Vlad: The Last Confession (34 page)

The curse had risen to a shout.

“Seize him!” Jan Jiskra cried. A soldier came, and Vlad ducked beneath the outstretched arm, took it, snapped it and flung the howling man back into the second who followed. Then, in the moment he had, Vlad snatched up the golden hawk on the table before him and hurled it the length of the table. The golden beak, poised to tear a hare’s flesh, sunk into Horvathy’s left eye. He shrieked and staggered back, as soldiers fell on Dracula, silent now, powerless at last.

The Last Crusade

I acknowledged my sin to You, and I did not hide my iniquity…then did you forgive the iniquity of my sin.

—PSALMS
32.5

The Exile

Poenari Castle, 1481

“And he was proven right.”

Silence, at last, in the hall of Poenari. Horvathy had stopped speaking, for the first time in a while. And the interjections that had come occasionally from the hermit in his confessional had ceased, too. But as he concluded his story, Horvathy had been speaking increasingly fast, and the scribes now took the chance to ease their cramped fingers, and trim another quill.

And then he spoke again.

“This,” he said, touching the puckered scar that was his left eye, “was the least of the curse. Dracula was right, for I rose swiftly, and Pecs grew from an impoverished shambles into the foremost fiefdom of the land. While I stood behind the throne and helped Matthias become the mighty monarch he is. Yet as I rose, the curse accompanied me.” He closed the other eye. “My wife, dead at twenty-five. Our two sons lost, one to war and wound, one to plague. Our daughter killed by the first child she tried to bear, who died with her. I am, and will be, the last of the line of Horvathy.”

Silence again, for a moment, until another voice came. “A lesser man would have succumbed to his sorrows, Count Horvathy,” the Cardinal said, softly. “Yet here you are, still striving to keep your oaths to your king, and to God.”

“No, Cardinal Grimani. I serve them in what I do here, perhaps. But I strive for another oath. The one I broke to a fellow Dragon. The one for which I am cursed, for which I have never been forgiven.” He opened his eye, looked at the Italian. “Yet perhaps here, in what has been heard—in what, I remind you, you are still to judge—the curse may be lifted and forgiveness follow. Forgiveness—and the raising of the Dragon banner once more.”

Grimani turned away, from the one eye and its appeal, revealing nothing. That we have yet to decide. And soon,” he said briskly. “For it seems this confession is nearing its conclusion. I suggest we proceed with pace”—he glanced at the arrow slit, the light growing outside it—“so I can be gone, with my recommendations to the Pope, before another sunset. Yet…” He paused. “I am curious about some inconsistencies in the telling.” He looked at the end confessional. “Where
were
you, priest?”

The hermit’s croak came. “Where?”

“Yes. When you just reported Dracula’s words, you said the Voivode ‘mislaid you.’ Where?”

“I…” The hermit coughed. “When I heard what had happened in the cathedral, I joined the thousands who fled Targoviste at the Turk’s approach.”

“So you did not see the…wedding? Nor the impalement outside the gates?”

“I did not.”

“Yet you have helped these others describe them in some detail.”

The Count leaned forward. “Your point is?”

“Only that even this witness, who seems sometimes to know Dracula’s very soul, is often speaking second-hand.” Grimani pointed at Ion’s confessional. “While that one even chooses to speak for the Turk, Hamza
pasha
.”

“I knew him,” Ion protested. “I visited him often in his cell.”

Both men ignored him. “And therefore?” Horvathy asked.

“Therefore,” replied the Cardinal, “his testimony, all their testimonies, must be treated carefully.”

“Have we not been doing just that? Getting three opinions to agree on a combined one?”

“Indeed.” The Cardinal sat back. “I merely state it. For the record. People’s opinions are just that, in the end. So,” he said with a smile, “the conclusions we draw can therefore be our own.”

Horvathy nodded. “The ones we need them to be.”

“Indeed.”

Petru, less versed in the ways of politics, had a belief in simpler truths. “But this man was his confessor! He speaks what he heard. And even if it is a sin that he betrays those confessions now, still, we must believe the truth of them. A man does not lie to his priest in confession.”

“Doesn’t he?” The Cardinal shook his head. “I have known men exaggerate their sins greatly, thinking that when they are then forgiven it gives them a certain license. The worst is pardoned, so if a lesser sin is committed later…”

Petru was outraged. “This may be true of the Church of Rome—”

The Count intervened. “It is true of men anywhere, Spatar. I am sure within their own rituals the Turk has a way of doing the same. Forgiving himself for what he still must do.” He cleared his throat. “But the point is made. The record states it. And I agree with His Eminence. Let us proceed swiftly.” He turned. “And I am also unclear about something, hermit. When did you re-join Dracula?”

The croak came. “I went to his prison. To Visegrad.”

“Caged again,” murmured the Cardinal.

“It is hardly Tokat,” the Count commented, “more palace than prison. The windows are not barred. The gardens are beautiful and in the Italian style. And the country
beyond! Full of game for hound and hawk.” He nodded. “A man could live content there.”

“Content?” blurted Petru. “After all the killing he had done, all he had striven for in ashes, his throne lost, his love…mutilated…He swallowed. “His best friend a traitor, who sits before us trying to excuse his betrayal.” He shook his head. “Are you saying he was content to live the life of a…a provincial gentleman?”

Horvathy grunted. “Content? I do not know. Perhaps he raged for a time. But in the end what choice does the songbird have but to sing? The world had shifted. As you say, Dracula had lost everything—throne, power, support, the love of those he loved.” He glanced at two of the confessionals. “He already knew the life of the fugitive. And now he had ten thousand more enemies lurking in alleys with knives, lusting for revenge. Remember, a cage keeps others out, as well as someone in.”

“And could he not simply have been tired, my lord,” the Cardinal said. “Even Dracula. Tired of blood?”

“Well.” Horvathy licked his cracked lips. “That we have yet to hear.”

Petru looked up, to the arrow slit, to dawn’s earliest light there. “Shall we recess? We have talked a day and night through. Perhaps the last could be heard after a little sleep?”

Horvathy looked at the Cardinal. “No, I agree with His Eminence. Let us hear the last of it. It will not be long till you are nestled in beside that pretty young wife of yours again. And we will be gone, to trouble your sleep no more.” He raised a hand. “But let me, at least, speed the process. I know something of what happened next. For I sat in Corvinus’s court, and heard the tales we have just heard re-shaped. Read the pamphlets”—he gestured to the pile on the table—“that damned the name of Dracula throughout the world. And, may God forgive me, I furthered my damnation, and that of my brotherhood, by helping to spread some of the stories.” He rubbed at his forehead. “But time passed. Soon enough we had other ogres to focus on. Christian took on Christian again, while the Infidel sat back and laughed.”

“As it ever was,” murmured the Cardinal. “And then?”

“Then, about four years later,” continued the Count, “with eyes everywhere else, Dracula was quietly brought from Visegrad to Pest, across the river from the King’s palace at Buda. He was given a house. More, he was given a cousin of the King as wife.”

“What?” Petru gasped. “Why?”

“He was still on a leash, but a loose one now. For Corvinus fought Dracula’s cousin Stephen of Moldavia—whom, you remember, betrayed the prince at the very height of his crusade, forcing him to divide his tiny army. So Dracula was once again a threat…to be unleashed perhaps. Then, when the two Christian monarchs settled their grievances and looked again at the Infidel, it suited them to keep Dracula as just that: a threat.”

The Cardinal leaned forward. “Did you see him?”

Horvathy shook his head. “No. The King spared me his rare visits to court. He was paraded sometimes, usually when an embassy came from the Sultan. It amused the King to see the Grand Turk’s emissaries spot him, and hasten to remove their turbans.” Horvathy laughed, but there was little humor in the sound. He continued. “But you can only make a threat for so long before you must use it.”

“Indeed.”

“So what happened?” Petru leaned forward.

“What happened?” the Count echoed. “The world shifted again.” He looked at the confessionals. “Which of you would like to tell us how?”

Sleeping Dragon

Pest, Hungary, February 1475,
thirteen years after Dracula’s arrest

It was dusk when Ion reached the villa on the outskirts of the town. He had meant to be there much earlier, so he would be able to deliver his message and return to the King’s palace in Buda before dark. No one traveled alone at night anywhere near a city.

The frustrations of the journey, which had begun a month before with blocked passes in the Transylvanian Alps, had continued to its end. The bridge across the river that divided Buda from Pest had recently burned down. This would not have been a problem for the ice was usually thick enough to support man and horse across. But a sudden early thaw had rendered it thin and dangerous, yet still too thick for boats to push through. He’d had to go downstream, to a narrower section where a passage had been cut, pay twice as much for the ferry, ride up the opposite bank. This last delay meant it would be necessary to spend the night in a Pest inn, for he would not spend a night beneath the roof of the man he’d come to see.

That roof was identical to those to its left and right, gray slate rising sharply to sturdy timber gables. The houses were solid, square; an arched entranceway in each that was wide enough to admit a small coach; shutters rising two levels up the ocher-daubed walls, all shut firmly against the winter air. The dwellings were unremarkable. No doubt some merchant or town burgher lived in the two on either side.

A month it had taken him to get here and now Ion sat on his horse, unwilling to dismount, despite the mist that thrust chilled fingers under his furs and poked his myriad scars and re-set bones. Each winter was harder, stiffening him, graying the hair that still hung thick over his brow, still concealed the brand Mehmet had given him nearly thirty years before, its edges purpled now, blurring into the wrinkles of his face.

He reached up, ran his fingers over the flesh that stood slightly proud. Why was he hesitating now, when he had not paused, except when forced to, in the entire journey that had begun four weeks previously in Stephen cel Mare’s court at Suceava?

He dropped his hand. He knew why. He had not seen the man who dwelt within these dull walls in thirteen years. Since a very different day, one of terrible heat, in Targoviste. If he’d had his choice, he would never have seen him again. But a king and a prince wished it otherwise. And God, too, he believed. Had to believe. Otherwise he would not be able to walk his horse to the wooden doors, dismount before them, raise one hand to the great iron hoop, lift it…

He never let it fall. Because,
beyond the door, he heard familiar sounds: metal striking metal; men crying out. Someone was fighting inside, fighting hard. With a soldier’s instinct, Ion had his horse hitched and his own sword drawn in a moment. Pressing his ear to the grille, he heard running footsteps, a yelp of terror.

Ion had not ridden all that way to speak to a dead man, however much he hated him. Perhaps one of his many enemies had found him out. Turning the iron ring of the handle, he was surprised when the door gave. Opening it wide, for he did not know how fast he might have to come out, he stepped into the darkness of a short tunnel. Shouts came down it and at its end light dazzled him, for the courtyard
beyond was brightly lit by torches. Shielding his eyes against the glare, Ion saw two shapes run across. Both held hand-and-a-half swords. One was desperately parrying; the other striking high, low, wide, close.

Ion advanced cautiously, letting his eyes adjust, sword held before him. The men were fighting now in some other part of the courtyard, their blows and cries echoing off the stones. He wrapped his hand around the archway’s inner edge, took a breath, leaned in…

As Ion watched, one of the men stepped under an overhead cut, his own sword high. Blade screeched on blade, the pair locked, grappled, almost still now as they wrestled for dominance, and Ion was able to see them. One was clad in a black leather jerkin, a full helmet obscuring his face. The opponent, turned away from Ion, was naked to the waist, long black hair flowing down a thickly-muscled back that steamed in the chill night air.

He did not know what to do. Who was fighting, and why? He was about to call out, step in, distract…when the grapple ended, the visored man bending at his knees, straightening fast, throwing the other one back. The bare-chested one stumbled around the table, then turned, his sword rising…

The man who turned was Dracula.

Ion gasped. It could not be! For this was the prince he remembered. The bull’s body, the midnight-black hair and moustache. Each scar was livid in the torchlight, and Ion could have named the weapon that made them, the alley or field where it had cut. Yet the man before him was no older than the one he’d last seen in Targoviste. Worse! If anything, he was younger!

Ion began crossing himself, again and again, mumbling a warding prayer. There were many who had said that his prince was kin to another, that the Devil’s son was more than a name. He had not believed it…until now. The proof was clear before his eyes. Dracula had made a pact with Satan. He had exchanged his soul for immortality.

“Holy Father, protect me!” Ion cried.

The fighters, who had charged like bulls into another grapple, heard. Still holding each other’s blades high they turned, as one. Then Dracula released his opponent’s hand, disengaged his blade, began to step away. And the other, whose faceless helmet had turned also, now turned back. Dropping his blade, he cocked his wrist and stepped past the naked chest, moving between Ion and Dracula, who shrieked now in agony. Then Ion saw why—across the taut, muscled stomach a thin red line had opened and immediately pulsed blood.

With another yelp, Dracula dropped his sword, clutched his stomach and staggered backwards, falling onto a wooden bench. The hel-metted one leaned down to him, reaching up to the straps at his chin, beginning to untie them. He spoke softly, but in a voice that carried, “Will you never learn? You do not stop fighting, whatever the distraction, while a man has a blade near your throat.”

“You’ve cut me,” Dracula screamed.

“I have,” said the other man, beginning to lift off his helmet, “and the scar it leaves will remind you and perhaps save your life one day.”

The helmet came off…and Ion plunged deeper into his nightmare. For the head that emerged was identical to the one beside it…but only if it had suddenly been lit by lightning on a dark night. All that was black in the one man was white in the other—the moustache, the eyebrows, the thick hair shaken loose, now tumbling down the back, all as white as a bleached skull. And then, as Ion gasped again and looked closer, he saw that they were not identical; that the features of this older man were a corruption of the younger’s; the eyes sunken, the nose thinner, the flesh looser. And he recognized him, even before the elder man turned and spoke.

“Welcome, Ion,” said the true Dracula. “I have been expecting you.”

—

After brief introductions, the younger man was dispatched to the housekeeper. The cut, as both could see, was nothing to men who had had metal stuck into them. It was as if finely-cropped parchment had been run across the skin.

The two men watched him go.

“I wanted him to be a priest,” Vlad said, “but he insists on being a warrior. So I train him to fight—and remind him always of the cost.”

“Your son,” said Ion. It was not a question. “I didn’t know you had one that age. How old is he?”

“Twenty-six. A gift from Arefu. Came to me the night I left the castle. When you missed me with your arrow, Ion.”

Ion stiffened. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Indeed?” Vlad studied him a moment, looked away. “I have other sons, two of them. Small.” He looked back. “And you? How many sons have you?”

“None. Five daughters.”

“Five? Your house must be noisy.”

“As yours is quiet.”

Vlad nodded. “The boys are around. My wife hides them when we train. There’s usually blood. Sometimes even mine, for I am getting slow.” He took Ion’s arm. “You’ll stay for supper?”

Ion looked down at the hand that held him. Three fingers and a stump. “No. I am ordered to deliver a message. But I eat where I choose. With whom I choose…my lord.”

The crippled grip tightened. “My lord? I am still a prince, Ion Tremblac.”

“Not mine,” Ion said. “I serve another now.”

Vlad did not move. But his face flushed with color, startling in the whiteness of the surround. “I heard. My cousin, Stephen of Moldavia. ‘The Great’ they call him now, because of his victories over the Turk and the Hungarian. Stephen cel Mare,” he whispered. “While my victories are forgotten and I am called Vlad Tepes—the Impaler. Remembered only for a tool of justice I once employed.”

“Oh, you are remembered for many things,
my lord
,” Ion said, jerking his arm from the other’s grip.

Vlad stared, taking in the bitterness in the taller man’s voice, in his eyes. Then he nodded, spoke briskly. “Well, I do not receive embassies with sweat still on my body and my throat a desert. So you’ll stay and eat, or return another day…Spatar.”

Ion paused. “I will stay.”

“Good.” Vlad clapped his hands. “You remember Stoica?”

A man emerged from under the balcony. Unlike his master, the small, bald servant did not appear to have aged much. Only when he stepped a little closer into a pool of torchlight did Ion see the fine lines around his eyes. “Of course. How are you?”

The mute shrugged, waited.

Vlad continued, “You’ll recognize more faces in Pest. Half a dozen of my
vitesji
live nearby. Black Ilie lives here, still my bodyguard, though he has a wife and family in the town.” He turned to Stoica. “Take his horse to the stable, his things to a spare room.”

“I said I would eat with you,” Ion protested, “I said nothing about staying here.”

“You won’t want to walk the streets alone at night. This is not Targoviste in 1462. Still, that choice can be made after supper.” He nodded; Stoica bowed, withdrew. Vlad was already walking away, slipping into the shadows. “You’ll be fetched when eight bells toll,” he called, and was gone.

Another servant came, beckoned. Finally sheathing his sword—he had forgotten he still held it—Ion shivered and followed.