Betsy dropped her hand. She twisted around in the front seat.
“Hardly. We are old friends. Not that it is any of your business, Daisy Hart.”
Daisy snorted, rocking back into the upholstered car seat.
“Ha! You are such a liar, Betsy. You two have been so totally carnal—”
“Daisy, that’s enough,” said John, his hands a death grip on the steering wheel.
Daisy stared out the window at the passing countryside, dusted white with snow.
“Why don’t you two live together?”
“Daisy,” said Betsy. Then she forced a laugh, dry and brittle. “We are diametrically different. We share no common ground.”
John said nothing. He rubbed the sore spot in his neck, the place Betsy had touched.
“So what’s wrong with that? Yin and Yang, right? As long as you have balance.”
“We aren’t…suited for each other,” said Betsy, looking out at the white countryside through the passenger window.
John threw her a glance.
“That’s not what John thinks,” said Daisy. “I see the way that vein in his neck throbs when he looks at you—”
“What vein?” said John, the flat of his hand reaching for his neck. “That’s nonsense.”
“Well, look at her, John. And Betsy, watch that vein start pulsing.”
John frowned, staring straight ahead through the windshield.
“I am not going to look at her. If you haven’t noticed, I am driving on some pretty slippery roads in bad weather.”
“We Goths are intuitive,” said Daisy, tapping Betsy on the shoulder and leaning forward to whisper in her ear. “He’s totally into you.”
Chapter 85
ČACHTICE CASTLE
DECEMBER 28, 1610
The Countess Bathory sat on a wooden throne, her heavy gown billowing over her feet. A dark shawl was draped around her neck to protect her from the bitter cold. Snow whitened the courtyard, and the breath of the frightened women before her erupted in billows of vapor.
“Strip them!” commanded the Countess. “Let the games begin!”
Two handmaidens, girls lured by Ilona Joo from destitute hovels in the countryside to serve at the castle, crossed their arms against their breasts and begged for mercy. Brutal hands snatched at their garments, stripping the buttons and ripping the sashes, until they stood naked in front of the Countess, their skin scratched raw by clawing nails.
“What tedious sport,” complained the Countess, examining their white flesh, puckered with cold. “Can you not make them suffer for their sins?”
Ilona Joo pushed one girl headfirst into the snow. Hedvika made the other lie face up, staring blindly at the sky of the open courtyard, and then grabbed a bucket of icy water and threw it over both girls. One screamed. The other only mewed, her body racked with spasms, her forearms clutched tight around her naked breasts.
Frozen in the snow beyond them lay the white body of a girl who no longer struggled. The girls stared at her in terror.
Then a fourth young woman was brought to the courtyard. She stood tall, with a presence that unnerved even the most experienced servants of Countess Bathory. They backed away from her fiery glare.
As the guards loosened their grip on her arms, Countess Zichy of Ecsed stared in disdain despite her terror, displaying an aristocratic manner unlike any of the girls used before in the night games.
“I am a countess,” she shouted. “Keep your beastly hands away from me, or your families and their villages will be burned. There will be no safe haven from my father’s revenge!”
“Pay her no heed,” said Countess Bathory. “Go on. Strip her of her garments.”
“You know my family—and the King—will punish you for this,” said the young Countess. Her contemptuous scorn chased away Fizko’s hands. He fumbled in front of her, bowing.
“I said strip her!” screamed Bathory, shaking with rage at her servant’s hesitation.
Ilona Joo stepped forward, flanked by Hedvika. Together they tried to unbutton the garments, but the Countess Zichy scratched at their eyes.
“Seize her,” ordered Countess Bathory. “Tear the clothes from her back.”
The two servants stared in wonder at the sumptuous garments: brocaded silk and wool. The fineness of the cloth unnerved them.
The Countess Bathory made a growling sound, deep in her throat, and Hedvika reached out, grabbing the Countess Zichy’s gown at the cleavage with her big peasant hand and tugging hard.
A shriek of shredding cloth filled the courtyard, pearls pinging on the ice. The sound emboldened other hands that snatched now at the gown, ripping the fine garments from the girl’s body. Their peasant eyes bulged and mouths twisted in pleasure as they uncovered the naked flesh of the noblewoman.