Vlad: The Last Confession (9 page)

Punishments

In the darkness just inside the forge’s open doors, an eye pressed to a crack, Ion hesitated. He’d slipped behind them as the others were dragged in. If he slid forward now, lay in the dirt, perhaps they would assume he’d been there all along? He wrapped his fingers around the frame…and then he spied the slightest of movements in the shadows behind the forge. Two shapes were there, one each side of Murad. Two of the Sultan’s archers, his special bodyguard, arrows fitted to the notch. Ion knew that one drew with his left hand, one with his right, so they could straddle their lord. He also knew they never missed.

He hesitated still…and the moment passed. Murad was walking forward and Ion could only stare at the Rock of the World. He had only seen him twice before and from a distance. Here, this close, all that Ion had heard was confirmed. He looked so…ordinary, like any laborer on the streets of Edirne. Of middling height but large in chest and shoulders and with a blacksmith’s muscled arms, he had an unkempt, gray beard, gray as the eyes in the round, unremarkable face, each feature smeared now with soot. It was said that he could walk among his people on a crowded street and never be noticed. That he often did. And that, unlike his peacock son, the clothes beneath the blacksmith’s apron would be drab at best.

Ordinary! And yet not at all. For this was the man who had summoned to Gallipoli the strongest warrior Ion had ever known—Vlad Dracul, Voivode of Wallachia—and chained him to a cart wheel for a week. This the man who, two years before at Varna, took on the strongest army the Christians had put into the field for more than a century and wiped them out. Who then, bizarrely and almost immediately, abdicated in favor of his fourteen-year-old son so he could retire to his island of Manisa and linger with his poets, his contemplation and his wine. Who’d been forced to return after two years because of Mehmet’s misrule.

This the man who now stepped forward and lowered his foot onto Vlad’s neck. For a while he did not speak. When he did, his voice was low, almost a whisper. “Dracul-a,” he said, pronouncing it as two words and in the “limba Romana”—their language; not Osmanlica, the language of his land. “Dragon’s son.” There was something in the tone that Ion, expecting savage retribution for their crime, had not expected to hear: a certain sadness.

“The
agha
s of the
enderun kolej
tell me that you are one of their finest students. That you recite the words of the Holy Qur’an beautifully—as well as the poetry of Persia, and the philosophies of Athens and Rome. That you are as skilled with threads as I am at forges, against the day of disaster. And that you excel at manly pursuits—upon the wrestling turf, on a horse with bow, with
jereed
.” He glanced down at the red brocade jacket of his son, and a slight smile came, then vanished. “But shall I tell you what does not please me?”

Murad paused, pressed down with his foot. And here it comes, Ion thought, swallowing. He knew Turkish punishments. Had experienced a few. Nothing, he was sure, like the retribution that would be given out for the stealing of a chosen girl.

And then Murad spoke on. “It does not please me that you are the
Dragon’s son.
” The last two words were shouted. As was the subsequent, “Up!”

He was instantly obeyed, though all rose only to their knees, settled back onto haunches, waited, heads bowed; Vlad, head now free, arms still pinned, amongst them. Only the Sultan, his watchers in the shadows and Ion behind the forge doors, stood.

Murad went on, his voice soft again. “Did Dracul think that because he kept his Dragon banner furled I would not notice his eldest son, your brother, Mircea, leading Wallachians against me at Varna? Does he not know that I have spies everywhere reporting each twist he makes?” He glared down. “And they tell me that though Dracul claims to hate my bitterest enemy, Hunyadi, the accursed White Knight, even as I do, that even now he has made a pact with him. To supply him with troops, marching again under a furled banner. To speed his passage through gates that should be barred against him.”

Murad stepped back to his forge and began to don the gloves he had removed. “He seems to have forgotten what the word ‘hostage’ means…in any language. He must learn the consequences of that.” As he spoke, he lifted the heated tongs from the coals.

“Father!” Mehmet called excitedly. “May I—”

“Your skill is with plants not metals, my son,” Murad said sharply, “and when I can teach you how to turn a seed into a cucumber, you may come and work my forge.” Pulling the tongs close, he studied the glowing metal at their end. “And while I do not desire to punish, do not the commandments of Moses, honored among prophets, speak of the sins of fathers and their consequences for sons?” He stepped back towards Vlad, metal glowing before him. “Dracul must be sent a message. A clear one.”

Behind the door, Ion quivered. He had a dagger at his belt. Should he not leap forward now, stab Murad, save his friend’s eyes? He would surely die, but die a hero if Murad did, too. Yet his hand never reached to his belt. Nothing moved, apart from a tear down his cheek, as the Sultan bent, bringing his own face close enough to Vlad’s for the molten glow to light them both.

“So I say this to you, Dragon’s sons. Both of you. Your lessons here are ended. Others begin. You will be taken to the fortress of Tokat. You will have different
agha
s there, learn different subjects. Less refined. Equally edifying. And your father will learn through your suffering the consequences of betrayal.” He lifted the tongs away, stood straight. “Take them,” he said.

The men who held Vlad jerked him to his feet. Manacles were produced, clamped to his wrists. The men who held the still weeping Radu turned him towards the door.

But then Mehmet stepped before them, raising a hand to halt the guard. “A boon, father,” he cried.

Murad turned back. “Ask it.”

“Are there not different ways to send the same message?” He looked across at Vlad, smiled. “I can think of nothing more beneficial than the lessons that await him at Tokat. But this one…” He reached out, laid a finger on Radu’s chestnut curls, moved it down, tracing the nose, leaving it lie upon the lips. “Is there not more than one way to bend a Dragon to one’s desires?”

Until that moment, Vlad had felt as if some
djinn
had him in a binding spell. It was not the men that held him but his own will, frozen. This was his fate, to be blinded by a Sultan. There was nothing he could do to save himself. Then his fate changed, and again, he could do nothing but accept it. But when someone else was threatened—his brother, his blood—the spell was shattered.

With a roar, he bent and wrenched his manacled hands from the grip of the man on his left, straightening suddenly to drive the top of his head into the jaw of the other, who fell back. The first man reached for him again, but Vlad brought the metal manacles sweeping up and across, smashing them into his face. He collapsed and Vlad was free, moving towards Mehmet, aware of every little sound now as he had been aware of none before—his brother’s weeping, every man’s cry, the creak of bowstring pulled hard back by men in the shadows.

“Wait!” Murad cried, arm lifted in command.

The arrows were not needed. Vlad was stocky, shaped like a bull. But even he could not charge through the half-dozen men who leapt forward, punching, kicking and finally hurling him to the ground, an arm’s length from his target.

But Mehmet had stepped back, readying himself. And though he still had a hand on Radu, he was no longer holding him tight. Certainly not tightly enough to stop the younger Dracula from grabbing the jewelled handle of the knife in Mehmet’s belt.

“Leave me be,” Radu shrieked, drawing it, slashing the blade across the reaching hand.

Mehmet screamed. More guards rushed in. Radu was disarmed, grappled to the floor.

“Are you badly hurt, my son?” said Murad, coming forward again.

“Badly enough,” Mehmet whined, showing the slash across his palm.

Murad reached, closing his son’s hand, holding it. “You will live. And we have learned: even the youngest Dragons have teeth.” He smiled. “Do you still want him?”

Mehmet nodded, a gleam in his eyes. “More than ever.”

“Then you shall have him.” Murad raised his voice. “Take him to my son’s
saray
. The other to the wagons. He will leave immediately. The rest of you will go. Only Mehmet will stay.”

“Vlad!” Radu cried.

On the floor, his brother’s cry came to him through the fog where blows had sent him. He tried to surge up through it, to fight again. But the Sultan was instantly obeyed, as ever. Men lifted both boys and rushed them from the room.

In a moment, all were gone. All save the Sultan and his son; the two shadows releasing, just, the tension in their bowstrings. And Ion, still frozen behind the door.

For a moment, silence. Ion was sure they would hear his breathing, the fall of his tears. Then footsteps came, soft on the dirt floor. A man entered with a goshawk on one fist.

“Well, Hamza
agha
,” said Murad, “is my bold Zeki ready to fly?”

“He is ready. To fly for you. To kill for you,
enishte
.”

He calls him
enishte
, “uncle,” Ion thought. Then he remembered how Hamza was only recently appointed a falconer. Before that, the handsome tanner’s son from Laz had been Murad’s cupbearer. And more, it was said.

The Sultan pulled a piece of raw meat from the pouch at Hamza’s waist, luring the bird from his falconer’s glove to his own, the jesses effortlessly transferred. With the bird settled, Murad looked up. “And this other hawk, the Wallachian. Can you make him as biddable? Will he, one day, kill for me, too?”

“I…think so,
enishte
. I have some ideas.”

Murad chuckled. “Oh, I am sure you do. You were always the cleverest of my boys, nephew.” He glanced to the side, and affection left his face. “I have often urged my son to study you.” While Mehmet colored, his father looked back. “These ideas? Would you like to share them?”

“It is as you say, lord. Dracula is a hawk. There are many ways to train one. Some with harshness. Some with love. Some with one after the other. As in this case.” He sighed. “I believe we can leave the
agha
s of Tokat to deal with the first.”

“I wish I could see that,” murmured Mehmet.

Murad frowned slightly, though not, it seemed, at the interruption. “It disturbs you, Hamza? You regret the lessons that the hostage is to learn?”

Hamza shrugged. “Sometimes, with a proud bird, the only way to break it is to soak it with water, then sit out the entire, freezing night with it. I regret that, too, though I sometimes recognize the need.”

Murad leaned forward, lifting Hamza’s gloved hand to the fire glow. “‘I am trapped,’” he read aloud. “‘Held in this cage of flesh. And yet I claim to be a hawk flying free.’” He looked up. “This is what he sewed for you?”

“Yes.”

Murad read again, silently. “Jalaluddin. He has taken some liberties with the verse.”

“I told him so,
enishte
.”

Murad let the hand drop. “He has a schoolboy’s love for you, does he not?”

Hamza shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“And you for him?”

Hamza said nothing.

Murad smiled. “Well, you spoke of how some birds need love
after
harshness.”

The two men had turned towards the forge so that the Sultan could read. Mehmet, striving not to be excluded, had come closer. Ion saw that the three were almost a screen to the archers in the shadows. So he edged around the door.

Eyes followed him. Not human. The goshawk was no doubt a gift from some vassal-prince to the north, for it flew in the same beech forests from which Ion came. He moved, praying silently for a countryman’s silence.

It was not kept. “
Kree-ak
,
kree-ak
,” came the hunting call.

He leapt. And his knees, weakened by shaking, gave…and saved his life, for an arrow flew a finger’s width above his head and shuddered into the door.

“Hold!” Murad’s shout was to the second archer, who had cleared the screen of bodies and was about to shoot. “Guards!” he called, and five men rushed in, to seize the fallen Wallachian.

“You,” said Murad, turning to the first archer, “are banished from my service for your miss. And you…” he continued, turning back to Ion, “come here.”

As the disgraced archer left, Ion was dragged forward, pressed to the floor. Murad bent, lifted him by the hair. “A youth,” he said, “and dressed like a student. Do you know him, nephew?”

“Yes,
enishte
. His name is Ion Tremblac. A
boyar
’s son from Wallachia, sent to be Vlad’s companion.”

“Indeed.” Murad studied him for a moment. “And now he is turned spy.”

Ion looked up into the Sultan’s gray eyes. He knew his death was in them. Strangely, it made him less frightened, now that it was certain. “No spy, Murad Han. Only a loyal servant to my lord, my friend, Vlad Dracula.”