The Count shifted the papers on his knees, his veins showing through the pale skin on his hands. He frowned.
“Mathilde, I do not like your tone of voice. How should I know what happened to Draska? She is a teenager and adolescents are less than responsible, should we say—they say one thing—”
“My daughter is very responsible. She would never have left—”
“I told you. I do not know what has happened to her,” the Count said coldly. “I think you should return to the kitchen immediately, Mathilde.”
Mathilde saw the Count’s eyes change, as if a cloud had passed over, his countenance turning dark and menacing.
“You have clearly forgotten your position in this household,” snapped the Count. He lifted a newspaper from the stack, ignoring the servant. His eyes scanned the headlines.
Ivan led the cook out the bedroom door, locking it behind her. The Count called his manservant to his side.
“See that she does not have access to the telephone. Do not let her out of the castle.”
“She will cause trouble, Master—”
The Count hissed, rising up like a cobra. His sudden leap from the chair belied his age. Ivan backed away, cowering, his hands raised over his neck and face.
“Silence!” ordered the Count, his eyes lit with fury. “I will take care of her.”
Chapter 82
RESIDENCE OF PALATINE COUNT THURZO
PRESSBURG, ROYAL HUNGARY
DECEMBER 27, 1610
Two horse-drawn coaches clattered to a stop at Count Thurzo’s residence in Pressburg. Coming from different directions, they arrived at the same moment, their wheels cutting dark slices in the snow, digging deep to the cobblestone below.
Torches smoking in their gloved hands, guards hurried out to greet the travelers. The light leapt as the weary passengers climbed out into the night.
In the first carriage, Emerich Megyery, tutor and guardian of Countess Bathory’s son Pal, had traveled two days from Sarvar. He had written Count Thurzo that he had urgent news of Erzsebet’s transgressions but would only deliver the information personally.
As Megyery looked to the second coach, he recognized the other visitor.
It was Miklos Zrynyi, husband of Anna Nadasdy-Bathory, the Countess’s eldest daughter.
In the warmth of the great room, Megyery closed his eyes, sipping the strong mulled wine. The long coach ride from Sarvar—wheels jolting along the rutted winter road—had left him aching and deeply fatigued. The urgency of the news he brought the Palatine had forced him to the Hungarian capital in breakneck haste.
Famished from the journey, he ate heartily of the midnight breakfast of roast pork and paprika-spiced sausages, laced with saffron and savory with fat.
Megyery knew that he would need the stamina to face Thurzo.
Miklos Zrynyi spoke first.
“Count Thurzo, Palatine of Royal Hungary and good cousin: Hear my grievance, as I swear upon all that is holy, it is the truth.”
“Speak, Count Zryni. You will find a willing ear and trusted confidante of our King, Matthias.”
Zryni collected his thoughts, inhaling deeply.
“Last Easter, I accompanied my wife to see her mother, Countess Bathory, at Čachtice Castle. The day following Holy Sunday I indulged in a hunt for wild boar. After the hunt, I dismounted and left my horse in the care of a Čachtice stable boy.”
“The horsemaster Szilvasi was not present?”
Zryni shook his head, bewildered by Thurzo’s interruption.
“No, Count. It was a stable boy who took my mount. I whistled to my hunting dogs, accounting for all but one: my favorite bitch, Zora. She did not heed me. Indeed I could not find her anywhere.
“I walked the castle walls calling for her, until I came to the vegetable gardens. The soil had been newly tilled for planting. Great clods of earth had been overturned—there I found Zora digging.
“When she still refused to come to me, I struck out through the plowed earth, waving my riding crop. Instead of cowering, she growled at me. She was gnawing jealously on something—a bone, its rancid meat still clinging. I struck my dog’s back with the riding crop. As she slunk away cowering, I bent closer to inspect her filthy treasure.
“It was a human leg, a girl’s, her laced shoe still attached to her rotting foot.”
The scribe’s quill scratched wildly at the parchment. Thurzo steepled his outstretched fingers, placing his fingertips to his forehead.
Megyery and Zrynyi exchanged guarded looks. Neither was sure of Thurzo’s reaction. The information they brought could determine their futures in the labyrinth of political power surrounding the Hungarian Parliament, the Palatine, the Bathorys, and the Habsburg King.
At last, Thurzo spoke. “And what did you do, having found this…corpse in the kitchen garden?”