“No!” Ilona was weeping as she came forward. “No! It cannot be. Mother of God defend us all, for you are dead! Dead! I buried you.” She gave a last great cry, ran forward, reached up, threw back his hood…and gasped. For no living corpse, ripped from the shroud she’d sewed for him, looked back. The face was not rotten, worm-eaten. It was older, certainly, lined, and everything she had known to be black was white—hair, eyebrows, beard—but it was his face, beyond any doubt. And she knew, suddenly, certainly, that no night crawler stood before her but a man of flesh, the man she had always loved.
“I buried you,” she sobbed again.
Dracula looked down. “You buried my son. And it was his head that rotted upon the stake on the walls of Constantinople.”
“No!” said Ion, shaking his head. “I saw them cut you down…”
“You saw a huge Turk slice off a head. But you never saw beneath the Turk’s helmet…to Black Ilie, whom I’d sent away the night before, to dress as a Turk one last time, to do this last service for me.”
Ilona staggered forward, till she too could sink onto her confessional’s seat. “You killed your own son?”
Dracula shrugged. “I did not. He died, as he wished to, in battle. For a cause. His father’s cause.”
“But…why?” Ion shook his head. “Why?”
“Because I decided to live—to see what a life I could control would be like. A cave for a kingdom, a hawk my only servant.” He nodded. “And it was good. For a time.”
“For a time?”
“Yes. And then…” He frowned. “And then last year I went to sell a fledgling at the autumn fair in Curtea de Arges, as I always did. A drunk stood up in a tavern and began to read a new pamphlet, more lies based on some truth of my life. Others in the tavern shouted him down—for this is my part of the country and its people have always loved the Draculesti. But I thought of those beyond, in places where they have never even heard of Wallachia, laughing in their palaces, their inns, their houses. And I realized that these…tales were not only damning my name, they were damning the Order I belonged to, blunting what had been the very spear-tip of Christendom. Instead of a crusader, I’d become a monster—and worse than any traitor.”
Ion shuddered. Yet Dracula didn’t look at him but past him, to the widening pool of blood, the dead Hungarian at its center. “I wanted what Horvathy wanted, a Dragon resurgent. I wanted my sons, when they came of age, to ride proudly under its banner and with their father’s name. But I did not know if what I wanted was possible. I was…confused by the lies that had been told, could no longer see what I was, what I’d been. So I decided to ask the people who knew me best to confess. And those who stood to gain the most to judge.”
“Confess?” echoed Ion. “There never was a confessor, was there?”
“Only once, in Targoviste, that night when…” Dracula looked at Ilona, then above her. “What would be the purpose? No man could judge my actions and their reasons. Only God could.”
“So all this…” Ion clutched the side of the confessional. “…You arranged?”
“I had kept the seal of the Voivode of Wallachia, so I could draw up any documents I chose. I knew the secret ways of the dishonored Dragons. And I had enough gold—for I have been training and selling goshawks now for five years.” He nodded. “It is easy enough to arrange such things—when you understand both the hunger and the terror of men.”
Outside the hall, the sounds still came of preparations for departure. Dracula listened for a moment. “I do not know if it will be enough. The Cardinal will take the testimony to Rome, along with his opinions. Perhaps the Pope will think it expedient to have this sinner redeemed, to have his name and his Order rise. Perhaps not. It is not something I can control. I have done all that I can.”
“But how will they explain this, my prince,” Ilona said, swallowing as she pointed to the bodies.
A half-smile came. “A falling-out over spoils? Over a sword, maybe?” He pointed to the Dragon’s Talon on the chair. “Hungarian versus Wallachian, Roman versus Orthodox, as it ever was, while the Turk rejoices?” Dracula nodded. “But we will be gone, and they will think us disposed of, like the scribes. For there are other ways out of this castle, out of this very room, that only I know.”
He went to the door, passing the Count’s body, its lake of blood, drew back the bolt that Petru had shot. “They will be coming soon,” he said. “They will be wanting…this!” He stooped, picked up one of the rolls of parchment there. “‘The Last Confession of Dracula.’ Do you think it will make a good pamphlet? Will the people of the world frighten their children to sleep with my true tale?” He smiled. “Perhaps it is not bloody enough, eh?”
A cry came again, a hunting bird. Crossing, Dracula put the paper down upon a chair, reached within his jerkin, pulled out a gauntlet, pulled it onto his left, maimed hand. Then at the arrow slit, he leaned into the opening and gave a loud cry—“Kree-ak! Kree-ak!”—as he thrust his hand through the gap.
They all heard what could have been an echo but realized was a response. Dracula suddenly bent, as if pulled outwards. Then he slid back. On his fist sat a goshawk.
As Dracula brought it back into the room, the bird blinked at the two people sat there, then craned its neck down towards the meat Dracula pulled from a waist-pouch beneath his habit. “My beauty,” he whispered, then looked up because Ilona was rising.
“You called me that once. You could not call me that now.”
He watched her limp towards him. “You will always be beautiful to me, Ilona.”
Ion was rising, too, slipping off the seat, dragging himself forward. “And me, my prince? Am I still your servant? Or will I only now and forever be your traitor?”
“No, Ion. As I hope for forgiveness, so I must forgive.” He nodded. “You did what you had to do.” He glanced at Ilona. “For love and for hate. But you always were, and are, my only friend.”
Using the table edge to pull himself almost upright, Ion half-stood. This close, he realized his sight had indeed grown better for he could see, as if through a mist, the faces before him. Peering, he could even tell the color of their eyes. Ilona’s, that had bewitched him so long ago, still hazel. The goshawk’s red. And Dracula’s? That surprised him, for they were no longer just green but red also. “What now?” he said.
Dracula raised his other hand. “Listen,” he said. “Do you hear them?”
They tipped their heads. Men shouted above. A horse snorted.
“Hear what, my prince?” Ilona asked.
“The bells on Mehmet’s standard. He has raised his horsetail tug before the walls of Constantinople. He is going to war.” He turned to Ion. “Do you remember our game of jereed, Ion? The wager we made?”
Ion rubbed his eyes. “No…wait, yes! Your foreskin against…a bird, wasn’t it?”
“A falcon. And Mehmet never honored the wager. So it is time to make him.” He leaned forward and his red eyes shone. “Mehmet owes me a hawk.”
– EPILOGUE –
His name was Death, and Hell followed with him.
—REVELATIONS 6.8
– EPILOGUE –
Gebze, Anatolia, near Constantinople, four weeks later
For the longest time the sound was indistinguishable within the low roar of a Turkish encampment settling for the night. There were even other screams—of donkeys and horses, of camels and men. Yet as the man whose trade was the sewing of leather and hides walked slowly through the thickening web of tent ropes, those other noises started to fall away. Closer to the center men were muttering to themselves, rarely to each other, glancing over their shoulders, making warding gestures as if to block the sound that grew ever louder as the man approached—the bellowing of another man in agony. Closer still and more men were facing inwards, standing or squatting, most kneeling, some silent, others whispering prayers.
No one paid him much attention, this squat yaya, with his patched, mud-daubed tunic, his faded turban, straggling beard and bare fee
t. He carried no weapon, just a small satchel across his shoulder with many of the implements of his trade stuck into the outside of it—bone needles of all sizes, spools of camel hair thread, hide ties, a steel awl. If any had studied him more closely they might have seen that his bag dripped some liquid. But no one did.
It was easier than the last time he had tried to reach the Sultan. He passed through the same order now as then. Through the jumbled lines of gazis and akinci raiders, between the ever more splendid pavilions of the belerbeys, around the small cones of hide in which the janissaries slept. He noted some of their standards—the tower, the wheel, the half-sun; even the familiar elephant of the 79th orta. When he saw the yellow oriflame of the left wing he knew that he was close. Though the silence of the sipahi warriors would have told him, too; that and the terrible screaming, so near now.
He was not the tallest of men and those he threaded between were the elite of the Turkish army and loomed over him. So he had to pass through these last before he could see what his ears had told him was there, a small, gentle sound beneath the louder, terrible one.
He stepped through the last ranks of warriors. And there they were—the bells that chimed upon the Sultan’s tug, beneath the six horsetails. The standard stood before a pavilion identical to the one he had burned down twenty years before.
No one stopped him as he walked up to the twin-tiered gateway, passed through it, though warriors stood around with swords unsheathed and solak archers held arrows notched to strings. No one moved—for every man felt that if they did, even a little, then the balance of the world would change, and their Sultan, Most Exalted, Mehmet the Conqueror would yield to the devils that tore his guts apart, and die.
Thus, unchallenged, Dracula stooped, lifted an edge of canvas and stepped inside the Sultan’s pavilion.
He entered a different world, for there was movement here, and noise, most of it coming from the divan that was at the center of the vast tent and from the man thrashing upon it. Men in white robes and the purple sashes of physicians were attempting to force some liquid into the sick man’s mouth. But the Sultan screamed, a mixture of prayer and obscenity, knocking the cup from their hands. Another was poured, lifted. Somehow some liquid slipped in, then a little more. Mehmet collapsed back, stilled somewhat, though his legs kept scything, as if he would run off the stained bed.
The screaming reduced to a low moan; the physicians stepped back, wiping sweat from their faces. A tall man, in the fine robes of a vizier—though even these were spotted yellow and brown, pulled one aside and whispered fiercely, “What more, Hekim Yakub?”
The doctor shook his head. “I do not know. I was called so late and I am not sure what my esteemed colleague, Hamiduddin al Lari, has given him?”
“Esteemed arsehole,” the vizier hissed. “I will pull the camel-fucker’s guts through his teeth until he tells me—if I can find him. Is it poison, do you think?”
The doctor shrugged. “Maybe.”
“How long?”
“I do not know.”
The vizier cursed under his breath. Then he looked up, at the faces of servants, slaves, soldiers, physicians, some twenty men who all stared back. “No one is to leave this tent. Not a word of this must get out. If his son Bayezid hears of this before I can reach Prince Cem…” His gaze flew from man to man. Then, at last, it settled on Dracula, and his eyes went wide. “Who, by the Devil…seize him!” he roared.
Vlad threw his bag aside before the four men fell on him, each grabbing a limb, hurling him to the ground. He did not resist them. There was little purpose…and it was not why he was there.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” The vizier had rushed forward. Indeed, everyone in the tent was looking at him hard, as if he could provide some distraction from the sight and sound and stench of the man dying on the bed.
“I bring the Light of the World a most rare flower, Excellency,” Dracula said, his Turkish peasant-harsh. “It is found in only one valley in the world. Across the Danube, in Wallachia.”
The vizier stared at him, mouth wide. All knew that Mehmet was a gardener, his trade against the day of disaster. But…now? Finally, he found words. “What? You…you bring him…a flower?” He looked around and then screamed, “He is either a liar, a madman or a spy. Cut him, one for each—eyes, balls and heart—and then throw his carcass to the dogs. Now!”
The soldiers jerked him upright. They began to move him to the tent entrance when the vizier remembered and bellowed after them. “Fools! I said no one was to leave. Do it there! In the corner!”
Two held him upright. Two stepped back, drew daggers. And then a voice, weak from screaming, whispered from the bed, “Wait!”
All, save the men who held Dracula, turned.
“Master!” The vizier went to the side of the divan, threw himself down. “You have returned to us.”
“Bring him here,” Mehmet whispered.
“Who, master?”
“The one with the gift.”
The vizier shrugged in puzzlement, turned, beckoned. Dracula was dragged forward, one man still clutching him tightly on either side. He looked down…
He had last seen Mehmet that night twenty years before, in another tent, in another country. Both of them were young then and held swords. He knew what the years had wrought upon himself—but they had been even less kind to the Sultan. Years or illness or both. The red hair was gone, apart from a patch above each ear. The bronze skin was sallow now, green-tinged. And the jereed player’s lithe body was now a soft, bloated mass that lay upon silk sheets stained with blood and excrement.
Yet his eyes were clear. He looked at the peasant before him and nodded. “What have you brought me?”
“It is there, Lord of the Horizon. In my bag.”
“Bring it.”
Dracula was still held tight. Another guard fetched it.
“Open it,” Mehmet breathed, as a spasm shook him.
The guard did, then reached in carefully—all knew their Sultan’s love of plants, and more than one guard had lost skin for carelessness—and pulled out a small canvas bag full of wet earth. In it sat a tiny flower, its mauve, spear-headed petals folded in upon itself.
“What is it?” Mehmet whispered.
“It is a crocus. It has just opened in the valley I spoke of, across the Danube. In the sun here it will open again and show you its yellow and crimson tongues. It is called, in the Latin, ‘pallasii.’”
The vizier and the physician both looked sharply at the peasant mouthing Latin in their midst. Mehmet stared at the plant for a long moment then again at the man who had brought it. He turned to the side, retched, a thin stream of green bile trickling down. Then he looked up again. “Leave us,” he croaked.
“Shall we still kill him before you, master?” The vizier raised a hand to gesture it done.
“Not him. All of you leave. Not him. All of…you!” Mehmet raised himself from the bed, his eyes ablaze, glaring at them, then sank back, his vast stomach convulsing.
“No one goes further than the gateway. No one,” hissed the vizier. One by one the men passed from the tent. The vizier, holding up the flap, gave one look back, shook his head, and was gone.
They were alone. Silence beyond the tent, silence within it, save for the rumblings coming from Mehmet’s gut and his legs ceaselessly whispering across the sheets. The two men stared at each other. Then Mehmet broke the silence with a word.
“Dracula,” he said.
The prince started. He had not expected that, to be recognized. If Mehmet had changed then so had he. And he’d had no real plan, beside the crocus and Mehmet’s love of plants. He had left it all to kismet: his own and Mehmet’s, somehow the same. “You know me?”
“I know who you were. I know you are dead. So I know you have come back from beyond. With a message for me.”
Dracula leaned down. “No, Mehmet Celebi,” he said using an old name, “I am alive. I bring you no messages from any of the thousands you have k
illed.”
“And what of those you have killed, Dracula? You matched me, did you not, in your small way, in your small country. I saw your line of stakes.” A spasm took him again; he bent over, dry-puked, lay back.
“I will meet them soon enough, Mehmet.” He leaned closer, staring. “But you will be meeting your victims before I meet mine.”
Something like a laugh came to Mehmet, transforming into a cough that wrenched him. But he recovered, looked up again. “And do you think it will be anything other than Allah’s blessing when my death comes?” He stared, shook his head. “Alive, eh? I have no time to wonder. Only to ask…why are you here, Impaler?”
Dracula smiled. “I came for the saker you owe me…Conqueror.”
“The…saker?”
“The wager of our game of jereed. My foreskin against your bird, Sayehzade. I won. You owe me a bird.”
“Sayehzade? Daughter of shadows. My beauty.” Mehmet’s eyes rolled in his head, his voice came on a croak. Then he focused again, and suddenly shouted, “Sayehzade’s dead these twenty years.”
“Then I will take another.”
The two men looked at each other for a long moment. Then Mehmet waved to the side. “Under the divan. A drawer. Open it.” Dracula did. “There is a black token there, of onyx, my tugra engraved upon it?”
“Yes.”
“Only I and my chief falconer can use this token; we give it to someone who serves us to bring us a hawk. A hawk we tell them to choose. You may take it, choose any. Yet I tell you to ask for Hama.”
“‘The bird who brings joy.’” Dracula nodded, lifting the token. “Will she?”
“She is young and fierce and still half-trained. But I think if you bend her to your will, she will kill for you as no bird has…since my Sayehzade. But it will take some bending. Do you have the skill?”
“Perhaps. If only Hamza pasha would return from beyond to help me train him. For he was the finest falconer that I ever knew.”