A Prince to be Feared: The love story of Vlad Dracula (11 page)

She knew the door was his. In an otherwise unlived-in passage, it was particularly stout. And when she lifted her lamp, she could see the heavy lock holding it in place. On the other hand, no light shone under it from inside. He must be asleep.

The disappointment was like a blow. She knew she should go back to her room before she was discovered here. People wouldn’t think less of her for visiting her betrothed—until he no longer was. But it would be embarrassing all the same. Especially with a locked door between them.

Mocking herself, she lifted her hand and knocked softly. Over the beating of her own heart, she heard a faint, rustling sound. His voice said, “Enter!” loudly enough to make her jump. And so, unable to speak, she knocked again.

She heard his footsteps, measured and firm, cross the floor. Then, silence.

Speak, Ilona, tell him you’re here!
But her throat had closed up.

“Ilona?”

It was little more than a breath, so close he might have been speaking against the door itself. Her throat opened.

“Vlad Dracula,” she whispered.

There was a pause, then, “I’d offer you a seat, but there is this obstacle between us.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead, she lifted her hand, placing it over the spot his voice seemed to come from, and closed her eyes.
Vlad. Vlad.

“I can still manage to stand.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry. There were too many people before. And I couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”

“For what?”

“To talk to you. I tried to tell you before…”

“That I can change my mind and not dishonour you or me?”

“Yes,” she said, relieved as so often in the past by his quick understanding.

“Why would I do that?”

The abrupt question threw her, but only for a moment. “Because you don’t need me. Matthias will support you with or without me.”

“Circumstances will always determine Matthias’s support, or lack of it,” he said impatiently. “It isn’t about Matthias or honour. Yours or mine. It never was.”

Gladness rose up, swift, aching, unendurable. Without meaning to, she laid her cheek on the door. “I know,” she whispered. “But that was before. I’m not the Ilona you remember. You’ve seen me, I am—
old
…”

“I am still seven years older. When did age come into it?”

“Don’t be obtuse, Vlad. You need a young wife who can give you an heir.”

“I have an heir.”

“A legitimate heir would please the Church better.”

“Then we shall marry quickly.”

“Oh, Vlad, don’t be so stubborn!” Her fingers curled into the door, as if embracing the stubbornness her words reproved. “Have you learned nothing in these twelve years? There is too much between us. Too much tragedy, too much guilt. I can’t live with that. I can’t live with
you
because of it.”

She could hear his breath through the door, as if he held her. Her arms ached.

His voice husky, he said, “Can you live without me now?”

“I’ve lived twelve years without you,” she whispered. Tears gathered in her throat, threatening to choke her all over again.

“I said
live
.”

Oh Jesus, did he still see everything? “As I did then? Without a thought for the hurt or the care of others? Something died in me after that, and now I don’t know which I want more—my own peace, or your happiness.”

“I’ll give you both.”

She couldn’t help smiling till her mouth ached. Probably there was only an inch of wood between her lips and his. “Peace with
you
, Vlad? Don’t make me laugh.”

“I want to make you laugh. I want you by my side.”

“You want Wallachia.”
But thank you, thank you for saying it…
She touched her lips to the door, a last kiss and one he would never know about, let alone feel.

He said, “I can’t have you without Wallachia. You’re the king’s cousin.”

Her lips froze against the wood. Her heart beat and beat. She gasped. “Vlad, stop, I’m old and tired—you’ve
seen
me…”

“And you’re twelve years more beautiful. Though your dressmaker should be impaled.”

A sob that was more than half laughter spilled out of her mouth, and this time, she heard unmistakable relief in his voice. “I was afraid they’d turned you against me. Irrevocably.”

“I stopped paying attention, Vlad, but I was never stupid.”

“Then smile when you promise yourself to me. And mean it.”

She could have sworn his breath touched her through the warm wood. She could smell him, taste him on her lips. Like wine after a long thirst. Her body stirred, remembering.

She whispered, “Is that the solution after all? Back on the sleigh ride…with you?”

A door slammed somewhere farther along the passage, and she jumped, gasping. “Someone’s coming! I have to go.”

Yet she’d only dashed a few paces when, on impulse, she turned and ran back. “Vlad?” she whispered. She thought he’d have gone, back to bed perhaps, at any rate too far away to hear her.

But his voice returned at once, so close it made her shiver. “Yes?”

“I’m glad your waiting is over.”

****

King Matthias was grumpy at being wakened so early just to receive a messenger. Sitting up in bed, he snatched the accompanying letter from the silver tray with ill grace and tore it open.

After a moment, he began to laugh. The messenger looked shocked.

“Good news for my mother,” he said jovially. “My sister is a widow.”

His chamberlain picked up the dropped letter. “I cannot imagine it will cause the countess great joy.”

“Of course it will,” said Matthias flippantly. “Her precious Ilona’s off the hook. We’ll stick my sister on it instead. At least she’ll be some use to us.”

Chapter Eight

Wallachia and Transylvania, 1456

Under the boiling sun, Vladislav fought with surprising fury. He’d been defeated by a small army of exiles and mercenaries, and the country had risen up against him. Vladislav had lost, and he must have known it, yet, here at Targsor, surrounded by his halfhearted men-at-arms, he alone fought with conviction.

It was how Vlad recognised him and was able to force his way through the melee to meet him. Shoving aside the two who already engaged him, Vlad raised his father’s sword and looked into his kinsman’s eyes.

Neither of them wore helmets.

Vladislav smiled. “At last. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Anxious to die, like your sorry supporters?”

“You’re my last hope, Vlad Dracula. You’ve taken my country, but I can still get it back by one simple act.”

He lunged at Vlad, his stroke powerful and unexpectedly quick, managing to draw blood from Vlad’s shoulder, slicing just outside the breastplate. But Vlad’s sword had largely deflected the blow, and the sudden despair in Vladislav’s face said that he knew it was the only chance he’d be given. Nevertheless, he fought fiercely and could have done considerable damage against anyone else. But Vlad, who hadn’t slept in three nights and was living on a volatile combination of determination and nervous excitement, with destiny on his shoulder and no possibility of failure in his heart, was invincible.

Vladislav knew it too. The deathblow seemed almost to come as a relief to him in the end. Vlad’s cut to his arm had already ripped tendons, and he could no longer hold his sword, which fell to the ground with a dull thud. It was all Vlad needed. With one mighty stroke, he severed his kinsman’s head.

Vlad gazed down at the broken, fallen body of his enemy, waiting for the inevitable triumph, for the sense of fulfillment to invade him and let him rest.

Vlad had wanted this for so long, played the scene so often in his head, his final victory over his father’s killer. And yet there he lay, just one more death in the greater struggle for power. While John Hunyadi engaged the Ottomans at Belgrade, Vlad had won this smaller war for him. There would be no Ottoman attacks through Wallachia and Transylvania. Vlad had given his word, and he would keep faith. It didn’t interfere with his own agenda.

Stephen stood beside him, nodding slowly. “It’s over,” he said, something approaching wonder in his voice. “You’ve done it.”

Vlad lifted his gaze beyond the fallen men and the cheering victors. Before him lay the nervous little town of Targsor and the majestic countryside of his homeland, spreading out through low hills and valleys, over gentle lakes and rushing rivers to the mountains that must keep it safe.

“Oh no,” he said softly. “I haven’t even begun.”

***

John Hunyadi was dead.

For Maria, the news was more devastating than the loss of her own husband. As Ilona had prophesied, she’d grown fond of Dragomir, but her grief at his passing was not unmixed with annoyance, because he’d backed the wrong horse. Even when so many of the other boyars left Prince Vladislav, either secretly or blatantly, to support the exile, Vlad Dracula, Dragomir had thrown everything behind Vladislav in the belief that the prince’s alliance with the sultan would bring most benefit.

And though she didn’t pay much attention to political matters, Maria could see why he might think so. No one really believed that the Christian states of Europe, not even the White Knight, John Hunyadi himself, could organise any kind of viable resistance to Ottoman invasion.

And when the Ottomans finally made their long-expected attack on Belgrade, even the brave heart of its commandant, Mihály Szilágyi, Ilona’s father, must have quailed to see the tiny size of the force John Hunyadi led to his aid. If it hadn’t been for the crusading rabble which appeared out of nowhere thanks to the no longer quite so awful Roman churchman John of Capistrano, Belgrade would surely have been lost.

Or so she’d heard people say. At any rate, Hunyadi had won his last great victory and died three weeks later of the plague which the Ottomans carried everywhere in their wake. The same plague had done for the papal legate.

But she hadn’t known any of this when Vlad Dracula swept into Wallachia and ruthlessly took back his throne. Dragomir had died fighting him, as had Prince Vladislav himself. She hadn’t known about Hunyadi when she’d dressed this morning, and presented herself as bidden in Vlad Dracula’s public hall at Tîrgovi
ş
te. She’d come to plead for her stepson’s life and estates, and people had said John Hunyadi was dead. The countess would be devastated…and her children…and Ilona.

Someone called her name, impatiently, as if it had been said several times before. She moved forward in a dream, not thinking as she should,
I’m about to meet Vlad Dracula, who holds the power of life and death over me and the boy
, but thinking,
John Hunyadi is dead
.

And then the gaggle of lawyers and clerks and noblemen parted to let her through, and she thanked God she’d taken the trouble to dress well for the occasion.

Before her, on a high, ornately carved throne, sat Vlad Dracula. Not the young soldier who’d let her kiss him before he rejected her. But the Prince of Wallachia in all his splendour. He wore a red silk hat encrusted with rows of pearls and jewels, a red velvet mantle with golden buttons, and a snowy collar of the finest lace, and he looked every inch the stern, implacable ruler.

Her legs began to shake as she took the final few steps to the throne and knelt. Someone may have told her to, but mostly, she thought, her knees just gave way.

She couldn’t look at him. Those dark green eyes were like shards of ice, hard and cold and piercing. His face was so haughty, she could only pray he didn’t remember her from Hunedoara.

“I know you,” he said, and she shivered as much at the sound of his voice as at his words. Only later did she realise it was the first time she’d heard him speak Romanian. Slowly, knowing the game was up, she lifted her head and met his gaze. “You attended Countess Hunyadi.”

“Is it true he’s dead?” she blurted.

The green eyes darkened. His eyelids dropped like hoods, and when they lifted once more, she read nothing more than the original ice. And yet she could have sworn there had been a storm of pain and fury. Certainly he didn’t ask who she meant. He knew.

“Yes, it’s true.”

“That is…awful.”

“Yes,” he said again. “It is.” And surely there was a hint of amusement in there now. She didn’t dare risk a smile, but she didn’t look away either. “And yet I think you would have been better staying at Hunedoara.”

“It was the countess who arranged my marriage.”

“You have not brought your son,” he observed.

My son.
That was one loss she would never get over. Dragomir had agreed to marry her, to gain Hunyadi’s valuable friendship as well as a beautiful young wife—but not to bring up another man’s son as his own, even though he already had an heir. And so she had given birth in secret on one of the Hunyadis’ smaller estates, and the child had been given to a well-to-do free farmer and his wife. Part of her heart had stayed there when she’d come to Wallachia as Dragomir’s bride.

But of course, the prince did not mean that son. He meant Dragomir’s.

“My husband’s son is only eight years old. It didn’t seem fitting to bring him.”

“Or safe?” asked Vlad.

Maria’s eyes flickered. They said he’d already butchered entire families to punish those who’d stood against him.

Vlad’s lips twisted. “In the absence of trustworthy relatives to care for his estates, we shall do so. In the meantime, upon swearing allegiance to me, he—and you—may live on them.”

Someone almost dragged her to her feet and out of his presence.

I’ve done it
, she thought in wonder.
I’ve done it…

***

Ilona clung convulsively to her father. Beyond words, they both knew that it could so easily have been his body brought home by John Hunyadi. There were many—probably including Mihály Szilágyi himself—who believed that would have been a better outcome for the world. But Ilona wasn’t one of them. If there was guilt in her fierce joy at her father’s survival, it couldn’t overwhelm it.

Her father’s arms loosened. She knew why. Slowly, she drew herself out of his embrace and stepped back.

Countess Hunyadi stood in the doorway, the wind catching at her veil. Erzsébet’s wailing was done. Not her weeping, but the basic, uncontrollable element of her grief. White-faced and drawn, she stood poker straight, forcing herself to look at the carriage which brought her husband to her for the last time.

Mihály Szilágyi said, “Forgive me. I never thought to have such unhappiness in bringing him to Hunedoara. Like the rest of the world, I thought he would live forever.”

Erzsébet nodded. “Thank you for bringing him here and not…”

Not to Hungary, not to the king, who had done so little to help but who would now take credit for the victory of Belgrade. But she broke off, unable to continue.

“It was one of his final wishes.”

“László?”

“In command of Belgrade. He feels the loss of his father deeply, but he’ll do his duty.”

She nodded again. She didn’t say she wanted him here instead, but Ilona knew. She thought her heart would burst from pity, from her own grief.

But more than that, who would look after Hungary and Transylvania, who would pull the strings and wield the sword to keep the Ottomans at bay now that the White Knight of Christendom was dead?

***

“I will,” said Mihály Szilágyi.

It was when they heard the news that László Hunyadi had nearly destroyed everything. Left with the awesome responsibility of governing Belgrade, he’d invited the young king to visit the scene of the great victory. And when King Ladislas had graciously arrived with his favoured followers among the hated Cilli clan, László had pulled up the drawbridge before his men-at-arms could follow. After that, Count Cilli had been killed—whether by László himself or one of his henchmen was unclear.

Ilona knew why. Furious with grief, László was avenging the many slights and insurmountable obstacles placed in the way of his father by this self-serving and much lesser man. He’d probably even enjoyed his brief power over the surely terrified young king, though in the end Ladislas had left the fortress unharmed and László continued as governor of Belgrade and of Transylvania in his father’s stead. But for how much longer? If the Cillis had been enemies before, how much was the feud aggravated now? Worse, whatever things appeared on the surface, he must have made an open enemy of the king. And that meant the whole family was in danger.

And if the Hunyadis fell, what would become of Hungary and the network of alliances and balances that had kept the kingdom safe for so many years? Strong hands were needed at the helm, to placate the king and to guide him. In the long term, it would be László and young Matthias. Right now, it had to be Ilona’s father.

“And I will,” said Erzsébet in a small, hard voice, and when her brother glanced at her in surprise, a sour smile curved her thin lips. “For twenty years I have been the consort of the man who effectively ruled Hungary. I may be a woman, but I am not no one. János rose high—with our backing, my sons will rise higher yet.”

Ilona, forgotten in the background as she often was, lifted her head, struck by something in the countess’s voice.

“Higher than John Hunyadi?” she blurted in disbelief. “Why that would make them…”

“Hold your tongue, Ilona,” said Mihály.

Ilona closed her mouth and swallowed. She understood, finally, that they’d talked about this before, that John Hunyadi himself had not ruled out the ultimate promotion of his son—to King of Hungary.

She had a bad feeling about it.

Mihály said, “We must consider our position, strengthen all alliances, make new ones. First of all, László and Matthias must be kept apart at all times. I’ll leave at once to see the king and try to mitigate what László has done, but you must make László understand the danger he’s now in.”

Erzsébet nodded. “Perhaps it’s time I too went again to court. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Ilona? We might even find you a suitable husband at last.” Ilona, feeling slightly hunted under both pairs of eyes, looked from one to the other. Erzsébet said consideringly, “She’s quite an attraction in her own right, Mihály. She can only help our cause. And if she can just learn when to keep her mouth shut and stop asking the wrong questions, she’ll be a positive asset.”

“What cause?” Ilona asked. Her deliberate provocation went over Erzsébet’s head, busy as she was in her own plans, but Mihály frowned at her.

“We need you, Ilona,” he said briskly. “Go and prepare your own and your aunt’s things for court. We travel immediately. Prepare for a long absence. After Hungary, I may take you to Wallachia.”

Ilona tugged once at her hair, a tiny gesture of agitation, but she’d already stood to obey.

“Keep young Vlad on the straight and narrow,” Erzsébet approved. “No slipping back toward the Ottomans.”

“There’s that,” Mihály allowed. “And also that if it comes to a struggle, we’re going to need him on our side.”

***

“What the hell is he doing?” Stephen asked.

He’d come in search of Vlad that evening, imagining there would be some kind of celebration. In Dracula’s first major diplomatic victory of his reign, he’d managed to convince the Ottomans that Transylvania was too strong for them to attack it this year. Very cleverly, he’d enlisted the help of the major Transylvanian towns to do this, having them send major, powerful-looking delegations to Tîrgovi
ş
te while the Ottoman ambassadors were there. And so Transylvania also saw how the new Prince of Wallachia protected them and prevented the Ottomans attacking them through Wallachia.

It had come at a price, of course—the inevitable one of swearing allegiance to the sultan and promising tribute. Despite the fact that he’d already sworn allegiance to the Hungarian king. Balkan princes had to preserve a highly precarious balance to maintain the independence of their countries and Stephen was well aware he’d just received a masterful lesson from his cousin. When he ruled neighbouring Moldavia, it would be beyond useful.