Immanuel's Veins (2 page)

The Martyr's Song

T
HE
C
ALEB
B
OOKS
Blessed Child
A Man Called Blessed

DEK
K
ER THRILLER

THR3E
Obsessed
Adam
Skin
Blink of an Eye

Immanuel's Veins

TED DEK
K
ER

© 2010 by Ted Dekker

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Published in association with Thomas Nelson and Creative Trust Inc., 5141 Virginia Way, Suite 320, Brentwoood, TN 37027.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-59554-762-0 (IE)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dekker, Ted, 1962–

Immanuel's veins / Ted Dekker.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-59554-009-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Soldiers—Russia—Fiction. 2. Kantemir family—Fiction. 3. Dimitrie Cantemir, Voivode of Moldavia, 1673-1723—Family—Fiction. 4. Nobility—Moldavia—Fiction. 5. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 6. Moldavia—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3554.E43I53 2010

813'.54—dc22

2010016894

Printed in the United States of America

10 11 12 13 14 LBM 5 4 3 2 1

For King Solomon

CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

To all who have ears to hear:

I am dead. But perhaps you are as well, if you can read this account penned by a dead man.

I, Saint Thomas of Moldavia, make known this report of all that transpired so that any who seek the truth will know what happened.

Some called me a heretic. They said that my dealing with the matters herein could only mean that I was touched by the devil himself. Some said that I was a creature of the night, a dragon, a beast turned into man. Some said that I was mad, and I will attest that I myself once would have believed that this tale could only come from the mind of a raving lunatic.

But I swear by my very own blood that I am neither devil nor beast and that this is not the tale of a lunatic—unless by love I have been driven hopelessly mad, a reasoning that tempts me more often than I dare admit. Judge it for yourself.

I implore you to open your hearts and your minds to this account. Then, when you have turned the last page, if you still do not believe that what you have read is true, you may say that I deserved my death.

ONE

M
y name is Toma Nicolescu and I was a warrior, a servant of Her Majesty, the empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, who by her own hand and tender heart sent me on that mission at the urging of her most trusted adviser, Grigory Potyomkin, in the year of our Lord 1772.

It was a year of war, this one the Russo-Turkish War, one of so many with the Ottoman Empire. I had slain the enemy with more ambition than most in the humble service of the empress, or so it has been said, and having earned Her Majesty's complete trust in my loyalty and skill, I was dispatched by her to the south and east, through Ukraine to the principality of Moldavia, just north of the Black Sea and west of Transylvania, to the country estate of the Cantemir family nestled up against the base of the Carpathian Mountains.

To my understanding, the family descendants of Dimitrie Cantemir, the late prince of Moldavia, were owed a debt for his loyalty to Russia. Indeed, it was said that the path to the heart of Moldavia ran through the Cantemir crest, but that was all politics— none of my business.

On that day my business was to travel to this remote, lush green valley in western Moldavia and give protection to this most important family who retreated to the estate every summer.

Russia had occupied Moldavia. Enemies were about with sharp knives and blunt intentions. The black plague had mercilessly taken the lives of many in the cities. A ruler loyal to Catherine the Great would soon be selected to take the reins of this important principality, and the Cantemir family would play a critical role in that decision as they held such a lofty position of respect among all Moldavians.

My charge was simple: No harm could come to this family. These Cantemirs.

The sun was sinking over the Carpathian peaks to our left as my friend in arms, Alek Cardei, and I sat atop our mounts and stared down at the valley. The great white castle with its twin spires stood on emerald grasses an hour's ride down the twisted path. A tall stone wall ran the length of the southern side where the road ran into the property. Green lawns and gardens surrounded the estate, encompassing ten times the ground as the house itself. The estate had been commissioned by Dimitrie Cantemir in 1711, when he was prince of Moldavia for a brief time before retreating to Turkey.

“I see the twin peaks, but I see no gowns,” Alek said, squinting down the valley. His gloved hand was on his gold-busted sword. Leather armor wrapped his chest and thighs, same as mine. A goatee cupped his chin and joined his mustache but he'd shaved the rest of his face in the creek earlier, anticipating his ride into the estate, the arriving hero from abroad.

Alek, the lover.

Toma, the warrior.

I looked down at the golden ring on my finger, which bore the empress's insignia, and I chuckled. Alek's wit and charm were always good friends on a long journey, and he wielded both with the same ease and precision with which I swung my sword.

I nodded at my fair-headed friend as he turned his pale blue eyes toward me. “We're here to protect the sisters and their family, not wed them.”

“So then you cannot deny it: the sisters
are
on your mind. Not the mother, not the father, not the family, but the sisters. These two female frolickers who are the talk of Ukraine.” Alek turned his mirth-twisted face back to the valley. “Heat has come to the dog at last.”

To the contrary, though Alek could not know, I had taken a vow to Her Majesty not to entangle myself while here in Moldavia. She was all too aware of the sisters' reputations, and she suggested I keep my head clear on this long assignment that might too easily give us much idle time.

“One favor, Toma,” she said.

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

“Stay clear of the sisters, please. At least one of you ought to have a clear mind.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

But Alek was a different matter, and there was hardly any reason to deny him his jesting. It always lifted my spirits.

If I were a woman, I would have loved Alek. If I were a king, I would have hired him to remain in my courts. If I were an enemy, I would have run and hid, because wherever you found Alek you would find Toma, and you would surely die unless you swore allegiance to the empress.

But I was the furthest thing from a woman, I had never aspired to be a king, and I had no mortal enemies save myself.

My vice was honor: chivalry when it was appropriate, but loyalty to my duty first. I was Alek's closest and most trusted friend, and I would have died for him without a care in the world.

He blew out some air in exasperation. “I have gone to the ends of the earth with you, Toma, and I would still. But this mission of ours is a fool's errand. We come here to sit with babies while the armies dine on conquest?”

“So you've made abundantly clear for a week now,” I returned. “What happened to your yearning for these sisters? As you've said, they are rumored to be beautiful.”

“Rumors! For all we know they are spoiled fat poodles. What can this valley possibly offer that the nights in Moscow can't? I'm doomed, I tell you. I would rather run a sword through myself now than suffer a month in that dungeon below.”

I could see through his play already. “From frolicking sisters to suicide so quickly? You're outdoing yourself, Alek.”

“I'm utterly serious!” His face flashed, indignant. “When have you known me to sit on my hands for weeks on end with nothing but a single family to occupy me? I'm telling you, this is going to be my death.”

He was still playing me, and I him. “So now you expect me to give you leave to exhaust your fun here, then go gallivanting about the countryside seeking out mistresses in the other estates? Or would you rather slip out at night and slit a few evil throats so you can feel like a man?”

He shrugged. “Honestly, the former sounds more appealing.” His gloved finger stabbed skyward. “But I know my duty and would die by your side fulfilling it.” He lowered his hand. “Still, as God is my witness, I will not tolerate a month of picking my teeth with straw while the rest of the world fights for glory and chases skirts.”

“Don't be a fool, man. Boredom could not catch you if it chased you like a wolf. We'll establish a simple protocol to limit all access to the estate, post the sentries, and mind the women—I understand that the father will be gone most of the time. As long as our duties are in no way compromised, I will not stand in the way of your courting. But as you say, they may be fat poodles.”

A sound came from behind us. “Who has business with the Cantemirs? Eh?”

I spun to the soft, gravelly voice. An old shriveled man stood there, grasping a tall cane with both hands. His eyes were slits, his face was wrinkled like a dried-out prune, and his long stringy gray hair was so thin that a good wind would surely leave him bald. I wasn't sure he could actually see through those black cracks below his brow.

Alek
humphed
and deferred to me. How had this ancient man walked up on us without a sound? He was gumming his lips, toothless. Silent.

I held my hand up to Alek and drew my pale mount about to face the man. “Who asks?”

A bird flew in from the west, a large black crow. As I watched, somewhat stunned, it alighted on the old man's shoulder, steadied itself with a single flap of its wings, and came to rest. The man didn't react, not even when the crow's thick wing slapped his ear.

“I don't have a name,” the old man said. “You may call me an angel if you like.”

Alek chuckled, but I was sure it was a nervous reaction without a lick of humor.

“Who inquires of the Cantemir estate?” he asked again.

“Toma Nicolescu, in the service of Her Majesty, the empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, who now rules Moldavia. And if you are an angel, then you may vanish as all angels vanish, into the air of superstition.”

“Toma?” the old man croaked.