The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer

by Lucille Turner

  As if he had summoned Vlad Dracula with his thoughts, the Rumani prince entered the room accompanied by the guard he had placed at his door to warn him if there were any more incidents. He looked up at the boy from his seat at the dining table in astonishment. He looked entirely well. Never better, he thought, noticing that a flush of red, the first he’d seen on that face, had settled on Vlad Dracula’s cheeks and brow. It was nothing short of miraculous. The incident in the tower had confused him; it did not resemble the other seizure he had witnessed, although Halil Pasha suspected that there had been more of those than Vlad Dracula would like to admit, in which case he must have become increasingly adept at concealing them. This seizure had looked more like a deep sleep, although of course it wasn’t. Not with the sweating and the open eyes so black in their centres that they almost engulfed the whites. Fortunate that he had not bitten off his own tongue. Only the arm injuries continued to bewilder him. He made a note to consult a book later, and asked for more bread.

  Radu Dracula was the next to arrive. He looked pale and strained beside his brother. Halil Pasha looked at his plate and folded his hands together. Had Mehmet given him leave to dine, or had the boy come here of his own free will? That was unlikely, he thought, when Mehmet already had the boy’s will locked inside his iron palm. Was it incumbent upon him to say a word to Mehmet? If so, what kind of word? He looked back at Gurani. What was that on his face? Fear or gratification?

  Kastrioti caught his attention. He moved over to occupy the seat next to him. ‘What do you think?’ said the Albanian in his ear. ‘Too much whip or not enough?’

  ‘We do not speak about our guests in that fashion,’ he muttered. He pulled a wad of bread from the basket and tore it in two.

  Vlad Dracula approached the table and paused for just a moment in front of Gurani. Words were exchanged. Was that Turkish he was speaking? It sounded like it.

  ‘His Turkish is good, isn’t it, for a Rumani?’

  He tore his eyes away from Gurani. ‘The Rumani are not ignorant.’

  The Rumani were Goths, at root. Halil Pasha had once spent an entire evening listening to a story about the tribes of the Goths, from a Sufi dervish in a caravanserai on the edge of the Via Egnatia. The dervish had called them the wolf men, the founders of Old Rome. The idea had shocked him.

  You consider them the heirs of Rome?

  Call them what you like, My Lord, the dervish had replied, but they speak the same tongue as the Old Romans, and have the ability to be just as formidable on the battlefield.

  He looked towards the kitchens. ‘What are we waiting for?’ he grumbled. ‘We are all here, aren’t we?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Kastrioti.

  The door opened, the guard fanned out. Mehmet Celebi walked in. Halil Pasha closed his eyes.

  ‘Anything wrong, Hadji, whispered Kastrioti. You seem to have lost your appetite?’

  He drew back his seat and stood up.

  Mehmet waved him down and looked around the room. He ordered the guard to place a table close by, and sat down at it to a flurry of panicked servants.

  After the greeting was over, Halil Pasha smoothed out his napkin.

  ‘His Highness looks a great deal at the Dracula boy, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘Yes. The younger one in particular.’

  ‘He is Mehmet Celebi. He may look at whom he pleases.’

  ‘Yes. Certainly,’ said Kastrioti, and took up his spoon.

  Mehmet surveyed the table and beckoned over to him, hand raised, as though he was summoning more meat. Halil Pasha frowned, pushed his hands against the table and drew himself up to his fullest height. The servants pulled his chair back. What a charade, he thought uncomfortably. A guard at a far table smirked.

  ‘There is an announcement I think you should make,’ said Mehmet to him in a low tone. ‘It involves some of the hostages at your table. I will let you make it instead of me, if you like?’

  ‘Whatever Your Highness prefers.’

  ‘Then you shall make it,’ said Mehmet, rolling a piece of meat in his bread. ‘As you know, I will be leaving soon for Edirne.’

  ‘I did not know that,’ he replied. He wondered if he should send another letter to Murad. Then he remembered the contents of his last one, and decided to err on the side of caution.

  ‘Perhaps I will take a travelling servant with me. Him.’ Mehmet nodded at Radu, who sat rigid in his seat beside his brother.

  Halil Pasha pursed his mouth. ‘Might it not be better to take one of the kitchen boys? I think they could easily spare one.’

  Mehmet looked at him coldly. ‘He will do fine.’ He glanced at Radu, called over a servant and asked for wine.

  Halil Pasha made to rise. Did Mehmet expect him to explain the matter of his sodomy to Vlad Dracula? So it seemed. But the heir was not yet done with him. ‘And Kastrioti. Does he know he must report to the chief janissary at Edirne?’

  ‘I have already informed Kastrioti that he will be leaving soon.’

  ‘Good. In that case he might as well come with me. And has Dracula recovered from his faint?’

  Halil Pasha glanced from Mehmet, whose eyes were fixed on his meat, back to the table. Was Vlad Dracula listening to their conversation? Surely not; he could hardly hear from that table. ‘He has recovered quite well, I am pleased to say.’

  ‘Has he?’ Mehmet pulled a small fowl apart with his hands and licked his fingers. ‘Then tell him that he’d better say his goodbyes to his brother; I doubt they’ll see each other for a long time now.’

  ‘I would like to speak with you.’

  Halil Pasha jumped. There at his shoulder was Vlad Dracula, eyes blazing.

  Halil Pasha cleared his throat, ready to intervene. He looked at the Draculesti face and changed his mind.

  ‘I do not give my permission for my brother to be removed to Edirne.’

  Mehmet dipped his fingers in a bowl of rosewater. ‘A hostage does not give permission,’ he replied drily.

  ‘I ask you as one prince may ask another. If you need a servant, why not do as Lord Pasha suggests, and take one of your own? You have enough of them.’

  Mehmet threw his napkin on the table. ‘If you continue to question me, I will have you put to death.’ He took a draught of wine, and swallowed it.

  Halil Pasha gazed from one to the other, enthralled.

  ‘Then do it,’ said Dracula.

  The dining hall fell into sinister silence. In one corner of the room, someone moved a bench to get a better view.

  Halil Pasha grinned in horror. ‘If I may put in a word here, Highness, I suggest that your father…’

  ‘You may suggest nothing,’ Mehmet snapped. He turned to Vlad Dracula. ‘Contrary to what you may think, you are of little importance. Your father has already broken his treaty and put your lives in danger. If he carries on like that, you will be dead anyway before the year is over. If you are not, it can be easily enough arranged.’ Mehmet stood up.

  At the back of the hall a servant dropped a dish. Vlad Dracula remained standing, like one who has received a blow he has not yet taken in. His face had turned phantom white again. Halil Pasha looked at him, tense, waiting for something. Would he now be gripped by another seizure? He could hardly be blamed if he was. But no. He simply returned to his seat at the table, and continued to eat as though nothing had happened.

  Halil Pasha stared at his own plate. Who had ever stood up to Mehmet Celebi? Not many. None perhaps. Not even his father. In the commotion, Radu had been forgotten. The boy sat huddled on his seat, staring into nothing.

  Kastrioti leaned forward. ‘Then it is true, the breaking of the treaty?’

  ‘I do not think you should concern yourself with that, Georg,’ said Halil Pasha quietly.

  ‘Tomorrow you will have an easy time of it, then,’ said Kastrioti, pickin
g up his fork. ‘The Sultan’s regent will be gone, and he,’ he said, looking at Vlad Dracula, ‘will be quiet as a lamb.’

  ‘Will he?’ said Halil Pasha, picking up his spoon. ‘I doubt it.’

  When dinner was over, he took Vlad Dracula aside.

  ‘I am afraid that His Highness is right. Your father did break his truce. It is unfortunate. But I think, under the circumstances, you would do better to hold your tongue,’ hissed the Vizier. ‘Wallachia is re-forming its army and I believe your brother is at the head of it.’

  Radu pushed back his chair; his brother moved to stop him, but Halil Pasha grasped his arm, noticing how he did not flinch in pain at the marks beneath his sleeve.

  ‘The guard told me there has been a demon in your chamber every night since you arrived here.’ Dracula shook his hand away. ‘He is talking about your seizures, naturally. You cannot hide them, you know. Not for ever.’

  As the guard picked up his halberd, Halil Pasha took him aside. ‘Keep a close eye.’

  If he was right, and Vlad Dracula was, as everyone suspected, in the grip of Iblis, his powers of reasoning would be much impaired. And yet they did not seem to be. It was a conundrum, he decided, as he followed the young man’s ascension to the tower, noticing that he held his brother in a grip of steel. Try as Dracula might to keep his brother safe, by the time Mehmet had done with him, the younger one would be like one of those tellak boys from the bathing houses. They started off all wide-eyed and innocent until they understood that there was only one form of cruelty in the world, and it was not so much the bodily forcing of one man upon the other, as the subjugation of one man’s will to the desires of the other. And by the time they swallowed that, it was too late to change and the ruin was complete.

  It had always struck him as strange, he thought as he swept off down the corridor to his quarters, how this was not the case for females. Women were more fortunate than they knew. If Radu had been female, he could have been a hatun and lived out his days in the security of the seraglio, but since he was not, he would have to take his chances. When a man wearied of one tellak he moved on to the next, and if there was one thing Mehmet was not, it was loyal. The heir did not make friends, but he did make an impression. He also preferred to surround himself with those who resembled him, and those that did not resemble him straight away soon found that they had to. With these thoughts turning in his head, Halil Pasha made his way along the lamplit corridor, pausing every now and then to turn and look behind him. Was that the flickering of the lamp or was it something else? He peered into the darkness, wondering if Vlad Dracula’s demons were real, and picked up the pace.

  Chapter 36

  Radu turned his tear-stained face upwards. ‘It isn’t true. Father wouldn’t do it.’

  ‘It is true.’ Vlad sat on the edge of the bed, head in hands. He had thought that blood was all that mattered, but it wasn’t. The pilgrimage was one lie, their captivity another. Their packs had been delivered into the hands of the Grand Vizier from the very first day because their father had traded them for the scrolls of the Greeks. And if that were not enough, Mircea had been made regent because their father had marked him out as his successor right from the start. Now he was to lead their father’s army, the place that was Vlad’s own by nature and by right.

  He shook his head. ‘Mircea will never be able to do it,’ he muttered. ‘He won’t know what he’s doing.’

  Radu’s face changed. ‘That’s all you care about – Mircea. It has always been Mircea. Never anything else.’

  Vlad turned on him. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ Radu stood up. Vlad glanced at his brother. He seemed to have gained height. Something about him was different; what was it?

  He had a sudden memory of Mehmet’s face leaning over his beside the Vizier’s. And next to them was Radu’s. He grabbed Radu’s shoulders. ‘What does Mehmet want, and what have you given him?’

  Radu shook his hands away. ‘Why does it matter to you? All you care about is yourself.’

  Vlad flung his brother onto the floor; Radu hit the stone slabs, rolled onto his side and stood back up to face him. A fresh bout of strength streamed through him; he wanted to thrust his hands into Radu’s neck and take away his breath for not understanding Mehmet, but he took a step back instead, terrified. ‘You’re worse than all of them,’ he growled. ‘Father isn’t the traitor, you are.’

  Radu grabbed the things on his bed, plunged towards the door and halted.

  ‘If you walk out on me now,’ Vlad said, ‘you can never come back. I will not allow it.’

  Radu flung open the door.

  It was deep into the night when the upyr tapped him on the shoulder. He knew he was asleep because his hands had lost their feeling; they were curled up into claws like the paws of a dog or a wildcat. The moon hung like an orb outside the window slit of his chamber and winked at him through the shadow of a cloud, thrusting its light onto his face. He knew he must get up. He dragged his body into an upright position. The bulk of him felt slow and stiff, but he knew his legs could take him anywhere and that his arms had the strength of ten men.

  He thought about strategy. There would be a guard at his door, asleep, and two more at Mehmet’s. He understood vaguely that if he killed the guards there would be trouble, but the idea of trouble had lost its meaning. It did not belong with this new body; it did not matter to it. As he crossed the chamber he heard the breathing of the guard the other side of the door. It was calm and steady, the breath of a sleeper. The guard did not know that it was Saint Andrew’s Eve, and that on Saint Andrew’s Eve no door was locked to Vlad Dracula. His mind reached out to the metal of the lock and he listened as it clicked back into the cavity of the door, retreating into wood.

  He took the stairs downwards. Out in the courtyard, the upyr guided him on, between the known and the unknown, the moonlight and the shadows, as far as the tower that led to the imperial apartments. He knew that he needed a sword, and he knew where to get one. Every member of the imperial guard carried a kilij in their belt. All he had to do was take one off a guardsman. One part of Vlad Dracula told the other that their father had banned him from using the sword ever since he had drawn Mircea’s blood in training. Now that he thought about it, the day had been significant. It had been one of the signs that he had chosen to ignore along with all the others, but now that he put them all together they made perfect sense. They were the markers of his future, and only a fool would set them aside just for the sake of blood.

  By the time he reached Mehmet, there was movement all around him. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Radu was behind him, moving swiftly with the guards, and so he knew he must be quick. He felt for Mehmet’s throat, and found it. It was thick, strong and muscular, but he knew his hands were stronger. Guards seized his arms, but against the strength of ten men what could two guards do? Only Mehmet did not move; he struggled for his breath, but the upyr would not let him have it. You are the same, you and Mehmet, the upyr said. A beast with two heads.

  His hand slackened. The guards swept his arms behind his back. He was led from the chamber at the point of a halberd, until he had gone from Radu’s life behind a door he could not open. Only then did his father, who battled with the upyr through that night and the next, finally explain Varna. He said that Varna had been forced upon him, and that he would pay the price for it yet. He warned him about Mehmet, and asked him why he had listened to the upyr when he knew that on Saint Andrew’s Eve he must close his eyes and ears and hear nothing but the sound of his own breath. He told him that the throne of Wallachia was safer with Mircea, and that one day he would understand.

  He clawed back from the hollow space and slept his way to morning, as though he had risen from the tomb and would wake up to the whisper of a prayer.

  Chapter 37

  ‘The punishment is evident, Highness. Although to ha
ve Vlad Dracula executed, your father will have to be consulted.’

  Mehmet blinked. His head hurt, his eyes hurt and his neck felt like it had been cut with a blade of fire.

  Halil Pasha stood up. ‘I should call a physician.’

  ‘Wait.’ He pulled up the hem of his collar. ‘I do not want a physician.’

  ‘But, Highness, I really think we should…’

  He held up his hand. ‘I will do the thinking,’ he croaked. He pictured Dracula making his way past all the guards with no alarm raised. ‘Wasn’t his door supposed to be locked at night?’

  The Grand Vizier looked uncomfortable. ‘As far as I know. Although when I questioned the guard, he seemed certain that the order had been given to leave the door unfastened. Personally I gave no such instruction. I will see that the guard is disciplined.’

  Mehmet did not answer. The fact was that if Radu had not stepped forward and pulled his brother off, he would have no neck left at all. He rubbed his chin. It was not the prospect of dying that scared him. He simply did not like the idea of being killed. Then again, it was an impressive risk that Vlad Dracula had taken. He had to give him that. Surely he must have known that execution would be the outcome. If he didn’t, it would make him a fool, and he did not see Vlad Dracula as a fool. The Grand Vizier might well have a smug look on his face for having anticipated the Draculesti danger, but like any other danger, it could be remedied easily enough. Only what he did not want to do was tell his father. He knew what his father would do; he would put both the Draculesti brothers to death without a second’s thought. But that would almost be too easy. If Vlad Dracula was to be punished, he would have to feel it properly, as it should be felt. A whipping might be a first step, for the sake of appearances, but what he had in mind would be far more effective.