House of Bathory (3 page)

Chapter 3

C
ARBONDALE
, C
OLORADO
N
OVEMBER 19, 2010

I
’m
looking forward to our session,” Betsy said. “Did you bring your dream notebook?”

Daisy’s eyes seemed glassy and unfocused. She said nothing.

The psychologist held her breath.
Not again
, she thought.

Daisy entered the office like a sleepwalker. Then she saw Ringo, the mongrel shepherd curled up on a hooked rug, warming himself by the stove. It was the first time in months that Betsy had brought him downstairs to the office.

The girl’s body relaxed, light returned to her eyes, dimples creasing her white makeup.

“What a gorgeous dog!” she said, her hand extended for him to sniff. “May I pet him?”

“Of course,” Betsy said, marveling at the transformation. “He’s a big baby.”

Ringo licked the girl’s hand. Although sweet and gentle, he wasn’t a licker, and Betsy’s forehead puckered in astonishment.

He thumped his tail hard, as if he recognized Daisy.

Then he licked her white face. Betsy felt a stab of jealousy.

“He never licks anyone on the face. Not even me.”

Daisy extended her neck as Ringo sat up, still intent on licking her.

“This is strange. It’s almost as if he knows you,” said Betsy.

Daisy buried her face in his fur. Betsy noticed tears glistening in her eyes, as she stroked Ringo’s ears flat against his head.

They started the session talking about dogs and went on from there. It was by far the longest conversation patient and doctor had ever had.

“I had a German shepherd when we lived back in New York,” Daisy said. “We had several dogs, but Rosco was mine. He slept in my bed and ran alongside my horse on trail rides.”

“Tell me about riding.”

“I used to ride. A lot. I rode competitively, three-day eventing, horse shows.”

“But not now?”

“I don’t have a horse here and I—I’ve lost interest. It’s not my world now,” she said, turning away. She looked longingly back at Ringo.

“What is your world now, Daisy?”

“Goth.” She answered, her voice losing its softness. A pinched look took over the youthfulness that for a few minutes had shone through the white makeup.

Betsy called Ringo over. He laid his head in his mistress’s lap and she stroked his ears.

“What is Goth exactly?”

Daisy moved in the armchair, shifting her weight. “It depends who’s defining it.”

“How about you? How do you define it?”

“There’s the music. I’m not big into that, except Jim Morrison and the Doors, old stuff. The heavy metal, forget it. But it’s a scene for Goths.”

“What else?”

“Black clothes, edgy hair, makeup. All that. But the real thing is shunning the superficial world, trying to see past the surface. Embracing the shadow world, not shutting the portal like most humans do.”

The psychologist held her pen poised in the air.

“The shadow world?”

Daisy wound a strand of dyed black hair tight around her finger, just the way Betsy often did.

“Shining a light into the past—” she replied, the sheer effort of speaking seeming to torture her. She coughed, but struggled to finish her sentence. “—into the black tunnel. The darkness beyond, who we truly are. Who we may have been before.”

Betsy made herself look down at her notebook. She had expected to hear a tirade against the mainstream culture, a defense of an alternative lifestyle. Rebellion.

“Do you think you do it to annoy your mother?” Betsy asked.

Daisy smiled slowly, her tongue searching mischievously for that rebellious tooth. Ringo stood up and left his mistress for her patient’s outstretched hand.

“Not really.” Then she shrugged. “Well maybe, but that’s not the point. I’m just trying to concentrate.”

“Concentrate on what?”

Daisy dropped her hand from Ringo’s chest. He groaned as he made three circles, finally lowering his body and curling up by her feet.

“On murmurs, voices that have lived before. To hear ripples of the past. And…,” she said, the muscles in her jaw straining, “the search for my soul.”

Betsy nodded. Her heart was racing. Daisy sounded as if she were quoting Carl Jung himself.

Betsy made two cups of ginger tea with honey. Daisy drank quietly, looking around the room.

“Oh, I need to tell you that I have an upcoming trip. I’ll miss a week’s session with you, but we can try for two sessions the week before I leave or when I get back. I’ll take a look at my schedule.”

Daisy cast her an anxious look.

“You are going away?” she said, picking at her cuticles.

“Just for a few days,” said Betsy, noticing the effect her words had on her patient.

Daisy nodded, her movements stiff. Her eyes fixed on the cream-colored bookshelves, from floor to ceiling.

“You have a lot of books. Have you read them all?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“They look really old,” said Daisy. She stood up and ran her finger along the spines, inspecting the cracked leather with her fingernail.

Betsy winced, but didn’t interfere.

“Leather. Really dusty. Like these are ancient. Where did you get them?”

“I inherited them,” Betsy said, looking out the window at the trembling aspen branches.

Daisy tilted her head to the side to read the titles. She stopped at a slim, cloth-covered book. She began to pull it from the shelf and then stopped.

“Jung?”

Betsy nodded.

Daisy tried to read the title on the spine, but stumbled badly. “Synchronizitat…Akausalitat…What the fu—?”

“In English it translates to ‘Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle.’ We had a first edition of it once. But it disappeared.”

“What does that mean?” Daisy asked, pushing the book back on the shelf.

Betsy knew she had to redirect the conversation, but she didn’t want to risk having her patient shut down, reverting to moody silences.

“Synchronicity was a theory of Jung’s. It is the idea of two or more events that are apparently unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner.”

The girl wrinkled her white-painted forehead. “What does
that
mean?”

“OK. Let’s say you hear your cell phone ring four times in the morning, but no one is on the line when you answer. And then later in the day, you hit four stoplights, all turning green, right in a row, and that has never happened to you before. At school, there is a lottery and you pick the number 4444 and you win. There is no causal relation, but there may be a deeper meaning.”

“Goth,” Daisy said, rolling her kohl-lined eyes. “Totally.”

“It is interesting you would say that—”

Daisy turned back to the shelves of books. “You inherited them? From who?”

“My father.” Betsy swallowed hard. Why was
she
answering all the questions now?

Daisy’s hand halted in midair. It fluttered down again to her side. She stared over her shoulder at Betsy.

“Your dad was a shrink too?”

Betsy touched her tongue to the roof of her mouth, making herself hesitate. She wanted to answer:
My father was a renowned psychiatrist. He was the real thing, a graduate of the CG Jung Institute in Zurich and a faculty member of the Jung Institute in Vienna. He treated some of the world’s most prominent families. He worked with patients with serious psychosis, behind the locked doors of an asylum.

He was a genius
, she wanted to say.

“Yes, he worked in the field of psychology. Daisy, please. We need to talk about you.”

“OK. OK.”

Daisy collapsed in her chair, heaving a sigh. She picked up her cup of tea. She studied its depths and tipped it up to her mouth, obscuring her face. Betsy could see the gleam of white skin shining through the part of her dyed jet-black hair.

“What kind of relationship do you and your mother have?”

Daisy looked over the brim of her cup, her eyes hardening.

“What do you think? You’ve seen us. We fight like cats and dogs.”

“Which is your mother? A cat or a dog?”

“Oh, definitely a cat,” she said, nodding. “Oh, yes. A cat.”

“Why a cat?”

“I don’t know. You can trust a dog. Cats are…different. And my sister, Morgan—even more of a cat.”

“So you don’t think you can trust your mother or your sister?”

Daisy twisted her mouth. “I didn’t say that, Betsy.”

“And you? Are you a dog?”

“Absolutely,” she said, rubbing Ringo’s side with the toe of her boot. “I’m just a loyal dog.”

The psychologist made a note, her pen gliding over the white sheet of paper.

A cell phone chimed.

“You forgot to turn off your cell phone,” said Betsy.

“Yeah, sorry. I got to take this.”

Daisy fished a black iPhone out of her purse. Then a ruby-red cell phone.

“Hello?…Dad, I can’t talk.… Yes, I am.… I’ll call you later.”

Betsy noticed her patient wince.

“…I don’t know…later.” Daisy punched the
END
button hard, as if she was trying to kill it.

“Your father.”

“Yeah, it won’t happen again. I forgot to turn his phone off.”

“His phone?”

Daisy hesitated.

“He wants me to have this one with me, all the time. It’s got a GPS tracking device. Like he knows anything about where I go in the Roaring Fork Valley. Big deal. He gives me extra allowance if I take it with me everywhere.”

“Doesn’t he live back East?”

“Yeah, but like, he is
so
weird,” she said. “It’s part of the divorce arrangement. He wants to keep in contact with me.”

She covered her mouth and coughed hard, phlegm rattling in her throat. Betsy handed her a box of tissues.

“Spit it out, Daisy. Really.”

“That’s gross,” she said, struggling not to choke.

“It’s healthy. Like an athlete does. Don’t swallow, spit it out.”

Ignoring her, Daisy swallowed hard.

Betsy watched her struggle to clear her throat. Then, when she thought the girl had recovered, she asked, “Why do you think your father—”

Daisy turned her face away.

“I don’t want to talk about my dad now, all right?”

Betsy knew she was testing the ragged edge of Daisy’s patience.

“OK. We’ll talk about something else,” she said, scanning her notes. “You said you listen to ripples of the past. Your past?”

“No. No, a long time ago. I dream of a castle. Jutting up into the sky from an outcrop of rock. Like something from a Dracula movie. Very Goth, right?”

“Go on.”

“Red velvet drapes. Heavy dark furniture. Enormous chests with big iron hinges. And—a strange smell, like…”

“Like what?”

“Like a coin purse. Like pennies rubbed together. Metallic.”

Betsy scribbled down Daisy’s words.

“Anything else?”

“I see horses. Most times,” she said.

“Are the horses comforting to you? Or are they menacing?”

“Mostly comforting. But sometimes they are terrified, rearing and whinnying, like they smell a fire.”

“Do they strike out at you?”

“Oh, no. Never.” She paused. “They warn me.”

Chapter 4

Č
ACHTICE
V
ILLAGE
, S
LOVAKIA
N
OVEMBER 28, 1610

T
he mud-splattered coach shuddered to a stop at the outskirts of the village of
Č
achtice. The crossroad led up the hill to the gray-and-ivory castle looming against the sky.

The carriage horses snorted in the cold, clouds of vapor rising into the frigid air. Their eyes were ringed in white as they pranced nervously, straining at their bits.

“Quiet now!” urged the driver. The brass lanterns on either side of the coach swung wildly, banging against the wood as the carriage lurched.

“Passenger Szilvasi, descend at once!” shouted the driver.

A flock of ravens exploded in flight from the castle walls. Their screaming call was answered by the ear-piercing whinny of the horses, rearing in unison, sharp hooves slicing the air.

“Get out!” shouted the driver, wrestling the reins.

Janos Szilvasi jumped down from the coach, throwing his sack into the snow beside the muddy road.

“Let me quiet them,” he shouted up to the driver, as he approached the horses.

“Get away!” said the driver. “They will strike you! Stay away from the mare—”

Janos made a soft whistling sound, staying to the right of the rearing horses. The mare could not see the ravens now. She looked nervously at the human being who approached, her nostrils flaring.

“Easy, now, easy, easy, easy,” Janos crooned in a singsong voice as if speaking to a child. And again came the strange whistle.

The mare reared again, her whinny echoing across the valley.

“Stay away!” shouted the driver.

Janos did not heed him. He steadily worked his way closer and closer to the horse’s shoulder. He slowly placed a hand on the mare’s neck, murmuring as he looked at her from the corner of his eye.

The skin on her neck quivered under his touch, rippling like a lake surface punctured by a barrage of stones. The harness slowed its jingling as the mare calmed. All the while Janos spoke to her, his breath small puffs of mist in the cold air.

The mare relaxed her tightly bunched neck, slowly lowering her ears closer to the man’s mouth.

“What are you saying to my horses?” asked the driver, his voice full of suspicion. “Are you casting a spell on them? Come away from the horses.”

“Let him, you fool!” shouted a thin passenger, craning his neck through the carriage window. “The horses will overturn the coach and kill the lot of us!”

Janos did not look away from the mare. He moved in front of her, risking a strike from her powerful foreleg—a blow that could easily break a man’s leg. He could feel the warm breath of the second horse, a bay gelding, trying to reach his hand with its muzzle. He ran a hand over the chest of the gelding. He moved to the right of the coach and faced the steep road.

“A horse sorcerer,” said a kerchiefed woman, looking out the window of the coach,
She shoved her husband’s head out of her way so she could see better.

“Thank you, sir,” said the driver, blowing out his breath, as he felt the slack in the rein. “You have skill with horses.” He wiped his nose on his ragged sleeve. “The Countess should be pleased to have you.”

“I hope that is so,” replied Janos. Then he nodded to the horses. “Was it the ravens that startled them?”

The driver shook his head, and motioned for Janos to come near. He whispered, “They always sweat and rear when we pass by
Č
achtice Castle, night or day.”

Janos noticed the driver’s hand tremble in its fingerless glove. He could smell the
slivovica
, the fiery plum brandy, on the man’s breath. The driver drew a silver flask from his pocket, offering his passenger a draught.

“To steady your nerves for
Č
achtice Castle,” said the driver.

Janos shook his head.

The driver shrugged and took the drink himself, his body relaxing as the harsh alcohol slid down his throat.

“We must make Beckov before nightfall. I bid you well, Passenger Szilvasi.”

Janos backed away.

“Ya!” shouted the driver, slapping the reins lightly on the horses’ backs. The wheels of the coach churned up frozen mud, leaving Janos at the side of the road.

The remaining passengers in the coach stared wild-eyed at the man who had shared their journey across the Hungarian flatlands to this remote outpost on the flanks of the Little Carpathians.

The kerchiefed woman made the sign of the cross, whispering a silent prayer. She kissed her fingers and extended them in the frosty air, back toward young Master Szilvasi.

Janos watched the coach disappear down the road. He picked up his sack and gazed at the fortress castle rising from the rocky hill above the treetops. The ravens still cawed overhead, circling the fortress in erratic loops.

“Do not let her catch you staring, Horse Sorcerer,” warned an old man, appearing from below the road on a path leading from the dark pine forest. He carried a load of brush and twigs strapped to his bony back. The stranger spoke broken German.

“I beg your pardon?”

“She will cast a spell on you, the evil witch,” the woodcutter said. He spat. “That Hungarian sorceress is the devil incarnate.”

Janos placed a wool-wrapped hand on the old one’s shoulder. “Pray tell me, sir, what do you know of the Countess?”

The old man grunted and shifted the load on his back. “How do I know you’re not a Hungarian spy, sent by the Bathorys?”

“You are right, I am Hungarian. Is it so obvious in my German?”

The old Slovak laughed.

Janos slid the sack off his shoulder and drew out a flask of wine.

“Here, Grandfather. It is the last I have, but I will share it with you. Will you speak to me of the Countess? I swear I will tell no one, by my family’s honor.”

The old man shifted his heavy load of wood. His dirty face was streaked with sweat despite the cold.

“My bones could do with a rest. Let me taste your wine.”

Janos could smell the tang of the old man’s body as he tipped the flask up toward the sky to drink. The woodcutter belched as he pulled the flask away from his lips. He smiled, watery eyed.

The old man was the first Slovak Janos had met who would dare speak of the Countess. He had tried to pry information from his traveling companions, but they only looked at him pop-eyed and silent. At the very mention of Bathory, the stout matron would cross her fingers to ward off the evil eye. She would not let her husband utter a word about the mysterious woman.

This old man was ready to talk.

“There are women—young girls—who go to serve her and never come back,” he whispered. His tongue poked out and touched around his lips, searching for any remaining wine. Then he wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

“Good girls, they were. When they were babes, I would pinch their cheeks and watch them play on the village square. Now they are gone,” he sighed. “I shall never dance at their weddings.”

“What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

“Gone. Disappeared. But no one dares whisper a word—except for our village preacher, a good Lutheran, with God’s own pure fury in his soul. All the villagers are scared to speak, even the desperate mothers who cry themselves to sleep at night. The Countess makes up stories, tales that the girls have gone to serve at her other castles or at her house in Vienna.”

“How do you know they are not?”

“No one ever hears from them again.”

The sentries spotted Janos long before he reached the ramparts of the castle.

“Who goes there?” a guard shouted in German.

“Janos Szilvasi, horsemaster from Sarvar Castle of Nadasdy. I am here to serve Countess Bathory.”

The guards had been expecting Szilvasi for a fortnight. They let down the plank used for foot traffic.

“Master Szilvasi—welcome to
Č
achtice Castle,” said the head guard, straightening his hat over his gray hair. He was immaculately dressed: a red jacket skimming over his hips, a black wool hat, a sword at his side. His boots were of fine leather, with not a trace of manure or straw and no dark stains of horse sweat. Janos frowned at the gleaming footwear.

“My name is Erno Kovach,” continued the man. “I command the Countess’s castle guards.” He did not extend his hand. “You look too young to be a horsemaster.”

Janos saw the man studying him, gray eyes flicking from Janos’s worn boots to his well-traveled cap.

“When my father was sent to fight in the Ottoman wars and train our King Rudolf’s cavalry, I took over his position at Sarvar Castle. I am skilled enough, Guard Kovach,” Janos said, his tone of voice challenging the guard. “I was called away from my duties at Sarvar to serve the Countess by her mandate.”

Erno Kovach regarded the blond young man, the red blossom of youth still coloring his cheeks. He wondered if this boy truly had the command of horses his legendary father possessed, or whether the Countess had summoned him for his handsome countenance, and especially his youth.

“And your father now?”

“He trains the white Spanish stallions in Vienna for King Matthias.”

Kovach grunted. “Follow me, Szilvasi. I will accompany you to the stables. Jiri—send notice to the Countess that her horsemaster has arrived.”

“Yes, Captain.”

A cobweb of frost clung to the granite blocks of the castle wall. As they emerged from the archway into the busy courtyard, Janos’s eyes took in a whirl of activity. Flocks of chickens pecked the cobblestones for grubs. Butchers stripped entrails from hanging pigs and handed the buckets of guts to the sausage maker who selected the choice bits for his grinder, hurling the slop in the drainage ditch for the dogs and ravens to devour. Knives flashed as farmers trimmed huge heads of cabbage, sharp blades hacking away the tough outer leaves and stalks. The dairyman pulled his wares from a wooden cart, offering them to a stout cook who stood with her hands on her wide hips as he boasted of the quality of his product, pulling back the linen cloth so she could inspect the crocks of butter and wheels of fresh cheese.

Children chased flocks of geese about the cobblestones, only to run shrieking when a gander turned on them, hissing through his sharp yellow beak and flapping his powerful wings.

A mutton carcass roasted on an enormous spit, the fat sizzling and sparking the coals into flames. The fire licked the meat, spreading the rich aroma through the air. A blacksmith pounded on his anvil, the sound ringing over the courtyard. Bits of molten iron flew, glowing yellow-orange, leaving scorch marks on the worn stones of the courtyard.

Janos followed the guard to the stables. A team of ragged boys assembled in a line in front of the arched entry. Despite the cold, fat lazy flies buzzed from piles of warm manure and the stench of aged horse piss stung Janos’s nose.

“Welcome to your domain, horsemaster,” announced the guard captain, sweeping his arm wide.

Janos wrinkled his nose and his jaw clenched, muscles working taut under his skin.

“What conditions are these for Bathory horses!” he said, his voice rising in anger. He whirled around. “Who is responsible for this?”

One of the older boys came forward, his face smeared with dirt.

“I am, sir. My uncle was in charge until he took ill with the plague. He died a fortnight ago,” said the boy. He ran his dirty sleeve under his runny nose.

Janos trembled with fury, his hands clenched in tight fists at his side.

“Bring out the horses. At once!”

One after another, the horses of
Č
achtice Castle were brought out into the courtyard, which was paved in end-cut wooden blocks. There were twenty-seven horses in all, and every one showed evidence of neglect. There were boils on the backs of several, proud flesh festering over wounds, cracked hooves. Several were lame with blistered coronets from standing in old urine-soaked straw. Two bay mares were crippled with thrush. When Janos picked up their hooves, he saw the soggy flesh and smelled the stench of rot.

The last horse, three boys brought out together.

The white stallion reared, his front hooves flashing. His eyes were ringed in white and his piercing neigh was a threat that ricocheted around the castle walls. The boys held him by ropes trying to keep him on the ground.

He, like all the others, was thin despite the band of muscle that still clung to his powerful neck.

“These wretched horses are starving!” said Janos. From the corner of his eye, he saw a movement in one of the windows of the castle. But his attention returned quickly to the horses.

“We feed them, but the horses have no appetite,” said the head boy. Janos looked closer at the boy’s eyes. They were shining with fever.

“They nose aside the grass and choose to starve,” said the boy. Janos saw the beads of sweat on his face. His cheeks burned bright red, his eyes glassy.

“What is your name?”

“Aloyz, sir.”

“Aloyz, you are ill.”

“Yes, Master Janos,” he said, shuffling his rag-tied feet. “But do not send me away, I beg of you. I need to work for our family, else we will starve.”