Valley of Thracians (25 page)

She almost missed them. Just as she
realized that the road would eventually veer back in a circular pattern to
reach the eastern outskirts of the village, she saw the black cars off to the
side, at the start of a dirt path leading into the pine forest. The vehicles
were empty; there was no sign of the four thugs or Boris. She parked and
switched off the motor.

And then she heard the sound. At first
she thought it was a bird’s call, perhaps an eagle signaling to its mate while
circling above the mountain peaks on the horizon. It was somewhat unworldly, as
if defying identification. But with a sinking feeling, Katya realized she was
hearing the expressions of her brother’s excruciating pain. Wincing as his
screams pierced the morning’s silence, she got out of the car, determined to
stop this. She sprinted through the woods, resolved to save her brother’s life.

A mosquito landed on her neck, and she slapped
at it blindly as she forged ahead. A gnat buzzed in her ear. She dodged prickly
bushes and overhanging branches that scraped her face. She followed a trail of
half-trampled bushes and disturbed ground cover, using the fallen vegetation to
guide her forward. The forest floor was thick with thorny weeds that slowed her
pace. A fallen tree trunk threatened to trip her; she raced around it while
fighting to maintain her direction. The sound was getting louder.

Finally she reached the clearing, an
open, oval-shaped meadow surrounded by dark pines and carpeted with colorful
flowers. It was so peaceful looking that she stopped in her tracks, trying to
catch her bearings and seek out the source of the spine-tingling shrieks. And
then she spotted the men.

Boris was propped upright, his back
clamped against the trunk of a large tree at one side of the clearing. His head
drooped downward, so she couldn’t see whether his eyes were open. He was
standing there, half conscious, possibly half dead. His face was bruised,
marked with trails of blood. All sense of strength was visibly deleted from his
being. His arms were pulled back tightly, tied behind him in an obviously
painful manner. If they had been extended outwards, Katya would have found
herself staring at a crucified image of her brother.

“Where is it?” the bald-headed leader of
the gang shouted, but Boris was oblivious to the questions. Another thug swung
a large bat at Boris’s left kneecap, cracking bone and ligaments as if they
were twigs.
Another question, another swing of the bat.
Boris was barely conscious, unable to protest and no longer responding to the
repeated blows to his legs.

“Stop!
Stop this!” Katya cried, running toward the circle of men assaulting her
brother.

“Stay away,” the bald man warned Katya,
raising an arm that could signal the others to instantly attack her as if they
were obedient attack dogs.

“He doesn’t know anything,” she
protested, trying to block the thug from raising the bat again.

“Maybe he doesn’t know anything,” one of
the men repeated, turning to the leader.

“Oh, he knows something,” the bald man
responded with a snarl. “We just don’t know yet what he knows.”

Two of the men seized Katya’s hands and
held her back, barely containing her as the beating continued. The bat swung
repeatedly, targeting kneecap and then thigh, and then striking lower leg flesh
as well. The bones in Boris’s legs shattered to fragments; there was nothing
left to crush. Boris remained upright and silent, bound by the thick ropes that
were carving rivers of blood into his arms.

It was too much for Katya to witness,
and she passed out. When she regained consciousness, the men were gone. Boris
was still bound to the tree, all color drained from his face and his very
existence hanging by the thinnest of threads. Katya struggled to her feet and
moved to help her brother.

“I think I know why you did it,” Boris
said quietly, his hands folded on his flaccid legs as he sat next to her in the
parked car.

“What? What are you talking about?”
Katya
asked,
her eyes misty from painful recollections
of the past.

“Caring for Scott all this time all by
yourself
. You think I can’t see through you and your
motives?”

Katya waited for him to continue, for
proof that he understood her agenda. Could her brother possibly know the reason
she had kept the American isolated in the remote cabin, nursing him back to
health and a state of mind that was totally under her control? Could he accept
her for what she had done after years of deception and secrecy? Growing up,
they had never been close, they had never shared secrets. Now Katya didn’t feel
the need to explain her actions to Boris anymore than she expected him to
expand on his statement suggesting that he understood them.

Suddenly Boris’s cell phone rang, and he
snapped it open. He barked a few words in reply to what he heard, and then the
call disconnected.

“They’ve spotted Scott,” he reported,
and she sat up straight, ready to get out of the car at his command. “But
there’s a slight problem,” Boris added.

Chapter
46

Simon was having a hard time with the
ascent. His limp was becoming more pronounced and his breathing indicated that
he was finding it difficult to continue up the path. She paused to wait for him
and turned to take in the scenic view.

Set against a natural wall of spectacular
rock massifs were the outer fortifications of the ancient garrison. This
fortified outpost, built atop a windy remote peak, was assigned the task of
guarding the roads crisscrossing the region that led to the plains along the
Danube River. Only two walls were needed to secure the post, to the northwest
and to the southeast. The other sides were naturally protected by inaccessibly
steep rock cliffs that provided an impenetrable defensive barrier.

The view ahead could have been lifted
straight from a Disney fantasy cartoon. Even seeing it repeatedly couldn’t
depreciate the stunning sight of a fortress wall with a slightly arched stone
gate at its center, crowned by a backdrop of rocky red pinnacles stretching
dozens of meters into the cloudless sky and carpeted halfway up with green
brush. Looking closely, one could see that some of these needle-like
protrusions were connected by a stone wall. The unique feature of Belogradchik
Fortress was the fact that it had been built as a combination of human efforts
and natural elements. She marveled at the wonders of this historic site and was
inwardly pleased that their quest had brought them here.

“What is this, Roman or Turkish?” he
asked, arriving at her side.

He readily accepted the bottle of water
she offered him but momentarily found it difficult to swallow.

She gave him a concerned look for a
moment before replying. “Belogradchik was originally built by the Romans. The
Byzantines also fortified this hill. Much later it was an important fortress in
the fourteenth century under Tsar Ivan Strasimir, who ruled out of Vidin on the
Danube. The Ottomans eventually captured Belogradchik and refortified it.”

“So these walls date back to the
fourteenth century?” Simon asked.

“No, most of these walls are from the
1800s, when the Ottomans used this fortress as part of their efforts to put
down our revolts and attempts to gain independence. The fortress was called,
and is still known by many, as the
Kaleto
, which is a Turkish word.”

“I’ve never heard of this place,” Simon
said, his breathing more regular now. “There don’t seem to be too many tourists
here.”

“It’s pretty much off the beaten path,
like most of Bulgaria,” Sophia admitted. “But we’re campaigning to get
Belogradchik recognized as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.”

In the distance a lone man was setting
up a tripod, angling his camera for the best perspective of the sun-tinged
rocks above the fortress. Except for this photographer and a pair of
large-winged raptors soaring high above, they seemed to be quite alone.

“Where could Scott be?” Simon asked,
quickly bringing them back to the purpose of their visit. “And why would he be
hiding here?”

Sophia was wondering the same thing. But
in addition to Simon’s questions, she added one, one that she did not express
to the visiting professor. Sophia wanted to know if Scott was looking for
something, something in particular, hidden among the rocks of this cultural
monument.

“We should continue,” Sophia said,
scanning the path ahead. “Scott is probably waiting for us at the top
somewhere.”

Simon nodded his head in agreement. They
continued through the next gate, reaching the foot of the reddened massif. To
his dismay, the trail ended at a set of steep stone steps, inclining toward a
gated entranceway set purposely into the cliff walls high above them. Beads of
perspiration dotted his forehead just under the rim of his baseball cap, and
his breath was coming in short, almost asthmatic gasps. But it was a different
part of his body that was threatening to betray him.

 
“My legs,” he said, as if she didn’t realize
what the problem was. “I don’t think I can go any farther,” he added, resigned
to the fact that he was unable to complete his quest.

“Should I continue on my own?” Sophia
asked. “I know what Scott looks like.”

“He might be injured or frightened, or I
don’t know what,” Simon said. He plopped down on a large rock at the side of
the steps and urged her forward.

Without the professor in tow, Sophia was
able to make quick progress, surprising herself with both the energy and
excitement that propelled her to the next level. The steps curled around the
rock walls, winding to the gate leading through a pillared passageway to an
inner courtyard. This upper section of the medieval stronghold offered the
perfect fortified enclosure. The cliffs provided natural defenses, but modern
additions such as black iron fences had been added to prevent visitors from
falling to the abyss of the rocky canyon below.

The panorama visible from atop the
Belogradchik Fortress was absolutely breathtaking. Sophia looked out at the
carpeted forest, spotted with the protruding rocky buttes, each topped with the
illusion of sculpted heads and statuesque figures. Held spellbound by the
beauty of the weathered pillars and the rock vista rising from the Danubian
plain, Sophia recalled the oft-repeated story she had learned about their
formation when she was just a child.

Long ago there was a stone-walled
nunnery built among the scenic Belogradchik Rocks. Inside this monastery lived
a young nun named Vitinia, envied by fellow nuns for her stunning beauty. The
hood of her habit couldn’t hide Vitinia’s good looks
—
rumors
of her beauty spread throughout the empire. The nunnery’s mother superior
reminded Vitinia not to forget that even though she was young and pretty, she
had taken the veil and was betrothed only to God.

One year, during the midsummer St.
Peter’s Day celebration, a handsome aristocrat named Antonio rode up to the
nunnery on his white horse in search of the well-known beauty. As soon as Vitinia
saw him, she recognized that this was the man she longed for in her innermost
dreams. Vitinia could not resist the callings of her heart and secretly met
with Antonio.

The beautiful nun and the handsome
aristocrat hid their love from the other nuns for some time. However, the
illicit love affair was discovered through the cries of Vitinia’s newborn baby.
Mother superior decided to severely punish the wayward nun by all possible
means. She cursed Vitinia repeatedly and turned to the monks from the nearby
monastery to pass judgment on the girl.

It took a long time for the
white-bearded monks to determine the appropriate punishment, but at last they
decided to expel Vitinia and her child from the priory. The monks ruled that
she should be treated like a leper and no one should dare talk to her, let
alone give her shelter or food. Vitinia preferred to die rather than be turned
out of the nunnery to a life worse than death itself. As heartbreaking as her
sincere plea for mercy was, it did not move the monks to change their ruling.

As Vitinia and her child were exiting
the nunnery’s gates for the last time, an unexpected storm turned day into
night, and thunder shook the land. Stones and boulders rained down from above,
completely destroying the nunnery and the nearby monastery. The power of the
storm was great, and all the judgmental monks fled from the chasms forming at
their feet. Vitinia, holding her newborn in a pose reminiscent of the Madonna
,
and even Antonio, the horseman riding to his beloved on his white stallion,
were turned instantly to stone.

To this day, the monks, the Madonna, and
the horseman stand guard at the Belogradchik Rocks to welcome visitors to the
site of an ancient love affair.

She navigated her way through the
passageway and came to a steep black-metal ladder, leading to an even higher
level of man-made fortress combined with natural wonder. Sophia looked back,
but Simon was out of sight, somewhere far below. There was no one around, no
indication whether climbing the ladder would bring her any closer to Scott or
to fulfilling the true reason that she had accompanied Simon on his quest to
find the missing American.

She began climbing, looking neither to
the ledge high above her nor at the ground below, growing more distant from her
feet. She concentrated on the black bars, repeating to herself the simple
command to lift her legs, one at the time, rung by rung. Thank God Simon had
stayed behind, she thought to herself. He would never have been able to ascend
this sharply vertical ladder. She was amazed that she was capable of doing this
herself. Don’t look down! A few more rungs to go! And then she reached the top.

Here, too, remnants of ancient
fortifications were set against the rocky massif of the mountain, but more
prominent were the scenic lookout points, fenced off for protection but
offering the most spectacular views. Sophia forced herself to ignore the
panorama and instead concentrate on her mission. If Scott was anywhere on this
peak, he had to be here. There was no higher level than this, she assumed.

Sophia heard a noise somewhere above
her. It sounded like something moving, pushing aside branches. Perhaps she was
mistaken and it was just the wind, breathing its existence on this lofty peak.
Curious
,
and eager to investigate, Sophia
carefully lifted her leg and stepped into a natural foothold in the side of a
large boulder. Shifting her weight, and grabbing onto the cool rock for
support, she eased herself higher. Soon she was standing on the boulder itself,
with the lookout point far below her. She turned around, crossing a weed-filled
plateau until she came to a spot overlooking the red-tiled roofs of the town
spread out across the valley. And then she heard the noise again, and it was
coming from behind a leafy bush.

 
“Scott, is that you?” she called out, first in
Bulgarian, then in English.