A Prince to be Feared: The love story of Vlad Dracula (18 page)

“In the end?” Ilona couldn’t help repeating, and then could have kicked herself because as Vlad turned to her, she saw in his eyes that he had expected, even wanted her, to pounce on those words. Never one to refuse a challenge, she asked, “Did they all die?”

“Surprisingly, no,” Vlad said. “Some did. They weren’t used to hard work or to living rough, and it told on their health. And there were accidents, of course, carrying such large stones over such dangerous ground, but those would have happened anyway, killing people who were innocent of any crime.”

Ilona, who’d heard plenty of rumours since her return to Wallachia, wouldn’t let that pass either. “The children were not guilty. You had children here too.”

“I had children here,” he acknowledged. “Rebellion runs in families. If I had left the children free, what would they have done? Grown up, hating me even more for punishing their parents, and from places like Brasov and Sibiu they’d have worked against me.”

“And now?” Ilona asked, fascinated in spite of herself. Mihály, presumably leaving them to fight it out, stepped back and moved to another window for a different view.

Vlad said, “Now at least, there’s a chance. They saw at first hand what it means to oppose me. And they saw that I can be merciful. And their parents now live useful lives as farmers or builders. Some of them,” he amended. “At any rate, they no longer have the wealth or the will to intrigue against me.”

“You broke their spirits,” Ilona murmured aloud, gazing sideways at the massive walls of the castle. Such an outcome seemed incredibly sad suddenly, taking away what made the person who they were.

“Considering the spirits in question, they were no loss.”

If they had been in a sleigh, Ilona thought with dark amusement, he’d have pushed it out of the window and ridden straight down onto the rocks. But there was more to it than that. There was the unbearable pain of his brother’s murder and, she suspected, his long-planned revenge hadn’t given him the release he expected.

“My brother,” he said without warning, “was afraid of the dark.”

Ilona’s heart twisted. Mircea’s murderers couldn’t have found a crueler death if they’d tried. Without meaning to, she reached across the space between them and clasped his hand. His head snapped round; his eyes stared into hers. Hastily, realising her mistake, she tried to snatch her hand back, but his rough fingers moved, gripping hers strongly before he released her and turned away.

Mihály said, “My daughter feels for everyone, good and bad. It isn’t always an advantage.”

Vlad shrugged. “Maybe not. But if I had a conscience, I’d give it to Ilona for safekeeping.”

Unaccountably angry because he was still trying to perpetuate the myth, even with Mihály, even with her, she snapped, “It isn’t detachable. That’s what troubles you.”

Again, Vlad stared at her. His eyes looked like some boiling storm in a dark green sea. His breath hissed out between his teeth. It might have been a laugh.

He began to move toward the steps, saying to Mihály, “Never give this woman a dagger.”

Abruptly, he swung back to the window as if something had caught his eye. Instinctively following his gaze, Ilona saw what it was. A single horseman, riding furiously along the road to the castle gates.

“Something’s happened,” Vlad said. He sounded more annoyed than fearful.

They returned to the castle’s great hall: a spacious rather than a gigantic room, more or less completed to the prince’s satisfaction, with some decorations already adorning the walls—a painting depicting a somewhat excessive feast, a pair of ancient crossed swords, the stuffed head of a wolf above the door.

Vlad’s visitor was a boyar Ilona recognised. Turcul, slumped against the table, was already gulping down wine straight from the jug when they entered. His clothes were almost caked in mud.

On their entrance, he lowered the jug at once and straightened, giving a low but hasty bow.

“Turcul, you ride as if all the fiends in hell are after you,” Vlad observed, going forward with hand held out, a casual gesture of friendship that Ilona hadn’t expected from the formal prince. It was part of his charm, though, and how he had won so many of even the more reluctant boyars to his side. He used formality to the point of magnificence to impress and overwhelm, yet with those who had begun to win his trust, he relaxed enough to show normal human friendship.

Begun to trust. Ilona, remembering Stephen’s distant words about the few men who had ever won Vlad’s trust, wondered how far that process had gone with Turcul. The boyar accepted the hand with an unexpectedly warm smile, as if the gesture already made up for the awful journey which had clearly exhausted him. After which he remembered to bow to Ilona and Mihály.

“Sit, my friend,” Vlad encouraged. “Food is on the way. Now, why were those fiends after you?”

“I don’t think they’re after
me
,” Turcul replied ruefully. “You remember my cousin Cazan? He doesn’t come to court, but he has land on the Transylvanian border.”

Ilona exchanged glances with her father. Surely there wasn’t trouble there again?

“I remember him,” Vlad said. His voice and his face were expressionless. As if already preparing secretly to deal with another betrayal. “He does not like me.”

“He doesn’t like anyone very much. He avoids princes and politics. Like those monkeys of legend all at once, he neither sees, hears, nor speaks any evil. However, after wrestling with his conscience, he finally sent me word at Tîrgovi
ş
te that Pardo had passed through his lands.”

“Pardo…” Vlad repeated.

“Who is Pardo?” Ilona asked curiously.

“One of those who betrayed my father,” Vlad said. “And one of those I will never forgive. He shelters in the German towns in Transylvania, which occasionally, under duress, agree to expel him. But even then he goes into hiding and eludes me, and during the next squabble with Brasov, he generally turns up there again.”

“With Dan back in Brasov, it was inevitable he’d reappear,” Turcul added with a quick glance of reproach at Mihály. Since Mihály had nothing to do with the king’s decision to support Dan, it wasn’t an entirely fair reproach, but as the representative of Hungary, he had to accept it.

“Where is he now?” Vlad demanded.

“That’s the trouble—we don’t know. None of our spies have reported sighting him anywhere. So he’s not inciting open rebellion or even conspiring. I think we’d know if that was the case.”

Vlad, who clearly had a vast network of spies, merely nodded at that.

“In fact, he’s gone into hiding like he does when he’s kicked out of Brasov, and we know he’s very good at that. Because Cazan is notoriously untalkative, he didn’t trouble to hide from him, and that is the only reason we know he’s in Wallachia.”

Vlad frowned at his boyar. “Why did Cazan open his mouth to you?”

Turcul gave a lopsided smile. “I suppose he likes you after all. He likes that the busy road through his land is no longer beset by bandits, and he likes the increased prosperity that comes to his people from that safety. Our troops passing into Transylvania did him no harm either.” Turcul took another drink—from a cup this time. “And, to be honest, I suspect he also likes that your justice never wavers or distinguishes between the great, the poor, and all those in between.”

Vlad said flippantly, “I love vindication.” But watching him closely, Ilona rather thought he did. He’d chosen a harsh, unwavering road, and perhaps the benefits did not always balance in the conscience she’d accused him of still possessing. Whatever, he didn’t linger over the self-congratulation. His mind moved on, pursuing Pardo.

“So what is he doing here? Now?”

“Travelling incognito with only one servant, who,” Turcul added, “could easily be mistaken for his companion.”

Vlad’s gaze locked with Turcul’s. “Ah.”

Turcul nodded. “Your beggars’ feast.”

“Your what?” said Mihály, amused.

Turcul said, “The prince decided there was no logic in constantly feeding at his table those who already had plenty. He said it made more sense to provide a meal for the poor and the hungry and the sick.”

“Actually, I’m just bored with their conversation,” Vlad said. “And feel the need for some earthier chat.”

Turcul grinned before continuing. “At any rate, there is a huge feast arranged in Tîrgovi
ş
te, and word spread around the country to invite the destitute. The city is already filling up with beggars and gypsies who keep the sluji—the prince’s civil security force—run off their feet.”

“But who,” Vlad added, “provide a perfect cover for Pardo. A city full of strangers, in which to hide…”

“To do what?” Ilona asked. “Conspire against you?”

Vlad shrugged. “Assassinate me, probably.”

Something cold and heavy seemed to land in the pit of Ilona’s stomach. She stared at Vlad, who gazed back, half-amused, half-searching. As if to see if she cared.

Turcul said, “I’ve told no one, apart from Carstian and Stoica. Stoica wanted to cancel the feast, eject the beggars, and flush Pardo out that way.”

“No,” said Vlad.

“Carstian thought you’d say that. He wants to flood the city with sluji, which will either scare Pardo off or catch him.”

Vlad shook his head again. “He’s in hiding. If he doesn’t want to be recognised, he won’t be. He’s also in the unenviable position of not being able to trust anyone. So…we go ahead as planned. And we’ll be ready when he strikes.”

He frowned. “And in the meantime, the guard must be doubled on the palace. Security for my son—”

“—is already taken care of,” Turcul assured him. “And the lady Maria understands she can no longer take him out unattended.”

For the first time since they’d left Tîrgovi
ş
te, Ilona wished Maria had chosen to accompany them.

Vlad said to Mihály, “I have to go back.”

Mihály nodded. “I know.”

“Turcul will look after you. Accompany you back to Tîrgovi
ş
te or wherever else you wish to visit, at a more leisurely pace than I can afford.”

The ache Ilona had learned to live with intensified. This quiet, delightfully pretty place would lose its charm without his presence. With despair, she recognised that without him, her whole life would seem flat.

She wished she’d never come to Wallachia. She wondered how long it would be before she and Mihály returned to Tîrgovi
ş
te too.

***

It seemed a good idea, in keeping with her ambivalent attitude to the prince, to go quietly back up to the top of the tower, from where she could watch him ride away from the castle. With a little care, he’d never even know she was there. No one would.

But her plan was ruined when, about halfway up the stone, spiral stairs, she heard the unmistakable clatter of boots thudding swiftly downwards toward her.

She glanced up in alarm, prepared to flee ignominiously. All she could see was a beam of sunlight boring into a point above her head. Within it, stone dust danced and whirled.

It needn’t be him. It could be Turcul or a servant or one of the builders who still haunted the castle carrying out finishing touches to the prince’s exacting specifications. She refused to be so cowardly as to run from anyone. Even him.

She took two more determined steps into the light, just as the man descending swung round the corner and cannoned into her. Half-blinded, almost winded, she felt his hands on her waist, catching her before she fell. With an effort, he pulled back his body’s own forward rush.

It took only an instant before their balance was rectified. And yet he didn’t remove his hands. Long black hair flowed in the dazzling sunlight until his head shifted, blocking the light, and she could gaze into his face.

“Ilona.” He didn’t sound surprised.

She muttered, “I was going back to admire your view.”

“I just have. It’s become a farewell ritual to my haven.”

Still his hands didn’t release her. She knew she should make him and yet couldn’t find words that didn’t sound silly or childish. Or didn’t betray her utterly.
I can’t bear it if you touch me.

He said, “I’m glad you came.”

“My father wished it.”

“Didn’t you?”

She shook her head.

His hands moved on her waist like a caress, awakening her whole body. “I had hoped we’d be married before this.”

She gasped, holding herself rigid. “On the contrary, it’s just as well we’re not!”

A frown flickered across his brow. “Maria.”

She said nothing, merely stared in what she hoped was a haughty manner at the centre of his chest, waiting to be released.

He said softly, “I did not marry Maria. I never will.”

“That is an entirely different crime. She deserves better.”

“Crime?” he pounced. “What crime have I committed against you?”

Raising indignant eyes, she glared at him. She should have known better than to bandy words with him, and now the conversation had gone all wrong.

“Dishonesty,” she threw at him.

“No,” he denied.

“No? Then what would you call it? I always expected an advantageous marriage arranged by my parents. You pretended something else entirely.”

Unable to endure more, she tried to pull herself out of his hold and instead was held faster against him. The shock of his hard body made her gasp, then stilled her, silenced her as she tried to suppress the betraying thrill.

He said flatly, “I pretended nothing. If it makes you feel better, I was celibate as a monk until Mihály refused the contract. But I’m
not
a monk, and Maria was there. It was never done to hurt you.”

“I am not remotely hurt,” Ilona flung at him with such palpable untruth that she wasn’t surprised by the upward tug of his lips. Infuriated, she plucked at his immovable hands. “Let me go,” she raged. “Or have you really become a monster?”

Something flashed in his eyes. She knew a twinge of fear even before he pressed harder against her, making her stumble back against the wall. For an instant, she hung there, helpless, trapped between the hard stone curve and his powerful body. But there was more than anger in the green flame of his eyes.