Blood of the Impaler

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This novel is for my brother Gary, with whom I used to stay up late on school nights to watch
Shock Theater
when we were children.

T
he historical events referred to in this novel have been presented as accurately as possible, with due allowance, of course, for artistic license. The Balkans in the fifteenth century was a rather tumultuous place, and the sequence of historical events is still a hotly debated topic, so I have chosen to follow a chronology which fits my general plot needs. I have taken some liberties with Balkan geography as well, for the same reason. I hope that this will not upset the observant reader too severely. (And I wish to extend a word of thanks to John Prehn for his research assistance.)

Any reader unable to distinguish between the historical and fictional elements of the plot is urged to seek professional help as quickly as possible.

Readers intimately familiar with Bram Stoker's
Dracula
may be chagrined by what appear to be errors in references to character names. To you I can only say, Read on. The text explains it all. Those readers who have only seen the Dracula movies or the stage play upon which so many of them were based may be confused by the character references. This is understandable, because the films take the names of Stoker's characters and jumble them up and switch them around for reasons I have never understood. (For example, the Langella version of the story contained a character named Mina Van Helsing. Mina Van Helsing?! I mean, I ask you!) To such readers, the English teacher in me responds, Read the book, dammit! Don't just sit there in front of the television set!

A word about Vlad IV, also known as
Vlad Tepes
, Vlad
the Impaler: he ruled the Rumanian province of Wallachia as voivode (a Rumanian title of nobility, usually rendered into English as "prince," though "count" will do well enough) from 1456 until his overthrow in 1462, and then again briefly in 1476, the year of his death. In the course of his brief rule he adopted and discarded religions as one might change clothes, betrayed every ally he ever had, and according to some estimates killed one-quarter of the population of his own realm, which makes him proportionally a greater mass murderer than Hitler or Stalin. He acquired a reputation for savage brutality unique even in that savage, brutal age, his most famous act being the simultaneous execution of thirty thousand captive enemy soldiers by impalement, i.e., a stake driven up through the anus and out the mouth.

He was not a nice fellow.

"Wallachia" is pronounced "Vallakhia" and is spelled in a variety of ways. The Rumanian nickname "Tepes" is pronounced "Tsepesh." Vlad's other nickname is sufficiently well known to make any explanation of pronunciation unnecessary.

Enough said. I have to go now and hang some fresh garlic on the windows.

J.S.

Out cam the thick, thick blud, out cam the thin,

Out cam the bonny heart's blud til there wass non within.

Mither, Mither, mak me bed, mak for me a windin' sheet.

Wrap me up in a cloak o' gold and see if I ca' sleep ...

-SCOTTISH BALLAD

MEPHISTOPHILIS: Now, Faustus, ask what thou wilt.

FAUSTUS: First will I question thee about Hell. Tell me, where is this place that men call Hell?

MEPH. Under the heavens.

FAUST. Aye, but whereabouts?

MEPH. Within the bowels of these elements,

Where we are tortured and remain forever.

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed

In one self place, for where we are is Hell,

And where Hell is there must we ever be.

And, to be short, when all the world dissolves

And every creature shall be purified,

All places shall be Hell that are not Heaven.

FAUST. I think Hell's a fable.

MEPH. Aye, think so,

Till experience change thy mind.

-CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE,
Doctor Faustus
, Act II, scene i

... for the blood is the life ...

—
Deuteronomy
12:23

D
eath dreams drifted through his dead mind.

He lay in the darkness, only vaguely aware of the sound of the waves as they crashed against the hull of the ship. He was still and silent. His chest did not rise and fall with breathing, for he did not breathe. His cold white hands lay folded upon his stomach and his head rested upon a layer of his native earth. The red fire of his eyes, burning in the darkness of night, had dimmed with the sunrise, and now they stared ahead of him at the inside of the lid of the box. His empty eyes did not see and did not move, as he dreamed the dreams of the dead.

He was in great danger. If they caught him now as he lay helpless in the wooden crate, no power on earth or in hell could protect his heart from the wooden stake. They had been chasing him for weeks, following him all the way from the English coast to the mouth of the Danube. He was in danger of true death, and his motionless body seemed almost tense with the knowledge.

The beast in him predominated at such times, the cunning jungle animal which was ever listening, ever alert to danger. His dead human brain slept the sleep of death, but his animal soul heard and knew. He heard the sounds of leather boots on the deck above him, the cries of the gulls, the raucous laughter of the storm-hardened seamen as they raised and lowered sails.

Time passed as the sun traveled in its slow circuit, and still he slept. He felt the soft thud of the hull against the mooring post, and he heard voices drifting down to the hold from the deck above him.

"This is the
Czarina Catherine
?"
asked a voice with a middle-European accent and an aged tremor.

"Can't ye bludy read? 'Course it is," was the reply.

"Good, good. And you are maybe the Captain Donelson?"

"Aye, I be Donelson. 'oo the bludy 'ell are you?"

"I am Hildesheim, Herr Captain, Immanuel Hildesheim."

"'oo . . . ?" A pause, and then, "Oh, right. 'ildes'eim. We got that bludy box, and you can 'ave it and be damned wiv it."

"I have here the . . . ah . . . the invoice . . ."

"Aye, aye, keep your bludy hinvoice. Jus' get this bludy thing off my ship."

"There is a problem, Herr Captain?"

No, no problem, not if you think makin' me crew all prayerful and skittish ain't a problem. I expects to lose a man or two in foul weather, but this voyage I've lost three, and never a day or night's been stormin'. No rain, no snow, nuthin' but a damned cold fog what wrapped us up of a night and blew us on like 'ell's own breath."

"
Ja,ja
. . . but . . ."

"And I makes good progress of a day on this ship, but never sailed so bludy fast and gone so bludy far so damned bludy quick, and me crew blames that bludy box. I even 'ad a man jump ship in Gibraltar, and I hain't never 'ad a man jump ship afore. So you're 'ildes'eim, and I'm to deliver the box to you, so take the damned thing and the 'ell with ye both."

He drifted back and forth between the world of sunlight and the world of shadows, between the land of the living and the realm of the dead. As part of him moved through the murky otherworld, part of him heard the grappling chains being affixed to the box. He felt himself being hoisted upward from the hold and swung over to be lowered onto a cart which waited on the dock. He felt the rumble of wooden wheels on cobblestones and heard Hildesheim whistling as he drove the team of horses.

More time passed, and at last it was drawing close to sunset. He did not know this with his thoughts, but he felt it in his ancient bones, in his infernal blood. He was growing hungry.

"Herr Hildesheim?" he heard a voice say.

"
Ja
,
I am Hildesheim."

"My name is Petrof Skinsky. I believe that—"

"
Ja, ja,
Herr Skinsky, of course. I have expected you long time ago." A pause. "Skinsky, Skinsky. You are maybe the Skinsky who works the Slovak crews on the upper Danube,
ja
?"

"Da, I am that Skinsky. You have a—"

"You be careful, Herr Skinsky. The Slovaks, they slit your throat for a
groschen, ja
?"

"I know my men, Herr Hildesheim. You have a box to deliver to me?"