A Prince to be Feared: The love story of Vlad Dracula (28 page)

The knock, when it came, almost took them by surprise. As they exchanged glances, it came again. Then the key turned in the lock and Szelényi’s voice said, “Sir?”

“Szelényi?”

The count needed no further invitation. The door opened, and he came in, followed closely by the servant. They both stopped dead, their jaws dropping. When Ilona turned her face into the pillow in embarrassment, it wasn’t all acting.

Vlad slid out of bed, reaching for his shirt, and, the damage now complete, stood protectively in front of her.

“You shut her in,” he said mildly. “Peter, go away. Count Szelényi, I wonder if I might ask you a favour?”

The servant bolted. Hopefully to spread the gossip as far as he could. Count Szelényi swallowed.

“You know you can rely on my total discretion, sir.” Studiously, he didn’t look at Ilona.

“I’m delighted to hear it,” Vlad returned. “But not what I was going to ask. Do you think you could possibly bring Countess Hunyadi here? To protect the lady Ilona, obviously.”

Szelényi goggled at him. “That would be a
favour
?”

Vlad grinned. “I suspect it’s the only way you’ll dance at my wedding. Oblige me, Szelényi. Get her here, and don’t trouble about how much noise you make doing it. They’ll hush it up afterwards, but the damage will be done.”

Understanding dawned in Szelényi’s face. He looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or complain. In the end, he waved his hand wordlessly and left.

Ilona got up and padded across to the mirror by the washing bowl and made use of Vlad’s hairbrush. As if he couldn’t help it, Vlad came and stood beside her, watching her face in the mirror while he ran a few strands of her blood-gold hair between his fingers.

“It’s not all grey,” Ilona observed.

“Hardly any. Why did you hide it?”

She shrugged. “It’s less trouble to be old and dowdy and invisible. But you will
not
impale my dressmaker.”

Laughter sprang into his eyes, just as the door swung open and Countess Hunyadi sailed in, only to halt so suddenly that Count Szelényi only narrowly avoided bumping into her. She glared at the intimate picture presented by Ilona and Vlad at the mirror. By this time, Vlad had covered his nakedness, although he looked uncharacteristically informal in his shirtsleeves, but Ilona, still wearing no more than her shift, felt blissfully unashamed.

She turned to meet the countess’s horrified gaze. Feeling no urge either to smile or rush into apologetic speech, she simply waited until the fierce old eyes snapped up to Vlad instead.

“You
are
a monster! How could you do such harm to this poor…?”

“I have never,” Vlad interrupted with perfect clarity, “done any harm to Ilona Szilágyi. Nor would I. I devoutly wish I could say the same for those in her family who have had the duty to care for her.”

The countess’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, I know what you’ve done,” Vlad said softly. “And whatever you imagine, so does she. I don’t know what your motives were, whether you imagined you were somehow helping her or just your son…”

“My family,” the countess interrupted in her turn. There was a whiteness around her lips that Ilona had only seen on very rare occasions, a kind of desperate defiance in her hard eyes. “Family must always come first, before any one individual, before any personal affection. Submitting to your family should not have done this to you, Ilona.”

Erzsébet wanted, even needed, to believe the prime cause was Vlad. That was why she’d tried save Ilona from him, because in spite of everything she’d done, she still cared for her neice. Maybe Ilona would value that one day. Maybe.

“It wasn’t Vlad,” Ilona said clealry. “It was never Vlad.”

The countess gasped, as if short of air. “The name of János Hunyadi’s family will never be sullied,” she uttered.

“Then perhaps,” said Ilona thoughtfully, “Matthias should simply have paid the forty thousand ducats back to the pope.”

“It was already spent.”

Unexpectedly, the king himself stood in the doorway. Having gained all eyes, he made his entrance as magnificent as it could be without his usual escort and into a simple bedchamber that was fast becoming overcrowded. Vlad bowed with incomparable if ironic grace.

Ilona rose to her feet, but not as an obvious mark of respect. Standing before the king in her shift, she said vaguely, “I never understood why, in that case, you didn’t simply send the troops you’d promised. You got as far as the Transylvanian border. One week more, maybe two, and you would have had the glory of defeating Radu’s Ottoman protectors.”

And no need to make up elaborate lies to justify his actions. And lack of actions.

“You have no understanding of state matters,” Matthias said loftily. “The little country that is so important to him was a very small part of my concern. For Hungary’s security, I needed the friendship of Emperor Frederick, and I needed him to release the Crown of St. Stephen to me. You know that.

“But,” he added, sweeping his displeased gaze around the chamber. “I am not here to discuss ancient history, let alone justify my actions. I have forgiven the Prince of Wallachia.”

Ilona laughed.

Ignoring that, although a flicker of his shoulder betrayed his surprised irritation, Matthias continued, “Which is why I cannot understand his shocking act of what I can only assume is rape!”

“It was not rape,” Ilona said quickly.

Vlad said, “John Hunyadi’s family cannot be associated with anything so squalid as rape.”

Matthias and Erzsébet looked at him in quick suspicion. As if unaware of it, Vlad moved to lift his cloak from the back of a chair and placed it carefully around Ilona’s shoulders.

Matthias gave a sigh. “My dear prince, I am the king. I can cover anything up. Especially with you back in close imprisonment and my cousin back in the country—preferably in a strict convent I have picked out especially for her. Did you really think you could force my hand with this…crime?”

Ilona felt the familiar churning of fear. She wanted to grab Vlad’s hand for reassurance, and yet instinct told her to show no sign of such weakness.

The silence stretched. Vlad was smiling faintly.

At last, reluctantly, Countess Hunyadi said, “Ilona’s woman has been shouting her disappearance all over the castle since dawn. Search parties have already left to look for her.”

“Not a problem. She will be found somewhere else.”

“Count Szelényi is, of course, the soul of discretion,” Vlad observed, drawing attention to the stunned and not best pleased nobleman. “But I think you’ll find the castle already knows exactly where she was found.” He waved one supercilious hand. “Servants gossip.”

Matthias snapped. “Servants’ gossip does not concern me! Did you imagine you could defeat me at my own…”

He broke off. Vlad smiled into his eyes.

Ilona said innocently, “At your own game? No one can deny your mastery there. You have destroyed a prince’s reputation with the world, with history itself, by massive distribution of rumour. To say nothing of imprisoning an innocent man and causing unspeakable suffering to a Christian people you were sworn to protect. Just because you’d spent the pope’s money and didn’t want to earn it. We cannot fight you with rumours of such magnitude. But little rumours of the salacious kind are much more…insidious. You may be able to create counter-rumours, but you’ll never squash this one.”

Matthias looked stunned. No doubt because no one had spoken to him like this since childhood. No one, let alone his supposedly fading, unimportant cousin standing before him in nothing but her shift and a stranger’s cloak. Perhaps he was taken back to their shared childhood, for there was something of the childish retort in his blurted response.

“It won’t matter when you’re back in obscurity. When he is. Again.”

“He’ll never be in obscurity. You made him a monster, and the world can’t help being interested.”

Furious, Matthias opened his mouth again, but before he could speak anymore, Countess Hunyadi intervened.

“They’re right,” she snapped. “There will be no scandal. Marry them. In one week.”

“Oh no,” said Vlad. “Tonight would be best. A quiet ceremony.”

“Tonight is impossible,” Matthias objected. “There are no arrangements…”

“There were arrangements for a formal betrothal,” Vlad reminded him. “A wedding is little different.”

“Do you imagine you can live here, married to my cousin?” The king waved a contemptuous hand around the room.

Count Szelényi coughed. “Your Majesty, I believe the house in Pest is ready.”

Matthias stared at him. “The house in Pest?”

“Your gift to me,” Vlad reminded him. He smiled. “As part of our alliance.”

Matthias stared at him. Then without a word, he turned on his heel and stormed out. He didn’t trouble to close the door behind him.

Countess Hunyadi said stiffly, “You will need to work hard for the king before he allows you anywhere near Wallachia.”

“I know,” said Vlad. He didn’t sound rueful. He wanted to work, to fight, to live again. Even if it took him from Ilona. His hand gripped her shoulder, soothing whatever panic she felt at the prospect of yet another parting.

Countess Hunyadi nodded once to him, and once to Ilona. Oddly, there was no anger in it. She accepted the situation, she accepted defeat by an unexpectedly worthy opponent. And, perhaps, in this solution, the guilt she refused to acknowledge was assuaged.

“Also,” Szelényi said beneath his breath, “when you do get to Wallachia, you’ll need to watch your back.”

“I know,” said Vlad. He held his hand out to Szelényi. “Thank you.”

Although Szelényi bowed over his hand formally, he smiled as he left.

Dazed, Ilona glanced over her shoulder at Vlad Dracula. “Is that it? Is the waiting finally over?”

Vlad drew her slowly against him. “Do you know, I believe it is.”

EPILOGUE

Snagov, Wallachia, January 1477

Through the deep, freezing blackness that enclosed the Vasia forest, a motley group of people could be faintly discerned, making their way on foot across the ice to the fortified island monastery of Snagov. Several silent men in armour, surrounded a monk, a youth, a woman, and two children, one of whom she carried in her arms while the youth led the other by the hand.

From the monastery side, two more monks waited and greeted their visitors with grave faces and respectful bows. The profoundest bow was given to the woman and her round-eyed son. The baby slept in her arms, as oblivious to the cold as to the solemnity of the occasion.

The monks then led the way along invisible paths which only they could see. The monastery gate opened silently to admit them and closed behind them almost immediately, after emitting only the dimmest, briefest of lights.

Once inside, they lit more torches and the group made its way between two lines of grave-faced monks, some of whom were openly weeping. The woman lifted her gaze as she walked, looking into the face of one such grieving man. Her own stricken eyes were dry as she smiled at the monk, who whispered, “God bless you, Princess.”

Inside the beautiful Chapel of the Annunciation, the abbot awaited them. He stood in front of an open crypt at the door, no doubt to prevent anyone falling into it.

Bowing, he murmured a solemn greeting to the lady. Then: “Have they told you how this happened?”

She said, “I know he was attacked by Besarab and his Ottomans in the forest.” Her voice was quiet, faintly husky. Though unbearable emotion lurked somewhere below the surface, it remained steady, almost forceful. “I know he was not the only one to die.” Here she looked directly at the Prince of Moldavia and inclined her head. Without smiling, Stephen nodded to accept her acknowledgment, and the never-crowned Princess of Wallachia finished with commendable steadfastness. “And I know that thanks to the Ottomans, his body is not whole.”

The abbot bowed again. “Besarab ordered his body to be left in the forest as carrion for the crows, which is why we must move so quickly. For the sake of this house, we cannot be seen to bury him. I tread a fine line between what is right and what is safe for my house.”

“I understand. And I am grateful.”

“My house owes much to the prince. On a personal level, many of us feel his death as a greater grief than any that has yet befallen us.”

The princess dropped her eyes, as if this admission weakened her more than the talk of her husband’s grisly death.

The abbot said hastily, “I’ve discussed it with the Lord Carstian, and we decided this was the safest way to go. We have laid a memorial stone at the altar, engraved with the prince’s name. We will deny his body is there, and if anyone is mistrusting enough to look, they will not find it. They will find only an apparent insult to the prince’s memory which I hope you will forgive in the circumstances. Instead, we propose to bury him here.”

He stepped to the side and turned to reveal the crypt. Inside lay an open coffin. And a rich mantle and cloak that the princess knew well. It did not look like a man, let alone like Vlad Dracula, because there was no head.

***

Ilona got through the burial ceremony as she had got through the whole night, because it felt like a dream. The freezing mist around the lake had fuzzed the edges of her consciousness, helping her remain calm and steady throughout the journey, and the abbot’s unspeakable revelations, most of which she already knew from Stephen and the others.

And as the liturgy was read over the strange, headless corpse who wore Vlad’s clothes, she found herself concentrating not on the words but on her own memories.

Their victory may have been short, but it had been total. Married late in the same day they had confronted Matthias with their scandal, they had moved immediately into the hastily staffed and prepared house in Pest. At the time it had seemed so natural that it was only later, looking back, that Ilona was astonished by how quickly they had settled into married life. Almost as if the twelve years between had never been.

Almost. In Vlad’s company, the remaining veils of her “inattention” had gradually lifted. Vivacity returned with the love she now had for her life. She’d picked up her responsibilities with increasing interest and enthusiasm, ensuring her household ran smoothly, defusing trivial problems as they arose among her staff. She’d even promoted Margit’s desired marriage to a visiting nobleman and seen her faithful attendant suitably settled at last.

By the time her first son, Vlad, was born, Ilona was secure enough to bear her husband’s imminent departure for the war in Bosnia with equanimity. She had rediscovered her own place in life, was able to revel in her own long-awaited happiness as well as in the eccentricity they often presented to the world.

Like the occasion Vlad had killed a rude official for daring to enter the house without permission to pursue a felon.

“I committed no crime,”
Vlad had said dismissively when confronted about the killing.
“It was the officer who committed suicide. If he’d troubled to ask me first, I would have killed the felon myself, but anyone who invades my house without permission can expect a similar fate.”

It had been shocking, and unfortunate for the poor—if stupidly misguided—officer concerned, but there had been a certain black humour about the whole situation that had tempted Ilona to guilty laughter. In fact, it had made everyone who heard the story laugh and had been the single most important factor in finally reconciling Matthias fully to his new “cousin.”

Vlad’s often-reported words had also served as a warning to Besarab in Wallachia.

Busy with her son and absorbed by her new pregnancy, Ilona had easily filled the days of Vlad’s first long absence with her own necessary and self-imposed duties. And when he returned, victorious in battle once more, Ilona had felt more whole than at any time in her life before.

After John’s birth—he was called for John Hunyadi, not as a sop to Matthias, but because Vlad wished it—they had moved to Vlad’s old house in Sibiu, from where Vlad continued to fight in the king’s name. And from where he again fought alongside his cousin Stephen, who had himself been deposed by the Ottomans because of his new alliance with Matthias. This time, the cousins took back Moldavia first, and with Stephen restored, they’d attacked and retaken Wallachia.

Ilona let her eyes wander to Stephen. Undeniably a lesser man than her husband, but yet a better prince, because he didn’t let little things like loyalty, revenge, or temper destabilise his policy. Vlad, her Vlad, had, perhaps, been a flawed man. Certainly a flawed prince, and yet he shone, he had always shone with a brightness that eclipsed Stephen and Radu the Handsome and Besarab Laiota and even Matthias Corvinus himself.

She was biased, of course, because she loved him. But there had always been something about him, some brilliance that drew others and held them. Not just Stephen, who had made such amends, but Carstian, Stoica, Turcul, and his cousin Cazan… Her eyes moved from grieving face to grieving face as she thought their names. The boyars had taken a long time to accept Radu, and when Vlad had returned, these men had led most of the others back to him. The monks here at Snagov were motivated by affection as much as by righteousness and gratitude in risking the new prince’s wrath to bury the old.

And yet despite all that loyalty, he’d been given no time. Barely two months after he’d retaken Wallachia, he’d been ambushed and attacked by Besarab. Maybe he’d mellowed too much. The old Vlad would have ensured Besarab’s immediate death.

Her eyes flickered back to Stephen. The Prince of Moldavia had left him a bodyguard of two hundred Moldavians, who’d been with him when he was attacked. They were nearly all dead now. Another tragedy that spoke volumes for the loyalty Vlad could inspire. They had refused to leave him, even when ordered by Vlad himself when he’d seen there was no hope of escape. Only ten had limped away to bring the news to Stephen and to Carstian and the others.

The magnitude of this disaster struck Ilona all over again. The tragedy for Wallachia, and through that for all the free Balkan states, for Hungary itself. She wasn’t the only one who could see it. All these men gathered here understood it. Statesmen all over Europe would recognise the significance of the death of the last great crusader.

And perhaps, in Buda, her cousin Matthias would see it too, although he’d never admit it. At the moment, very few people knew that Vlad Dracula was dead. Officially, Stephen didn’t know. Besarab kept it quiet because he’d allowed his enemy’s head to be taken to Constantinople. That would not sit well with the Christian states. And Stephen’s and Vlad’s supporters kept it quiet so that they could bury him with honour and allow Ilona and his children time to come from Sibiu to pay their last respects.

Ilona almost jumped when Mihnea took the baby from her. Though he was weeping, he must have seen the trembling of her arm as exhaustion took its toll. There was so much hope for Mihnea, for her own sons, although she’d do her best to keep them from the poisoned chalice that was the throne of Wallachia. But they would go their own way. She would love them and guide them to the best of her ability, whatever path they chose.

The abbot had stopped speaking. The liturgy was over. Everyone was looking at her, expecting her to make some sign of farewell to the body that contained no more of Vlad than his crimson mantle. Not even the ring she’d given him so long ago, that he’d always worn. His assassins had stolen that too.

And suddenly that seemed more overwhelmingly sad than anything else. Because he’d died without her and was buried almost in absentia. Without conscious intention, she found herself kneeling by the side of the crypt, gazing at the corpse, searching for a sign that something remained of the great, unquiet spirit that had been her husband.

Be at peace, my love…

Oh, but they’d had a good sleigh ride, wild and ultimately satisfying. She refused to allow that they’d crashed at the final turn. It was just that the snow had stopped.

Reaching out, as if she couldn’t help it, she touched the thick, red fabric of his mantle, the crown he’d had made for his final reign, which lay beside him. There were no dead lips to kiss, no cold face to touch. But she could no longer see that. She saw him full of life and excitement because he was returning to his own beloved country, winning a place for her and the children as well as for himself. She’d already had the only place that mattered to her, but she’d always understood that wouldn’t be enough for him.

She gasped and snatched at the ring on her finger. Not the ornate gold wedding band, but the ring he’d first given her all those years ago at Horogszegi. Dragging it from her finger, she wrenched at the claws that held the beautiful pearl until the stone came loose. She held it tightly in her left hand while with her right, she laid the bare ring in the folds of his mantle, covering it because it had always been private.

Two parts of the same whole, Stephen had once said.

Mihnea bent beside her and laid his own offerings in the grave: the cup and belt his father had given him on his last birthday. Like Ilona, he didn’t need objects to remember Vlad. It was a pleasing symbol of giving him something back. Of making him Vlad again.

Slowly, Ilona’s fingers trailed up the stiff arm and shoulder, touched the place where his lips should have been. A single tear dripped onto the mantle, making Carstian say her name in pity. But Ilona smiled through the mist, for now, it was bearable.

Tag, Vlad Dracula.

THE END