The driver with white hair—but a young face, she noted—opened the door. He bowed, low and stately.
The guard reluctantly opened the gate.
Morgan threw back her hair with a toss of her head, heaving her backpack higher on her shoulder and stepping into the backseat of the limousine as if she had been waiting for it all her life.
Chapter 101
ČACHTICE CASTLE
DECEMBER 29, 1610
The rider set off just before dawn. Aloyz alerted the sentries that the horsemaster needed to leave on urgent business.
The gate was opened and the bay mare trotted down the rocky path toward the main road northeast of Čachtice. Aloyz watched as rider and horse disappeared into the thick bank of fog below, gleaming an eerie silver in the moonlight.
In the blaze of dawn, Zuzana was able to canter her horse, the road flattening and following the Vah River. The cold air stung her skin. She breathed in the salty warm scent of the horse. The smell comforted her in the cold mist.
She had gone only a few hours from the castle when she came upon a troop of soldiers, watering their horses in the river. She spied the double-headed eagle insignia of the Habsburgs, flapping yellow, black, and red over the tents.
Her mare whinnied at the scent of the horses and in an instant a mounted scout galloped out of the dark woods. He overtook her on the road, before she could react.
“Stop! Who goes?”
Zuzana’s heart thumped. If she spoke, he would know her gender instantly.
The scout pulled his horse alongside her. A rough hand snatched back the hood from her face. Her face was splattered with mud from the rutted road, but he could see her blue eyes sparkling with defiance.
“What do we have here!” he crowed. “A maiden riding astride?”
“Let me go,” she answered. “I have urgent business with the King.”
She drew her sleeve across her face, wiping away the mud.
The scout dropped his hand from her hood, seeing her pocked face.
“The King?” he gasped. “A poxed witch to see a Habsburg?”
“Pray, let me continue on my way!”
The scout’s face loosened further in astonishment, his jaw dropping.
“Where do you come from?”
“Čachtice Castle.”
“We ride there this very day. These men are Count Thurzo’s party.”
“Count Thurzo? The Palatine?”
“I dare not say more. I will accompany you to his tent,” said the scout. “But cover your face with your hood so you don’t draw attention from the troops. They may take you to be an evil omen.”
Count Thurzo was washing his face in a stream when the scout approached him. He squinted at the sound of footsteps, blinking away droplets of water from his eyes.
“What have you got there?” said the Count rising.
“A maiden who says she is from Čachtice Castle,” said the guard. “She brings news from Janos Szilvasi.”
The Palatine accepted a towel from his servant and wiped his faced dry.
“How do I know she is not a spy, attending the Countess?”
Zuzana drew back her hood and leaned forward in the saddle where the Palatine could see her clearly.
He gasped. “It’s you. Countess Bathory’s little monster!”
Zuzana stared back at him.
“You remember me, Count Thurzo,” she said. Her mare moved restlessly. Zuzana reined her in, swinging the horse’s head back to face the Palatine. “I come in the name of horsemaster Janos Szilvasi, who lies ill in Čachtice Castle.”
“Why does he send you on this mission?”
“Because my absence would not raise as much suspicion. Because I can ride. And I know a way you can enter Čachtice Castle without laying siege, for her guards will fight to the death to keep you out.”
“I have the King’s soldiers here!” the Count snorted. “Bathory’s men will not hold out for long.”
“And she will disappear into the warren of tunnels beneath her castle, never to be found. You will not bear witness to her crimes. The Countess will take refuge. She will find an ally. Perhaps the strange visitor they call the Dark One. He wears a Bathory ring.”
Count Thurzo clenched his fists at his sides. A flush of red colored his damp face.
“The Dark One? You say he wears the Bathory ring?”
“Yes.”
“There is only one Bathory as cruel as she—Gabor of Transylvania. If she flees to him, no one, not even the King, can stop her.”
The Count considered the money, soldiers, and resources Gabor would amass with Erzsebet’s alliance. Sarvar, Kerestur, Leka, Ecsed, Wallachia, Transylvania, possibly even Poland.
The Ottomans. Gabor had sent his emissaries to Stamboul.
“Then you must take her by surprise,” said Zuzana. “Tonight.”