House of Bathory (36 page)

Chapter 109

B
ATHORY
C
ASTLE
H
IGH
T
ATRA
M
OUNTAINS,
S
LOVAKIA
D
ECEMBER 29, 2010

A
silk gown lay on the canopied bed.

Morgan rubbed the fine material between her fingers. It was deep crimson and black, and the exquisite weave of the fabric felt like cool water. Next to the gown lay a black apron.

And a huge ruffled collar.

This is ridiculous
, Morgan thought.
My head will look like a centerpiece on a Thanksgiving table.

A fuchsia-haired servant entered the chamber to help her dress.

“Take off bra,” she said. “Put on slip.”

“Go to hell,” said Morgan firmly. She gave the servant a chilling stare.

“We have little time. Count becomes angry. Take off bra.”

“No,” said Morgan. “I will not.” Her body stiffened, her fists clenched.

Ona watched the American’s woman’s face harden. If she snatched at her bra, there would be a fight, an ugly one. The girl had long sharp nails, and the look of a tiger.

Ona handed her the embroidered chemise and linen shift.

She had picked enough battles for one day.

Morgan slipped on the chemise and shift. When Ona turned to reach for the dress, Morgan dug a finger into her bra, touching the warm metal.

She smiled.

Chapter 110

B
ATHORY
C
ASTLE
H
IGH
T
ATRA
M
OUNTAINS,
S
LOVAKIA
D
ECEMBER 29, 2010

B
etsy clicked off her headlamp and was plunged into darkness. She placed her hand on the rusty iron handle of the door. With a deep breath, she pushed down the handle. When nothing happened, she set her left shoulder against the door and heaved forward.

With a shriek of corroded hinges, the door gave way. She stopped, listening for voices.

Please, please, let there be no one in the room.

The door was behind a heavy tapestry, hidden from view. Her fingertips ran across the rough backing of the tapestry, feeling her way to its edge. At last she saw the flickering light of the torches.

Her eyes blinked in the erratic light.

Thank God. No one’s here.

But they will be back.

Brown stains marked the stones, splatters on the wall. Betsy focused her attention on what to do next, not on what took place in the past.

She crouched in the shadows. A table stood in the middle of the room, raised on a wooden dais. A linen lace tablecloth covered the surface. A mahogany lectern, exquisitely carved centuries before, stood on the table.

She saw strange metal objects—farm tools?—set out on a long table alongside the dais.

Betsy searched the room carefully before daring to venture out. She crept hunched low to the long table. There she saw fire-blackened tongs, pinchers, a pitchfork. All sorts of crystalline glassware lay beside the tools. One looked like a decanter for wine.

An ancient leather satchel tied up with a cord lay on the far corner of the table. There was a silver spoon, two more fine crystalline decanters, and a strange gold funnel, with a plastic molding covering the stem.

On the floor was a tub made of granite, with a long plastic hose running from the drain. Ugly brown stains had discolored the gray stone.

She looked quickly away, climbed the dais to look at the tome on the lectern. It was not an old book, its creamy pages were new and modern.

Betsy blinked, focusing her eyes.

It can’t be
, she told herself. She looked again.

It was
The Red Book
.

She scanned the pages. A passage was highlighted in red.

The task is to give birth to the old in a new time. The soul of humanity is like the great wheel of the zodiac that rolls along the way…There is no part of the wheel that does not come around again.

The Red Book
as sinister?
she thought.
She heard her father’s voice.

A knife in the hands of a good man can cut bread to feed his family. A knife in the hands of malevolent man is a weapon. Anything can be good or evil, Betsy. Everything is neutral, assigned a value only in the hands of the holder.

Betsy stared at the book as her father’s words continued in her head:

Even the best analysis can fail. You must understand this, Betsy. Along the tortured journey through a man’s or woman’s mind, there are those who are lost forever. You must learn to protect yourself from tumbling into their abyss.

For ultimately we are connected.

The sound of footsteps sent Betsy scrambling back behind the tapestry.

Betsy peered out beyond the edge of the weaving. Her position was steeped in shadows, for the torches were in the far corner of the room. Only when a flame leapt was her wall illuminated for brief seconds.

A young woman in an antique silk gown entered slowly, escorted by an elegant white-haired man with a walking stick. Something in his exaggerated paleness, the grace of his posture, reminded Betsy of someone she once knew.

Betsy saw the glint of the silver-tipped walking stick. And she remembered.

She had been a very young girl, bored with adults talking about Austro-Hungarian history, dates, papers and books they had published. He had called her to him, away from the crowd. He sat in the shadows of a room filled with paintings of Ottoman-Hungarian battles.

He showed her his carved walking stick, with a silver dragon with ruby eyes. She sat on his knee. He shifted her weight.

That left knee hurts me
, he had said.
That is why I walk with a stick
.

He whispered he was a distant cousin and glad to make her acquaintance. He let her play with the dragon.

The bright rubies glared at her.

Betsy remembered the shocked look on her mother’s face when she came rushing to sweep her child off the man’s lap. The scent of fear on her skin. Betsy had never forgotten the stranger, but her mother and father refused to speak about him.

Don’t talk to strangers,
was all her father had said.
And never, ever talk to that man again
.

Betsy looked again at the woman in the silk gown, a huge white lace collar extending under her chin, a stiff square panel.

The woman’s skin was pallid, her eyes made up in an elaborate fashion. She walked in a wooden gait. Perhaps she was drugged.

Her hair was a shining auburn.

The woman stopped, gazing at a portrait of Erzsebet Bathory, one Betsy had seen over and over on the internet.

The young woman’s hand drifted up to her cheek. The Count watched her intently. He smiled, reaching for her hand.

Betsy stared. She recognized the red-haired woman.

Chapter 111

Č
ACHTICE
C
ASTLE
D
ECEMBER 29, 1610

J
anos buried the ledger deep in the straw, in the corner where the white stallion was stabled. He knew that no one would dare enter. The horse was tamed to his hands alone; even Aloyz stayed away from this corner of the stable.

“What did she give you?” demanded a voice in the shadows.

Janos recognized the voice immediately. “Who?”

Guard Kovach stepped toward him. He had a dagger in his hand.

“We stopped her at the gate,” he said. “I saw you.”

“She is innocent, Kovach. Let her go.”

“It is out of my hands, Horsemaster. The Countess will determine her fate. Or perhaps she will leave it to the Dark One in Transylvania.”

Janos swallowed hard.

Kovach smiled. “Now give it to me.”

Janos stared at him through the darkness. The captain’s silhouette appeared enormous against the lime-washed wall, a giant exaggerated by the torchlight beyond Janos. Dagger in hand.

“Give it to me!”

Janos thought of the girls’ murders. He thought of Vida, risking her life. Then he remembered Zuzana, who should, even now, be bringing Thurzo to
Č
achtice.

“No.”

“You Hungarian fool!”

Kovach lunged. Janos leapt aside, looking around desperately for a weapon. There was nothing.

“You betray the Countess!” growled Kovach.

“And you betray God!”

Kovach slashed at Janos, catching his upper arm. Blood soaked the linen tunic, but he dodged the second thrust. There was no escape—Kovach positioned himself at the stable door.

He closed on Janos, walking quietly, slowly.

The dagger glinted in the torchlight.

Janos ran to the far side of the horse. He touched the stallion’s neck, his lips moving silently. The skin on the horse’s flank quivered, his ears flattened.

Kovach crept closer, his fist tightening around the knife. He had worked Janos into a corner of the box stall. There was no escape.

“In the name of the Countess—” said Kovach.

A shrill whinny rang through the night air. The horse whirled his head around. He seized the guard’s arm with his long teeth, his powerful jaws crushing the bone.

Kovach screamed.

The white stallion reared, snapping his rope. His iron-shod feet flashed out at the captain, knocking him to the ground.

Janos turned away, clutching his wounded arm. He heard Kovach’s scream cut short as the stallion’s hooves shattered his skull.

Chapter 112

B
ATHORY
C
ASTLE
D
ECEMBER 29, 2010

J
o
hn
saw headlights illuminating the iron grillwork of the gate.

Three police cars raced up the road, red-and-blue lights flashing. Two police officers bounded out of the car, guns drawn.

The castle guard took out his cell phone. He spoke rapidly and then set the phone down, as the police approached with guns pointed.

One police officer began questioning the guard.

Another car drove up. Jo
hn
recognized one of the passengers who jumped out of the car.

“Detective Whitehall!” he shouted.

Jo
hn
stared at the butler’s preternaturally blue eyes.

“No, I am sorry,” the butler repeated. With his blond pomaded hair slicked back, he managed to look surly even as he confronted the Bratislava authorities.

Jo
hn
looked around the room. The fire was lit, the hearth deep with glowing embers. On a small table near the fireplace stood a decanter of red wine. He saw a splash of liquid on what must be a treasure—a very old tapestry of a slain dragon.

He touched the stain. It was still wet. He brought his fingers to his nose—wine. On the floor a shard of glass twinkled.

“The Count is not in residence. I believe he is in Bratislava,” said the blue-eyed man, unblinking.

“You liar!” said Jo
hn
.

“We have reason to believe that he is indeed in residence,” said Detective Whitehall, glancing at Jo
hn
. “We will wait to see him.”

“Wait?” said Jo
hn
. “We can’t wait. He has kidnapped at least three women. He has a friend of mine hidden somewhere in the castle.”

“I will assume that you will produce proof of this ‘kidnapping,’ ” said the butler, his voice cool and controlled. “Otherwise you wouldn’t dare enter this house.”

“We have the license plate seen at the scene of a kidnapping,” said Detective Whitehall. “We have been tracking this car for two days now.”

“I am sorry, I don’t think I am aware of your…jurisdiction?” said the butler.

“Detective Whitehall, from Scotland Yard.”

“Scotland Yard? That certainly does not give you the right to slander my employer, a Hungarian citizen of nobility. I shall call the embassy at once.”

“I am in charge of this investigation,” said a burly police officer. “I am a captain in the Bratislava division of the Slovakian National Police. I require your complete cooperation.”

“This will not be good for delicate Hungarian-Slovak relations,” said the butler, a thinly veiled threat. “Please convey this to your president. He knows Count Bathory, of course.”

The police captain grunted.

“So,” said the butler, raising his chin. “You have a license plate number. Witnesses often misread license plates, as I am sure you are aware. You have no subpoena. And I tell you the Count is not at home.”

“We can search—can’t we?” asked Jo
hn
.

The police officer approached him, saying in a quiet voice, “These castles have many secret doors and passageways. We need him to be more cooperative.”

“You have no real evidence, no subpoena,” said the butler. “I shall have to ask you to please leave at once.”

Jo
hn
pushed past the police officer. Raw anger propelled him forward.

He heard a crunch under his boot.

Jo
hn
looked down. It was Daisy’s crucifix, broken on the floor.