The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer

by Lucille Turner

  Mehmet sat forward and opened his hands. ‘Do not think, Father, that I am not ready. On the contrary, I am…’

  He raised his hand. ‘You will be ready when I say you are.’

  ‘But I know myself better than you do.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said, coolly. That was the error of youth. He could excuse it.

  Mehmet continued. ‘I am more than ready. Look at the Grand Vizier Pasha. He’s the chief minister, but he couldn’t make a decision if his life depended on it. I can make one like this.’ His son flicked his fingers together.

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ said Murad drily. ‘Everyone knows a wise man always thinks twice, a learned one three times and a fool not at all. No decision should ever be taken lightly. And especially in matters of strategy.’

  ‘I have read the Chinese books on strategy. Most of it I knew already, by instinct.’

  ‘Good.’ He took a plum from a bowl beside him.

  ‘And the Golden City? When shall we start?’

  ‘We have already started. Soon I will have visitors, the Draculesti family. Once I have obtained their unconditional support, we will be safe from the north.’

  ‘Dracul? Our vassal of Wallachia?’

  ‘If you can call him a vassal. One might also call him a fish or a snake. In any event he is a man hard to pin down. But we will find a way.’

  ‘I say the days of the vassal are over and done with. A vassal is neither one thing nor another. A conquered people should be ruled, or they may as well not have been conquered in the first place.’

  He gave his son a stern look, and dropped his plum stone into the bowl. ‘A priest does not eat rice every day. When the time is right, it is right. Besides which,’ said Murad, dipping his fingers in water, ‘progress is not always by the sword. Men must speak first.’

  Mehmet glowered at the fruit bowl. ‘We cannot break down the ramparts of Constantinople with words,’ he said, his voice shaking slightly.

  An uncomfortable thought entered Murad’s head. When a man had not conquered Constantinople with even ten thousand men, as he had not, it was hardly surprising that words should seem inadequate. He corrected himself. ‘It does not do to rush into anything. I know the city well; I know the difficulties, and I know the dangers.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘Enough for one day,’ said Murad and stood up. Mehmet walked off towards the second gate with the guard at his heels. He had nerve, certainly, but did he have guts? If Mehmet were ever to take the Golden City, he would need the guts of a Mongol and the head of a Greek. The word arrogant edged into his mind. So, Mehmet had read the Chinese books on strategy. All seven of them, perhaps?

  He called for a litter, suddenly exhausted. The Kizlar had been complaining of trouble with the eunuchs. It seemed that they had been bringing in young tellaks from the bathing house for the purposes of entertainment. ‘Do you mean,’ he asked the Kizlar, ‘the eunuchs by birth or the eunuchs by alteration?’ It was one thing to wash out the ducts with a bathing boy in a hammam, but quite another to use him for an exercise in virility. He had told the Kizlar to see that it was stopped. Anyway, he did not like the thought of sodomy beneath his own roof. They were not the House of Lot.

  Chapter 13

  A servant swung a cape around Dracul’s shoulders. At Buda there had been a concilium, talk of a fresh Crusade against the Turks. There would have been a show of hands, mutterings of agreement and dissent, and no outcome. But at least he had not been there to witness it. Six days in a carriage over the Alfold Plains in return for another nail hammered into the coffin of the Greeks. Not this time.

  ‘They cannot even agree between themselves. The Castilians care only for their discoveries to the west. The Venetians are worried only about trade, or if not that, then they are arguing with the Florentines. The English are too busy fighting their wars with each other now that they have done with France. And as for the rest, if there are one or two dukes of Burgundy, they are too busy watching their backs.’ He looked down. ‘No, not this one; I said the green.’

  ‘Then you will make the journey?’

  He shook his head at Cazan as the cape was taken off. ‘I have no choice. It will rile the Hungarians, but there is nothing I can do about that. Hunyadi will just have to accept it. In any case, I do not doubt that he has already done nothing less than his utmost best since his appointment as Governor of Transylvania to discredit me in the eyes of his Hungarian superiors. He wants my throne; he always has done. But he is not going to get it.’ He hitched up his collar and lowered his head for the cap.

  Breaking bread with Janos Hunyadi would not be easy. He must bring up the subject that lay at the root of their mutual distrust: Constantinople.

  He thought about the Golden City as he descended the tower steps. He had heard from travellers and pilgrims returning from the city that the Mese, the greatest thoroughfare in the Christian world, was now little more than a graveyard of trade. The only dignitaries that walked beneath the porticoes of its street did so out of pity for the Greek Emperor and his family, or because there was something to gain. But John Palaiologos was running out of gold with which to pay his so-called friends. One day the Turkish vultures would come in for the kill, and strip the last meat from Constantinople’s bones. The only way to save them was for Hungary to put its weight behind the Greek cause. If he could persuade Hunyadi, along with the Catholic cardinals, and Cesarini in particular, to back the Greeks, there would be hope yet. With the Pope and his allies at his side, the Emperor would have muscles to flex.

  In his head he said a prayer for fortitude. Today he would need it. Janos Hunyadi would be vexed by his payment of a tribute to the Turks; the cardinal would have sent Hunyadi to Targoviste to find out why he had not attended the concilium. On the one hand Dracul loathed the thought that Hunyadi had abandoned his Orthodox beliefs and converted to the Catholic faith, but on the other hand he admired him. Who could not? The Hun warrior had earned his power in blood, instead of locking himself up in a basement in the middle of the Carpathians. He was the kind of man who could move an army with a word. The Turks knew it; even his sons knew it. But they did not see the dangers as he did. Restraint was how he dealt with his demons; if Hunyadi set his loose on the armies of the Turks it was because he could afford to. He was not Dracul.

  ‘They will swallow you whole, down to the last patch of farmland.’ Janos Hunyadi threw his napkin down on the carved oak table of the dining room.

  Dracul frowned into his goblet. ‘And you won’t?’

  ‘You do not attend the concilium when you are invited; you do not lift a finger for the Serbs; you do not fight at all! What am I supposed to do, thank you for your loyalty?’

  Dracul did not flinch. ‘And if I were, as you put it, loyal, what would it get me? The same protection as the Pope is giving the Greeks? Perhaps they will send me an army of Franks as they did in the Fourth Crusade? No, I have long ceased expecting anything, Janos, and particularly from you.’ With his eyes, he followed the Hungarian captain around the room. ‘I have said that I will make an effort – but on my terms.’

  ‘If you help the Turks against us you will be acting against God,’ raged Hunyadi. ‘Have you forgotten the Order of the Dragon of Saint George? Have you forgotten the oath that you made to the Holy Roman crown? While the armies of Christendom, my men, give their lives on the borders of Serbia, what are you doing? Signing a treaty, for all I know it. Paying your way safe.’ Hunyadi smoothed back his mane. ‘What would you have me do anyway?’

  He leaned forward. ‘Put your weight where it should be, behind Constantinople.’

  The lion roared. ‘You know as well as I do, Dracul, that there is nothing I can do as long as the clergy are at war.’

  ‘Yes, the clergy are at war; that is the thing,’ he muttered. ‘Like you, the Catholics have dug in their heels and now they will not budge. They have laid their claim to
God’s word and everyone Orthodox is a liar.’

  ‘If Constantinople is threatened directly,’ thundered Hunyadi, ‘the Sultan will use your land to do it. If you let him, of course. Which you give every sign of doing.’

  Dracul flicked his eyes over Hunyadi’s face. ‘The trouble with you is that you see only the surface of things. Never the underneath, and not even what is in your own heart. I am not letting him, Janos, I am holding him back.’

  Hunyadi fell silent – unable to counter what he knew was true. He, Dracul, had denied the Sultan’s army access to his land, and in exchange he had to deal with the visits of the Treasurer, the constant correspondence from his scribes demanding explanations for every step he took and every step he didn’t. Hunyadi did not have to live with that; he did.

  ‘Anyway, it will make no difference. If you had been there, you would have said so yourself.’

  ‘The concilium?’ He rubbed his hands over his face. ‘Why do you think I didn’t come? Because I’m tired of listening.’

  Hunyadi nodded. ‘But there has been talk you ought to know about. The cardinals, and not just Cesarini, agree that something must be done about the library.’

  Dracul looked up. ‘The library of Constantinople was discussed?’

  ‘Not officially discussed, but discussed all the same.’

  ‘And what was the outcome?’

  ‘Questions were asked, particularly about the Apocrypha of the Greeks.’

  Dracul stood up. There were voices on the air. The boys were out of doors. On the other side of the wall Radu was laughing. Vlad was showing Mircea the right way to pull a bow.

  ‘The Greeks have hidden their gospels, as they call them, in the library since the days of Alexandria; the Book of Revelation is among them. The cardinals are saying it should be where it belongs, in Rome.’

  ‘Where it belongs?’ said Dracul, sharply. ‘They want to save the library of the Greeks but not its people or its emperor?’ He watched as Hunyadi returned to his seat.

  ‘The Catholic will argue with the Orthodox until both sides have talked themselves hoarse,’ Hunyadi said, frowning, ‘What can I do about it? Nothing.’

  ‘If I go to Constantinople and give the Emperor my support, it will carry more weight if you are there also. Will you attend, Janos?’

  ‘It is fruitless. You know it as well as I.’

  ‘No. It is an act of faith.’

  Hunyadi twitched a little. Dracul sensed his heart quicken.

  ‘The cardinals say that you are too Greek, and that Wallachia is full of heretics. If you stir up a storm with this, Dracul, you will drown in it.’

  ‘If the Turks take Constantinople, the Palaiologos brothers and their family will be killed. Women and children will be massacred; they will fall before the sword like grass on a scythe.’ Dracul paused. ‘I know what Wallachia is and I know what I am. I take responsibility for both.’

  No reply.

  He stood up. ‘I intend to make my journey to the Emperor if only to give him the support I am able to. I will also stop at the sultanate, out of necessity, and when I come back I would like to know whether I am sitting in the presence of a man of faith or a man without principle. In the meantime, I would ask you to give Cardinal Cesarini my regards, and tell him that I am counting on his support for John Palaiologos.’

  Hunyadi growled. ‘Can a Rumani speak about principle? I’m not so sure.’

  Dracul closed his eyes. ‘Have you considered my servant? For there is none like him, one that turns away from evil: and holds fast his integrity.’

  ‘The Gospel of Matthew, I suppose?’

  ‘No, Captain, the Book of Job.’

  Chapter 14

  The Draculesti train of mules, servants and horses was preparing to depart. Vlad took his place in the line, with Radu in front. Cazan had spent the morning in long conversation with their father. Then he had left the salon with a face of marble as though he had been forced to listen to what he did not want to hear. Now, as they rode past the Chapel of the Holy Virgin, Vlad caught sight of someone else, Father Popescu, as he vanished through a side door. He noticed that his father hesitated as though he would have called him back, but instead he quickly spurred on his horse to lead their modest party of guards and servants through the gate.

  He took a last look at his older brother. Just before he left, Mircea had slipped an amulet around his neck.

  ‘For luck?’ he had asked him.

  ‘You don’t need luck,’ his brother had said. ‘I do.’

  Mircea looked small and vulnerable as he stood there to see them off. Vlad glanced back several times until he could no longer see either Mircea or their home. They dipped below the ridge of the hill. Targoviste retreated into the velvet, wood-clad valley and fell out of sight.

  ‘We shall make a stop at Snagov Island,’ his father declared. ‘Its monastery will be our refuge for the night.’ It was a two-day ride from there to the border of Bulgaria, he said, and then a longer and more dangerous journey south to where the Golden City lay like an island in a sea of Turks.

  At sundown they reached the lake. The monastery seemed to float in the middle of it, winking at him in and out of mist. They dismounted at the water’s edge, leaving half the guard behind with the mules and horses, and rowed out in small barges. The water lapped at the side of the boat; Vlad peered through the soupy dusk. The square tower of a chapel drew nearer in the swelling dark.

  His father looked from the chapel to him. ‘Are you tired?’

  He shook his head. Radu huddled at his side, warming him with his shoulder. His little brother’s stomach was rumbling like a storm.

  ‘I’m hungry. Will they have tocanita?’ Radu said.

  Dracul smiled. ‘Let us hope so.’

  There was a church, a room of communion and a place to sleep. The monks brought fur skins, and warned that the night would be cold. They ate a meagre meal of vegetable stew, Radu’s tocanita, and sweet ravani to follow. Radu barely touched the stew, swallowing the sugared cake instead. Straight after that, he drifted into a deep sleep. Moving away from the calming sound of Radu’s placid breathing, Vlad walked over to the door of the room the monks had assigned them, and opened it. Directly ahead was a steep, winding staircase. In the room next to theirs, his father’s bag had been placed beside the bed. Vlad stared down the stairs feeling suddenly giddy. If he walked this night he would either be caught by his father or caught by the stairs, so he would have to stay awake. At the foot of the stairs in a hall beside the entrance door, Dracul was deep in discussion with one of the monks. They spoke a dialect Vlad did not recognise. He listened for a moment, decided it was Greek, pushed the outer door gently open and slipped out.

  With no torches lit, Snagov Island was shrouded in darkness. The lake lapped thickly on the shore, a pool of ink spilled on a sheet of parchment. He walked to the end of the path as far as the chapel.

  Now that the mist had settled, he could see their mules on the other shore of the lake, where they had rowed out. One of the guards had made a small fire; he wished he were there with them instead of here on this floating lump of ground. He sometimes felt that it was easier to talk to his father’s guards than it was to talk to his father, and he knew that he had been taken on this journey for reasons his father did not want to give him. He pushed open the large wooden door of the chapel and noticed that his hands were wet with thinking. His head was clammy too. He rubbed his temples to try and shake it off. At times his head seemed to fill up with fog; at others it was so clear and sharp that he could see and feel everything twice as well as usual. His father had told him that the answer lay in prayer, but prayer was harder than it seemed. Whenever his father made him prostrate himself in the chapel at the Monastery of Saint Nicholas and listen for the word of God, his head filled up with something else. Nor did he like the act of prostration; to prostrate yourself was to th
row yourself at the mercy of your enemies. He would watch the shape of his father’s body with distaste as it lay like a cross in the nave, wishing he could pull it up to standing and tell his father that the only way to face an opponent was in the upright, sword in hand. Then he had remembered that God was not the enemy and shame had stolen over him instead.

  Turning his back on the shore and the fire, he went inside. A watery miasma mingled with the last fingers of incense and hung around the wooden beams. He walked over the stone slabs of the short nave to the wooden bench at the side and sat down. A row of candles glowed beside the altar, where a tabernacle and a book rested on a brocade cloth. Beside the altar was a screen of icons, simply painted in vermillion and bronze. He drew his fingers around the carved wooden amulet Mircea had given him for luck, and shivered. When he had asked their father why they had to make the pilgrimage to the Hagia Sophia, the great basilica of Constantinople, he had said that it was necessary for his education and that he must make the journey with an open heart, but he had not explained what he meant by it. Vlad’s heart felt cold, like a lump of ice inside his chest. The vapours of the chapel invaded it, while a shiver like a fluttering of wings brushed against the inside of his chest. He turned. Something was working its way into his back. He’d had the feeling before, at Mass in Popescu’s church, as if another set of eyes was competing with the priest’s, which Popescu always kept fixed upon him, even during prayer. Then he remembered the stairwell back at the palace, and saw himself climbing to his chamber with the upyr of Saint Andrew’s at his shoulder, and shivered harder. He turned to face the altar again, lowered his eyes and waited.

  A night bird grasped at the chapel door; a withered leaf hissed along the slabs. He manoeuvred his foot to stop it, shifted forwards and gripped the pew in front. He looked up at the stern and silent heads of the saints upon the screen, and a feeling of intense enmity started to invade him. He stood up, suddenly uneven on his feet. A confused thought struck him that his brother had not eaten, that he would be hungry. He clung to Radu’s hunger as he felt his way out, pew to pew. But his legs would not listen. The wings inside his chest began to beat. They pounded his body in waves and threw him to the ground. His face hit the slab. Water began to leak from his mouth. Something ran down his leg. He had no leg.