He was lying on the floor like a corpse when he woke. There in front of him was a ceiling. He wondered where the ceiling belonged. It was unfamiliar, but at the same time he had the feeling that he had lain beneath it for a length of time he could not comprehend. He tried to move his legs, and found to his great relief that he could. He hauled himself up and grabbed the bench beside him.
Pulling open the wooden door, he stumbled outside. He touched his brow; it was soaking wet. There was a strange taste in his mouth; he wiped it with his sleeve. The night spread out before him, a refuge from the chapel. Through the trees the lake of Snagov Island quivered into sight, with the embers of the guard’s fire beyond it.
He found his way back to Radu, gratefully noting that their father was where he’d left him, in the communion room, and set himself to the task of sleep. The night was long; he struggled through it, angry that he had passed out on the floor of a chapel like a girl.
Night spat him out into daylight. There was Radu’s face; his brother’s hand was resting on his head, his eyes were anxious.
‘You’re sick. I’m going to fetch Father.’
‘No. Give me some water.’
He drank a little. Radu held the cup. The guard came to hurry them. The journey must continue. He shook off the night and flexed his fingers. They were stiff and sore. Now that he thought about it, so was the rest of him, as though he had spent the whole night on a bed of stone and rock.
Radu shook his head. ‘You see, you are sick.’
With three boatfuls of supplies, they resumed their journey over dry land. Grateful to be riding with his father, Vlad grabbed the reins of his horse; Radu waited to mount beside him.
‘Put Radu on the smallest,’ their father said. ‘You can ride the mare alone. You will manage her best.’ His father studied his face. ‘You are quiet this morning. What is the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ He glanced at Radu, who pulled himself onto the pony’s back without a word.
Radu was terrible with horses. Their father had never even seen him ride. It was Cazan who had taught them. He said that a horse must know its master. With his father, horses either got spooked or went docile. Radu was a bad rider because he was scared of horses, but Mircea had learned fast, faster than either of them. Vlad stroked the mare’s neck. She shivered and danced on the spot. It had taken Cazan a whole day to find him the right horse. The first one Vlad ever sat on had thrown him off. It was a humiliation he had never forgotten. Then Cazan had shown him an old Rumani trick. Look the horse in the eye before you get on its back. The trick worked perfectly; now he moved to the front of the horse, stared at it then turned to their father. ‘The mare can take us both. She’s big enough.’
Their father shook his head. ‘Not with that pack on her. Radu can ride alone.’
He said no more, and pulled himself into the saddle. Mircea would not have argued and neither would he. In any case, he felt more tired than usual. The mare shuddered a little, nostrils flaring, head down, and it was done.
They left the lakeside for the woods. A staggered line of trees bordered the pathways; weak sunlight gathered in their branches. The forests of Wallachia were profoundly dark, the forest floor well guarded from the sun. Even in the spring travellers in carriages avoided them, for fear of veering off the path into a snowdrift, or simply getting lost. But their father knew them well, better than any of his men. He rode on ahead now, beneath the dark canopy, and Vlad could hear the tug of his fingers on the reins, skin against leather, and the steady breath of the horse as it thrust its step forward, tensely compliant.
Something caught his eye; he reined back. Startled birds scattered as Radu’s riderless pony sped past them and came to a halt at the front of the line. He looked at the horse in horror. Somewhere further back Radu had hit the ground with a soft thud – his fall saved by leaves, but only just. Their father was there in an instant. He threw his reins over a branch and knelt down. Radu’s leg, scraped into a deep cut by a branch, began to bleed heavily. Their father tore open a pack and wrenched out a piece of rag. In an instant, Radu’s wound was covered.
‘Leaves and wood!’ their father shouted. Vlad ran off into the undergrowth and came back with two dry branches. Radu was wailing, his arms across his face. Blood the colour of deep damson seeped out of the cloth into their father’s hand. Dracul dropped the rag and stepped back. One of the guards plunged forward. With two lengths of brushwood and a stash of clean leaves, the bleeding was stopped. Their father leaned against a tree and the guard passed him a flask of wine in silence.
Radu’s pony stood guiltily chewing leaves on a branch. Their father pulled himself together. ‘We need a padded mount. Use the mule.’
The servants made a rough bed and strapped it to the back of the quietest mule. Radu was placed upon it, tearful and shocked.
Vlad joined his father. ‘Will he be alright?’
‘Yes, but I think we will stop for the night.’ His eyes were fixed ahead; his voice had lost its potency. ‘I had planned to make a stop, in any event. Now we have no choice. The thing is decided for us.’
Vlad looked at his brother and wondered if the pilgrimage was cursed.
They headed onto the plain. The ground was soft and fertile. At their backs was forest, while behind it mountains smashed the clouds then vanished into vapid white. Far ahead in front of them Vlad could make out a thin line of blue. It shimmered in the late afternoon sunshine, luring them to the border of old Thrace; it was the Danube River.
The Danube flowed through the stories of the Rumani like a blessing and a curse. It made the land peaty, which was good for the crops, but it also made the marshes. Some families had lost their sons and daughters to the river. Either they had drowned in the Danube or they had sunk into its sticky marsh like stones thrown in a pond. Only when the weather was cold could you walk on the marshes; the reeds stiffened, like white-bearded sentinels. People wore skins, wool, and furs. They stabled cattle and made fires and soup. Peasant women sewed and gossiped, while their men discussed this patch of wheat and that one, last season’s rain, next season’s rain, fodder, milk and the yield. The plains of the Danube were hard to farm, but their father said that some people preferred to suffer land they understood than move to what they did not know. The Rumani knew their land as they knew their children, he said. They ran the risk with both.
‘Giurgiu,’ their father murmured. The fortress was just visible, a bulge of grey on blue.
Vlad left Radu’s side. ‘Will we stop there?’
‘And sleep beneath a Turkish roof? I think not.’
Vlad gazed at the bolt of grey that marked the end of Wallachia and the start of Bulgaria, now Turkish soil. ‘But the fortress was built by Grandfather Mircea. It’s ours. We have more right to it than they do.’
‘Right is one thing, entry another. If we go there, we would have to go as guests, and I am sure they would enjoy every moment of that.’ His father turned his horse away; the familiar tone, bile tempered by restraint, trailed behind him. ‘I will not rest beneath a Turkish ensign so close to home.’
‘Where are we going?’ said Radu from his bed on the mule. ‘I’m cold.’
Vlad stared around him. He knew this land. He had been here before, when he was younger perhaps. He caught up with his father’s horse. ‘Isn’t this part of Nicolescu’s estate. Why don’t we stay there, with him?’
His father gave him a sharp look. ‘Nicolescu? God defend me from my friends; from my enemies I will defend myself.’
‘Don’t you trust him?’
‘He has shown his allegiance to the Danesti family once. That is enough. Not all the boyars of Wallachia are faithful, and you would do well to remember that.’ His father glanced across at him. ‘There are old arguments, disputes in Wallachia that you know nothing of. One day perhaps you will understand them. But never forget that a man whose heart is filled with enmity is
already lost to God.’ His father turned to face the front. ‘Such men are best avoided. Distanced.’
Vlad hung back; he gathered the reins in his right hand and spread out the palm of his left. Ever since the incident in the chapel his hand had stiffened up. He stretched out his fingers and noticed red marks in the middle of the palm, where his nails had formed a line of cuts. He tried to remember what had happened, but couldn’t. It was as if a whole stretch of time had been cut out from his memory. He remembered waking on the chapel floor, but how he had arrived there was a conundrum. He vaguely remembered that he had gone into the chapel to pray, but he was far from certain as to whether or not he had.
He rode up beside his father again. His father looked at him and smiled. ‘If Wallachia is ever to be strong, it must be united. Like a heart, it must beat as one, to the rhythm of one man. The Turks know it, as does our amiable friend and fair-weather ally Hunyadi. It is why the Catholics want my seat, to put the man they choose on it, and that man would no doubt be either a Danesti or a Saxon.’ He called the guard. ‘Ride on ahead and inform the Dumitru family that the Draculesti train would gladly rest a while.’
‘I don’t see a farm.’
‘There is one, over that hill.’
‘Do you know the farmer?’
His father’s smile vanished. ‘Yes. Just a little. In any case we need to resupply; the horses need hay and it will give Radu a chance to rest his leg.’
They rode up the hill and down the other side to where a homely farm crouched in a hollow. A line of fencing surrounded it, with clusters of outbuildings inside the enclosure piled to the ceilings with hay and straw and filled with baying cattle and grunting pigs. A cockerel stood erect in the yard, and a large wooden cross was hanging over the gates of the enclosure, newly carved.
The yard was full when they rode in. There was the farmer, his wife, and his daughter. The farmhands stopped their work and took off their caps. The farmer kissed their father’s hand. His wife gave thanks, crossed herself and bobbed. From her place at the rear of the welcoming party, their daughter looked carefully at the train, horses, guards and servants; her eyes stopped at him.
The farmer noticed Radu. ‘His young highness is injured. Praise God that you made your stop here. Elisabeta, bring them in.’
There was a commotion of preparations. They were brought to a great scrubbed table where a new fire had been hurriedly laid. ‘Don’t burn your stock for us,’ their father said, as the flames blazed up.
‘Can’t think of a better use for wood than this,’ contested the farmer, ‘when Your Highness does us honour in our simple home. May God keep you!’
Vlad glanced at the daughter of the Dumitrus. She was pretty. Every now and then as they ate, she came over and served him something more: bread or stew. Radu’s eyes were getting heavy. He looked from the fire to his brother. Vlad knew he wanted to be taken somewhere quiet.
‘Father,’ he said, ‘Radu needs to sleep. Father!’ His father’s face snapped back towards him.
They carried Radu to a small room at the back, and laid him down there. He curled up instantly, in the shadow of a dream, his splintered leg twitching. Back in the room at the front, the farmer’s wife and daughter were busy clearing up dishes. The farmer watched on, reprimanding Constanta as she fumbled with the bowls.
‘I beg you to excuse her. She has not been well.’
‘Sit down,’ invited their father, nodding to a chair. ‘This is your house. You should be at ease.’ He glanced at the girl. ‘I thought she had been recently wed; where is her husband?’
The farmer’s face turned sullen. ‘Here and not here.’
Their father broke the bread with his hands and changed the subject. ‘And how was last season’s harvest? At Targoviste the month was dry. Was it fair weather or rain here?’
‘Highness, of rain there was no sign. As God is my witness, there has been no rain. Neither rain nor fortune in this house. The worst kind of fortune, that is what there was.’
‘Oh, really?’ Their father stopped eating and put down the rest of the bread. ‘You mean drought?’
‘More than drought; the cause of drought. More than that, the cause of all the evil that can fall upon a man and his own.’
It started, said the farmer, not two months ago. ‘And praise to God,’ he added, kissing a small crucifix pulled from his tunic, ‘there was no child brought forth. For she was married, you see,’ he said, looking to the parlour where Constanta was moving pots, ‘and to a fine man from a good family, or they said, and he certainly was that, Highness, a noble kind of character right to the bone and nothin’ less. Strong as an ox too.’ He shook his head. ‘Bit unsettled maybe. Thoughtful type. Always wanting to know this and that and asking questions. Read a bit too. I wondered sometimes if he was right for on a farm. Destined for something else, the boy was, and I reckon he knew it. But my Elisabeta here was the first to have her doubts. “Iosif,” she says, “that Stefan” – that was his name, our Constanta’s man – “half of the time when you look at him there’s nothing there.” She says, “Boy’s off doin’ chores for the Devil!” Women! I laughed then.’
‘Go on,’ said their father, his voice stiff and calm.
The farmer leaned forward and crossed his hands together. Vlad noticed that his arm was blue just above the wrist, as if it had been squeezed almost to breaking. He stared at this, fascinated, as the farmer continued to speak. ‘So I said, “Don’t go driving away what is a good worker and a good husband to our Constanta.” He could turn his hand to anything, that boy, fixin’ tools and all. A quick learner is what he was. That fence as you came in, put the whole thing together his self. But the crucifix, that was Lisabeta’s work, later. When we knew for certain what it was we were dealing with.’
The farmer drew a heavy breath. Their father sat motionless, listening.
‘Then came Saint Andrew’s Eve. I said to Lisabeta, “So your strigoi will be out till dawn then, woman?” The night of terror draws them like sap to sun and water to moon. Then I thought about it. “Iosif,” I said to myself, “you keep that boy indoors and keep him well busy so the woman will leave it be for once and all.” And God help me, Sir, I did try my best; that I can tell you. We had a fine meal. Good wine too, the best I had, laid down all ready for the firstborn, but then I say, what firstborn?’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and continued, stopping only to take a drink of tuica, a strong fruit brew which he also poured out for their father. It stayed untoasted in the glass beside his hand.
‘I tell you, Highness, I’ve seen men with restless bones in their bodies – those that won’t settle by a fire if their lives depended on it. But this was something else. Man had to get out, and get out he did. Made some sort of excuse for it – didn’t make no sense to me, though – and before he could find the words he was gone through my door and no more seen till morning. Constanta, there she was, up first for the milking like usual, but him, he slept the sleep of the dead till the cock was fairly hoarse from crowing.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have turned him out, but I didn’t.’ He glanced over to the parlour. ‘She was fond of him, you might say. And he was the same way. In any case, they do say that they are born twice – once for God, if he wants them, but the second time round the Devil claims his own.’ He emptied his glass and stared at the floor. ‘But that came around soon enough. Like hail in summer. That sudden.’
The farmer’s wife, Elisabeta, left her daughter’s side and came in from the parlour. ‘Please forgive him, Your Highness. I know he talks too much and…’
‘Let him go on,’ said his father, in a tone Vlad no longer recognised.
He felt the farmer’s eyes cross his face and turned to meet them, but the farmer went on talking, faster than before. ‘So then, it happened that this Stefan, he took a fall. Just an errand to the village. Nothing special, done it enough times before. Weather was foul though. Foul
er than a pigpen in the rain. Horse must have jumped at something, ran off and knocked him down, far as we could make out, like she did it on purpose, right where the trees were. When we found him he was dead and cold like a sparrow in winter. Lying on that wet brushwood for so long he was hardened up like a log.’
Constanta came in from the parlour. She sat down slowly in a corner of the room, staring at her father.
‘So I told her about Saint Andrew’s Eve,’ the farmer said, and he drew up his shoulders. ‘But she wouldn’t have it. Took him in the warm. Laid him down and dried him off, crying enough to break the heart of any man, living or dead.’ He paused and stared into his empty cup. ‘But we buried him, as God’s will it is to send us back to the ground where we were made. As God is my witness I sealed the tomb myself and locked the gate with my own hands.’ He looked up at a nail by the fireplace, where a large key was suspended on a hook. ‘We keep it there where we can see it. But makes no difference to them, Highness. Neither key nor stone nor earth will settle a strigoi once they are woken. Though, God knows, we did what we could. Elisabeta over there covered his eyes with milled grain. Tied his legs and arms good and well. Then, seven weeks later, it began.’
‘What began?’ said Dracul.
‘The deaths,’ replied the farmer simply. ‘His mother took sick; she lived nearby, so we saw her now and then. The shock, they said, and then she had a chill. She came stone cold, shivering like she’d stood in the shadow of the boy’s tomb since the time we buried him. Then she started with the fever. Boy had no father, but when his godfather passed on just before the hay was brought in, we set to wondering. “What next?” I said. And Lisabeta, she said, “I’ll tell you what next, Iosif, our Constanta, that’s what. And if you won’t make an end of it, I’ll get the asasin from Oltenia to do it, and if he does it, don’t expect anything more from me, either as a wife or as anything else.”’ He shook his head. ‘Had to then, didn’t I, though I was scared half to death already.’
The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer Page 8
