Prologue
SARVAR CASTLE
HOUSE OF THE NADASDY HORSEMASTER
WESTERN HUNGARY
OCTOBER 31, 1589
In the first minutes, the midwife Agota did not notice anything strange. Her purple-veined hands cradled his head, the baby slick and silent. She smiled at the infant as his eyes opened, blinking at the dim candlelight.
“He is a Magyar, sure enough,” she said, admiring his eyes.
The mother groaned, her pelvic muscles still contracting.
“His eyes will be green as his grandfather’s,” the old midwife said, nodding in admiration.
Sarvar Castle would rejoice tonight, for at last a son was born to the Master of the Horse.
But as she prepared to sever the umbilical cord, the old midwife gasped. Her hands, still stained in warm blood, flew to her face.
The mother pulled herself up, sweat dripping into her eyes.
“What is wrong?” she groaned. “Speak, Agota!”
The old woman shook her head. A second later the babe bawled, a hearty bellow from his tiny lungs.
The mother held out her arms, begging for her baby.
The midwife swaddled the baby in a clean linen sheet, stopping once to drag her withered fingertips over her body in the sign of the cross. Then she thrust the baby into his mother’s arms. He quieted immediately, staring silently into his mother’s eyes.
“Look, Mistress!” Agota dug her wrinkled pinkie finger under the baby’s tiny lips. He mewed in protest.
The mother saw what had so disturbed the midwife. Under the lips was a full set of tiny white teeth, fully formed. “He is a Taltos,” hissed the old woman. “One of the Ancients!”
Agota pried open the tightly balled fist of the infant’s right hand. Her breathing resonated in the small room, still heavy with the scent of sweat and birth.
“Only five fingers, blessed mercy!” she said.
It was the baby’s mother who tenderly loosened his left fist. It was she who discovered the sixth finger.
“It is the sign!” she cried. “What shall I do? What will become of him?”
The candle guttered, a draft crawling under the door. Rain pelted the thick leaded glass.
“Show no one your babe,” said Agota. “If the Habsburgs learn, they will dash his brains out.”
There was a knock on the door. The midwife and her patient exchanged looks.
“Send him away!” the mother whispered. “Let no one enter this chamber.”
The midwife nodded. She opened the door only a crack. One of the stable boys stood outside.
He doffed his cap, revealing dark hair studded with bits of straw and oat chaff.
“The Horsemaster would like to meet his new—excuse me, is it a son or a daughter?”
Agota hesitated, her old tongue licking her cracked lips before she spoke.
“Tell the Master he is the proud father of a healthy baby boy. But the Mistress is still weak and begs he visit her later, when she is fit to receive him.”
The door shut quietly. The midwife waited, listening to his retreating steps. Then she slid the bolt.
The mother clutched the baby close to her breast.
“No one shall learn this secret but my husband,” she said. “Swear to me you will tell no one and carry this secret to the grave!”
“Mistress, I swear by all that is Holy,” murmured the woman. “A Taltos is a divine power. I would be cursed should I bring any harm to this babe, for they are of powerful blessed magic.”
The young mother swept back her sweaty hair, her eyes unfocused as she thought.
“I shall feign sickness and the baby’s as well. I shall allow no one to visit.”
“Still there will be talk. You must go away, far from this kingdom,” said the midwife. “And I will cut off the sixth finger, this very day.”
“My baby!”
“Hear me, mistress. Either the Church or the King will seek him out. Even the Bathorys themselves might fear him. The mistress Erzsebet who has married Master Ferenc is—strange.”
“What do you mean?”
The old woman’s face twitched.
“She has cruel ways—” Agota looked over her shoulder, whispering these last words. “There is more of Transylvania in her than Hungary. The Ecsed Bathorys would put this baby to death, for they fear the power of a true Hungarian Taltos.”
“But he is innocent!”
The baby nestled against his mother’s breast now, nursing gently. She felt only the gentle pull of the newborn’s lips, like the sweep of a brook’s current, sensing his tiny teeth only as the rocky bottom in a wave of sweet kisses.
“You must leave Sarvar until the babe is five. That is when the baby teeth are set in the jaw of a normal child.”
“But the finger! The wound that is left?”