Vlad (22 page)

Reaching up, he lifted the crucifix from the mantel. “Who will join me for the glory of Christ? For the redemption of all sins? For Wallachia?”

Half the men stood, cheered, though the cheers were not full-throated. So, lowering the cross, Vlad reached to the other side of the fireplace and lifted what was there—a stout ash pole as tall as a man, and half again. It was stained red and brown. Its end was blunted. Hefting both cross and stake, he shouted, “Who would not follow his prince to glory?”

No one, it seemed, for the remaining men rose, the three
jupans
cheering as loud as any. The shouts soon settled on one word, becoming a chant.

“Crusade! Crusade! Crusade!”

Farewells

After the
boyars
had been dispatched to rouse their followers and the Metropolitan to gather gold, Vlad and Ion sat on in the Great Hall but close to a hearth now blazing. They planned, studied maps and rosters. Messengers were summoned, dispatched. It was deep in the night before they could sit back and talk of other things.

Ion poured wine into both their goblets. “You never told me which illustrious representative Mehmet is sending for us to grovel before?”

Vlad had picked up his wine. Now he lowered it, unsipped. “Hamza
pasha
.”

Ion whistled. “Our old teacher? The falconer? And a
pasha
now? He has risen in the world.”

Vlad stared into the fire. “He was always much more than a falconer, though his skills were great. Mehmet made him High Admiral at Constantinople, during the siege. Since then he has undertaken a dozen embassies for the Sublime Porte. Become a
pasha
. It is rumored he’ll be Grand Vizier one day. Second only to the Sultan.”

“An eminent man. What an honor for little Wallachia!”

Vlad shook his head. “It is a move on the chessboard. Mehmet sends someone who I…will remember.”

Ion looked up, catching something in Vlad’s voice, not understanding it. But his prince and friend still stared into the flames. “Of course. You were more than just his pupil, weren’t you?”

Now the eyes came to him, flame in them still. “What do you mean?”

Ion flinched. “I…mean nothing. I just remember you talked with him in a way that no one else did. And…didn’t you make something for him?”

“A hawking glove.” Vlad’s gaze returned to fire.

“That was it. And didn’t he rescue you from Tokat?”

“No,” Vlad murmured, sipping at last. “He came to fetch me. It is different.”

There was something his friend was not saying, although that was not unusual. “Do you think Hamza comes with treachery in mind?”

“I do not know. It may be that Mehmet expects me to kiss his ambassador’s feet, to give over what is demanded. It is what most people in my position would do.”

“Yet he probably still has your
jereed
mark upon his back. I am sure he remembers your nature.”

“True. And even if he does not plan to kill me, why would he not do what his father did to mine at Gallipoli? Chain the Dragon to a cart wheel for a month. Take his sons as hostages.”

“You have no sons to take.”

“No. I do not.” Vlad stared for a moment then stood up swiftly. “Ilona,” he said. “I promised I’d visit her this night.”

“Prince,” said Ion, following him to the stairs, “you must rest a little, if we are to ride at sunrise.”

Vlad pushed open the door to his chamber. He looked back, the darkness gone from his face. “After all this time, you are still trying to keep us apart?”

Ion looked down, mumbled, “Of course not. I—”

“Thirteen years she has been my mistress. Yet you still love her?”

Ion looked up, spoke softly. “I would marry her tomorrow.”

“Ah.” Vlad reached for his riding cloak. “Might not the fact that you are already married interfere with that?”

“I’d get it annulled.”

“On what grounds?”

Ion frowned. “Non-consummation.”

“I see. And your three daughters?”

“Virgin births, each one. You know how hard my Maria prays to her namesake.”

Both men laughed, Vlad laying a hand on Ion’s arm. As the laughter faded, he kept it there. “You know, there are times when I wish she was yours, not mine. I think she would be happier.”

“No.” Ion shook his head. “From that first look upon the dockside at Edirne, there was no one in the world but you.”

Vlad squeezed his friend’s arm. “If all…all goes wrong at Guirgiu. Afterwards. You will look to Ilona, won’t you? The
boyars
hate her. They think my love for her prevents me marrying one of their horse-faced daughters.” He smiled. “Maybe they are right.”

“I will kill the man who harms her. Be he ever so high.” Ion placed his own hand on top of Vlad’s. “This I swear, my prince.”

“Good.” Vlad stepped past him. “For whether I am in heaven or hell I will hold you to that oath.”

—

Candle-light bewitched her. There was something in dancing flame that soothed, freeing her mind, letting it move where it would around the aura of yellow, the core of blue. Her life moved there, as it had been, as it might have been. As it was.

Her life was this. Waiting for him, for his increasingly infrequent visits. She had lost count of the number of times he said he would come and didn’t. She knew he was busy, knew also that it was not purely with affairs of state. He had another mistress, perhaps more than one.

What her life might have been. Meeting someone like…Ion, who would love her, perhaps even only her. She would have had his children, raised them in some quiet corner of the realm…

She blinked, dissolving the vision. No, she would never have met a
boyar
’s son. Raised in her remote village, a tanner’s daughter, she’d have married the tanner’s apprentice at fourteen, borne the brute a dozen children. If she’d survived them, by now she’d be bent-backed, gray-haired, fat. Not sitting in her own house, still pretty enough, her hair still all hazel, dressed in rich damask. Though she was thirty now, she did not look it. No children will do that. No children and an easy life.

She waved her hand, saw the flame lengthen sideways, changing the story. She would never have met the tanner’s apprentice. Because she was pretty she’d been enslaved and prepared for a life as a concubine. Mehmet would have visited her even less than Vlad, what with his many wives, his other girls, his boys. She’d have lived her life in the indolence of the
saray
, first in Edirne, later in Constantinople until such time as she either bred or was given as wife to some provincial official or soldier.

The flame lengthened again. Somewhere in the house, someone had opened a door perhaps. She shivered, pulled a rug around her; then leaned forward and blew out the candle. He would not come now. He had forgotten…or chosen to go elsewhere. Chosen someone else over her.

Then her door opened and there he was. She could not see his face with the candle out and the fire banked low, but a reed torch lit the corridor
beyond and his silhouette was clear against its light.

“Ilona.”

“Prince.”

He did not come from the door, held there by the coldness of the title. “I am sorry,” he muttered, “I…”

“Let me get a light,” she said, snatching a taper from the table, going to move past him into the corridor. But he grabbed her arm, held her in the doorway. A little light spilled onto his face and immediately she regretted her coldness. “Let us stay in the dark,” he whispered.

“But I have food for you, wine…”

“Nothing,” he said, drawing her in. “Nothing but you.”

As he drew her to the bed, her anger flashed again. Did he not have whores he could use thus? But when he laid her down and lay beside her she realized that she had mistook him. “Ah,” he groaned, “praise God for the softness of goose down.”

“Does my prince require nothing more than feathers for his back?” she asked, her tone amused.

“A pillow, perhaps?” He stopped her hand as she reached for one. “No. Here,” he said, lifting his head. She slid under him and he lowered himself onto her with a sigh. “And praise God for the softness of a woman’s thighs.”

“Any woman’s?” she enquired, raising the fingers that caressed his forehead, flicking them hard down.

“Ai!” he yelped. “
Your
thighs, I meant. Only yours, Ilona.”

She decided not to point out that this might not be true. But perhaps he felt his cushion harden. “Only here, lying thus, do I have peace, my love. The only place in this wide world.”

“Flatterer,” she said, her hands returning to run through his thick hair.

“Truth-teller,” he murmured.

She stroked and listened to his breaths lengthen, felt his body ease on her. After a while she thought he must be sleeping. Then she watched his eyes slowly open.

“You know I leave tomorrow. Today. In a few hours.”

“Is it to be war, then?”

“It is to be crusade.” There was a tremor in his voice. “The triumph of the One Cross over the Crescent. The Dragon perched on the horsetail. Mehmet bent under my sword.”

“And of all of these, is not this last the greatest?”

“Perhaps.” He smiled. “As Christ’s warrior I know I should only be a conduit for his glory. But I seek my own. I am ardent for it. To conquer the conqueror.”

“And can you,” she said softly, moving his hair to one side. “Is the Turk not too powerful?”

“Powerful? Yes. Unbeatable? No. As Hunyadi did, at Belgrade, at Nis, as Skanderbeg does again and again in Albania, I can do here. With a little help.”

“From Hungary?”

“Yes. I can start the war, prosper for a while. But if Corvinus does not start to use all the gold the Pope has given him to fight…”

“Then?”

“Then we are doomed.” He looked up. “You understand it is only to you, here, I can say that?”

“Yes.”

She stroked. He breathed. After a while she called, “Vlad?” but he did not stir. She took off his boots and, after a moment, her dress, leaving only her shift, then pulled a soft Olteni rug over them both and curled into him.

She didn’t think she slept. Yet she opened her eyes to a faint glow
beyond the shutters. Quietly, she slipped away from him, opened them a crack. There was indeed a lightening in the east.

“Is it the dawn?” he called, his voice drowsy.

“No, love,” she said, closing the shutters, coming to his side again, “just Targoviste in flames. Go back to sleep.”

“Good.” He breathed again, then said, “You jest, yes?”

“Yes. Go back to sleep.”

After a moment, he said, “Could your feet be any colder?”

“They are hot coals compared to my hands. Feel!” And she slipped a hand inside his
shalvari
and wrapped her fingers round his cock.

“Jesu!” he yelled, rising up, falling back. “What do you do to me?”

“This,” she said, moving her hand upon him. “And…ah! You don’t seem to mind.”

“Ilona,” he groaned, turning towards her, his hands moving, too, sliding up under her shift.

“Whose hands are cold now?” she laughed, clutching him harder.

“Do you mind it?”

“I mind nothing you have ever done to me. Nor ever will.”

“Truly?”

“Truly,” she replied. “I am yours, in any way you want me. Here. Now. Forever.”

“Here and now will do,” he said, and ripped the shift from her body.

He had come to her in many moods. They had made love in many ways. But she liked it best this way—lost in the heat of it, with him most lost of all. He never was anywhere else, with anyone else, she knew that. He always needed to show some face to the world but not here, not with her. That he lost himself in her excited her
beyond measure. For in his abandon, she could be abandoned, too.

They moved, above, below, cold to hot, getting hotter. The faint light grew stronger
beyond the shutters and she dreamt that Targoviste was in flames, devouring flames that would take them both. Then she felt him tense, the first time in an age and she knew, as he tried to pull back, as he had done ever since he made a vow to a priest to have no more bastards in exchange for her life. And she knew also that now, when she might never see him again, she could not let him go. “No, my prince, stay,” she whispered, wrapping her legs tight around him.

“Ilona…” he groaned.

“It is safe, my love, safe. I know my times.”

“You are certain?”

“I would never lie to you.”

“No, you would not. The only one who would not. It is why you are my sanctuary.” He smiled. “Then thank God,” he cried, easing down again.

The pause gave them a moment, which extended. Cries came, their flesh, meeting, mingling.

—

They lay joined, pressed together, feeling hearts slow and breaths ease. His eyes were closed again, his face calm. Hers were open to study him. He looked almost like the boy he’d been when she’d taken off the veil of coins and seen him properly that first time.

She knew the stories. There had been many in the court all too willing to recount his deeds—her maid, Elisabeta, daughter of Turcul
jupan
, the most eager until she stopped her. But those she knew—of cruelty, of hideous punishments—did not tally with the man who lay in her arms. He did not talk of them there, nor of anything like that; had never revealed to her the source of the darkness that could flood his eyes in an instant. Those words were for the confessor it was said he went to, and for God, not for her. He called her his sanctuary. She would not violate the one place he felt safe, no matter what it was said he had done.