Son of the Dragon

by Victor T Foia

  “They must’ve crossed over to the other side of the hill,” Vlad said when the last serpentine opened up empty in front of them. “From here on we need to hide, or we risk upsetting your father’s plan.”

  They left the path and began to climb through the forest toward the top of the hill, mindful of not making noises. Even before they got there, they heard the rushing of water from the place the creek plunged into Piccolomini’s abyss. Coarse voices, talking and laughing, rose from somewhere below. Vlad was first to reach the crest, from where he had a clear view of the encampment below. A sheer drop of about sixty feet separated him from half a dozen huts lined along a stream. Knowledge of the danger confronting Baba and his people sent a tremor of excitement through him. He felt his palms dampen and his breathing become shallow.

  Glancing up and down the narrow ravine, Vlad saw in the mid-distance to his left Piccolomini’s “mighty oak” spanning the creek.

  “There,” Gruya whispered into Vlad’s ear, pointing to the right, where the valley narrowed into a canyon. “The creek seems to be swallowed by the ground. That must be the Gypsy’s Twat.”

  In the open space between the huts and the waterline, Vlad spotted three Gypsy women surrounded by a dozen bandits in hussars’ uniforms, sabers dangling from their belts. Once in a while one of the women would examine a man’s hand and, after a few moments of silence, there would be uproarious laughter.

  “Whatever happy predictions the girls are making will soon prove to be lies,” Gruya whispered with a wolfish grin.

  Baba and his six men, looking like genuine Gypsies in rags and darkened skins, had mingled with their hosts. They showed keen interest in the fortunetellers’ performances, and laughed along with everyone else. Vlad searched for Lash and saw him behind one of the huts, where the fourth woman had taken refuge to suckle her baby. The other child lay crying on a shawl spread next to her.

  “I count only twelve bandits,” Vlad whispered.

  “One might’ve left to deliver another ransom message to the castle,” Gruya said. “Others are keeping watch in the forest.”

  “I imagine some are minding the horses somewhere upstream—”

  An apocalyptic scream erupted from below.

  Baba had clamped his hands from behind over the face of one of the brigands while the three women held onto the man’s arms. The scream didn’t come from the victim but from Baba himself, and it seemed to paralyze the other robbers. For a few seconds, in which Vlad forgot to breathe, no one moved. Then Baba lifted his bloody hands high above to show the crowd the two halves of the man’s torn-apart face.

  The rest of the robbers, emerging from shock, reached as one for their swords. Before the two men flanking Baba had drawn theirs halfway, he grabbed them by the scruffs of their necks and slammed their heads together with such force their shattered skulls seemed to meld together.

  “Horses,” Gruya shouted.

  At the same moment, Vlad heard hoofbeats somewhere behind them in the forest, and his heart plunged into a violent flutter. His plan hadn’t considered the kidnappers having mounted reinforcements. With additional brigands coming at them on horseback, Baba and his men would be trapped and overpowered. In the grip of near panic, he turned to look down the slope, feeling his legs uncooperative. To his surprise there were no horses coming up the path as he expected. Instead, the clatter of hooves came from somewhere up the hill to the right. When he looked in that direction, he saw two horses round the bend in the path and launch into a gallop down the serpentine.

  Running away. His plan had worked, and the robbers were fleeing. Vlad felt as if he’d just burst through the surface of the water after being submerged past the endurance point.

  That instant, a flash of purple and white hit his eye and he jumped to his feet. “Piccolomini,” he screamed at Gruya. “They’re taking him away.”

  With no thought of what he was going to do, Vlad charged down the slope and tripped on the thick undergrowth, tumbling head over heels toward the path. He recovered too late to see the first horse pass, but in time for the second one, which flashed by in tow. On it he spotted Piccolomini, hands tied to the pommel of his saddle. With the Italian’s terrified face imprinted on his mind, Vlad leaped across the path and continued to race downhill. He heard Gruya crash through the shrubbery behind him. He also heard the horses far on his left. They slowed down first in the turn, then accelerated toward him along the second serpentine. He was too slow, he wouldn’t make it, they were gone!

  That moment Gruya, favored by longer legs, overtook Vlad, but stumbled and plunged headlong toward the path. Unable to avoid him, Vlad stumbled onto Gruya’s back just as the first horse entered his field of vision. Using his squire’s back as a springboard, Vlad dove headfirst into the unsuspecting rider, knocking him off the horse, clear across the path and down onto the slope below. Vlad and the robber, caught in an involuntary embrace, rolled for about twenty yards before they slammed into a tree.

  He had to breathe, Vlad told himself, yet he felt no need for air. He lay on his back, head pointing downslope, looking at patches of blue sky between the branches. He was intrigued by the way the trees tilted the wrong way. How bizarre. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish washed ashore, but no air entered his lungs. Why was he lying there? He had a foggy notion of something left unfinished, something important that had slipped through his hands. But when he tried to pin down that thought, it eluded him. Then, with a wheeze that startled him, air rushed into his lungs.

  “Mein Retter, wer bist du, who are you, my rescuer?” someone shouted in the distance, and Vlad’s confusion grew. He tried to roll onto his side, but couldn’t.

  “Vlad,” Gruya’s anguished call came from nearby, “tell me you aren’t hurt.”

  Gruya’s shout tore Vlad out of his torpor and a myriad of confused images flooded his mind. Hostages. Baba. Lash. “How are the others?” he managed to whisper. “Is everyone safe?”

  “Help me lift him up,” a voice said in German. “He seems dazed.”

  Four hands grabbed Vlad and helped him to sit. The same four hands scurried over his arms and legs, pinching and probing all over.

  “You’re not hurt,” Gruya said, exultant.

  “Nothing’s broken, Gott sei Dank, Thank God.”

  Vlad lifted his head and came face-to-face with Piccolomini, bareheaded and rumpled, but beaming. “Welcome to Wallachia, Ser Piccolomini,” he said.

  That moment an agonizing groan rose from nearby, and all three men turned their heads in that direction to see a black shape writhing in the weeds.

  “That’s the leader of the robbers,” Piccolomini said.

  Gruya walked over to the groaning man and rolled him over with a kick. “He was that, Ser Piccolomini,” he said, and stamped his foot hard on the man’s throat. “He’s nothing now.”

  Vlad’s heart dove. Gruya. All muscle and little else, just like his father. That was the man who could have told them who was behind the kidnappings and murders.

  The day Baba and his party were away, Michael went through the motion of attending to matters involving his estates, but there was no joy from his steward’s report on an unexpected large number of calvings; or the promise of a rich apple harvest; or the overabundance of hatchlings in his fishing ponds. Neither was he upset by the burning down of a mill, nor the loss to wolves of his favorite ram. All Michael could think about was Baba’s undertaking on behalf of the king. Doubts kept surfacing. Go to the den of the murderers empty-handed? Rely on women and children to give credibility to your disguise?

  Was recovering Piccolomini worth risking the life of his only son? It had to be. Without Frederick’s treaty, Wallachia remained vulnerable to the machinations of the Hungarians. In the many weeks it would take another emissary to make the round-trip to Vienna with a new protocol, Hunyadi might undertake a move that could push Wallachia to destruction.

  But did Frederick’s treaty document survive Piccolomini’s capture? If it hadn’t, what use w
as rescuing the poet? That thought brought immediate guilt. He shouldn’t be thinking of Piccolomini only in terms of his usefulness. No foreign diplomat should feel abandoned in this country. And then, there was also Hunyadi’s child. Like Baba, an only son too. His father might be a scoundrel, but when it came to parental feelings, Michael couldn’t see in Hunyadi anything but a grieving father. He cursed the bandits with bitterness.

  When evening came and there was no news of Baba, Michael sent word to Lady Mathilda that he’d sup alone in his study. But he left the food his valet brought him untouched. Instead he asked the man to draw the curtains and leave. Drained of all strength, Michael let himself fall onto a couch. “Let me be, Aaron,” he said to his valet when the man tried to undress him for the night. “I want to be ready to bring news to the king when it comes. And don’t disturb me otherwise.”

  The tap on the shoulder awoke Michael just as he was struggling to claw his way out of a black cave into which he’d fallen. Though awake, he still smelled the musty air in the hole, and felt cobwebs tickling his face. Repelled, he wiped his cheeks with both hands, and jerked his head left and right trying to see where he was. In the profound darkness around him Michael concluded, with a spasm of fear, that he was buried alive.

  “Would Your Grace want me to open the drapes?” Aaron’s voice came from a few inches above Michael. “The sun’s up already.”

  Michael understood with relief and annoyance the odor was that of his valet, and the cobwebs the man’s hair dangling over his face. “Saint Elijah’s thunder, man,” he said, trying to sound angry, “what possessed you to scare me like this?”

  “Your Grace said not to disturb you unless—”

  Begging the Lord that it be good news, Michael sat up and pushed Aaron away. “Quick, light a candle and tell me what you know.”

  Aaron fussed with a flint, failing several times to light the wick. “I don’t know anything, Your Grace. There’s been no messenger.”

  “If there is no news, what do you want?” Michael said, realizing with a sinking feeling that if daytime had arrived without a word from Baba, things had to have gone against him and his men. The energy he’d felt a moment ago drained away, and he slumped back onto the couch.

  “There is a Gypsy man outside who insists on seeing you,” Aaron said when the candle was finally lit. “He claims to be from your Longchamps estate. I tried to chase him away but—”

  Michael felt his scalp tighten and a dull pain spread through his brain. “I can’t deal with the Gypsies’ grievances now. Give him something to eat and tell him to come back next week.”

  “He says he’s got something of value. Something Your Grace would want to see without delay.” Not waiting for approval, Aaron opened the door and said, “Come in boy, and make it quick. Lord Michael’s time isn’t to be frittered away on the likes of you. And if your story’s false, expect a whipping on the way out.”

  The Gypsy sent out a ranker odor than Aaron, nauseating Michael. He was dressed in torn rags and stooped like a hunchback, causing his shaggy hair to hang over his face. He’d likely recite a touching story of how he was injured on one of Michael’s farms, and ask for a few coins. But the Gypsy surprised Michael by holding out a piece of cloth with something rolled inside.

  Mixing Romanian and Gypsy words, the man said in a hoarse whisper, “Can your lordship spare some food?” Then he threw his parcel onto Michael’s lap and pounced on the food tray, still untouched on the side table. “I’ve had nothing since—”

  Michael couldn’t make out the rest of the sentence; the Gypsy had filled his mouth with cold mutton and now made only grunts. He thought about taking a stick to this insolent intruder’s back, but his curiosity was stronger than his outrage. He unfolded the cloth to reveal a single sheet of heavy paper with ruffled edges. Standing with difficulty, he held the paper to the candle’s light. Then, shock caused him to drop it.

  “But this is—how did you—who gave you this?” Michael grabbed the Gypsy by the shoulders and shook him. “How could you be in possession of this document?”

  “Glad to see my disguise fooled even you, Uncle Michael,” Vlad said, laughing. He straightened his back and shook his locks off his face. “Emperor Frederick’s treaty protocol is compliments of Ser Piccolomini.”

  Michael felt a sharp pinch inside his breast and fell back a step, while his mind tried to make sense of what he’d just heard. Recovered, he lunged at Vlad with open arms. “Piccolomini’s alive? Baba? The others?”

  “Safe, all of them,” Vlad said, returning Michael’s hug. Then he resumed eating. “I raced ahead to bring you the document and the news. The others will be here by noon.”

  “I should’ve guessed you wouldn’t let yourself be excluded for long.” Michael could tell Vlad was dying to tell him about his adventure. “Glad you’re safe, but it’s best I don’t know anything about this for now. Your father will be looking for people to yell at when he finds out you disobeyed him, and I’d rather be left out of that select circle.” He turned to examine the document again, and concluded that despite the absence of a seal, it was authentic; he recognized Frederick’s signature from other letters he’d seen.

  “Without a seal to betray its meaning, Piccolomini was able to hide the document among his own papers,” Vlad said. “Would you believe it, even in captivity the poet kept writing every day—?”

  “I’ve got to take this to your father,” Michael said. “Since this affair broke out he’s been in state of despondency I’ve never seen in him.” He stowed the document in a dispatch bag and headed for the door. “You can rest here until I return.”

  Dracul’s antechamber was crowded with a variety of supplicants seeking the favor or justice of the crown. The usher, used to Michael’s unrestricted access to the king, greeted him and opened the door to the audience room.

  “His Highness is talking to a turban-head,” the man whispered to Michael in passing. “He’s been in there for half an hour, and the king will be glad to have your lordship take him off his hands.”

  When he entered Dracul’s chamber, Michael expected to see a typical Ottoman merchant of the kind who sought relief from some unjust custom taxes, or compensation for goods lost to thieves. The king would usually listen to such plaintiffs, then pass them on to a castle clerk who’d process their claim. Seldom would Dracul spend more than a minute or two on any one of them. A half-hour audience could only mean serious trouble.

  The Ottoman he saw facing Dracul might have been dressed like an ordinary merchant, but his bearing and dignified look marked him as a high court official. A senior officer, Michael guessed.

  “Michael, this is Selim bin Sedad, better known as Tirendaz,” Dracul said in a quiet but tense voice. Michael realized there was no clerk in the room to take notes or to translate. His sense of foreboding increased. “Tirendaz is the Agha of the sultan’s personal bodyguard. He’s also His Majesty’s personal advisor and confidant, or musahib, as they call it in Turkish. His visit is both unofficial, and confidential.”

  Confidential. That explained the man’s attire of a common merchant. Michael estimated Tirendaz to be in his late thirties. About the same age as Sultan Murad. A childhood friend of his, perhaps, which might explain their close association. For Murad to send his personal advisor without an advance notification and official escort, something extraordinary had to be going on.

  Tirendaz saluted Michael with a polite nod and a thin smile. “I’m aware that you, Lord Michael, are King Dracul’s musahib.” He spoke a fluent, cultivated Greek. “It falls to the two of us to advise our masters on how to maintain a long and beneficial peace between our two countries.”

  Michael had learned that whenever people spoke of peace, war was foremost in their minds. He glanced at Dracul, to get an indication of how he should answer Tirendaz. But Dracul appeared distracted.

  “Your Grace mustn’t doubt that peace is indeed at the center of King Dracul’s foreign policy. Not only with the empire, but with all
of Wallachia’s neighbors.”

  “Then we shall always have peace, Lord Michael. Insha’Allah.” Tirendaz turned to Dracul. “The sultan understands the delicacy of your predicament. He expects you to make the trip in secret, so those who might have designs on your throne wouldn’t know you’re absent from the country. If everything goes well, as His Majesty hopes it will, you’ll be back here before the news of your absence gets around. Hassan Pasha, the Bey of Nicopolis, has been instructed to give you all necessary assistance.” Tirendaz took a small scroll from inside his caftan and handed it to Michael. “This is the password the king must use to gain entrance to Hassan Pasha. It’s a Persian phrase chosen by the sultan himself, which I’ve transcribed with Greek lettering for your convenience.”

  Tirendaz bowed to Dracul, then walked backward to the door and out of the room.

  “What trip is he talking about, Ulfer?” Michael said when the door closed behind Tirendaz.

  “Murad wants me in Edirne within thirty days.” Without warning, Dracul grabbed a jug of wine off his desk and hurled it at the wall. The pottery shards scattered in all directions. His valet rushed in from the recess that served as his waiting closet. Dracul dismissed him, impatient.

  “What?” For an instant Michael felt the floor sway, and he sat on a bench by the wall. “But if you leave the country now—”

  “Don’t you think I know, Michael?” Dracul shouted. “If that prick Hunyadi finds out I’m away, he’ll swoop down here with a couple thousand mercenaries and install one of the many Basarab pretenders roaming about Europe on the throne, as his puppet. Why, that would be better for him than waiting for the crusade next year to take Wallachia from me.”

  “Why Edirne? Why now?”

  “Tirendaz told me there is a policy argument over Wallachia going on inside the sultan’s palace,” Dracul said. “It seems Zaganos Pasha’s close to convincing Murad that it would be best for him to occupy Wallachia before I sided with the crusaders.”