Vlad: The Last Confession (19 page)

“Christ is Risen”

All was chaos. The screams of women and men; chairs thrust back hard, bodies tumbling over them; platters and candlesticks crashing to the floor. Cursing
boyars
, many now with knives in their hands, had bunched before their wives. Only Vlad had not moved, stood there still, staring down.

A bull’s roar cut through the tumult. “What do you mean by this, Dracula,” Albu shouted.

Vlad looked up. “I saw you dancing before, Albu cel Mare. Strange you did not know you were dancing on a grave. A grave you helped to dig.”

“I will not stay to be accused by you,” Albu shouted. He turned to the central archway that led to the other hall. “Miklos!” he bellowed. “Bring the men. We leave.”

All, save Vlad, had turned to the archway, so all saw one man walk through it. He was dressed in a white doublet, marked with a bear’s head, sign of his allegiance to Albu cel Mare. “Miklos!” yelled his lord. “Where are the others?”

The man in the archway didn’t answer. Instead he looked from his master down to the front of his pure white doublet. And as he did, it turned red, flooded from within. Something dropped from beneath it, something he tried and failed to catch though he joined it soon enough, collapsing into his own entrails.

More screaming masked the sound of men marching into the galleries above; drowned the sound of bow-strings being drawn taut. All saw them though, how the thirty picked men—Dracula’s
vitesji
, as they were called—were dressed in the colors of their master, their black and crimson surcoats emblazoned with a silver dragon. Since an arrow was now aimed at every male chest in the hall, the men there slowly lowered their knives, dropping them onto the floor or table. Only two knives remained in hands—Ion’s, dripping red, as he came forward wiping it on his sleeve; and the one Dracula now drew.

“Codrea,” Vlad called.

The
vornic
jerked, shrank back into his wife. “My…my…my prince?”

“You said that, had you been able to find my brother’s coffin, you would have investigated the crime more fully?” Vlad laid his fingers on the wooden lid. “Will you help me investigate it now?”

“But…but…” Codrea swallowed. “It…it is ten years since Mircea’s unhappy, uh, disappearance. “What could…” He flicked his fingers at the coffin.

“If it is true that my brother was tortured, his eyes put out, before he was buried alive, there may be some signs of it.”

“S-s-signs, my prince?”

“Shall we see? Your knife, Codrea. No, no, pick it up. Help him, Ion.”

The
vornic
, sweating heavily, was dragged forward, made to grip a knife. Vlad stuck the point of his dagger into the crack of lid and wall. “You begin that side.”

The nails were gouged out, one by one, Ion doing most of Codrea’s share. When all were thrown aside, Vlad looked once around the hall, then placed his fingers under the rim and lifted it, just a finger’s width.

There was an immediate breath of something foul. Not rotten, the worms had long since done their work on flesh. But decayed, like improperly salted meat. “Hmm,” said Vlad, trying to raise the lid further. “Something’s stuck. Ion, Codrea. Gently now.”

The three men lifted. Screams came as the wood rose, something rising with it—two skeletal hands, their fingers joined to the lid as if welded there, as if whoever within was helping to push it up. Then, suddenly, something snapped and the hands fell back in with a clatter of bones.

Standing the lid upright, Vlad looked at its interior. A single finger joint clung there and he reached, touched for a moment, then snapped it off. “Splinters,” he said, peering closely. “They must have fused his hands to the wood, especially after his nails kept growing. See?” He held the finger joint higher so all could see the yellowed, curling nail. “I know Mircea kept the nails of his right hand long, for he was a wondrous player of the lute. Not this long, though.” He turned the joint into the light. “Strange to think what beautiful music this finger once plucked from a string.” He placed the bone carefully into the coffin, then ran his fingers along the inside of the lid. “And these lines here, Codrea. Gouging, wouldn’t you say? What would you, my Chief Justice, conclude from that?”

The
vornic
’s eyes were wide, his jaw slack. “That…that he was buried alive, my prince. And tried to scratch his way out.”

Vlad nodded. “I agree. A reasonable conclusion. So,” he said briskly, looking around the hall, “we now know how he died. But before? What else can you note,
vornic
? Come, you can’t investigate from over there. Help him, Ion.”

The man was dragged forward again, one of Ion’s hands behind his neck, bending him over the coffin. “What do you see?” Vlad continued. “More than my brother did, undoubtedly. For though the jelly has long since melted, this scraping in the eye socket, this flaking bone, this blackening. I would say…an iron bar, heated to redness, thrust in, held too long? Is that what you
see
, Codrea? A man blinded before he died?”

“Merciful Christ!” Codrea yelled, trying to jerk away. But Ion was massive, strong, and had him pinned. At his nod, Ilie and Stoica, clad also in black, came forward. Each took a limb.

“Indeed,” said Vlad, moving to the reed torch in the central sconce, placing his knife tip in the flame. “Christ is merciful. But Mircea Dracula did not receive mercy. And neither will you.”

“No! No! No! No!” Codrea screamed, as Ilie and Stoica bent him over the coffin. The scream rose in pitch as Vlad, quite slowly, slipped the heated knife-tip into the first eyeball, holding it there a few seconds before slipping it into the second.

Two of the watchers fainted, a man and a woman, smashing onto the floor, where Codrea joined them, screaming, palms of hands pressed into what remained of his eyes. “Take him outside,” Vlad said. “His coffin awaits.”

No one else moved, as the two men grabbed him by the ankles, dragging him through the central arch. They flinched though, as they heard his head bouncing on every step. The sound carried clear through the hall, easily reached the room above, where Ilona tried to stand and couldn’t, couldn’t pull her face away from the grille and its view of the man she loved, the man she did not know, her fingers wedged into the mesh, held there as tightly as coffin lid had ever held bone.

The sounds eventually faded. Vlad wiped his blade on his cloak. “And now…” he said.

He was interrupted by another scream. “No!” It came from Marea Udriste, a short-sword appearing from within his ermine-collared coat. He was three paces from Vlad and he made one of them before the arrows took him, one through the neck, one through the chest. They were shot from ten paces, from a Turkish bow that could send an arrow five hundred and still pierce flesh. These more than pierced his, knocking him backwards, pinning him to a chair where he sat, eyes wide in shock.

Vlad bent swiftly, stared. And Ion suddenly remembered a hunt they’d made as boys, Vlad bending before the boar he’d just stabbed. “Don’t you remember, Ion,” he’d said, in that soft voice. “You need to look into their eyes as they die.”

His prince didn’t say anything now. Just watched the man till the light left him. Then he stood, murmured, “A pity. I had something better planned to reward his…loyalty.”

Behind her dying husband’s chair, the Lady Udriste suddenly knew what it was her father’s ghost had been trying to tell her. With a screech, she leapt forward, hands plucking at the arrows that fixed her husband to the chair, that would not shift. Gregor stepped forward, grabbed, lifted. Kicking, the lady was dragged from the hall, her screams finally cut off by his hand placed over her mouth.

“And what do you have planned for me, Devil’s son?”

Vlad looked at Albu cel Mare, the huge man staring defiantly at him. Took time before he replied. “Something worthy.”

“Would you dare to fight me, Vlad Dracula? Here, now, with knives.” He reached slowly towards the dagger at his waist. All heard the bow-strings tauten, until Vlad’s raised hand halted them. It stayed up even when Albu drew his blade.

“Dare?” echoed Vlad. “I might dare. But what purpose would it serve if I killed you that way?”

“It would prove you a man.”

“Oh, I think everyone knows I am that.” Vlad shook his head. “But it would give you both a chance and an honorable death. When your treason deserves neither.”

Before Albu could reply, Ion stepped in, brought the pommel of his own dagger smashing down upon the fat wrist. The
boyar
’s weapon fell to the floor.

“So kill me then,” howled the
boyar
. “Chop off my head, why don’t you? It was the death I gave your father, the Dragon,” he jeered. “And he was twice the man that you will ever be.”

“A head for a head,” Vlad replied, “and so I am revenged?” He nodded as he came slowly forward, paused. “Yet…again, it is too
honorable
, too swift. Besides, vengeance means nothing if it is only for its own sake. Vengeance must say something to the world.” He looked up, from Albu’s pain-riven face and around the hall, at the other faces averted from him. “I cannot make you love me,” he said. “Men and women love as they please. But they will fear as their prince pleases. And if they fear enough, they will not dare to betray me.” He turned, to the main entrance, to four of his men standing there. “Bring her,” he said to them. “Bring it all.”

Everyone heard it, the strange sound in a hall full of men and women, the steady strike of iron on stone, the snort revealing what it was before the horse was led down into the room. “This is Kalafat,” Vlad said, crossing to her, taking the bridle. “I have ridden her since my days amongst the Turks. She can be as fleet as the wind and fight like the Devil’s child who rides her.” He reached up and scratched between her eyes. “Yet she can also be gentle and move slowly to my bidding.”

More men were coming down the stairs, bearing rope, pulleys, wood. Others used halberds to herd the crowd back to one end of the hall, while more cleared its center, pushing aside the table, chairs, coffin, leaving Ion with Albu, Vlad with Kalafat, watching his men proceed with what he had taught them, binding ropes to wood and saddle. When all was ready, he turned to the man Ion held. “Will you forgive us, Albu cel Mare, if we are a little clumsy? I only saw this done the once.”

And Vlad laughed.

Above, unable to move eye or fingers from the grille despite the agony that was building inside her, Ilona marvelled. Her prince did not laugh. Not like that.
Her
prince did not stand there while Ion took his knife and slit a man’s clothes, ripping them from his huge body. Her prince did not kneel between the naked legs of the man—legs that were fat, blue-tinged and mottled—whom his guards had thrown face down.

She could see the dagger descend, could not see through him. But she could hear the terrible scream that grew louder, more terrible, as other men lowered a blunted stake, bent over the huge naked body while Vlad went to his horse’s head, whispered in her soft ear. As Kalafat began to move slowly forward, she did manage to close her eyes; but she could not close her ears—to the weeping of men and women, to the deep bellowing of Albu cel Mare that rose, suddenly, to a high-pitched shriek.

“My lady!” It was Elisabeta’s voice coming through the sound, horror in it. But her lady-in-waiting was not seeing the blood below, but the blood pooling at the base of Ilona’s chair. And then hands were on her, trying to lift her, and she opened her eyes again, saw hands lifting wood below, other hands pulling on ropes. She heard her prince say, “This is the most difficult part,” as Albu cel Mare rose up, slipped down, his flailing feet caught, held, nailed down…and then she fell, slipping through her maid’s hands, hoping for oblivion, though it did not come straight away. Not before she heard that voice again, clear, calm, cutting through the screams.

In the hall, Vlad unstrapped the ropes from Kalafat’s saddle. “Do you have it now, Ion?”

“I think so, Prince.”

“Then I will leave you to it. His wife and son will not need a horse. Anyway, for speed’s sake, we must learn to use only men. Place them on either side of the Great One. Since he still seems to be living—a rare fortune on my first attempt!—he can watch them die.”

Vlad mounted, turned Kalafat’s head, looked back to the crowd, most now weeping on the floor; then past them and the man on the stake, to the man on the cross. Suffering Jesus.

“Christ is risen,” he cried, tapping his heels into Kalafat’s flanks, riding from the Great Hall.

Penance

The dirge filled the room, as heavy to the ears as the incense was to the nostrils. Both came from the priest who stood over the bed, swinging the heavy censer, chanting the song of death.

He wore gray robes, a contrast to Ilona’s white shift, the fourth she had worn and the only one she had not stained because, finally, her bleeding had ceased. Too late, her women thought, and summoned the priest. While they’d waited for him, they’d tied her hair back from a face whiter than her garment, clasped the limp hands around a sprig of rosemary and a length of beads.

Now the man sang and swung. Two of the maids wept, though not Elisabeta, the
boyar
’s daughter.

There was a pounding, then boots upon the stair. The door crashed open. The women rose from their knees, huddled, shrieking, at the black-clad, blood-spattered man heaving breaths in the doorway. Vlad gave a cry and staggered across the room, elbowing the priest aside, seizing Ilona’s hands, crushing rosemary, rosary and all.

“Ilona,” he murmured, laying his head upon her chest. Then, after a moment, his head shot up. “She lives,” he cried.

Elisabeta stepped forward. “She does, Prince, she—”

“Then what pickings does this crow seek here?” Vlad turned to glare at the priest.

“I was summoned and so I came,” the man replied quietly. “And though I am no physician, I have seen many cross between life and death. This woman hovers at the border and I prepare her for her passage.”

“If you are no physician, then I will not take your word that she is ready to go over yet.” Vlad looked at the women. “Has one attended?”

“My prince, he came an hour since and left. He did what little he could do.”

“Which I am sure was nothing.” Vlad looked past them, to Black Ilie standing in the doorway. “There is a wise woman who lives around the corner in Strada Scaloian. Her name is Marca. Bring her.”

The big man bowed, left.

The priest gasped. “You summon a witch? When I stand here with God’s words flowing through me?”

“She is of the Roma people and tells fortunes, yes. That is how I know her. And she heals with herbs and prayer. If that is witchery then I will have it here.” He rose, stepped so close to the priest that their noses almost touched. They were of a height, perhaps of an age, too, though the priest’s thick beard made him look older. “And I tell you, I will make a compact with Satan himself if he helps my Ilona live. So you had best go.”

But the priest did not move. Instead, he said, quietly, “No, Prince. I had best stay. Someone must remain to defend this child’s soul from the Devil’s son.”

Elisabeta gasped. Stoica and Gregor stepped closer, the quicker to respond to their prince’s certain order to punish this defiance. But Vlad gave no signal, just continued staring, finally spoke. “Do you know what I have done this night?”

“I have heard. And I can see. Blood is still on your face.”

Vlad reached up, rubbed, studied the brown-red flakes on his fingertips. “Albu cel Mare’s.” He looked at the man before him. “I could order his fate for you.”

“I know you could command it, Prince. I think that you would not.”

“Would not dare?”

“No. But Dracula kills when he needs to. To demonstrate his strength. There is no necessity to kill me. No strength would be proven.”

Vlad leaned back, the better to study. “You think you know me.”

“A little. I have watched you. I marched in your army last year, when the comet was in the sky.”

“A soldier
and
a priest?”

“Just a priest now.” The man closed his eyes. “What I saw on that campaign made me one.”

“Lightning on the road to Damascus?”

“No, Prince,” replied the man softly. “Just too much blood.”

Vlad stared a moment. “What is your name?”

The man hesitated. “I am now called…Brother Vasilie.”

Below, the street door opened. There was creaking on the stairs. “You interest me,” Vlad said, turning away. “Stay.”

Ilie pushed an old woman into the room. Her dress was a dazzle of overlapping cloths in different hues, and her headscarf, woven through with silver thread, glittered with tiny mirrors. A wealthy one then, rewarded for her skills of prophecy, the reading of fate. And for other skills, the ones she was summoned to practice now. She was followed by a girl, similarly but less richly dressed. Both bobbed a curtsy to Vlad, crossed themselves when they saw the priest, before the elder moved stiffly over to the bed. There she lifted Ilona’s eyelids, put a hand to head and heart, bent close to sniff her breath. Then she turned to the maids, babbled a question in her own tongue. The youngest, darkest one there obviously had some Roma blood. She answered, pointed, and the woman rose, went to a pail in the corner of the room, lifted its lid, studied what was inside. Replacing the lid, she said something to the young girl, who nodded and ran down the stairs.

Vlad blanched, pointed. “What…” One of the maids began to sob. “What? Tell me!” Roaring, he crossed the room, seizing Elisabeta by the arm.

She cried out as his fingers dug into her. “Prince! It is…was your child.”

Vlad released her, sagged as if struck. Brother Vasilie passed him, bending swiftly to lift the pail. “I will take this. That gypsy has seen it. All know that the Roma use the fat of unborn babies in their hellish potions. I will—”

Vlad reached out, held him. “Let me see,” he whispered.

“Prince…”

Vlad looked at him. “I will see what Ilona and I have made. What God has taken from us.” He nodded. “Open it.”

With a sigh, Vasilie did. Both men stared. After a long moment, Vlad nodded. “A son,” he said. “With the black hair of the Draculesti.” He glanced across to the prone figure on the bed. “I told her that this time I would have a son.”

“This time?” The priest slid the lid back onto the pail. “You have committed this sin before?”

Vlad looked back. “Sin?”

“You have other children?”

Vlad, his eyes glazed, nodded. “Two daughters. That is all that I know.”

“And you were not married to their mothers? Nor to this woman?”

“You know that I am not.”

“Sins.”

All waited for the storm to lash upon the priest’s head. It did not come. “You think that this is the punishment for my sins? When so many sin thus daily, yet gather their bastards around their knees?”

Vasilie shook his head. “I cannot claim to understand the will of God. Whom he chooses to punish and why. But perhaps a prince is held to a higher standard.”

“Sins,” murmured Vlad, looking again at Ilona. Then he raised his eyes again to the priest. “And if I were to
atone
for my sins? Would God spare this woman’s life?”

“You do not bargain with God.”

“Really?” Vlad shook his head. “I think we do exactly that each time we pray. We say, ‘I will give up this, Lord, if only you will give me that.’”

“Prayer is only a part of it all. You must confess, do penance—”

“Confess?” Vlad interrupted, stepping forward. “Yes. I have not had a confessor for years. So I appoint you my confessor.”

The priest stepped back, shock clear on his face. “Prince, no. I am not…equipped. I am new, inexperienced. I have my parish…”

“And you may remain there. You just have a new parishioner.”

“But…” The priest shrugged helplessly. “Why me?”

“You are a former soldier. You have lived a man’s life. You will understand a man’s sins. Besides…no one has spoken to me as you just did since I was a student at the
enderun kolej
.”

“I cannot…”

Below, the door opened again. Footsteps sounded. Vlad’s face drained of color, of light. Darkness returned as he looked at the bed. “Enough,” he said. “It is decided. I will confess to you and I will atone for this sin. And even if God is not to be bargained with I swear this to Him—and he knows how I keep my oaths—if he lets my Ilona live, I will have no more children out of wedlock.”

The girl came in, bearing a small pail. Steam issued from beneath its lid. The older Roma took it from her, went straight to the bed, sat. Lifting Ilona’s head onto her lap, she raised the pail to her bloodless lips, mumbling the while. Most of the liquid spilled. But Ilona gagged, swallowed.

Vasilie sighed. There was nothing more he could do. “Let us pray,” he said, “for a prince’s word, given to God. And for the life of this poor woman, in His hands.”

All there knelt, except for the priest, who set down the other pail behind him and picked up his censer again. Swinging it, jerking the chain to a sudden halt to force out the sweet-smelling smoke, he began to intone, the others responding. Somewhere close, a church bell tolled the six.

They were still kneeling, still praying, when seven bells began to strike. But only three had sounded when a groan came from the bed. In a moment Vlad was up, across, kneeling again, taking the deathly white hands. “My love?” he said softly. “Come back to me.”

Her eyes fluttered open. “My prince,” she sighed. He saw light in them before they closed again.

Vlad stared at her for some time, then turned to the old gypsy still cradling Ilona’s head. “Will she live?”

A shrug. “If you will it so, Prince.”

The priest stepped closer. “She is in God’s hands.”

“And in mine,” said Vlad, clasping tighter.