Much Fall of Blood: Chapter Twenty Six

    Standing at the burned out shell of the manor house. Elizabeth tapped the riding crop against the cheek of the soldier. “Now tell us again, remembering all the details.”

    The trooper looked warily at the perfect complexion and classically beautiful face. She smiled, perfect rosebud lips curved. “I’m waiting.”

    “Lady, there really is no more. We got the message from the boyar Klasparuj. We rode back, guided by the messenger. We had no suspicion that it would be a trap. The locals are sullen and uncooperative, but no one would have dared to raise a hand to his Majesty’s troops. They all do what we want. At most they just won’t help us. But this one led us into an ambush, damn him.”

    “Of course he did not live through this,” said Elizabeth.

    The soldier nodded. “Captain Kouric ran him through, right there.”

    “I wonder if stupidity is infectious?” said the countess. “How we supposed to question a dead body? You kill them after you have the answers. Now we are going to have to find someone else to give us that information.”

    Captain Kouric looked wary himself. He had come to realize that the countess could be even more vicious than King Emeric, but that she was also much more astute. Of course — although Kouric would never have said this aloud, even to his closest friends — being more astute than Emeric was not hard.

    She noticed. She noticed far too much for comfort. “And now, Captain? What else have you done that I’m going to dislike?”

    He cleared his throat nervously. “His Majesty’s orders. Any village that shows resistance, we are to execute as many of them as we can find.”

    “And you’ve sent some of your men to do this?”

    He nodded, sweat beading his forehead.

    “Send the rest of your men after them,” she said coldly. “Now. If they’ve killed anyone, you’ll be hanging alongside them in the village square. I need to know what happened here. If that means executing dull-witted soldiers your force, I really don’t mind.”

    He left at a run, yelling for his men and horse.

    Elizabeth stood there tapping her quirt on her palm. The tiny slivers of glass embedded in it had no effect on her skin. There were ways, of course, of getting the information, even from the dead. If need be, she could get the burned timbers and blackened stones to tell her. But what she needed was a little more complex. Entrapment always took bait, and she would bet that Vlad had made loyalists for himself. She was not too sure quite where he had got himself a military force.

    The Croats were Emeric’s second best troops. They could not have been defeated by mere peasant levies. Vlad must have successfully recruited some of the boyars. That in itself was odd. Emeric, on her instruction, had treated them well. The trans-Carpathian lesser nobility were a fair way towards being more loyal to him than to their actual overlord.

    But there was always some petty noble looking out for the main chance. Apparently, this boyar Klasparuj must have been one of them. The surviving Croats said that they had not burned the place. It was possible that they weren’t lying. On the other hand, they had a reputation for arson — to the point where Emeric had had to forbid it during the last campaign. Arson was a shortsighted practice, unless one used it to burn people along with the structures that could be useful later.

    She walk over to ashes. Someone had died here. She could feel it. Died terrified.

    “I got there in time, you ladyship,” panted the captain. “They were still rounding people up into the village square. Nobody has been hurt. At least not too badly.”

    “I trust you did not mention my name. Remember, I am not here. I am strictly incognito in this affair.”

    “Uh.” The captain looked as if in avoiding the mud-puddle he had stepped into a cesspool. “I did say that Your Ladyship had ordered them freed.” She tapped her quirt on her hand again. “But I didn’t use your ladyship’s actual name.”

    “I have told you that it is necessary for me to keep an apparent distance from the search for Prince Vlad. Now, thanks to your foolishness, I will have to remove myself from this area. I will need you to bring me those of the boyars who have provided you with the best support. I will need to interview them.”

    “Yes, Your Ladyship. What can we do about the attack on our men?”

    “Why, be very happy that you failed to execute the villagers. The last prince was a fairly timid man. But this prince’s grandfather would have impaled your troops and set them on the border as a warning. This one seems more like that. Learn to play a longer game, Captain. In good time you will get your opportunity.”

    She paused for a moment, reminding herself not to fall into the same error. “I’ve rethought my strategy here. I did indeed order you not to kill the villagers. That made you very angry, that I should suddenly have arrived and told you to take this action. See that you tell quite a number of people that.”

    “And the boyars, lady?”

    “Have them come and see me,” she said, turning away. “I need to interview them, to find ones that are suitable.”

    She did not say what she wanted them suitable for, and the captain wisely did not ask.

    Captain Kouric rode his showy roan down the village street. He noted four of his men’s horses outside the smithy. Now, horses do throw a shoe every now and again, but the captain had an excellent memory — for horses, anyway. Two of those horses had only been reshod yesterday, and those were four that should have been out on patrol. He stopped his horse and tied it next to the others and went inside. Two of his soldiers, who would normally not have deigned to lift a finger if a civilian could be made to do it, were working the bellows while the smith drew a crucible from the furnace with long tongs. The other two were readying a series of bullet molds.

    “And just what is going on in here?” he asked sharply, almost causing the smith to drop and crack his crucible full of molten silver metal.

    “Nothing, Captain,” said one of the troopers hastily.

    “Just making some more bullets, Sir,” added another, as if Kouric could not see that.

    He raised his eyes to heaven. “And since when did you need a smith to do that? And why do you need to do it right now?”

    “Uh. We thought it might be useful, Sir, to have some spares.”

    “Always a good thought,” said Kouric, his eyes half lidded. “But why did you bring the work to the smithy this morning, when you’re supposed to be on patrol?” His voice, silky and pleasant, might have fooled those who knew him less well than his own troops.

    “Uh. We only heard about this late last night, Sir. And we can’t get our fire hot enough . . .”

    Kouric had seen them melting lead often enough to know this to be a lie. He merely raised his eyebrows at them.

    “Well, Sir, it’s not lead. It’s . . . it’s silver, Sir. It is that or gold, and most of us haven’t got much gold.

    “’tisn’t my fault,” said the smith. “They told me to melt all their silver pennies. I just does what I’m told, Sir.”

    “Silver bullets? You are melting your own money into silver bullets?” demanded the captain incredulously. “Have you all gone mad?”

    The soldiers had the grace to look embarrassed. “It’s the only way to stop him, Sir. A common metal won’t do nothing to him.”

    “What on earth are you talking about?” demanded their commanding officer. He refrained from calling them the idiots they plainly were. Kouric had commanded men for long enough to understand that there were times when telling them the average dung-heap had more intelligence, could in itself be a stupid statement. That was when money was involved. More than one officer had been murdered for that mistake.

    “The Drac, Sir,” said one of the soldiers, using the local word for dragon.

    “There is no such thing, trooper,” said the captain dismissively. Once stories like that got hold, they were hard to dispel among the common soldiers. They were enormously superstitious.

    “It’s what the local people call Prince Vlad, Sir,” explained the soldier. “He is a monster, Sir.”

    “They are having you on, spinning you a fine fairytale,” said Kouric.

    “No, Sir,” said the soldier stubbornly.

    Soldiers do not argue with their commanding officer. They know the penalty for that. So if any experienced officer has them do so, he knows something is very wrong. “Where did you hear this?”

    “At the Green Bush, Sir.”

    Kouric knew that he shouldn’t even have had to ask. The inn was off-limits, but he knew full well that where there was ale, there would be troopers, and nothing short of a armed guard would stop them. “You’re not supposed to shoot Prince Vlad,” he said tersely. “You’re supposed to arrest him. Those are your orders from King Emeric himself. Do you really wish to argue with him? The King is no story put about to frighten little babes. He is a real terror. If Prince Vlad was so powerful do you think he could have been kept prisoner? A hostage — and for years? Now get out there, get on your horses and get to your patrol.”

    They turned, and began to sheepishly stumble towards the door. One did half turn, and say: “What about our money, Sir?”

    “Go! You were stupid enough to waste it. You’ve lost it.” If the blacksmith had any sense he’d return their silver. If he didn’t, Captain Kouric was not going to look too hard for his murderers. The locals deserved some payback for their part in all this. No matter what the countess said, he was going to make an example of those who were trying to terrify his men with this story.

    In a plain cloak, accompanied by one of his toughest sergeants, equally anonymously dressed, Kouric found his way into the taproom of the inn that night. The host was an old man, with a severe limp. And he was giving free beer to the Croat troopers, which explained just why quite so many of the captain’s men were prepared to risk his wrath by coming to a place that was off limits. There were a few locals. The captain noted their features carefully and sat down with his sergeant to listen. If they’d gone forward to the bar at least one of the men might have recognized them, but they stayed at the back, where the light from the tallow dips scarcely penetrated.

    The speaker was so drunk that his words were slurred. He still had every trooper in the place clinging to them. “– drank the mistress’s blood. You could see it running from her throat.” The man panted and sweated, just recollecting the event. “His skin is white, like something that’s been dead. And he wears black clothes like a priest. And he walked right through the fire. Fire that was hot enough to kill the master’s son, and burnt me like this, see.” He pointed to his shriveled hair. “And I got out of there before him, long before him. It didn’t burn him at all. You can’t kill him.”

    The old man with the limp had come up to the table quietly, as they listened. He put down three mugs of beer. “On the house. You must stay here to protect us.”

    The captain had heard enough. He knew what he’d have to do. “Sergeant, we’ll be shifting camp first thing in the morning.” It was that or lose half his men to desertion. This Benedickt’s story was obviously not invented for audience’s benefit. It had spread to so many of the troopers already, that hanging the man would be a waste of time and effort. Counter-productive, in fact, since the hanging would simply give weight to the story.

    Kouric’s patrols still hunted for Prince Vlad. But there was a marked lack of real enthusiasm for actually finding him, and having to try and take him alive as they’d been instructed. Dead in a hail of silver bullets might be a better idea . . .

    The captain was not a superstitious man. He would have to keep reminding his troopers just what the king did to those who disobeyed him. He also needed to send a message. Emeric would need more than the handful of soldiers he had in these hills, if they were facing a real armed insurrection.

    He was not happy at the thought. The king of Hungary was known to ignore such messages and then, when troubles ensued, to demand the heads of those who had not warned him.

    “Forty two men,” grinned Angelo. “A perfect number. Too many to feed easily, and too few to do anything with. They lack arms, or training, or even anyone to train them. King Emeric must be very afraid.”

    Just a few seconds, before Vlad had actually been feeling quite proud of his new army. Their loyalty touched him. Angelo’s sarcasm touched him too, on the raw. But the gypsy was right, and Vlad could not forget that they had helped him to flee and draw off those who might have endangered his rescuer.

    “Well, I have you and Grigori and Radu. Then there is me. So we have forty-six men. And I will recruit more ”

    Angelo shook his head. “No, Drac. We — Radu, Grigori and I — must go south now, and fast. There is business that we need to see to for our people. We will have to leave you. But we will be back. There are certain rituals between your house and mine that need to be renewed before we can have you crowned.”

    The idea of them leaving frightened him. In his shifting world, the gypsies had been Vlad’s one anchor. True, it had been a very small anchor, which had allowed the vessel of his life to drift into new and dangerous waters. But everything else had gone.

    “I am not sure where to go next. Or what to do.”

    The gypsy seemed amused. “Being a prince is a trade you’ll have to learn without my help. I could only teach you how to look and behave like a gypsy, not the ruler of Valahia. As to where you will go . . . I think that there is only one place for you to go and be safe for a little while, while you try to turn your men into a real army. The high Carpathians. It’s wild, bleak and unruled. Bandit country. The Hungarians will not go there except in large numbers, and large numbers up there are hard to move around fast and unseen. You need time and a hiding place. Go up into the mountains and be very glad that it is still late summer.”

    Vlad decided that was sound advice. And those high bleak places called to him.

    If he could not turn to the boyars for cavalry, leadership and training, he had to find some people he could trust to help with the instruction, or he would have to learn all of it himself.

    But he was aware that twenty-seven horses and the contents of the boyar’s strong box were not going to be enough.