House of Bathory(81)
“I remember now,” he said, nodding. “You are the one who delivered her to the cunning woman.”
“The girl was mad with pain.”
“I am pleased you have come to the house of the Lord. There is no more private place to speak. We have no knaves hiding in chapels or spies in dark corners. Our humble church has nothing but this one room for the faithful. Sit, my son. Please.”
“I have spoken to Count Thurzo,” said Szilvasi. “He has told me that you have buried the bodies of scores of girls.”
“Yes, this is God’s own truth. But I have told the Countess I shall not continue to do so.”
“Were they murdered?”
Ponikenusz moistened his lips. “What interest do you have in their deaths, Horsemaster?”
“I will not knowingly serve a murderess, Father. I will seek justice.”
Pastor Ponikenusz bowed his head. “Yes,” he said at last, “they were murdered.” He looked directly into Szilvasi’s eyes in the half-light. “There is no doubt. Brutally tortured, their bodies mutilated, God bless their innocent souls.”
“Tortured. And then she sent them to be interred in the church yard?”
“With full church rites. She insisted on that. Making up lies about their deaths when all one has to do is examine them to see the truth. Devoid of blood, drained through their open veins. I bless their souls, but now I have refused to allow our cemetery to be the repository of her diabolical cruelty.”
Janos cast his eyes about the simple church, which was cold and gloomy. The wax of the crude candles gave off an acrid smell.
“Diabolical?”
“The Countess Bathory enjoys the suffering of others. Those who escape alive bring stories of naked girls whipped, their private parts burned, their breasts bitten by the Countess herself, as if she were a rabid dog.”
Janos thought of Zuzana.
“You have great courage to challenge the Countess,” said Janos.
“I am a servant of God,” said Ponikenusz. “I cannot condone the deeds of a murderess. I must protect the lives and souls of the faithful. That is why I approached the Palatine Thurzo and have written our King.”
Janos extended his hand to the priest.
“Then we are brothers in this common purpose—to bring her murderous deeds to the light of justice.”
“The Countess shall most certainly be judged before God,” said the pastor, looking past Janos’s shoulder to the cross on the altar. “It is earthly justice I doubt.”
Chapter 65
SOMEWHERE IN SLOVAKIA
DECEMBER 25, 2010
Grace sighed, tears leaving a wet trail down her face.
From her calculations, today must be Christmas. Betsy must be worried sick. A flicker of a memory shot through her mind, that disastrous Christmas in Carbondale when she had gotten so drunk on plum brandy. The first Christmas after her husband died.
No. Was murdered. He was murdered. And now would this madman murder her?
Why had she not been suspicious that night in the hotel in Piestany?
She shook her head, remembering the night she was kidnapped.
The Hotel Thermia dining room was opulent, hung with chandeliers that glittered in the mirrors. She had been seated in the front of the room, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows to the lit garden beyond.
She had ordered garlic soup, a Slovak specialty, to take the chill from her bones. She had spent the day walking the ruins of Čachtice Castle, comparing her seventeenth-century sketch to the rocky remains. The wind was bitter, and the stones glinted with frost. The footing was treacherous. She had seen only five other visitors in the course of the day, hidden in mufflers and overcoats. They snapped a few photos and hurried back down the steep path to get out of the wind.
There inside the Hotel Thermia it was warm, even if cavernous. She nodded to the waitress, who took her order.
“I would like the diviak lesny—wild boar?—in sour cherry sauce,” said Grace, suddenly famished.
The Slovak girl smiled at the American woman’s attempt to speak in her native language.
“Dobre,” she said, writing down the order. Then she wound her way through the many tables, which were crowded with overweight Germans, Arabs, Russians, and Hasidic Jews who had come to Piestany to take the waters.
When the waitress returned, she set a flute of champagne on the table.
“I didn’t order this,” said Grace.
“No, the man at table there did,” said the waitress inclining her head to the left discreetly. “In…smoking…?”
“Tuxedo,” Grace corrected.
Grace turned to see the gray-haired man rise from the table. She wanted to find her glasses so she could see him more clearly. He accepted a winter cape from the waiter, buttoned the clasp, and took a silver-tipped cane.