Ten

Dark Ages, Spring 1459.

Albu’s betrayal took us by surprise, and after that fateful day, when he tried to rid the Earth from my presence, I had to go on a few expeditions; I had to hunt him down, and also the ones who helped him plot against me. So, I left for a month or more at a time. It was a hard feature leaving her behind; she was my haven, the one who kept my demons at bay, but I couldn’t take a chance in bringing her with me, as she asked many times.
I found a distraught Alizandra when I got back from one of these campaigns. She was having night terrors, something she had never had before. Worry ate at me. Maybe my demons had found their way to her. I didn’t know, but something was wrong, very wrong.
“Wake up, draga mea.” I gathered her into my arms. “Wake up.” I kissed all over her face, trying to appease her distress. She was swimming in sweat and her breathing was difficult. Then those lavenders fixed on me, glinting with unshed tears, and that itself crushed my heart. “What’s wrong, my beautiful, Liz?” She hugged me so tight, like her life depended on it, and I felt her affliction through her trembling body.
“I’m so afraid for you.” She mumbled between sobs. “If you keep doing what you do, you’ll destroy yourself, and I don’t know how to be the anchor you need.”
“What are you talking about?” I had this feeling she wanted to say something and didn’t know how to do it.
“Vlad… I’ve been using that secret passage you’ve shown me.” So that was it. She had been escaping from the castle for the last few months. “Vlad, I know now why your soul is so tainted, even though you don’t want to admit to yourself!”
“Alizandra, that pathway is supposed to be an escape route, not your way of sneaking out!” I didn’t want to snap at her, but anger boiled in my blood, listening to her. She had been to the outskirts of the village or the river and had seen the carnage there. “Why would you do that?”
“Boredom and loneliness, I wanted to see people, talk to someone other than the help.” She cried in my chest. I’ve never seen her cry, and I didn’t like it a bit. “I’ve heard stories about your ways in battles before we met, but hearing about them was altogether different from seeing them! Why do you do such atrocities? You are only twenty-six and already carry the heavyweight of damnation on your shoulders.”
How could I get mad at her, if even in this darkest hour she wasn’t judging me for my despicable antics, but concerned about me? God! I loved this woman; I loved her with my whole heart, and she suffered for me.
“Liz, I may be young in years, but I’m old in my mind. Besides, I fight with means life has given me. I understand I can’t use the excuse of freeing our land to do what I do, but I confess to you, I hate the sultan with all my heart for everything they took from me.” I embraced her, bringing her closer to my chest, if that was even possible. My soul was sold to the devil, but Radu sold his soul to him, and I didn’t know which was the worst.
“So please, make me understand. Make this pain go away.”
“What do you want to know? Ask me and I will tell you.” I whispered to her.
“Tell me about your childhood. How was it?”
“It was nice and fun. We lived in Sighișoara, and as far as I remember all the women in the court, including my mother, had been in charge of teaching us about how to behave among royalties, and with all that they spoiled us rotten. The men, including father, had taught us how to be warriors down to the core, and we also had tutors to teach us languages, math, history, and so on. We had a busy life, but they also let the three of us roam around and be boys. We had lots of fun with the other children in the court. I had wonderful parents, I guess.” I sighed. They were such good times, and it sounded so far away. Her fingers were on my face, caressing me. The lightest of the touches. Closing my eyes, I breathed her in and let myself enjoy it.
“I feel the love in you when you talk about it. How has all that changed?”
“My father wanted to merge his power in Transylvania. After a while, he sensed the tenuous balance of power in favor of the sultan, and he made an alliance with him, turning out to be a bad deal, every time the Turks marched thought Transylvanian grounds there were lots of looting, murdering, and burning, and things had escalated for the worst, and the people revolted against them.”
“I remember, there was a time when they burnt our village to the ground.”
“My father had sworn to protect all Christians by his Dragon Oath. Hunyadi appeared, and believe me, he was no saint. He had his own agenda in all that, but he was a genuine believer in the crusades against the Turks, chasing them out of Europe, so as general governor of Transylvania he came to my father and demanded he join him in his plans.” Everything sounded so bizarre to my ears and from another lifetime, but Liz had the right to know more about me.
“My father wasn’t at ease, and he decided maybe for that moment, I don’t know… he would act neutral to the situation. Still giving the Turks some passage through the land, but helping Hunyadi crusades with small contingents under Mircea’s command. You can never serve two masters at once. Someone instigated the sultan against him, saying he wasn’t a loyal man, and the sultan got suspicious of my father, so he invited him to his court, and he brought Radu and me with him, and it was right there when things turned sour.”
“What happened?” She kissed my jaw, trying to sooth me, and held me tighter. If there was paradise, I was in it.
“Well, they seized us from our father, held him against his will, put Mircea in his place, and let us think he had abandoned us, that he had traded us for loyalty. We were in a foreign country, a language we didn’t understand, costumes so different from what we were used to. I hated my father for so many years!” I growled, and the bitterness in my voice took me by surprise. Just now, talking about it, I understood how much it had affected me.
“It’s ok, you didn’t know what happened back then.” Hearing her voice so full of care calmed me beyond imagination, and her hand wandering around my face and hair so freely made me wish to stay there forever. I told her everything. I left nothing out of it.
“They kept our studies, but in their ways. I was so disgusted with everything that my favorite pastime was to make their lives a living hell, rebelling against every single thing. I got beaten, whipped, punished in all ways possible. They took us on their expeditions; they engaged us in their army, taught us the logistics and planning against enemies, all means of tortures, and a lot more. I lived in the bowels of hell for about six years. Till the day I was seventeen, and they let me go, but Radu joined them of his own free will, traitor! My father’s old chancellor came looking for me in that same year, giving me his Toledo Blade and his golden collar with the insignia of the dragon, and he told me the proper story.”
“I’m sorry for everything you had to endure, I had a hard life also, my father died in one raid through our village, and later my mom from a disease, leaving me in the hands of that bastard, but I can’t imagine what you have been through.”
“My father never abandoned us, Liz. They held us hostage so he wouldn’t go against them and did their bidding, and it cost his own life. Rumors spread my father was a fickle ally right after a revolt broke out. He fled, but never got to its destination, a friendly Turkish troop on the Danube. The boyars of Târgovişte in conspiracies with Vladislav II captured Mircea, torturing him beyond the unthinkable and buried him alive!” A wave of painful anger coursed through me, and I felt like killing someone at that moment. Then I heard that lovable voice that could drive my demons away from me.
“That was a lot for a child to bear.” Holding her hand, I kissed her palm and every soothing finger. “But it’s all in the past now, you need to think about the future.” I tensed beneath her. How dare she say it was in the past? When I was about to voice my reproach, she put a finger on my lips, refraining me from doing so. “Hear me out. I’m not saying for you to give up, what I want you to understand is that you are mature enough to review your goals, and bring forth alternative ways to reach them. Ways Vlad, they won’t annihilate your soul and mind in the process!”