Vlad: The Last Confession (12 page)

“One of you will flay the other,” Wadi said, stepping back. “And because you are the honored guest, princeling, and he the criminal, you get to choose.”

Vlad let his hand fall away, stood straight. He couldn’t see the torturer clearly through his tears but his voice was strong. “No,” he said.

Wadi smiled. “Interesting choice,” he said, turning to the merchant, whose face was distorted by terror, his lips forming words no one could hear. “Take up the knife. If you can take ten strips from him without killing him, you are free to go.”

Vlad watched the merchant’s eyes. Watched the terror in them turn to desperation and then to a kind of hope. Watched him step forward and bend to the flaying knife. The pain at his chest was unbearable. Something shifted inside him. “No,” he said again. Differently. Bent swiftly as he spoke.

Picked up the knife.

—

Her hand was still in his. He was squeezing it so tightly he thought he would break her fingers. “I had used one before, Ilona,” he whispered, “to make a falconer’s glove. But flesh was…different from leather. And there was blood,” he sobbed, “so much blood…”

“My love! Don’t! Don’t…”

“And do you know?” he whispered. “He was just the first. Now Wadi has seen what I am like with a blade, he keeps pushing one into my hand.”

The grip on him changed. The skin was rougher and Vlad could feel the scars upon the palm before it pulled away. “Jesus,” Vlad said, in wonder. In joy. He looked up…but form had dissolved into light. Golden, wondrous light.

The Savior had never visited him before, though Vlad had begged him to come. He had neglected his prayers since his mother died. But not now, not in his cell. “I am here with you, my son,” came the voice. “I understand your suffering. For did not my father also send me to torment?”

Vlad knelt, knees grinding into rough stone. “Forgive me, Lord,” he said, “my sins.”

“You are forgiven, my son,” came the reply. “Because you ask, because you repent, because you will atone, your sins are removed. And yet…” The voice became harder… “How little there is to forgive. For was it not a Roman you tortured? Did not the Romans nail me to a cross? Is it not written in the Book of Matthew that I shall seek throughout the world all things that offend and commit evil; and shall throw them into the furnace of fire?”

“Lord?” Vlad squinted into the light. “Do you say…”

“Remember my sacrifice. Remember what set you free. I was tortured and murdered so Man might live.”

He heard the feet approaching on the flagstones above. “Lord,” Vlad cried out, “what are you telling me?”

The wooden trapdoor was pulled up. There was light, dull light, not heavenly light. That slipped away. But as it faded, voices came: his father, Ilona, Mehmet, Jesus. Speaking as one.

“You torture others so they cannot torture you.”

Hands reaching for him. Real ones now, jerking him from his cell.

First Time

For the duration of his imprisonment—how long that was Vlad could not know—his path had always led down, each flight of stairs taking him deep into the bowels of Tokat. This time he was pulled up. It frightened him, this change of routine. He did not know what it could mean. He did not think it would be good.

And then he was thrust through an archway into daylight. It dazzled him, after his life of darkness and flame. It was wonderful, too, the air clean of all foulness, a harsh wind blowing over him that made him shiver with cold and delight. He sniffed it like a hound, opened his senses to everything: to the wind driving ice crystals into his face; to the roiling gray clouds; to a scent in the air that spoke of another land, another season…

It is near spring, he thought. I have been held here for close to six months.

He looked around then. He was standing in an arched entranceway to the fortress’s main yard. Walls enclosed the space in a star shape, with the usual huddle of straw-roofed huts leaning against them. Horses moved in some, soldiers in others. Within one, a fire glowed, a blacksmith wielding his hammer before it. In yet another, slaves turned a wheel, grinding barley.

To Vlad’s life-starved eyes, all was delightful. Until he looked at the figures in the very center of the courtyard. The students of his
orta
were there, huddled close for warmth, Wadi in their midst. He saw Vlad immediately, beckoned him.

“Ah, good! Here, princeling, here,” he called. “I have something special for us today.”

The group parted to admit him—and sitting there, previously screened, was Mahir, bare-chested as ever despite the chill rain. A long wooden stake lay across his thighs. It was about the length of a tall man and half as much again, its circumference matching the meaty forearm that held it. Its end had been chiselled to a roughly rounded point, and Mahir was applying a metalled glove to that, scouring it smooth, eliminating all edge, rendering it into half a globe.

“You will witness something extraordinary here today, princeling. An experiment, almost. For Mahir has never practiced this form of his craft. It has not been much used in the Abode of Peace, though often in the cruder realms across the Danube, so we hear. Still, we do like to take the best from our northern vassals.”

Mahir dropped his scouring glove, ran his finger over the end of the stake, squealed in the high-pitched way that was his speech, to show that he was ready.

“Excellent,” said Wadi. “But before we begin, remember we are not just artisans. We are historians and philosophers. And what we undertake today has an ancient lineage. For did not mighty Sennacherib, King of the Assyrians, practice this technique upon the Israelites? Did they not profit from the lesson and use it in their turn? Their Torah talks of sinful men, fixed upon timber.” He clapped his hands, signal and delight both. “Yes, my scholars, you are once again heirs to ancient tradition. Regard!”

His clap brought men who had been waiting for it. The first of them came from one hut bearing ropes, another led a donkey from the stables, while from the archway a group appeared, facing inwards, looking at someone in their midst. Then they parted, and Vlad saw a youth, not much older than Vlad himself, with long, fair hair, no turban. He did not resist as he was led towards the apprentice torturers; indeed, he did not seem to have much awareness of what was going on around him. He was staring at the clouds.

“His name is Samuil,” said Wadi, beginning his usual summation of their subject, “and he comes, perhaps like the technique itself, from somewhere across the Danube. Taken by our Sultan, Balm of the World, on one of his many successful campaigns.”

Vlad stepped closer. Wallachia was across the Danube.

“And he is, of course, a follower of Christ,” Wadi continued. “No harm in that. Many are who dwell in the Abode of Peace. All we do ask is that they keep their misguided views to themselves.” He pointed to the youth. “But this one refuses to keep his silence and his Prophet to himself. He has been chastised, flogged, starved. Still he must speak.”

Vlad stared at the young man’s raised face. His eyes were closed now, his lips moving.

“So he has been given to us for punishment. And it was Mahir who thought he should receive this one!”

The donkey had arrived, led into the center of the rough circle, head lowered, as oblivious as the youth. Seeing it, Vlad remembered another donkey, in a street market in Edirne, and what he had done to it. He shivered.

Mahir reached up, withdrew two items from its saddlebags—a razor and a jar. The first he stuck in his belt, then pulled the stopper from the jar and poured its green contents onto the stake’s smoothed end. All could smell the sweetness of olive oil.

“Are we ready?”

Mahir gave a squeal of assent. Laying aside the stake he rose, went to the youth and ripped his thin
gomlek
from him. He didn’t try to cover his nakedness. Didn’t react at all when Mahir picked him up and laid him on the ground, face down, his head between the donkey’s rear hooves.

There was a rack fixed to the donkey’s back in place of a saddle. Mahir tied the ropes securely to it, triple-knotting them. Then he tied the other ends halfway down the stake before laying it between the youth’s bare, spread legs. He looked up, gave a squeal.

Wadi smiled. “Indeed, Mahir. Let us begin.”

The torturer signalled other men forward, one to hold each limb, one to sit on his back. Then he pulled the razor from his belt…and the young man’s eyes finally flickered open, searched the faces that regarded him. Finally, his gaze settled on,Vlad. And he said one word.

Vlad took a step forward, raised a hand, let it fall. He knew he was the only one there who had understood the word, spoken in the tongue of Wallachia.

Salvation
.

And then the word was lost in screaming, as the razor slit his anus to allow easier entrance for the blunted, oiled stake. Mahir guided it in, squealing to Wadi, who began to lead the donkey slowly away. The beast didn’t react to the shrieks, the shuddering, the vibrations traveling through rope. It just plodded forward, pulling the stake, despite the slight resistance, which became easier.

Vlad saw the youth pass into unconsciousness when the stake was halfway up his body. He knew he was not dead, by the pulse still throbbing at his temple. It was then that Mahir untied the ropes, beckoned the other students forward. Together, on his command, they hoisted the stake and its load into the air, guiding its end into a hole dug for the purpose. Upright, the body began to slide down of its own weight. But Mahir, though a novice at impalement, understood his trade. For when the youth’s feet reached halfway down the stake, he grabbed them, crossing them onto a step that had been fixed into the wood. Then, with three swift strikes of his hammer, he drove a long nail through both feet, making them fast to the wood beneath.

“Salvation!”

Vlad called it, because the youth could not, not with the stake’s blunted end now protruding from his mouth. Called it for them both and for Jesus, who had been in his cell and now was here, taking another martyr’s hand, as he had taken the other Samuil, the first Christian martyr. This was glory! This was sacrifice! Jesus for Man; Man for Jesus. All suffering dedicated to God.

“Salvation,” he cried again. “Praise him! Praise God!”

Wadi couldn’t know what he was saying. But all could see the ecstasy on his face, hear it in his voice. “Yes, princeling,” he cried, “now you see. Now you understand.”

Vlad understood. But not in the way his
agha
meant it. And it was his meaning, not Wadi’s, that he took with him when finally they threw him onto the ground and five men struggled to carry him back to his cell. When he wouldn’t stop shouting. When he wouldn’t stop praising.

The Passage Hawk

They did not come for him again for several days, although he could not know in a world of perpetual night. They brought him his broth and murky water and he drank it, or poured it out, as he chose. His excrement he smeared on the walls, on himself. The martyr had been covered in it, so he was too. It did not concern him but it concerned the guards, who tried several times to drag him from his hole. Cursing, at last they succeeded.

He crouched on the corridor flagstones, naked and filthy, muttering. He kept looking back, waiting for the others. But no one joined him in the light. They preferred to remain in the darkness.

At last he became aware of someone standing before him, calling him. He looked up, saw a man whose name he had known but could not remember.

“Vlad,” the man called gently.

He looked down again, returned to his muttered prayers.

The man’s voice came again. “Maybe we have gone too far,” he murmured. Then, louder. “Take him to the
hamam
. Clean him. Shave him. Not like that! Gently now. Use him gently. Give him fresh clothes and put him to bed in my quarters.”

Vlad watched the young, tall, handsome man walk away down the corridor. Compared to the sallow, thin-faced men who stood beside him, the newcomer looked like an ancient God.

“Hamza,” he croaked.

—

“Where are you taking me?”

Hamza started, turned in his saddle to stare at the youth beside him. These were the first words Vlad had spoken in the week since he’d been taken from his cell. The good treatment that followed—the best of food and drink—once he was able to keep the richness down after his months of gruel—the daily bathing, the softest of silks to sleep beneath, under the warmest coverlets—all were received with the same downcast eyes, the same silence. He talked, but only to himself; at least, Hamza saw his lips move. But no sound emerged. Till now.

“I do not take you, my young man. You accompany me.”

Vlad lifted his gaze—another beginning. “Then I am free to ride the other way?”

“Well…” Hamza tipped his head, smiled. “But why would you choose to do that when I promise you such fine sport.”

He gestured back,
beyond the six mounted servants who followed them, to the three wagons. From the first jutted and swung all the paraphernalia of the camp: cook pots, tent poles, canvases and carpets. The second clinked with every sway, filled with the jars and barrels that would make the camp pleasurable. But it was to the third wagon that Hamza was referring. Its thick coverings were stretched high over frames then pegged down, sealing the interior from light. They could not contain the sounds though, the screams that had begun as soon as they left Tokat and, half a day later, had not abated on this road to the mountains.

Vlad glanced. “What are they?”

“Can you not tell from the screeching? Ugh!” Hamza blocked an ear with a finger. “Sakers. Eyases, taken from the nest last summer and kept badly by the fool I bought them from. They may be
beyond redemption but so may we all.” He looked across. “Shall we give them a chance? Will you help me redeem them, Prince?”

Vlad kept silent for so long Hamza feared he had slipped back again. At last though, he spoke. “All this…to train falcons?”

“That would indeed be foolish. No. I bring them to amuse while we wait. For there are other hawks at our destination, I hope. They are the reason for our journey.”

It was not quite true. The youth beside him was the reason, hawks the excuse.

“And what is our destination?”

Hamza pointed. “There.”

Vlad looked up. The mountain road had been climbing for a while. Ahead, it rose in switchbacks.

“Ak Daghari. Highest point in this part of Anatolia. We will be there by tomorrow’s nightfall.”

“And there we will meet your hawks?”

“If Allah wills it, yes. Men live up there. Strange, barbarous-tongued men from the far north, a place called the Nether Lands—which I think means it is an arsehole of a place.” He laughed. Vlad didn’t, so he went on. “Yet they have a rare skill in the trapping of passage hawks. And they come so far from their own land because Murad, Light of the Land, rewards them better than any Christian monarch would. It is said that if they take three birds in a summer they have earned their fortune.” Hamza sighed. “But they only went up at the first snow melt and may not yet have been blessed. Still, we will find ways to amuse ourselves, will we not?”

He gestured to the moving mews but Vlad did not reply, simply lowered his eyes again. Hamza regarded him, wondering if he suspected anything. Then he shrugged. It did not matter. All that did with a falcon was that it learned to fly and come back to the fist. And, of course, that it killed before it returned.

—

There were no birds awaiting them on Ak Daghari’s summit. Just three squat, bearded men who stank of the goats they kept and responded to Hamza’s gestures—neither could speak the other’s languages—with grunts and gestures of their own.

“It’s hard to be certain.” Hamza shook his head. “But I believe they are telling me that hawks have been sighted but not lured.”

“How are they lured?”

Hamza turned, delighted at one of Vlad’s rare questions. “We will go and watch with them…though it is a dull trade. Three in a summer, remember? Yet I believe the theory is that they tie a decoy bird to a pole. On a long tether, so it flies and flaps. A hawk sees it, attacks. They are watching from a blind, they drop the pole, spring a hidden net…” As he talked, Hamza led Vlad back to the encampment, set up in a defile hidden below the summit. “But let us pleasure ourselves with what we have, not what we don’t, eh?”

He put an arm around Vlad’s shoulder. The younger man tensed, until he recognized the first touch in an age that was not a blow.

Two of the wagons had been emptied, their contents transformed into a small pavilion, entirely carpeted, luxuriously appointed with silk hangings on the walls and deep furs and skins across the two divans, one for each of them. Another, larger, rougher tent had been erected for the servants. Hamza led Vlad past both to the enclosed wagon, as yet untouched. There he began carefully to untie the covering’s straps. Yet despite his delicacy, the screaming, which had ceased since the wagon was first unhitched, began again.

Hamza sighed, undoing the straps carelessly now, noisily. “It is the problem with eyases taken from their nests too soon. They scream for their mothers. The passage hawks are so much better. They rarely scream; and, of course, they already know how to kill.”

Lifting the covering, he beckoned Vlad inside, then followed him, dropped it again. All was dark until the gate of a lantern was opened and a light spilled out; faint, but enough to reveal the source of the screaming—two falcons sitting on perches, their hooded heads bobbing as they tried to locate the source of the disturbance. One began to flap, slipping to the limit of its jesses, hanging upside-down, wings wide and flapping.

“Chk. Chk. My pearl. My jewel. Easy! Rest!” Hamza clucked soothingly, and he pulled on his glove.

It was the sight of it, of the poem carefully stitched in gold upon the finely-tooled leather, that brought Vlad’s circling mind, which had sped up and slowed, sped up and slowed ever since he’d watched a countryman impaled, to a complete and final halt. It did not show on his face, though his body gave a little shudder. Yet when he spoke it felt, for the first time in an age, that it was him speaking and not someone else.

“You wear it?”

Hamza turned, hearing the difference in the tone. Saw, even in the poor light, that the younger man was actually looking at him now, not through him. He smiled. “Always. If my house were to burn down, I think this is what I would seize before I ran.”

He began unwinding the jesses from the still-flapping bird, clucking all the while. “This one is called Erol—‘Strong’ or ‘Courageous.’ A name given but not yet proven, eh, my beauty?” As he spoke he slipped the bird free of its perch, managed to get it onto his fist where it gradually settled when Hamza produced a piece of raw meat. He nodded towards another glove and Vlad slipped it on. “That one is for you. A female, so bigger. I think she will never be Sayehzade, the beauty Mehmet lost to you at
jereed
and never sent. But she may serve the Sultan well.” He smiled. “Her name is Ahktar. It means…” His bird began to flap again. “Be still! Find your courage!”

“Star,” said Vlad, finishing the naming. But as he unwound the jesses, just before he drew the saker onto his fist, he whispered the word again, in a different tongue. One of the very few words he’d spoken aloud in months.

Ilona
.

The falcons had had little training, just enough to sit on a fist and take mutton from the finger. So, for a couple of days, the two men spent their time inside the wagon, feeding the birds, talking to them. On the third day, the birds were taken outside and walked about, although they remained hooded. Two days later, at dusk, hoods were taken off for a time, which was expanded on subsequent evenings. Soon they began walking about the camp, out along the banks of a snow-melt stream, Vlad imitating Hamza: taking the hoods off; re-hooding; turning the birds as they walked; forcing them to re-sight. And each night, after they returned the falcons to their mews, they returned to their pavilion, to good, simple food, a glowing brazier and Hamza’s talk on the training of birds and other philosophies of life. Vlad listened, but spoke little.

By the tenth dawn no birds had been taken on the mountaintop. But it was time to fly the ones they had.

“It is the hour of risk,” Hamza said, as they went out in the gentlest light of morning. “We hope the bird will know us enough, trust us enough to return. But there is only one way to be certain.”

They climbed to another, almost bare peak, with just a few trees for cover. Hamza had selected it carefully and they stopped a few hundred paces short of the summit.

“Shall the Courageous One fly first and prove his name?” Hamza said, and immediately began loosening the jesses. Then, gripping them only lightly in his fingers, he removed Erol’s hood. The bird blinked repeatedly, eyes swivelling to take in the sudden expanse. Hamza fed it a small piece of meat. Then, he lifted his arm and flung the bird. “Fly, Baz Shah,” he cried, naming it for the Persian King of Falcons. “Fly!”

The bird flew. Low to the ground and fast, making for the summit and its few trees. They lost its dark shape there, and neither of them breathed for what seemed an age. Then Hamza stepped forward, circling the rabbit skin lure at the end of a long rope, whirling it, calling loudly, “Come, Baz Shah. Come, Courageous One! Return to me!”

For the longest moment, nothing stirred. Then, a black dot detached itself from a branch, transformed from speck to bird by pure speed. And when it struck the lure, it pulled Hamza to his knees.

Erol began to feed. “Praise be to Allah,” Hamza cried, delighted. They watched the bird rend and tear for a little while. Then Hamza stooped, took its jesses, lured it onto his fist with easier meat. Standing, he beamed at Vlad. “Your turn.”

Vlad stepped forward, loosening the straps that bound his bird to him, and he to her. Slowly, he took off the hood. The saker, like the other, blinked, gazed around.

Vlad kept his voice low, so only the bird could hear him. “Go, my beauty. Go, my…star!” And, on the word, he flung out his arm.

They watched the shape change from bird, to dot, to nothing as it slipped over the crest of the mountain. They watched it go and Vlad, sensing it, didn’t bend to lift the lure.

They waited for a while until finally Hamza said, simply, “Oh.” He turned to Vlad. “It happens. To the best of us. To the best of birds. The first time is the riskiest. It…”

Vlad began to walk quickly down the hill. Hamza ran to catch up with him, and was surprised at the expression on his face. Not the tears he expected. Something that all his jokes, talk and enthusiasm had not brought. “You smile?”

“Yes.”

Hamza shook his head, his voice touched with anger. “Is it because it is the Sultan’s falcon? Do you punish him? Or is it that you do not care?”

Vlad stopped, looked up, still smiling. “But I do care,” he said, “Ilona is free.”

Hamza frowned. “Ahktar,” he corrected.

“Oh yes,” Vlad nodded, moving off again. “Her, too.”