A Prince to be Feared: The love story of Vlad Dracula (9 page)

The hooded lids swept down over his eyes, veiling whatever he didn’t wish her to see. His lashes, long and thick, curved over his cheek. Unerringly, he guided the horses through the trees at high speed and spilled back onto the road.

He spoke conversationally. “What do you want me to say, Ilona? That they deserved to die? That they were only a few infidels and traitors, no loss to the Christian world? That I did it for God or for John Hunyadi? To teach my people to fear thwarting me? Or just that I wanted to, because I’m a cruel and callous bastard?”

She swallowed. “Whichever is true.”

She couldn’t even be sure he heard her over the rushing air and the whisper and crunch of the sleigh over the snowy ground. His breath streamed out, long and steadily.

“All of them.” His glance was like a knife stab, and yet for some reason she thought the mockery there was aimed not at her but at himself. “Apart from the God bit. Let me not take his name in vain.”

As if God heard, there was a sudden jolt as the harness snapped and they were thrown backwards. Ilona gasped. One of the horses whinnied as if struck by flapping leather, and then both animals began to draw away from their slowing sleigh, which skidded off the road once more. The coach and the other sleigh and the troop of riders got smaller.

For an instant, Vlad stared straight ahead. She thought he would say something more, prayed that he would. And then he jerked forward, hard, and she realised the sleigh was picking up speed once more. His hand caught at a passing tree. It was only later she realised he wasn’t trying to slow them down, but pushing them faster, and now, alarmingly, they were on a wooded incline, which was turning into a steep slope.

Ilona squeaked with sudden fear. “Vlad!”

Vlad laughed. “Hold on to my belt,” he said and pushed himself forward to grab the wooden bar along the front. The sleigh gathered speed, bumping and sliding faster and faster toward a tree which filled Ilona’s vision. She closed her eyes and grabbed at Vlad’s belt. Beneath her knuckles, she could feel his warmth, the movement of his skin and muscles as he wrenched his body forcefully to the right.

Ilona opened her eyes. The tree was no longer there. Just yards and yards of snowy hill descending sharply before her, and beside her, Vlad who let out a huge, exhilarated yell.

Ilona couldn’t help it. Her stomach was still somewhere at the top of the hill, her heart surely wrapped around the tree. But she laughed aloud and held on as the sleigh careered down the hill, controlled only by the weight of Vlad’s body, drawing hers with it to left or right to avoid bushes and boulders.

At the foot, although the sleigh began to slow again, it still came to rest with a jolt that threw Ilona hard into Vlad’s shoulder, winding her.

He didn’t move, didn’t turn to look at her.

She gasped, “You did that deliberately!”

“Yes.”

She dragged her fingers free of his belt to punch his shoulder. Something caught at her breath—fury, joy. “Can we do it again?”

His body began to shake. Turning at last, he flung one arm around her and hugged her to him. It lasted only an instant, but still there was time to register the shock of his strong, hard body, to fear and to rejoice in his closeness.

“Another day,” he said, still smiling. She imagined his lips in her hair, felt her own leaping response—and then his arm fell away to wave to his men approaching from around the foot of the hill. “We won!” he called with satisfaction.

***

Sibiu looked different. Even through the freshly falling snow, Ilona could see that Vlad had strengthened the town walls. But mostly, she thought it seemed different because
she
was.

Somehow, like last year’s dinner at Hunedoara, she couldn’t simply enjoy his company for the remainder of the journey. There was an edge to his companionship that churned her up, disturbed her beyond belief, and yet she wanted the journey to go on forever.

Reharnessed to the recovered horses, it didn’t take long. Vlad didn’t say much, and Ilona, lost in thought and feeling, spoke even less. Mostly, she watched him surreptitiously from the corner of her eye. Either he himself changed like the weather, or her perception of him did, for in the fading light he seemed sterner, more austere, a faint frown between his thick, black brows. For much of the time, he even forgot to tease her.

But once in Sibiu, he brought the sleigh to a sliding, gentle halt in the correct street. With perfect civility, he handed her out of the vehicle and conducted her into the house of her hosts for the night. Miserably, she sensed his desire to be gone as he bore the half-alarmed, half-gratified greetings of her parents’ friends.

“Oh!” she cried, remembering only when she caught sight of her trunk being carried upstairs. “I have a letter for you from my uncle! One moment!”

“Let the maid…!” began her hostess, almost outraged, but Ilona could not be still.

She almost expected him to be gone when she returned with her uncle’s letter, but he still waited patiently in the cramped hall, refusing all offers of refreshment. He even inclined his head to her as he reached for the letter.

Placing the crumpled paper into his hold, Ilona glimpsed again the dried blood on his knuckles. But now she saw something else too—the fresh trickle that came from his sleeve, that had already stained the white cuff of his shirt a bright red and continued to drip down his wrist and along the back of his hand.

Her eyes widened. “You’re hurt!” she blurted. No wonder he’d been so silent in the second part of their journey. Looking back, she should have recognised the pain and the growing weakness in his secretive face, in his very silence. The signs had been there, only she, in her confusion, had been too wrapped up in her own foolish concerns.

“A scratch,” he said distantly.

“I didn’t know…”

“How could you?” He sounded amused now, until his hostess bustled over, demanding to see and treat his wound. Then he drew himself up until he seemed far taller than his actual average height.

“That won’t be necessary. My own people will deal with it. Thank you for your kindness.”

Cowed, poor Mihaela stepped back. Vlad bowed to Ilona. “Until tomorrow morning. We’ll conduct you beyond the danger area and set you on the way to Sighisoara.”

“There’s no need,” Ilona protested.

“It will be my honour,” Vlad said implacably and waited for no more before sweeping from the room.

“Goodness,” whispered Mihaela. “What a very alarming young man!”

“Hush!” said her husband, flapping his arm.

Ilona’s laughter was decidedly shaky.

***

The morning brought not Vlad Dracula but a messenger with the bad news that rock falls and bad weather were blocking much of the road between Sibiu and Sighisoara, and that the prince suggested postponing her departure until tomorrow.

Ilona, anxious to be with her family, and convinced there would be a way round such obstacles, was all for travelling immediately, with or without her military escort, but her hosts absolutely forbade going against the advice of the governor of the city—especially now that they’d met him. And before Ilona, laughing in spite of herself, could talk them round, she had another visitor—Stephen of Moldavia who came, he said, to show her the city.

Mihaela, clearly seeing a distraction from Ilona’s determination to leave, bundled her into fur cloak and muff, all the while pretending to be outraged. “My goodness, the Szilágyis have come up in the world. I remember when you were ordinary like us, and now you have princes at the door every day.”

“Only exiled ones,” Ilona pointed out.

“I don’t think there’s very much of the ‘only’ about these two,” Mihaela said shrewdly.

Stephen seemed flatteringly pleased to see her, and asked all the questions Vlad had not, about her family and the health of the Hunyadis. He looked very dashing in a fur-trimmed blue hat and matching cloak, and it occurred to Ilona that he was actually more handsome than his cousin. It was just that something about Vlad tended to grab one’s attention and keep it…

“I hear you’ve been sleigh-riding,” Stephen teased as they paused on the stone bridge to watch the skaters on the frozen river beneath. “Not to say impromptu sledging!”

“He did that deliberately.”

“I know, and he’s sorry for it. Unfortunately, in some ways, he’s a creature of impulse.”

Ilona regarded him with a spark of curiosity. “I think you know him very well.”

Stephen smiled slightly. “He’s the best friend I’ll ever have.”

“You trust him.”

It was hardly civil, implying as it did, that neither she nor anyone else did, but Stephen only said, “Yes.” Then, as if feeling her gaze still on him, he turned and slouched against the bridge wall. “He came to us an exile, already a veteran fighter at the age of seventeen, offering my father his sword. We took him in because he was family, but he repaid us a hundred times over. He fought beside me in Moldavia, protected me at the risk of his own life many times when my inexperience would have got me killed; and again against Petru Aaron, who seized my father’s throne. We lost that one, but he stayed with us.”

He straightened and began to walk on over the bridge. “I’ve seen enough ambition and intrigue to know that such loyalty is rare in this world.”

It was so much what she wanted to hear that, perversely, she argued, “I would not say your cousin is a stranger to ambition or intrigue.”

“Lord, no, he’s full to the brim of one and a past master of the other! That doesn’t negate his other qualities. What I’m saying is—and I know Hungary trusts neither of us fully—Vlad doesn’t give his loyalty or his friendship easily, but when he does, it’s unchangeable.”

“And who is he loyal to? Apart from your family?”

Stephen shrugged. “Memories, mostly. His father’s and, especially, his brother.”

“Radu?” He whose “affinity” for the Ottomans kept him with them still, despite the fact that he’d been freed years ago.

“No,” Stephen confessed. “Not that I think he’d turn Radu away from his door. He protected him from the Ottomans when they were children, took his punishments, and kept him from harm when things were tough. The kind of ‘tough’ he’ll never tell you,” he added quickly, no doubt catching sight of the intended question forming on her lips. “But it was Mircea, his older brother, that he loved. Beyond even Vlad Dracul, I sometimes think. To be honest, that’s why I sometimes fear…” He broke off, shrugging.

“Fear what?”

“I fear for him when he goes home. Too many ghosts. Too much revenge.”

“
When
he goes home,” she repeated, smiling faintly.

“Oh, he will, and within the next year. I don’t doubt that.”

“You don’t grudge him it either,” Ilona observed.

Stephen glanced at her. “How could I? His throne is the first step to my own. And why am I here with you talking about him?”

“Because I asked.”

“He’ll like that.”

She cast him a quick, uncertain glance. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I would, in his shoes.”

Understanding dawned, along with the laughter. “Are you flirting with me?” she asked, more pleased with herself for recognising it than anything else, and he grinned.

“I’m trying to.”

“But why?”

“Maybe I’m hoping your father will entertain me when I’m Prince of Moldavia.”

Ilona blinked. “My father is a great soldier, but the Szilágyis are not great nobles. We do not entertain princes!”

“When I’m Prince of Moldavia, who knows what will be true?”

***

Although she doubted the governor of Sibiu would come in person, especially since he was injured, he was the first person she saw when her kind hosts conducted her outside the following morning. Wearing a black cloak with a black fur hat, he stood by his horse’s head, idly stroking the animal’s nose until she emerged. His hands were gloved, and she could see no sign of his wound.

It was difficult to look at him, remembering that brief intimate moment in the sleigh at the foot of the hill. Although, curiously, it helped in the cold light of a new day to realise that to him it had been a mere instant of amusement, perhaps even relief that he hadn’t hurt Hunyadi’s niece by his insane action. He’d already confessed as much to Stephen.

In some ways, he’s a creature of impulse…

No mercy. Kill them all.

The sky was brighter today and travelling beyond Sibiu not too difficult. Shut up in the coach once more with her maid, Ilona saw very little of her princely escort. Only as he prepared to leave her in the company of her original men-at-arms did they finally exchange more than politenesses.

Emerging from the inn where they’d changed the carriage horses and where she’d been given a bowl of warm, tasty soup, she found him in the courtyard instructing her men. He turned as she approached, saying, “You should be perfectly safe for the rest of the journey. If your father knows more, he’ll send men from Sighisoara to meet you.”

Ilona sighed. “It’s all so uncertain these days.”

“Hopefully it will be calmer after this coming year.”

“How?” she demanded. “Everyone expects war with the Ottomans now.”

“Oh, there will be war,” Vlad agreed. “There has to be to restore any sort of security. Not just to prevent the Ottomans from taking Belgrade but to push them back. I doubt they’ll leave Constantinople very easily, but we can certainly keep them out of Wallachia and Moldavia and reduce the threat to Hungary. Maybe then Europe will unite to push them out once and for all.”

“Another crusade?” Ilona said doubtfully. “John of Capistrano is not the best recruiting officer.”

“He’s a little sh…swine,” Vlad said with unexpected feeling. John of Capistrano, the papal legate had come as inquisitor to root out heresy. His recently adopted cause of crusade against the Ottomans was having little success, largely because of the ill feeling he had already stirred up among Orthodox Christians—many of whom looked on the infidel Turks with more sympathy than they accorded Roman Catholics. “He doesn’t even speak any useful language. But we need the Roman church if we’re to have help from the west.”