One of the stick-thin women clicked open Grace’s leather briefcase. She took a pair of glasses from a case, handing them to the historian.
The woman lingered there, breathing deeply. Grace could hear an audible sniff, as if the woman was smelling her.
“Not those,” snapped Grace. “In my purse,” she said. “The ones you have there are just for reading.”
The woman looked at the Count. He gave a curt nod. From the shadows, a fuchsia-haired woman pulled out Grace’s purse.
“Yes, the ones in the beaded case.”
Grace held still while the skeletal hands adjusted them on her face. As the woman drew away, Grace looked at her arms. Purple and yellow bruises, withered skin.
“Where am I?” she asked. She glanced about, taking in her surroundings. The fireplace was fifteenth-century granite with a marble mantel, smooth from centuries of wear. A muted fresco of Roman emperors and Habsburg rulers was recessed in the coffered ceiling above her head. A Venetian artist, she decided. Fifteen, sixteenth century at the latest.
“You are in my home. In Slovakia. Welcome, Dr. Path.”
“Welcome? How dare you! You kidnapped me!”
“Kidnap? That seems such a hostile term. I have invited you to sojourn in my castle.”
“Why? What do you want with me? I am a historian, what could I—?”
“Again, I ask only what we can do to persuade your daughter to come and pay me a visit.”
Grace pretended she didn’t hear. “Why are you holding me prisoner?”
The Count arched his brow.
“Because you might be useful to me. Your husband was not, I am afraid.”
Useful. The word rang in Grace’s ears. A throbbing sound—her heart?—pounded, deafening her.
“My husband died in a car accident ten years ago!”
“Yes. We thought that might bring your daughter here again. Unfortunate death, but necessary.”
Grace’s mouth went dry. She made a clicking sound when she tried to talk. She swallowed hard.
“What do you mean, again?”
“Ah, you have forgotten. Years ago, when she was a child of—what, five or six?—you brought her in tow to a research congress in Bratislava. It was a congress on the reign of Matthias II.”
Grace’s memory raced. There had been so many researchers and experts there. Hundreds of people. There had been a moment of panic when she couldn’t find Betsy—the little girl had disappeared.
Then she remembered, the moment from decades ago suddenly perfectly clear in her mind. The tall, elegant man with a silver-topped cane who held her daughter on his knee, gazing into her eyes. Who is that man? she had thought. As she rushed forward to reclaim her daughter, a tinkling voice drifted through the air. “Ah, Count Bathory. Is it not enough you have captured all the women’s hearts in Czechoslovakia and Hungary? Must you cast your spell on American hearts so young and tender?”
“Count Bathory,” Grace whispered now as she looked at the man who held her prisoner. “I remember—you had my daughter—”
“Ah, good. So you do remember me. I was quite offended when your husband pretended he could not. Especially after all our—time—together.”
A stab of pain struck her chest and she closed her eyes.
“I have heard you are researching my illustrious ancestor, Countess Bathory. You realize that we are approaching a very special anniversary in the next few days?”
Grace stared at her captor.
“Of course you know—”
“What do you want with my daughter?” she interrupted.
“That is my own personal business,” he said. “But let’s just say she might possess something I need.”
A shadow crossed his face. The light in his eyes turned flat.
Then he forced a smile, drawing back the vivid lips, exposing long white teeth.
Chapter 15
ČACHTICE CASTLE
DECEMBER 7, 1610
Zuzana spied on the new horsemaster from the arrow slits of the keep. She had known him as a youth from Sarvar Castle in the flatlands of Lower Hungary, but it had been thirteen long years since she had seen his boyish face.
He had grown—in physique and in confidence. Her first recollection of Janos had been as a silent boy sipping beer in the corner as their fathers exchanged stories, clapping each other on the back.
But that was before he became her best—and most loyal—childhood friend. The boy who had taught her to ride.
Now she watched him speak to the head guard, self-assured in his stance, despite his beardless face.
Janos’s father, Anastatius Szilvasi—horsemaster to Count Nadasdy—was a close friend of her father, Ales Bende. Ales was the castle smithy and his skill in shoeing Count Nadasdy’s vast stable of horses was appreciated most by the horsemaster himself. Szilvasi and Zuzana’s father had ridden many campaigns together against the Ottomans. Bende ensured that the horses were expertly shod, keeping Nadasdy and his cavalry well-mounted.
The horsemaster was known to dip a ladle into their ale barrel on occasion, breaking coarse bread with the family. Zuzana’s brother Ladislav had worked in the stables during his short life and had been a favorite stable hand.
“Your brother had a way with horses,” said the elder Szilvasi. He chucked little Zuzana under the chin, ignoring her pocked skin and deep scars. He lifted her up on his knee, jogging it under her as if she were on a pony ride. She squealed with delight. She loved nothing more than horses.
“I think my own son, Janos, has the gift as well, but time will tell.”
Horsemaster Szilvasi would bring Janos in tow, a small boy who remained quiet and serious, listening as the two men, blacksmith and horsemaster, exchanged news about horse breeding, the encroaching Ottomans, Habsburg politics, and the Bathory-Nadasdy involvement in the Austrian-Ottoman War.
Zuzana, only five years old at the time, stared across the room at the boy. He ignored her for she was only a baby, a baby with a scarred face.
“Did you fall into a fire pit?” he asked her one day.
“No,” she said, bewildered. “What fire?”
The boy reached out his left hand. For the first time, she saw the long white scar on the edge of his hand.
He stroked the rim of a deep pock on her face, solemnly tracing the scar. Zuzana snatched at his wrist, flinging his hand away from her face.
Zuzana touched her skin with her baby fingertips, ducking her chin down like a scalded swan. “Mama says it was the pox. The angels saved me.”
“Angels? No, you must have had the wink of a witch to save you from death. You are born lucky.”
Janos Szilvasi was the only soul to ever call her lucky.
The next morning, Zuzana woke with a terrible cold. Her throat burned when she swallowed, her nose ran constantly, soaking her linen rag.
How can I attend the Countess in this condition?
Zuzana powdered her nose, to conceal the red swelling and chafed skin. She stuffed the linen rag in her apron, trying hard not to sniffle.
The Countess settled into her high-back chair for her morning toilette. She looked up at her attendant in mirror.
Zuzana sneezed convulsively, her hands flying to cover her face.
“What? Zuzana, you are ill! How dare you approach me in this condition!”
“I am sorry, Countess.”
“I will not have you attend me with your sniffling nose and rheumy eyes,” said the Countess, her finger jabbing toward the door. “Out, immediately! Work in the kitchen toting water, fetching wood for the fire. Whatever Brona the cook orders you to do.”
“Yes, Countess.”
“Only return when you are well again. Not a moment before.”
“But who shall attend to your toilette?”
The Countess hesitated. She dragged her fingertips across her complexion, inspecting her skin in the mirror.
“Send in Vida. She may attend me until you are healthy once more.”
Zuzana ran to fetch Vida from the cold corridor, where she still lay on her palette, straw woven into her long black hair.
“Wake at once! Comb your hair—you are expected in the vanity to perform the Countess’s toilette this morning.”
Zuzana saw the horror cross the girl’s face as she scrambled to her feet.
“Me! Attend the Countess’s skin? But she commanded me never to accompany her again—”
“I have all the unguents and powders laid out. I can teach you. First you clean her skin with ambergris oil, using the white lamb’s wool—”
“Zuzana! I have heard how she attacks those who do not please her. She bloodied the face of the girl who tugged at a tangle in her hair.”
“You must not tug. You must compliment her ceaselessly, entertain her by indulging her before her looking glass. After the ambergris oil—do use it sparingly, it is dear—apply the special clay I have prepared in the crimson glass jar. It whitens her complexion. Leave it to work its wonders for a quarter of an hour. Then remove it with rosemary water. That is in the blue flask. Next…”
Vida composed herself at the door, her heart thumping in her throat.
“Countess. I have the pleasure to—”
“What has taken you so much time! The fire in the grate has gone out. I am chilled and will most likely take ill, like the wretched pox-faced girl who left me here.”
“Madame, I came as soon as I understood the ways of Zuzana’s toilette methods,” said Vida, turning white. She hurried to the grate, feeding the faint embers with dried twigs.
“I will have the fire ablaze in no time,” she said, coaxing flames with her breath.
“Bring me the ermine furs, girl!” said the Countess, shivering.
Vida glanced at the embers, still dull and stubborn. The little twigs only smoked. The Countess coughed, waving the smoke from her face.
“You are really quite useless. My furs, at once—”
“Yes, Countess.”
Vida opened the cedar chest, pulling out the sleek fur cloak. She draped it over the Countess’s shoulders.
The Countess saw Vida’s soft white hands in the mirror as the girl adjusted the cloak. Vida’s hands grazed the Countess’s.