Page 130 of Dragon Slayer

The palace alone at Edirne was finer and busier than the entirety of the city. But it was Romanian being spoken by the two women hanging wash out on a line strung between second-story windows. And these narrow streets brought back a hundred memories of boyhood; of lessons finished early, and of traveling singers and trapeze artists, of piping hot street food that burned his fingers, of his friends’ laughter, and Val’s little hand clutching at his sleeve.

He hadn’t felt this way in an age, and it took him long minutes of peering at Tîrgoviste from beneath the hood of his cloak to name the sensation: happiness.

But as it so often was, happiness was fleeting.

He smelled rot just before they reached the city square, and he knew what he would find there before they rounded the corner.

Father had been a lenient prince, all things considered, but public hangings had been carried out to demonstrate the cost of lawlessness. The gibbet stood where it always had, in the bank yard that abutted the garrison house. And it was occupied.

Three weather-blackened corpses dangled from the ends of fraying ropes. They’d been dead a long time, had long since swelled, and burst, and then dried out to husks. Featureless now, their clothes tattered streamers that played in the wind. A few flies buzzed, but there wasn’t much left for them. The crows, Vlad well knew, had gotten the lion’s share of the meat.

“They’re up there for treason,” a voice said, down and to his left, and he turned his head to find a bent old crone wrapped in a scarf, the ends clutched tight in one gnarled hand just beneath her throat. She’d spoken in Romanian, and the sound of it from an unfamiliar throat – from anyone who wasn’t Val – nearly startled a delighted laugh from him.

He composed himself and replied in the same language. “What do you mean, treason?”

She squinted up at him. He had the impression that, had he been standing on foot beside her, she might have thwacked him on the arm for his stupidity. “For being loyal to the old prince.”

A sensation like a band around his chest, squeezing tight. Happiness had long fled; his old friend rage was back to stay. “The old prince? Vlad Dracul, you mean?”

She nodded. “Him, yes. Most of the boyars and the rich ones went over to thenew prince.” Her tone told him what she thought of him. “But there were a few who were saying they didn’t want Vladislav, that it wasn’t right, what he did.”

Vlad fought to keep his voice even and disinterested. “What happened there?” When she peered up at him, he said, “I’ve been away for a time. I’ve only heard bits and pieces of the story, and who’s to know if any of it’s true.” What did the peasants think, he wondered.

She nodded again, seeming satisfied. “Well, there was a great scene up at the palace, I heard. I didn’t see it, mind, but my grandson did. He’s in the garrison,” she said proudly. “He said it was a great tangle of people there, spilling out of the gate and across the moat – the bridge was down, you see. He reckons someone from the inside was working with the Dânesti.” This she whispered. “It was them, and the palace guard, and a great heap of boyars and their household guards, all fighting. And dogs, too. Great big ones that looked like wolves.

“The old prince, Dracul, got away somehow. But the Dânesti and the boyars got hold of the son. The heir. The garrison and the palace guard, you could tell they were trying to get him free, but there were too many. And so many were injured, or dead by that point. They buried that poor boy alive, they say.” She spat on the ground, wrinkled face screwed up with disgust. “The devil take Vladislav, and I don’t care if he knows I said it.”

“What would he do if he knew you had?” Vlad asked.

She paled. “Sir, I–”

He waved her silent. “Your sentiment is safe with me. I feel the same. But tell me, Mother. Vladislav has wanted Wallachia for a time. Why move now? Who helped him?”

She looked carefully side to side, searching for eavesdroppers. Then she stepped in close, a hand braced on the shoulder of Vlad’s horse, and whispered, “I heard it was that John Hunyadi from Hungary. Vladislav is only his puppet, you see.” She mimed operating a marionette with her free hand. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“No, ma’am, of course not.” He flipped her a coin from the pouch at his belt: a Turkish coin that she peered at closely. She turned a gaping look up at him afterward.

He brought a finger to his lips. “I’ll keep your secrets if you’ll keep mine.”

“Oh. Oh, yes, sir.”

“Rumor has it the old prince had another heir, yes?”

A slow, sly grin transformed her face. She’d been pretty as a girl, he could tell. “Yes, sir,” she said, surer now. “Rumor also has it that Vladislav is away right now, seeing to business to the north.”

Vlad felt his brows jump. “He’s not at the palace?”

“No, sir.” She bobbed a curtsy and moved on, quick for her age.

When Vlad turned back to Malik, the janissary looked at him with something that might have been mistaken for admiration. “That was cleverly done.”

“Do things cleverly, or don’t do them at all. Come on. We need to find the others.”

It took longer than Vlad would have liked – now that he knew Vladislav was away, that they stood a chance, he wanted to move right away – to find the rest of the cavalry unit, but find them they did. Slow and methodical, he passed the message along. Be at the palace gates at midday. Vlad would make sure the bridge was down.

Then he took Malik, and they headed out of the city and up the hill, toward the home he hadn’t seen in seven years.

~*~

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