The flame of the candle spat and twisted on the table at his side. He sealed the second letter and watched the wax congeal. The beady eye of a dragon stared up at him from the surface of the paper. He wondered what his sons were doing. Radu would be sleeping soundly; Vlad would be sleeping badly. Did they think well of him? Perhaps not. Perhaps between the hours of dusk and sunrise they cursed him in their sleep. Perhaps they did not sleep at all.
He sat at the table a little longer, gazing at the flame. Then he slowly stood up, took the candle, left the quill in its pot and the sword in its scabbard and made his way back to ground level.
In the Great Hall Cazan greeted him coldly, as though he were a traitor to his own cause.
‘How is Mircea?’
‘Well enough,’ Cazan said. ‘He is waiting for you in the salon.’
During his absence his first guard had not done for Mircea what he would have done for Vlad. But were they not all drawn by the magic of his middle son? Vlad could put them all in his pocket if he wished to. Mircea could not. Restraint was Mircea’s way; now, after an age of uncertainty at the absence of news, perhaps his son had even more of it. All his life he had counted on that restraint, that judgement. Now it was he who would be judged. Perhaps he deserved to be.
‘Do we know where they have taken them?’
‘My guess is,’ said Dracul slowly, ‘to a fortress in the province of Karaman.’
‘And how will we get them back?’
He glanced up at Cazan. ‘Getting them back is not so simple. It does not work like that.’
‘Really?’ said Cazan. He threw down his knife. ‘Then how does it work?’
Mircea pushed his chair back from the table and walked over to the window.
Dracul gazed at his back. ‘It works as the Sultan wants it to work. Which is to say, that they are of more use to him if they are alive.’
Mircea turned. ‘Can a hostage be traded? I have heard that, under certain conditions…’
‘No. We have nothing to barter that the Sultan wants more. He does not want my throne. He is not Hunyadi. He wants my compliance.’ He finished his cup of wine and thought of the sword in the basement. He pictured himself going back down there, taking the sword and ending his life; he looked over at Anton, who had said barely a word all evening. Perhaps the friar was thinking, as he was, that if he were to end it now, by his own hand, things would be simpler. Anton could pour the grain onto his eyes to close them and block his ears so he would not hear the call. He could bind his feet to keep him still. The seizures, which had led him to the brink and pulled him back again, would be nothing but a memory in the dark. Anton stood up as he rose from the table.
‘I must take to the road again before the month is up. I must finish my journey. The Sultan has his eyes on Constantinople. He is scheming. Soon he will make his move. We haven’t much time.’
Cazan followed him out of the salon. ‘And Captain Hunyadi?’
‘I am working on Captain Hunyadi.’
‘Then you think the Hungarians will take up our cause?’
He looked at Mircea. What was that on his face, censure or absolution?
‘I no longer know what anyone thinks.’
Chapter 25
The creaking of wood and the cracking of limestone said that winter was coming to Egrigoz. Fingers of ivy retreated into the fissures of the fortress walls from the rutted surfaces of stones, and grasses that had sprouted over rock all summer, were seeded by the wind.
As he left his travelling party at the foot of the mountain and galloped on ahead, Mehmet was thinking about walls, the thickness of them, the height of them, and the weaknesses of them. Next to Constantinople, the walls of Egrigoz were sheets of papyrus. According to his father, the walls of the Golden City could not be breached, but that was because his father did not know that he had devised a plan so perfect, so foolproof, that even all the armies of Christendom could not counter it.
He entered the courtyard and looked about for the Grand Vizier. Movement caught his eye; there were two men sparring in the arena. Kastrioti he knew at once. The Albanians thought they were something because they could hold a sword and make one. Illyrian swords were supposed to have been even better than the Greek ones. Who was Kastrioti sparring with? His opponent had his back to him but suddenly he turned. Of course, it could only be Vlad Dracula. He had the Draculesti mane of black. Surprisingly tall, too. He swung round to duck a strike. Mehmet turned his head until the Dracula torso was facing the other way, then looked at him again. He was wielding that sword with a passion. How many of those strokes could he manage? Quite a few, apparently. But then again, the sun was behind him.
There was the Grand Vizier at last. Halil Pasha was his father’s closest advisor, but rumour had it in the courtyards of Edirne that the pasha had put his father in a black mood ever since he had tried to block an edict about the payment of salaries to Christians in the janissary corps. The pasha had always been against the devsirme, the practice of sending the children of foreign vassals to fight against their own. He could not think why; it was the best edict the Osmani dynasty had ever written. He watched him cross the courtyard with an urgent stride. What there was to be urgent about Mehmet could not imagine. They were winning every battle. That much he would concede to his father. Murad had finally seen that taking Constantinople was imperative, and had started to do something about it. All his father needed now, to finish the work, was him. He stared at Vlad Dracula’s lean back again. The famous Draculesti family. The dangerous vassals of Wallachia his father was so keen to watch, the so-called guardians of the northern front. He almost felt like picking up Kastrioti’s sword and seeing which of them would get the better of the other, but to challenge the son of a vassal would be beneath him, especially now that he was regent.
Mehmet dismounted and threw his reins to the gatekeeper.
The entrance to his father’s quarters was in the eastern tower. The guard moved aside quickly as the Grand Vizier followed him in. Mehmet looked around. His father had excellent taste. The couches were comfortable, the floors covered in rugs. He settled onto the largest divan and wondered how long he should wait before he wrote to suggest his return. Egrigoz would bore him. His father thought that without amusement he would somehow become the scholar he wanted him to be. His eye roved over the books that were lined up around the walls of the salon. Mostly Greek, as he might have guessed. They did not have the same taste. His father did not understand his passions, could not even see them, or if he did he preferred to ignore them. He took off his cap and ran his hand over his skull. His mother, the Valide Hatun, had tried to insist that he wear a turban, but he hated the weight on his head. He stopped the Vizier as he was leaving.
‘As you probably know, my father has put me in charge, My Lord Pasha. You know what that means?’
‘That you will be joining us for dinner?’
‘Perhaps. I will have to see. What sport is there here?’
‘Hunting or sparring.’
‘I suppose the hunting is at least good. And the Draculesti brothers? How are they progressing?’
‘The eldest is being taught by Gurani.’
‘Gurani the Kurd?’ Mehmet grinned. ‘I hope he is using the whip on him. Oh, and one more thing, I will see the sons of Dracul this evening.’
‘The sons of Dracul? Might I ask why?’
‘Who is regent for his father here, My Lord? You or I?’
The Vizier looked as if he had swallowed a scorpion. ‘Shall I inform the gatekeeper, or will you?’
Mehmet always liked to make an entrance. The Sultan’s eldest son, Halil Pasha considered, was not a modest man, to say the very least. When God had distributed virtues, he had evidently decided that Mehmet could do without humility and had given him impudence instead. Murad would like to use his son’s impudence to help him take the Golden City of Constantinople. P
erhaps the thing was possible; perhaps it would be done. If it were done, Mehmet’s ascension to the throne would be without question. Impudence would have legitimate status. It would command an army of a hundred thousand men. He shuddered slightly, and leaned against the wall of the corridor, rubbing his temples. It was going to be a trying time. And what would be the outcome of it? Not, he suspected, what Murad hoped it would be. Dangerous waters would have to be steered, and he, Halil Pasha, would have to navigate them while Murad reposed at Manisa. Murad expected him to cover the boy’s botches. He was not going to do that. But there was one thing that Mehmet had done well to bring to his attention. From the way Vlad Dracula was moving back and forth in the courtyard today, Gurani had not so much as licked him with the whip. That was a first occurrence for Egrigoz.
He returned to his study and sent for Ahmed Gurani. Eventually, having made the point that he did not like to be summoned, the Kurd arrived with his habitual snarl.
‘You asked to see me?’
‘How are things progressing with Vlad Dracula?’ he asked, looking up.
The snarl changed. He thought he saw a glint of terror.
‘Prince Dracula will learn Turkish, if that is what you mean.’
Prince Dracula. ‘Then I am pleased to hear it. Very pleased. And is he a good student?’
Gurani hesitated. ‘No better than any other, and no worse.’
‘I see.’ Halil Pasha moved his quill across the desk. ‘Then you have had no cause to…discipline him?’
‘No.’
The Kurd strode out; Halil Pasha called him back.
‘Has Prince Dracula shown any signs of disturbance in his own self, any… disorder?’
‘Disorder? No. None at all.’
He nodded. Gurani left. He sat back in his chair and folded his hands. He used to wonder how Ahmed Gurani had lost his charity, but one day he found out. Gurani had spilled out the truth to him when he asked him why he never rode a horse. He was the last of his family line, he said. The Mongols had ridden into his village one day and massacred the rest, including his father, who had taken the stroke of a shoulder-height blade to save his sons and women. He did not like horses, Gurani had said. They carried the riders of the Devil, and pulled the coach of Iblis. Halil Pasha had never looked at horses the same way since. He thought of his own father, a respected judge who had died comfortably in his bed, and felt a stab of grief.
As a youth, Halil Pasha had been well taught. First the key passages from the Koran. All by heart. Then, since his father spoke the dialect of Alexandria as well as Latin and Greek, the texts of the Judeans followed. He had been the only boy of his town who could write Cyrillic as well as Arabic. He understood Aramaic, the language of his ancestors, and spoke the language of the Sassanids well enough to intercept a message and return it to their advantage, were it to come to war. Learn the language of your enemy, his father had always said. He paused. Was Vlad Dracula learning Turkish to comply or to conspire?
He left his salon chair and made his way to the courtyard to take the evening air. Learning Turkish was one thing, but becoming a Muslim was quite another. The real test was there, in faith. The Draculesti were Orthodox Christians, which made them different from the Catholics in their rites and in their minds. He had not forgotten the book he had found in the boy’s pack on the day of his arrival at Egrigoz fortress. The Book of Job was not a work most Christians would study. It was part of the Apocrypha, the hidden scripture of the Greeks. It had provoked serious debate in the library of Alexandria. The struggle between God and Satan was one the Christian Church preferred to conceal, and particularly the Church of Rome. The Greeks had translated it and debated it, and they continued to debate it. But the Catholics did not want to listen. It had been at the heart of their discord centuries ago. Interesting then, that Vlad Dracula should have it in his pack. Why a boy in the grip of seizures should seek solace in the story of Job was a mystery; he made a note in his head to bring the matter up. What was Vlad Dracula looking for in the pages of the Apocrypha, and what had he found? And furthermore, why was Gurani lying?
Chapter 26
Radu had something in his hand. Vlad held his brother’s wrist firmly between his fingers, and emptied his palm. He discarded the sweetmeats and slapped his brother’s face. Radu held his hand to his cheek and turned away sullenly.
‘Who gave them to you? The pasha?’
‘The guards,’ his brother muttered. ‘What’s wrong with you anyway? I like Halil Pasha.’
‘Like the pasha? You cannot like a Turk.’
‘Why not? You are learning Turkish.’
Vlad released him. ‘I have my own reasons for doing things, and they are not the same as yours.’
Kastrioti had said that the janissary corps would give them a way out, but to become a janissary required making an oath to the Sultan, and converting to the faith of the Turks. Neither of these felt like a way out, but at least by learning the tongue of the guards there was a chance that some locks in this fortress gaol might yet be turned. For Radu, in any case, conscription would be impossible. As a soldier, his brother would not last the month. At the very least Vlad needed to find a way to get them both out of Egrigoz and back to Edirne. They would be one step closer to Targoviste, and to liberty.
‘It’s just you and I now, Radu. We must look out for each other.’
‘What about Father and Mircea?’
He did not answer. The rope that bound him to his father and elder brother was thinning, and it frightened him a little. He fastened Radu’s doublet and pulled on his own.
The Sultan’s son had been watching them. Mehmet Celebi, as Halil Pasha called him, was curious. Curiosity was a good thing. It was useful, and he was going to exploit it.
‘When we are in the presence of the Sultan’s son, I want you to say nothing, nothing at all. I will be the one to talk and you will be the one to hold your tongue.’
They descended the steps of the tower into the central courtyard. The Sultan’s apartments were on the eastern side, away from the evening sun. As they crossed the yard he saw with relief that it was setting. The Turkish sun was like a shackle of fire he could not shake off. Ever since what the Vizier had called his seizure, the sun on his skin bothered him, but other, smaller things bothered him also. His undershirt scratched against his skin; water hurt it. The water was either too warm or too cold; he did not know which. But the worst of everything was the sun. He dreamed of caves and underground places; of seeking out the shadows, of places without light.
They passed beside a window and he took a breath of air, fighting off the memory of Snagov Island, the chapel and the presence he had felt that still seemed fixed upon his back. His skin prickled; the hairs on the nape of his neck began to softly rise. He turned round sharply.
‘What’s the matter?’ Radu whispered.
He shook his head and looked at his younger brother, wondering what it must be like to never have to worry about what was going on inside your body.
At the end of the courtyard the guard doubled and so did the servants. The walls were hung with tapestries. The furnishings changed; the guards changed. Even the door was different; it was a curved wooden gate, shot through with iron bolts. They had reached the imperial apartments. The guard looked them up and down, made them hold out their hands. They entered. At the end of the chamber, which was opulent by Egrigoz standards, with its floors lined with woven rugs of blue and crimson, stood the heir to the sultanate of Anatolia, Murad’s eldest son.
‘You have kept me waiting. You know that it is inexcusable to a regent.’
The Sultan’s son was not much older than him; they could be brothers. Beside the hearth was a chequers board.
‘Do you play?’
‘My brother does.’
Mehmet barely looked at Radu. ‘You’re right not to. Games are for children. Hunting is the best sport. Perhap
s one day you may accompany me. Would you like that?’
‘I don’t hunt.’
‘Then we will have to find something that you do like.’
He looked long and hard at Mehmet’s face. It was nothing like his father’s, the Sultan’s. Murad’s face was all flesh; his son’s was all bone. While Murad did not look like a conqueror, his son did.
‘Are you well? You have no colour. Perhaps the food here is too strong for you. What do you eat in Wallachia – fish?’
‘I would like to ask a favour of you.’
‘Good. What is it?’
‘We need to return to Edirne. The palace is further north, and I think it would do my brother good to be closer to home. Can you arrange it?’
‘I’m sorry, that won’t be possible.’ Mehmet glanced at Radu. ‘Your brother looks well enough to me. He may return to his quarters. You can stay here, and we will drink a glass of coffee.’ He gestured to the attendant.
Vlad stared at the attendant and saw that he was not a Turk. Perhaps he was a Serb, a captive from the wars. One half of Serbia was already in Turkish hands; he wondered how long it would be before the rest was taken, and what his father would do if it was. He removed his eyes from the attendant and fixed them back on Mehmet. ‘Radu is my brother,’ he said firmly, ‘I would prefer him to stay.’
Mehmet laughed. ‘Your brother. You have a good deal to learn, Vladislaus Dracula. I had a brother once but it didn’t take me long to learn what you will have to learn.’
The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer Page 15
