The king said, “It’s your duty, Ilona. And the man has a fondness for you; he won’t hurt you. He asked for you before, remember?”
Her hand flapped helplessly. She mumbled something that might have been, “Fourteen years ago.” And ruefully, Stephen had to agree that the bridegroom might well be a little shocked by the changes those fourteen years had wrought in his old friend.
***
He wasn’t in Saloman’s Tower. He was honourably confined in the main palace. The discovery terrified Ilona as the possibility of his more distant presence in the tower had not. If she attended dinner with the king, as she was bidden, she might be forced to meet him, even sit beside him. So she sent her well-born attendant, Margit, with a message pleading a sick headache, which was not so far from the truth.
For a long time, she just paced the comfortable apartment she had been given, wringing her hands and wondering how this had happened, how to stop it. The woolly covering she had deliberately grown over her once sharp mind got in the way of political analysis, but even she grasped that Stephen of Moldavia must be here because he wanted to loosen his allegiance to the Ottomans, and he mistrusted the present ruler of Wallachia. Without Wallachia to help him against the Ottoman threat, he needed powerful Hungary behind him. So was Stephen or Matthias considering the restoration of the deposed prince held prisoner in this palace? Which of them was making it a condition of their alliance? And how had she become a pawn in any of it?
For her, a woman, there was no way out—except death, and despite the poetic justice of committing suicide as Maria had, she could not quite bring herself to that sin. He would put it on his conscience too.
Abruptly, she sank down on the nearest stool. Caught by her own gaze, she stared into the Venetian glass mirror so unkindly placed upon the table, forced to look full into her ravaged face. She would have laughed if she could. All their plans, all their alliances would founder because of this face…
And this mind.
Ilona gazed into her large, hollowed dark eyes. For a moment, they looked unfamiliar, like someone else’s—because they weren’t vague and dull. They were…wild, fearful.
Is there a way? Can I find a way out of this? Can I think?
***
Erzsébet Szilágyi had grown used to holding her head high. Widow of the greatest Christian knight in Europe, sister of the bravest of soldiers, mother of the king of Hungary, she had not allowed age or grief to dampen her pride. Even entering the private apartment Matthias had given to her niece—somewhat overgenerously in Erzsébet’s opinion—alone and being greeted by no one more important than Ilona’s gently born attendant, she kept her habitual, regal posture.
Ilona sat on a stool before a large mirror, absently brushing at the same greying streak of hair among her unexpectedly luxuriant auburn tresses. However untidy, her hair had always been beautiful, thick, and shining, and of such a rare shade of auburn that sometimes it had seemed like dark gold.
Erzsébet blinked away the memory. The present Ilona was no longer a young girl. She wore unrelieved grey, both gown and undergown of the same uninspiring hue. One wide oversleeve flapped like a bird’s wing with every stroke of the brush.
Though Erzsébet stared at her back, Ilona didn’t turn or acknowledge her aunt’s presence in any way, even when Erzsébet said loudly, “What is she doing?”
“She’s not feeling well,” the woman excused her.
“So I heard.” Erzsébet didn’t trouble to keep the disbelief out of her voice or her face as she strode forward and took hold of her niece’s shoulder.
Annoyingly, Ilona didn’t jump or cry out. Instead, the faintest of smiles stirred her lips. She leaned her head to one side, actually touching her cheek to Erzsébet’s hand.
The old lady snatched it back. The affectionate gesture reminded her too much of the past. A very different past.
“How are you, aunt?” Ilona asked, as if they’d parted just last week.
“Better than you, by the look of you.”
“True.” Ilona reached out for the ugly grey veil lying on the table in front of her and began to pin it in place. She didn’t trouble with any kind of frame or crespine.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I have a headache.”
Erzsébet curled her lip. “For twelve years?”
“No.” Ilona didn’t sound angry or ashamed, just tired. “Only since coming here.”
“Only since the king, my son, explained your duty to you?”
Her mouth twitched at that, as if she would deny it. But her gaze still avoided her aunt’s. “Yes,” she said. Her slender, almost transparent hands fluttered down to her side, leaving the veil in place, slightly askew but covering all that was left of brightness in her. Erzsébet remembered her hair flashing in the sunlight like exotic, burnt gold as she whirled about, laughing in some childish game.
Erzsébet knew an instant of pity, not unmixed with contempt. “It’s time you pulled yourself together, girl!”
“Yes,” Ilona agreed.
Surprised by this easy victory, Erzsébet peered round into her face. “Then you accept the inevitable?”
Ilona smiled, the first true smile her aunt had seen on her countenance in many years. It might have broken a less stony heart than hers. At the same time, Ilona looked into her eyes.
“We both know my acceptance doesn’t matter. It isn’t mine you need, is it?”
Erzsébet searched her face, looking for insolence, for rebellion, for any spark that would reveal the old Ilona still inside this faded shell.
Understanding dawned slowly, along with renewed pity that the girl had lost her grip on reality to this extent.
“You think he’ll reject you? Because you’ve lost your youth and beauty, you think he’ll turn down the offer of the King of Hungary’s cousin? For God’s sake, you can’t actually imagine this is about you? You know it was never about you! It’s about alliance! Alliance with your family. Alliance that will regain him a country and a throne after twelve years in effective prison. Do you really imagine he cares if your hair is grey or your lips red? He isn’t marrying you. He’s marrying us.”
Curiously, Ilona’s face seemed to whiten. And yet those pale lips curved upward. Light definitely glimmered in those dark, opaque eyes. Not a spark, but something.
She said, “Ask him, Aunt Erzsébet. Ask him if he’ll take the deal without me.”
Without her, without a marriage alliance to cement it, he wouldn’t believe in the deal, wouldn’t trust Matthias—and frankly, who could blame him?
“Why, in the name of all that’s holy, would he do anything so stupid?”
“Because I wish it,” Ilona said vaguely. She stood, tugging at the ugly veil as if to check it was secure. “Have them tell him that…if you like.”
***
Seething with indignation and incomprehension was no way in which to face him. Countess Erzsébet Hunyadi knew it and yet, after ignoring his presence for twelve years, she couldn’t stay away one more hour.
Count Szelényi, his official jailer, was easily summoned and conducted her without question to the prince’s apartment. Erzsébet watched with curling lip as he pushed the key into the lock. He couldn’t be ignorant of the dreadful reputation of his prisoner; he must have heard all the salacious and chilling tales, including the latest, that he trapped birds outside his chamber window and impaled them. Hardly the act of a gentle or sane man.
“Aren’t you afraid to enter his chamber so casually?” she enquired.
Count Szelényi smiled. Although he didn’t appear obviously afraid, neither did he seem surprised by the question. “No, madam. But if you wish, I can wait inside with you. Or outside the door, if you prefer.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Erzsébet said drily. What had she to fear from him?
“As you wish.” Szelényi turned the key, withdrew it, and knocked.
“Enter.”
The voice from inside sent a shiver down Erzsébet’s spine. No
t of fright but of…memory. His voice was as it always had been, just as deep, just as vigorous and commanding.
Szelényi swung the door wide. “Sir, you have a visitor. Countess Hunyadi.”
Though her heart had begun to beat unaccountably fast, Erzsébet sailed into the room, registering as she did that it was comfortably furnished with cushioned chairs, and rugs on the floor. His bed had green velvet hangings, and a closed, ornately carved chest stood beside it. The prince might have been detained here, but his imprisonment was not arduous.
And then all peripheral thoughts vanished as a shadow rose from the desk under the darkening window and moved forward into the lamplight.
She’d had a nice speech prepared, a little condescending, a little pitying to remind him of his place, but not unkind. And yet now that those strange green eyes clashed with hers for the first time in twelve years, it all flew out the window. Her mouth was too dry to speak.
Dear God. She had forgotten the force that blazed out of those fierce eyes, the way he dominated a scene just by being in it. He had been the same even as a boy come boldly to her brother’s house in Transylvania to plead for the aid no one had any intention of giving. Supplicant or sovereign, János, her husband, had mocked him. And it was the same now. There was no gratitude, no remotest surprise in his face as he regarded her.
On the other hand, she could have sworn he mocked her. Though, of course there was no obvious disrespect in his stance, in his elegant bow. Vlad Dracula had always possessed exquisite manners.
“Countess Hunyadi,” he said, taking her nerveless fingers and just touching them to his lips. “I am honoured.”
She stared suspiciously at his bent head. Was that sarcasm? Was he chiding her for never visiting him before? What in God’s name did she owe a deposed prince of Wallachia?
The man who, whatever his motivation, had served her husband and her son so far beyond the call of duty.
She shut off that line of thought. She had learned long ago never to reveal weakness, and it was doubly important in the company of this unpredictable and too-perceptive creature.
“Yes,” she agreed. “You are.”
A genuine smile curved his full, sensual lips. Above them, his moustache, longer and thicker than she remembered, was as perfectly groomed as ever. His black locks were loose, his head uncovered, but otherwise he was dressed as formally as if he had just attended the court dinner. Which he hadn’t. He wore black hose with light leather boots and a black, high-necked doublet with short leather tassels dangling from the shoulders. A pristine white collar showed at his throat. Rings adorned both hands.
Relinquishing his light, cool grasp on her fingers, he straightened. “Will you sit down? I can offer you excellent wine—a gift from the king, your son.”
“Thank you, no. I cannot stay. I merely came to congratulate you that your fortunes appear to be looking up at last.”
“I have new hope,” he allowed.
Had his hopes ever sunk? How had this active, turbulent man coped with twelve years of confinement? Because, despite his pleasant surroundings, that was what it was. She hadn’t believed Vlad could tolerate such curtailment of his freedom. She’d almost expected to find him faded. Like Ilona.
But this, this was definitely the same, arrogant man who had stood before her in his own castle and assured her with perfect self-belief that he would defeat the Ottomans and bring about a new era of peace for Wallachia, Hungary, and all their neighbours. Failure, even after twelve years, seemed to be a temporary matter.
“Perhaps you have,” she allowed. Then, unable to resist taunting him, she added, “Now that you are to become a true Christian.”
He didn’t say anything to that, merely inclined his head. But his gaze never wavered. She had the impression he was waiting for something.
“And so your old betrothal to my niece is resurrected.”
He stood very still. She could almost imagine he didn’t breathe. “I am so honoured,” he said, still waiting.
“Would it surprise you to know that my niece does not consider herself honoured by this match? That she does not wish it?”
Still those eyes didn’t waver. Erzsébet began to feel her own watering with the effort of holding his gaze.
“No,” he said. “We have not met in twelve years, and I am sure she has heard nothing of me but tales of cruelty and carnage.”
“Twelve years,” Erzsébet marvelled. “They have not been kind years to Ilona.”
Something moved in his eyes then, a flash of some emotion suppressed before she could even begin to recognise it. His lower lip clamped over his upper in an old gesture she remembered well. Once, as a boy, it had betokened nervousness, until he’d adopted it as a pose of pride.
He said, “What has happened to Ilona? The king told me only that she was well and unmarried.”
“Twelve years have happened to her! She is old,” Erzsébet said unkindly. “And has been since she escaped from your castle.”
His eyes dropped. Erzsébet knew relief because at last she could blink, and also an upsurge of triumph because she was right. Something had happened during those last days of Vlad’s reign, something that could have affected Ilona so deeply that she’d turned into the poor, empty creature she’d just left staring blindly into her mirror. Erzsébet and her family were innocent of this.
“Is she here?” Vlad asked. And that, at last, was simple, genuine.
“Yes. She seems to think that if you know her wishes, you’ll take the alliance without her.”
Vlad’s lips curved, separating once more. They both knew that the king held all the cards. The terms of the alliance were his to deal. Marriage alliances were important, yet was it not unnecessarily unkind to give a damaged, gentle being like Ilona to the Impaler now? Perhaps there was a different option, a different relative…? A different way to assuage unreasonable and unnecessary guilt.
“I won’t,” Vlad said. “I will change my religion and swear new oaths of allegiance to the king. But I will have Wallachia, and I will have Ilona.”
***
Ilona rose with the dawn. She’d had little rest, less sleep, unable to think of anything except whether or not Erzsébet had gone to Vlad and explained that she didn’t want the match.
Wearing only her night shift, she pushed the heavy blankets off and slid out of bed. The floor was icy under her feet, and she shivered. But she needed air. She felt she’d been suffocating all night. Padding over to the window, she unlatched it and threw it wide. A rush of blessedly cool air caressed her cheeks, surrounded her head and shoulders. The smell of newly made bread filled her nostrils, reminding her she hadn’t eaten yesterday. Her stomach rumbled, comfortingly normal.
It was a good sign. Everything was going to be fine now. It was a beautiful dawn, the sky just beginning to glow pink and orange around the peeping sun. From her window, she could see the garden that had attracted her out of doors yesterday—only to be bearded by the king and Stephen.
Had Stephen seen him yet? Had they met since Stephen had betrayed him at Chillia? Perhaps he understood, now that his anger was passed. Perhaps he would even have done the same.
No. Pragmatic as he was, as a prince had to be, nothing would have induced him to betray Stephen.
She could smell the flowers now, their sweet, subtle scents drifting over the bread, reminding her that she needed to be home to care for her own garden. The servants would neglect it without her to nag them.
Perhaps I can go home today…if she’s spoken with him. How will I know?
One didn’t order Countess Hunyadi. One could only suggest and hope curiosity would do the rest. And if she had gone to him, if she had passed on Ilona’s wishes, what did he say, how did he look? How did he feel? Relieved. The Vlad she remembered would always honour old promises, but now she’d released him. He could marry, or not, some other cousin.
Whom?
It doesn’t matter to me, or to him…
And she, Ilona, could go h
ome to Transylvania and live out the remainder of her days in the quiet domesticity she had finally found. Great lives and great events would go on, uninfluenced by her, unaware of her existence. And in time, she’d get the peace back. She would…
The castle was stirring. Not just the servants baking and cleaning and lighting fires. She could hear the gentle clip-clop of horses being exercised across the courtyard. Not the king at this hour, but perhaps one or two of his more active courtiers.
Yes, there they were, two of them, with servants and soldiers riding behind. In silence, the two courtiers rode side by side, skillfully controlling the natural exuberance of their mounts, forcing them to a sedate walk at least as far as the castle gates.
They sat very straight in their saddles, one in particular presenting an eye-catching posture, at once graceful, proud, and strong. If you could tell so much from one broad, erect back. Ilona frowned, blinking in the dim dawn light as if that could help her see more clearly. Her heart began to thud against her ribs.
Is it Vlad? Is it him?
He wore a round black hat with a red feather at the side, and from under it long black curls flowed around his shoulders and partway down his powerful back. Ilona swayed, her fingers gripping the sill for support.
Just so had she watched him ride away from her after their very first meeting. The horse had been different—her uncle’s, not her cousin’s—and his garments had been rough and worn, but he had held himself with the same pride, ridden with the same perfect confidence so that she’d almost imagined he was as splendid as he’d wanted to be.
The rider stopped. His horse snorted, and his companion paused too, glancing back at him in quick interrogation. The man who could have been Vlad—please God, don’t be Vlad—began to turn his head.
Frozen, Ilona couldn’t move, couldn’t run, couldn’t even fall out of sight onto the floor. Panic held her paralysed.
His head continued to turn, his neck twisting so that he could look upward. Unerringly, he gazed at her window.
Holy Mary, Mother of God.
Vlad Dracula, exiled Prince of Wallachia. Even over this distance, vitality blazed out of his face.
A Prince to be Feared: The love story of Vlad Dracula Page 2
