House of Bathory (5 page)

Chapter 7

A
SPEN,
C
OLORADO
N
OVEMBER 28, 2010

I
t’s a few weeks late for Halloween,” Jane said, looking up from her
Vogue
magazine. She threw a contemptuous look at Daisy’s shredded crepe dress and white Goth makeup.

“Ha, ha,” Daisy said. “That kills, Mother. You should be on Comedy Central.”

“You’ll scare the neighbors,” snapped Jane. “And they’ll think I’m a bad mother, letting my daughter traipse around in a torn dress in a howling blizzard.”

“Screw the neighbors,” Daisy said, fastening the buckles of her boots. “You think too much about other people’s opinions, Mother.”

“And maybe you should think more about what people think. Just a little.”

“Why? Besides I’m not going to walk around this neighborhood anyway. What’s to see but big stupid mansions and greedy men with wives younger than their own daughters. They are
disgusting.”

Jane glowered at her daughter.

“What?” Daisy said.

“You know, Daisy, you have gotten awfully bitchy lately,” she said. “I might just call your father to let him know what a pain in the ass you are.”

Daisy’s breath caught, and she coughed.

“Are you all right?” said Jane, anger vanishing from her face. “You shouldn’t be going out—”

Daisy threw on the long black wool coat she had bought at the thrift shop.

“Where are you going?” Jane asked, her hand on her hip.

“Wherever I want.”

Daisy slammed the door, making the snow slide off the porch roof.

She drove the BMW down Red Mountain, sliding around the first corner and nearly crashing into the guardrail. The car stalled and when she got it started again, she crept down the hill in first gear.

She parked at a pull-out at the bottom of Red Mountain Road along the Roaring Fork River. She set off along the river on the Rio Grande trail, earbuds wedged tight in her ears. She smiled, listening to a Doors’ song, over and over again.

People are strange when you’re a stranger…

It was snowing hard, as if it were January. Snow gathered thick on every branch, shaking loose the last yellow leaves from the aspens. She trudged down the snowy path, looking at the river. There was ice along the shore but then the water broke out, running fast and dark between the snow-blanketed rocks.

The snow was falling heavily now, coating her eyelashes, blinding her, despite her hood. Jim Morrison and the Doors were blasting through the earphones.

Faces come out of the rain

When you’re strange…

Oof!

She hadn’t heard him racing down the path. She sprawled on the ground, cursing in the snow. Her legs were tangled up with a sweaty, cross-country skier who had slammed into her.

T.N.T. oi oi oi!

T.N.T. oi oi oi!

His earphones dangled from his neck, blasting out AC/DC.

I’m Dy-na-mite!

“Oh, shit! Are you OK? I didn’t expect anyone,” he said.

“Couldn’t you
see
me?”

“It’s a freakin’ blizzard. You were in the middle of the trail.”

“What an idiot!”

“Are you hurt?”

“Get off me!”

The crash had knocked the wool hat off the skier’s curly blond hair.

Daisy recognized him from school. He was a snowboarder.
One of those extreme guys who competes in the X-Games
, she thought.
I had to go to pep rallies for him
. There was nothing a Goth despised more than a pep rally.

He crawled off and pulled her up, despite the fact he was still on his skis.

“God damn it!” she said. “Now I’ve lost my earbuds.”

Daisy could still hear his music blasting from his earphones, a final insult. Hard rock. Booming.

“Here they are,” he said, digging them up out the snow. He gave her a crooked smile. “Wow, you are sassy, Goth girl.”

“Go to hell, asshole!”

He wrinkled his nose, laughing at her.

“What’s so funny?”

“Enough with the drama, OK? Jeez.”

He handed her the wet earbuds and pressed the
PAUSE
button on his iPod.

“Look, I’m really sorry.”

A hard gust of wind blew the snow sideways. He had to almost shout. Daisy could smell some kind of fruity gum on his breath. A whiff of the tropics in the middle of a snowstorm.

“It’s OK,” she said, mumbling.

“You were hard to see, you know,” he said into her ear.

“What? Because I’m not dressed up in garish colors like some cheerleader?”

“Hey! I didn’t say that. Wear what you want, that’s cool. I just didn’t see you, you know.”

Daisy brushed the snow from her coat, shaking out her hood.

“You want me to walk you to your car or house or something?” he offered. “It’s snowing kinda hard.”

“No, I’m going down to the Slaughterhouse Bridge to catch the bus back to the trailhead. I’ve got my car parked there at the pull-out.”

He looked at her dubiously, swatting the bottoms of his skis with his pole to knock off the ice that had accumulated.

“Sure you’re OK?”

“Yeah, yeah, really.”

Shit,
she thought. She didn’t want him to think she was a wuss, just because she wasn’t skiing or doing some kind of hardcore snow sport.

“Look, I used to ride horses and take lots of crashes,” she said. “I’ve cracked ribs, broken my arm twice, and dislocated my shoulder. This is nothing.”

“Yeah?” he said, his face creasing up in a smile. “I know all about bad wipeouts,” he said, cleaning the snow from his goggles. “OK, I’ll see you in Spanish class.”

Was he in her Spanish class?

He waved a pole at her and skied off, disappearing into the swirl of snow.

A long, wet half hour later, she crossed the river and started trudging up the steep Cemetery Lane hill toward town. It was a long hill, but at the top she could catch the bus the rest of the way into town. The street was silent, the houses shut tight against the storm. The only person she saw was a woman sweeping the snow off her car with a broom. She stopped working and stared at Daisy as she walked past.

Daisy could feel the woman’s eyes on her back as she trudged on, stumbling over chunks of ice the snowplow had thrown on the side of the road.

Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted

Streets are uneven when you’re down…

Cemetery Lane. She came to the black wrought-iron fence around the cemetery, ringing the graves and the massive century-old cottonwoods.

A good Goth never passes a cemetery without paying respects. Even in a blinding snowstorm.

It was peaceful under the branches of the cottonwoods, the trunks of the trees packed white with blowing snow. She wound her way through the cemetery, gazing at the stones, reading the inscriptions. The oldest graves dated back to the 1880s.

She always looked for the children. Sometimes she bought carnations or roses at half off at City Market and placed them on the graves.

She stopped to read a newer stone, speckled with flecks of burnt-orange lichens. Ceslav Path. Loving husband of Grace and father of Elizabeth.

My shrink had a father named Ceslav?

Daisy stood shivering in the snow, feeling a strange vibe. Jim Morrison shouted in her ear.

When you’re strange

No one remembers your name…

Daisy pulled out the earbuds and pressed the
PAUSE
button. She kneeled in the snow, touching the tombstone with her gloved hand in the silence.

And she wondered:
What kind of name was Ceslav?

Chapter 8

Č
ACHTICE
C
ASTLE
N
OVEMBER 28, 1610

A
t dusk, the courtyard of
Č
achtice Castle slipped into silence. The butchers who stained the cobblestones red with their slaughters had gone home, the geese were locked away in their coops, the clang of the smith’s hammer was silenced. The dairyman’s wagon had creaked down the long rutted road to the village. The sausage maker’s cast-offs had long been consumed by the ravens and dogs, and the last of the blood licked clean by the cats. The soap-maker’s shavings had been mixed with water to make a lather and rinse off the remains of the day, leaving the stones wet and polished, the moon’s reflection dappling the gleaming courtyard. The torches cast shifting waves of brightness across the walls of the castle, and sentries stood watch in the moonlight.

A thin servant with nervous eyes came to summon Horsemaster Szilvasi to the castle.

Janos wore an open-neck white linen tunic over his dark breeches. It was the kind of shirt a wealthy farmer might wear to a horse fair or tavern. He wore no coat, only a boiled-wool riding jacket, threadbare with age.

The servant surveyed him, moistening his dry lips.

“Sir, forgive me. Do you have anything more suitable to wear before the Countess?”

Janos narrowed his eyes at the servant, clad in black velvet, the silver hooks of his fine cloak gleaming in the torchlight. The horsemaster dropped his eyes to scan his own clean white shirt.

“No, this will do,” he said, testily. “I am a horseman, not a castle servant.”

“Very good, sir. It is just that—”

“What?”

“The Countess is…fastidious.”

“I wish she were more fastidious with the care of her horses,” answered Janos. “And in welcoming a weary traveler from Sarvar Castle.”

The servant took a step back. His eyes were ringed in white, much as the horses’ had been.

“I beg you, sir!” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “Do not criticize the Countess in my presence.” The servant looked about the empty courtyard, searching the shadows for spies.

“You are scared of your own shadow, man! Take me to the Countess,” said Janos, dismissing his concerns with a wave of his hand. “I am losing patience. And I am weary for my bed.”

The courtyard was treacherous, the water on the cobblestones already beginning to freeze. The servant worked his way around the edge of the yard, placing his feet carefully. Janos followed, the click of his riding boots sounding a steady beat on the stone.

The guards opened the massive door of the castle, hinges creaking despite regular coats of pork grease. A servant took Janos aside and patted him roughly, searching for weapons.

“There are enemies of the Bathorys,” he said as way of explanation.

The tapestry-hung halls were illuminated by wrought-iron candelabras. Ornately carved furniture—chairs, chests, and long tables—shone darkly with thick coats of beeswax. The walls—where not covered by tapestries—were hung with oil portraits of Nadasdy and Bathory ancestors, men in gleaming armor, their hands on bejeweled swords, ready to kill the Islamic invaders. One portrait showed the Countess’s husband, Ferenc Nadasdy, triumphantly seated atop a pile of slain Ottoman warriors, their blood coating his boots.

Ferenc had been dead for five years, killed by a wound received in battle—though in the taverns of Nadasdy, it was whispered that the mortal injury was inflicted by a disgruntled harlot whom he neglected to pay.

The air was rich with kitchen odors, wild boar roasting in the open hearth. Janos knew the savory smell, soured by the stink of singed hair where stray bristles had remained in the flesh. The bitter smell of burning hair was chased by the sweet aroma of autumn apples.

Outside an oaken door on the first floor flocked a half dozen young maidens in court finery. Their long silk skirts, laced velvet bodices, and finely beaded headpieces must have been fetched from Vienna, thought Janos, for there was certainly nothing as refined to be found in the wilds of Upper Hungary.

The ladies-in-waiting curtsied and lowered their heads as the horsemaster approached, though he could see them sneaking looks. He heard one stifle a gasp, and a muffled giggle.

“There is no need to bow, maidens,” said Janos in German. “I am a servant, just as you serve the Countess.”

The Slovak women giggled at his fine manners and Hungarian accent. A couple of bolder girls made eyes at him.

The manservant rapped gently on the door, and it opened a crack to expose the mouth and nose of a pretty—though painfully thin—servant girl. They exchanged murmured words and then the door was quietly opened. Janos was ushered into a vast chamber, illuminated by chandeliers with hundreds of flickering candles.

The room was square and sparse. At the far end sat a black-veiled woman.

“Approach, Master Szilvasi,” called the woman. Her starched lace collar stood straight out from her neck like a square banner, quivering slightly as she spoke.

Janos’s face twitched with impatience, but he wisely chose to compose himself before he reached her shrouded presence.

He stood a few feet from what appeared to be a throne—and bowed deeply. He stared at the Countess’s red-slippered feet, peeking out of the stiff folds of silver and gold brocade.

Janos wrinkled his nose. A strong smell of copper coins wafted through the air, metallic and acrid. His eye surreptitiously hunted for its source.

“Countess Bathory, it is an honor,” he said.

“Is it?” she said. “I have heard that you were impatient for your bed.”

Janos swallowed, marveling at how quickly gossip traveled in this castle. Then he collected his thoughts, thinking of the conditions in which he had found the horses.

“You heard correctly. Your—what would you call them, spies?—have served you well. Yes, Countess. I am tired after two days of hard travel and a grueling day in the stables.”

“Spies? You are impertinent,
Pan
Szilvasi! They are loyal servants who report the truth and warn me of ill conduct.”

“What do you consider ill conduct, Madame? I come from the Sarvar Castle—your own property. At your request, Madame.”

“You needn’t remind me, as if I am too aged and addled to remember!” she snapped.

Janos decided to take another approach, muting his anger.

“I am devoted to the horses and will see that they thrive and are trained to the utmost of my ability. Your stable shall be worthy of the Bathory name.”

Janos could see the black veil tremble. He wondered what lay behind the curtain of black mesh.

“I understand my stable boys have disappointed you.”

“The horses are in bad condition, Countess,” said Janos. “I will work hard the next few weeks to bring them back to health.”

“My stable master died and his nephew is an idiot,” said the countess, lifting the veil from her face, and folding it over her dark auburn hair.

“I—”

Janos stopped speaking. He stared at the white face, skin as smooth as fine marble, the color of Venetian porcelain. Burning amber eyes, unlike any he had ever seen, stared at him under delicately arched brows.

The woman looked inhuman, a perfect statue created by the most skillful sculptor. Except the eyes. The eyes were feral, catlike. She was stunningly beautiful. He could not look away. His eyes ran over her features, again and again, hunting for imperfection.

He found none, despite her age.

She nodded to the footman, who handed her the braided leather horsewhip.

“You returned this to me,” she said. “I sent it to you with a purpose.”

Janos made himself look at the horsewhip and not the woman’s face.

“It was not necessary. The horses do not need whipping and the stable boys are simply ignorant.”

“The sting of the whip can quickly correct ignorance.”

“I find other methods more effective, Countess.”

There was a little gasp among the throng of handmaidens.

The Countess gave them a sharp look. A sudden silence settled into even the most remote corners of the room.

“They say you inherited your father’s—nay, your grandfather’s—uncanny dominion over horses. I remember him from my childhood at Sarvar Castle. I was fifteen when I was brought as a bride there.”

“I understand horses. It is not dominion.”

“Do you believe you can ride my white stallion?”

“I know I can.”

The marble face broke into a smile that was somehow hideous, as if the sculptor who had created her had never meant for such an emotional betrayal to cross that visage. The sculpted features, haughty and perfect, looked as if they would shatter, casting jagged white shards on the floor.

Then the face regained its marble composure, no expression marring the milky smoot
hn
ess.

“Is there something lacking in my performance, Countess?”

“Yes,” answered the perfect face. “Bozek, show Horsemaster Szilvasi back to his quarters.”

The manservant appeared out of the shadows, at Janos’s elbow.

“There is one thing you lack, young horsemaster,” said the Countess, lowering her veil once more.

“And what might that be?”

“Humility,” she said. “But you shall learn it here at
Č
achtice Castle.”

She snapped her fingers, the sound echoing through the great hall.

Two guards seized Janos, their strong fingers biting into his arm. He was whisked back into the hall. The torch flames leapt, fed by the gust of wind as the massive door slammed shut behind him.