The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer

by Lucille Turner

  Vlad shook his head and smiled. ‘My father would be worried.’

  Anton pressed his shoulder. The courtyard of the monks was as it had always been. The garden of herbs flourished in the sun. The chapel, now a lonely reminder of his father’s lost patriarchate, dazzled in the centre like an opal. ‘People change; battles are fought and won. Much can be overcome if the will is there to do it.’

  The monks served them honeyed mead; the late summer sun skewed the yard in two.

  ‘I have heard that my father took his own life. That is why I have come here. I need to understand. To know…’

  ‘What he was like?’ Anton clasped his hands together; they were wrinkled and worn, the hands of an old man, but his face was still keen, his eyes bright. ‘He was what his life made him. Conflicted, divided. Torn between staying and going, as we all must be. I gave him the rites myself, as he wanted me to.’ He nodded, lost inside a memory. ‘He gave his life for you and your brother, but for you especially, since you always were his favourite son.’

  He shook his head and smiled.

  ‘You do not agree,’ said Anton, ‘but that is because you did not know him well enough.’

  ‘He wanted Mircea to rule, never me.’

  ‘Perhaps, but still he gave his life so that you would gain your freedom, and now you must reward him by making something of it.’

  He closed his eyes. The air hummed with life. ‘And my brother?’

  Anton shook his head. ‘Do not look for what you cannot find. I don’t know what happened to Mircea, and I doubt that you will find it out.’ He stood up. ‘But I have something for you. Your father wanted you to have it.’

  A few moments later the friar reappeared. In his hands he held a bundle of scrolls tied together with a leather strap.

  ‘They are from the library of Constantinople. He brought them back with him. Take them, read them, keep them. It may be all we have left of the Greeks. Your father would rest in peace to know that they were safely in your hands.’

  He closed his fingers over the bundle, and took it. ‘My father’s name; is it in these pages?’

  ‘A name is what you make it, and the same is true of all of humankind, whether it is strigoi or whether it is not,’ said Anton and he opened the monastery gate. ‘To find the good, you must acknowledge the evil. Remember that.’

  Vlad stepped out onto the hilltop. Targoviste squatted in the valley, red-tiled and golden in the sun. South of it was the Danube and further still was the border of old Thrace and the Golden City by the sea, where the scrolls of the Greeks had once resided. The bundle in his hand was only one small part of a far greater chronicle – his father’s legacy. One day, God willing, he would win it back.

  Chapter 66

  Alba Jula, Transylvania

  November 1456

  A Hungarian coach slowed to a stop in the main square of the citadel and emptied its cargo of travellers onto the cobbles, where they departed their separate ways in a matter of moments, leaving Father Popescu waiting on the bishop’s instructions, which had been explicit. He was to send a man to help him. On no account was Popescu to attempt the walk alone, which could be treacherous for a man of his age, given that there had been a frost every day this month, and the ground was practically frozen underfoot. Hearing this, Popescu had replied by letter that he did not feel so old as His Excellency seemed to think he was, and that he was perfectly able to walk the short distance from coach to cathedral, unaided. He did not even need a stick, he had said. But the bishop was having none of it. His man was approaching even now, hurrying against the morning wind, the collar of his cloak drawn up against the cold, while the rest trailed behind him like a sail.

  ‘No hat?’ said the bishop, in surprise.

  Father Popescu took off his cloak and handed it to the attendant. ‘The coach was covered. I assure you I was quite comfortable.’

  ‘We have a presbytery now. It will be warmer in there.’

  They entered into the hall of the bishop’s new residence.

  ‘It is good of you to come so quickly. The snow has not arrived yet, but I do not think it will be long.’

  They entered a small salon, where a cedar wood fire was burning in the grate.

  ‘From your message, it seemed urgent.’

  The Bishop of Alba Jula pulled out his spectacles. ‘When you see the contents of this letter, I think you will agree with me. You will see that the paper is marbled,’ added the bishop as he unfurled it. ‘It was delivered into my hands by a Wallach, but you will notice the seal at the foot of the sheet.’ He paused. ‘It is genuine, of course. The sultanate is very particular about its correspondence. I will have to send it on to Buda. The Hungarians will want to see it. If His Eminence Cardinal Cesarini was still with us, I would have passed it on to him first. Perhaps I should send it to Vienna instead; the Holy Roman Emperor has the Pope’s ear.’

  ‘I would have said it was the other way around,’ Popescu remarked. He took the letter and read it through in silence.

  ‘Well, what do you think of it?’ the bishop asked, betraying his impatience in his voice.

  Popescu rubbed his brow. ‘I think it is a piece of slander sent by the man responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of our fellow Christians, not to mention the Emperor Constantine, a moderate, heroic soul, on what I can only speak of as the worst day of my life.’

  The bishop frowned. ‘I share your feelings, of course. Constantinople was a catastrophe, a true tragedy. But we can hardly ignore what the man is saying.’

  ‘May I sit down, Excellency?’

  Popescu warmed his hands. ‘You are aware of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Prince Dracul and his son Mircea?’ he said, at length, as if extracting a piece of poison from his mouth.

  The bishop sat on the edge of the chair opposite. ‘Dracul took his own life, apparently; it was his own doing.’

  ‘And his son, Mircea?’

  The bishop ignored the question and carried on speaking. ‘As you will see from the letter, it appears that the new sultan knew Dracul’s other son, Vladislaus, quite well from his time in captivity at the Osmani court. He talks at length about the Devil’s trance. It seems that all of Dracul’s sons are afflicted with it. If that is not a confirmation of what I have been saying these past few years, I don’t know what is. I wondered if you’d had a chance to meet this new “Count Dracula” since his return to Wallachia?’

  ‘They are not all afflicted by it, not at all,’ put in Popescu. ‘I met Dracul’s eldest son shortly before he died and I can confirm that he was as well as you or I. But you must have heard the reports from Belgrade, surely?’

  ‘The defence of the fortress? Yes, yes, of course. If it were not for the circumstances surrounding the event, I would have applauded the intervention of another Draculesti myself, but you do know that Belgrade and the surrounding regions have been struck down by the plague, don’t you? Janos Hunyadi has been felled by it, and he is not the only one.’

  The attendant arrived with refreshments; the bishop waved him aside. ‘Just before Hunyadi died, he handed his new count the throne of Wallachia without consulting anyone, not even the Hungarians. If anything, it makes me think that the Sultan might be right, and that Hunyadi has bequeathed us some sort of heretic. He even goes as far as saying that his minister was convinced the boy was possessed by a demon the moment he entered court, and that his father was driven to his death by the presence of the boy. He even felt obliged to call in a member of his own religious order to try to evict it from his body.’

  Popescu handed back the sheet of marbled paper in silence.

  ‘I have been looking into this more closely,’ continued the bishop, ‘and have gathered some information here, which I thought might interest you. Pure Rumani of course.’ The Bishop of Alba Jula picked up a bound journal and turned the first page. ‘A strigoi must be invit
ed in to either a body or a home before its powers can be used. This connection between the strigoi and the living is fundamental.’ He glanced up, adjusting his spectacles. ‘There is more. The “first life” reveals certain behaviours which predestine the individual concerned to the state of strigoism and from which no way out can be obtained unless by a great effort of will on the part of the affected individual. The strigoi can admit neither of confession, nor of prayer, nor of sacrament, since all three of these are an abomination to his kind. Likewise, he is unable to sleep in his bed, and in certain cases is unable to sleep at all. All of which ties in perfectly, I would say, with the Devil’s trance the Sultan has described. The reborn strigoi of the so-called second life is of course even more dangerous.’ He lowered the journal. ‘Did you ever give him confession?’

  Popescu looked up, his face white. ‘Prince Dracul or his sons?’

  ‘Either.’

  ‘No. I did not press him to it because I knew that he attended the chapel on the hill.’

  ‘The one at the Monastery of Saint Nicholas that feeds the Manichean friar? I hardly think that would be enough. And besides, you have no way of knowing for certain that he did. And what about his son Mircea, whom you say you knew well?’

  Popescu stared past the bishop’s shoulder. ‘I really can’t remember. I suppose he must have studied there. Prince Dracul liked to send all his sons to the monastery.’

  The bishop sat back and folded his hands. ‘Yes. Well, these reports are all very unsettling. I don’t like it and neither will the Pope. What the Holy Roman Emperor will say, I cannot imagine, but I don’t expect that Count Dracula will broaden his circle of friends. Nobody likes a heretic, still less a strigoi.’

  ‘There is no evidence to support this sort of rumour, My Lord Bishop,’ said Popescu, his voice weary. ‘I would have thought that we need men who are willing to stand up and defend our borders; now is hardly the time to chase them off our land.’

  ‘God has already defended our borders, Father. If he has sent a plague in the wake of it, then we must look more closely for the reason. I think the account of a man possessed by demons constitutes reason enough, don’t you?’

  Popescu shifted uncomfortably in the bishop’s armchair. ‘I suggested to Cardinal Cesarini before Varna that what was needed was a real debate on the subject of evil and how it is handled by the church, at a special synod. Until such matters are openly confronted, they will never go away.’

  The bishop shook his head. ‘Perhaps you are not familiar with the contents of the Book of John the Greek, called the Revelations?’

  ‘I have not read them in full.’

  ‘No, I did not think you had. All of the apocryphal texts are, in one way or another, fraught with inconsistencies. The whole thing is a hornet’s nest of trouble. The Pope is expecting to take delivery of a large volume of these works now that they have been retrieved from the Greeks. There will be a council, I imagine, set up to decide what is to be done with them. It will not be an easy task. There will be consequences. Dracul was known to have acquired some of the works of the Apocrypha personally. I do not think it would be amiss to question his son on the matter to see if he has inherited his father’s contentious interests.’

  Popescu’s mouth convulsed into a downward curve. ‘You want me to vilify him?’

  ‘I think that has already been achieved,’ said the bishop, firmly. ‘What I want you to do is to make him come forward, and confess of his own accord, which would be far more appropriate. Heresy has become a first concern since the fall of the Greeks. There is talk of a new Inquisition. Some of the cardinals have said they are against it, but I don’t think they’ll have much choice now.’

  ‘I see.’ Popescu stood up heavily, pushing his hand against the arm of the chair. ‘As it happens, I have been meaning to come to you on the matter of my resignation from office. I deeply regret, My Lord Bishop, that I will no longer be able to exercise my duties in the diocese. It is not a sudden decision. Ever since the loss of Constantinople, I have been thinking of it.’ His eyes met the bishop’s. ‘The truth is, I cannot reconcile myself to the inaction of our church in the matter of the defence of the Greeks.’

  The bishop’s chair creaked. Popescu’s hand searched for a fresh hold.

  ‘But have you thought it over properly?’ said the bishop at last. ‘You cannot leave the priesthood, naturally, but if you leave this diocese, you cannot be placed into another.’

  ‘I know, Excellency.’

  ‘And you will have to put it in writing; I will have to obtain the accord of His Holiness the Pope.’

  ‘I understand. You shall have the letter on my return. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I should leave before the weather gets any worse.’

  The bishop stood up. ‘Why not wait until tomorrow? It will be dark soon. I can arrange a room in the citadel if you prefer.’

  Popescu lodged his cloak over his shoulders. ‘I don’t mind the darkness. On the contrary, I find it rather calming. And anyway, the coach will be waiting.’

  ‘As you wish.’ The bishop jolted himself to standing. He placed his hand on Popescu’s shoulder. ‘You are making a mistake, Father. We both know that. In time, you will regret it.’

  Popescu opened the presbytery door. ‘I already do.’

  A howl of wind swept in, sending the journal of the Bishop of Alba Jula spinning off the table. The bishop slammed his hand against the Sultan’s letter. The priest left; the door was closed. The howl subsided. The bishop’s journal fluttered to the floor.

  Author’s Note

  When Bram Stoker wrote his famous Gothic novel, Dracula, in 1897, he placed the Dracul family at the heart of the vampire legend. He did not do this by chance. It was reputation, folklore, or both, which led him to connect the Draculesti with the ancient terror of the Romanian myth of strigoism. This novel is intended not only as a historical novel but also as an exploration of that myth.

  As you might expect from a name that has fuelled a legend, Dracul of Wallachia suggests paradox and controversy. Revered by most Romanians, Prince Dracul and his family died in dubious circumstances. How exactly this happened, or why, is not certain, but accounts suggest that there was more in play than politics.

  Vlad Dracula has taken his place among the monsters of history. Was he a vampire? Did his people believe in such things? In the folklore of Romania and the stories of its leaders, the vampire legend is endemic. The belief in vampires, or strigois, has given rise to numerous accounts and a wealth of fascinating and terrifying customs. The Romanian vampire differs at root to its current-day counterpart. It is a fallen creature of dark magic, an other-worldly shaman.1 In this novel the persona of the vampire is that of a brilliant fiend, a charmer and persuader, suspended between good and evil, life and death. While researching the ancient history of the region of Wallachia, I discovered the story of Zalmoxis, demigod of the region west of the Black Sea where present-day Romania is situated, recalling the myth of resurrection for which the vampire is best known. In it I saw a connection to the legend of the twice born, and the wolf-warriors who lived among them.

  Vlad Dracula was a hostage of the Ottoman Turks sometime between 1442 and 1448. Exact ages have not been specifically given throughout the novel, but Vlad was probably around twelve years old when he was taken, while Radu would have been around eight. In addition to his brothers Mircea and Radu, Vlad Dracula did have a half-brother, Vlad the Monk, who held the throne of Wallachia for a short time after his father’s death, but he does not appear in this story. Although the presence of other children, dead or alive, should be seen as solely for the purposes of fiction, it was widely believed that Dracul had other illegitimate offspring.

  After his release, Vlad Dracula did manage to take his father’s throne, but the Hungarians forced him to give it up, despite Hunyadi’s tacit support. In the wake of the fall of Constantinople he finally regained it an
d embarked upon the so-called reign of terror that fuelled his reputation as a hero and a vampire. It is worth noting, however, that German accounts of his atrocities could have been biased. The Catholic Church eventually appropriated the vampire legend and exploited it to great effect. The vampire came to be viewed as a demonic creature, a child of Satan. This served to reinforce the doctrine of the Church, which offered salvation and protection against the evils it still could not entirely account for in its own theology.

  When Mehmet II finally achieved his father’s dream and attacked Constantinople, the Roman Catholic Church failed to give Constantine, the last Greek Emperor, the support he needed to hold them back. Old arguments rose to the surface and the city fell to Muslim rule, sending a shock wave rippling through the Christian world.

  The massacre on the streets must have been terrifying. Fear of the Turkish armies resonated for generations to come in the minds of Western Europeans, and it has remained a black day in the annals of Greek history. Mehmet renamed his conquered city Istanbul, but it was west from the city that monks and scholars fled, taking with them the scrolls and codices of Constantinople’s famous library and fuelling the Renaissance that took root in Florence and spread through Western Europe, a rebirth and regeneration which the Eastern Orthodox peoples and the Turks that conquered them watched from a distance. The benefits of the Renaissance and the scientific revolution that followed did not happen in the Balkan countries, which had fallen under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and despite a period of intense expansion under Suleiman the Magnificent in the sixteenth century, the strength of the Ottoman Empire eventually declined. With the power of the ancient texts at its disposal, Western Europe rose to pre-eminence and exploited its hegemony to great advantage for centuries to come.