House of Bathory (10 page)

Chapter 21

Č
ACHTICE
C
ASTLE
D
ECEMBER 15, 1610

F
or weeks now, Cook Brona had given Vida only the weakest broth. Occasionally the big-boned cook took pity and included a bit of boiled turnip, though this elicited a scowl from the ever-watchful Hedvika, her plump lips greasy with meat from her own full plate.

Vida pleaded for more, her stomach grumbling. Brona’s eyes, set like raisins pressed deep in dough, glistened in sympathy. Food was all there was to Brona, and it tortured her to see a starving soul. But the Countess’s orders were clear and disobedience was unthinkable. The cook turned her back to the girl.

“But Cook, look at me!” Vida cried. She held out a bony hand, her fingers like winter twigs.

Brona blinked her heavy-lidded eyes. Vida had been a beauty when she had arrived in June, the rose blooming on her plump cheeks, her hair shining like a raven’s wing. The Countess had selected her personally to carry the train of her gown from the dressing room to the vanity, where the pox-faced Zuzana performed her sorcery with lotions and unguents.

Now Vida looked as if someone had sucked the very lifeblood from her. Her breasts had withered flat against her chest, her face was gaunt, cheekbones pushing through her translucent skin. In the hollows of her eye sockets, her cornflower eyes, once so merry with spirit, had receded in the plummy darkness. Never very big, she seemed to have shrunk to the size of a child.

The other girls had secretly given her scraps from their own meager portions. A bit of meat or a piece of coarse bread would travel from lap to lap under the table until it reached starving Vida, hidden from the eyes of Hedvika, who would have stung their faces with a slap, and, far worse, informed the Countess of their treachery.

One day, when Hedvika lingered with the Countess in her chambers, hunger forced Vida to leave the table. The other handmaidens spoke not a word as she rose and walked to the cold larder at the kitchen’s portal. It was stocked with hanging fowl, smoked bacon, fresh eggs, cheeses, and wooden buckets of cream and churns of fresh butter. But most tantalizing of all was a large clay crock, filled with yellow goose fat, slick with translucent grease, creamier but more substantial than butter.

Her starving body shuddered with desire. Her thin hands flew toward the crock like birds to a perch.

“If you touch that, you will be severely punished,” said a gravelly voice.

Vida whirled around to see Brona watching her, in her hand a soup ladle, steaming in the cold air of the room. A few rich drops fell from the ladle to the granite floor and Vida dropped to her knees, her fingers sweeping up the meaty broth and plunging knuckle-deep into her mouth.

“I am starving,” Vida cried. Her shoulders began to shake and tears sprung to her sunken eyes.

“It is not my choice,” said the cook. “Come away from my larder.”

Brona extended her hand, scented with the smells of rich food, and pulled the starving girl to her feet. The cook’s fingers immediately met bone, the flesh on the girl’s arm emaciated. The old woman’s heart skipped a beat.

Brona led Vida into the kitchen where the pungent smells of cooking made her knees buckle.

“Sit there, by the fire,” she said. “It will warm your thin bones.”

Vida slumped onto a three-legged stool by the hearth. Her face crumpled, tears stained her reddening cheeks.

“But why would the Countess starve me?” she cried. “I have served her faithfully.”

The cook lifted a wooden spoon and beat it hard against the iron cauldron of soup.

“Your allegiance has nothing to do with this,” said the stout woman, shaking her head so the greasy wattles on her neck quivered. She leaned close and lowered her voice. “It’s your beauty that she hates. That is your curse.” Her meaty breath was torture to the starving girl.

“My beauty?”

“She chose you for it and now she will destroy it. And if you die, that is no concern of hers.”

“What can I do?”

Old Brona looked around and even up to the rafters, as if a spy might be perched above them.

“Flee,
Slecna
Vida. Leave
Č
achtice Castle and never look back,” she whispered quickly.

Vida’s eyes filled with tears.

“My mother is sick. The pennies I bring back keep her alive. There is no work for me in
Č
achtice, except as a prostitute.”

“Better to starve or sell your body than face the anger of the Countess.”

Hedvika strode in, demanding an extra rasher of bacon. She saw Vida and her face soured.

“What are you doing? Begging for food?”

“She has been given nothing,” said the cook. “What concern is it of yours, Hedvika? You eat more than a force-fed goose.”

“The Countess likes me plump,” said Hedvika, glowering. “But this one—I know what the Countess has prescribed for her. She has no business here.”

“This is my domain, harlot,” growled Cook. She shook the spoon in Hedvika’s face. “You think I do not know what goes on at night. Now get out!”

“Vida comes with me,” snapped Hedvika.

The cook thrust out her lower lip like a ledge and pulled Vida to her so quickly the weak girl almost fell.

“Heed my words,” the cook whispered.

“The Countess will hear of your treachery, Cook,” said Hedvika.

The cook lost her scowl, a look of cold fear crawling over her face.

Hedvika’s hand, slick with bacon grease, clutched Vida’s bony arm, pulling her away from the kitchen. The girl almost fainted from the rich pork aroma. She would lick the grease off her sleeve as soon as she had a private moment.

Vida spent most nights on the cold stone floor of the castle outside the Countess’s door, curled up like a dog on a mat woven of coarse wool. Bits of dried grass and burrs embedded in the yarn poked at her tender skin, and woke her to the muffled wail of cold drafts, winding their way through the dark corridors of the castle.

Often she would wake to see Darvulia holding a torch overhead, guiding the Countess down into the lower levels of the castle, toward the dungeon. “Sleep,” the witch would command, her breath a ring of vapor. “This errand does not concern you.”

Only in the broad daylight could Vida leave the castle, when the Countess did not require her services. She walked home, unsteady on her thin legs and worn leather shoes, to her mother’s hovel in the village of
Č
achtice. Her few pennies bought soup bones and root vegetables and a few lumps of hard coal to keep a small fire burning for her sick mother, paying a neighbor child a portion of soup to stay with the ailing woman at night. And for all her bitter hunger, Vida knew she could not take even a drop of that soup for herself without endangering her mother’s flickering life.

Then one night Vida was awakened by a murmuring in the Countess’s chamber. Perhaps the Countess was dreaming. What would she dream of? Her many lovers, her dead husband? Her coffers of gold and her castles? Her palatial home in Vienna, near the great Cathedral of St. Stephan?

Then Vida saw the fine leather boots just in front of her head. A tall man stood above her, all in black, with a wide traveling cape around his shoulders.

How could such a man have climbed the stairs without waking her?

Without knocking, he opened the Countess’s door, gliding through soundlessly.

Vida shivered. She recalled the village tales of a tall stranger, dressed in black, who frequented
Č
achtice Castle years ago, before Ferenc Nadasdy’s death. It was said that the Countess had run away with the mysterious stranger for months. One day she returned to her husband. The servants sucked in their breath, waiting for the beatings, for Count Nadasdy was known for his wrath and cruel ways.

But the Countess had not been beaten or chastened in any way. Ferenc Nadasdy had taken her back and nothing was ever said. No bruise appeared on her face. The village people were shocked.

Was this the same stranger in black, come back to reclaim her?

Vida’s stomach pinched up in a spasm. It felt as if her stomach was eating away at itself, folding over its emptiness, searching for nourishment.

She remembered the crock of goose fat and licked her lips.

Chapter 22

C
ARBONDALE,
C
OLORADO
D
ECEMBER 17, 2010

J
o
hn
’s plane was delayed in Denver.

It had been snowing hard since just after midnight. The big wet flakes would make an excellent early snowpack on the ski slopes but obscured visibility and made it nearly impossible to land on Aspen’s notoriously difficult runway, which was short and hemmed in by high mountains.

Waiting at the airport, Betsy looked out at the falling snow. Fat flakes swirled, playing tag in the wind. She wandered toward the small airport café to have a cup of coffee.

Why had she finally said yes to him?
They had worked hard since their divorce to stay away from each other, to admit that it was a youthful folly, marrying while they were still undergraduates. Now he was an associate professor at MIT with research grants. Betsy had her own practice.

They had come so far.

Damn it!
Betsy gritted her teeth, wondering what had possessed her.

The divorce had taken such a toll on her, she could barely stand to visit Boulder anymore. She couldn’t walk across the campus without thinking of their college days, when they would lie beneath the towering oak trees on a blanket in the springtime, drunk on young love.

At weak moments, Betsy still remembered the touch of his fingertips as he traced the line of her jaw, the contours of her shoulders. She felt his warm breath lingering on her neck, intoxicating. He smelled of pine needles and warm, sunny hikes in the mountains.

They kissed tenderly as only the young can, staring candidly into each other’s eyes. Athletic students in cut-offs threw Frisbees and bandana-collared dogs raced to catch them. In the distance rose the Flatiron crags, red rock against a bluebird Colorado sky. When they rolled and faced the other direction to shade their eyes from the bright sun, they looked at the sandstone façade of Norlin Library. Kids with backpacks full of books entered through the turnstile, turning their back on sunshine, Frisbees, and young love.

In towering letters Cicero’s words were engraved over the library entrance.
Who knows only his own generation remains always a child.
Now those words haunted Betsy.

We were just children,
she thought, waiting for Jo
hn
’s plane to arrive.
And foolish ones at that.

“May I help you?” said the café clerk.

“A cappuccino, two percent milk,” she said.

The local paper,
The Aspen Times
, lay rumpled and open on the café table. The last person had scrawled a telephone number in the margin and her eyes focused on an item right below:

H
ARD
R
OCK,
G
OTHS, AND
D
IE-HARD
P
UNKS.
G
ET IT ON TONIGHT AT THE
B
ELLY
U
P.
B
LACK
M
ETAL
B
AND
V
ENOM
P
LAYS A
T
RIBUTE TO
B
ATHORY.

Bathory?

Her heart thumped and she stared at the ad.

“There you are!”

Jo
hn
set down his bag and scooped her up in his arms, his skin smelling of piney soap despite his long plane ride. He held Betsy for longer than was comfortable, and she was sure he could feel the sudden stiffening in her back.

He released her and stared at her face.

“You’ve lost some weight. I can feel your ribs.”

Betsy shrugged and looked down at his old beat-up duffel bag. She knew it from their college days. “I always do when it starts turning cold.”

“Hmmm,” he said, holding her at arm’s length in order to study her better. “Not usually until mid-January after you’ve had a few weeks of skiing under your belt.”

Betsy looked away. She wanted to straighten the collar on her flannel shirt, but she knew that would indicate she had something to hide. During their marriage, she had taught him a lot about psychology. What she was studying, but also what her father had taught her over the years. She didn’t want to give him clues to interpret.

“What was so engrossing in the local rag?” he said, jerking his chin at the paper. “You looked like you had just read your own death notice.”

Betsy shrugged.

Jo
hn
looked down at the paper.

“Bathory?”

“A punk band. Goth, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Huh. I’ve heard of those guys—Bathory. Back in the eighties, I think. Come on, let’s grab a bite to eat. I couldn’t eat the crap they served in those snack packs.”

Typical Jo
hn
,
thought Betsy. It didn’t rattle him that the name Bathory would appear in the newspaper, or that the paper was flipped to the exact page where the ad was.

Coincidence, he would say if she pressed him.

After their marriage broke up, he had earned a PhD in Advanced Mathematics and Statistics from MIT. He did not believe in meaningful coincidence, only numerical patterns. Coincidences were merely a matter of probability, little
p
in statistics. Wipe the slate clean and start a new problem, a coincidence wasn’t worth examining. Not statistically important.

An outlier.

A wave of bitter memories swept over Betsy—the uber-rational mind of her ex-husband clashing with her intuitive Jungian training. She thought back to their last argument, the one that would end their marriage.

“My father! My father is in danger, I can sense it.”

“Nonsense,” he had said. “You’re nervous and tired, studying for your exams. There is nothing wrong with your father. Your mother would have called us if there were.”

“But Jo
hn
—”

“What’s wrong with you? Get over yourself and your premonitions. You are completely irrational, Betsy. And self-indulgent! The world doesn’t spin just because you dream it so.”

“Me? What about you? Not everything is logical in life, Jo
hn
. There are outliers on a scatterplot, phenomena you can’t predict.
You never look beyond the world of reason and probability. I know something is wrong.”

“You are hysterical,” he said. “You let your emotions rule you. How can you practice psychiatry when you think like this?”

“Why won’t you ever venture beyond the rational? Maybe you should do some self-exploration yourself.”

“What total horseshit!”

And when they learned of Betsy’s father’s death, John turned away. He did not know how to console Betsy. It was the beginning of the end for them.

They drove down the valley and stopped at the Woody Creek Tavern for burgers and a beer. It was empty, except for a table of tourists and a crowd of local yahoos at the bar, their baseball hats on backward, watching football on TV.

“Not the same crowd,” said John, looking around. The old photos tacked on the wall had faded now, a lot were gone. Someplace there were photos of the two of them nearly two decades ago—two college ski bums, raccoon-eyed from days on the slope, in full party mode.

“It’s a weekday, people are working. But you’re right, since it changed hands, the crowd isn’t the same.”

Jo
hn
tipped back his draft beer—Flying Dog Doggy Style, brewed locally. He didn’t recognize anyone behind the bar, though Betsy could tell he was searching for a familiar face.

“Tell me what you have found out about your mom.”

“Nothing. The embassy was useless. She was last in Bratislava on Sunday. She was going to one of the castles that Countess Bathory owned at the turn of the seventeenth century.”

“Castles?”

“She had half a dozen of them. Mom mentioned Beckov and
Č
achtice. But
Č
achtice seems more likely.”

“Why?”

“Because that is where the Countess did most of her killings.”

“Are you still planning on going there?”

“Yes. I’ve been online looking for last-minute fares. They are astronomical.”

“I’m going with you.”

“What? No, you can’t. You—”

“Thank you. Come back and see us again,” interrupted the waitress, dropping their check on the table. “And have a good day!”

The two exchanged looks—their meals were still in front of them. Jo
hn
snorted a laugh. “Definitely not the same Woody Creek Tavern. Hunter Thompson probably would have shot her.”

“Jo
hn
, really. How could you miss work?”

“I have vacation time. I’ve just submitted another grant and actually the timing is good.”

Betsy bit a french fry in half, chewing in contemplation. She heard a roar from the crowd at the bar as the Broncos scored a touchdown.

Jo
hn
took the other half of the fry gently from his ex-wife’s fingers and put it into his mouth. He chewed it, still looking at her.

“Let me help, Betsy.”

She closed her eyes tight to keep from crying. She nodded, her body trembling with emotion.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

When they got back to the office, Betsy could see movement inside.

Was the intruder back?

Betsy took a deep breath and opened the door quickly. Her heart beat hard against her chest.

Daisy sat on the floor of the office, with an enormous book spread in front of her. Betsy saw a colorful image filling the page.

“Oh, my God,” said Betsy, her hand flying to her chest. “Daisy, what are you doing here? I cancelled our session.”

Daisy looked up.

“I just wanted to see you again. Hey, you should lock your doors, Betsy. Especially after that burglar ransacked the place.”

She shifted her eyes to Jo
hn
. “Who’s the guy? Your boyfriend?”

Stop intruding on my private life,
Betsy thought.
You are totally screwing up the patient-therapist relationship.

“He—he’s an old friend. Jo
hn
, this is Daisy Hart.”

Jo
hn
approached, twisting his head to see the image on the floor.

“Is that a mandala?”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s something Jung drew. He was discovering his soul,” she pronounced ghoulishly.

Betsy suddenly realized exactly what Daisy had on her office floor.
The Red Book
.

“I saw it was inscribed to you from your mom, Betsy,” said Daisy, as if reading her mind. “Your birthday was just a few weeks ago—that makes you a Scorpio. Me, too!”

Betsy swallowed hard. The tarot reader’s voice rang in her ears
.

Talk about nightmares!

Betsy shook her head, dismissing the thought.

“Why did you—what are you doing?”

Jo
hn
made a funny face at Betsy.
Are you all right?

“I saw it on your shelf,” said Daisy. “And I was like, ‘Wow! What a coincidence.’ My sister just sent me a copy a couple of days ago. Like synchronicity—”

“Your sister
?
” Betsy said.

“I told her how cool Jung is. She went to this show in the city, where these celebrities are analyzed on stage, looking at Jung’s art.”

“The Red Book Dialogues…” Betsy murmured.

Jo
hn
squatted next to Daisy and his finger traced the image of a jewel-colored mandala.

“Jung was quite an artist,” he said. “I had no idea. It’s like a medieval illuminated manuscript.”

“Exactly!” said Daisy looking up into his eyes, beaming. “This is really the first time Morgan and I have ever had any common interest. And I mean
ever
.”

Betsy saw the white makeup buckle as her patient emphasized the last word.

“So Gothic looking,” said Jo
hn
, staring down at the page. “It reminds me of the ancient
Book of Kells
—”