May the Almighty guide the souls of those gone astray from the path, and may He bring us all to safety, speedily, in our days.
Until we meet again, with peace,
Ya’akov
Letter from Majsi son of József to Vlad of Wallachia
Dear Dracula since I believe this is how it pleases you to be addressed
I am not good with formalities.
I am sending this letter by courier to the Queenly summer abode because I had to sell my horse and could not come myself. I have to say those people are not as good at the message carrying business. But horses are expensive and I do not have all the money for horse feed.
I have no idea what happened to you!! Even though I read all the Prefect’s letters (I do hope you will not tell him or I will be in trouble).
I miss you is that allowed to be said? We fought together though it was you who did most of the fighting. And we marched day and night. Though mostly night.
These days you always seem so grim and distant when I see you from a distance in court and you fight with your Husband. And now you have up and left.
I do not think you are really having a nice summer break.
If there are any messages that need to be carried in utmost privacy, you let me know and I will be your man. If not on a horse, then without. Though needless to say you can always buy me a horse. Most of that tax money goes to military expenses anyway.
I hope the Rabbi will not throw you out though he stopped answering his correspondence. Please do not hurt him if you see him. Also he likes bath salts.
I do not fault you for Galeoto Martzio. He is an ass if you ask me.
With great respect I remain,
Majsi the short one, son of József, and Your former messenger
TWO
NOBLESSE OBLIGE
Interlude
From: Jonathan Holmwood ([email protected])
To: Dani Văduvă ([email protected])
Date: January 13, 2018
Subject: Re: Mina Harker?
Hi Dani,
Okay, second upload. Most of this is my father’s work, done shortly after the Second World War. He’d been looking into suspected vampires in history, and Bathory’s notorious killing spree made her an obvious target. He travelled first to the Österreichisches Staatsarchiv in Vienna to find what he could on her trial and conviction, and worked his way backwards from there.
The official records were frustrating. They alluded to a lot, but evidently the court at the time wanted the affair kept quiet—or as quiet as they could. György Thurzó’s judgement led my father to more letters and records, and then to a brick wall in Hungary (then occupied by the Red Army). It was only then that he discovered that the Nádasdy family’s still active, leading to a brief written correspondence with Count Pál Nádasdy himself, somehow securing access to Ferenc’s old letters (my father was a persuasive cuss when he needed to be). But it was Bathory’s “day book,” dug up from a family library, that was the real find.
Added to Dad’s research is… a sort of story, I guess. Apparently one of Count Pál’s aunts or great-aunts had written it around 1900 or so, based on the day book and some of the letters, to tie together the parts of the story. Treat it as a species of informed speculation, from that point of view, although Dad was determined it was important—thought maybe the author had access to another, more direct source. Who knows? Take it with a pinch of salt.
More tomorrow.
JH x
NOBLESSE OBLIGE
Adrian Tchaikovsky
With thanks to my test readers Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, David Stokes, Bru Newhall, Marcin Pągowski and RL Robinson.
“New nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time.”
Francis Bacon, ‘On Nobility,’ 1625
I.
Excerpt from a letter by Count Jarek Osobyrski, ambassador to the Hungarian Court, to Walenty Dembiński, Chancellor of Poland, 1574
To the right noble and sagacious Lord Walenty Dembiński, Lord Chancellor of the Kingdom of Poland,
My lord, I know of your concerns regarding the further advances of the Turk, such that you wish to be most speedily informed of any developments on that front.
I have been present at Csejte Castle these last seven days as a guest of the Nádasdy family, who have gathered together a number of the more martial of the Hungarian landowners, ostensibly for an early hunt of wolves, but in truth to discuss how best the Turk might be driven from those parts of Hungary under the Crescent.
However, before such weighty matters, I must report that the purpose of our gathering was nearly made moot by the arrival, two days ago, of an ambassador of the Sublime Porte itself, one Azghan Mohammed Bey, who arrived in great style with a riot of their marching music and much pomp. The Turk himself, whilst at pains to stress his apologies for such an unlooked-for arrival, was plainly suspicious of our talk, and it seemed that, other than an outright banishment that might arouse yet more alarm in the enemy, any plans must be laid clandestinely or not at all.
However, this morning the man himself, Azghan Bey, was discovered in the orchard quite dead, and of no natural causes; for his body was set upon a makeshift pike of apple-wood for all to see. At first it seemed that none had seen anything of the execution, or would say anything, but then a witness emerged. This is the young daughter of György Báthory of Ecsed, brought to meet her fiancé, the young son of the Nádasdy. Her story is hard to credit. She claims a ‘tall, pale, beautiful man’ dressed in a fine robe that sounds, from her words, to be a thing our grandfathers might have affected, came ‘from the shadows’ as she says and accosted the unfortunate Turk, lifting him in the air by his neck and choking the voice from him before driving him, still living, onto the splintered branch. I would dismiss the tale as the hysteria of a child, save that I had sight of the dead man’s throat, where the deep impressions of a single hand were there to be seen.
I had the chance to snatch brief words with the witness herself and asked her if she knew where the mysterious assailant had gone. She seemed half in a daze but claimed he had not departed at all and that she still saw him nearby, or in the corner of her eye. Despite myself, I felt myself shiver on that chill morning.
What strikes me most is the reaction of the locals—these stout men of Hungary. The girl’s father said she must be mistaken, and dismissed the story to my face, but many from the East of Hungary seem to have an inkling of what had transpired, and it is a source of both fear and pride to them. Certainly our further talks against the Porte were much emboldened by events. I confess, I have begun to see figures in the shadows myself, after the girl’s words.
The girl herself seemed not in the least frightened. Rather, the sight had worked her into a strange passion, and if I had been her fiancé’s father I would have been concerned for her fidelity. Her name, for your records, is Erzsébet’or as we would say, Elizabeth’ Báthory.…
II.
Letter from Doctor Nico Magnus Allavardi, Sárvár Castle, Hungary, to Ferenc Nádasdy, Vienna, 1576
To my most Magnificent Lord and Patron the good Lord Ferenc Nádasdy
My most dear sir, I hope this missive finds you in good spirits and at ease in the court. I regret I cannot ease your heart about matters here, but you were justified in sending my talents to your home. I would travel across the Empire again, and twice as far, to oblige such a wise, benevolent and open-handed patron of the sciences.
The news that reached you regarding your wife’s health was not exaggerated, and I came upon your Erzsébet bedridden and very pale, her humours entirely out of balance with a great want of the Sanguine. She is weak and I have found traces of haemorrhaging, with blood found each morning on her pillow. By my arrival she had already endured a decline of several weeks and, had she not by nature a strong constitution, might already have passed beyond the power of medicine to recover her.
Despite this, her manner is euphoric and she seems not to suffer, though she
is afflicted by feverish hallucinations, speaking of a tall, pale man that none among her servants have seen, whose visit she seems to be constantly anticipating.
The staff themselves are uncooperative and it would not be going too far to say I detect an undercurrent of hostility directed at your wife, as though she had brought this malady upon herself in some improper manner.
I am, if I may be so bold, a man in command of all that our esteemed Medical University of Vienna can teach regarding physic, and I do not believe any better practises in Vienna even now. However, Man is mortal, and should God call, even the most robust of Adam’s line must answer. I have prescribed a diet strong with red meat, minced for ease of consumption, and such exercise as she is capable of, to reinvigorate the ebbing humour; similarly, emetics and tinctures to lessen the hold of the other humours upon her. Had I more time I would be confident in a gradual restoration of balance within her body. However, even since I arrived I have seen your wife decline, and I fear that the techniques I have at my disposal may not have time to be efficacious.
I write this letter to you as something of a confession, therefore. In finding my tried methods too tardy or lacking against this malady, I have taken steps that my peers at the University would frown upon.
In short, there has been a woman come to Sárvár claiming knowledge of your wife’s ailment and how to cure it. She is one Dorottya Semtész, and far from being a wild crone, she is a modest woman of middle years, and some small education.
I had grave misgivings about giving her access to the patient, but she was most insistent and your servants here would not bar the door against her. Mme. Semtész has therefore the opportunity of making her own examination and recommendations, and perhaps where education fails some folk charm or prayer may yet bring succour. I only hope I may write with more cheering news. I am afraid it will be soon, one way or the other.
Once again I extend my most heartfelt regrets that I cannot bring you happiness with this missive, and my ongoing thanks for your patronage.
Written this 30th day of October of the year 1576 by your most obedient servant,
NMA
Sárvár Castle, 1576
WHEN DOROTTYA CAME to her bedside, it seemed like a dream to Erzsébet; but her life had become a succession of dreams. The servants glided in and out of her awareness like ghosts. The walls of Sárvár shimmered and danced for her, so that she could almost see through them, into the awful abyss beyond. Even the vain, primping doctor her husband had sent from Vienna seemed like some bladder inflated with life only for the moments he was paraded before her, to have the air let from him when he was out of her sight so he could be more easily stored.
And beyond them all the greater dream, her dread pale visitor. Evening was hours distant, yet the dreadful yearning was already stirring what little blood she had left. She felt a huge slow swell of fear bearing her up, and yet it was a mercurial thing. There was an alchemy to that fear, that could transform it into so many other emotions. She said the prayers of Catholics and Protestants both; she tried to fix the face of Ferenc, her husband, in her mind; she tried to be good and yet she knew the fear would decay as the sky darkened, until she was left with nothing but a helpless, weak longing.
And now this woman.
The doctor had come in with her, but now he was absent. Erzsébet had not seen him go. Perhaps he had simply deflated when she was not looking, sagging slowly into a puddle of rubbery skin.
The sharp cough of the woman brought her back to the stagnant, fire-dry air of her chamber. Dorottya Semtész. She was dressed in staff livery but it fit her badly, and the role fit her worse. She was plainly a peasant, yet she carried herself with the arch pride of a duchess.
“What do you want?” Erzsébet whispered, because the long, slow hours were drawing towards nightfall and she was to entertain a guest. The thought clutched at her heart with anxiety and anticipation. And yet the peasant woman would not go, and Erzsébet tried to summon the haughty grandeur of Countess Báthory to dismiss her. “What are you looking at?” she rasped.
“A victim,” came the stern reply, hard as a governess Erzsébet had once known, who had refused to yield to smiles or tantrums. “Is that all you are, girl? Just one more husk for Him?”
“How dare you address me in such a way?” From a peasant! “If I had my strength—”
“But you don’t.” Dorottya sat on the edge of her bed, staring into Erzsébet’s face. Those gaunt hollows, the darkness about my eyes. It had been two days since Erzsébet had dared the mirror. “He’s taking it. Another night, perhaps two, and you’ll be lost to the world, though not to him. Is that what you want?”
Yes. But something in Erzsébet rose in defiance, of this woman, of her fate. “Who? Who is it?”
Dorottya smiled slightly. “Better. You’ve seen him, haven’t you? He’s had the scent of you for a while.”
Blood in the orchard at Csejte. Erzsébet managed a faint nod.
“He will have his women.” There was an ocean of scorn in Dorottya’s voice. “So many. You’re nothing special, just the latest he has battened on to. He’ll drink the blood of men and children if need be, but it’s always the women. One of those tastes he’s never let go of, when he’s let go of so much else.”
“Who?” Erzsébet whispered.
“The Dragon. The pale man with his clothes so fine, his moustaches so long, like a knight from your father’s old tapestries. Through barred door and shuttered window with his cold hand upon you, his lips to your throat.” The sensuousness of the image died in Dorottya’s curt, dismissive delivery. “Did he make promises, or profess his love for you? He does that less and less as he falls away from his proper time. He sheds his skins like the serpent; one day all that will be left will be the hunger. Countess, I know him. I have spoken with those he has leeched off, and some I have seen wither and die; and some I have seen break free of him, at least for a time. But there must be a will, and perhaps you would rather languish in his arms and be his prey.”
The thought sent a worm of pleasure through Erzsébet. To lie in his arms one more time.
She saw the beginnings of disappointment on Dorottya’s face, the woman pushing herself up from the bed. Perhaps it was that look—to be pitied by this peasant woman—but she reached out and caught her visitor’s wrist.
“I am the Countess Erzsébet Báthory,” she hissed. “Through my will and my blood and that of my husband, I sway half the Kingdom of Hungary. I will not be prey.”
Dorottya was still and silent for so long that Erzsébet Báthory felt her mind begin to fragment again, losing her sense of the here and now. At last the peasant woman said, “Then perhaps we can do something.”
“How?” Erzsébet whispered. “He cares not for doors or guards. How can he be fought?”
“Some say prayer.” The contempt dripped from Dorottya’s voice. “Turn the other cheek to the Dragon and you simply give him a new vein to tap. Holiness is for old men and nuns, Countess. We will match him with a strength like his own.”
“I have no strength.” Even speaking the words seemed too much effort.
“Be guided by me, Countess, and we shall find new strength for you, just as he must replenish his own ebbing power. I have listened to old women tell their lore of his kind, and I have read books that would turn a godly man’s hair white. I have gone to the mountains in their season and heard the voices of the Strigoi that issue from their caves and hollows. All these words, all these languages, and but one message, Countess. One path to strength sufficient to defeat the Dragon himself.”
“What message?” Erzsébet demanded.
Dorottya Semtész’s eyes gleamed. “The blood is the life, Countess. The blood is the life.”
Letter from Doctor Nico Magnus Allavardi, Sárvár Castle, Hungary, to Ferenc Nádasdy, Vienna, 1576
To my most Magnificent Lord and Patron the good Lord Ferenc Nádasdy
I am delighted to report that Erzsébet is well on the way to a compl
ete recovery. The remedies of modern physick have, after all, triumphed over the imbalance of humours that afflicted your wife and she is now regaining her strength and speaks no more of this phantasmal figure that was, I believe, the inner shadow of the outer affliction.
In my previous letter (which must be en route even as I pen this) I wrote about a certain local woman who professed some expertise. Whilst her folk remedies may have given some small assistance, my own knowledge and expertise carried the greater burden of the recovery, as you can imagine.
Given the speed with which the patient is rebuilding her strength, I am not convinced that this malady was wholly natural in its nature. Whilst there are no definite signs of a toxin, I cannot rule the possibility out. Suspicion falls upon your staff here at Sárvár. I reported a certain hostility towards Erzsébet amongst the servants. It appears now that, immediately before your wife began her dramatic recovery, two maids disappeared, no-one knows where. Their possessions remain, but they themselves were last seen attending on your wife, and now cannot be found.
I suspect some guilty conscience has prompted them to precipitous flight. Perhaps, seeing her remission, they feared being discovered. What else, after all could be behind such a sudden disappearance?
Dracula Page 6
