Vlad (29 page)

Two bodies fell either side of him. Two horses shied right and left away from arrows and blades. But Vlad came through the middle and smashed into the enemy. Their ranks imploded, archers with no armor fleeing flailing hoof and swung steel. Those who did not scatter died, while his men, seeing the ranks break, followed him into them.

Vlad had lost sight of his targets. Now he saw them again, the Sultan screaming defiance, being dragged back by the last of his bodyguards, Radu still at his side.

“Mehmet,” Vlad shouted in joy, tapping Kalafat’s flanks. Five strides and he’d have him, as Kara Khan took his prey in five beats and a glide.

But Kalafat didn’t move. Her front hooves landed on the ground, then seemed to sink into it. She knelt suddenly, coughing blood between bared teeth. Sliding out of the saddle, Vlad saw what he had not seen before—the hedgehog quills of arrows that bristled in her hide chest-coat. Most had not penetrated it. Three were sunk in deeper and the last had pierced her heart. As he stepped away, Kalafat rolled onto her side and closed her eyes.

There was no moment to mourn, none to think. Only to react, to the two men running at him with curving Mamluk sabres. Placing his left hand halfway up his own blade, Vlad ducked and leapt inside the upraised arms of the first man, jabbing the point into his throat, just a little, just enough. The man screamed as he fell but Vlad stayed close, moved his body into the path of the other man who struck over his dying comrade, missed. As he raised his weapon to strike again, Vlad placed his other hand beside his first and, holding the flat of the blade fully now, brought it over and down like an axe, the heavy pommel smashing down, driving the man’s turban into his head. He had once killed a prince of Wallachia that way. It worked equally well on a slave.

Before either man had reached the ground Vlad had moved on, towards the raging enemy being dragged into his pavilion. It was burning, but the main canvas had not caught. Anyway, as he slipped under the two-tiered gate Vlad saw that the bodyguards had no intention of pausing there. The rear, lesser entrance was open, and the group was rushing to safety.

“Where is Gales?” Vlad wondered for a moment. Then two men were beside him—Little Stoica, Laughing Gregor—and the three of them swiftly caught up with the group ahead. There were eight guards, armed with sword or pike, and they fought them in the very center of the pavilion, before the raised bed, as fiery, tarred ropes fell around them. Eight to three but the three in armor and the eight with half an eye on the raging, striking sultan in their midst.

Laughing Gregor died, still laughing, his mace so embedded in a skull he could not withdraw it to block the thrust that took him. Stoica went down, a pike haft to the head, killing the man who struck him, even as he fell. There were two more guards before Vlad and, double-handed on his bastard sword, he took one high, one low.

And then there were just two.

They faced him, one Wallachian and one Turk, both dressed as Greeks in purple, gold and silver robes. He had not seen his brother since he was a boy of eleven. The angel’s face had matured into one from the myths, an Athenian hero’s. “Cel Frumos” they called him, “The Handsome,” and he was, his eyes the turquoise of the Bosphorus, his styled brown hair falling thick to his shoulders, his beard exquisitely trimmed. Beside him Mehmet, with his sharply curved nose, his full lips and thick beard, looked coarse and as cruel as his reputation. Both men held the slightly curving swords of the Turk in fighting stance, blades behind them, hands thrust forward.

From
beyond the blazing, smoke-filled tent came the sounds of a battle raging on. The great
kos
drum was being beaten. Then a trumpet sounded—Wallachian—urging the recall, the retreat. No trumpet announced another charge. Gales had not come. But it did not matter. Not with his greatest enemy a lunge away.

Vlad pushed up his visor, stepped forward. The men before him stepped back. “Brother,” said Vlad, his voice thickened with sudden grief for all the lost years, “you are free at last. Let Dracul’s remaining sons join together and slay the tyrant.”

Radu swallowed, stared.

It was Mehmet who spoke. “He is my brother now, Vlad Dracula. Yours no longer. And I am giving him the throne of Wallachia.”

“It is not yours to give, Mehmet Celebi,” Vlad said, turning to him, using an old name. “And my brother still has Dragon’s blood, however you have corrupted him.” His voice broke. “I know what you have been,” he continued. “So I do not ask that he kills you. Only that he steps aside while I do.”

At that, Radu did step to one side. Mehmet glanced, looked back, snarled. “While you try, Kaziklu
Bey. For I am every part the warrior you are.”

“That we shall see,” said Vlad, dropping his visor, lowering his sword before him, stepping forward.

He was so focused on the man he hated that he did not see the sword flashing down until it was almost too late. He lunged backwards, his own sword rising…but one guard was bent, never straightened, in memory of his triumph over Vladislav. So it was not there to stop Radu’s Damascene steel slicing through his gauntlet, severing the little finger from his left hand.

It fell to the carpeted floor. All three men looked at it.

“Radu…” Vlad gasped.

“No!” screamed his brother. “You never came for me. You left me…to them. Well, I am theirs now. And the throne of my father will be mine.”

Mehmet was moving towards him, smiling. Vlad still held his double-handed sword in his right hand. He raised it now, though it seemed twice the weight as before. “Radu…” He coughed. And then a huge strip of burning canvas rolled down from the ceiling, passing between them, dangling there for a moment before falling.

Sight was lost in smoke and flame. Shapes moved, voices yelled, men rushed in. There was no going forward, or back. Dragging his sword, slick now with his blood, he stumbled to the side of the tent that was smouldering but not yet aflame. He had no breath; his mind, already numbed, was sinking towards oblivion. Then he saw a flap panel, poorly stitched; recognized it as his own work. Choking, he kicked at it till it gave and he could crawl out.

Eyes blurred with smoke and tears, he looked up to see his men, his
vitesji
, still fighting. Once more a Wallachian trumpet sounded the rally, the recall to the Dragon banner that yet waved. He stumbled towards it. But Turks were rallying, too, some turning towards him. He tried to lift his sword.

A cry to his right, from behind what was left of the Sultan’s tent. He turned to where two thousand fresh warriors should be charging in and saw one, riding between two
ortas
of rallying janissaries.

“Ion,” Vlad screamed, and somehow his friend heard him, saw him, turned his horse’s head and rode to him.

“Vlad,” Ion shouted. But janissaries were running at them now and they could not pause. Grabbing the arm that was thrust down, Vlad, with a scream of pain, scrambled up behind Ion.

Ion looked at the hand that had clasped. “My prince! You bleed!”

“Ride,” whispered Vlad, laying his forehead against his friend’s cool armor.

“Did you—”

“Ride,” he said again, and closed his eyes.

Ion drove spurs into his horse’s flanks. It surged forward into the conflict. At its center, Black Ilie was swinging a huge sword with both hands. He had driven the Dragon banner into the earth to do so. Snatching it up, Ion cried, “Wallachians! To me!”

Few could have heard him. But the sight of the Dragon flying away was plain, and those that could followed it. A far smaller phalanx swept back the way they’d come. Since most had fled from their coming, few made any attempt to halt them now.

Moloch

“Vlad,” she called, trying to rise at the opening of the door.

“No, Ilona. Only me.” Ion crossed to her, laid a hand on her shoulder. “Rest.”

She tried to resist even the gentle pressure. “It must be time. I should…”

“It is not time. And you would have to stand out there. The heat is terrible in the church. It is cooler here and you are yet weak. Rest.”

“I am better,” she lied, sinking down. “A little longer and then I must…” She placed her hand on the one that still lay on her shoulder. “He will look for me first when he comes, as he always does. I would not want to disappoint him.”

“If he comes,” said Ion, sitting, leaning on the table to place his head in his hands. He had been tired for months. Ever since the Turks crossed the Danube.

“If? Have you heard anything more?”

He looked up at her fear. “No. Only the same rumors.”

She looked away. “The ones that say he is already dead.” When he didn’t reply, she closed her eyes. “Tell me again.”

“Ilona—”

“Tell me. Of the last time you saw him alive, a week ago. When you speak of it, I see him, here.” She waved her hand across her shut eyelids. “And then he is still alive, here.”

Ion sighed. He wished he could lie to her. But in all the years they’d known each other, all the time they’d spent together—time that Vlad could not spare—he’d never been able to tell her even one comforting lie. “The Turk came after us.
Sipahis
knights.
Akinci
raiders. We had to fight our way back to the Vlasia forest. For a while, despite it all, I thought Vlad slept, so silent was he upon my back. But then, on the edge of the trees, five paces from safety, one of his
vitesji
, Nicolae, took an arrow in the throat, fell dead from his horse beside us. And Vlad stirred, leapt, was on that horse. He had pulled his right-hand gauntlet upside-down onto his left, to try to stem the blood. But I could see it dripping…” Ion broke off. It had to be the exhaustion. Telling no lies did not mean telling everything. “He shouted at me, ‘Ride to Targoviste.’ And then he turned back, to fight, to kill, to bring in the rest of his men. And I obeyed.” He swallowed. “I left him.”

Ilona still had her eyes shut. She looked as if she were studying something inside them, leaning forward slightly, her vision of Vlad keeping him alive. “‘Ride to Targoviste,’” she echoed softly. Then her eyes opened. “And there is fighting still. The rumors speak of that.”

Ion nodded. “The Infidel comes on again, but much more slowly. The night attack has made them edgy. And if Turks are still being slain, then I believe it is our prince who is slaying them.”

“I believe it, too. And the night attack? It nearly succeeded?”

“Nearly. If Gales had come, not fled to some hole. If I could have stopped him…” He shook his head, glanced to the door. “But nearly is not enough. Not for those jackals out there. To them ‘nearly’ is a defeat.”

She reached forward, squeezed his hand. “And that is why he sent you to Targoviste. That’s why you had to obey, to leave him. To keep the
boyars
loyal.”

He placed his other hand on top of hers. “He sent me for a wedding too, Ilona.” He smiled. “Vlad understands one of the main lessons of statecraft: to unite a people all a prince needs is a war…or a wedding. And look here…we have both!”

It had to be the exhaustion. Suddenly they were both laughing, hard. It lasted for five heartbeats then, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. Startled by the darkness in her eyes, he tried to keep her hands, but she pulled them away. “Vlad commanded it,” he said, “because he loves you.”

“Oh, Ion.” Her laugh was bitter now. “He commanded it for his vow, made to God, not to me. God, whom he needs now more than ever. The Voivode of Wallachia would never leave his crusade to marry a commoner were it not for that vow.” She pointed towards the church. “And he would still leave them hoping that he would choose one of their daughters, bring one of their families closer to the throne.”

Ion shrugged. He’d never been able to lie to her and he couldn’t begin now. They had tried so hard to keep her out of the chess game each voivode played with the
boyars
. They had failed. And Ion knew that, even if a miracle happened and Vlad did come to marry her this day, she would never be a queen, ever a pawn.

She closed her eyes. “He would have come by now. He will not come.”

He could not tell if it was hope or dread in her whisper. “As long as I have known him, Vlad has never arrived early for anything. He only ever arrives exactly on his hour.” He smiled again. “It drives me mad.”

She stared at him, hope—and dread—clear on her face, which was whiter than the dress she wore, whiter than any statue. And then a bell sounded. Three tolls. “It is a quarter before noon,” she said. “I must go.”

“Ilona—”

“No,” she said, struggling to rise. “Give me your arm or stand out of my way, Ion. For I will go to greet my prince.”

—

Ilona swayed. Once again, Ion’s hand reached, held her till she steadied.

“Let me fetch you a stool,” he murmured softly. “All will understand.”

She would not. Could not. If she sat, she knew she’d never rise again that day. If she sat, she feared that the blood, seeping now, would flood. That no matter how many layers of thick, white linen made up her dress the stain would press through them. Badge of her sorrow, color of her shame.

He must not see that. Not here before the altar screen of the Bisierica Domnesca. Not on her wedding day.

She closed her eyes, summoned breath to battle her nausea, grateful for Ion’s grip on her arm. The wave passed. She opened them again, narrowing against the glare of flame in candelabra and sconce, against the sun burning through the great stained-glass windows that dappled her in blues, reds, greens, yellows, as if her dress were a rainbow and not the purest white.

She wished she could narrow her nostrils, too, tried to breathe only through her mouth. The cathedral was the coolest place in Targoviste and the heat there nearly overwhelmed. Sweating men in their court dress, sweating women in theirs, the stench sicklied over with potions and the sweetness of sandalwood, myrrh and lavender, wafted in smoke from the priests’ swung censers. It did nothing to dissipate the foulness. Rather, by the contrast, it enhanced it.

The glare forced her eyes away; to Ion beside her, ever faithful, holding her up. Behind him were such of her family as had made the journey from Curtea de Arges. Uncles, cousins, all artisans, all sweating as much as any nobleman; more, perhaps, unaccustomed as they were to such rich cloth. But her prince had raised them up and they had to sport his favors.

She looked to where the others bunched. The
boyars
. All avoided her eyes, avoided looking anywhere near her in case they might meet her gaze and be sullied by a peasant’s glance.

How they hated her
. Though she had done nothing, desired neither their titles, nor their status. All she wanted was to be left in peace, to wait for those rare times when her love would come to her.

There!
One did look back. Turcul
jupan
. The second man of Wallachia. His brother, Gales
jupan
, who had ridden back from the war with the worst of news, was not present. Gales had deserted his lord upon the battlefield and undoubtedly Vlad would kill him on sight, wedding day or no. But her prince still needed the other
boyars
and Turcul, the wealthiest, most of all. And of all the nobles, Turcul hated her the most, even if he had given his daughter, Elisabeta, to be her maid. She stood beside him now, whispering into his hairy ear. And as Ilona looked, Elisabeta glanced over. Not at her face. Lower.

Despite the heat, Ilona flushed cold. She felt a surge of blood, as if it were summoned by their regard. She leaned more heavily on Ion, closed her eyes again to the rainbow glare.

Perhaps he will not come. Sacred Jesus, let him not come. Sacred Maria, let him not come.

And then he came.

She did not know which metal she heard first, the tolling of the great bell in the tower, or the striking of his horseshoes on the cobbles of the square. They alternated thereafter, iron and iron, until one finally ceased, leaving the silence to be broken only by the twelfth and final toll.

The echo faded among the huge stone columns of the cathedral. Then metal struck again—the pommel of a sword, banging on wood. Three times it came, the space of a breath between each. Priests scurried. The two great doors of the church swung open.

—

He’d leaned against the door before he struck it. The dozen steps had sapped him, and drawing his sword seemed impossible. Unless he was going to use it to kill. It was the only time he felt awake, when the Infidel was under his blade. The rest was a dream of life through which he staggered.

When had he last slept? He could not remember. He’d forgotten how it was done. He’d close his eyes…but that was not enough. For behind his lids it was still daylight. And they would come.

Kalafat, his beloved horse, closing her soft brown eyes as she knelt so slowly, so he could step from her back before she died; Hamza, roped to a saddle, stumbling in the road dust; mostly the same two men—Mehmet, so close Vlad could smell the ginger and musk, and Radu, beautiful Radu, that beauty twisted by hate. Radu bringing the sword down from the high plane…

His eyes would open to blood, real blood, his blood. The wound where his finger had been would not remain staunched. He’d been told to rest it. He had laughed. He killed with the Dragon’s Talon, and it needed both hands.

Yet it was not his own blood or the blood of others that tormented him the most. Not even the cruellest cut, of brother on brother. It was the moment just before that. The one when Mehmet the Conqueror stood a sword’s length away and all their fates gathered. He’d talked all his life of
kismet
, of his destiny. That single moment was it. But then…then instead of lunging, striking, slaying he’d…paused. Someone else struck.

He fought still, killed still. But now it was not others’ deaths he truly sought. It was his own. And
kismet
denied him even that.

Vlad opened his eyes, moving from that single moment to an oaken door. He heard a horse snort behind him, turned. His men, his
vitesji
, stood at their mount’s heads, looking up at him in silence. Stoica, who had somehow escaped the Sultan’s burning tent and rejoined him; Black Ilie; the rest. There were just twenty of them left now and their armor was as smashed and filthy as his, as stained with blood.

He sought an answer in their eyes. Why was he there? Were there not Turks still to slay? What door was this?

Then he remembered. He was there for a wedding. His wedding. And, amidst all the betrayal, another. In some ways, the worst.

She’d lied to him. Yet he’d made a vow. He drew his sword.

—

There he stood, silhouetted in sunlight, the Dragon’s Talon stretched out to his side.

Dracula. Her prince.

He was not the tallest of men. But he was broad and strong, and his sable armor made it seem that a black giant stood at the entrance of the Bisierica. And when she saw him, her heart, as it always did when they had been parted for a time, beat faster, her breath caught. And, as always, she remembered the first time she had seen him—dappled by Turkish sunlight, through the slats of a litter. She’d seen him again through a string of golden coins as he rescued her; but finally and clearly only when the boat was pulling away from the dock. And in that last look, her life’s course was set.
Kismet
, he called it.

His men came in behind him, each bending stiffly, crossing themselves before spreading out at the end of the nave.

Silence held for a long moment. Broken when Dracula sheathed his great sword and began to move down the central aisle. He walked slowly, staring straight ahead, ignoring peasants and
boyars
prostrating themselves as he passed. As he drew closer, she could see the weariness in him, the black bruises under his eyes, startling in that so-pale face, as black as the dust-shrouded armor. Closer he came, and closer. Beside her, Ion squeezed her arm and she looked up, saw his smile that his prince was alive. Ilona was happy he would give her away, since she did not have a father. It was only her one friend and her one love that kept her standing. Ten paces and Dracula would be beside her. Only ten…

He never took them. A man moved between her and her love.

“You have come, Voivode,” said the
jupan
, Turcul. “We did not think you would.”

The reply took a while. His voice was ever low, and here it came through road dust and the ravages of exhaustion. “Should a man not come to his own wedding?”

The words were for the
boyar
. But his eyes, those great green eyes, were for her alone.

“Yet can such a wedding take place? To
her
?” All heard the contempt in the last word.