Authors: C.C. Humphreys
Vlad
DRACULA.
A name of horror, depravity, and the darkest sensuality.
Yet the real Dracula was just as alluring, just as terrifying, his story not of a monster but of a man…and a contradiction. For the one they called “The Devil’s Son” was both tyrant and lawgiver, crusader and mass slaughterer, torturer and hero, lover and murderer.
His tale is told by those who knew him best. The only woman he ever loved and whom he has to sacrifice. His closest comrade and traitor. And his priest, betraying the secrets of the confessional to reveal the mind of the man history would forever remember as Tepes—“The Impaler.”
But Vlad’s actions defy such labels. His extraordinary life burns with passion, taking him from his years as hostage to the Turk, through torture, battle, triumph, and betrayal, ultimately to a last crusade—there perhaps, beneath the twin banners of the Dragon and the Cross, to find redemption for his innumerable sins.
Copyright © 2009, 2011 by C.C. Humphreys
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and used fictitiously. Apart from well-known historical figures, any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Originally published in London in 2009 by Orion Books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Humphreys, C. C. (Chris C.)
Vlad : the last confession / C.C. Humphreys.
p. cm.
“Originally published in London in 2009 by Orion Books”—T.p. verso.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, 1430 or 31-1476 or 7—Fiction. 2. Wallachia—Kings and rulers—Fiction. 3. Wallachia—History—Fiction. I. Title.
PR9199.4.H85V53 2011
813’.6—dc22
2010050908
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE DRACULESTI
Vlad Dracul—“The Dragon”
The Dragon’s Sons:
Mircea Dracula
Vlad Dracula
Radu Dracula
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE WITNESSES
Ion Tremblac
Ilona Ferenc
Brother Vasilie, the Hermit
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HEARING THE LAST CONFESSION
Petru Iordache, Spatar of Poenari Castle
Janos Horvathy, Count of Pecs
Cardinal Domenico Grimani, Papal Legate
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AT THE TURKISH COURT
Hamza agha, later Hamza pasha
Murad Han, Sultan of Rum
His son, Mehmet Celebi, soon to be “Fatih” or “The Conqueror”
Abdulraschid, his favorite
Hibah, mistress of concubines
Tarub, maid
Abdulkarim, or Sweyn the Swede, janissary
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE HOSTAGES AT EDIRNE
The Mardic Brothers, Serbian
Constantin, Bosnian
Zoran, Croatian
Petre, Transylvanian
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AT TOKAT
Abdul-Mahir, torturer
Wadi, torturer
Samuil, the Christian martyr
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE WALLACHIAN BOYARS
Albu “cel Mare” (“The Great”)
Udriste
Codrea, vornic (judge)
Turcul
Gales
Buriu, spatar, commander of cavalry
Dobrita
Cazan, Dracul’s logofat, or chancellor
The Metropolitan, head of the Orthodox Church in Wallachia
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DRACULA’S VITESJI
Black Ilie
Laughing Gregor
Stoica the Silent
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PRETENDERS TO THE WALLACHIAN THRONE
Vladislav Dan
Basarab Laiota
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
OTHERS
Matthew Corvinus, “the Crow,” King of Hungary
Brother Vasilie, Vlad’s confessor
Thomas Catavolinos, Ambassador
Abdulmunsif, Ambassador
Abdulaziz, Ambassador
Mihailoglu Ali Bey, Radu’s army commander
Jan Jiskra, Corvinus’s mercenary commander
Elisabeta, Dracula’s first wife
Vlad, Dracula’s son
Ilona Szilagy, Dracula’s second wife
Janos Varency, thief-taker
Roman, Moldavian
Old Kristo, gatekeeper
Hekim Yakub, physician
In the bitter winter of 1431, in the town of Sighisoara, a second son was born to Vlad Dracul, Voivode (or Warlord) of Transylvania. He was christened Vlad and, like his elder brother, was given the surname Dracul-
a
—Son of Dracul.
In the “limba Romana” that they spoke “Dracul” meant “the Dragon.” Or “the Devil.” So Vlad Dracula was the Devil’s Son.
He acquired other titles in his life. Voivode of Ungro-Wallachia. Lord of Amlas and Fagaras. Brother of the secret “fraternatis draconem”—the Order of the Dragon. His own people called him Vlad Tepes. His Turkish enemies called him Kaziklu Bey. Both meant—The Impaler.
The land he won and lost and ruled was Wallachia, the central province of present-day Romania. Caught between the expanding Hungarian Kingdom and the all-conquering Turks, between the Crescent and the Cross, Wallachian princes were expected to be the dutiful vassal of one or the other.
Dracula had different ideas. Different ways of executing them.
Finally killed in battle in 1476, his head was chopped off and sent as a gift to his most bitter foe, Mehmet, Sultan of the Turks. It was mounted upon a stake on the walls of Constantinople. There it rotted.
A few mourned him; most did not.
I make no judgement. I leave that to those who heard his last confession—and, of course, to you, the Reader.
I am a man. Nothing human is alien to me.
Terence