Bathory's Secret: When All The Time In The World Is Not Enough (Affliction Vampires Book 1)

by Romina Nicolaides

  “You see it’s not so hard. It’s coming back to you now, you hardly need me.”

  “The Countess has machines that I’ve never seen before,” Kati said, looking a little worried.

  “Does she have a book press, a sewing frame, cutters and glue?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll be fine. Just because she has equipment that is different than this, it doesn’t mean you can’t do the work. As long as you remember all the steps then the equipment is irrelevant. In fact if it’s more advanced than this then your results might be better. Knowhow is all you need. Your uncle’s tools were old and broken in some cases. She bought you brand new things, don't complain.”

  Kati was silent. Her mother stroked her face.

  “Katalina Bosko I’ve raised you to believe in yourself above all things. This is not hard, it is knowledge you have and which the Countess needs. Use it to your advantage! I wish I could have taught you more, or even sent you to school, but this is all I could do. Be patient and work hard and you’ll see you’ll be rewarded. And I don’t just mean rewarded from her, I mean life in general. You’ve grown now and you can slowly make a life for yourself, and like you said when you went with her, this is good for us as a family.”

  Kati nodded and her mother hoped she had helped ease her concerns.

  “That’s my girl. Besides you can always come back if you don’t like it. Just be a little patient, you’ll get used to it, I know you will.”

  Kati smiled a broad grin at hearing she could come home.

  “They are treating you well though?”

  “Yes Mother, it’s fine.” She lied, suddenly missing home.

  “And you haven’t noticed anything unusual, have you?”

  “No Mother, there aren’t that many people there…”

  “The fewer people to contend with if you ask me. I’m sure you haven’t missed going to market to sell vegetables, have you?" Kati smiled again shaking her head profusely.

  Walking towards the door, she kissed Kati’s forehead and gave her another suffocating hug.

  “I’ve missed you, you know.”

  “Mama, I have only been gone a few days.”

  “It feels like a lot longer.”

  The two women stood lovingly gazing at each other, Kati exhibiting none of her initial enthusiasm at going to work for the Countess.

  A little reality will do her good, her mother thought as she watched Kati make her way to the castle as she had days earlier. Only this time it seemed to hurt more because the child didn’t want to go. She's given her word and we need the money. She’ll be fine, she told herself as the girl walked up the path, turning back occasionally to wave before disappearing from view altogether.

  Four

  By early evening Kati had returned to the castle to the same emptiness she had left. The carriage was not back yet, which to her relief meant that the Countess had not returned, and so she made her way to her room where a meal awaited her. The food was stone cold and seemed to have been there for hours. Whoever had brought it must have checked that she had not eaten it and left it until she returned, because they had not cleared the plates. A worrying thought washed through her. What if whoever brought the meals is secretly keeping an eye on me? What if they tell the Countess I was missing? She would have to think of a story in case she was asked. Then again she hadn’t done anything wrong, she had just gone to see her mother. She felt calmer when she thought of her and how good it had felt to see her again. Even if she did get chastised she knew that it had all been worth it. Then she thought of the old man at the edge of the forest and wondered what had happened to him to make him that way.

  The food was delicious despite having been left to get cold. She was ravenous from walking all day so she sat in front of the fire and ate it greedily. Chicken roasted with carrots, onions, herbs and potatoes and dripping with cooled fat. In a matter of minutes it was all gone.

  In the morning she woke up really early and headed straight for the binding room. If the Countess came back suddenly she didn’t want the lack of progress to look like she hadn’t done any work the day before. Starting with what she knew she put all the tools her mother did not have on the ground underneath her table and taking a bunch of scrap blank papers she bound those first. In case she made a mistake or forgot a step at least it wouldn’t be on any of the Countess’s papers. Carefully folding the pages one by one, she marked where they would be sewn and punched holes at regular intervals using a quick template she had made. Then placing them all on the sewing frame she got down to the tedious work of sewing all the pages together. Moving on to the point where she had to attach the covers she was stumped at which glue to use. Once again the Countess had gone overboard and purchased everything she could get her hands on. There was cheese glue in the form of dried curds, fish glue and some kind of cow or horse glue. She chose the animal glue and once again placed the other two underneath her table. Heating it by the fire, she secured the threads and attached the leather that would become the outer cover. It was so soft and pliable it was a pleasure to work with. When she was done she held it up to the light and admired her handiwork feeling quite pleased with herself. Before she could use it, however, there was one final step; she had to put it in the vice under pressure until it dried and set but she could tell that the end result was going to be quite good. She had found the process absorbing and pleasant and now she felt confident enough to start with the notes. Already, she was thinking of ways of making the process tidier and faster.

  Taking the first stack of journal sheets, she put them down on the table and stared at them for several minutes. The paper, though thick and sturdy, looked old. The brown colored ink was faded in places and smeared in others. She admired the confident lines and the beauty of the letters though she had no idea what they meant. She felt that if she stared at them long enough, somehow it would all untangle and make sense to her, but nothing happened. Here she was, face to face with so much information about some topic or other but she didn’t have the key to decipher the code. The books would remain silent. It’s probably very boring anyway, she told herself before finally getting to work. She lined up her ruler with the folds and prepared them for piercing with slightly trembling hands. They’re just pieces of paper, she told herself, you've already done this, you know how!

  It was well into the evening when she finished the first journal. Larger than the notebook she had made, it looked even better. I’m getting the hang of this! She smiled to herself. Clamping it in the vice, she decided it was time to rest and took the candle she had been working under and went down the stairs to her room where yet another plate of food was waiting for her. She ate her meal for the day, left the plate on the table and went straight to bed. Binding was hard work and she was exhausted.

  ***

  It was not long after she fell asleep that the door opened. He’d been watching her bedroom and knew that as soon as the light stopped shining from underneath her door it meant she had gone to sleep. Pushing it very gently he opened it just before the point when it would normally creak and looked inside. Last night she had almost woken up by the sound of the joints and he did not want to risk that happening again, so this time he had planned ahead and brought oil for them which he rubbed on liberally trying to be as silent as possible. Content that he had greased them enough, he opened the door a little bit more and was satisfied that the creaking sound had completely disappeared.

  What he had not expected was the sound of the clay plate crashing to the ground which roused Kati instantly. Without wasting a second and despite feeling groggy she revealed the candle she had carefully hidden behind some boards to disguise much of the light and shined it into his face.

  “Who are you?” She demanded from the boy who had come to clear her dinner plate. Tonight she decided she was going to find out who brought the food no matter how tired she was. Before going to bed she had secured some thread to the handle of her serving bowl and had cleverly passed it through
the legs of several chairs in the room before finally attaching it to the door handle, and giving it enough tension to ensure that even though the door would be opened inwards the elaborate string trick would cause the thread to become taut, pull the dish off the table and wake her up.

  “I’m Miloš,” said the boy, clearly disappointed at having been found out.

  “You’re the one who brings my food and clears it away? You’re just a little kid!”

  “I’m not just a little kid, I’m eight years old!” He said frowning.

  “Why are you always hiding?” She asked ignoring his indignant claim.

  “Because that’s what they told me to do. They said to make sure I was never seen in order to not disturb you.”

  “Who’re they?”

  “The Countess and the Cook. I work in the kitchen.”

  The Countess doesn’t want me talking to anyone, not even a kitchen boy?

  “Will you tell them you saw me?”

  Kati looked at him for a moment, trying to think of what to do with this new information.

  “Not if you don’t tell them I wasn’t here yesterday. How do you know when to come in anyway?”

  “At night it’s easy, the candlelight shines under the door gap, though today you deceived me by hiding it. In the daytime I just listen for any movement in the room, or snoring.”

  “I don’t snore!”

  “Yes you do.”

  “You’re a liar,” she said giggling and throwing her pillow at him, which he expertly avoided before picking it up and throwing it back to her.

  “I’m not, and yes you do snore, you snore like the pigs in the yard.” He began making swine noises and Kati threw her pillow at him again, this time she didn't miss.

  “Hey!” He called out, stopping his swine noises.

  “That made you stop,” she said laughing.

  He threw her pillow back at her for the second time and they both started laughing until they exhausted themselves and lay silent, she on her bed and Miloš on the ground.

  “I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine, alright?” She said sitting up.

  “Alright,” he said nodding and started to collect the plates.

  “I have to go back to the kitchen. The cook will be looking for me if I’m not by my bed soon.”

  Kati felt sorry for him for having to sleep in the kitchen.

  Picking up the bowl from the floor he untied the string and collected the rest of the dishes before turning to leave.

  “Hey Miloš, next time you want to come in, just knock. You don’t need to hide anymore, I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

  He nodded and left the room smiling, closing the door with his foot like he had done countless times before.

  Kati blew out the candle and went back to sleep, adjusting her tormented pillow.

  ***

  The sound of the galloping horses on the stone pathway leading to the castle was unmistakable. Stopping her gluing, Kati looked out of the window but was briefly blinded by the setting sun. Shielding her eyes with her hand she looked down and saw the Countess’s carriage make its way up the little hill and approach the gate which was open, awaiting her arrival.

  Reaching the courtyard the coachman pulled the horses to a halt, stopping the carriage right in front of the main entrance, at which point Kati lost sight of them so she went back to her binding with a slightly heavier heart now that she knew the Countess was back.

  “Katalina Bosko where are you?” The shrill of her voice was unmistakable.

  Kati leaned out of the window again to see the Countess standing underneath it calling out to her with a furious look on her face. She looked magnificent in the blue dress she had been wearing when she left and a silver and ultramarine diadem resting on her temples over her loose hair.

  “You should know better than to not be here when I return!”

  “Yes mistress, I’ll be right there!” Shouted Kati, dropping the brush in the cup of water she was using to dilute it, and wiping her hands on her apron. She quickly locked the door behind her, making sure to put the keys safely in her pocket, and ran downstairs to greet her mistress certain she would be reprimanded.

  When she reached the courtyard, she was greeted by the sight of four girls who appeared to be aged between ten and fourteen, standing in a line in front of the carriage, eagerly listening to the Countess. The driver was the same one who had brought her here, and he looked just as unimpressed today. His sallow cheeks were marked by a singular vertical wrinkle denoting his age, and his oily matted hair hung loosely to his shoulders which were speckled by dandruff.

  “There she is,” commented the Countess through gritted teeth as soon as she saw her. Grabbing her, she discreetly pinched the top of her arm as she maneuvered her into position in front of the girls. Kati suppressed a cry and forced herself to smile at the girls who were all also sumptuously dressed in silks, velvets and furs despite the warmness of the day.

  The Countess looked the image of the eager hostess. She was grinning from ear to ear though she appeared to be straining under the day’s fading light.

  “As I have already said before Katalina arrived, you young ladies have the privilege of being the first arrivals at the castle to receive your noble education.” Pointing to Kati she continued, “Katalina will be your carer during your time here, escorting you to lessons and cleaning your chambers etc. You will speak with Kati for everything you require.”

  This was news to Kati, who had barely gotten used to being at Csejthe herself. How could she help them if she didn’t know where anything or anyone here was? With the exception of Miloš, the only other person she had spoken to officially in the entire castle was the Countess. Kati looked up at her with questions in her eyes but Erzsébet ignored her and continued to address the girls. When she was done she turned to Kati and smiled broadly using just her mouth, her eyes were somewhere else.

  “Don’t worry little one, you’re a fast learner; you’ll manage just fine. All you have to do is bring them to me for lessons in the afternoon and clean up after them when they’re in class.”

  What about the binding? Wondered Kati.

  “Why the afternoon Your Grace?” She was having difficulty adjusting to this evening-dominated schedule the Countess kept to when she was at the castle.

  “I am noble my dear, my day is occupied by other activities. I can only dedicate the necessary time in the afternoon and evenings. These girls are the first to arrive and, as there’s only four of them, I trust you will be able to manage just fine."

  “But what about the binding? When will I do that?”

  “You will find the time!” Answered the Countess with a steely look that allowed for no negotiation.

  “Yes mistress,” said Kati looking down before thinking of something else. “Will I have to bring them food too?”

  “No, that has been arranged for them as it has for you. As you have already been instructed, you will speak to no one except these girls and myself. You will now help them settle in and bring them to class in two hours.”

  “Yes mistress,” agreed Kati nodding.

  “Now show them to their lodgings.”

  Without further discussion, Kati approached the first girl in the line and, helping her with her small bag, headed towards the newly built barn that she had cleaned and prepared not so long ago. The coachman followed behind with the rest of their luggage. It seemed to Kati that irritation was his only expression.

  As the girls ushered into the room they all looked up, impressed by its size before quickly scrambling to pick a bed from the dozen or so available ones. The one Kati had helped with her belongings picked the one closest to the fireplace, which she thought was wise considering the size of the room. Despite the mild weather she rushed to light it in order to warm up the large stone and wood structure. Spring was a long way coming. The barn's beamed roof loomed high overhead making her think it would be hard to keep the space comfortable whatever the season.

  “
I’m Oriana,” said the girl as she sat on the bed watching Kati put kindling underneath the large logs.

  “I’m Katalina,” she said turning back a little awkwardly and smiling.

  The other girls were busy chatting amongst themselves and transferring their clothing from their assorted cases and bags into the trunks that had been brought for them.

  “What’s it like living in this big castle?” Asked Oriana, slightly ill at ease.

  “I haven’t been here very long, but it’s alright.”