And so the head of the unfortunate corpse was taken and, along with its insignia of the Order of the Dragon, returned in triumph to the Sultan in Constantinople.
The Sultan received the gift with a combination of stately enthusiasm and guarded skepticism. After all, what had he? A head with the appropriate type and colour of hair, whose finer features had been somewhat inconvenienced by Kirschner's mace and more than six weeks' travel. Added to which, the Sultan had never actually seen Dracula in person, although he had observed several portraits that drew the eye to a distinctive feature. When the court had cleared, his majesty donned a glove and gingerly raised an eyelid on the withered trophy.
Oh dear... they were brown.
Now, this was inconvenient. To date, the Sultan had lost well over a quarter of a million men against the Impaler; a long hunt and no coon-skins on the wall, so to speak. Conversely, although this was plainly no princely pate, he had received no word that Dracula had reappeared to claim the Wallachian throne. Afloat in a sea of contradictions, the Sultan did what most statesmen throughout history do when faced with the prospect of continuing to fight without winning. He declared victory, and sat back to see if anyone were imprudent enough to contradict him.
The alleged prize was placed on a stake high over the gates of the city. Quite high, in point of fact. A casual observer might look up to behold an object that looked like nothing so much as a cannon-ball in a wig. However, since the official proclamation held this to be the dreaded Vlad Tepes, well... One of the distinct advantages of being an absolute ruler, however benevolent, is the preponderance of people who are tactfully content to give you the benefit of a doubt.
Kirschner bestowed the body upon the monks of the monastery of Snagov, which occupied an island by the same name in the middle of a large lake in the heart of the Vlasie forest. Dracula and his forebears had all made generous grants and endowments to the monastery, to the eternal gratitude of its order. At Kirschner's suggestion, the brothers interred the body in an unmarked grave to thwart desecration by Vlad's myriad enemies.
Meantime, Hans slowly but surely achieved a meeting of minds with his irate and uncooperative captive. However, although Dracula's ego was substantial and accustomed to obeisance, yet he possessed a keen and logical mind. After a few graphic and often painful demonstrations, it became obvious that he and Kirschner were, if not immortal, certainly different from normal men. As far as eternal life were concerned, Vlad finally acceded to remain open to the possibility.
"Ask me again in fifty years," replied Dracula in his usual ironic fashion.
"We'll see," rejoined Kirschner, proferring his hand.
Dracula regarded it for a moment, and then, for perhaps the first time in his life, clasped another's hand as equals.
VIII
The man astride the roan palfrey was barely recognizable as the Dracula of old. His shoulder-length jet locks had been cut back several inches and cosmetically streaked with grey. The broad, droopy moustache that dominated his lower countenance was now gone, changing considerably the overall shape of his face. His skin, which previously possessed a startlingly blanched appearance, was now brown and weathered, the result of an application of stain made from the crushed shells and leaves of walnuts. His armour was subdued and nondescript. Culled from a quantity of corpses to achieve an acceptable overall fit, its mismatched parts bespoke a class of person who had to scavenge his finery. The only visible remnant of his former self, annoyingly undisguisable, were his eyes, green as Venetian glass.
With their war and sumpter-horses trailing on long leads, Hans and Vlad paused in their journey atop a wind-swept promontory and looked back at the receding lights and chimney smoke of Bucharest.
"So—no more to be Prince Vlad," said Dracula, meditatively. "Or Vlad at all, for that matter." His voice, surprisingly, contained no note of bitterness or remorse.
Hans regarded him carefully but without suspicion. "Have you decided on a new name?"
Dracula thought a moment. "Ladislaus, I think." He smiled at Kirschner. "Yes, I know it is both Germanic and Hungarian for Vlad. Is it necessary to give up an entire life in but a fortnight?"
"Wiser, perhaps," said Kirschner, with a raise of his brows. "But what is a name that a man does not make of it? To begin again, tabula rasa—that is one of the greatest parts of the Gift. Through it we learn to write our lives in sand, not carve them in stone. Anonymity is our ally; notoriety, our foe." He turned to Dracula. "To give up a kingdom..." He shook his head. "That is beyond my experience. But to my eyes, you sit taller in your saddle now than you did before." -
"Indeed," chuckled Dracula, "to wear a crown is to bear a kingdom about your brows. It is surprising to me to admit how little of it I shall miss. Hollow pomp and empty ceremony, obsequious, fawning sycophants, and lickspittle liars. Do you have any idea what it's like to live your life wondering which of your own guards will be the one to drive the knife into your back, or which of your relatives will poison your evening's posset-cup? To suspect virtually everyone of ulterior motives, simply to survive another sunset? No, friend Hans. I have gone disguised among the common man too often to pretend to myself that the simpler life has no virtues." His smile turned briefly wicked. "No, it is over for me. Let my wife's bastard take up the sceptre. If there's any justice in this world, he'll smack her with it."
"Well," said Kirschner, ruffling the fur of his riding cloak up about his neck against a sudden gust of wind, "one of the few genuine consolations of princeliness was wealth. We may travel and live simply but comfortably on my hoard for a time, but come spring I'm afraid we must find employment."
"Which I suppose means selling the use of our swords," mused Dracula. "I killed sufficient to keep one despot in power. I am disinclined to extend the favour to anyone else. No, I was just thinking— seeing as we are traveling in the right direction anyway—that we should make a short pilgrimage to Snagov Lake."
"You must know that you cannot possibly visit the monastery."
"Oh, not the monastery," grinned Vlad. "I was thinking more of a particular spot near the shore. Fourteen years ago, while fleeing deposition by my disgusting brother Radu, I had the monks, whose loyalty I'd scrupulously cultivated, deposit in the shallows a couple of sealed chests for future contingencies."
Kirschner stared silently with reverential expectations.
"I'm afraid it's not a king's ransom, but"—he paused to savour the moment—"it'll do for an ex-prince and a knight. Several years, I should suspect."
If Kirschner had worn a hat he would have removed it. As it was, he stood mutely, worshipping in silence. Dracula's laughter pealed forth for them both.
Hans gathered in the reins of his mount. "Well then, my student, companion and coin-purse; to Snagov."
"And then...?" queried Dracula as he brought his horse aside Kirschner's.
"You Wallachians have a marvelously vague expression—perhaps you've heard it? 'Mai la munte.'"
"A little further up the mountain..." nodded Dracula with an amused smirk. "Of course, as we all know, once you reach the top of one mountain you are most likely to simply see the next, then the next, and so on."
"Exactly," replied Kirschner, smirking back. "Had you made prior arrangements for the next century or so?"
Laughing, the two men rode together into the snowy night.
IX
Dawson left off worrying the keyboard of his computer and stared expectantly at his companion.
"And...?" He drew the word out like a fishing line, making impatient little circles with his hand.
Methos pulled a shirt sleeve over his palm and mopped absentmindedly at the wet ring his beer bottle had made on the uppermost of one of the many stacks of documents that festooned the coffee table like crennelations on a castle wall. "I don't know, Joe. I wasn't a Watcher back then. Hell, I'd never even been to Romania until the communist government collapsed."
"No, but you were in research for years. You must have run across something in t
he archives—I mean, we're talking about Dracula, fer God's sake!"
"Yes and no," said Methos, holding the empty bottle up to the light. "Dead soldier..." He rose and ambled into the kitchen.
"What do you mean yes and no?" retorted Dawson, swiveling his chair.
"Well... you're talking about the Dracula who's famous for being someone he never was, and doing things he never did. I'm talking about a real man who was a Slavic prince who died, at least for the first time, in 1476." Methos reappeared in the doorway with a fresh bottle applied to his lips.
"And he never had a Watcher?"
"Again, yes and no. It was Kirschner's Watcher that discovered Dracula's immortality, but he apparently lost them both that winter while trying to follow them through the Carpathian Alps. His successor finally picked up on Kirschner over thirty years later, but by that time he and Vlad had separated. There was a Watcher assigned to Dracula, but it was mainly contingent on finding him. According to the records, they never did." He flopped back onto the leather sofa, which gave vent to a long, insolent hiss.
"So," said Dawson, drumming on his knees, "one of the most infamous warlords in history just up and vanishes off the face of the earth?"
"Mmmm... well..."
"If you say 'yes and no' one more time, you're gonna wear this cane home."
Methos held up his hands in mock consternation. "What I mean is, there are several strange and peculiar reports in the archives attributed to Dracula resurfacing from time to time, although none of them could be officially authenticated." He scanned the table-top briefly for a safe place to deposit his bottle, shrugged, then clenched it in his teeth as he shuffled through several foothills of paper.
"Ergh," he grunted, removing the bottle from his mouth. "Here... ah... 1535. Vlad's alleged great grand-son, Ladislaus Dracula de Sintesti, receives a patent of nobility from King Ferdinand of Hungary for his distinguished service at the siege of Vienna. A couple of years later in 1537, our lad Lad..." He grinned up at Dawson, who dead- panned him with an expression of thinly-worn stoicism. "Ah... sorry. Anyway, Baron Ladislaus meets with the famous Doctor Paracelsus who had claimed to have discovered the Philosophers Stone, the fabled key to eternal life."
"That's pretty sharp," mused Dawson. "Here it is 61 years after he loses a crown. Finally, he gets a title back again. Maybe he'd want to stick around for a while to enjoy it. What better way to explain why you don't seem to be aging than to claim some miraculous potion from a famous alchemist?"
"Perhaps," replied Methos, "but Paracelsus was ostracized from court for his claim and Dracula disappears a few years later. However"—he rooted into another nest of paper, emerging triumphantly with a green-bound manuscript—"about forty years later, a person referred to as the 'dark stranger' shows up at Castle Csejthe in Hungary. I don't know if you recognize the name..."
"Sure—play gigs there on weekends."
"Cute," grimaced Methos. "Actually, it was the home of Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Now, the Bathorys were always archrivals of the Dracula clan. In 1537, Ladislaus was suing Count Stephan Bathory, Liz's uncle, for ownership of Castle Fagaras, which had been the hereditary seat of the Dracula family. Stephan claimed it because his grandfather was appointed successor to Dracula—Vlad Dracula— after he was 'killed' in 1476. Dracula, on the other hand, held that the title and estates were successive, not appointive. He was right, but Bathory bribed the royal tribunal, and Drac got screwed out of his homestead. Stephan's last son dies as King of Poland in 1586. Now, out of the blue, a 'dark stranger' turns up at the house of the only living blood relative."
"So the 'dark stranger' is..."
"... wearing a signet ring containing a very distinctive crest. A red shield bearing a sword laid overtop of three wolf's teeth. It's the Bathory device. It's also the personal device of the Draculas."
"So she thinks this guy's a relative? That's convenient."
"Yeah; especially since Elizabeth's husband is a famous soldier, and always off somewhere beating on someone. So, rumour has it, she and the stranger had a lengthy affair right up until her husband is killed in battle. Now, the stranger disappears, and it starts to get a little weird."
"Oh, right!" snorted Dawson, "Like it wasn't already."
Methos ignored him. "Elizabeth is obsessed with losing her beauty, and somehow got the idea that bathing in the blood of virgins was a full-body Oil of Olay. She was finally caught and tried for murder and witchcraft, and walled up in her own bedroom, but only after she'd killed over 650 girls. There was talk that the 'dark stranger' had instructed her in the black arts and he's described in considerable detail in the trial manuscripts by both Elizabeth and others. He is Ladislaus Dracula right down to the eyes."
Dawson whistled. "Whoo... get your final revenge on your enemies without having to kill anyone yourself. Slick... very slick."
Methos stirred some papers about. "There's precious little else after that. In the 1600's, a Count... uh... Magnus de la Gardie," he muttered, thumbing through another file, "bears a close resemblance to Dracula, supposedly an alchemist and student of Paracelsus. Lived for over seventy years but never appears to be much over forty. Killed at the Battle of Poltova after taking a cannonball through the chest."
"Yeah, that'd do it," winced Dawson.
"That's that," concluded Methos, tossing the folder aside. "From there on everything's apocryphal. Elvis has more reliable sightings." He took a pull on his beer.
"So when did all this 'vampire' nonsense start getting associated with Dracula?" puzzled Dawson. "I don't seem to have heard or read a single thing indicating he actually drank blood."
Methos smiled toothily. "Obviously because he never did. Vampire legends have inculcated almost every major culture for over 2,000 years, although the actual word 'vampire' wasn't coined until 1734. Dracula was described in Romanian and German accounts as 'wampyr' and 'würtrich' but that simply means 'bloodthirsty,' as in 'right nasty bastard.' Bram Stoker did a lot of research before writing his novel, but nobody really thought he mistook the word 'wampyr' to mean vampire."
"Why not?" reasoned Dawson. "Sounds like an honest mistake."
"Because," answered Methos pedantically, "the Romanian words for vampire creatures are Moroi, Strigoi and Vulkodlak, and he would have known that. No, he just liked the ready-made story; and the exotic location—Transylvania—chock full of gypsies and howling wolves, appealed to the Victorian sensibility, and their penchant for gothic horror. Actually, Stoker cribbed a lot of Dracula from a novel by John Sheridan le Fanu called Camilla." He crossed his legs methodically. "Did you know I wrote a vampire story myself?"
"Sure—and I used to publish under the pen-name E. Hemingway."
"No, really. It was called 'The Vampyre'..."
"That's imaginative... ."
"...and it ran in the April edition of the London New Monthly Magazine, in 1819. Of course, I was known as Doctor Polidori back then. But, owing to some lamebrained balls-up by the editor, it got printed under the name of Lord Byron. He almost went off his nut when he saw it." He smiled smugly. "Especially when it was reviewed as the best thing Byron had ever written."
"No kidding? Ain't fame a bitch!" Joe leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment.
"I wonder what the real Dracula thought of Stoker's novel. And then all those movies. I'll bet that's a type of immortality old Vlad never counted on."
"Oh, I don't know," said Methos, sitting up. "In a way it'd actually help obfuscate your past. You know the old saying about the best way of hiding something is to stick it right out in the open."
"Like you becoming the Watcher in charge of finding yourself," suggested Dawson.
"Something like that," replied Methos, thoughtfully. "I kind of wonder if Dracula didn't think about it himself; he is said to have had a rather twisted sense of humour."
"Whaddya mean?" queried Dawson with a narrow look.
"Oh... probably nothing," rejoined Methos, pushing back into the cushions with a sigh. "But..
. have you ever seen the portrait of Bram Stoker? It's in the London Stock Exchange, of all places. Anyway, it's a very Victorian piece, highly romanticized. Stoker's depicted as a medieval warrior, wearing a helmet and chainmail. But the really remarkable thing about the work is the depiction of his face." He paused and looked at Dawson. "He has the most amazingly brilliant green eyes..."
A Time of Innocents
by Peter Wingfield
"METHOS": Peter Wingfield
When the role of Methos, the world's oldest Immortal, was created in the season 3 episode of the same name, the possibility of a continuing role for the character was immediately apparent. But we'd tried before to create wise, advisor-type characters to fill the void in MacLeod's life left by the death of Darius (and tragic death of the actor who portrayed him, Werner Stocker), without much luck. Methos would survive his first appearance, but whether he would return—or just return in order to die—depended on the on-screen spark of the actor portraying him.
I think by now everyone's heard the rest of the story. How Welsh- born actor Peter Wingfield's performance as Methos made us cancel development on a story that would have ended his life, replacing it with the storyline that would become the two-part episode "Finale." Peter was back on the set in Paris filming his second and third appearances before "Methos" had even aired in the United States. Suddenly the Highlander family had a new member, both on- and off-screen.
In his story "Time of Innocents," set thousands of years ago when Methos rode with The Horsemen, Peter takes a look at on unexamined aspect of Immortality, from his own unique perspective.
An Evening at Joe's Page 27
