The Count walked to his desk, tucked away in a far corner of the room. He pressed an intercom by the computer.
“Send in Almos,” he said into the intercom. “I am going to try to find a way to keep you occupied, Dr. Path.”
A boy, perhaps eighteen, came in. He bobbed a greeting and adjusted his glasses on his nose. Almos was clearly the Slovakian version of a teenage techie nerd.
“Dobre den,” he said, his voice courteous.
“Forgive him, he doesn’t speak a word of English,” said the Count. “I find that useful.” He smiled and went on, “Before you were exposed to such a despicable display by my servant girls, I was planning to give you a surprise.”
He nodded to Almos, who flicked on the computer. It hummed to life, blinking blue shadows across the boy’s face.
“Naturally you will not be able to use the internet—Almos is disabling it now—but you will see that I have downloaded many educational programs. History, psychology, physics. Courses and lectures I have selected from various institutions. I thought they might keep you engaged while you are here with us.”
“Thank you,” Grace whispered, still shaking. How do you feign gratitude to a madman?
“And please, help yourself to the books in my library here. You may find some interesting reading while we wait.”
“Wait for what?” she asked.
The Count didn’t answer, staring straight ahead.
Chapter 29
ČACHTICE VILLAGE CHURCHYARD
DECEMBER 19, 1610
The rattling of the wagon drew the gravedigger’s attention.
“Here comes another,” he called down to the man below, who heaved another shovel of earth up to the surface.
“Ne, Havel! Cannot be,” the man in the open grave shouted back. “We have not finished this one.”
The gravedigger above shook his shaggy head, scratching his neck. “ ’Tis truth,” he insisted. “They’ve come to dump another.”
He set down his shovel and wiped the dirty sweat from his face. Despite the cold air, his body was warm from the hard work of digging in the freezing ground.
Ales scowled up from below. “Does the carriage bear the emblem of the Countess?”
The first gravedigger squinted. “The damned teeth of the wolf.” He spat viciously, his spittle soaking into the freshly turned soil.
Havel watched as the driver stopped and waited for the footman to fetch the pastor.
“Will you look at that?” he said, leaning against his shovel, watching, open-mouthed. Pastor Jakub Ponikenusz strode from the church, followed by another man, clearly a noble. The pastor stopped, arms folded, legs set wide, immoveable, and shook his head vehemently as the footman gestured toward the spiked iron gate of the cemetery. Standing beside him the gentleman listened, staring at the wagon’s load.
“The pastor is not letting them in!” said the gravedigger, throwing down his shovel. “He stands against the Countess!”
“You take me for a fool,” said the man in the hole. “Help me out!”
Havel reached down into the newly dug grave and hauled up his muddy-faced partner. “Look for yourself!” he said.
The driver had descended now and together with the footman gestured insistently at their covered load. The two gravediggers edged closer, so they could hear.
“No more of her evil shall find its way into sanctified land of the Church!” the pastor declared.
The driver protested. “But the girls are innocent! Surely they should have the blessings and comfort of the Church! They were baptized in the Church by Reverend Berthoni himself, God bless his soul.”
“Yes, and it was Andras Berthoni who warned me of the Countess before his death! His letters are filled with damning evidence against that monster.”
The driver and footman hung their heads.
“Come, Lord Thurzo,” said the pastor. “See what innocent souls our Countess sends us day after day!”
The nobleman approached the wagon, his gait stiff and reluctant. Ponikenusz threw back the coarse blanket with a violent tug.
“Behold!” he said.
Thurzo gasped and raised a gloved hand to his face as he looked into the wagon.
A young woman lay on the bare boards of the wagon. Her face was contorted in agony, dark blood stains soiling her dress. There were small puncture wounds on her neck.
“What is this?” murmured Count Thurzo. The dried leaves crunched under his boot heel as he turned away from the sight.
“The Countess reports a rabid dog attacked her,” said the driver. He, too, glanced away from the girl, his right hand making the sign of the cross.
Thurzo looked again at the girl’s body. Then he stared at the pastor, saying nothing.
“I will bless those unfortunate girls, with all power instilled in me by the Church,” Ponikenusz said, his voice softening. “Wherever their bodies are buried, God has already taken their innocent souls to his bosom.”
The gravediggers looked at each other in disbelief.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” the pastor began, bowing his head.
The gravediggers pulled off their sweat-stained caps, loose dirt tumbling to the ground.
“So you see the graves—thirty-two in all. Graves of girls who had ‘accidents’ at the castle,” said the pastor, his tone acid. “When the ground freezes too hard in the winter months, we stack the bodies in a root cellar to bury in the spring.”
He led Count Thurzo through the graveyard to a row of fresh mounds of dirt.
“This one. Albina Holub. Born here in Čachtice. A knife slipped and cut her wrist when she was slicing vegetables. Cut it so badly that she bled to death. Clumsy girl, it seems. Serves her right, they said, for mishandling the Countess’s fine cutlery.”
Thurzo tightened his lips, pale as slivers of cheese.
“And this one, Barbora Mokry. It seems she slipped and knocked her head against the well, only a week after Albina had her mishap with the knife. An unfortunate coincidence. Gashed her head so badly that she bled to death. Nothing, it seems, could be done.
“And over here is the first maiden who brought me fresh bread and butter when I arrived at the parish. She called me Sir, and bowed as if I were a king. She was devoted to the scriptures, and would sit in rapt attention in Mass. Of course the poor girl could not read, but God’s holy word resonated in her soul.”
“What happened to her?” asked Thurzo.
“It seems that she attended to the Countess’s bath when her regular attendant was ill with a fever. The water was too cool, sending the Countess into a rage. The Countess screamed at the girl, and beat her about the head and shoulders until she bled.”
“And then what?”
“We do not know. There was a cut on her neck where the Countess scratched her in fury. And a savage bite, ripping the flesh from her breast. She—” the pastor’s voice cracked. He clenched his eyes shut, his face pinched with emotion.
Then he looked into the Count’s eyes. “The Countess simply wrote she bled to death.”
Chapter 30
HOFBURG PALACE, VIENNA
DECEMBER 20, 1610
Winter seized Vienna on the eve of the solstice. Hard frosts choked the earth. Brittle leaves clung to branches coated in ice.
King Matthias II, ruler of Hungary, Austria, and Moravia complained first of the unseasonable cold and then the oppressive heat from the colossal ceramic furnace of the Hofburg Palace.
His peevish humor was aggravated by thwarted ambition. The summer had seen his army’s bloody advance on Prague. The Brother’s War, it was called, as Matthias’s forces marched toward the Hrad, to wrest power from his brother Emperor Rudolf II.
Matthias had won control of the lower kingdoms, leaving Rudolf with little more than Bohemia, a scrap of his former empire, a flimsy mantle of dignity to wrap around the once all-powerful ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.
Then Matthias had felt the surge of power, like young blood flowing in his veins. Now as he cast an eye beyond the frosted glass windows, the dead, frozen gardens and winter silence gnawed at his heart.
The tributes to the new king were not sufficient to finance his struggle against the Ottomans, who waged ever-encroaching war on the Hungarian and Austrian fronts. If they took Vienna, all of Christendom could fall to the infidels.
For years, Matthias had served as commander-in-chief of the Royal Habsburg Troops, serving his brother and his kingdom. Rudolf II had squandered the riches of the empire on alchemy, astrology, art, and costly curiosities, while the troops had survived with meager wages and scant rations. The soldiers looted whenever possible in victories against the Turks, but those victories were too few as the Habsburg armies saw their lands conquered by the enemy. The fall of Estergom, ancient seat of Hungary, still haunted Matthias. The old Hungarian capital had been lost under his watch, for he had not the troops to match the Ottomans.
Now, he held another petition from the Countess Bathory. She demanded repayment of a debt—a debt he could not begin to pay—that had financed years of war against the Infidels.
Matthias flung the letter to ground. A bowing servant scuttled by, plucking the velum missive from the carpeted floor. “As if I even possessed the gold to repay the Bathory bitch. She owns more land than I!”
“Yes,” said his trusted confessor Melchior Klesl, nodding. “And more castles.”
King Matthias scowled, looking out the window at his frozen kingdom. “Send in Count Thurzo.”
Melchior Klesl motioned to the sentries to admit the visitor.
Count Thurzo—who had been waiting for hours for an audience with the King—bowed deeply to Matthias.
“What news do you bring?”
Thurzo cast a glance around the room. “Might I ask for a private audience with Your Majesty?”
Matthias glanced to his confessor, who raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly.
The King waved a hand. All but Melchior Klesl left the room, silently closing the door.
“Speak, Count.”
“The Countess Bathory is a murderess, my Lord. I have proof.”