House of Bathory (23 page)

Daisy drank in the sight, the ancient buildings clustered in twisting cobblestone streets. The gray stone cathedral of St. Martin’s, a massive presence. From this vantage point, she could see almost all of the old city.

She listened intently. The only sound was the dripping of the rain gutters. It was late and there were few passersby at this end of town. Most of the action now was in the nightclubs and bars outside the walls of the Stare Mesto. Then she heard a burst of laughter and conversation from the street far below.

Daisy gazed down at a small cluster of young people who were approaching the gate. She noticed they stopped talking as soon as they entered the tunnel through the Michalska Gate. She craned her neck, looking down to watch them emerge from the other side. Her view was partially blocked by the stone supporting the balcony.

“Why did they stop talking?” she asked.

“It is a superstition,” the stranger said. “They must be students. It is said if a student speaks when passing through the Michalska Gate, he will fail his exams. The Slovakians are very superstitious.”

“Are you?” asked Daisy.

“I am Hungarian,” he answered. Daisy noticed the skin puckered around his mouth when he spoke. His lips pulled back, exposing his teeth.

She stared at them in the darkness.
What a set of choppers
.

“There is a great difference between Hungarians and Slovaks, the Conquerors and the Conquered.”

Daisy was about to ask him about the difference, when his knees buckled.

“Oh, oh!” said the stranger, leaning against the wall. He breathed heavily.

“Are you all right?” asked Daisy.

“Forgive me, my dear. I have to admit I am feeling a bit woozy from the climb.”

“Let me help you—”

“No, no. I will descend and wait for you at the bottom of the stairs.”

“I’ll go with you—” said Daisy.

“No, that’s not necessary. You must have a few moments to admire the beauty of the city. I will be at the door when you come down. Please do not worry about me.”

He disappeared through the door, closing it behind him before she could protest.

Then she heard the turn of the lock.

“What the fuck?” she said. She turned her headlight beam on the door handle, and pushed down hard. The door was locked.

“You crazy bastard!” she said. “Hey, let me out of here!”

Daisy pulled at the door, then kicked it furiously. She heard the slap of footsteps on the wet street below her. The white-haired man had emerged. He was speaking to a large blond man. They both strode back to the entrance of the tower.

She knew she had only minutes to act.

Chapter 64

Č
ACHTICE
V
ILLAGE
D
ECEMBER 25, 1610

J
anos’s eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness. The air in the church was laced with mildew. There was no art adorning the stone walls. The only focus of the splintered pews was the simple altar and its pair of flickering candles.

A man in black clerical robes knelt in the front pew. He rose to his feet.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Ah, I suppose it is past midnight. Merry Christmas to you, Father.”

“May I help you, my son?” he said. “I am Pastor Ponikenusz.”

“I am Janos Szilvasi, horsemaster to Countess Bathory.”

A shadow crossed the pastor’s face.

“I see,” said Ponikenusz, extending his hand. Janos noticed the stiff formality in the handshake.

“I have come to speak with you.” Janos leaned close to the pastor’s ear. “But our conversation must be private. I am a friend of Vida’s.”

Ponikenusz’s eyes brightened in the darkness. He studied Janos’s face carefully.

“I remember now,” he said, nodding. “You are the one who delivered her to the cunning woman.”

“The girl was mad with pain.”

“I am pleased you have come to the house of the Lord. There is no more private place to speak. We have no knaves hiding in chapels or spies in dark corners. Our humble church has nothing but this one room for the faithful. Sit, my son. Please.”

“I have spoken to Count Thurzo,” said Szilvasi. “He has told me that you have buried the bodies of scores of girls.”

“Yes, this is God’s own truth. But I have told the Countess I shall not continue to do so.”

“Were they murdered?”

Ponikenusz moistened his lips. “What interest do you have in their deaths, Horsemaster?”

“I will not knowingly serve a murderess, Father. I will seek justice.”

Pastor Ponikenusz bowed his head. “Yes,” he said at last, “they were murdered.” He looked directly into Szilvasi’s eyes in the half-light. “There is no doubt. Brutally tortured, their bodies mutilated, God bless their innocent souls.”

“Tortured. And then she sent them to be interred in the church yard?”

“With full church rites. She insisted on that. Making up lies about their deaths when all one has to do is examine them to see the truth. Devoid of blood, drained through their open veins. I bless their souls, but now I have refused to allow our cemetery to be the repository of her diabolical cruelty.”

Janos cast his eyes about the simple church, which was cold and gloomy. The wax of the crude candles gave off an acrid smell.

“Diabolical?”

“The Countess Bathory enjoys the suffering of others. Those who escape alive bring stories of naked girls whipped, their private parts burned, their breasts bitten by the Countess herself, as if she were a rabid dog.”

Janos thought of Zuzana.

“You have great courage to challenge the Countess,” said Janos.

“I am a servant of God,” said Ponikenusz. “I cannot condone the deeds of a murderess. I must protect the lives and souls of the faithful. That is why I approached the Palatine Thurzo and have written our King.”

Janos extended his hand to the priest.

“Then we are brothers in this common purpose—to bring her murderous deeds to the light of justice.”

“The Countess shall most certainly be judged before God,” said the pastor, looking past Janos’s shoulder to the cross on the altar. “It is earthly justice I doubt.”

Chapter 65

S
OMEWHERE IN
S
LOVAKIA
D
ECEMBER 25, 2010

G
race sighed, tears leaving a wet trail down her face.

From her calculations, today must be Christmas. Betsy must be worried sick. A flicker of a memory shot through her mind, that disastrous Christmas in Carbondale when she had gotten so drunk on plum brandy. The first Christmas after her husband died.

No. Was murdered. He was murdered. And now would this madman murder her?

Why had she not been suspicious that night in the hotel in Piestany?

She shook her head, remembering the night she was kidnapped.

The Hotel Thermia dining room was opulent, hung with chandeliers that glittered in the mirrors. She had been seated in the front of the room, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows to the lit garden beyond.

She had ordered garlic soup, a Slovak specialty, to take the chill from her bones. She had spent the day walking the ruins of
Č
achtice Castle, comparing her seventeenth-century sketch to the rocky remains. The wind was bitter, and the stones glinted with frost. The footing was treacherous. She had seen only five other visitors in the course of the day, hidden in mufflers and overcoats. They snapped a few photos and hurried back down the steep path to get out of the wind.

There inside the Hotel Thermia it was warm, even if cavernous. She nodded to the waitress, who took her order.

“I would like the
diviak lesny
—wild boar?—in sour cherry sauce,” said Grace, suddenly famished.

The Slovak girl smiled at the American woman’s attempt to speak in her native language.

“
Dobre
,” she said, writing down the order. Then she wound her way through the many tables,
which were crowded
with overweight Germans, Arabs, Russians, and
Hasidic
Jews who had come to Piestany to take the waters.

When the waitress returned, she set a flute of champagne on the table.

“I didn’t order this,” said Grace.

“No, the man at table there did,” said the waitress inclining her head to the left discreetly. “In…
smoking…
?”

“Tuxedo,” Grace corrected.

Grace turned to see the gray-haired man rise from the table. She wanted to find her glasses so she could see him more clearly. He accepted a winter cape from the waiter, buttoned the clasp, and took a silver-tipped cane.

He bowed low to Grace, in an exaggerated, old-fashioned manner.

Grace dipped her head in acknowledgement and mouthed, “Thank you.”

“Tell me who he is,” she whispered to the waitress.

“All I know is that he is a count. From Hungary, I think, but his Slovak is perfect. He dines here a few times a year.”

The man left, turning his caped back on the women watching him.

After feasting on wild boar, buttered potatoes, and caraway-spiked cabbage, Grace refused dessert. The half bottle of Zumberg Cabernet had gone straight to her head, accompanied by the champagne sent by the stranger.

She drank strong black coffee, lingering over the cup. The laws for DUI in Slovakia were stiff and she had to remember the way back to the pension.

When she finally felt clear-headed, she rose, staring at the table where she had seen the stranger. A cold finger touched the base of her spine.

It was raining hard outside when the valet brought her the rented car. Wet leaves plastered the windshield. The valet made a desultory attempt to clear them off.

She took off into the driving rain, across the bridge from the island toward the village of Moravany Nad Vahom.

Then she felt steel against her temple.

“Drive carefully, Dr. Path, or you will kill us both.”

The car swerved, making the gun barrel knock against her head. She regained control, looking straight ahead. Her knuckles clenched white on the steering wheel.

“What do you want?” she said. “You can have my purse.”

“Oh, no, that will not please my master at all, I am afraid. Turn right at the end of the bridge. There is a car waiting for you.”

Chapter 66

B
RATISLAVA,
S
LOVAKIA
D
ECEMBER 25, 2010

S
he must be here, you fool!” shouted the Count. “She was locked out on the balcony. I locked the door there myself!”

“I swear to you she has disappeared, Count Bathory. Come and see for yourself.”

The Count struggled up the stairs, breathing hard at the second climb that night.

His servant, a blond man with large shoulders, walked behind him. When they reached the top floor, the servant unlocked the door to the balcony.

The lights on the buildings of Stare Mesto had been extinguished. Now the only light came from street lamps and a few shop windows.

“Jiri, this door has been locked the whole time?”

“Yes, Count. I swear to you.”

The Count lifted his lip in a snarl, exposing his long teeth. He directed the beam of his flashlight on the platform that ringed the turret.

“You go this way, I will go the other. She has to be here. Be ready.”

They walked in opposite directions, two shafts of light slicing the dark night.

Invisible but terrifyingly close, Daisy covered her face with the black sleeves of her Goth gown. The dress had made the climb difficult, but now she was glad to have the dark cloth to cover her too-white face. She had already ripped her dress to make a rope of black crepe to secure her as she climbed off the balcony and behind the supporting stones of the underlying platform.

She pressed her body as close as she could to the cold, wet stones.

“Fool!” said the Count.

“She has disappeared,” muttered Jiri. “She is a witch!”

“Shut up, incompetent Slovak moron,” said the Count, striking his cane against the servant’s leg. “Call the driver.”

Daisy only heard gibberish,
Slovak, maybe?
Unintelligible. The voices faded as the men circled the tower one more time. She huddled under her black coat, blinking sudden snowflakes from her eyes. She threaded the twisted length of crepe fabric through the wrought-iron bars, hoisting herself up, her boots braced against the stucco, until she felt the rim of the platform against her soles.

She soundlessly straddled the iron railing as easily as mounting a horse. She slid silently over it, and pulled off her boots. In her stocking feet, she crept to the open door. As the two men played their lights over the ground below, she made her way quickly and silently down the circular staircase and out the ground-level door into the darkness of the shadows of Michalska Gate. She pressed herself against the wall as a black limousine drove to the door of the turret.

The license plate gleamed just feet in front her as the taillights shone red and the chauffeur left the car idling.

The EU symbol of a ring of gold stars orbited above the white “SK” for “Slovakia.” The license plate was
PP—586
.

Daisy’s shaking hand had trouble getting the key to turn in the lock of the hotel’s front door.

The receptionist opened the door, bleary-eyed from watching a soccer match on television.

“There is trick to it,” he said as he opened the bolt and let her in. “You have to turn it twice counterclockwise, not once. I think it is different from American locks, no?”

He smiled at the girl, but then quickly registered the fear in her eyes. Tucked under her arm she carried her leather boots that dripped onto her soggy overcoat. Her woolen stockings were torn and muddied.

“Are you all right, Miss?”

“What does ‘PP’ stand for in a license plate?” she gasped.

“‘PP’? I think it is Poprad, near the border with Poland. The High Tatra Mountains,” said the clerk. “Did you get hit by a car?”

“No,” she muttered. “It just missed me.”