Erik raised his eyebrows. "You're starting to make the Old Fox look positively straightforward."
"It's so obvious," said Benito, shaking his head.
Chapter 18
After King Emeric of Hungary's reverses in the attack on Corfu, and the devastating losses of their retreat across the Balkans, he had had little appetite for campaigning. But if he was to repair his armies and keep his tax base intact, he had to take action against the upheavals that followed.
He used a restive province to cow the others and demonstrate the penalties for rebellion. He brought overwhelming force to bear and left behind in village squares some pointed reminders of what could happen to those who displeased him. Sharp reminders, with people impaled on them. He'd also found that an effective way of getting the message across. True, a lot of the peasantry had fled, and it would be some time before the province started to yield dividends again. But a king could not be expected to hunt down every peasant.
So, he was in a buoyant mood, joking with his commanders as he rode back toward the royal castly at Buda, at the head of a column of his invincible Magyar heavy cavalry.
The messenger who arrived was relieved to find him so cheerful. King Emeric had a habit of executing messengers who brought him news that he did not wish to hear. And even the stupidest messenger would know that the king was not going to enjoy this piece of news.
By the shift in expression on the king's face, from laughter to a narrow eyed stare, Emeric had read the messenger's expression too. "Well? Spit it out. What is wrong, you fool?"
"Your Majesty, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news . . ."
"Your face told me that already," snapped Emeric. "Now what is it?"
"Your Majesty, it would appear that Prince Vlad of Valahia has escaped from his quarters."
Emeric pursed his lips, and sat still a while in the saddle, in thought. Then he said: "I imagine you would not have brought me this news if he had been recaptured. How did he escape?"
"It would appear that he had outside help, Your Majesty. The guards were all murdered. None of them appear to have even tried to defend themselves. Three were stabbed, and another four appear to have been poisoned. Some of them died in what appears to have been extreme pain. We must conclude that some form of treachery or magical means were used."
"Spare me your conclusions," said Emeric. "Tell me instead what measures have been taken to recapture him. I think it is time that I dealt with the Vlachs for once and for all. Having a suitable hostage has kept them from being too restive, but with Vlad's father now dead, I had wondered what steps to take next. It would appear that the matter has been taken out of my hands."
"Your Majesty, we have sealed all the roads going east. Patrols are scouring the countryside between the roads. We have taken in several suspects known to have Vlachs sympathies. They are being put to the question."
"Well, at least they were measures not entirely devoid of sense. Although inadequate. You need to send a message to my aunt, the Duchess Bartholdy. Also, I will need reinforcements sent to our garrisons at Irongate, Poienari, Beszterce, and Caedonia. They are to seize the Dowager Princess and her daughter and have them conveyed to my court. Once news of this leaks out, we will have unrest in the Duchy of Valahia. Have my secretary write the orders for you, and bring them to me for my signature and seal. You may carry them back to the castle immediately. Baron Arbalar will take the appropriate measures from there."
The messenger bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty."
He was too relieved at keeping his head to even dream of protesting that he had just ridden for ten hours, and that he and his horse were in no state to ride directly back to the castle. He could always get a new horse somewhere. He had used up four remounts so far. And being too sore to stand tomorrow was better than sitting on a sharpened stake now.
However, by the time that Emeric's secretary had finished scribing the letters and the tired messenger took them to the king for signature and his seal, Emeric had changed his mind. "I think instead," he said tearing up the neatly penned letter, "that I had better go and speak to Elizabeth myself. You will proceed back to Buda, and pass on my orders there. I will take part of my column to go north to visit the countess."
The messenger was relieved, again, that the king would be going north and not him. One did not work in Emeric's court for as long as he had without becoming very wary about the stunningly beautiful Duchess Bartholdy. There were certain unpleasant rumors about her seemingly eternal youthfulness. Emeric's court was always awash with rumors, but the ones concerning Elizabeth were unusually persistent.
That might just be a pipe blown by jealousy, of course. She was truly beautiful. But the messenger had no desire to find out if they were true or not.
* * *
Emeric had plenty of time on the three day ride to Elizabeth's castle in the northern Carpathians to think about the situation that Vlad's escape created for him in Valahia. There were complexities involved, and considerable potential both for exploitation and disaster. The area to the west of the Carpathian mountains was fertile and valuable. There were a number of settlers there from other parts of his territory. They at least would be loyal. And it was country that was suited to his kind of military operation. But the area inside the arms of the mountains themselves was almost entirely loyal to the house of Valahia, with the exception of the Székely seats. It was also not a good area in which to try military conclusions with an army like his, so dependent on heavy cavalry.
Perhaps it was time that he threw his weight behind the Danesti—a rival and related clan. One never knew if they would prove any better, unfortunately. However, no matter how good a refuge the Besarab had in the mountains, they needed the flatter lands to sustain themselves. The mountains were dirt poor. All very well for producing a few sheeps' milk cheeses, but not much good for outfitting a troop of cavalry.
It would appear that someone had half crippled her pet dwarf, Emeric noticed, when he was shown in to the duchess's presence by a limping Ficzko. That would not improve her humor. He was a horrible little man, but he had been in her service—in more ways than one, Emeric suspected—for many years.
In private, Elizabeth showed the king of Hungary none of the respect that she would accord him at court in Buda. "Well, Emeric?" she said impatiently. "I am rather busy at the moment. What is the problem, this time?"
"And why should there be a problem, Aunt?" he said, in an attempt at hauteur which failed completely. He knew that she was not actually an aunt, but more like a great aunt. Or even great-great-aunt. He also knew that she had manipulated and controlled his father and very possibly his grandfather too. He knew full well that she had arranged his father's death, so that he could ascend the throne. Like a spider she had controlled the web of power that was Hungarian politics for the better part of the last century. She still looked as if she was barely twenty. Of course most people believed that it was her mother, and grandmother who had been so influential in their time.
Emeric maintained the fiction that he was independent of her power. And, in fact, he had done his best to try and become that. At least in Buda, they would question her orders now. But that was a small step, and one he was well aware of the danger of taking.
"Because you only ever come to see me when you are in trouble, Emeric," she said coolly.
That was probably true. But then, she only came to Buda to interfere in the running of his kingdom. He almost always did her bidding in the end. That didn't mean he had to like it.
"This time, it is more your advice that I want. I do not think we are in trouble yet. Vlad of Valahia has escaped from his quarters in the castle. I was going to have to release him anyway. With his father's demise, the Vlachs are calling for his return to take the throne. I was going to insist that we had his mother as a hostage instead, and marry him off to a suitable lady of my court. A Hungarian or possibly a Slovene. Now the matter is rather out of my hands. There is that clan of cousins, the Danesti . . ."
Elizabeth smiled warmly at him. That was enough to sound some alarm bells, as well as allowing him to relax slightly. He could still ill afford to openly antagonize her, so it was good to see the smile, but it was a little worrying that he might find himself as a cog in her machinations. Emeric was well aware that Elizabeth was involved in some very black magic indeed. As black as it got, in fact. And in his heart of hearts, he knew that he was not a great and powerful practitioner of those arts.
"This time you were wise to come and speak to me before you did anything rash," she said. "There is a great deal more to the house of Valahia than just a petty principality. There is power there. Power that we should harness for the Kingdom of Hungary. And Prince Vlad must be very innocent, the way you've kept him sequestered. More innocent and ignorant than a convent-reared babe."
He knew her well enough to understand that she was not talking of dynasties, or the right to command vast armies, or rule by hereditary right over great swathes of Europe. She was talking about power in a less earthly sense.
That could still, of course, give him both the armies and the rule, which was what he wanted. But Elizabeth had always been rather uninterested in those, even though he was sure that she intended to keep the magical power mostly to herself.
"I have ordered some of my troops to seize his mother and sister and have them sent under escort to Buda. I will have the girl married off as soon as I get her there. I'll find a suitable nobleman. Perhaps one of the Slavs or Croats."
The countess shook her head. "It is be very unlikely that your troops will find them there. If they—whoever 'they' are, which still needs to be determined—are well enough organized to seize Prince Vlad from Buda, they will have taken steps to get his mother and sister out of harm's way as well. You should have taken some measures with the girl earlier."
"She's barely thirteen."
"A fine age," said Elizabeth. "I'm sure you that would have found more than one noble ready and willing to do their duty for the kingdom. There are enough greedy little lordlings that would marry a cesspit if you told them to, and not a few of them would prefer it if the girl was young."
"I've just been busy. I did not expect the Prince of Valahia to die just yet. I certainly didn't expect his son to escape his captivity."
"We need to look at steps that can be taken to capture Vlad. I must tell you that I need him alive, Emeric. If necessary you can kill him later, and put the Danesti on the throne. I think them a shaky reed for your purposes, though."
"The instruction will be given." She did not explain why she insisted that Vlad be taken alive, and Emeric did not enquire. The answer was likely to be one he didn't want to hear—assuming she answered at all.
"You are very unlikely to catch him by ordinary means," said Elizabeth. "If he has help, and that help has arcane skills, ordinary patrols and checkpoints are not going to catch him. He will certainly be disguised, and will probably be well-informed as to their whereabouts."
She sat back in her chair. "I think that you're going to have to leave this in my hands for now. By all means invest more troops in Valahia. Prepare for unrest. Make a few suitable examples of some of the peasantry. The local boyars have little cause to love the house of Valahia. The commoners however, are another matter. Let them feel the weight of your authority. I will need some of your troops. Mostly cavalry, I think. I believe I can locate him by magical means. Restraining him, and whatever partisans he has been able to gather, will take quite a few men. I will need to operate in secret. I'll want some off your light cavalry as well, and an officer with no scruples and the ability to follow orders. But he needs to have some brains too."
Emeric felt as if he was being given the orders. But as always, with Elizabeth, he felt powerless to resist her plans. He wondered, not for the first time, if she had put some kind of compulsion on him. But surely she would never have dared to do that. He was, after all, the king.
* * *
After Emeric had left, Elizabeth sat, thinking. She had been unsure, when he arrived, if he had found some trace of her abduction of Vlad. A competent magic worker could have divined what had been done. Of course, she had left a few traps, demonic traps, that probably would deal with all but the most competent of magic workers.
There were few of those left in Hungary. The church was docile in Emeric's domain, and Elizabeth had hunted the pagans far more relentlessly than any Christian fanatic ever had. She had made very sure that Emeric had little access to anything but dilettantes in the field of magic, especially the darker arts. She'd had to kill a few who had attempted to seek his protection.
But he might have found someone in his rather futile militaristic efforts that she had not yet found out about and neutralized. He had done so before. There was a streak of deviousness in the boy. That was about all that was left of the old bloodline. She ought to breed from him soon. The original line had been a strong one. She'd seduced her own brother to make sure that they bred true. It still gave her a tiny frisson to think of his utter horror when he had discovered what he'd done, and just how she'd manipulated him and forced him, and that limp wife of his too, into deceiving the court and the world.
She smiled. He'd driven him to take his own life, in the end. She'd seen to it that he died unshriven, with the full burden on his soul.
The role of great-great-aunt suited her better than that of great-grandmother. She wondered if she should do it again. It would be easy enough: the compulsion had been set in place during rituals that Emeric did not even remember, back when he had been about four years old. He'd been charmingly innocent and terrified.
But perhaps it was just as well to thin the blood. She'd had to kill the others far earlier in life. They'd become suspicious and rebellious at a younger age than Emeric, shaking off some of the enchantment. Emeric was so vain that he considered his person sacred.
Anyway, it would appear that everything had worked out for the best. Emeric had given her the troops she desired to herd the bait with. When she was ready, she would catch both the prey and the bait. Both had their uses. She stood up in a fluid movement, almost cat-like, refreshed by her deliberations. She must go and speak to Count Mindaug. It was he, and his endless literary researches, that had brought her the knowledge of what she needed for bait. Mindaug didn't know that she had been trying to catch one for the last fifty years. Like pagans, the non-humans were creatures to be used and then destroyed. Except the Vila, who were too useful to be destroyed.
She had even met the original Dragon of Valahia briefly. Such an opportunity that she had missed, perhaps. But there had been something about him—despite his reputation, which had interested her—which had made her uneasy. Besides, he had undoubtedly been more than a little mad.
Belatedly, her thoughts turned to the younger sister that Emeric had mentioned. Just the right age. Very probably a virgin. That would be particularly valuable blood for refreshing her youth. Royal blood, and with a nonhuman taint. Best drunk straight from the still warm victim.
Emeric wanted to waste such a resource on marriage to one of his vassals. Her need was greater. She would have to have the girl snatched, if Emeric succeeded in capturing her.
* * *
"They were relatively common creatures once," said Mindaug. "Many were created."
He wore, Elizabeth was amused to discover, eyeglasses here in his book-piled chambers. Perfect vision—indeed, better than perfect—had been part of what she'd demanded for her side of the bargain. She recalled that she had once been prone to terrible headaches, back when she too had read, seeking a way—any way—to avoid the creeping ravishes of time on her beautiful skin.
"So you have said. And the pure essences extracted from that blood will have value to me and my works. But I become more and more interested in the effects of the blood in admixture with humans. Vlad may be bait, but he is powerful too in his own right."
* * *
Mindaug looked down at the book in his hands as a way to avoid looking directly at h
er. "Yes," he said. "It said so in the book I showed to you. Creatures of mixed blood are dangerous, as they exist outside the constraints of either humans or the others, with some of the powers of both. So are the creatures which cross the lines between the non-human realms. But they are not easy to create."
"I have some experience at forcing matings of nonhumans of air and water, and some success with the offspring," said Elizabeth.
Count Mindaug reflected that it was odd that he, like so many of the other nobility of Europe, was related to this woman. As a class they were, he reflected, more inbred than was wise. Perhaps that was where her madness came from. There could be no doubt that there was madness there, underlying her vanity and the strange desperation that had led her down this course. She enjoyed killing and pain. Count Mindaug did not. They were necessary tools and he was adept at using them. But, like his point-filed teeth, they were about survival, not choice.
So was helping her with her preparations here in this bleak, stone walled and cold "nunnery" that she had as an adjunct to her castle. At the same time, he was preparing certain spells in case he would need to make a rapid physical departure. He had, as yet no second country or a protector to flee to. He'd been quietly searching for both. Hungary looked to be the best possibility, as little as Mindaug wanted to be in the proximity of that realm's vicious and sadistic king. But if things went awry—if Elizabeth Bartholdy decided that he was a threat, for instance—he could disappear rapidly. True, it would only take him as far as his crowded library in her castle in Catiche. But he could use more ordinary and physical ways to flee from there. It would take her or anyone a while, even with demonic aid, to find him.
Mindaug continued to study the plainly bound book. It struck him that demondim might take a multitude of forms, including appearing to be paper.
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