Much Fall of Blood-ARC (44 page)

"Is greater than mine?" said Vlad, realizing that his voice had risen, carrying to the nearby soldiers, who had stopped to stare. He moderated his tone. "We have few spare resources. I cannot pamper you."

It was easy enough to say that to the shocked boyar. The countess Elizabeth Bartholdy was another matter entirely. Fortunately, it seemed that she had come prepared. She had her two tire-women, and her tent—a small mansion of decorated canvas—was carried up on mules. Along with a bed and some other furniture. Vlad gazed longingly at the bed It had been a long time since he'd slept on a mattress. Elizabeth watched him. "It is remarkably comfortable," she said, looking very directly at him with a slight quirk to her lips.

Vlad nodded. And swallowed. He was no longer the innocent he had been. But he was unaccustomed to dealing with lust. And she seemed to do that to him. It was . . . different somehow to way he felt about Rosa. Hotter and more tempting perhaps . . . but with an uncomfortableness to it. As if . . . there was something wrong. There was, he supposed. He'd ill understood Father Tedesco's long ramblings about the sins of the flesh. He understood it better now. But somehow . . . it hadn't seemed wrong in the starlight, in his new cloak, with Rosa.

* * *

Either his lover had taken the testicles right off this cursed prince . . . or he was more proof against magics and plain seduction than most men. No. There was more to it than just the frequency or the quality of their coupling. She'd seduced men away from the most skilled courtesans before. He was, in some way, exceptional.

Elizabeth took little pleasure from sex. In the course of her quest for the dark powers that would keep her young, in the rites she had performed to agree to their compact, she had debased herself. Coupled with everything from a dog to a sequence of men and a woman of somewhat depraved tastes. She understood why these acts where essential to the entrapment. But other than the entrapment aspect, the tasting of forbidden fruit, she derived little pleasure from it. She did find a combination of sex and the inflicting of pain exciting. And immediately after killing, while there was still blood in her mouth, it was pleasurable too. But Vlad was not ready for such delights . . . yet. For him it would have to be tenderness, and the nauseating pap about love. That gave her a taste of bile in her mouth, as always. She needed to track his woman down and kill her. Soon.

Then she could enmesh this tender fool.

Dana found herself going up to feed the wyverns every day. She wasn't quite sure how it had happened, just as she was not too sure how she had slipped into the life of the gypsies, or as they called themselves, the pack. She thought that name quite funny. True, Tante Silvia's cart could pass for the home of a packrat. The old woman and her tinker husband collected nearly every form of junk. Some of it they turned into things that they might sell. Some of it just accumulated.

It was among this clutter that Dana found treasures that she entertained herself with, and, quite accidentally objects that delighted the Wyverns. They were mostly at an age when they were delighted by something that they could eat. Everything was tried for taste. Trees, rocks, pine needles. Dana had asked Angelo about that. "Surely it can't be good for them?"

He had just laughed. He did that a lot when she asked him questions. Dana just asked them again. Sometimes she got answers. "They don't like iron much. It won't kill them the way that it does to some fey. But they say it stinks. I have seen them eat very nearly anything else. It doesn't seem to do them any kind of harm. They are creatures of magic, not nature."

But they had held back from eating Dana's treasure. It was a glass prism. She could make rainbow-lights with it, and the two creatures loved chasing them, especially when she used a small mirror together with it. They liked to stand in the rainbow light and shift colors to match it too. They were rather like fast-growing kittens without the furry cuddliness. They seemed to have a fascination with the light pattern. She could keep them busy for an hour, chasing it, hiding in it.

At the same time Dana was having trouble with her mother . . . who was convinced that her new interest in early rising and the deep woods was something to do with male gypsies. Mother had even tried to follow her. Dana had had to lead her back to camp after she'd got herself lost. Dana had become a bit more wood-wise now . . . and yes, she did always go with a male gypsy . . . who was not quite with her. But near at hand. But she had no interest in men. Not like that, anyway. The ideas mother got.

"Your father's mother said that the Valah always developed late. But did it have to be now?" said Mama, wringing her hands. "Dana . . . I have explained to you . . ."

"Mama, the dogs have more interest in me. They only marry their own kind, these people. And I have no more interest in them than they have in me. I just . . . like it up there." She actually had been noticing boys lately. There were some here that were exceptionally handsome, if you looked beyond the ragged clothes and the dirt. But the wyvern's watchers . . . they were old. Old men. Over twenty.

"You know Dana . . . men, men are, well some of them like young girls."

"Like the Hungarian commander at Poeinari. He tried to touch me. I screamed, remember."

"Oh Dana. We should go to the Danesti cousins. I will organize for our horses . . ."

Dana knew she had to stop that. "They won't do it."

"Then I must make a plan."

Dana was still wondering just how she could distract her mother from a new flight, when Bertha took the matter out of her hands. She was actually trying to saddle their horses on her own late that night. Of course, as she had never saddled a horse in her life, and the camp only appeared to be asleep, things soon went awry. Dana, still half asleep, listened to her mother's hysterical voice. "You can't stop me. It's not safe here for my daughter."

Angelo's voice: "It is safer here than anywhere else in Valahia, Lady. They still look for you."

"I don't believe you."

Dana could almost hear the gypsies shrug. "It's true, Lady. We can send messages . . . if there is anyone you trust enough to ask."

"I could ask Cousin Alets." There was doubt now in her voice. "But could you really get a letter to him?"

"In Klosovar? That one is easy."

"But would you let me go, if she said it was safe?"

"Yes. But we have kept you safe so far, Lady. Why are you worried now? The Drac is coming. He comes south with his army."

Dana wanted to ask about her brother. But she thought it might be a good idea to continue to pretend to be fast asleep. For now, anyway.

"It's not me," said her mother. "It's my daughter. She's . . ."

"She is as safe here as in her own home, lady. We watch her. She is the Drac's sister. That is important to our people."

"Yes . . . but she is not being properly . . . chaperoned."

There was some laughter at that. "Lady. You do not understand. She is the Drac's sister. No man here would touch her any more than if she was my own sister."

"And there are not many that would have dared do that," said Grigori, with a chuckle.

"He is married to my sister," explained Angelo. "But that was her choice, and with my permission. Who here would dare to ask the Drac for such permission? Your son is a great and terrible man."

"Vlad?" Her mother's voice was troubled. "I am so afraid for him."

"No need, lady."

"But he was such a sensitive little boy. And he got sick very easily . . . I can't think of him as a man.

Dana could hear the amusement in Angelo's voice "He has grown up a little. He is much taller than I am. And I have not seen him show any signs of ever being sick."

"Not even when the rest of us were sick from that bad meat," said Grigori.

"Oh. Taller than you? My baby. I begged them not to take him. I think of him every day . . . pray for him. It . . . used to make me cry. It used to make my husband very angry. You say that you could send a message? Could you send a message to him? From me?"

"We could do that. We will bring you a reply."

"But how would I know it came from him?"

"Ask him something only he would know. We can hope that he will also remember."

"It has been ten years," she said, doubtfully. "Does he remember me at all?"

"He does not forget very much. He was a prisoner and a hostage, and denied anyone to speak his own language to. He remembered enough to understand us. He used to sing songs to himself, he said." There was a pause. "He needs to be very strong now, Lady."

"He is the house of Valahia!" said Dana, quite forgetting that she was supposedly fast asleep.

"Well said, little one," said Angelo. There was no surprise in his voice. He had known that she was there. They were almost like wild animals in their sensitivity to noises and things they could not possibly see. Dana wondered just how they did it. She suspected magic. More magic, they kept hidden from her. She'd searched the cart for talismans and magical paraphernalia. The trouble was: how could she tell it from the junk?

Tulkun—the normally plump and cheerful Ilkhan Mongol bodyguard to the tarkhan—addressed himself directly to Erik. He was still plump. But he was anything but cheerful. He was plainly a disturbed and angry man, a man who was almost not capable of rational speech he was so furious. "They plan treachery!" He said slamming his meaty fist into his palm. He then broke into a torrent of rapid Mongol. Erik was only able to understand one word in five.

"Excitable fellows, these Mongols," said Manfred dryly. " I assume that he is telling you much the same as your young woman did?"

Erik nodded. "From what I can understand yes. It's a society in which treachery happens, but there are certain lines that you just don't cross. Ever. Honor is very important to them. It's all tied up with their status, or their idea of honor and the ancestors."

"I'm not too interested in why right now," said Manfred. "I'm more interested in just what we can do to counter the problem."

"In the long term it's that honor that could keep us alive, but in the short term getting out of here seems to be the right answer."

Bortai interrupted them. "Tulkun him say talk for you." Then her Frankish deserted her and she began, slowly in Mongol, plainly choosing her words for simplicity. "The warrior Tulkun, he says he will speak for you. Tell of the plan to say you took hostage the tarkhan, using him and his status to try to get close to the orkhan to murder him. He and his bodyguard escaped without you knowing, so now you can be treated as you deserve. As treacherous lesser people. They now need to spread the story."

Erik groaned. "No wonder he looked a little pleased. We played right into his hands when we insisted he stay with us. But what is he doing this for?"

Tulkun shrugged. He had his composure now. "I am a master of the sword and bow. Not politics. I do not understand these things. But it is dishonorable. We are not hostages. And you have shown yourselves to be good men in your dealing with the noble lady from the Hawk clan, and in your behavior."

"They do this because they want war," said Bortai, tensely. "War between the Ilkhan and the Golden Horde. War as the orkhan Berke threatened before Ulaghchi the Great Khan killed him."

She was certainly right about the war. Possibly war between the Ilkhan and the Holy Roman Emperor too. Noble lady? Well, Tulkun was polite. And all Mongol were 'noble', Erik recalled. He turned to Bortai. "Would this work?"

She shook her head. "They will not give him the chance to speak. They dare not. They will come—tonight or in the early morning, to annihilate your camp."

Tulkun nodded slowly.

"We could go now and address them?" suggested Erik.

Bortai looked at Tulkun and Tulkun back at her. They shook their heads. "You need a gathering of the nobles. The Orkhan, or at least the orkhan's henchmen and Generals know. You would have to go from ger to ger. That is what they do tonight. Spreading lies."

Tulkun nodded in agreement. "They plan to say a message has been received from the tarkhan saying he is a prisoner. Then that he has escaped."

Bortai hissed between her teeth. "We could try, if we can evade the guards. Only, they know who to speak to. We do not."

Erik nodded. "Basically, your going out there would be suicide. For you and for us, because it could cascade this into premature action. And we want this on our own terms, not theirs. I see nothing much for it but to break out of here, tonight. How much time do you think we have?"

The two Mongol considered. "They'll let the drinking and the rumor-mongering go on for a while," said Bortai. "When the men are drunk they do things they would not do sober."

"And believe things they would not believe sober," said Tulkun.

"They'll drink?"

Both the Mongol laughed. "Ulaghchi the Great Khan tried to reduce it in accordance with Chinngis Khan's rules. But it is not easy, and the camp is the traditional place for it. You can stop the men when they go out to war, or on the hunt—the nerge," Bortai said.

"Well," said Erik. "We have a few hours. Tulkun, we plan to try and ride out of here. Tonight. We'll need to try and find some vessels—downstream I think, to get us across the Danube, and then we ride for Iskander Beg's Illyrian villages. We'll lose some Knights . . ."

"Go north. Go to the White Horde lands," said Tulkun.

"White Horde?"

"The Golden Horde is made up of the western Horde—the Blue, and the northern Horde. The White. Lady Bortai comes from the White. They have lost much land to Prince Jagiellon and his allies. Lost clans and tribes too. But what remains is strong."

Bortai nodded. "You would be welcome and honored among my people."

Erik paused to translate.

Manfred looked skeptical. Eberhart, interested. "Their clan structure is quite loose. And there is a fair amount of intermarriage. It's how they cement alliances. Look, if we go north we may yet be able to sort this mess out. Word will spread . . ."

"If we go north we will have a lot more hostile territory to cross," said Manfred. "Next time, Erik, I listen to your instincts and the devil with diplomatic niceties.