Blood Ritual

by Sarah Rayne

  On the day after Christmas Day, most people had joined in the wolf-hunt; four wolves had been caught and slaughtered, which meant there would be new wolfskin rugs in more than one Romanian stronghold before the week was out. There had been dancing by candlelight to the gypsy bands that night, and the guests had set out early next morning, so that they could make the most use of the brief daylight. Elizabeth watched them go with profound relief; standing at an upper window, seeing the fur-covered sledges making thick tracks in the fresh snow. The castle was hers again, and the knowledge was as heady as wine. She had maintained a mask of normality and a semblance of gracious hospitality throughout the revels; she had headed the long banqueting table and she had watched as the guests ate and drank themselves into a frenzy. The serving girls had obeyed her orders to the letter, so that for most of those fools the Christmas banquet at Csejthe would remain an embarrassment they would want to bury.

  And now she was safe. If Thurzo had indeed come to pry, he had found nothing. If Zrinyi had been talking, he would be feeling immensely foolish. The caul incantation had rendered her safe as it always would and the Spanish Fly had drawn a smeary, sexual smudge over most of the guests’ sensibilities. She was safe and she was alone and at last she could gratify the ache stirred up by the silken white skins of the ladies of Matthias’s court.

  She swept through the castle, her eyes burning pits, her fingers curled into claws. Where were the pretty blood-filled girls she had gathered about her to lighten her widowhood? It was time and more that they found out the real reason for their weeks of soft living at her expense. It was time that particular debt was paid. Illona and Dorko must light the torches in the dungeons; they must bring out the braziers and the scourges and the knives. The wolfsmile that she was to bequeath to her descendants across four hundred years curved her lips.

  Gyorgy Thurzo had been almost deceived by the splendour and the normality of Csejthe, but he had not been quite deceived. The beautiful Countess had moved coolly through it all, gracious and poised. She was as dazzling as Thurzo remembered, although it was a cold, soulless allure, and her eyes were those of an animal: opaque and cloudy. They were eyes that would never reflect light, even on the brightest of summer’s days. The old suspicions revived, and Thurzo knew that the King had been right to come here. There was something very wrong about Elizabeth Bathory! He watched her covertly, and saw how her glance rested on the guests as they ate and drank themselves into a stupor, and how her lips curved into a cruel smile, and he felt a chill. That speculative stare was unpleasantly like the smile of a predator watching its prey swallow bait. Thurzo enjoyed his food as much as anyone, but he found himself eating and drinking sparingly. The thought that Ferencz Nádasdy might have met an untimely death tugged at the edge of his mind.

  As they rode away from the castle, Thurzo took huge lungfuls of the cold clean mountain air, and looked across at the King who was making this part of the journey on horseback. What now?

  The King caught the look, and drew his mount alongside Thurzo’s. ‘It would please me if you would return to Csejthe in secrecy,’ he said in a low voice and, as Thurzo waited, Matthias said, ‘My people have ensured that a garden door was left unlatched. You will be able to enter unseen.’

  Thurzo, trying to anticipate his King’s wishes, but selecting his words with care, said, ‘Then you believe that our hostess – that the stories about her may hold some truth?’

  ‘The Lady is tainted with something I cannot identify,’ said Matthias, softly. ‘There is certainly something going on that should be uncovered.’ He frowned. ‘But she is who she is and we dare do nothing unless there is proof. You understand me?’

  He eyed Thurzo and Thurzo said slowly, ‘I am to secure the proof.’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a pause, and then the King said in a voice so low that Thurzo had to bend over to catch it, ‘Wait until night descends on the mountains. And take with you the pastor and a crucifix.’

  It was an eerie and uncomfortable climb back up the mountain path in company with Ponikenus, and Thurzo caught himself thinking that this was an odd companion for the King to have given him. Had Matthias then believed Ponikenus’s veiled hints of witchcraft? Was that why he had said: Take with you a crucifix? Thurzo shivered and drew his fur-lined cloak more firmly around his shoulders. This was an arduous climb for a man no longer in his first youth. He felt his muscles protesting and his heart beginning to pound. It had been one thing to approach Csejthe in the middle of the afternoon, in company with the King’s party and with twenty or thirty people, most of them bearing flaring torches. They had known that inside the castle there would be warmth and company and lights. He remembered how the gypsy music had sent its sweet, lively strains across the mountainside, and how he had rather enjoyed hearing it.

  But seen by night Csejthe was secretive and shrouded in a sick darkness. Thurzo saw the creeping fingers of black shadows trickle down the mountain and shuddered. The night wind was stirring the forests to the east, scenting the air with the cool, clean tang of pine, and there were rustlings all about them. Several times he caught the beating of light wings on the air. Owls? Or bats?

  And then, almost before they realised it, they had rounded the curve and there, silhouetted against the wintry night sky, was the black bulk of Csejthe. Cold fear welled up in Thurzo’s heart again. Shorn of the music and light and company, this was a tainted place. It was as if something evil and warped had lived at its heart for many years, and as if the evil and the deformity had oozed outwards. A slimy snail’s trail dribbling down over the old, dark walls.

  The portcullis was lowered, great iron teeth clamped firmly down, but the small side entrance was ajar, as the King had said it would be. Thurzo supposed that Matthias’s servants would not dare to be other than efficient. As they crossed the courtyard, Thurzo felt a sudden anger, because this was surely an unworthy way for a Palatine of Hungary to behave. He would have as soon entered Csejthe openly and honestly, accusing Elizabeth Bathory face to face, instead of this sneaking, back-door stealth.

  Bars of moonlight lay across the great banqueting hall as they entered, and there was still the faint drift of roasting meats and mulled wine on the air from the festivities. They hesitated, unsure of where to go next, certainly unsure of how far the King’s orders would protect them from the Countess’s wrath if she caught them. Thurzo was aware of scraping, clawing sounds somewhere near by. It would only be rats, of course, which was not pleasant, but which was not anything to worry about, because every large house had rats, even his own beloved Bicsere. The absurdity of what they were doing smote him, and he drew breath to say to Ponikenus that they should call out to let the servants know of their arrival, perhaps with a story about having returned to solicit shelter for a further night. It was then that he caught, above the scuttering of the rats, a sound that halted him. Something almost rhythmic; something high-pitched and painful to the ear . . .

  Thurzo frowned, not understanding, and then, between one heartbeat and the next, he did understand.

  Screaming. Somewhere in the castle bowels someone was screaming.

  Descending to Csejthe’s dungeons was like descending to hell. Both men could feel the lingering agonies and the despair: layers of it, thought Thurzo. Layer upon layer of torment and hopelessness, all arranged one atop the other. He caught a movement from his companion and understood that Ponikenus had taken a firmer grasp on the crucifix that hung about his neck. For the first time the Protestant Thurzo was conscious of envy. How must it be to have a faith that you trusted so much, you reached out for it without conscious thought?

  The stone steps made no sound as they trod down and round; they were worn away at the centre, indicating many years of use. A flickering light seeped upwards.

  All old houses showed signs of age, such as the worn-away steps, and a great many people left lights burning in all kinds of unexpected places. There was nothing sinister about it.

  There was everything sinister about it. As th
ey drew nearer to the foot of the steps, both Thurzo and Ponikenus heard the screams again, much louder, and then the sound of peal upon peal of laughter.

  ‘Bring out the brazier!’ shrieked the voice. ‘Bring out the brazier and fetch the knives! And see to it that they are sharp!’

  The wall-sconces flickered wildly as the two men moved forward, and as they reached the foot of the stair, there before them was a scene so grisly that, for a single moment, their two disparate beliefs merged, and they shared a thought: we have descended into hell’s deepest cavern.

  Firelight and torchlight washed the old stone walls with a crimson glow, and the scent of burning wood or charcoal assaulted their nostrils.

  There were three people in the dungeons – and they are like no dungeon I ever saw! thought the bemused Thurzo. There were no stone passages, no barred cells for individual prisoners; the dungeons of Csejthe Castle were one huge, echoing stone vault, scooped out of the mountain, extending for what looked to the two men like miles.

  At the centre stood an iron brazier, perhaps three feet high, packed with burning charcoal, so hot that its sides glowed with heat and it cast its own shimmering crimson shadow. It gave out a scent of hot metal and smouldering cinders.

  Directly beneath one of the iron wall-sconces, an immense stone trough was partly sunk into the floor. Jutting shelves of rock held huge earthenware jugs, each one darkened and stained, several with thick, viscous fluid dripping from the lips. Pipes led away from the trough at each corner – drains, thought the horrified Thurzo.

  Culverts to drain away whatever fluids collect in the trough.

  Whatever fluids . . .

  Elizabeth Bathory stood naked in the stone bath, her unbound hair tumbling over her shoulders, her white skin smeared and clotted with blood. One of the ugly old serving women that Thurzo dimly remembered seeing about the castle stood in the shadows, but the other, the younger one, was standing on a ledge over the trough, holding aloft a large earthenware jug. As Thurzo and Ponikenus stopped at the foot of the steps, momentarily unnoticed, she tipped it up.

  At once a stream of red gore cascaded over the naked body of the Countess. She gave a low shuddering cry, which brought a look of incomprehending repulsion to the face of the pastor, but which Thurzo, no celibate, recognised at once as the cry of a female animal reaching sexual climax.

  Elizabeth held both hands above her head, reaching up to catch the blood and, as it trickled between her fingers, she lowered her hands and smeared the blood into her skin, sliding her hands between her thighs, throwing her head back and giving vent to low, sensuous cries. Her eyes were half closed, only the thinnest line of white showing and, moving with the same slow languor, she brought her smeary fingers up to her lips and licked the blood from them with the rapaciousness of a feeding she-wolf.

  Terrible, thought Thurzo, caught in the grip of appalled fascination. Terrible and evil and mad. And then: but beautiful. He felt a treacherous, never-to-be-acknowledged stirring between his thighs and confused memories of the night spent in her bed tumbled through his mind. He thought: that is exactly how she used her tongue on me! Licking, probing . . . He could feel again the swing of the black silken hair against his belly as she had bent over to take his swollen manhood in her mouth.

  He stared at the naked skin, his senses racing. She was not young – she had been born old, this one – and although he did not know her exact age, he knew that her four children were grown up and married, and he knew that she had not been so very young when they were born.

  But she is as lovely, as smooth and unmarked as any sixteen-year-old.

  Elizabeth stepped from the trough and moved across to the charcoal brazier, gesturing impatiently, and at once the serving woman set down the jug and scuttled across the floor to join her companion.

  ‘Bring the knives! Bring the skillet!’ And then, with such greedy relish that Thurzo and Ponikenus, unseen in the shadows, felt their flesh crawl, she cried, ‘Let the last one taste her own fear!’

  The two women were lifting something out of the shadows, and they were cackling with eldritch glee as they did so. There was the sound of something lumpish, something that might have been a heavy sack being dragged across the floor.

  They propped their burden upright, and Thurzo, his sight adjusting at last and his senses steadying, at first took it to be a carcass of raw meat. Wild notions of biblical sacrifice flooded his mind: the burnt offering of Abraham offering up Isaac, and God taking the slaughtered lamb instead . . . The Jews and the Israelites with the meat-offerings, sprinkling the blood of the oxen on Mount Sinai . . . Was this, after all, nothing more than a warped religious ritual? Was Elizabeth Bathory simply serving God in the old ways of blood libation?

  It was at this point in his thinking that the raw carcass moved, and stretched out a pleading hand. The lips opened in the bloodied, flayed face, and the thing that Thurzo had taken for a butchered animal, cried out in a human voice for mercy.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Of the two men, it was the man of God who moved first. Thurzo was still struggling with acceptance, but Ponikenus, who had lived alongside the knowledge of the Bloody Countess’s ways for more years than he dared admit, accepted at once, and was across the expanse of floor and standing at the centre of the grim, echoing cavern.

  At once the serving women dropped the poor wretched thing they had been holding, and Thurzo saw it crawl a few feet, scrabbling pitifully at the stone flags. Blood dripped from dozens of wounds, thick slow dark blood that did not spurt or fountain, but simply welled silently to the surface and dripped on to the ground. The lips moved again, and a voice stripped raw by agony cried for pity.

  ‘Kill me . . .’

  Too savagely wounded to live, thought Thurzo. Too tortured and too mutilated to want to . . . His mind spun with terrible visions of clubbing the pitiful creature swiftly into merciful oblivion. Did God forgive that kind of merciful murder? What place had God in this nightmare anyway?

  Elizabeth had whipped round at the sound of Ponikenus’s footsteps; she was regarding the pastor from a half-crouching stance, a cat tensed to spring. Her white limbs were wet and glistening with blood and her eyes were blazing with anger and hatred. As Ponikenus approached, the crucifix held out before him, she stretched out her hands in a travesty of a lover’s beckoning. Thurzo had no memory of following the pastor, but he was standing at Ponikenus’s side, shoulder to shoulder with the man, fixing the Countess with a cold stare.

  ‘Madame, I had hoped to find you innocent of the accusations made against you, but I see that you are steeped in guilt and evil.’ He paused. ‘By virtue of the power invested in me, I must ask you to accompany me now and later to a place of judgement.’ The words were well-tried and ought to have lent him strength and purpose, but his voice sounded hollow.

  Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment, and then a slow smile curved her lips. ‘Foolish little creatures,’ she said. ‘I have had men like you for breakfast, Gyorgy Thurzo.’

  ‘God’s law—’ began Ponikenus.

  ‘And I have eaten pastors like you for supper,’ she said, the smile becoming contemptuous. ‘Was it you who talked, Pastor?’ She leaned closer so that Thurzo caught the stench of stale blood and felt a twist of nausea. ‘Your God is no match for me,’ said Elizabeth. ‘If you truly intend to pitch a battle between us, you will very soon see which of our gods is the strongest.’

  ‘You blaspheme,’ said Ponikenus very quietly. ‘Will you not acknowledge Our Lord, Jesus Christ, who died for you?’

  ‘Christ was a peasant carpenter with ideas above his birth,’ said Elizabeth at once. ‘The gods I serve have higher appetites.’ She beckoned imperiously to the two serving women who were cowering in a corner. ‘Show them,’ she said, and then, as the frightened women hesitated, ‘Show the fools what we do with those we catch!’

  Illona and Dorko glanced fearfully at the two intruders, but Thurzo thought they were far more afraid of their terrible mistress. They
leapt to obey her, going to the shadowy corners of the dungeon and dragging forward more of the slaughtered, drained bodies. A sick dizziness blurred Thurzo’s vision, and for a moment he was aware of nothing other than the heavy dragging sounds, and the scent of the smouldering brazier, and the laboured breathing of the two women as they dragged forward the other victims.

  Because of course there were more of them; the poor wretched thing they had taken for a carcass of raw meat was not the only one.

  Six or eight, thought Thurzo, his mind spinning. Six or eight milked bodies, life still just flickering in them. Was it? Yes, thin rivulets of blood still ran from beneath them, trickling across the flagstones and into the culverts at the sides of the dungeon.

  Elizabeth studied them detachedly, and Thurzo could almost have believed she had forgotten his and Ponikenus’s presence. ‘Pretty little creatures,’ she said, and her voice took on a crooning, affectionate note. ‘They had sweet voices before their throats burst with screaming.’ The mad eyes swivelled to regard Thurzo. ‘We silenced most of them,’ she said. ‘I cannot bear to hear them scream, you see. Dorko and Illona know I cannot bear to hear them scream.’ She looked at the two men unblinkingly and Thurzo felt ice trace its way down his spine. Dear God, she is without the least shred of sanity.

  ‘But this one,’ said Elizabeth, reaching down to stroke the still-struggling creature at her feet, ‘this one we have left free.’

  Before either of the men knew what she intended to do, she snatched the thin-bladed knife from the nearest serving woman, and brought it down on the bloodied lump of humanity at her feet. Thurzo felt the moan before he heard it, and a red mist obscured his vision. When he could see again, Elizabeth had stepped back and was holding aloft a torn, bleeding lump of flesh. She bounded to the brazier, and flung it on to the metal pan.