House of Bathory (40 page)

Chapter 122

Č
ACHTICE
C
ASTLE
D
ECEMBER 30, 1610

D
ozens of soldiers searched
Č
achtice Castle. They overturned mattresses, searched wells, dug up shallow graves.

Count Thurzo had every servant within the walls of the castle brought to him, one by one, in the great hall, to give testimony. He sat at a great oaken table along with his scribe, with Miklos Zrynyi and Emerich Megyery as witnesses.

A guard accompanied Janos Szilvasi to the door.

“Horsemaster Szilvasi,” said Count Thurzo. “Please enter.”

The pond ice had left deep gouges in Janos’s hands where he had fought the frozen water to free Zuzana’s body. He wore rags wrapped around his fingers.

“Your friend Zuzana provided us entry,” said Thurzo. He hesitated as he noticed the torment in the young man’s eyes. “She was a brave woman.”

Janos reached in his tunic, fumbling. He withdrew the vellum ledger, shaking the bits of straw free from the pages.

The young horsemaster stared directly at the noblemen before him. “I have read these pages. There are six hundred twelve names. Girls the Countess murdered. She gives descriptions of each. And whether they provided her good sport.”

Miklos Zrynyi gasped. “Six hundred twelve?”

“Did you not suspect, Count Zrynyi?” said Janos, narrowing his eyes at the Countess’s son-in-law. “How could you be so blind for so many years? How could you tolerate the stench—”

“Enough, Szilvasi,” snapped Count Thurzo. He stretched out his hand to receive the ledger. “Your evidence and written testimony will be used in court. I plan to assemble the judges immediately in Bytca.”

“Bytca?” said Janos. “Your castle? Will she not be tried by the Pressburg courts? Or in Vienna by the crown?”

Thurzo stroked his beard. “No. I want to have the Countess tried immediately. The courts will not reconvene until after Epiphany.”

“But—”

“Horsemaster, you have been useful. Now I must ask you to leave.”

Janos stared into Thurzo’s dark eyes. He saw a flash of anger.

“Guards, please escort the horsemaster to the stables. He may select any horse he chooses to ride. Then see him through the gates of
Č
achtice.”

Janos set his jaw, facing Count Thurzo. “You will see that justice is served. Zuzana gave her life—”

“Take him away!” shouted Thurzo.

Janos threw off the hands of the guard who tried to seize him by the arm. He walked out the doorway, never looking back at the Count.

“Six hundred and twelve victims?” whispered Count Zrynyi. “If this ledger ever gets in the King’s hands, he will certainly seize all the Countess’s lands! He will make all Bathorys pay for her sins, leaving us paupers!”

“The ledger will never reach the King,” muttered Count Thurzo. He turned the ring on his finger, round and round, thinking.

“The horsemaster knows that,” he said at last. “Good sirs, there is such a thing as too much evidence.”

Thurzo gave a stern look to the scribe, who nodded. He set his quill down.

Count Thurzo opened a leather pouch. He slid the ledger in among other documents.

“This ledger belongs to the Bathory family. It shall remain as part of our records, not for the eyes of judges or kings.”

Chapter 123

T
HE
B
ORDERLANDS
: T
RANSYLVANIA
J
ANUARY 1, 1611

G
abor Bathory rode out, his eye searching for coaches approaching from Royal Hungary. He pulled back the black hood on his cloak, his Bathory ring glinting gold in the setting sun.

Her advance scout had ridden hard day and night to bring word that the Countess would take refuge in his castle, swearing her loyalty to him in his quest.

“Did she receive any tidings that warned of her arrest?” asked the Prince of Transylvania. “Why did she choose to leave
Č
achtice now, on the cusp of the New Year?”

The scout shivered, knowing full well that the spirits ruled the midnight skies as one year gave birth to the next.

“No, she had no evidence,” replied the scout, wiping salty sweat from his eyes. “She had a premonition, a dream that the end was near. The howling of cats.”

Gabor’s face went rigid. He wasted no time in assembling his troops. With his cousin’s vast wealth and the prominent names of Nadasdy and Bathory, he would take Poland.

Then Vienna.

But he needed his Cousin Erzsebet’s power—her wealth, lands, and strategic castles.

Hours passed. His scouts were sent far ahead to escort the Countess’s entourage. Gabor’s ear anticipated the cursing of drivers, the clatter of hoofbeats, the clanging of pots and pans.

There was only silence. Then the howls of wolves, echoing across the dark woods. A low fog rolled up from the south, clinging to the mountainside.

Gabor’s amber eyes scanned the horizon. Skeletal branches of birch trees etched against the backdrop of snow, stretching for miles.

If she did not appear, he would send the girl away. A bastard daughter of the Countess would no longer be an asset.

A gust of wind roared in from the southwest, blowing ice and snow in ghostly forms, chasing each other across the valley below.

He turned his horse back toward the mountains of Transylvania, a black hooded figure disappearing into the mists.

Epilogue

A
SPEN
F
ARMERS
’ M
ARKET
S
EPTEMBER 24, 2011

T
here is no more glorious time in the Roaring Fork Valley than late September. The aspen leaves turn gold, setting the mountains aflame with color with every breeze. Snow dusts the peaks, powdering the gray, rugged rock. Locals make bets on whether all the ski slopes will open on time.

Silver glints on the water of the Roaring Fork River, rippling through the valley, winding around huge boulders and wader-clad fisherman. Red-tailed hawks soar and dive in the cobalt skies, playing the wind currents flowing over the mountains. The solemn spruce trees, their shadows stretched long and ominous, hint at the winter to come.

Daisy and Morgan walked together, inspecting the bright apples at the Aspen Farmers’ Market on East Hopkins Avenue. The smell of roasting green chiles wafted through the streets, making the mountain air smell more like Santa Fe than a Colorado ski town.

Betsy spotted them in the crowd. Daisy held an apple by the stem, twirling it in front of her sister’s eyes. They both laughed at some private joke. Morgan reached out, resting her hand on Daisy’s wrist, a gesture of affection.

Sunlight sparkled on Daisy’s canine tooth as she smiled.

“Her mother told me that she had braces at six,” Betsy told Jo
hn
. “Apparently she had fully formed teeth at birth.”

“That’s freakish.”

“It happens, I guess. That last wild tooth came in when she was twelve. She refused to have it straightened.”

“You want to go over and say hi?” he asked.

She gazed at the sisters. “No, let’s leave them alone. We’ll see them this afternoon at the wedding.”

“It’s good to see them doing so well,” said Jo
hn
.

They watched the two sisters raise a hand in greeting as Daisy called to a blond teenager in a baseball cap at a vegetable stall.

Kyle loped over to them, slinging his arm around Daisy.

“Your mom, too,” said Jo
hn
. “I’ve never seen her look so happy.”

“She just got a royalty check,” said Betsy, laughing. “The book’s doing better than she ever dreamed.”

Jo
hn
took her hand. “The Countess is finally doing some good.”

“And she got a letter from the bank. The Bathory Reparation Trust is getting contributions from all over. More than she expected. Mom thought giving half of her royalties might be most of the money, but she was amazed how many Bathory relatives want to purge the stain of the Countess from their name.”

“Can you blame them?”

“At least the descendants of the victims will have some retribution for the horrors their ancestors suffered. Not a bad legacy for my dad. It’s the best memorial he could ever have.”

Jo
hn
pulled Betsy against him, cupping her chin with the palm of his hand. He tilted her head up gently, looking into her eyes.

“Ready to change your name back to Bathory?”

“I’ll always be a Path, Jo
hn
,” she teased. “Even after the ceremony.”

They watched as the two sisters drifted off into the crowd arm in arm.

Betsy took Jo
hn
’s arm, and they wandered over to the basket of apples.

“I’ll take this one,” said Betsy, picking up the apple Daisy had touched. Jo
hn
reached for his wallet, taking out a dollar. The farmer nodded, digging in her apron for change.

“Take a bite,” said Betsy, rubbing the fruit on her red flannel shirt. She held the apple up to his mouth.

He closed his hand over hers and bit hard into the apple.

“You have always led me into temptation, Elizabeth Path. I have never been able to resist.”

She smiled, biting into the other half.

HISTORICAL NOTE

A
ccording to historical record, Erzsebet Bathory was arrested on December 29, 1610. Her trial took place on January 2, 1611, at Bytca, the ancestral home of Count Gyorgy Thurzo.

The decision to hold the trial in Bytca, instead of Vienna or Pressburg, was rumored to have been made to save face for the Bathory family and to settle the affair quickly. The Hungarian Parliament was recessed for the Christmas season, and Count Thurzo deemed Countess Bathory’s case to be urgent.

According to trial transcripts cited in Raymond McNally’s
Dracula Was a Woman
, the following entry describes the fate of the Countess’s accomplices, Ilona Joo and Dorka.

…as the foremost perpetrators of this great blood crime, and in accordance with the lawful punishment for murderers, to have all the fingers on their hands, which they used as instruments in so much torture and butchering and which they dipped in the blood of Christians, torn out by the public executioner with a pair of red-hot pincers; thereafter they shall be thrown alive on the fire.

As for Fizko (Janos Uujvary), because of his youthful age and complicity in fewer crimes, we sentence him to decapitation. His body, drained of blood, should then be reunited with his fellow accomplices, where we wish him to be burned.

Critical testimony came from Bathory’s many servants. One witness in the trials was Jakub—also referred to as Janos—Szilvasi, who claimed to have a ledger written in the Countess’s own hand, listing the young women murdered, and details about them, such as, “She was too small and provided no sport.”

The Countess Erzsebet Bathory was not allowed to appear at her own trial. She was sentenced in absentia.

Countess Bathory’s punishment was to be immured in her own castle: Stone masons sealed up a tiny cell where she would spend the last of her days. There were two ventilation hatches and only a small slit in the stone where she could receive food and water. She was confined to this cold castle prison until her death.

For two years—1611 to 1613—she predicted that her cousin Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, would avenge her incarceration and come to her rescue.

Gabor Bathory’s fortunes reversed after the incarceration of Countess Bathory. No longer seeing Gabor as an asset, the Ottomans pushed him out of Wallachia and Moldavia. The Sultan then set his sights on Transylvania itself. Gabor Bathory was assassinated on October 27, 1613. No further historical record exists for Erzsebet’s illegitimate daughter, who disappeared into Transylvania the day after her birth.

King Matthias decreed that the name Erzsebet Bathory would never be uttered again within the Holy Roman Empire.

Countess Erzsebet Bathory protested her innocence until her death. She died on August 14, 1614, “without crucifix or light.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

C
arl Jung’s psychoanalytic methods and
The Red Book
were a springboard for this novel. Jung’s perspective on mental illness, psychology, and synchronicity helped me look for interconnections among characters, past and present. I felt I was looking through a long tunnel of mirrors reflecting into each other, a sense of eternity. (Fun stuff for a writer.)

Thank you forever, Andy Stone, my husband and first editor. Your own lyrical writing sets a high standard for me. I always feel you are sitting on my shoulder, Mr. Editor. (Sometimes I have to brush you off while writing and say, “Hey! Give me a break!”)

My eternal gratitude to screenwriter and acquisition editor Lindsay Guzzardo for “discovering” me. Lindsay was not only an acquisition editor but a hands-on developmental editor. She worked with fierce dedication on edits and overseeing revisions.

Melody Guy gave me guidance I cherish as I worked through extensive rewrites. She really believed in this novel. I was lucky to have two great editors to oversee such an ambitious book.

In addition, Terry Goodman, senior editor at Amazon, and editor Alison Dasho oversaw every facet of the publication of this novel. Thank you, Terry and Alison, for taking me under your wing.

Copyeditor Paul Thomason kept me honest with his own research and fact-checking. Thank you for your thorough and extensive work, Paul.… Especially with the mind-boggling task of keeping track of dates and the timeline for the two plots (and subplots) set four hundred years apart!

My gratitude to Lelia Mander for her work on this manuscript.

Jackie Ball made excellent suggestions as well. I loved the formatting throughout the book.

Amazon author-team. You are the best. Special thanks to Jessica Poore, Susan Stockman, Nikki Sprinkle, Gracie Doyle, and all the others who have worked so hard on my behalf.

Deborah Sc
hn
eider, agent extraordinaire—this is the book that led me back to you (or you back to me?) after a nearly two-decade absence. Thank you for sending me that lightning-quick e-mail and signing me once again with Gelfman Sc
hn
eider.

Speaking of Gelfman Sc
hn
eider, thank you to Victoria Marini and Cathy Gleason for all your support.

Gratitude to my agents Betsy Robbins, Sophie Baker, and Claire Nozieres at Curtis Brown in London. Thank you for enabling me to share my work with readers in many languages.

Lala Barbosa helped me by letting me have a perspective into the Aspen High Goth world during the time frame of the novel. (She is the most cheerful, friendly Goth I know!)

To my readers: Sarah Kennedy Flug, Ted and Nancy Ku
hn
, Jo
hn
and Susan Boslough, thank you for your reading and encouragement. I remember those vivacious dinner parties, each of us describing our novels, screenplays, and acting.

Lucia Caretto, my eagle-eyed reader. Thank you for your friendship. Our afternoons together chatting in Spanish and Italian keep my brain sharp(er)!

Anne Fitzgibbon Shusterman, Ann English, and Michael Cleverly—your belief in me decades ago nourished my bruised ego over the twenty-seven years it took to publish a book.

Deep gratitude for those editors and agents through the years who took the time to write me thoughtful rejection letters and make personal phone calls. Your encouragement was crucial to my eventual success.

I am grateful to the Aspen Writers’ Foundation for your support through the years. (It has been surreal to be on stage after being in the audience for over thirty years!)

Thank you to Doctors Brano and Eva Branislav. The first Slovakian ambassador to the United States, Lichardus Branislav, assured me that Countess Bathory’s crimes of terror had not been forgotten among the Slovaks. Her infamy is essentially part of the Slovakian collective unconscious.

To my beloved parents, Cdr. Frederick R. Lafferty and Elizabeth Vissering Lafferty, who taught me to love books, travel, people, and languages—and for supporting my great love of horses. I love you both dearly and forever.

To Col. James R. Spurrier who brought horses and polo into my life at an early age. That flame burns bright, even in my writing.

Bud Heatley taught me much that I know about doctoring horses and a light hand on the reins. I’ll never forget you.

My sister, Nancy Elisha, who taught me to read and write before kindergarten. She used to tell me stories when I was a little girl…now it’s my turn to be the storyteller, big sister.…