Authors: Leslie Langtry
And that’s when I got it. That’s when I came up with my plan.
* * *
That night, a horrible fire broke out in the castle, burning it to the ground. The people of the town found nothing in what remained but charred stones. I gave the servants a ridiculous amount of money to “relocate” to another region, leaving one servant left behind to tell the town that the dragon had ignited the castle, burning the Duke, Duchess and their little daughter to death.
We did not stay for the funeral. Jude, Godgifu, Ebba and I slipped away on horseback while the castle blazed. We returned home and, after showing Eadgar the Dragon to Mother, explained how the assignment had been a success. Mother was very taken with the lizard and even let him roam freely throughout the castle. Every now and then, you’d hear his feet slapping on the stones as he slowly meandered around.
Godgifu and Ebba were made comfortable as our guests. Mother was concerned about what to do with them. It was possible that someday a visitor from Northumbria might recognize our guests.
We spent weeks trying to decide what to do before an answer emerged. I would take the mother and daughter to another country—maybe Italy or Greece—and get them settled there. It would be far enough away, and I thought these two needed some Mediterranean sun after all those years shut up in a damp castle in the north.
I might’ve stayed on a bit longer than I was supposed to. We found a lovely villa on a Greek island, and soon our skin turned golden brown. Godgifu and I soon realized we had feelings for each other. Ebba told us—she’s a very astute little girl. Being a bachelor in soggy old England wasn’t nearly that interesting to me anymore. Being part of a family was.
After a few weeks, I wrote to mother, letting her know that Godgifu and I were married. Months later, I received her reply.
My Dearest Bavaria,
Congratulations on your nuptials. The Council knows where to find you, so don’t worry about setting down roots in our original home country. There have actually been some interesting developments in your part of the world, so I imagine we will have work for you soon. Please write often and make sure you come to visit with my little granddaughter, Ebba, (and any more grandchildren I’m sure you’ll have…soon) now and again. Oh, and I’m keeping Eadgar. He’s become very fond of my afternoon minstrels. So if you miss him, you’ll just have to find yourself another dragon.
Love,
Mother
Godgifu laughed as I folded up the letter and threw her arms around me.
“I don’t think we’ll be in the market for another dragon anytime soon,” I told her. Then I kissed her.
“We’ll just get Ebba a pet snake and call it a sea serpent.”
I could definitely live with that.
I was in the courtyard, playing with my Dodo birds, when the assignment to kill Elizabeth of Bathory arrived.
“Baggie!” I cried out to my brother as he was escorted to me by my manservant, Julian. I flung my arms around Baghdad Bombay and crushed him in an embrace.
“Good to see you, old boy!” Baggie clapped me on the back and handed me a rolled tube sealed with wax. “From the Council. Mum sends her love, of course!”
I knew immediately that it was an assignment. One I was eager to see as it had been too quiet around here lately.
“Um, say, chap,” Baggie said, his eyes focused on the two, squat but large birds in front of us, “what’s all this, then?”
I pointed to the two birds that were standing next to each other, eyeing my brother sideways with great suspicion. “This is Tristan and Isolde, my pet Dodo birds.”
Tristan grew bored with the introduction and waddled over to Julian with the hopes of securing some more fruit. Isolde flapped her tiny, useless wings indignantly and clacked her enormous bill at us.
“Couldn’t you just get a dog like anyone else?” my brother asked, never taking his eyes off the weird animals before him.
“Absolutely not!” I exclaimed. “These are much more interesting than a dog. I got these two on the island of Mauritius just last month. I’m trying to breed more of them. Apparently the Dutch sailors are eating them into extinction. We can’t have that.” I reached down and patted Isolde on the head, and she squawked at me loudly before waddling over to see if Tristan was receiving more than his fair share of figs from Julian.
“Come inside! It’s been ages…absolutely ages!” I steered my brother into the doorway to my sitting room, then removed my sandals at the door. It was hot in Cairo most days, but the brightly colored tiles on the floors and walls cooled the room considerably. I’d had them painted by a local family of artisans. It had taken ages, but as I always say, you can’t put a price on creature comforts.
Julian brought us hibiscus tea and couscous as Baggie and I caught up. It was lovely to see my brother again.
“What on Earth were you doing on Mauritius?” Baggie asked.
“I was actually on Madagascar first, collecting Tagena tree nuts. Fascinating poison really! They call it the Ordeal Bean of Madagascar, of all things.”
Baggie snorted. “And I thought England cornered the market on all trials by ordeal.”
“It’s the usual thing, I imagine,” I continued. “You see, the kernels of the nut are extremely toxic—disrupting the heart and breathing and causing instant, painful death. Years ago, if you were accused of a crime, you could choose to be speared to death or go through the trial by ordeal.” I could feel myself getting more excited as I explained. Rare poisons were my passion—the more exotic the better.
“They would feed you some chicken skin first, and then you would swallow the poisonous kernels. If you vomited them back up, you were innocent. If not, you were guilty, but it didn’t matter because you died anyway. Sort of a combined sheriff, magistrate and executioner in one easy step.”
My brother laughed, and I realized how much I’d missed my family. Which was strange because I had moved all the way to Egypt to get away from them. My name is Cairo Bombay, and I live in Cairo. Not completely by accident. As a young child, I’d been captivated by photos of my namesake; the vivid colors, the foreign plants, the vibrant zest for life so much the polar opposite to the dull, damp gray of England.
Speaking of which, the heat of the day was becoming oppressive. I had Julian escort Baggie to his room so he could change into the far more comfortable Egyptian cotton clothes I had adopted here. While I knew that Baggie’s velvet jacket, silk tunic and large hat were the height of fashion back home, they were ridiculous in a climate like this. While he was doing that, I took the rolled up tube into my office and broke the seal.
Unrolling the parchment, I found the traditional Bombay crest atop the page, a snake and a vial of poison upon two crossed swords with the motto,
Kill With No Mercy, Love With Suspicion
. Sigh. I really missed my family. Good thing Baggie was here.
Countess Elizabeth Bathory was my target. A copy of the most recent painting of her from 1585 was included. Even though this was 1614, her outfit was a bit dated for even 1585. I mean, who wore a cap with a squared, Elizabethan collar anymore? Dreadful!
Her crimes were more ghastly than her clothing. According to court records from several witnesses over a number of years, the woman had killed at least eighty young, Hungarian peasant girls. She lured them to her castle with the promise of gainful employment before imprisoning, torturing and killing these girls. There were those who insisted the number was more like six hundred girls, but I found it difficult to believe that rural Hungarian officials wouldn’t notice that many of their population disappearing.
Currently, and for the past four years, the bloody Countess had been a prisoner in her family’s castle. According to the Bombay’s information—which was rarely if ever wrong—Elizabeth was walled up in a room with no windows and only one door. This door had a slit only large enough to check on the prisoner and to pass food through. She was fifty-four years old which was positively
ancient
.
I leaned back in my chair and sipped my tea. If I had to guess, I’d say that the peasants and the Bathorys
' enemies decided she hadn’t seen true justice and ordered the job. No matter. Bombays weren’t privy to the background of any assignment. We were merely to carry it out.
The real problem would be the language. I did not speak or understand Hungarian. I would need a translator. I called for Julian.
“Sir?” Julian arrived promptly, like a good English manservant. Tall, pale with sharp cheekbones, dark wavy hair and piercing blue eyes, Julian was the perfect Englishman. He’d been with me since we were boys and was the only person in the world besides Baggie whom I trusted. Bombays are not known for trusting anyone—even family.
“Julian, I will be traveling briefly to the Kingdom of Hungary, specifically the area around Cachtice Castle. Could you be a good chap and find me a guide?”
“Of course, sir.” He turned and left. If he recognized the name of Cachtice Castle for housing one of the most notorious women in history, he didn’t indicate it. Julian was the very definition of discretion.
Baggie joined me, dressed comfortably in a long, cotton shirt, breezy linen trousers and sandals. He looked much more content.
Tristan and Isolde chose this moment to also join us. Tristan probed the corners of the room with his bill in a rather unfortunate attempt to find hidden fruit. Isolde marched straight up to me and squawked, demanding a fig. Clever girl.
I fed the Dodos and asked my brother for the latest news from home.
“Do you remember old Rolfie?” Baggie’s eyebrows went up.
I nodded. Of course I did. We were mates together as kids and responsible for several unfortunate pranks that we were frequently caught and punished for. For your own information, it is never a good idea to fill a constable’s wig with lice, even if he is a priggish prude.
“What’s he up to these days? I thought I’d heard he’d gone to the Americas.” I’d always wanted to travel there. I’d heard stories of lush, tropical islands and warm sands. I wasn’t like the other members of the Bombay Family who preferred living in Europe. I liked the sandy, dust-swept mystery of Egypt and had lived here for many years. My isolation made it more difficult for the Bombays to get their assignments to me, but I really didn’t care.
Western Europe and especially England were just so, so…common. Boring. I don’t know what persuaded my relatives to call it home for so long. It was cold and damp, and the food was awful. Egypt on the other hand, was full of warmth, sunshine and fresh fruits. There were adventures and interesting discoveries around every corner, and never had I experienced a dull moment. And the people! Rare, exotic flowers with an enchanting culture! Why would
anyone
live anywhere else?
Of course, it helped that I was wealthy—as all Bombays are. And it helped that I was a man. Women would have difficulty here, although I did have a female cousin in India, and she was fascinating. But the other Bombays were dull beyond comparison.
I’d heard fantastic stories of tropical islands in the Americas. Sounded wonderful. Maybe someday I’d buy one and settle there. We could make it our home base instead of damp, chilly London, and I would name it Santa Muerta de los Bombays. (I had recently been studying the romance language from a Spanish explorer who'd found his way to Cairo.) Wishful thinking I guess. Maybe someday…
Baggie interrupted my thoughts with his reply, bringing me back to the news of my old friend
. “Seems Rolfie’s married some Indian princess named Pocahontas.”
I slapped the desk and laughed
. “Well, I never saw that coming! Good for Rolfie! I always thought he was a bit of a stick in the mud, but bravo!”
“And little Stratford has turned five years old. He's beginning his training,” Baggie continued. Stratford-Upon-Avon Bombay was my godson. An interesting little boy but entirely too serious. Baggie produced a small portrait of him, and I felt a twinge of guilt. The lad looked like a tiny Greek god with blonde curls and blue eyes. Living in Egypt had made being a proper godfather difficult. I reminded myself to write his mother.
After lunch, Baggie decided to have a lie-down, and I retreated to my office for more thought on the assignment. My study was built on the back of the house, which kept it out of the sun and made it nice and cool in the boiling heat of the Egyptian afternoon.
I wrote a letter to Stratford
—well, to his mother anyway—and added a dashing silver cutlass to the package as a gift. Baggie could take it back with him to the boy. Maybe I should have him come out here in a few years for some training? I made a note in my calendar to remember this.
My desk had a secret drawer from where I withdrew my assignment file to study it again in solitude. The language issue was being competently dealt with by the ever-resourceful Julian. I rose from my chair and walked to the armoire in the corner, unlocking it with the tiny gold key I wore on a chain around my neck.
As the doors swung open, vials and jars clinked together on the shelves. I had to find just the right poison. If our intelligence was good (and it always was) that Elizabeth of Bathory was walled up in a room inside the castle where there were no windows and only one door fitted with slits to allow for ventilation and the passing of breakfast, lunch, dinner and I can only
assume
, tea, I would, in fact, have no direct access to her. Strangling her or any other physical methods of death would be impossible. I felt a bit conflicted that her demise would be so swift, considering the torture she had applied to her victims. While I wasn’t terribly keen on torture myself, I quite believed in making the punishment match the crime. Pity that wouldn’t work in this case.
So it would have to be poison, the easiest means of applying which would be to put it into her food. However, the family and staff would notice a tall, pale Englishman who wasn’t supposed to be there, so planting the poison in her food could be a problem.
Luckily, I had another idea. Living on and having traveled throughout the African continent, I’d seen a thing or two. African Bushmen sometimes used a special dart when hunting. The idea was fairly simple. I would employ a poisoned blow dart through the slats of the door. I would just need to lure her near enough to guarantee accuracy.
But what poison? It would have to be very lethal and act quickly enough to kill her, so that I could slip in and out between the delivery of her meals. And because it had to look like a clean death from natural causes, so as not to arouse suspicion, I couldn’t use anything that induced vomiting or the release of the bowels.
I tapped the glass jars. The poison would have to be something that would travel well. It couldn’t lose its potency over the time it would take me to get there. This was a puzzle.
There was a polite knock at the door. I quickly closed up the cabinet and bade them enter.
Julian opened the door slowly, in case I needed to hide whatever I was doing. Such a thoughtful servant. He entered the room, followed by a young boy I had never seen before. In fact, he bore quite a resemblance to my godson, which immediately tugged at my familial longings again.
“This is Stephen,” Julian explained. “The boy is an orphan from Hungary. He’s been in the service of Lord Allen’s household for six months.” He looked at the boy, who in turn nodded to me. “He also speaks French and English.”
The child had a head full of gold curls. His blue eyes held mine almost defiantly. How very interesting.
“How old are you, Stephen?” I asked in English.
“I’m twelve years old, sir,” the boy answered with a darling tenor voice. Twelve? He was so small! Stephen looked like he was more seven or eight than twelve. He looked more like a small cherub than a young man.
“Lord Allen is abroad for the next several months, and most of his household has gone with him,” Julian spoke up. “He is ours on loan, should you choose to take the boy on.”