Page 230 of Dragon Slayer

39

CRUSADE

“Youagree?” The monk was a small, soft-handed fellow, who nevertheless had managed to look at home aboard the mule that had brought him to Tîrgoviste. He’d been to Bucharest first, he said, chasing after Vlad, sending runners, pleading for an audience. Vlad had scoffed, initially, at the idea that the pope would send a holy man to treat withhim. But here the man sat, bearing sealed documents from Pope Pius himself, talking of a crusade.

“Of course, I agree,” Vlad said with a shrug. Cicero made a sound beside him that might have been a laugh. “Am I not the Eastern prince with the most outspoken hatred of Mehmet?”

“Oh. Yes. Well. You are.” The man tugged at his sleeves and shifted in his chair. He didn’t look nervous, though, exactly; nor did he smell it. Eager, maybe. “It’s only that so many of your allies have refused involvement.”

“I’m aware.”

The years since Vlad had taken his father’s throne had brought unexpected changes.

First, John Hunyadi died. No more than a month after his victory at Belgrade, a plague swept the region, and the old governor fell to it, carried off by fever and delirium. His son, Matthias, had taken his throne and governorship, ruling over Hungary, and Transylvania, respectably. He was a shrewd leader, but a convivial one, and Vlad found that, though he didn’t exactly call him friend, he did like the man, and approved of him. And he shared Vlad’s loathing of the Ottomans – even if he was less vitriolic about it.

But then there was the matter of Stephen. Matthias had, during the summer of revolutions, allowed safe passage for the Moldavian prince that Stephen had defeated, and Stephen still harbored a grudge. One so strong that he had, at the Congress of Mantua a year before, declined to join in a crusade effort, wanting nothing to do with aligning himself with Matthias. He’d agreed to a treaty with the Ottomans, instead.

Vlad wasn’t sure if he could forgive his friend for that.

The Congress itself had been pointless. Save Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, and the pope himself, no one wanted a crusade. Peace was easier, and it did not matter that Mehmet was currently trying to conquer the lands along the Danube, cutting off the river, and thereby access to the Black Sea, from Eastern Europe. Frederick had offered funding, and manpower, but the lords of Moldavia, Serbia, and even Skanderbeg, in Albania, had declined to take up the cross. Matthias remained undecided; he would do what suited him, Vlad knew.

And Vlad, well, he hadn’t been invited to the Congress, but he’d made no secret of his leanings. He wanted Mehmet to rot slowly on a spike outside the window of his palace.

“The pope really means to declare a crusade?” he asked.

The monk nodded. “He does.” And then he reached into the saddlebag he’d wedged into his chair beside him, lifted the flap, and drew out a bundle wrapped in rough cloth. This he unfolded, and revealed snowy linen, a field of white…and a red cross.

Vlad’s lungs, and heart, and gut tightened a moment, a full-body clench. A thrill.

“Vlad Dracula,” the monk said, adopting a formal tone. “The pope means for you to slay the dragon. If you will.”

Beside him, Vlad felt Cicero shiver, and sensed the racing of his heart.

Malik murmured something low and wordless under his breath.

“A crusade,” Vlad said, and smiled. “I accept.”

~*~

“Vlad,” Eira said later, coming into his bedchamber without knocking. “I want to talk to you about something.”

Vlad hung his cloak up in his armoire and turned to her with lifted brows.So, talk.

She sent an unsubtle glance toward Cicero, who sat perched in the window ledge, on the cushion there, reading by candlelight.

He lifted his head, and slowly closed his book, looking between them, nonplussed, but no doubt picking up on the tension Eira had brought with her into the room.

“Really, Mother?” Vlad asked. “Anything you have to say, you can say in front of Cicero.”

She tipped her head. “Would you say anything to me in front of Fenrir and Helga?”

Vlad worked his jaw a moment, biting back thenothat formed on his tongue.That’s different, he wanted to tell her.This is Cicero.He didn’t think she would appreciate the distinction, no matter how he explained it, so he turned to his wolf.

Cicero was already unfolding himself from the ledge, leaving his book behind. “I’ll go,” he said easily, though he radiated curiosity. He gave Eira a deferential bob of his head on the way out, and closed the door.

“What?” Vlad said, and could hear that his tone was short.

She lifted her brows, a mild reproach, and moved to take Cicero’s seat, legs crossing primly.

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