Vampire Impaler (The Immortal Knight Chronicles Book 6)

by Dan Davis

  “Black Walter, when did you become so very sensible?” I quipped.

  He shrugged. “Must have been sometime this last century.”

  “Well, it is good advice. Let us not rush straight at danger for once. Take as many men as you need, see what you can see, and return before dark.”

  The messenger was sent away with my apologies, explaining that I was fatigued from the long journey and would be well enough to call on the prince in a day or two, God willing.

  While my men roamed the city, I had my servants clean and repair my armour and clothing. A few of them went into the city to purchase cloth and thread and clothes brushes and it was these men who came hurrying back across the field with word that Vlad Dracula himself was riding from the city with a hundred lords behind him.

  “He has come for you,” Eva suggested, before ordering her squire to fetch her armour.

  “I do not think mail and plate will save us,” I said to her as she ducked inside our tent.

  “You should prepare yourself,” she called in return.

  “He could be going anywhere,” I said but I saw the great party of riders now on the road and they turned from it onto the track through our great field. “Although it seems he is coming here.”

  His bodyguards and lords stayed far behind him and the prince rode up in his finery on a magnificent charger. I went forward from my tents to greet him.

  “I see you are feeling better, Richard,” Dracula called, smiling beneath his broad-brimmed hat. “That makes me so very glad.”

  “My lord,” I said, smiling. “I did not expect such an informal and intimate greeting as this, considering that you are now the Prince of Wallachia in the eyes of God and of all men.”

  His expressed turned serious. “I do not think such close friends as we need be beholden to formality, Richard.”

  I bowed. “What an honour to be named friend by one such as you, my lord.”

  He seemed amused again, though he did not smile. “Indeed? Well, then, as a friend who feels honoured, I ask that you join me on our hunt today.”

  “Thank you, my lord, but I am much weakened by the weeks of riding and the hard-fought battle.”

  “Nonsense. I can see with my own eyes that you are as strong as a bull. Have them bring your horse. I shall insist if I have to, and I would really rather not do so.”

  I glanced at his waiting men. From the corner of my eye I saw Eva inside our tent with her sword drawn.

  “It would be a pleasure, my lord,” I said and bowed again for good measure.

  While the grooms prepared my courser, I dressed as swiftly as I could.

  “These clothes are suitable for riding,” I said to my valet, “though they are not fine enough for noble and royal company.”

  “It’s all you got, Richard,” he said. “You want better, you got to buy better.”

  “Watch your tone,” Eva warned him. “And Richard, I think your attire is the least of your worries, don’t you?”

  “Oh?” I said. “You think our prince means to have me murdered in the trees?”

  “It would not be the first convenient hunting accident to befall a prince’s enemy.”

  “I wish Walt and Rob were here,” I said. “Or Garcia, Jan, or even Claudin.”

  “Take Serban,” she said. “He did not go into the city with the others.”

  “That is something, I suppose, though an immortal would be better.”

  “You could take me?” she said. “And damn their judgments.”

  “That would be unnecessarily provocative. I will be well. All will be well.”

  “Do not placate me as though I am a child,” she scowled. “I know full well this may be the last time I see you.”

  I crossed to her and looked into her worried eyes. “I mustn’t keep our prince waiting.” I bent to her and kissed her lips. There was nothing more to be said.

  On the hunt, we rode down through the valley while the hunting masters and dogs ranged ahead into the broadleaf woodlands. It was a good day for a pleasant ride.

  “Not a bad day to die on, right, Serban?” I called to my Wallachian servant.

  He scowled under his hat, hunched over in the saddle. “Too hot.”

  “You would rather die in winter? Come on, man, if they do turn on us I will ensure I give myself a glorious death. I will kill a score at least, what about you?”

  Serban shook his head and muttered something about Englishmen I could not quite catch. “Death is not to be mocked.”

  “I do not truly believe the Prince will murder us today,” I said. “He could have me executed in a dozen simpler ways. So, enjoy the ride. Perhaps we will scare up a deer or two.”

  “Not much deer in these parts no more.”

  I shook my head. “Serban, assuming we survive the day, you must do as agreed and find word of immortals in these lands. Any stories, any legends. Anything at all.”

  He did not meet my eye. “I will, my lord. I will.”

  Dracula sent word for me and I was escorted through the masses of horsemen until I rode beside the prince. A hundred men before us and a hundred behind but we were alone, side by side. The woodland was ancient but large sections had been cleared for timber, revealing distant mountain peaks over the tree tops. Crows cawed and hopped between the branches overhead as we crossed a wide clearing.

  Dracula glanced at me from beneath his hat. “This sun does not bother you, Richard?”

  “I love the feel of the sun on my skin,” I said, grinning. “Do you not, my lord?”

  He smiled back at me, his long moustache curling up with his lips. “In my youth, I delighted in Wallachian summers, whether in the mountains or on the plains. However, I was sent to Anatolia when I was a prisoner of the Turk. The sun is different there. Relentless and punishing. I learned to despise it.”

  And since you were turned, it burns your skin most frightfully, marking you as something not quite human.

  “A terrible shame, my lord, for the summers of your land are delightful.”

  “Is it different in England? I hear the land of your birth is dark, and wet, and cold, all the year around.”

  “Indeed, no, my lord. The weather of England is perfection itself. The summers are warm and long, though rain falls at night so that the crops grow tall and strong every season. Spring comes early, with an abundance of rain to enrich the soil for planting, and the harvests are the most bountiful on earth. Our winters are cold but not deadly. If there is an Eden on earth, my lord, it is England.”

  He grunted in disbelief. “I have it on good authority that England is a deeply unpleasant land for civilised men.”

  “Oh? And from where did you hear such a thing?” I asked, suspecting that William had filled his ears with it.

  He waved a hand dismissively in my direction. “I received an excellent education, as befitting a future prince. I learned many things about England, even though it is a distant and unimportant kingdom. Perhaps I shall journey there and see for myself if what I have learned is true.”

  I will kill you before you go causing mischief in my homeland.

  “That would be a great honour for me and my people, though I fear you have much to occupy you here, at the moment.”

  He smiled again at that. “You are quite correct. Hunyadi is dead, and Hungary looks inward. Branković is dead and Serbia is without a leader. What do you believe Sultan Mehmed will do now?”

  “Why would I know better than you, my lord?”

  He smiled. “I would very much appreciate your advice, sir.”

  A wiser man than I could turn such situations in his favour. If I had the wits to do it, I could have given Dracula false advice in order to manipulate his actions or plant seeds which I could later harvest. I even had a distant, fantastical notion that I could turn him from loyalty to William to joining our cause in bringing his destruction.

  But I was not a wise man and so I decided to speak the truth, as I saw it, and to advise him as if he were a mortal ruler.<
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  “The Sultan will invade Serbia again, though he will not attack Belgrade. He has patience. Mehmed will slip into the rest of Serbia almost unopposed and his garrisons will embed themselves.”

  Dracula tilted his head. “What do you believe I should do about this?”

  “Your western border with Serbia will become a possible line of attack from the Turks and so you are right to be concerned. But there is little you can do to stop it. If you move alone to push the Turks from Serbia, you will be invaded on your southern border. If I were you, my lord, I would ask the Hungarians what they intend to do about the Turkish threat.”

  He nodded noncommittally and said nothing for a while before casually asking another question. “What else needs to be done with regards to the Hungarians?”

  “The west is not the only border you need be concerned about. You must understand what is planned for Transylvania, whether the lands will be properly protected by Hungarian armies or if the towns there will have to stand alone. And if they must defend themselves, how will they do so? Which of them, if any, are considering bowing down to the Turks to protect themselves?”

  “How might I discover these things, Richard?”

  I looked up at the distant mountains. “You would write to the mayors of each of the important towns of Transylvania and ask them explicitly. But you cannot be certain that what they say is honest and so your messengers will have to attempt to discover the truth by whatever means they can before they return with the message.”

  He pursed his full lips, seemingly amused by something. “What of my eastern border, Richard?”

  To the east of Wallachia was Moldavia, which had traditionally been in vassalage to Poland, to the north. Its position, northeast of Wallachia and the Danube, had spared it from conquest by the Turks until about 1420 when the old Sultan Mehmed I had raided. And then Moldavia had turned inward to wage a series of civil wars in the 1430s and 1440s which Sultan Murad had taken advantage of by promoting one side over another. And by 1455, Peter III Aron had accepted Turkish suzerainty and agreed to pay tribute.

  “Moldavia? I have little knowledge of it, my lord, other than to suspect that Peter III Aron should be removed by some means or other and your cousin Stephen should take his place on the throne. And Stephen is in favour with the Hungarians so it would draw Moldavia away from Poland and into the fight alongside Hungary and Wallachia against the Turks. Assuming you believe Stephen capable of resisting the Turks, of course.”

  He snapped his eyes to me. “What do you know of my cousin Stephen?”

  “Nothing at all,” I said. “I believe he is in Wallachia, however.”

  Dracula snorted a laugh. “He is with us on this very hunt, sir. At the front, with a bow and a spear and keen to bring down both stag and boar. He loves hunting and he loves war.”

  “I am sure that he does. And how many wars has he fought, my lord?”

  Dracula whipped his bulging eyes to me. “Do you mock me, sir? Do you mock my cousin?”

  “I would never presume to mock royalty, my lord. I merely wonder how a man can love something he has so little experience of.”

  Dracula held himself stiff in the saddle. “And yet a man may love women before he has ever had one for himself.”

  I laughed. “Very true, my lord.”

  We rode into shadow beneath ancient trees once more. “What would you recommend I do with regards to my boyars, Richard?”

  I turned, surprised at his question. Asking me about foreign matters made some sense, as I had spent over a decade at the Hungarian court and travelling through Transylvania and latterly Serbia but Wallachian politics was almost entirely opaque to outsiders.

  “I am afraid I know nothing of your boyars, my lord and so my advice can only be general. All princes should reward his most loyal and most capable men and all disloyalty and incompetence must be punished.”

  “Ah,” he said. “What punishment would you recommend?”

  “That would depend on the crime, my lord.”

  “And a severe crime would require a severe punishment, would you say?”

  I wondered if I was being set up in some way. Dracula held himself with a stiffness that suggested suppression of some high emotion and I feared it may well be murderous rage. Was he leading me to condemn the guilty to a terribly punishment only for him to then accuse me of some such crime in turn?

  “The punishment of crimes is surely established by the law?” I ventured. “And by custom.”

  He scowled. “The prince is the law.”

  That was very far from being the truth, as I had seen for myself when Dracula’s father had attempted to have Hunyadi summarily executed only to be refused by his council of boyars. But I had no wish to argue the point so I held my tongue and we continued in silence.

  “Much of what you say is true,” Dracula said eventually. “I must discover what my enemies and allies intend. But it is imperative that my cousin Stephen takes Moldavia, for that shall be a new kingdom to join us in our struggle.”

  Yes but for Hungary or for the Turks?

  “So you will lead your armies into Moldavia?”

  “I would dearly like to do so but I have work here. Instead, I shall send six thousand horsemen with my cousin. With these men, he can take his throne, as I have taken mine.”

  “Forgive me, my lord, but will that not weaken your defence of Wallachia against Turkish incursion?”

  “It will not. For I shall welcome the Sultan’s emissaries and I shall agree to their demands.”

  “You will do what? My lord, you took the throne from a man who was too acquiescent with our enemies and yet you will now do the same?”

  He lowered his head and glared at me. “I shall acquiesce only for as long as is necessary to strengthen my position and my kingdom.”

  It sounded like the justification a man makes to himself when he knows what he is doing is wrong. It is only this once, he says, lying to himself. It is for a good reason that I do this thing I know is wrong. All men do this, and women also, though for a peasant it may mean nothing more than encroaching on his neighbours’ land, or for a merchant it may mean undercutting a partner, or for a woman it may be betraying the trust of a friend or her child. But for a prince, it might mean beggaring away his kingdom.

  Whether it was that or whether Dracula was William’s man, working for the Turks all along, I could not yet say.

  “How will your lords react?”

  “Those loyal to me shall react by demonstrating their loyalty.”

  “That is quite a test. You are asking your boyars to trust that you will not…”

  “Not go the same way as my father? The father that you killed with your own hand?”

  “Yes.”

  “You disapprove of paying tribute to purchase myself time?”

  “What could possibly be worth the cost, my lord?”

  “There are a great many boyars in Wallachia who care nothing for their people. They care nothing for their prince, nor for Christendom, nor for God above. They care only for themselves and so these men must be dealt with. I must have time to clear Wallachia of its rats. A prideful man would not stoop so low as giving in to the Turks but I consider my pride as nothing when compared to the continued existence of my people. I shall sacrifice my pride and my morality for them. And when my people are free and safe then I shall feel pride in myself once more. Do you understand?”

  It sounded ominous to me. “I do not know.”

  “You will, in time. And I hope that you will help me.”

  “What would you have me do?”

  Dracula hesitated, as if he was about to say more but stopped himself. “I would ask that you have patience and trust me for a while longer.”

  “Have patience? That has rarely been a virtue of mine.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” he said, smiling and watching me.

  “My lord, I am nothing more than the captain of a mercenary company. If you will pay us, we will remain on hand.�
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  Dracula smiled. “I am delighted to hear it. You will be right where I want you.”

  ***

  “You are a fool,” Eva said.

  Stephen nodded emphatically. “It is clear now that he is both an immortal of William and an agent of the Sultan. We must dispose of him immediately before he turns on us.”

  “Keep your damned voice down, Stephen,” I said. We were meeting in our house in Târgoviște, in my bedchamber, without servants in attendance. It was as private as we could manage in that city but one never could know who might be listening. “It is hardly a surprise. We knew this would happen.”

  Earlier that day, Vlad Dracula had done as he had said, receiving the Sultan’s emissaries at Târgoviște with extreme courtesy. I had expected Dracula to pay the annual tribute, and it was agreed at two thousand gold ducats, but then the Turks had demanded the resumption of the rights of access that Vladislaus II had given. That was the right of free passage through Wallachia for Turkish soldiers so that they could raid the rich towns of Transylvania. In exchange, the Sultan would recognise Dracula as the rightful ruler of Wallachia. This meant the Sultan would not seek to remove him or undermine him nor would he invade or raid his lands.

  Dracula readily assented.

  He did at least decline their offer to travel to Constantinople to make his obeisance to the Sultan in person but how much meaning that had we could not agree.

  “And there is Moldavia to the east likewise rolling over without a fight,” Eva said.

  Stephen of Moldavia had taken the throne there with Wallachian support and so there was now a unified front of sorts but it seemed as though both kingdoms would simply continue to pathetically submit to the Turks.

  “Can you really blame them?” Stephen had said. “By submitting, they hold on to their lives and their position. Why challenge the established order when it is that very order which keeps you where you are?”

  “I do blame them,” I said. “Not just the princes but the boyars of both kingdoms who allow it. It is weakness. It is treachery. They throw their people to the wolves so that they may sit in their palaces and pretend to be lords and kings.”