The stallion pinned back his ears, racing down into the barren fields below, where Janos knew the flat plain would allow him to gallop the horse in ever-decreasing circles.
At first the stallion ignored the rider’s signals—the hackamore was not strong enough to restrain the beast. His legs wrapped around the barrel of the horse like tight bands, Janos rode without exerting his will, his body accepting the surging wave of motion under him.
The mud sucked at the horse’s hoofs, and the hard gallop brought a lather of briny foam that worked down the stallion’s flanks and legs. Janos felt the horse’s lungs heaving, the labored rhythm of breath in time to the three-count beat of the gallop.
As the horse slowed, if only a little, Janos put subtle pressure on the reins, a suggestion rather than a command. The stallion turned his head as Janos guided the rein, slowly working the horse into a wide circle, still at a gallop.
An hour later, Janos had slowed the stallion to a walk. He patted the horse’s slick wet neck, grainy with salt. A smile came to his lips as he sniffed in the good scent of cold air and hot horse.
Then the smile vanished.
Stumbling down the castle road was a small figure, hands outstretched. A blind child?
The wind delivered her howling cries. A girl. No, a young woman, her face twisted in anguish.
Janos urged the horse closer with his legs.
“Who goes there? Maiden, what is your trouble?”
Vida thrust her hands out to the drizzling sleet. Janos saw the blistered hands, charred black and oozing.
“My God!” he cried. He dismounted the exhausted horse and held the girl’s wrists. “How?”
“The Countess,” sobbed the girl. “I stole a taste of goose fat.”
Janos looked at the thin whisper of a girl, her oozing wounds. His eyes scanned the horizon where the towering castle loomed, blocking the weak sunlight. The horse whinnied shrilly, the high-pitched cry filling the air.
“We must get you help,” Janos said. “I will take you home. Are you from Čachtice?”
“Yes,” whimpered the girl. “A woman in the village makes healing balms.”
Janos mounted and steadied the horse. He grabbed the girl by her bony forearm, swinging her light body in front of him on the saddle. The horse broke into a trot down the road, carrying the two riders toward the village of Čachtice.
Janos rode through the muddy streets of Čachtice. The sewers ran along the sides of the road, clogged with stinking waste. A woman flung open her shutter and emptied her clay chamber pot.
Janos raised his eyes at the sound.
“Agh!” he shouted, the filth just missing him, Vida, and the stallion.
The woman drew back into the house, slamming her shutters in consternation.
Vida was barely conscious, but she directed him in whispers and moans to a simple hovel with gray straw thatch and bundles of herbs and roots dangling on pegs in the cold winter air.
“Cunning woman,” she gasped. “Care for me.”
Janos helped her to the ground. She sagged against him.
Several of the townspeople gathered around, their mouths open in astonishment.
“Help her!” said Janos. “Take her to the witch!’
“I am not flattered to be called a witch,” said a voice, aged and stern. “I am a cunning woman, a healer.”
The woman inspected Vida’s injured hands, nodding her head grimly.
“The Countess?”
The girl nodded her head.
“Take her inside. I will see what I can do.”
Two men carried the girl over the threshold, disappearing into the cottage.
“And thank you, stranger,” said the cunning woman.
“Janos Szilvasi. Horsemaster at Bathory Castle.”
“May God defend you then. And do not mention you have given succor to this poor girl or you will suffer the worse. The Countess does not tolerate interference in her affairs.”
Then the old woman disappeared into the darkness of her hovel, shutting the door on the stranger from Čachtice Castle.
Chapter 27
ČACHTICE LUTHERAN CHURCH
DECEMBER 19, 1610
The Lutheran minister Jakub Ponikenusz laid his Bible on the rough-hewn table by the hearth. He took care to put it far from the inkwell, for when he wrote his sermons he often took on a feverish intensity and his arms flailed, as if he were fighting the demons he had denounced.
His letters to the King had not been acknowledged until last Sunday, when an elegant man, dressed in silk and a finely tailored wool coat, had entered the Protestant church in Čachtice, standing at the back of the congregation.
The pews were packed full, as usual, and there was nowhere to sit in the little stone church. Still, seeing the finely dressed stranger standing by the baptismal font, Pastor Ponikenusz suspected he had not come to worship.