frowned. “You’re right about Piccolomini. He seems to have lost his wits. What’s this about Christ’s ‘eighteen apostles’?”
“May I see it?” Vlad said. That wasn’t a mistake someone of Piccolomini’s erudition would make. Yet there the number eighteen was, written in larger letters than the rest of the text and in a careful calligraphy: “Until Your Highness pays the ransom, our fate is in the hands of the eighteen apostles of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Was Piccolomini so distressed, he forgot the apostles were only twelve? Vlad read further. “The power that can topple the mightiest of oak trees with fire from heaven and let it be trod underfoot, will smite those who abandon friends in distress.” Was Piccolomini trying to sound poetic? Not likely.
“The same God who ordered Moses to strike the rock and send forth a waterfall rushing into the abyss, will reward those who show compassion to the imprisoned.” As a Bible reference, this was as far off the mark as the number of the apostles: Moses barely got a trickle of water out of the rock. So why the exaggeration?
Then it struck Vlad. He said, agitated, “What Piccolomini wrote isn’t nonsense. It’s a code.”
“What?” the three men said in unison.
“Piccolomini convinced his captors that if he wrote to you, their chances of being paid increased. They couldn’t dream he was going to lead us to their hiding place.”
Dracul frowned. “I’ve read the note twice and there is nothing to indicate—”
“Look at this, Father.” Vlad placed the note on the desk in front of Dracul. “Piccolomini’s telling us in some detail where they are. I know it sounds bombastic, something a poet would write—fallen trees, and waterfalls. But if you think about—”
“Slow down, Son,” Dracul said. “What makes you think Piccolomini’s ramblings are a ciphered message?”
“If we read everything he wrote as if it had a hidden meaning,” Vlad said, “it all begins to make sense. Everybody knows Moses didn’t strike a waterfall with his staff. But what Piccolomini wants us to do is retain the notion of a waterfall.”
“I never heard of a waterfall in Devil’s Belt,” Baba said.
It was plain that Baba had no imagination. But Father was bound to see through the clutter. “Same thing about the fallen tree. He wants us to know it’s not just another tree, but a remarkably large one, toppled by lightning and ‘trod under foot.’ In other words, used as a bridge.”
“Devil’s Belt is full of trees struck by lightning,” Baba said. “If that’s a hint of his location, it’s pretty useless—”
Dracul raised his hand to silence him. “You might’ve hit on something, Son. I’m thinking about the eighteen apostles. If Piccolomini had meant simply to sound fanciful he could’ve said ‘eighteen saints,’ or ‘eighteen martyrs.’ and we wouldn’t have remarked anything strange about that number. But if he wanted to tell us something specific, like how many bandits are in the pack, he’d want to use a number that would draw our attention.”
“True,” Michael said. “His miscounting the apostles did make the number eighteen stand out.”
“Eighteen bandits?” Baba mused. �
��I can handle that.”
Vlad felt a pleasant glow, realizing that Father, Michael, and Baba had accepted his interpretation. “We should ask someone familiar with the forest if any of these markers are to be found in the vicinity.”
Dracul hid the hussar’s head in a cupboard, then pulled a cord to summon his valet. “Get me Master Florian in a hurry, Jacob,” he said when the man rushed into the room. “Drag him from his wife’s bed if you have to.” Then he began to pace the floor with an energy that told Vlad his father’s malaise was over. “If anyone can recognize Piccolomini’s markers, my verderer can. He’s been chief warden of the royal forests for thirty-five years and knows Devil’s Belt like only the Devil’s footman does.”
The men remained quiet until the verderer came. He was and elderly man, bleary-eyed and frightened.
“A waterfall?” the verderer said, pulling at his ear. “There’s no waterfall in Devil’s Belt. They’re all up in the mountains, Your Grace.”
Vlad felt deflated. Was then everything just some poetic nonsense? “A waterfall rushing into the abyss,” he quoted Piccolomini. “What about a place where the water runs into the ground, Master Florian? So it disappears from the view? Perhaps not a real waterfall, but just a flow that makes the sound of one?”
Florian fidgeted a while before he answered, kneading his cap with both hands. “There’s such a place called... .” Uncomfortable, he stared around him and kneaded harder.
Dracul raised his hands, impatient. “We haven’t got the time, Florian.”
“If Your Highness will forgive me—er—the place is called Gypsy’s Twat.”
“What about it?” Dracul said.
“Well, you know... like black, and tight, and deep—”
“I know what a Gypsy twat’s like, man,” Dracul said. “What about that waterfall?”
“There is a creek there that rushes down about twenty feet into a crevice in the rock, and disappears underground. It does make a big noise that people say resembles a waterfall.”
“Do you remember a tree struck by lightning there?” Dracul asked.
Vlad held his breath. The warden pushed out his lower lip and narrowed his eyes, in an effort to remember. Then he shook his head.
Vlad was unwilling to give up. “What about a foot bridge over the creek?”
“There is a huge log spanning the creek,” Florian said. “It’s been there from before my time. But I don’t know about lightning. The log’s all covered in moss and—”
“An observant person like Piccolomini,” Vlad said, “would notice the tree was felled by lightning, even if the charring is covered by moss.”
“How far is this place?” Michael said.
“When I was a child, Father used to take me there in the fall to hunt—”
Dracul pounded his fist on the desk. “How far, Florian?”
The verderer ducked. “A day, walking steady.”
Dracul took the verderer by the arm and led him to the chair. “Sit here, Florian, and draw us a map to the place. Then go to bed and, if you value your life, forget everything we discussed here tonight.”
CHAPTER 19: Dangerous Fortunetellers
“So, what did Lord Baba say?” Vlad asked Gruya, impatient. “Is he taking us along, or not?”
Gruya looked around Vlad’s cell for a chair but finding none, sat on the floor. “Father wanted to, but the king said this mission’s too dangerous for us. In fact he scolded Father for letting us go with him to check on the dead people in the forest two days back.”
“There’d be no mission if I hadn’t deciphered Piccolomini’s message,” Vlad said, affronted by his father’s ingratitude, but also that Dracul still thought Vlad wasn’t ready for serious action.
“The way my father’s going about it makes the operation more dangerous than it ought to be,” Gruya said. “Imagine, he’s planning to confront eighteen bandits with only seven men, including himself. And, you won’t believe this... completely unarmed.”
“Lord Baba’s following my suggestion,” Vlad said, feeling even more upset at being left out of an operation based on his ideas.
Gruya’s mouth hung open. “It was you who suggested they leave all weapons behind?”
“This isn’t one of those situations where he who has more people and weapons wins.”
Gruya shook his head, resolute. “I’d send enough men to surround the bandits’ camp and—”
“The objective’s to bring Piccolomini and László out alive. That means the robbers have to be surprised and tricked somehow. You can’t surprise people on high alert by descending upon them in large numbers. They’d see your father’s party from way off and kill the hostages.” It had taken Vlad an hour the night before to convince Father and Baba that impersonating a traveling band of Gypsies was the only way to surprise Piccolomini’s abductors.
“But why no weapons?”
“You know Gypsies aren’t allowed to bear weapons,” Vlad said, not pleased he had to explain such obvious things to his squire. “The robbers will have lookouts everywhere. If they find as much as a knife on your father and his men, they’ll smell an ambush and kill them all.”
“Well, I suppose Father can grab weapons from the robbers themselves, once he gets close enough to them.”
Thank goodness Gruya was finally beginning to think. “When’s your father leaving?
“He left an hour ago. He wants to get close to the place in the dark and hide their horses somewhere, before continuing on foot.”
“Good idea,” Vlad said. “I lent your father Lash. He was supposed to leave ahead of Lord Baba. It’ll take him all day to get into position.”
“Yes, I saw Lash load four women and two screaming toddlers into a wagon this morning. Why children, though? Was that your idea too?”
Vlad grinned. “Have you ever seen a Gypsy family without crying children?”
“Now I’m curious,” Gruya said with a chuckle. “I’d love to see Father, patriarch of a Gypsy tribe with six sons, four daughters-in law, and two bawling grandsons, negotiating with the bandits for the release of the hostages.”
“You don’t think we’re going to sit on our asses and wait to hear your father’s story by the fireside.”
“Do you mean—?”
“If you and I leave now, we won’t be far behind them. And when they walk through the forest as a family, they’ll slow down even more and give us a chance to catch up with them.”
“Father will break my ass if he sees I disobeyed his order to stay home,” Gruya complained, yet his face shone with anticipation.
“We’ll stay out of sight and just watch. No one will know we were there. I memorized the verderer’s map last night. He even marked a spot where the horses and the wagon could be concealed. That’s our first stop.”
By the time they arrived at the hiding place for the horses and wagon, the sun was just peeking above the horizon.
“Quick, look around for a pot of dye,” Vlad said, while he began to rummage the wagon for old clothes. “There’s got to be one tossed somewhere around this clearing.”
Vlad found a mound of dirty clothes and extracted from it an old, frayed tunic and a pair of baggy trousers heavy with patches on the knees and bottom. There were even a few pairs of opinch to choose from. “It’s as if Lash guessed we’d be doing this and brought along surplus clothing,” Vlad said when Gruya returned with a broken jug he’d found nearby. “Hurry, change your clothes and come dye your skin.” He swabbed the bottom of the jug with a rag and began to smear the brown, sticky tincture left in there on his face and hands. The ointment smelled of green walnut husks. “No weapons,” he said when he noticed Gruya hiding a knife under his tunic. “Remember, we’re Gypsy beggars for the next few hours.”
Unencumbered by weapons, mantles, or boots, Vlad and Gruya jogged up the forest path for about half an hour before they reached a fork in the road Vlad remembered from the map. They decided to take a short break there. Before they could find a place to si
t, two men armed with spears sprang into the road from behind the trees. Vlad and Gruya cowered and began to whimper, making themselves as small as they could.
“Please don’t hurt us, High Lords,” Gruya cried, joining his hands in prayer. “We don’t have anything worth taking from us.”
“Pat them down, Ioanides,” the older of the two highwaymen said to his companion. The leader’s sparse beard couldn’t conceal large purple sores on his cheeks; his breath reeked of garlic. “These sneaky Gypsies always cry poormouth, but you never know what stolen goods you’ll find on them.”
“Do we take them down?” Gruya’s eyes asked, over the shoulder of the man frisking him. It would be easy enough. The highway bandits, ill fed and unskilled with weapons, would be no challenge for Vlad and Gruya, even barehanded as they were. But others might be watching them from deeper in the forest. “No,” Vlad signaled with an imperceptible movement of his head.
“Give us a crust of bread, Masters,” Vlad sniveled. “We haven’t eaten in—”
“You runts are with the other Gypsies that went before?” the older man asked.
“My brother got the shits and we fell behind,” Gruya said. “And now I got them too and... He bent over, holding his belly and groaning.
“Don’t you even think about stinking up our place, you filthy crow,” Ioanides shouted. He kicked Gruya in the butt and sent him rolling onto the side of the road. “You’d better be gone before I stick you like a wild pig with this spear.”
Vlad and Gruya took off at a run. The two brigands gave half-hearted chase for a few yards, laughing and cursing after them with mangled Gypsy oaths.
Soon the ground began to rise and the path started to snake along the side of the hill. Vlad recognized the serpentines sketched on the verderer’s map and knew the summit was near. A steaming donkey-manure pile told them Baba and his companions had passed the spot only minutes before. A few moments later, they heard a crying child somewhere above them, but couldn’t see any movement through the trees.
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