The Dracula Chronicles: For Whom The Bell Tolls Read online

  Florescu had planned the attack to the very last detail. He knew he had to be thorough for it to succeed. His men had waited in groups ready to move on his signal. Each band of men had a list of targets to attack so that they could act independently from each other. Then the word came. They forced their way into houses all over the city. These were home to those most loyal to Dracul. They murdered his men without mercy right in front of their women and children.

  A second faction under the Craiovescus launched an attack on the fortress. Dracul and his men fought hard, but superior numbers drove them back. The attack cut them off from the fortress and forced them to retreat down a nearby street. It left only the garrison inside to protect the small palace.

  Dracul was desperate to fight his way back. Rodrigul knew they could not do it and tried to drag him away. His voivode was frantic. “I cannot go and leave Maia to the wolves!”

  “We have to get you to safety, my Lord. I shall return with our men and collect Maia and Mircea.”

  “Please, Alin,” he begged. “Do not ask me to abandon my loved ones.”

  “My Lord, if you are killed, then all is lost. I must get you out of the city.”

  He refused to budge. “I would never be able to get past losing them.”

  “Do not even think about it.”

  “How can I not?”

  “The worst scenario would be if they are captured.”

  “Hunyadi shall kill them!”

  “No, he would not. He would use them as pawns to get the best terms out of you. Even he is not foolish enough to harm them.”

  “The man is mad.”

  “Perhaps he is, but not stupid. He shall not harm them.”

  “Why would he not? What is to stop him?”

  “Such an act would be condemned by one and all. He knows that. He also knows you would have nothing left to lose, and come after him with everything.”

  His friend was right as ever and the words he spoke made sense when they registered with him. Dracul thought Rodrigul could have been a statesman. So good was he at bringing calm when Dracul needed it most. That and the loyalty he gave were what made him his second.

  They were shrewd enough to realise that their avenues of escape would be few. Florescu’s men looked to be gaining the upper hand after only a short time. And he would now be guarding all routes out of the city. There was a way out known only to the two of them. That was through one of the streams below the city. Rodrigul knew it was their only hope of getting out alive. He figured his enemies might know of two of them, but there was a third that remained a secret. There his men had cut the grill below the water level for them to get away.

  With a half a dozen men, they made good their escape. Dracul felt less of a man now than at any time in his life. To leave my wife and son, perhaps I am a coward. Hunyadi may have been right about me all along.

  Mircea and his men fought for their lives. As their numbers decreased, they realised death might not be too far away. They had no help at hand and the numbers against them grew by the minute.

  When Florescu walked into the street the fighting ceased. Both factions stood back from each other, although Mircea and his men remained surrounded.

  “I might have known you were behind this treachery,” Mircea spat.

  Florescu stepped out of the shadows, a smug grin etched across his face.

  “You emerge from the shadows like the alley rat you are.”

  The men eyed each other with hate. But it was Florescu who held all the cards.

  “Say what you will,” he said, dismissing the insult. “You shall be screaming like a terrified rat when I have you put to death.”

  “My father should have killed you when he had the chance.”

  “Yes, he should have. It does not bode well for you that I should not make his same mistakes. It is why he cannot rule another day. He is too weak.”

  “A strong claim from one who is not half the man he is.”

  Florescu’s eyes slanted to hint at the anger he felt inside. He gave the man on his left a gentle nod to finish this off.

  “You shall never take me alive,” Mircea warned, holding up his sword.

  “Why would I want you alive?”

  Mircea knew his father’s enemy was going to kill him. Now that death truly stared him in the face, he began to fear it. He was a prince and not meant to die in an alley. If he was to feel the point of a sword, it should be on the field of battle. “I am the heir to the throne and worth much more to you alive than dead.”

  “Then lay down your sword. We might see then your true worth.”

  “What, so you can run me through?”

  “If you surrender, I shall spare your men.”

  Mircea noted that the offer did not include him. His men looked to him to do it. They could not win this fight. To continue with the struggle would see them all dead. His mind raced as he tried to think of a way out of this. But there was none.

  He saw his men lowering their swords from the corner of his eye. “Do not believe him,” he warned them. “He has murdered scores of your comrades in their homes this very evening. Even as I speak their blood is warm.”

  “He is only concerned with saving his own hide,” Florescu advised them.

  “His word is like shit on his shoe! He has no sense of loyalty or honour.”

  “He would see you all dead to save his own neck. He cares nothing for you. And why would he? He has led an easy life while you have laboured hard for all you hold dear. You are nothing to him and his kind and, you would do well to remember it. When one of you dies, he would replace you with another. That is what you are to the likes of him.”

  Mircea worried that his men believed it. “If you surrender,” he tried again, “you shall all be strung up after I am. One at a time. At least if you fight you have some chance to walk away. If you die then you shall do it with honour.”

  Florescu tried one last time. “If you drop your swords I shall allow you one hour to leave the city. One hour,” he repeated. “If not, you shall all die where you stand. You shall die with him.”

  “Do not listen to him! He is given to all kinds of treachery!”

  Florescu turned his attention back to Mircea. “If you surrender you would also ensure your mother has safe passage out of the city.”

  Those words struck a nerve. Mircea flew into a frenzy. They have my mother. He dived at his enemy, cutting down the two men who blocked his path. Florescu’s men rushed at him and dragged him down to the ground. They disarmed him and tied his hands behind his back. His men dropped their weapons and turned to leave.

  Florescu looked at them and grinned. He was never going to keep his word. “Arrest them!” he shouted.

  “I told you!” Mircea screamed. “There is no honour in this cutthroat! Why did you think you could trust him? You fools!”

  Two men held him while a third punched him hard to the stomach. His knees sagged and he coughed and choked, struggling for breath.

  Florescu leant over close to his ear. “That is the last insult that shall ever leave those lips. You may not even have any lips by the time I am done with you.”

  “You lived under my mother’s roof and yet you threaten her life. A snake could not crawl lower than you.”

  “You Draculestis are all one and the same. Tonight, the city shall be rid of you all, one way or another.” He turned to his men. “Take him to the piata and wait for me there.”

  The piata was the square in the centre of the city. It was a cobble-stoned area with a tree in its middle. Near to it stood a well where the citizens of the city had the freedom to drink. Around it, one could see the stocks. Here the people would ridicule and abuse those restrained there. But it was the three gallows, which had not seen use for a while, that dominated the area.

  Florescu headed to the palace where his men had broken through. The fight looked to be over with the guards either dead or having fled. His men now rampaged through the building. They killed any of the male servant
s they could find. The females they raped and murdered too. The worst fate was to befall anyone loyal to the family of Dracul.

  Craiovescu’s men had found Maia in her bedchamber. In her mind she thought it the only safe place in the palace, unaware she was the only person still alive there. She cursed her captors, abhorred at the violation of her home. They had no right to enter the private rooms of a queen. When she saw Florescu she feared the worst.

  She looked at him with real hatred. “What is the meaning of this? I am of royal blood. You have no right to be here. Get out of my house!”

  He walked straight up to her and punched her hard to the jaw. She fell in a heap on the floor, too shocked and stunned to speak. He leant over her and struck her twice more. When she was still, he ripped her clothing down the back.

  “It is no longer your house,” he advised her. “Open your mouth to me again and I shall hang you in the street.”

  She was too dazed to respond. He grabbed her by the hair, forcing her to her feet. When she stood upright, one of his men removed the rest of her clothing.

  He dragged her across the room by her hair. The force he exacted caused her to cry out. He struck her a fourth time and threw her down on her bed. “After tonight,” he said in a tone so cold it chilled her, “the name Dracul shall be but a memory in this place.”

  She put a hand to her bleeding lip. His men filed in through the door of her bedchamber to watch her humiliation.

  “Come in,” he called to them. “Watch how I deal with the Draculesti whore!”

  Maia could not believe this was happening to her. She lay there helpless on her stomach, unable to defend herself or her dignity. The eyes of his men felt like hot coals all over her body. She glared at them, hoping they would feel the shame of being a party to this atrocity.

  She screamed when he rammed into her from behind. Her head then sagged forward against the bed as she cried. The pain of his forced entry was excruciating. It caused her to scream over and over with his every thrust.

  Not satisfied with that, he pulled hard at her hair until her face was upright again. He slapped her across the side of the head. “Open your eyes!”

  She did as he instructed until she could see him in the mirror a few feet away.

  “Do not look away,” he warned. “I want you to see my face when I fuck you.”

  The ordeal seemed to last an eternity to her. When he was finished he left her lying naked on the bed. She felt his juices trickle from her opening, which was grazed and bleeding. Never in her life had she felt so dirty. Never had she felt so alone.

  “You forget,” she told him between sobs, “that I am of royal blood. My brother still reigns in Moldavia. Do not think news of your crime should not reach his ears.”

  Florescu did not even offer her a glance. He did up his breeches and turned to his men. “If anyone else wants a turn with the Draculesti whore they had better hurry. I have an execution to oversee on the piata.”

  The chance to have their way with a true royal was something none of them could have imagined. A fight almost broke out in their eagerness to get at her. Then for the best part of an hour they took turns with Dracul’s wife. Her vagina took such a battering that they resorted to taking her anally. For the whole of the ordeal Florescu sat in a chair in front of her and watched.

  When it ended, Maia was in a very bad state of health. She was barely conscious as they bound her hands together. They then dragged her to the piata in the centre of the city, naked and bleeding both from their assault on her and from the numerous times she fell to her knees.

  Hunyadi arrived in the city at the same time Florescu had gone to her rooms. He rode through the front gates without striking a single blow. The fighting in the streets had ceased. The few men still alive that remained loyal to Dracul cared only to find a way out of the city. Florescu had won the day, giving the White Knight full control.

  His men had removed the platforms from around the gallows. For the last hour they strung up Dracul’s men one after another. With their hands bound and each noose tied to a horse they died a slow and agonising death. When the fighting broke out the people of the city had hidden away. Now many of them stood about the piata to witness the brutal scene.

  They saw Mircea beaten to a pulp. Blood flowed freely from the cuts around his eyes and lips, his nose and teeth broken. One by one, they forced him to watch the executions of those loyal to his father’s name.

  On Florescu’s order his men started a fire on the ground near to the gallows. The hot coals already glowed in the dark night air. At the foot of the tree in the centre of the piata a freshly dug grave awaited a host.

  Mircea was on his knees now, unable to stand without assistance. When he saw his enemies drag his mother to the piata he cried out. “No! Leave her out of this!”

  Someone dealt him a swift blow to the side of the head. It knocked him half senseless and he fell quiet again. The cold night air revived Maia. Tears streamed down her face when she saw what they had done to her boy.

  Hunyadi walked up to her, his eyes cold and menacing. “This is the outcome of your husband’s actions to ruin me. Tonight, all he loves shall be gone. His family and his kingdom.”

  “You are a despicable man,” she accused. “If you can even be called a man. For six months I gave you the warmth and hospitality of my home. This is what you give me in return.”

  He slapped her hard to the face. “Mind your tone with me.”

  She only needed to see that look in his eyes to know she was going to die. The realisation of that was hard, but it gave her strength. As much as she wanted to cry she would not do so in front of him. Nor would she plead for her life. She came from royal stock and she intended to show him what that meant. Despite the image he exuded, he was born a peasant and always would be one in her eyes.

  Taking a deep breath, she raised her head again to look at him. “I see how you built your reputation, great White Knight of Hungary. On the murder of innocents and the raping of women, you built your name. What a fine example of a man you are. Are you even a man? You surely are not the noble you profess to be. I see a weak and scared man. A man born a peasant, and who shall die as one.”

  His gaze grew colder still. “I will silence you for once and for all, bitch!” He turned to one of the men holding her. “Do it!”

  They dragged her the few yards to the gallows. The people watched in horror as they placed a noose around her neck. Each and every one of them felt sickened, but dared not speak out. If Hunyadi could do this to her, of all people, then he could do the same to them, and worse.

  “I curse you, John Hunyadi!” she screamed, as he climbed back onto his horse. “Violator of women! Murderer of children! This shall be the last moment of success you ever enjoy! I curse you and all that carry your blood!”

  “This,” Hunyadi shouted to the crowd, “is how I deal with those loyal to Dracul! Erase that name from your minds and never speak it again! This same fate awaits any man or woman who dares to defy me.”

  One of his men walked the horse, to which he had secured the rope, forward six feet. It lifted Maia by the neck the same distance from the ground. The crowd fell silent. For almost three minutes she kicked out with her legs, fighting for her life.

  Her eyes bulged from a face that turned dark purple. Her swollen tongue protruded from her mouth. She bit into it so hard, it eventually severed and dropped to the cobblestones below.

  Mircea collapsed to the ground. To have to witness such a sight devastated him. His own mother made to endure such a cruel death. And at the hands of a man whose life he had saved. He cursed himself for doing so and he cursed God too. How can You allow this?

  Florescu grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head up so he could watch. Mircea fought against him and the pain as best he could. He took a further beating, but refused to look at his mother die.

  “If you cannot bear to look,” Florescu snarled. “I can soon remedy that.”

  He walked over to the fir
e and pulled out one of the pokers resting among the hot coals. The end glowed bright orange and he lifted it up for all to see. Walking back to Mircea he ordered his men. “Hold him down!”

  Florescu was a vicious man. People knew him for his cruelty but, until now, had not seen the true evil in him. His men held Mircea in a firm grip so he could not move. Then Florescu pressed the red-hot poker down against the bridge of his nose. The men heard a loud hissing sound. They caught too the strong smell of charred flesh. Mircea screamed in the most horrible way as the metal melted flesh and bone. Many of those watching had to turn away. Some even dropped to their knees and vomited. Florescu continued to apply pressure until the poker had burned through both his eyes.

  They let him fall to the ground where his body convulsed from the shock. Foam flowed from the corners of his mouth as his body jerked and stiffened.

  Hunyadi had seen enough. “Bury him!”

  Four of the men picked Mircea up and carried him to the open grave. They looked to Hunyadi and then threw him into the hole when they received the nod. Before Mircea stopped breathing they filled the grave in around him.

  WALLACHIA. THE CAMP OF VLAD DRACUL TO THE EAST OF BUCHAREST.

  SIX DAYS LATER. DECEMBER, 1447.

  Dracul and his few men remained on the move for days. There was no safe place for him within fifty miles of the city. He did not allow his captain to return there. His scouts went out every day and came back with grim news. They spoke of the many hanged and thick clouds of smoke over the city. Dracul knew it would mean certain death to go back. A terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach told him he had already lost those he loved. His friend he needed alive.

  They acquired horses and rounded up those of his men they could find. Six days after leaving, Dracul had three hundred men at his side. He led them south along the Dimbovita River towards Snagov. It was on the way that a trusted messenger found him with news of what had happened in the city the night he left.

  After killing those he loved, his enemies hunted long and hard for him. They did not exhaust the search until the middle of the night. At first light it resumed, to no avail. They went through every house and any other place they could find. Three days in, they knew Dracul was gone.