An Evening at Joe's

by Gillian Horvath

  If necessary, thought Kirschner. Time will tell... .

  "Come," said the duke as he gestured for his mount. "The sooner we grace these lack-bones with our presence the sooner we warm up and eat."

  Kirschner accepted the reins of his palfrey from a guardsman, and swung into the saddle. With his massive war-horse in tow, and surrounded by the two hundred-strong Moldavian ducal guard, he fell into a canter behind his current liege-lord. Before them lay the now-open gates of Bucharest, soon to be the temporary royal residence of the Duke of Almas and Fagaras and Prince-Voevod of Ungro-Wallachia—Vlad Dracula.

  II

  The room was small, but richly appointed. Aromatic woods in the fireplace burned yellow-orange and, together with several brass censers, permeated the chamber with a fragrant bouquet. The flames danced in reflections on the dark and ornately carved wall panels. The furniture was sumptuously carved by a master's hand, especially the large canopied bed. This was obviously a chamber for someone of great consequence.

  Prince Vlad and Kirschner sat opposite each other at a small table in solidly timbered high-backed chairs—shields with legs, if the truth be known. The thick oaken door to their left safely barred, the two were enjoying a late supper. The lavish banquet thrown them by the burgomaster was, for Dracula, an expression of his consolidation of power—a feast for the eyes, not the stomach. To have eaten would have been sheer recklessness. In attendance, thinly disguised by laughter and fawning platitudes, were sympathizers or outright minions of Basarab Laiota, the puppet prince installed by the Turks a year ago when Dracula's hated brother Radu the Handsome died. Without doubt there were also agents of Dracula's rival clan, the Danesti, who, for generations, had contested heirdom of the throne. And, of course, the boyars—the noble class—many of whom were recent defectors to Dracula's rising star, leaving Basarab to flounder and flee. The boyars, as a class, had reason to hate Dracula out of sheer principle. In 1456, during his second reign, knowing that those who murdered his father and older brother would number among those who had experienced a certain number of reigns, and having no particular desire to ferret them out specifically, Dracula had five hundred of them impaled. A few years later, ostensibly to remind them of their proper place in Wallachia's political food-chain, Dracula had three hundred of them arrested during his annual Easter celebration. Combining object-lesson with frugality, he then used them as slave labour to reconstruct his castle at Poenari. So neither Dracula nor his captains put morsel to mouth at the evening's fete. Nor did Dracula partake of any wine that did not issue from the pitcher of his personal bodyguard and cupbearer, Ritter Hans Kirschner.

  The table littered with half-empty platters and their trencher-loaf plates saturated with the rich gravies of pork and beef, Dracula and Kirschner eased back into the cushions of their chairs and savoured the soporific quality of the spice-laden air and the heady aroma of tankards of warm mulled wine. "You need not perish with heat to preserve my dignity, mien Ritter." Dracula had early on discarded the finery worn to the reception. The heavy ermine-trimmed crimson velvet robe and the russet knee-length hoopelande underdress now regally graced a side-table. He lounged in an embroidered silk-shirt, black hose, and soft leather boots. The ermine cap with the pearl-lined circlet and plume of ostrich feathers caught up in a clutch of blazing diamonds hung casually but significantly over the knule of his chair—a nuance not lost on Kirschner. Hans, by contrast, was still garbed up to the ears. His deep-blue velvet gippon, vertically quilted and falling to just above the knee, was the height of Burgundian fashion. It was also becoming like wearing wet towels in the desert, but he preferred a damp shirt to the revelation of what lay underneath. In addition to the corslet of steel plates set into leather that guarded his lower abdomen and kidneys, the high collar conveniently concealed a padded steel gorget encircling his neck. This last piece of kit had been a nasty and terminal surprise to more than one rival Immortal, and Kirschner had no intention of revealing it gratuitously.

  "Your Majesty's dignity needs no help from me," said Kirschner with a deferential bow of the head. "Besides—for the last month I've felt like an icicle in a drain-pipe. I don't intend to take this off until spring."

  "Then you will do me the honour of riding downwind till then." The Prince flashed a lupine smile and tipped an ample draught of hippocras down his throat. With a slight raise of his tankard Kirschner followed suit. The two men sat in silence for a moment.

  "It is necessary then that we travel to Curtea de Arges?" inquired Kirschner.

  "Yes, regrettably," replied Dracula with a slight grimace. "But the church there is the seat of the Metropolitan for the Orthodox faith, and as such, must perform the coronation."

  Kirschner wrinkled his brow. "I'm sure he'll be less than enthusiastic to sanctify the ascension of a Prince recently converted to Catholicism."

  "The old larded eel! Don't worry about him. If he could grit his remaining teeth to crown a lisping sodomite like my late unlamented brother Radu, or a senile dotard like Laiota, he can damn well find a way to look elsewhere when I genuflect in the opposite direction. If I hadn't converted, Mathias would never have allowed my marriage to his sister, and in all likelihood I'd still be a 'guest' in Solomon's Tower in Visegrad. No—my freedom and my crown are well worth an occasional mass, to say nothing of a son and heir."

  Kirschner nodded gravely... the less said about the latter, the better. Dracula had spent twelve years as the prisoner of King Mathias of Hungary, during which time he met, courted and married the King's sister, Illona Szilagy. His conversion and marriage into the Hungarian royal family, coupled with the urgings of his cousin Steven, Prince of Moldavia, finally bequeathed Dracula his liberty, and restored to him the Transylvanian duchies hereditary to his title. After a brief campaign into Croatia with his new royal brother-in-law, he settled in Pest where he, the two Princes (Steven and Stephan) and Kirschner spent the better part of a year engaged in the wrangling, arm-twisting, and sundry political machinations necessary to put together an army consisting of four different nationalities and two major religions, half of whom had absolutely nothing to gain by restoring someone many considered a heretic and mass-murderer to the Wallachian throne.

  During this exasperating and often futile year, Dracula's new wife presented him with a son, Mihnea. About nine months previously Dracula had slain a young guard officer who he had found inside his house. The fellow had tried to explain his unfortunate presence by claiming to have been searching for an intruder that, strangely enough, only he had apparently seen enter. Far from speculating on the possibility of cuckoldry, Dracula's excuse to King Mathias for this latest homicide was that "one does not impune the dignity of a Prince by entering his domicile unannounced." Apart from offering a possible explanation for the existence of Vlad's "son," it also taught Kirschner a prudent circumspection when dealing with anything, no matter how small, that might impinge on Dracula's monstrous ego.

  "So... one last impotent insolence. You must ride two days through snow and freezing wind so that they may give back to you that which was always yours." Kirschner inclined his head and swirled the contents of his stein. "You have, naturally, given thought of what will happen to your army once the coronation is concluded."

  Dracula shrugged indifferently. "We begin to lose men. Prince Stephan and his Transylvanians will be lurching through the gate before the holy oil dries on my scalp, and Mathias' Hungarians with him. The men I will miss for their strength of heart as much as their numbers, but Prince Stephan?..." His eyes glazed, and he sought a metaphor in the depths of his cup. "If we two had in beard what he has in brain, we'd scarce possess a hair to grace our chin. I have pages with more military experience, and my sumpter-horse has better sense of tactics."

  Kirschner unsuccessfully stifled a rueful chuckle. Prince Stephan was undeniably brave, but would charge a cannon if he thought he could reach it before its shot cleared the muzzle.

  "He can't even read a war-map. The man could lose his way inside a gar
derobe." Kirschner refilled Vlad's outstretched tankard. "But all that aside, he's shockingly ill-read for a Prince. Small wonder he doesn't apprehend Tacitus—he hasn't enough Latin to fill a posset- cup. And have you had the pleasure of familiar conversation with this gosling?"

  "Of a fashion," replied Kirschner with a slow shake of his head, "if being audience to an oration qualifies as conversation. If you denied him his horse and armour as subjects, the man would be as mute as a stone."

  "I fear we burn logs with higher intellect. And it was this man that my erstwhile brother-in-law made second in command of this campaign."

  "An appointment promulgated by political expedience, most assuredly." Although Kirschner had the wit not to correct the Prince on this particular subject, he knew full well that King Mathias had decreed Prince Stephan sole commander of the army, at least while within the borders of Transylvania. His two duchies notwithstanding, Vlad was not the most welcome of guests in "the land beyond the forest." The German-Saxon population in particular, cozeners and intriguers with the Danesti, Dracula's most potent political rival, had ample cause to fear his restoration. The Saxons had long perpetuated a trade monopoly that fettered native industry. Dracula hit upon an unprecedented yet undeniably effective method of redressing this trade imbalance—he had over 40,000 of them impaled at the towns of Brasov, Amlas, and Sibiu. It was stories of legendary depredations such as these that, in no small part, inspired King Mathias to intern Dracula for a dozen years and keep him on a short lead in his progress through Transylvania.

  "And Prince Steven's host—they will be returning too?" ventured Kirschner, although he already knew the answer.

  "Yes, they must return," nodded Dracula. "The Turk is a common threat to all our borders, and I cannot—will not—weaken Steven at my expense. His pledge to me is fulfilled. My only real regret is that he cannot be present at the Curtea to witness my vindication." In his twentieth year, and fleeing the assassins of his father, Dracula found asylum in the court of Prince Bogdan of Moldavia. There he developed what was probably to be the only true and lasting friendship of his life, with the Prince's son and his cousin, Steven. They had vowed to each other that whoever attained their throne first would likewise aid the other. The cruel and untimely assassination of Bogdan had elevated Steven before Vlad, but no princely obligation would compel him so much as a covenant made in honour to a friend.

  "But your Moldavian guard... they will remain?" asked Kirschner optimistically.

  "Oh yes, they will stay—Steven's gift to me. Ironic, is it not," mused Dracula, "that I, Prince of Wallachia, have as my personal guard a Teuton and two hundred Moldavs, because I cannot risk to trust my own subjects?"

  Kirschner nodded in commiseration. A less charitable person (or one with a suicidal paucity of discretion) might have been tempted to point out that this condition might have been avoided had the Prince been more judicious in where he exercised his unsavoury hobby. However, after over thirty years' exposure to the realpolitik of eastern Europe, Hans realized that, Vlad's revolting enthusiasm for pointed sticks aside, if he was considered merciless and sadistic, it was only a matter of degree. "So... the coronation being concluded, that will leave us with how many men?"

  Vlad took a contemplative sip and toyed with a piece of sugared marchepan. "Hmmm... the mathematica was never my strong suit, so I would not presume to render an exact figure, but I could speculate..."

  "Please do."

  "... however imprecisely, mind, that we could expect to be left with..." He regarded the ceiling momentarily, then favoured Kirschner with a grin. "Five thousand, maybe less."

  "God Almighty!"

  "Not counting, of course, the inevitable defections the moment there exists any real threat to our borders, or the throne. The boyars who joined us when we crossed into Wallachia did so by casting aside Laotia, the pretender. It served their purpose then to fasten their lips to a more puissant backside, and I doubt not that when another rump appears more succulent that they will throng, lamprey-like, to it. These fools think to prosper by straddling the chess board, and following whichever king is not in check. Some fancy themselves adept, and so have deluded themselves into believing that it is a game." Dracula paused, then reached over the table to place the piece of candied marchepane he held atop an artistically arranged pile of like delicacies. He studied the stack briefly, then reached out and removed a select piece from the bottom. One whole side of the pile collapsed, rolling little squares of confectionery onto the table in a miniature cloud of sugar-dust. "Games have rules," said Dracula, as he popped a loose piece of marchepane into his mouth and chewed toothily. "Princes do not."

  Perhaps so, thought Kirschner as he listened to Vlad foment, gleefully and graphically, against conspirators both real and imagined. But sooner or later you will be entering into a much different game, whose rules you ignore at far greater peril. You have been a wily mariner in the currents of petty politics. We'll see how adaptable your mind is when presented with the possibility of infinity as a playground.

  Time, in the short term, passed considerably quicker. The following day, with Kirschner in the vanguard, Dracula left the citadel of Bucharest with a force of over a thousand, and plodded, with grumbling horses, for two days, through biting cold and stinging sleet, to Curtea de Arges. There, after a brief but poignant theological discussion on the nature of the afterlife with the Metropolitan, Dracula donned his coronation robes, and hung about his massive neck the chivalric order from whence derived his name; a golden dragon biting its own tail, on whose wings was emblazoned a Christian cross.

  And so, on November the 19th, 1476, Vlad Dracula, the "little dragon," was reinvested with the crown of Wallachia. A man considered a heretic by the very church that found it prudent to crown him, regarded by the Saxons as a genocidal tyrant, conspired against by the prideful and corrupt boyars, loathed by the Turks, feared by most of the peasantry; whose only true friend and confidant was a centuries- old German mercenary, whose chief concern was to patiently wait out his prince's death.

  III

  Kirschner threw his blade across his chest in inverted position, just managing to catch the blow that was descending onto the left side of his neck. He could feel the jarring impact all the way up to his shoulder. Almost simultaneously, he swung up with his left arm, catching his opponent a numbing back-handed blow to the inside of his out- stretched forearm, knocking the ann and weapon aside. Instantly, from out of his parry position, Kirschner launched his riposte—bringing the blade to horizontal, and slashing left to right across the throat, adding power to the cut by lunging forward on his right leg.

  His antagonist, however, was fast—almost preternaturally so. The second Kirschner's knuckles had stunned his sword-arm, he hurled himself backwards, rolling his head and chest to the left, in a frantic attempt to diminish the effect of the blow he knew must follow. His desperate stratagem succeeded; the pronounced curve of Kirschner's blade had foreshortened the slash just enough, and only the last two inches of the point grated unnervingly but ineffectively across the chain mail aventail that depended from his helm.

  The knight's reprieve was temporary in the extreme. Off balance, stumbling backwards and too close to use his sword to cut, his assailant's blade rising to renew the attack, he did the only thing left to him. He punched out a thrust from his hip, the point directed to his foe's inside thigh.

  Kirschner had already anticipated this action as being one of three possible responses to his attack, and dealt with it summarily. Pivoting to the left, he smashed the blade aside, then, pivoting back and pulling his elbow into his right hip, he arced the sword down onto his opponent's head. The tightness of its delivery put the full weight of Kirschner's torso behind the blow, and the force of it on the parry brought the other knight, already in a compromised balance position, down onto his left knee.

  Kirschner stepped back, his blade hovering at his right side. His rival was down but far from out. He had pulled in his right leg and held his swo
rd in a two-handed grip, the pommel tucked into his stomach, and the point angled up to threaten Kirschner. Only a fool would rush onto a man positioned thus. It would be like tilting cavalry against pikes.

  Kirschner backed off another three steps. He saw his opponent starting to lean forward in his crouch—a sign that usually indicated his intention to spring into a charge. As if not to disappoint him, the knight leapt from the ground like an uncoiling spring, his sword already swinging down towards Kirschner's right hip. Once again, the walls of the small private courtyard echoed with the impact of steel on steel.

  Kirschner and Dracula sparred at least once a week. The Prince was too experienced a warrior not to recognize the value of another's experience. He also reveled in the joys of violent exercise. Here was the one and only place where Vlad could ignore the often strident demands of his towering egoism. Indeed, it was absolutely necessary that he do so, it being impossible to learn such skills if the teacher felt inhibited to point out deficiencies, or allowed him constantly to win. And, to his credit, Dracula urged Kirschner to push him as hard as any squire. Long immured to the fawning and silver-tongued sycophancy of court, Dracula recognized the need for at least one man to speak to him honestly. Here, after bouting, the two men spoke of many things. The private courtyard was the only concession to Dracula's vanity. He could tolerate being bested in practice, so long as no one else were present to see.

  For the moment, losing was not a consideration foremost in Dracula's mind. Switching to a two-handed grip for additional speed, he pressed Kirschner back with a flurry of blows.

  Kirschner retreated evenly, drawing his opponent towards him. Even after three hours, Dracula's blows had shocking potency. Come on, my princeling, thought Kirschner as he absorbed a jolting flank- cut, let's get this over with.