Vlad: The Last Confession (25 page)

They did not pause in the room, went straight up to the turret. “You saw my beautiful Black Prince but you did not meet him,” said Vlad. He went to the perch set up there, pulled on a glove, reached and untied the bird’s jesses, took it onto his hand.

“A beauty, indeed,” Hamza murmured, admiring the goshawk tiercel again. “Passage or eyass?”

“Passage, praise God. Taken last year. Already about five, wouldn’t you say? See the touch of red in the eyes?”

Those eyes were darting, seeking meat. Vlad reached into a pouch that hung there, passing a morsel across. “A fool had him, tried to train him. Failed. I didn’t.” He bent his head to the bird, cooing softly. “Still mostly training sakers, Hamza?” he asked, his eyes still on the bird.

“In fact I have one…” He broke off. There was something in Vlad’s eye, a flash of red, almost like the hawk’s.

“Would you like to see Kara Khan hunt?” said Vlad. “He’s a true cook’s bird. I’ve seen him take ten rabbits in a day, three hares, pigeons…”

“Pigeons are hard,” Hamza said, uneasily, though he didn’t know why.

“And uncommon this time of year. I wonder what we could…”

Vlad let out a sudden, sharp whistle. And in the gate tower along the battlements, a shutter was flung outwards. From the gap issued a bird and, from the way it flew, Hamza knew immediately it was a saker. His saker.

“Kill,” Vlad said, throwing out his fist.

It wasn’t a long chase. The saker was fresh from the mews, disoriented flying over new ground, ground the goshawk had already traversed. Yet the saker saw the other coming, in those five beats, that glide. Tried to climb higher, faster, use its larger wings. But a goshawk loves an underbelly. Five more beats, a flip onto its back, into the glide. Talons reaching, sinking in.

The two birds spiralled down. Just before the ground, the goshawk flipped again, spinning around to get on top, releasing the other bird that was possibly already dead but was certainly so when it smashed into the frozen ground before the little bridge. The Black Prince settled, one foot planted, its feathers riffling in the wind off the river. He looked around once, then plunged in his beak to rip and tear.

Hamza made sure he had control of his voice before he spoke. “He flies well. Are you not going to call him back?”

“No,” said Vlad, taking off his glove, laying it down. “Let him feed.”

He turned, crossed to the castle side of the turret. All the men there were looking up. Bound prisoners. Guards with ropes, pulleys, wood. Waiting.

The silence was complete. Vlad raised one arm…

War

July 1462, seven months later

The twilight was affecting Ion’s eyes.

Every time he looked at one of his companions, the man’s face would shift, features sliding into other features. Black Ilie would be sitting there, then his dark features would change, his nose lengthen, his eyes sink, his hair change, lighten…and Gheorghe would be in his place. Gheorghe, who had taken an arrow through both lungs trying to halt the enemy at the ford over the Dambovnic. He’d spent three nights coughing blood yet they’d carried him as they retreated before the enemy, committing his recovery to God’s mercy. But when, on the fourth day, God had shown none, Ion had received the man’s blood-choked blessing, then slit his throat. He could not go further. And they left no one to the Turk.

Which was why he should not be here now. Why Ion had grown certain that Gheorghe had become a
varcolaci
, one of the undead, his black Dragon coat turning to wolf skin, his desire clear in his so-pale face: to be avenged on the one who’d slain him. Why, when Ion reached to his belt now, it was not to feel the comfort of sword but of crucifix.

He stared; the features realigned. It was Ilie sitting opposite him again, Ilie who said, “Are you well,
vornic
?”

Ion nodded, laid his head on his knees, closed his eyes. When had he last slept? Truly slept? When had any of them? Most nights were spent doing everything possible to slow the enemy. Burning any crop that already stood in the field in July. Emptying the farms, both peasants’ small-holdings and
boyars
’ estates, of anything that could be eaten or drunk. Driving the people before them with what little they could take, slaughtering the animals they could not, throwing the corpses down wells or using them to dam the streams to poison all water. At least if they did not sleep, they ate well, and drank before they poisoned. The Turks, in the hottest summer in anyone’s memory, slaughtered their dogs and camels, as well as the horses that died of thirst, and roasted the flesh without the aid of fire upon their searing breastplates.

And during the days, they fought. Not in battle, not since the Danube when they’d first tried to stop the enemy and had slain so many the river turned red. The Wallachians fought in raid, bursting out from beneath beech and oak to attack any who strayed from the column in their desperate search for drinkable water. They fought in ambush, in the gorges, rolling trunks down to crush, using arquebus to shoot, the gunpowder explosions terrifying man and beast. They fought with disease, sending the sick dressed as Turks into the enemy camp, martyrdom their reward if they died, gold if they somehow returned alive. And each of these coughing men and women Vlad kissed before they left, kissed hard on the lips as he blessed them. When Ion tried to dissuade him from the act, his prince had said but one word: “
Kismet
.”

Yet, no matter how they fought, how many they killed, the Turk came on. It was rumored that ninety thousand had crossed the Danube. The Wallachians never numbered more than twenty thousand. And even if the enemy was reduced by battle, sickness, starvation and terror, at least half of them still marched relentlessly towards Targoviste. While Ion knew that the retreating Wallachian army now numbered less than five thousand.

Ion looked up again, had to or he knew he would sleep. Saw the officers of that shrinking army sitting in concentric circles around the bowl of the small glade. Over its lip, the rest of the army had drawn tight, on Vlad’s orders before he’d gone out three days before. “I will return before sunset on the third night, Ion. Keep them here,” he’d said before he left, dressed as a Turk and accompanied only by Stoica. And somehow Ion had held them, in eyes forever open, with threat, with promise, with the call of loyalty to their prince and their love of the True Cross. But if Vlad did not return this night, only God would be left. And He would not be enough to hold them together.

A voice forced his head up. “
Vornic
,” said another man opposite him, “the sun sets. He will not come.”

He had spoken softly. But any sound carried in the bowl of the glade and all two hundred officers looked up. “There is still light in the sky, Gales
jupan
. Our Voivode deserves a little grace.”

“Not much,” muttered Gales, loudly enough to be heard.

Ion studied him. He was a short, round man, whose fat the privations of campaign had done little to diminish. One of his eyes was wooden, painted. He claimed he’d lost the other fighting for Dracul years before, though most believed the rumor he had lost it falling onto a fence stake when drunk. Ion often wondered why Gales had stayed, one of only two
boyars
to remain with the army; the second was Cazan, Dracul’s chancellor, and as loyal to son as to father. The other five had deserted quietly, leaving papers behind detailing various excuses, taking their men with them. But Gales was the brother of Stepan “Turcul”—and Stepan “the Turk,” named for his time as a war prisoner, was the greatest of the
boyars
, the second man in the kingdom. Ion supposed that until Vlad was completely beaten, or preferably dead, neither brother dared to defy him.

It looked as if Gales was preparing for defiance now. And Ion knew that if he didn’t stop him, at least half the officers sitting there would leave with him. Yet exhaustion held his tongue. What words could he speak?

And then he didn’t have to. For Black Ilie, sitting on the
boyar
’s right, reached over and laid a huge hand on the man’s arm, squeezing. Gales gave a little yelp, his one eye fired in pain and protest. But he didn’t speak more and Ion smiled. A few years before, any peasant who even touched a
boyar
would soon be hanging from the nearest branch. But Ilie was dressed in black and wore the silver dragon; he was one of Vlad’s
vitesji
, his chosen men. They did anything their Voivode ordered. Gales had seen what that meant, and he subsided now.

Ion glanced up to the west and it was the first time he did not need to shade his eyes. The sun had half-sunk below the lip of the bowl. Soon it would be night. Vlad had not come.

Then something moved in that last flash of sunlight. Ion saw a familiar silhouette there—an enemy’s turban. He was about to cry out that they were surprised by the foe, when the figure stepped out of the sunflash, below the ridgeline, and Ion saw who it was.

“All rise for the prince,” he called.

Men leapt up, brushing dust from their clothes, looking every way, trying to see in all the movement a particular one. The man who moved through them was not conspicuous and most were looking for their black-clad Voivode. Instead, man by man, they finally saw someone dressed in the simplest of Turkish clothing. Not a
sipahi
warrior, not even an
akinci
scout. An artisan wearing a gray turban, a stained yellow robe, baggy
shalvari
and rope-soled sandals. But behind him, dressed in uniform black, walked a shadow, Stoica the Silent, carrying the Dragon’s Talon. Men knew the master by the man—and the weapon.

Ion bowed low, as did everyone when they realized. He took the proffered arm and Vlad pulled him close.

“Still here?” Vlad whispered, taking the water skin Ion handed him, drinking deep.

“Only just,” Ion replied.

“Good,” Vlad said, stepping away. He reached up, removed the turban, and his long black hair cascaded down his back. Then, with arms spread wide he turned a full circle, displaying himself. “Countrymen,” he cried. “I bring good news from the Turkish camp. They all want to return home.”

Cries of wonder, of joy. Then Vlad added, “We just have to give them a little push.”

“How little, Voivode?” came a cry from the slopes.

“Nothing much,” replied Vlad. “All we have to do is kill their Sultan.”

Gasps, some laughter. The same voice came again. “Then can we get him to come here, Prince? My horse has the squits.”

Louder laughter. “Then you’ll have to borrow one, Gregor. For we must ride to him.”

There was no humor in Gales’s voice. “What plan have you conceived, Voivode?”

Instead of answering, Vlad turned, passed Stoica his turban and drew the sword his servant held from its sheath, raising it high in the air. Gales stumbled back but Vlad did not move towards him. “Come close,” Vlad called, “so all may see.” Then, with the tip of his blade, he carved the circumference of a wheel in the sand of the dried-up stream bed, the diameter twice the height of a man. Then he began on the four spokes.

By the time his men had gathered into three tight circles, the nearest and tightest being
vitesji
and the two
boyars
, Vlad had finished. Now he walked to the center of what he’d fashioned. “Mehmet,” he said quietly, driving the blade down. He stepped away from it, the twilight casting a moving crucifix upon the ground.

“The sword is the Sultan’s
tug
. It is raised before his pavilion at the center of the vast camp that is made each night. Here Mehmet sits, surrounded by his army. Here he sips his sherbets while his men thirst. Here he entertains his…friends. Here, he has forty thousand reasons to believe he is safe.” Vlad looked up. “He is not safe.”

He walked to the edge of the circle, bent and snatched up a handful of pebbles. “These lines,” he said, “are the four main roads in. Though all around is a web of ropes holding up a city of canvas, these must be kept clear. For messengers. For Mehmet, who might suddenly decide to ride out and hunt or hawk. These roads are his ways out.” He smiled. “They are also our way in.”

He began to walk around the circumference, dropping stones. “On the outer rim dwell the conscript masses, the
yaya
infantry of Anatolia. Also his
akinci
, those scouts and raiders from the mountains of Tartary who are unleashed ahead of the army.” He smiled. “We have been slaughtering
them
in their thousands.” He began to walk down a line towards the center, scattering stones. “Here, the
belerbeys
from the provinces pitch their pavilions, surrounded by the
sipahis
warriors they have brought—from Anatolia, from Rumelia, from Egypt and the shores of the Red Sea.” A stone landed in each quadrant as he named them.

Ion, seeing his prince empty-handed, fetched more. Vlad took them, continued throwing and naming. “Here, closer in, are the
ortas
of the janissaries, and here those who are even more select. To the right of the
tug
—Mehmet’s right, for his tent faces Mecca—is planted the red oriflame of the right wing of his household cavalry. To his left, the yellow standard of the left.”

Vlad leaned now on the quillons of the Dragon’s Talon, the left one forever bent so all would note it and remember his triumph in single combat over his cousin Vladislav. He let the final stones drop now. “Here, at the very heart of the camp, surrounding the two pavilions he uses—one for sleep, one for his Council—are the Sultan’s closest men.” Drop. “The
muteferrika
, with their halberds.” Drop. “His
peyk
guards, the spleenless ones.” Drop. “Here the
solaks
, these who draw their bows with their right hands, here those who draw with the left, so he is always covered.” Drop. Drop. “And here, at the very center, is Mehmet.” Vlad placed the last stone against the metal and let it slide down. “One man.”

Vlad stepped back, waved his hand along the southern road. “We will ride in here, with the full moon at our backs. I know that the
akinci
here are grudging in their service. The
sipahis
beyond them are from the east and suffered most in the last war against the White Sheep Uzbeks. All is not well beneath the yellow oriflame of the left wing. Mehmet had their veteran commander strangled with a silken bowstring last year and his successor has tried to buy love with
raki
, which they drink now instead of the water they must save for their horses.”

A murmur was building under his words, a buzz of wonder. He raised a hand to quell it. “And here stand the
peyk
. The removal of their spleens may have made their dispositions more conciliatory. But it has also made them less fierce. And in the end, they are all that will stand between me and Mehmet. One man.” Vlad straightened. “Does anyone wish to ask a question?”

Gales, the
boyar
, stepped forward. But it was Black Ilie whose deep voice broke in first. “Voivode, some of us have visited Turkish camps. Some of us have even lived in them. But how, by the giant balls of Samson, do you know all this?”

When the laughter died down, Vlad smiled. “That’s easily answered, Ilie. There was a tear in Mehmet’s tent wall. I repaired it.”

Vlad let the gasps and murmurings continue longer then the laughter had, then went on. “You all know that the Turk has two camps—one that is built, one that is struck, each leaping over the other so the army can progress smoothly. This morning, I walked into the one they were building. I spent the day walking around it, talking to servants and slaves. Then I was asked to sew Mehmet’s tear.” He turned to Ion. “It seems I have not forgotten all the skills I learned in Edirne against the day of disaster. Though I did not do the work well. You never know when you might want to leave a tent by its walls instead of its door.” He looked around the circle. “Other questions?”