VLAD
Twenty-two Years Earlier
Summer 1442
Egrigöz, Western Anatolia
"Where are we?" Radu clung tight to Vlad's arm as he climbed out of the wagon.
Vlad inhaled the sweet-sharp scent of pine, the forest like a blanket over the hills. In the midst stood a towering stone fortress. For two weeks Vlad had charted their course. Tried to guess their location each time the guards let them out. Now he knew. And it burned like hot coals in his stomach. "Egrigöz fortress."
"Yürü!" A guard poked his pike into Vlad's back.
Vlad plodded forward with Radu, who clung to his sleeve, and followed the beak-nosed guard into the fortress.
Janissaries glowered at them, growled as they walked past. There were so many. Each wore a tall white hat that made them as tall as Goliath. Each wore a scimitar and dagger over a turquoise coat. Each was a master of close combat and archery. Vlad had seen their skill up close. Had watched their guard fell a deer with a single arrow from a great distance.
But not as far as the distance some of the janissaries had traveled from their homeland.
Not all their menacing faces were Turkish. Some appeared Romanian. Like the fair-haired janissary with a ruddy round face. He might be a product of the devshirme, the human tax levied by the Turks after capturing a Christian town, their burly farm boys the payment. Was the glaring ruddy-faced brute ripped from his family at seven-years-old, draped in a red-hooded robe, and sent to the Thracian city of Edirne to become an askeri warrior? Had he converted to Islam? What about the blonde-bearded janissary beside him? Would he be selected to be a solacchi, an expert archer responsible for guarding the sultan on his travels?
Vlad dropped his gaze to the floor when one snarled at him for staring too long.
The pointed end of the pike prodded them deeper into the fortress, across two stone courtyards, through three small chambers, and up a narrow staircase that ended at an iron-braced door.
"Gitin." The janissary shoved Vlad inside.
The door slammed behind them.
Radu buried his head under Vlad's arm as the metal bolt squealed shut.
"Not too bad." Vlad tussled Radu's hair before striding across the stone cell. "At least it's clean." He pushed the rough-hewn table under the narrow window and climbed up.
"What do you see?" asked Radu.
"Just the town."
The homes looked like toys from this height.
Vlad studied the smooth stone face of the tower. Escape would be impossible.
Radu tugged on Vlad's tunic. "I'm hungry."
"They'll feed us." Vlad jumped off the table. "They need us alive."
The door squeaked open. Two servants entered with a small tub of water, a square linen cloth, two wool blankets, and a sliver of soap.
Radu stepped forward, and the man pulled out a knife and hissed.
Vlad pulled Radu back. "Don't be stupid."
"I was only—"
"Shush."
They waited until the servants left, heard the bolt grind back into place.
"You must be more careful." Vlad stripped off his foul-smelling clothes and stepped into the water. "Refreshing," he said despite its frigid temperature.
Radu sat cross-legged on the floor and watched while Vlad scrubbed his body and washed his hair.
"Your turn." Vlad shook his head, spraying water all over Radu.
Radu laughed, the first laugh in two weeks, removed his clothes, and stepped into the tub.
Vlad draped the coarse wool blanket over Radu's shivering body when he was done, then gathered the clothes and rinsed them in the gray soapy water.
"Now what?" Radu shivered as Vlad spread their clothes on the floor to dry.
Vlad wrapped the second wool blanket around his body and settled himself against the wall. "We plot our revenge."
In the thick pink glow of twilight, the same servants brought them a pottage of onions, parsnips, and cabbage with a rye roll and a hard-cooked egg. The next morning they brought barley mush. Day after day. Week after week.
Outside, the beech and oak trees changed from green to orange to red.
Vlad kept busy. He recited old lessons, told stories, and created a physical routine of balancing, juggling, push-ups, somersaults, and handstands. He felt less helpless, more in control, when he was doing something.
"I'm tired of conjugating Latin verbs," whined Radu one afternoon.
"We must keep our minds' sharp and our bodies' agile. Our life may depend on it."
#
Winter's first snowfall floated like feathers from the sky. Vlad was watching the flakes melt in his palm when he heard the bolt screeching across the door. He withdrew his arm from the window and leapt from the table.
"Gel." The guard stood in the doorway and gestured with his pike.
Both relief and fear twisted Vlad's stomach into a knot. Either they were going home or going to their death.
"Where are they taking us?" Radu's eyes widened, his face draining of color.
Vlad stuffed his fear deep inside. "Someplace better than this, I hope."
The boys descended the stairway in silence and passed through the same chambers and courtyards they had many months ago.
In the snow-dusted courtyard waited a large supply wagon.
"Get in." A pockmarked janissary, his mustache drooping past his chin, flung open the litter door. "Aren't you a pretty one." His thick fingers squeezed Radu's cheek.
"You speak Romanian." Vlad tugged Radu forward, away from the too-friendly janissary.
The janissary narrowed his eyes. "Da. I'm from Bistrita."
"Are we going to Adrianople to meet our father?" Vlad helped Radu into the wagon.
"Nu. Tokat."
"Why—"
The janissary slammed the door shut.
Radu scooted close to Vlad. "Where is Tokat?"
Vlad closed his eyes and pictured his father's council chambers. He saw the monk-drawn maps of Romania, Moldavia, Hungary, and other territories. He even saw the labeled drawings of serpentine mountain passes, villages, churches, and monasteries. He concentrated, let his mind's memory search for the right map. Found it! He leaned back against a sack and squeezed his eyes shut, willed himself not to cry.
"I don't know," he lied, his voice thick with despair.
Tokat was deep inside Turkish lands and far from Adrianople. Something had gone dreadfully wrong.
#
The wagon hit a deep rut in the road and a basket stuffed with fabric toppled onto Vlad's head.
"Ugh." Vlad threw it off.
Radu, resting between two padlocked chests, rubbed sleep-thick eyes. "Where isTokat anyway? The end of the world?"
"If we break any more wheels or keep getting stuck in mud it will be."
The wagon rattled to a stop.
Vlad rolled his eyes. "Not anotherbreak."
The janissary flung open the door. "Defol."
Vlad scrambled out and stared awestruck at their surroundings. The mountain slopes on either side were so steep, high, and dense with evergreens they seemed to touch the sky.
The driver, a pockmarked janissary with a black mustache, let loose a yellow stream into the bushes. "What are you looking at, little prince?" He shook his penis. "Never saw one this big before?"
Radu looked away and made his own puddle.
The second janissary leaned against the wagon. "Want one?" His hand held three dried dates.
Radu snatched them and stuffed one in his mouth.
"Don't accept treats," said Vlad when they were back inside the wagon.
"Why not?" Radu plopped another in his mouth.
"Because gifts are not free."
"They know I don't have any coin."
"They don't want money," said Vlad. "They want you."
"They already have me." Radu spit out the pit.
Vlad grabbed Radu's wrist. "Do not accept any more gifts."
"Ouch, you're hurting me."
"They want to do worse."
#
"It's enormous!" Vlad pressed his head against the wagon's splintered slats.
The Tokat fortress looked like a magnificent stone crown sitting atop the barren rocky summit, its twenty-eight towers jutting high into the air. It blended well with the terrain, as if the earth itself had belched up the impregnable stronghold in proclamation of Turkish dominance.
Radu pressed his cheek against Vlad's as they stared at their new prison. "Does it have a harem?"
Vlad scowled. "Who cares? You're not allowed inside."
As the wagon rattled onward, Vlad assessed the fortress like an experienced general studying its military potential. Its main access was a steep wide strip of beaten dirt leading to a battlement-flanked barbican. The fortress portcullis was raised, a sign of supreme confidence. Who would dare attack them?
Another entrance hid in the shadows at the hill's base where the mouth of a large cave yawned wide and dark. A slow smile crept up Vlad's face. Caves meant tunnels. Tunnels for escaping, for hiding, and for trapping an enemy's army.
"Lord Father should build more tunnels," said Vlad. Tunnels going nowhere. Tunnels leading from bedchambers. Tunnels hidden in crevices. Tunnels deep enough and dark enough only the bats dare go inside.
Radu wrinkled his nose. "I don't like tunnels. And that castle is ugly. When I have a castle it will not be stuck atop some ugly rock peak. It will in the middle of town right next to Mama."
"Not mine. I want one as high as an eagle's nest and deep in the mountain forest." Vlad decided his castle would be a protecting marble angel for his people and a devouring stone beast for his enemies.
Vlad tried tamping down the dread gathering at the back of his throat but in the shadow of Tokat's soaring height he felt as insignificant as an ant on a mighty oak tree.
The wagon jostled forward until it rolled under the heavy iron portcullis.
Radu clamped his hand around Vlad's arm. "I'm not afraid."
"Good, because if our enemy smells fear they use it against us."
Radu sniffed the air.
The wagon door squeaked opened.
"Çek git!" The Tokat guard's scimitar flashed in the sun.
Radu ducked under the blade and scrambled out. Vlad did not. Nose in the air and shoulders squared, Vlad pushed away the steel and stepped down from the wagon with all the arrogance he could muster.
The guard drove his foot into the back of Vlad's knee. Vlad hit the ground face first.
"Get up." A half-length pike prodded Vlad's side.
Vlad swallowed his humiliation, stood, and lowered his head. With a pike tip at his back, the janissary urged Vlad into the castle.
"Vlad," whispered Radu.
"I see." Vlad's head swung back and forth in amazement, his eyes going from one vividly patterned tapestry to the next. He looked down, his ragged dirty boots marring the gleaming beauty of the marble floors.
Splendor and luxury were everywhere. Gray-bearded men in elaborate turbans sat on gold and silver chairs. Stern-faced janissaries marched by in unison. Feathered-capped pages dashed through the hallways. Tokat was no minor outpost. It was a bustling important garrison.
The boys' forced walk ended at the threshold of a sunlit rotunda. The guard pointed his pike across the expanse to a woman dressed in a face-covering headdress and a high-necked robe.
She beckoned them forward.
"Is that the harem?" Radu grabbed Vlad's sleeve as they crossed the white marble.
Vlad rolled his eyes. "Don't be stupid."
The woman led them silently through the doorway and into a large room full of small children, toys, and slaves.
"The nursery!?" Vlad stepped over a toy Trojan horse with clay wheels. "I am not a child." He stomped up to two men sitting with their arms tucked into wide sleeves. "I am a man." He thumped his chest. "I will not be treated like a child."
One man snapped at him in Turkish.
Radu tugged on Vlad's tunic. "He sounds like a woman."
"He's a eunuch," said Vlad.
"You mean they don't have..." Radu covered his crotch and grimaced.
A toothless old woman pointed to a bookcase at the far side of the room.
Frustration clawed at Vlad like a cat trapped in a basket. He kicked a ball out of the way and stamped toward the bookcase.
He pulled two books from the shelf, slumped onto a silk cushion, and opened one, then the other. "I can't read these. They're in Turkish." Vlad tossed the books aside.
The eunuchs snickered. The women, fawning over Radu, paid him no attention.
Vlad drew his knees to his chest, hid his head under his arms, and closed his eyes. This was worse than the cell at Egrigöz. At least there he was not under constant supervision.
In the distance, a warbling croon began. Vlad lifted his head, stood, and went to the narrow window. A man chanted, his voice suffusing the sky with devotion. Vlad felt the haunting tune wash over him, seep into his veins and melt his frustration.
Vlad frowned when the singing stopped. "What was he saying?"
"Allah is Most Great." A eunuch, in flawless Romanian, pointed his finger heavenward. "I bear witness that there is none worthy of being worshiped except Allah." He gestured to the women on their knees. "The salāt. Prayers."
Vlad's eyes lit up. "You speak Romanian."
"Da."
"Why are my brother and I in the nursery?"
The eunuch opened his mouth, but the second eunuch barked at him in Turkish.
Nostrils flaring, Vlad returned to the window. This rocky dry land with too few trees was as welcoming and interesting as this nursery prison.
"Vlad. Radu."
Vlad flinched at the thick baritone voice and spun about.
A withered old man in a multi-layered robe beckoned Vlad forward. Vlad crossed the room with quick steps, something about the man's commanding stance and steely blue gaze making him obey without question.
"Who are you?" Vlad looked up into a wizened face grooved deep with a crisscross of wrinkles.
The old man responded. In Turkish. He talked and talked. Words not understood. Words intoned with solemn cadence. Words droned through a long white beard. Finally, the man set both hands on Vlad's slim shoulders and smiled.
"What does he want?" Radu had come up behind Vlad during the old man's speech.
"I think," said Vlad, "this man is our tutor."
He was.
Theirhoca taught them to speak and write in Turkish. He demanded perfect conjugation and pronunciation. Usually he was kind, except when he caught Radu and Vlad speaking Romanian. That earned them a stinging blow to their hands or buttocks with a switch.
"I don't like Turkish." Radu blew on the hot red lash across his hand.
Vlad poked his head outside their room, saw no one about, and closed the door. "We're learning our enemy's language. That's a huge advantage."
#
Months passed. The boys' Turkish improved. They were no longer escorted from room to room. By the following spring Vlad and Radu roamed the palace without supervision.
Radu gossiped with the men who lounged in the golden chairs and befriended the ambitious pages scurrying about.
Vlad looked for secret tunnels. He found one behind a tapestry, a second beneath a wardrobe, and a third under a loose floor tile. The fourth he discovered by accident.
Still hungry after the midday meal, Vlad headed to the scullery to scrounge for food. He turned the corner, stopped, and shuffled back, his eyes fixed on the scandalous couple locked in embrace in front of the bread kiln.
"Shhh." A guard nuzzled the neck of a giggling scullery maid.
Vlad ducked into the alcove and peeked around the corner, his eyes widening as the guard fondled the maid's breasts.
"Nobody will notice we're gone." The guard lifted the maid up into the large bread kiln, smacking her ass as she crawled inside. She giggled, disappeared into the darkness, and he crawled in after her.
Vlad crept silently across the stone floor and stared into the blackened kiln. Except for a hollow scuffling from deep within there was no trace of them. Vlad glanced over his shoulder, saw no one about and, his blood pulsing with excitement, climbed in after them.
The kiln was deep and dark, a narrow shaft cut into the side. Vlad scuttled crablike around the bend. He slipped, his hand pawing the void of the vertical chute. His heart in his throat, Vlad felt for the edge, then swung his legs over and jumped into the black abyss.
He landed lightly on his feet, the drop only half a man's height. He tried to raise his arms. His fingers brushed against the rock. The tunnel was as wide as a man's shoulders. He blinked, waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The faint echo of voice and movement urged him forward.
A lantern's orange glow illuminated the next turn. Vlad hesitated, cocked his ear. Clinking metal and low giggles reverberated off the cold rock walls. Vlad peered around the corner and into a grotto. And gasped.
The scullery maid was naked, her bound wrists looped over a hook embedded in the rock ceiling. The guard parted his robe, hoisted her legs around his hips, and smacked her bare bottom.
Vlad rubbed the back of his neck. Did she need to be rescued? She moaned, her eyes heavy-lidded, her lips parted as the guard bucked against her and bit her nipple.
Vlad felt a familiar aching throb. He took his cock in his hand and stroked himself to the guard's thrusts. When the guard twirled his lover around and impaled her from behind, Vlad shuddered and caught his sticky release.