House of Bathory(41)

Fizko pulled the girl to her feet.

“Give me your hand, thief,” commanded the Countess.

Vida’s eyes flew open in horror. “No, Countess! No!”

Darvulia stepped forward to wrestle the girl’s hand open, calling to the idiot Fizko to help restrain her. Ilona Joo approached with the tray.

“You are lucky she does not burn your mouth,” whispered Darvulia in the girl’s ear. “Take your punishment well or she may invent another.”

One by one, Ilona Joo lifted the coins with the tongs and pressed them into Vida’s right hand.

The girl howled and then fainted with pain. The coins clattered to the floor and Ilona Joo picked them up, smoking, from the stones. The room smelled of seared flesh.

The dwarf idiot licked his lips, thinking it was venison on Brona’s spit that brought the aroma to the air.





Chapter 26

ČACHTICE CASTLE

DECEMBER 18, 1610





The stallion reared when the cinch was tightened. The stable boy jumped away and fell backward into the straw. The horse pulled hard at the rope, black hooves slashing.

The boy scrambled away from the murderous forelegs, hands and knees in the scattered straw.

“I will handle him,” said Janos.

The white stallion snorted, his nostrils flaring red-pink. He roared, an outraged neigh, a murderous high note that made the stable boys tremble.

“Easy, boy, easy,” Janos began.

Again the screaming neigh, ringing through the air. The other horses jumped back, tugging at the common line tying them the length of the stable.

Aloyz brought a leather bridle, a heavy iron bit suspended from the two thick leather cheek pieces.

Janos touched his fingers to the cold, curved metal of the bit.

“No,” he said. “Bring me a bitless bridle. I will ride him with just the reins so he feels my hands instead of the taste of metal.”

Aloyz ducked his head and ran back to the locked tack chest—a precaution against the gnawing rats—to find a hackamore.

By the time Aloyz had returned to the stall, Janos had managed to calm the horse enough to rest his hand on the thick muscle of his upper leg and chest.

It would be another two hours of patience and coaxing before the horsemaster could slip the hackamore over the stallion’s ears and nose.





Vida stumbled, reeling in pain, from the Countess’s chamber. Her servant friends dared not help, though they interlaced their fingers in prayer, so tight their knuckles shone white in the dim light of the corridors.

“God bless you, Vida,” one whispered as the girl rushed forward, her charred hands stretched open to the cold air like a blind woman.

“Run to the well and soak your wounds,” screamed Zuzana, watching her only friend’s torture. “Plunge them into the snow until the fire is quenched!”

“Silence!” hissed Darvulia, following Vida down the hall. “She should suffer in full, the dirty thief! If you console her, may you suffer the same, Slecna Zuzana.”

Darvulia made certain that Vida did not stop at the well.

“You have been shown mercy,” she said, shoving the girl through the gate of the castle. “The Countess’s punishment could have been far worse.”

Vida’s mouth twisted in a howl as she ran from the shrouded darkness of Čachtice Castle into the light of day. She knew Darvulia was right. Muffled cries of tortured pain had reached her ears many nights as she lay curled on the rough mat outside the Countess’s door.





The stallion reared, despite the calming words and gentle hands of Janos Szilvasi. The young horsemaster’s legs were strong and his balance keen, but still he strung his fingers through the long mane of his mount to keep his seat.

“Open the gates,” he shouted, the leather reins chafing his hands.

The stable boys ran across the courtyard, breathlessly reaching the guards.

“Unbolt the main gate, let down the drawbridge!” cried Aloyz. “Master Szilvasi takes out the stallion!”

The guards waited for the confirmation from Erno Kovach, who nodded. “Open!”

The horse reared back on its haunches as the gates opened, revealing the steep hill and winding road down toward the village.

“Stand away,” shouted Janos, “I cannot hold him back!”

The rider knotted one hand into the horse’s mane and drove his heels into the steed’s belly. If he was going to bolt, it was better the horse sensed the rider’s will driving him.

The slick paving stones leading to the castle gate made the horse slip, but he was sure-footed and quickly gained his balance. As rider and stallion emerged into the cold wind blowing from the peaks of the Little Carpathians, the village of Čachtice came into view, a toy miniature of thatched-roof houses below them. The road was wet and thick spatters of mud from the horse’s churning hooves soon covered the boots of his rider. Janos narrowed his eyes, stinging with tears, against the biting mountain wind.