Erzsebet loved the puppets and begged for more. Istavan declared he was too old for children’s stories and stomped off to brood and drink wine.
“Ask your mother for a penny,” whispered the woodcutter’s voice, when Istavan had left. “Then we will entertain you all night long without tiring.”
“I cannot touch money,” said Erzsebet. “My father will pay you.”
“This is for me and the donkey,” said the gypsy behind the screen. “Or tell me where your mother hides her money.”
“My mother leaves no money in the castle but for the cook to buy food and wine on market days.”
“So in the kitchen?”
“Play more. I want to hear the donkey bray.”
“First I must rest,” said the gypsy, climbing out from behind the screen. “I am fatigued from the long journey to Ecsed. May I have a jug of water?”
“Ask a maid,” sniffed the young aristocrat. “I am not a servant.”
“Forgive me, young Countess. I will go to the kitchen and find a jug of water. Then I will return with more tales of braying donkey.”
But the gypsy did not return. Erzsebet swiveled her head at the commotion coming from the kitchen.
“Red-handed! The gypsy stole a thaler from the kitchen jug!” cried the cook. She chased the scoundrel out of her kitchen, all the time pounding his back with a stick of firewood.
“Help, help! Catch the thief,” she shrieked.
Erzsebet heard no more stories of the donkey and the woodcutter. The next day, the gypsy puppeteer was sewn inside a dead horse, the man’s filthy head gasping, tongue fat with thirst. He cried for water as flies accumulated on his bloody wounds, laying their eggs.
Erzsebet’s father took her by the hand, and led her to watch the dying gypsy. Above the roaring buzz of flies, Count Bathory pointed his chin in disgust to the half-dead thief.
“Water,” mumbled the puppeteer. “Have mercy!”
Count Bathory scowled, pushing his daughter closer to the wretched man.
“Behold, daughter, what becomes anyone who betrays a Bathory.”
Within two days the puppeteer was dead, rotting inside the maggot-laden guts of the horse.
Chapter 59
PIESTANY, ROYAL HUNGARY
DECEMBER 24, 1610
The letter from his father that Janos had received at Čachtice Castle contained news about more than just the knighthood.
The Palatine Count Gyorgy Thurzo wishes to meet with you. He asks you to wait at the Plow tavern the afternoon of the twenty-fourth. A messenger will meet you there. Make sure that you are not followed, my son. Count Thurzo wishes to discuss serious matters of the Crown.
Janos told Guard Kovach that a cousin from Sarvar Castle was stopping briefly at the thermal springs of Piestany to water and rest his horse. He said he was going to visit and would be back in the evening.
At the Plow, the stable boy, scratching fleabites on his ankles, took Janos’s horse to the corral behind the stone building.
A mist of sour beer and cheap wine enveloped Janos as he entered the tavern. That sour embrace battled the rich aroma of a savory goose roasting over the spit.
“What drink you?” asked the tavern keeper.
“Medovino,” said Janos.
The big man grunted and nodded to a maid, who scurried about, tucking back a stray lock of hair under her kerchief. She ladled a good portion of the honey wine into a crockery jar and handed it to Janos.
She looked at his face and took a quick sip of air.
“What is it?”
“I know you,” she said. “You are the horsemaster at the castle. I work there sometimes, helping with the laundry.”
Janos nodded.
“So we are both in the employ of the Countess,” he said.
“Ah, but I will not spend a night there,” whispered the girl, moving close to his ear. “You are the rider who brought Vida back to the village to the cunning woman!”
Janos looked around the tavern. He saw no one watching them. “Do you know Vida?”
“Yes. The poor girl still suffers from her wounds.”
“She was poorly treated by the Countess,” said Janos cautiously.
The girl looked over her shoulder before she spoke. “The Countess is a witch with the devil’s own pastimes. Village girls have disappeared forever into the bowels of the castle.”
Janos whispered to her over the rim of his mug. “Why do the girls work for her?”
The maid’s eyes narrowed. “There is no other work for them. My uncle owns the tavern. He gives me food, I have a roof over my head. Not all are as fortunate as I.”
Her eyes darted around the tavern. She bent close to Szilvasi’s ear. “There is an iron maiden in the dungeon.”
“What?”