A Prince to be Feared: The love story of Vlad Dracula (22 page)

Countess Szilágyi sighed. “Well, he’s right there. Since the prince clings to the eastern rite, I suppose you will have to convert and follow him.”

“I don’t fear for my soul,” Ilona assured her with some irony. “We both worship the same God.”

“Yes, well, the Ottomans worship God too,” the countess said tartly. “It doesn’t make them Christians.”

And rumour said the people of the Romanian principalities would rather welcome the tolerant Ottomans than their fellow Christians who followed the Roman rite. Miklós made her understand why. But the issue didn’t matter to her. Getting to Wallachia mattered.

Unexpectedly, her mother had become her most valuable ally in that cause. Perhaps because it was one of Mihály’s last acts to promote the marriage. Perhaps because in a moment of weakness that came with the interminable talking after Mihály’s awful death, she had confessed to her mother that she loved Vlad.

It was a secret she had told to no one before, and the mingled horror and pity in her mother’s eyes had made her laugh at the time—her first laugh since Mihály had been taken in Bulgaria by the Ottomans. But she understood that her mother wanted a peaceful and contented life for her, not the erratic sleigh ride of being in love with a husband like Vlad Dracula.

And for her part, Countess Szilágyi seemed to decide that Ilona had waited long enough, even for so ill-fated a marriage. With that, Ilona heartily agreed. Grief for Mihály had only strengthened her longing. When she woke in the night, crying for her lost, tortured father, it was the comfort of Vlad’s arms she needed.

***

Astonished, Ilona let the warmth of delight seep into her grieving, angry soul. This time she entered Tîrgovi
ş
te as the prince’s promised bride, escorted from the drawbridge by smart, mounted soldiers, and the people came out to cheer her. They threw flower petals at the carriage, running along beside it to shout blessings and good wishes.

Her mother was enchanted, instantly divested of all remaining doubts concerning Ilona’s marriage in such an unstable country. Ilona shared her delight in the uninhibited welcome of the people, their obvious gladness in her arrival. Beyond that, she understood Vlad had encouraged it. By letting the marriage plans be known, by publicising her arrival and allowing the public welcome, he was making it happen. To all intents and purposes, he was presenting Matthias with the undeniable, irreversible fact of the marriage. And that pleased her too.

At the palace gates, he was there to welcome them in full princely regalia. She saw him from the carriage window, straight backed and splendid in white silk and red velvet, fine jewels encrusting his round hat and the brooch which fastened his mantle.

“He is,” Countess Szilágyi allowed, “a very fine figure of a man. There was always something about him, even as a boy. I was never sure whether we should fear him or encourage him…”

She spoke in Hungarian, in case the people who still surrounded the carriage overheard. Though she seemed to want to say more, she closed her mouth on it as a soldier moved the crowd back and opened the carriage door.

“I wish I’d worn the other gown,” the countess mourned, preparing to descend. “But at least you look nice, dear.”

Ilona had meant to, not for the welcoming crowds which she had never even imagined, but for Vlad.

The prince himself handed her mother down from the carriage, where he embraced her, a more gentle version of the greeting he’d always accorded Mihály. Without warning, Ilona’s throat closed up. Stricken, she saw his lips move as he murmured something in her mother’s ear that made her nod. Then the countess stood aside and he looked into her eyes.

The bolt of awareness was a relief. As she stepped down with her hand in his, the cheering of the crowd intensified. And this time there was no distant salutation brushed against her tingling hand. He took her in his arms and kissed her lips. A formal kiss of greeting, but one which clearly proclaimed her as his bride.

As before, the touch of his lips shocked her, delighted her. He smiled faintly, then laid her hand on his and led her into the palace. She felt his gaze on her face, but, suddenly shy, was reluctant to meet it. Instead, she smiled and nodded to the people who’d been allowed to line the path to the entrance.

He said, “I have no words for this, to make it better or easier, so I’ll speak now, and then it’s done. Mihály was as my brother, my father, and no loss has affected me so much since boyhood. That your pain is even greater, I know only too well. I would take it from you if I could.”

She whispered, “I don’t want you to,” and smiled at a child who threw rose petals in front of her feet.

“Remember his life, not his death.”

Not that the Ottomans took him prisoner to Constantinople and tortured him before the sultan to make him betray Belgrade’s defences and other military secrets. Not that when he would not speak they killed him by sawing him in half. How do you set about forgetting those things?

As if he heard her, Vlad said, “You won’t forget. But his life is more important. I have learned that.”

The people had grown too blurred to see. Still she wouldn’t look at Vlad, but her fingers curled around his and squeezed.

Chapter Eighteen

Tîrgovi
ş
te, Wallachia, 1461

“Where is Maria?”

She asked Vlad the question with reluctance. Living here, in the house beside the palace, as his acknowledged bride-to-be, seeing him every day, riding with him, talking with him, dining with him in considerably more freedom than she’d enjoyed in any of her previous visits, it was easy to lose herself in happiness and forgetfulness.

But her old friend wasn’t in the palace and neither was Maria’s son. And Vlad was planning journeys around the country—necessary journeys which he intended to make use of to introduce Ilona to the people of the other regions. She didn’t want to face Maria, but she had to, and common sense told her it should be sooner rather than later.

And so she asked Vlad as, along with several of his court, they took a stroll in the palace gardens in the cool evening air.

“At her husband’s estate. With Mihnea.”

“How is she?”

Vlad smiled faintly. “She is Maria.”

Do you still make love to her?

The question almost spilled out, but she bit it back, knowing she probably couldn’t bear the answer. When they were married, he would sleep in
her
bed. Until then…men were men.

“I need to visit her,” Ilona said. “She’s too old and good a friend to ignore and I…I need to know how she feels. About me.”

He glanced down at her. “She loves you. And she knows that you come first.”

Unreasonable guilt rose up, along with sympathetic pain. “This can’t be easy for her. She loves
you
.”

“I’ll never know why. She is the mother of my son, and as such will always be accorded every respect. You are my wife.”

He seemed to think that dealt with the matter. Only half-amused, she glanced at him. Unexpectedly, he laughed. “I know that look. Visit her tomorrow, then, but be sure to come back, because I leave for Rucăr the day after.”

***

When Maria ran into the hall and hugged her, Ilona felt such relief that it took her an instant to raise her arms and return the embrace. Fortunately, she didn’t need to say anything, since Maria’s words tripped over themselves in their hurry.

“You came! I never thought you’d come to me… Oh, Ilona, I’ve been so afraid! I thought this marriage might end our friendship!”

Ilona, who still feared the same thing, drew back a little, searching her friend’s eyes.

“You don’t hate me?” Maria asked, rather like a wheedling child, but her eyes twinkled.

“Why should
I
hate you? It’s I who’ve usurped your position.”

Maria shrugged. “We have no choice in marriage, do we? I was sent to Dragomir. You were sent to Vlad. You do know I would never slight you?”

A hint of genuine anxiety in Maria’s words caused Ilona to give her another quick hug. “Of course you wouldn’t. But I know how you feel about Vlad, and I don’t want you to…resent me.”

Maria sighed. “I always knew it would come one day. I knew he’d never marry me. For Mihnea, that’s unimportant. To be honest, I’m glad it’s you, because you will never try to cut Mihnea out or destroy his future.”

“Of course not!” said Ilona, shocked.

Maria smiled. “I would like our children to be friends.”

“So would I. How is Mihnea?” She couldn’t have said anything to make Maria happier. Immediately, she was conducted into the garden, where the toddler was playing in the sunshine on a wooden hobby horse. A much bigger boy of around thirteen was climbing through the branches of a tree for his entertainment.

“Dragomir’s son,” Maria explained. “He dotes on Mihnea.”

Ilona smiled. “So the Danesti preferences of Dragomir’s family end here?”

“Even before Mihnea was born,” Maria said. “Vlad looks after him, takes him hunting and play-fighting, talks to him. He’s devoted to the prince.”

It wasn’t the first such story she’d come across. Vlad was building future stability just by paying a little attention to the young. They, together with the new and loyal boyars whom he raised to power, were slowly replacing the self-serving and untrustworthy older families as the mainstay of his regime.

Later, when the boys had been introduced to their “princess” and Mihnea had climbed all over Ilona—an honour he insisted upon when he was told she’d given him the much-favoured horse rattle—they sat in the shade with cool lemon drinks and watched the children play.

Maria said lazily, “You
are
content with this marriage?”

Ilona drew in her breath. Now, if ever, was the time to tell Maria the truth about her feelings.

“Not,” Maria added wryly, “that it would make any difference if you weren’t! But I wouldn’t like to think you were unhappy. I know the prince can be a bit—daunting. Not to say downright terrifying…”

“I’ve never been afraid of him.”

“I know.” Maria smiled nostalgically. “Even when I was, you weren’t. Marriage is different, of course. But don’t be frightened of…
intimacy
with him. He likes intimacy.”

Intimacy
. There were times over the last few years, waiting for Vlad, that she had thought of little else but intimacy
with him. Her original impression of such doings, drawn from her observations in the country, had been that this was an animalistic way for humans to procreate. Yet her body’s reactions to Vlad’s kisses, the bold caresses of his hands, made her yearn for the greater pleasure she knew awaited her.

A pleasure with which her friend was already only too familiar.

“Maria…”

“Oh dear,” said Maria, standing and hurrying across the grass toward Mihnea, who’d tripped over a fallen toy and was crying with rage.

Distracted, Ilona wondered if Vlad had looked just like that when he was an angry three-year-old.

***

Ilona reined in her horse beside Vlad and gazed at the scene before her. Men, some in working smocks belted over their rough trousers, others bare backed under the boiling sun, wielded axes, enthusiastically cutting down trees.

A large area had already been cleared, and beyond it, the same again already under cultivation. A few women and children pottered in the fields, hoeing weeds. Some houses formed a village in the centre.

“You said you would do this,” she remembered. “Clear more land for crops.”

He nodded. “We’re doing it all over. Several new villages are thriving already. In time, it will make a huge difference.”

She smiled at him. “You really were born to do this, weren’t you?”

“What? Watch other men work?”

“Rule.”

“To rule this country,” he amended. “I used to dream of it, in exile. Which is funny, because I don’t remember thinking anything very much of it when I lived here as a child. I wanted adventures then, to travel to Italy and France—anywhere was more interesting than Wallachia.”

“We all take home for granted.”

“Not anymore,” said Vlad, watching her with a gloriously warm smile in his eyes. And she knew he meant more than his country; he meant her living in it as his wife.

She flushed with pleasure, and, because they were alone, he edged his horse closer to hers, leaned from his saddle, and kissed her mouth. Butterflies danced desperately in her stomach, fluttering lower as she opened to him.

The sounds of birds’ song, of the men labouring and calling to each other melted into the distance. The horses, restive, moved forward, forcing them to break apart.

“Christ,” Vlad said unevenly. “How am I to wait another nine months for you?”

She smiled. “Well, I’ve waited nine years for you.”

“Really?” He looked stunned. “Since we first met? That was ten years ago.”

“Who’s counting?”

“You, apparently.” He smiled, just a little predatory. “You loved me when you were a little girl?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “Only I didn’t really know it then.”

“When did you know it?” he pursued.

“Later. At Hunedoara.”

“I wish I’d known…”

“I’m glad you didn’t!” Ilona said with feeling as they turned their horses to move back to the road and rejoin the main party. “I always expected the feeling to have disappeared the next time we met. Actually,” she confessed, “I still expect that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I think about you so much, I don’t see how the reality can ever live up to my expectation. I’m always sure the disappointment will cure me, but it never does.”

His warm gaze clung to hers. “I love your honesty, Ilona Szilágyi.”

“Because it flatters you?” she teased.

“Of course. I wish I’d kidnapped you from Hunedoara and married you by force.”

Something thrilled inside her at that, but, laughing at herself, she argued, “You never even noticed me until I’d been to the Hungarian court and acquired the outer polish Aunt Erzsébet had always wanted for me.

“Yes, I did. I liked you. I used to find myself thinking of you at odd times, looking forward to seeing you as much as Mihály. But perhaps I always thought of you as the girl playing tag, not as a woman.”

She shrugged philosophically, and he added, “A girl with eyes that saw and knew too much for my own comfort. But still I liked you. I still wanted your company.”

“And now?” she prompted, hoping unworthily for a compliment.

“Now I want all of you.”

He spurred forward, muttering something under his breath that made her burn from the inside out. It sounded like, “In my bed.”

***

The summer progress through Wallachia, or
Tara Romancu
as the natives named it, was a revelation to Ilona. Not just because she learned about the country and the people who were to be her own, or because she saw sights of great beauty, although that was part of it. But much of her wonder was in learning about Vlad through his feeling for places, through his people’s feeling for him.

From fortresses such as Rucăr and the new one he was creating at Bucharest, to monasteries such as the fortified island community at Snagov, she saw what he had done and how the people greeted him. He wasn’t always loved. In many places, where he’d had cause to visit the full force of his implacable justice, he was truly feared. But everywhere, she saw respect. In many places, there was appreciation for the improved prosperity or safety that the prince had brought about. And in a few places, where he’d spent some time, such as the monastery at Snagov where he sometimes retreated for peace and contemplation, she found a genuine love.

She began to understand that he shone in the eyes of others beside herself, that his brilliance drew people to him, fascinated them, and held them. And strangely enough, his people, the ordinary peasants, seemed as proud of his cruelties as of his greatness. Perhaps they recognised his courage in looking always toward the greater good.

Although seeing the country in his company was a delight for Ilona, she was glad to rest at the castle at Poenari on the River Arges for more than one reason. Her mother was showing signs of fatigue at the constant travel of the last few weeks, and, besides, despite its controversial beginnings, the castle felt curiously like home.

So, while her mother recuperated, Ilona rode out in the sunshine every day, sometimes with Turcul’s wife and an escort, sometimes with the prince. In the more relaxed formality of Poenari, sometimes she even rode out alone with Vlad, and those were the days she secretly liked best, when he would talk to her about great matters as well as small ones, and they had the opportunity to know each other better and grow closer.

Sometimes, as their horses rested, she wanted to take his hand as they walked along forest trails. She wanted to kiss him in the sunshine and feel him crush her in his arms. But he rarely took such advantage of their time alone, and she couldn’t help feeling disappointed. Especially when she knew the desire was there, simmering so near the surface.

Once, as he helped her remount and settled her in the saddle, without warning he buried his face against her thigh and seemed to inhale her. His breath burned through the fabric of her gown, shocking and thrilling in equal measure. Her hand trembled as she reached down and touched his hair.

He spoke into her thigh, muffled and uneven. “I should separate us, send you away from me. I’m no saint, and I cannot bear this…”

“What?” Ilona asked in distress.

An extra breath of laughter burned her leg, and he raised his head. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t bring myself to let you go out of my sight.”

For the rest of that day, it seemed he meant what he said, literally. Riding home, eating dinner in the castle, she kept looking up to find his gaze upon her, curiously dark and predatory. It made her uncomfortable, yet it thrilled and excited her too. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with such feelings, so when her mother retired early to bed, she used the excuse to go too, not long after her.

In the end, she didn’t go to bed, though. She was too unsettled to sleep in the same chamber as her mother. She went to the top of the nearest tower instead and cooled her burning body there.

Perhaps she’d known he would be there. Certainly, when she heard the soft, approaching footsteps, she didn’t expect anyone else.

Wordlessly, he took her in his arms and kissed her more deeply than ever before, while his hands, bolder than ever before, roamed over her hips and breasts. He pressed his lips to the pulse beating frantically at the base of her throat and with his hands on her rear, pressed her into his body. Their clothing preserved few secrets now. Devastated, shocked, yet completely given over to physical sensation, Ilona could only cling to him and wait with delicious joy for whatever would come next.

When his mouth took her breast, she thought she would die of pleasure. Throwing her head back, she gasped and gasped again. He pulled her head back up and returned to kissing her mouth, while his hand covered her breast’s nakedness instead.

Trembling, awash, she felt the cool stone against her back. His hand tangled in her skirts, and then he paused and lifted his head. Through the hot, friendly darkness, his eyes glittered.