Much Fall of Blood: Chapter Twenty One

    For Vlad, the days had passed in something of a blur. In fact, it was the countryside that had passed in something of a blur, and mostly they had passed through it in the dark. When they had stopped, especially in the first few days, he had simply been too exhausted to do more than eat and sleep. He had not cared quite what they had eaten, or that they had slept in haystacks, or caves, or a ruined barn. There were always fresh horses, and a change of horses. He was aware that this was not how noblemen usually lived, but at first he had not protested. At least the gypsies seemed to know where they were going, and just how to avoid the patrols. But after a week he was becoming fitter, and, he noticed that the party had visibly relaxed.

    “We come to the edge of our range here,” said Angelo. “We are still far from our heartland, but people around here gave some allegiance to your father. We will have a rest day tomorrow.”

    “Is it Sunday?” he asked.

    The gypsies looked at each other. “I don’t really know,” said Grigori. “You tend to lose track of the days after a while. Town people keep track very well. We will have to find one and ask.”

    “I need to go to church,” said Vlad, guilt washing over him.

    The three gypsies looked at each other again. “It’s not a place that sees us very often,” admitted Angelo.

    “You have less reason to fear for your souls than I do,” said Vlad.

    They did not seem inclined to argue with him about that.

    “We will take a room at the inn,” said Angelo.

    The thought of sleeping in a bed was almost intoxicating. Vlad felt that he’d been something of a burden on their journey, that they could have traveled faster without him. He hoped that soon he would be back in some measure of control of his own destiny. He just wished that he knew what that destiny was, besides merely staying alive. The countess had said something about his father being dead, and his boyars needing him. He seemed to remember that his father had been furious and bitter with the boyars, and had said that they hated him just as much as he hated them. But Father Tedesco had said that time healed all wounds. Perhaps they had forgiven and forgotten.

    After a week of hard riding and sleeping rough, all without any sign of fresh clothes or ablutions, beyond a splash in a stream and getting thoroughly wet crossing various rivers, a bath was going to be very welcome. They had not crossed a single river at a bridge, or by using a ferryman. The gypsies certainly knew how to find any ford. Some of the crossings, however, had involved a fair amount of swimming. That wasn’t quite as pleasurable as washing in warm water, especially as they kept to the high ground, scantily populated, and heavily forested. The water in those wilderness rivers was bitterly cold. The gypsies hadn’t seemed to care, so Vlad had not let them know just how cold he was finding it. Now, the prospect of warm water, a soft bed, clean linen, and possibly some clean clothes…

    The innkeeper took one look at them, and picked up a big clumsy cudgel studded with bits of iron. “Get out of here!” he hissed, swinging the cudgel menacingly.

    “We have silver to pay for food and lodging,” said Angelo.

    The innkeeper’s expression did not soften. “Stolen, I’ll warrant.” He eyed them narrowly, still swinging his club. “Get out of my sight, you gypsy filth. If you come back, I’ll break all of your skulls, you thieving vermin.”

    Vlad wished that he had that basic accouterment of a gentleman, a sword. He had been taught to fence. Indeed, he’d maintained a rigorous regimen of arms training for years, as much for the value of the exercise as the skills themselves. Of course, as a prisoner –say better, a hostage — he had been required to return the weapons to the armsmaster after each lesson and go unarmed again. Vlad knew full well that if he had a sword he could have killed this idiot in two seconds. A mace, in three.

    “My good man,” he said to the innkeeper, very coldly. “You forget that you are speaking to your prince. I have traveled long and far and we have offered you money. I have scant patience with those who abuse my subjects.”

    For a moment, it looked as if his hauteur had succeeded. The innkeeper’s jaw and the cudgel both fell. Unfortunately, the innkeeper did not lose his grip on the cudgel, and recovered his jaw. He bobbed a sardonic bow. “Your Royal Highness! I didn’t realize it was you.”

    The innkeeper turned slightly to address the two inmates of the tap-room –an old man, white bearded and rheumy-eyed, and a solid looking prosperous farmer, “Next he’ll be telling me how lucky I am to have King Emeric, my sovereign and overlord, favor my humble establishment. Get out, you gypsy scum. You and all your filthy friends. Get out of my sight before I spatter your brains.”

    Something snapped inside Vlad. Vlad had been a hostage, but a nobleman, and treated as such. Even the gypsies treated him with respect. He could not remember quite how it happened afterward, but heartbeats later he had the innkeeper by the throat and held up at arms length. He had no idea where the strength came from. The man was both large and fat — but just then holding him seemed entirely effortless. In fact, he was only using his right hand to do so, having using his left to strip the innkeeper of his cudgel.

    “You will treat me and my companions with courtesy and respect, you cur.” He flung the innkeeper away from himself, to land sprawled and dazed against the far wall. Vlad stood there, his arms folded, and waited.

    The man sat up slowly, fearfully. He felt his throat. His eyes were wide and round. The other inhabitants of the tap room had gotten to their feet, shocked by the sudden violence. “Why didn’t you help me?” croaked the innkeeper.

    The large farmer looked at Vlad warily — but the little old man limped forward and knelt.

    “The dragon has returned,” he said reverently. “My prince. I served with the pikemen at Khusk, when we broke the Hungarian charge. I was wounded there. You gave me twenty forint and ten acres of land. God has answered our prayers.” There were tears on the old lined face. “Forgive me, Sire. My eyes are old, and I did not quite believe them. God has been good to me. I have lived to see your return.”

    He turned slightly to see the burly young man standing gaping. “Janoz!” he said sternly. “Boy, come and give your homage to our sovereign lord!”

    Vlad had been told by several people that he had grown into the spitting image of his grandfather. That had been a man no one was indifferent toward, but either hated or loved. Mostly hated by the boyars and loved by the commoners, from what Vlad could tell. Of course, there were exceptions either way. Countess Elizabeth, for example.

    Hated or loved, the dragon had always been feared. His justice, even to those who thought it just, was invariably savage.

    Plainly, this old man thought Vlad and his grandfather were one and the same. He’d just referred to one of the prince of Valahia’s greatest victories, when he had given the Hungarians a very bloody nose at Khusk. That victory had won a decade of peace for the lands this side of the Carpathians. It had also won the ruler of Valahia a reputation among Hungarians as a merciless and cruel madman — even by the standards of a nation ruled by Emeric.

    Valahia’s Transcarpathian lands were too small and poor to stand indefinitely against the might of Hungary, though. The dragon had held them off, but his successor has been made of weaker stuff. Vlad’s father had been — by his own admission and by the bitter complaints that Vlad could still remember — little more than a figurehead, a proxy for rule from Buda.

    Vlad reached out a hand to the old man and raised him up, as the large Janoz came forward uncertainly. The old man kissed his hand, smiling tremulously up at Vlad, though his tears still flowed. “If only my Rosa was alive to see this,” he said.

    Vlad was left without anything easy to say. He had never, that he could recall, had to deal with adulation before. And he certainly would not have expected it because an old man took him for his ferocious grandfather. Perhaps that was simply the reverence of an old trooper. His grandfather had treated his common soldiery well, by all accounts Vlad had heard. Apparently, the loyalty endured.

    Vlad knew very little about ruling, but this struck him as something worth remembering.

    “Lord…” said the young man, coming forward. His tone was respectful, if not reverential. He might not accept his father’s conclusions, but he did accept that Vlad was no gypsy vagabond, despite appearances. “He is old. He wanders in his mind sometimes.”

    “His mind is a lot sharper than this stupid innkeeper’s!” said Angelo, laughing.

    “He has mistaken me for my grandfather,” said Vlad. “I am sorry.”

    It took a few seconds for the implication of this statement to sink into the younger man’s head. Then he too knelt, his eyes wide. “My Lord Prince… they seek you. They must not find you here.”

    “Who is looking for him?” asked Grigori.

    “Soldiers,” said the local farmer. “Some Magyar. Along with a troop of Croats. They were here the day before yesterday. Asking if we had seen you.”

    “They are closer behind than we realized,” said Radu grimly.

    Angelo nodded. “I am surprised they dared to ask here. Rumor will spread.”

    “They do our work for us,” said Grigori. “Telling people the prince is free. They will rouse the country.”

    “We must get him away from here,” said Janoz. “Keep him hidden and safe from the Hungarians. Prince Vlad, my father served your grandfather. I would be your man. We need you, my prince. Drive these foreigners out, and make our land safe again.”

    “You need to raise an army, Drac,” said Angelo with a twisted smile. “I think you just found your first recruit. ”

    The young man nodded earnestly up at him. “And I have four brothers, Sire. I am the youngest. And there are the Teleki brothers. And the Bolyai. And I would think among the boyar Klasparuj’s peasantry…”

    Vlad raised him up. “I accept your service. But right now I am tired, thirsty and I want to know if today is Sunday.”

    Janoz looked puzzled. “No, Sire. That was yesterday.” He turned to the innkeeper. “Get up! Bring food and good ale. And the prince wants warm water.”

    “Have you run mad?” croaked the innkeeper, still massaging his throat. “He is no prince. Prince Vlad is locked up in Buda. This is a gypsy.”

    “I was able to make my escape,” Vlad said tersely, restraining himself. There was a kind of madness pressing at him that wanted to take this fool and crush his throat. Vlad was quite sure right now that if he gave in, he would do it quite easily. Crush the throat and probably the spine in the process.

    He’d always been strong — so, at least, he’d been told by his armsmasters. But now, he felt as if he possessed the strength of an ogre.

    He took a deep breath. “I have been hunted hard and far. But now I am ready to begin to turn the game against them. And I want warm water, a razor, soap and a towel. We may not be able to stay here in safety, but I will wash and shave. And we will have something to eat. And all of this will happen very quickly or I shall wring the life out of you. I have suffered you in patience long enough.”

    Whether the innkeeper believed him, or whether he saw the way Vlad’s long fingers twitched and remembered their iron feel on his throat, it had the desired effect. “Yes, Lord.” The man scrambled to his feet and left for his kitchen at a staggering run, belly and dewlaps quivering.

    Angelo pointed to Janoz. “Follow him. Make sure that he does not season the food with henbane. I’ve no love for all this washing, but food and beer are going to be very welcome.”

    Vlad nodded. “And you, old sir, are going to sit down and tell me how things are going in the principality. I have been locked up in a tower in Buda. I need to know what is happening here. I need to know what my people need.”

    Vlad was vaguely surprised at himself. But he found that he really did wish to know these things. “I will not forget that you were the first to welcome me home, and that your son was the first to offer himself to my service.”

    Vlad found that he could scarcely have picked on a more eager informant. In a cracked old voice, the veteran told him of increasing taxes and — worse still, from his viewpoint — of Emeric’s campaign of creeping Hungarianization of Valahia. He was encouraging settlers into the country with generous offers of land or permissions, to displace the local people, especially the tradesmen. The foreigners were naturally more loyal to Emeric than to the Prince of Valahia. They were given privileges and licenses — for instance, smithy permissions, which were refused to metalsmiths that had been working here for centuries.

    There was an outraged shout from the kitchen. Vlad, and the gypsies went through to find Janoz struggling with the innkeeper, and the back door open. “He waited till my back was turned and then tried to sneak off,” panted Janoz. “He tried to tell me earlier that we must call the magistrate.”

    Vlad found that the strange fury was rising in him again, like some inner dark tide. Perhaps it showed in his eyes because the innkeeper made a desperate attempt to break free — and succeeded. Unfortunately for him, not into the stable-yard outside, but toward the pantry.

    The innkeeper snatched up a long knife from the butcher’s block, and that was where Vlad’s memory of the incident stopped. When Vlad next came to himself he was holding the man, now limp and upside down, with his face pressed hard into a bucket of slops.

    He blinked. How had he come to be doing this? He hauled the innkeeper out of the bucket and stood him upright. The fat innkeeper toppled over, very slowly. Looking down, Vlad noticed that his own hands were bloody. So was Janoz, who was sitting on the floor, his face white, blood leeching onto his shirt.

    Vlad stood irresolute for a moment, not knowing quite how he had come to be where he was, and not knowing quite what to do next. Fortunately, it would appear that the gypsies did have some idea. Grigori knelt next to the injured Janoz and tore the shirt aside, exposing the wound in his chest. It gaped and bled, blood coming in bubbling thick spurts. His father hobbled up, horror and despair on his face.

    “He took the blade intended for the prince,” said Angelo.

    Vlad too knelt next to the wounded man. “Get us a physician. Run, man.” He looked at the face of the young man. “And a priest!” he yelled after him.

    They carried him through to the tap-room and laid him on a settle. His father held one hand, and Vlad the other.

    The village had no physician. The midwife was doing her best, as the priest gave the man the last rites. Someone had gone to call Janoz’s kin.

    “He is trying to say something.” The priest leaned in. So did Vlad. The dying man turned his head to the latter. “My Prince,” he said weakly. “Mira…”

    And that was all he would ever say in this world.

    “Who did he call for?” asked Vlad a little later, as they drew the linen over his face.

    “You, Sire. And his wife.”

    Vlad was silent. Then he said, heavily: “He had a wife?”

    “A wife and a young son, Sire,” said the old man.

    “I must see them. I swear this,” said Vlad, his voice cracking. “If I come to rule, that son will have lands so wide that he will not see the borders from his home. Your son was my first man. I will never forget that.”

    “You killed the scum with your own hands, Sire. Drowned him in his own kitchen’s filth. Justice is served, at least.”

    “I should have killed him earlier,” said Vlad bitterly. “If I had, a fine man would not have died.”

    The old man nodded. “I just wish I could have died in his place. I am old. But he died well and with honor, my Prince,” he said, shakily.

    Vlad put a gentle hand on the old stooped shoulder. “He died with great honor, and acted with courage where many a knight would have failed. I will see him remembered for it, and honored. I swear to this. And now will you have someone take me to his widow. I must speak with her.”

    “He is becoming more of a prince by the moment,” said Radu in a slightly grumpy tone. “He has not yet understood that we are not his subjects.”

    Angelo shrugged. “It is the place, and the blood, and of course the old magic. It runs stronger in some than others. It runs dangerously strong in this one. And the light and darkness are closely balanced in him. When he is killing, the dark could dominate.”

    He took a deep breath. “We need to renew the compact. The old one did not die in vain.”

    “She did work some of her magic on him,” said Grigori. “I can smell it about him.”

    Angelo shrugged again. “He has to be strong enough to throw that off, or he will be too weak for the blood pact. We can but bide our time.”

    Grigori nodded. “Still. He accepts responsibility well. And he is stronger than his father.”

    “We just need to hope that he is more stable than his grandfather. Breeding these bloodlines is not easy,” said Radu.

    “True,” said Angelo. “But what other choices do we have? We need them. We need the compact. There are more human settlers every year. And we need space to run.”

    “I need space to run now. I need to hunt, properly,” said Grigori, who was if anything, far more wolf than human.

    In the little church Vlad kept vigil by the corpse. He prayed for his man’s soul. He prayed for his own soul too. Something dark was rising in him. Something he was not sure he could control.

    And part of him wanted to let it free.