House of Bathory (27 page)

Chapter 79

V
ILLAGE OF
Č
ACHTICE
D
ECEMBER 27, 1610

V
ida heard that Ponikenusz had left for Vienna. The chatter in the tavern was that he left trailing the night coach in order to address the King.

“They say that Janos Szilvasi is near death with a fever,” said the barkeeper.

“Who nurses him?” said a bearded patron, taking a deep draught of his beer.

“They say it is the poxed one who sits by his bedside. The Countess has taken him into the castle.”

“She will kill him!” said another patron, a dog curled at his feet.

The barkeeper shook his head and wiped a dirty rag across a table.

“Her tastes are for women’s blood, not men’s.”

Not if she thinks he is an informant to the King
, thought Vida, throwing her woolen shawl over her shoulders.

She pulled the iron ring on the heavy wooden door. A cold wind lacerated her ankles as she hurried out.

Aloyz brought Vida to the scullery, knocking at the splintered door. He had thrown a dark blanket over the girl’s head and shoulders so she wouldn’t be recognized until she was safe among the women she trusted.

Hedvika, as always, had accompanied the Countess to the dungeon to play the nightly games.

“Vida!” exclaimed the other maidens. “How we have missed you!”

“But do you dare return?” asked one. “The mistress will punish you—”

“She will take you to the dungeon,” whispered another. “Countess Zichy has—”

“What’s all this?” growled a voice.

The women stopped breathing.

In the doorway stood Brona the cook, wooden ladle in her hand.

The girls stood in front of Vida, trying to hide her from view.

“Get away,” Brona said, swatting them with her ladle. “You think I don’t know a dear daughter has returned? Come here, child.”

She embraced Vida, then stepped back. “Let me see your hands, girl.”

Vida opened her palms. The young girl’s face flinched with pain.

The wounds had scarred to thick pink and white flaps of skin, edged in black char. Only a little pus oozed from them. The cunning woman’s remedies had saved her hands.

“I will take you myself to Szilvasi and Zuzana. The rest of you stay here,” Brona said. Then she shot a look at the knot of girls, their faces drawn with fear.

“Warn us if you hear the Countess emerge from the dungeon. And,” Brona said looking them over one by one, “if anyone betrays this child, I will poison your food, I swear by all that is holy.”

Chapter 80

Č
ACHTICE
C
ASTLE
D
ECEMBER 27, 1610

T
he cook’s candle spilled a pool of light in the dark hall, as she led Vida up a turret stairway, then stopped and rapped her heavy knuckles against a door.

It opened a crack, just enough for Vida to see white bed sheets and then a sliver of a scarred face at the wedge of the open door.

“Vida!” gasped Zuzana, opening the door wide. She set her candle on the table and went to hug her friend.

Brona smiled, watching the two young women, but her smile vanished as she saw the fevered Janos clawing the air with his outstretched fingers.

“NO!” he screamed. “Leave her alone!”

Vida stared as Brona rushed in, her skirts flying.

The cook caught the horsemaster’s flailing hand in midair.

“Just as I thought,” she said, kissing the fevered man’s hand. “See the scar beside his little finger.”

Zuzana gaped at the cook, who cradled the hand of her sick friend. “His mother said he caught it in a well rope.”

“Bolt the door,” Brona whispered. She said nothing until the plank was slid across the door.

“No rope did this,” Brona said, spitting out the words in excitement. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “It was cut with a knife—”

“What? Why would she—” said Zuzana

“He is a Taltos. I am sure of it,” said the cook.

“What?” asked Vida. “What makes you say that?”

“That scar,” said Brona. “He had a sixth finger. His mother must have cut it off. They would have killed him if they’d found it.”

Zuzana studied Janos’s hand in hers. She rubbed her fingertip over the scarred edge of flesh at the outside of his his little finger.

“Killed him?” said Zuzana

“The Bathorys,” whispered Brona. “The King. They all fear the power of the Taltos.”

Vida shook her head. “That scar doesn’t prove—”

The cook dismissed her objection with a wave of her thick hand. “His talent with horses, how he whispers to them. Listen, it is a vision he sees now in his fevered head.”

“What?” said Zuzana.

“He has come to save us,” said the cook, glancing at the suffering man. “It is he who will defeat the Countess.”

Vida and Zuzana stared at the young horsemaster.

“How can he possibly help now?” whispered Zuzana, folding his waving hand into her own, bringing it to her lips, then lowering it, nestling the scarred hand against his heaving chest as if returning a baby bird to a nest. “He’s dying.”

Chapter 81

S
OMEWHERE IN
S
LOVAKIA
D
ECEMBER 27, 2010

D
raska’s mother, Mathilde, the castle cook, banged her fist against the Count’s chamber door. The delicate wood, painted with Venetian motifs, flexed under the assault.

“I know you are in there!” she bellowed. She rattled the brass handle. “Open the door or I am calling the police. Now!”

Ivan, one of the Count’s manservants, opened the door. He stared at the cook, menace burning in his eyes.

“Stand aside,” Mathilde said, her broad hips pushing past him.

Ivan grabbed her meaty arm, digging his thin fingers deep into her flesh.

“He cannot be disturbed now.”

Mathilde wrestled her arm away from him.

“Then you cannot stop me from calling the police. My daughter is not with her cousin in London—that was all a dirty lie!”

“Mathilde, Mathilde,” cooed a voice from within the recesses of the bedchamber.

“Count Bathory? I must see you at once.”

“Enter, my dear. Enter. It is not often I entertain my family’s most loyal servant in my boudoir.”

The Count wore a crimson satin smoking jacket. He balanced a stack of newspapers on his lap.

“Come, sit down Mathilde.”

“I didn’t come to sit, Count Bathory. My daughter is missing and I was purposely given false information about her whereabouts.”

“Oh, really? How’s that? I am often left out of the loop with the household comings and goings.”

“Ivan here came to tell me that Draska was called away immediately, that she had traveled to London—”

“Oh, yes,” Ivan insisted, “Draska told me about a cousin being very ill.”

Mathilde pressed her lips together tightly. Her nostrils flared. “Her cousin is fine. Draska never went to London. I want to know where she is.”

The Count shifted the papers on his knees, his veins showing through the pale skin on his hands. He frowned.

“Mathilde, I do not like your tone of voice. How should I know what happened to Draska? She is a teenager and adolescents are less than responsible, should we say—they say one thing—”

“My daughter is very responsible. She would never have left—”

“I told you. I do not know what has happened to her,” the Count said coldly. “I think you should return to the kitchen immediately, Mathilde.”

Mathilde saw the Count’s eyes change, as if a cloud had passed over, his countenance turning dark and menacing.

“You have clearly forgotten your position in this household,” snapped the Count. He lifted a newspaper from the stack, ignoring the servant. His eyes scanned the headlines.

Ivan led the cook out the bedroom door, locking it behind her. The Count called his manservant to his side.

“See that she does not have access to the telephone. Do not let her out of the castle.”

“She will cause trouble, Master—”

The Count hissed, rising up like a cobra. His sudden leap from the chair belied his age. Ivan backed away, cowering, his hands raised over his neck and face.

“Silence!” ordered the Count, his eyes lit with fury. “I will take care of her.”

Chapter 82

R
ESIDENCE OF
P
ALATINE
C
OUNT
T
HURZO
P
RESSBURG,
R
OYAL
H
UNGARY
D
ECEMBER 27, 1610

T
wo horse-drawn coaches clattered to a stop at Count Thurzo’s residence in Pressburg. Coming from different directions, they arrived at the same moment, their wheels cutting dark slices in the snow, digging deep to the cobblestone below.

Torches smoking in their gloved hands, guards hurried out to greet the travelers. The light leapt as the weary passengers climbed out into the night.

In the first carriage, Emerich Megyery, tutor and guardian of Countess Bathory’s son Pal, had traveled two days from Sarvar. He had written Count Thurzo that he had urgent news of Erzsebet’s transgressions but would only deliver the information personally.

As Megyery looked to the second coach, he recognized the other visitor.

It was Miklos Zrynyi, husband of Anna Nadasdy-Bathory, the Countess’s eldest daughter.

In the warmth of the great room, Megyery closed his eyes, sipping the strong mulled wine. The long coach ride from Sarvar—wheels jolting along the rutted winter road—had left him aching and deeply fatigued. The urgency of the news he brought the Palatine had forced him to the Hungarian capital in breakneck haste.

Famished from the journey, he ate heartily of the midnight breakfast of roast pork and paprika-spiced sausages, laced with saffron and savory with fat.

Megyery knew that he would need the stamina to face Thurzo.

Miklos Zrynyi spoke first.

“Count Thurzo, Palatine of Royal Hungary and good cousin: Hear my grievance, as I swear upon all that is holy, it is the truth.”

“Speak, Count Zryni. You will find a willing ear and trusted confidante of our King, Matthias.”

Zryni collected his thoughts, inhaling deeply.

“Last Easter, I accompanied my wife to see her mother, Countess Bathory, at
Č
achtice Castle. The day following Holy Sunday I indulged in a hunt for wild boar. After the hunt, I dismounted and left my horse in the care of a
Č
achtice stable boy.”

“The horsemaster Szilvasi was not present?”

Zryni shook his head, bewildered by Thurzo’s interruption.

“No, Count. It was a stable boy who took my mount. I whistled to my hunting dogs, accounting for all but one: my favorite bitch, Zora. She did not heed me. Indeed I could not find her anywhere.

“I walked the castle walls calling for her, until I came to the vegetable gardens. The soil had been newly tilled for planting. Great clods of earth had been overturned—there I found Zora digging.

“When she still refused to come to me, I struck out through the plowed earth, waving my riding crop. Instead of cowering, she growled at me. She was gnawing jealously on something—a bone, its rancid meat still clinging. I struck my dog’s back with the riding crop. As she slunk away cowering, I bent closer to inspect her filthy treasure.

“It was a human leg, a girl’s, her laced shoe still attached to her rotting foot.”

The scribe’s quill scratched wildly at the parchment. Thurzo steepled his outstretched fingers, placing his fingertips to his forehead.

Megyery and Zrynyi exchanged guarded looks. Neither was sure of Thurzo’s reaction. The information they brought could determine their futures in the labyrinth of political power surrounding the Hungarian Parliament, the Palatine,
the
Bathorys, and the Habsburg King.

At last, Thurzo spoke. “And what did you do, having found this…corpse in the kitchen garden?”

“I told my wife to pack at once, that I would never set foot in the castle again.”

Count Thurzo listened, nodding to his scribe as he dipped his pen in the inkwell. “And your verdict, Zrynyi?”

The young man looked at the fire. Thurzo could see his jaw working in the yellow light. “As we discussed a month ago, I agree with my kinsmen that the Countess should be sent secretly to Varanno to enter a nunnery.”

“Our King does not allow this option,” said Thurzo. “My question is whether you will join me in witnessing her crimes and assist in her immediate arrest.”

Zrynyi answered at once, the knots in his shoulders unknitting in relief. He saw a reciprocal loosening of muscles in the tense Megyery. “I will, my Lord, with all my heart. I am faithful to the Habsburg Crown.”

Thurzo nodded. He turned to Megyery. “I do not need to ask where you stand, sir. Your animosity toward Countess Bathory is well-known, Megyery the Red.”

“Only fed and fattened with hearty years of horrific evidence, my Lord. Ferenc Nadasdy left his heir in my charge. I am the sworn protector and guardian of Pal of Nad—”

“I know your situation, Megyery. And I am well aware of the brutal stories the peasants of Sarvar recount of Countess Bathory. Also of her bitter animosity toward you. We shall not travel those old roads. What new information do you bring?”

Megyery wrinkled his brow, registering the Palatine’s impatience. He wet his lips with his tongue.

“A peasant came to me—formally to Pal, but he being a mere twelve years of age—”

“Continue without embellishment. Get to the meat of the subject.”

“The peasant came with a grievance. He had journeyed the many miles from
Č
achtice, his face drawn in exhaustion, but his eyes bright with fury. He said that a certain maiden, who was in the employ of Countess Bathory, was his betrothed. He had warned her not to accept work at
Č
achtice Castle, but she had no choice. Her situation was one of the most dire poverty.

“Her job included fetching buckets of river water each day from below the walls of the castle. The lad would wait for her to whisper endearments as she filled her buckets.

“One day she did not appear. Nor the next day. But the following day, another maiden came down from the castle, the two buckets in her hands. She told the boy that his fiancée had disappeared.

“My scribe took the complaint, as I heard it. I have the document here.”

He produced a parchment from his leather satchel. A servant accepted it and carried it to the Palatine’s hands.

Thurzo glanced at the letter. “The light is poor,” he grumbled. “Tell me of its contents.”

“I heard the young man’s story. He was met by Kovach, the head guard of
Č
achtice, at the castle gates, the man turned the wretched boy away, saying that the girl left of her own accord in the middle of the night. A slattern, he called her. ‘You are well rid of such a harlot.’

“The boy knew the guard was lying. He had listened to the tales of strange disappearances of scores of girls. It is said that no one in
Č
achtice or the surrounding areas will dare work for Countess Bathory now. Her witches scour the countryside for new victims, maidens in far-off villages who have not heard of the mayhem of
Č
achtice Castle. And even there, word of her evil has spread. She is called the Beast of
Č
achtice by the villagers.

“He collected the names of girls who had gone missing in the past decade, never to return to their homes. Girls who were in the employ of Countess Bathory.

“In the letter you will find scores of names of brave men and women who will testify against the Countess if she is brought to trial.”

Thurzo looked down at the letter in his hand. His lip curled up in disgust.

“This very night, I have received word from Vienna,” said Thurzo. “Countess Bathory holds Countess Zichy prisoner.”

The two men gasped.

Count Thurzo sipped from his goblet.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “To protect the Bathory interests, it must be us—her kinsmen—who make the arrest. The Countess will fall under my jurisdiction as Palatine—I can arrange to deal with her on terms that will be favorable to her heirs. I propose the two of you accompany me to
Č
achtice. We leave at once.”