Much Fall of Blood-ARC (25 page)

Somehow the heat got through to Vlad. He shook himself, took stock of his circumstances, and realized that he was in a burning building. The son was trying to get past him, and Vlad let him flee. The boy was running the wrong way, up the passage.

The footman and majordomo had fled. Vlad could not leave the boyar and his wife to die. The boyar was further away. He would gather him up, and grab the woman and run.

The boyar must have been half crazed with the burning, because he took one look at Vlad and somehow staggered into a run . . . back towards the burning drapes. Vlad allowed himself just a moment of indecision and then turned. If the man could still run, he could save himself. He scooped the woman up in his arms. She was voluptuous and heavy, but Vlad had no difficulty carrying her. He kicked aside the still swinging door and stormed out into the hallway. The front door was open, and the roof on fire.

* * *

No one likes or trusts the gypsies. But these men had brought the prince here and he had plainly exerted his hold over them too. So when the gypsies told the villagers to gather their weapons and come to the fortified manor of the boyar Klasparuj, they came. Boyar Klasparuj was a hated landlord. Grasping and cruel, he and his men were feared.

Their prince was already loved and respected. "He killed Gregor the innkeeper with his own hands for what he did to Janoz. Drowned him in his own kitchen filth. And you know, he went himself to house of the widow Mira . . ."

If the prince wanted them, armed, his word was law.

They were waiting in the darkness when the fire began erupting through the roof. Angelo turned to Grigori. "He has called the wildfire."

The second gypsy nodded. "It's never a good thing to wake in a building."

The door burst open and some liveried footmen came running out, yowling like scalded cats. Angelo stopped one. Hard. "Where is the prince?" he demanded.

"Dear God. I shot him!" quavered the man.

"What?!" demanded a villager. "Benedickt . . ."

"But he didn't die," said the man, his voice shrill. "He just didn't die! I shot him dead. And he just kept walking towards me. He said lead would not kill him. It had to be royal metal. We gave him so much wine it would have felled an ox, but he wasn't even drunk. He's a demon . . ."

"Not a demon," said Radu. "Drac. He is the dragon, reborn."

As he said this a figure came staggering down the stairs, his hair and clothing aflame, a kist in his hands.

And then, as part of the roof fell, sending a plume of flame into the sky and illuminating everything with sharp red light, Vlad came out of the doorway, a woman in his arms. The flames curled up hungrily behind him, highlighting the prince in his austere black, his face very white. Red blood ran from the voluptuous woman's throat, and down onto her breast.

The villagers surged forward. Vlad put her down. "She is dead. They tried to betray me, Angelo." He looked at the flames and said tiredly. "The fire will spread. You'd better see to the horses in the stables. We'll need good horses. They had sent for King Emeric's men."

Villagers ran to do his bidding.

"What of this one?" Radu pointed to the fallen figure that had staggered out, aflame, just before Vlad appeared.

"The son. Let us see if anything can be done for him."

But he was no longer breathing. His hands had burned onto the kist he'd carried.

"He abandoned his parents to fetch that," said Vlad.

"The manor strongbox must have been important to him," said Angelo dryly. "Well. We'd better get to those horses and leave."

Vlad shook his head. "No. I have money." He kicked the strongbox. "I have horses and I have men. I see that the men have weapons with them."

"We thought you might need freeing."

"I might have," acknowledged Vlad. "But I dealt with that. I have had enough of just running. I have a funeral to attend tomorrow. Let us deal with these Croats tonight. It will make them less eager to follow me."

Angelo looked at the burning building. At the peasants with pitchforks, boar spears and bows. "They'll kill this lot, Prince."

Vlad shook his head. "We will not give them the opportunity. These people know the land here. The Croats do not. And they expect a prisoner. One man. They will not know what to expect."

Grigori rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. "I think that after tonight, they will expect the worst."

Radu snorted. "The tale will grow somewhat in the telling."

"Oh yes," said Angelo. "A dark and fearsome tale. A legend."

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.