VROLOK (29 page)

Isabella walked over to the man who had found the body. She would use her influence to stop him questioning her presence; she needed his cooperation to use him in her plan. She was surprised to see that the man had fallen to his knees and was weeping for his dead sister.

“Who was she?” Isabella asked.

“My sister,” Csaba answered.

“I am sorry,” Isabella said and she was not lying. She was very sorry; she felt responsible. She should have stayed close to Katalin. She had known from the first moment she saw her what this woman could be capable of doing.

“These girls have been tortured and killed,” Isabella said. “And they are not the only ones. Can’t you smell the stench of death around this place?”

“I can,” Csaba answered.

“You know the Countess is to blame? You must tell King Matthias about this,” Isabella continued.

“I will.”

Csaba left Isabella and on his way to King Matthias’ stopped to speak to the Palatine.

“My sister is dead.”

“I am sorry,” Thurzó answered.

“Tell me one thing…”

“Anything.”

“You did not hesitate; you knew exactly where my sister might be as soon as I told you she was missing.”

“I had a strong suspicion.”

“I know there have been many, many others and so do you, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“And you did nothing?”

“I was waiting for the right time.”

“Right time for what?”

“To expose her and bring down the whole Báthory family.”

“Why?”

“I have ambition. The Báthorys stand in my way,”

“So you let girls die…innocent girls…for this reason only?”

“I did. With all due respect, they are peasants; they mean nothing and are expendable, as you will one day come to learn. You could go far, Csaba.”

“If becoming like you is the only way I will go far, I want none of it.” Csaba turned and left the presence of George Thurzó, never to return.

A few days later Isabella watched as Matthias’ troops arrived. Isabella knew they wouldn’t try Erzsébet as a murderess in a proper court. The fact that she was a relative of the King’s would save her, and in addition the nobles of the land would not stand for it. They never wanted one of their own tried as a common criminal, no matter what they had done. The courts, they believed, were for the proletariat. Despite this, Isabella knew Erzsébet would be punished for her crimes. Even the nobles of the land would consider them abhorrent. Worst of all, Erzsébet had actually dared to kill some of the nobility; this last fact would seal her fate in the eyes of her own kind.

Isabella had two concerns. She was obligated to save Katalin and she wanted to make sure that no one ever found out about her own involvement, limited though it would be. To achieve this she needed help; she couldn’t do it alone. She needed Vlad, she concluded. Isabella once more made the trip home.

She had never asked for Vlad’s help before. He was flattered and would have done anything she wanted. For the first time he felt that Isabella needed him and this was a good feeling to him. Erzsébet and her conspirators were being held at Bytča. The pair travelled to the makeshift prison in grand style. They planned to pose as Hungarian nobility. They could gain access to the trial disguised this way.

The night before the trial Isabella sneaked into see Katalin, who had been imprisoned in the lower chamber of the castle at Bytča. Two guards were playing cards by the entrance to Katalin’s cell. Isabella approached them and they immediately spotted her. “
Ignore me
,” she whispered. The two guards continued their game as if they had never seen her.

Isabella entered the room where Katalin was being held. Katalin was sitting on the floor in the corner weeping like a child who had just been caught doing something she shouldn’t.

“Stop your tears. They are of no use to you.” Despite Isabella’s unsympathetic remarks, Katalin was glad to see the Vampire.

“Thank God, you have come to help me escape… Isabella, I am so sorry,” Katalin continued.

“Quiet! You are not sorry for what you have done, you are only sorry that you got caught,” snapped Isabella. “I have not come to help you escape. You must stand trial.”

“I will be executed!” cried Katalin. “You will be in violation of your promise to my family. You promised Katya,” Katalin said hysterically.

“I am well aware of my promise to Katya and I will not have you sully her family name. If you escape, Matthias’ soldiers will hunt you down and kill you and it will only confirm your guilt. If you get home to your mother’s she would inevitably take you in and she would be shown no mercy when you were both caught. Trust me, this is the best way. Now you must tell me everything and I will see that you live through this. You have to confide in me. We can possibly even paint you as another victim of Erzsébet’s. Tell me everything.” Isabella sat down while Katalin recited her story.

“Erzsébet first saw you over thirty years ago when I too was just a young girl. She was fascinated by you even then and the allure you held over the people that surrounded you. Even before her youth had started to fade she was obsessed with her appearance. Her mother had slowly gone insane as she had aged and this same madness was inherent in Erzsébet. I was just a servant then. She didn’t notice me at all, but when she saw me talking to you years later, then she noticed me. She remarked how your appearance had remained as perfect as it was before. She quizzed me about it and at first I resisted telling her.”

Isabella knew this to be a lie but she let Katalin continue.

“I told her that you bathed in blood.”

“That was a ridiculous thing to have told her.”

“Would you rather I had told her that you were a Vampire?” Katalin answered back.

“I would rather you had come and told me what was happening.”

“Yes, I should have done that because you have always been so approachable.” Katalin was gathering courage as the conversation progressed.

“Just tell me the rest,” Isabella interrupted. She didn‘t have any time for insolence.

“I then realised that this was too vague and that I could have been endangering my own life. So I reiterated that it was the blood of young girls, maids. By saying it was young girls I was ensuring that my own family would be safe, as I have only sons. I told her that adolescence was the key. I suggested that their youthful blood contained an invigorator, an
elixir vitae
that only they possessed and to bathe in their blood was to replenish the body with its youth.”

“And she believed you?”

“Not at first. But she wanted to believe me. She considered it for awhile and then one night when her maid was combing her hair she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was only thirty-five but her eyes had dulled slightly, her skin was losing its glow and her face was developing tiny lines at her temples. She was desperate; she looked at her servant’s smooth, flawless skin and decided to test my theory. She slashed the girl’s arm with a knife and squeezed blood out of the wound. She let the blood drip on to her skin.

“The maid screamed out in pain trying to get away from her but Erzsébet was too strong for her. Erzsébet rubbed the blood into her skin. Erzsébet, tainted by her mother’s madness, believed that it had worked, such was her desperation. The servant who had managed to free herself was now shaking uncontrollably in the corner, wondering what was to be her fate. Erzsébet killed her without a moment’s hesitation and drained as much blood from the body as she possibly could. The girl struggled and kicked as she died. Erzsébet realised that the next time that she had to have help. She needed people to help her kill and that is when we were all recruited.

“I was the obvious choice. She presumed I had killed for you. Dorottya, Ficzkó Ilona and Anna were her trusted servants. It was just a few girls at first. Erzsébet was happy with that. She was convinced that she wasn’t aging, but as the years passed she grew older and her blood lust grew more and more consuming. She and the others devised a cage made with sharp spikes, which closed in on the girls, piercing their skin where the most blood would flow. The blood would fall on Erzsébet’s skin like a shower, completely covering her. The girls were dead in minutes; they didn’t suffer.” Katalin added, trying in some small way to rationalise her actions.

“How would you know what they felt? The girl I caught you with certainly seemed to be suffering!” Isabella retorted. Isabella was repulsed by these revelations. “Tell me the rest,” Isabella demanded, for Katalin had stopped telling her story.

“Erzsébet again saw herself aging,” Katalin continued. “She now resolved that it might be the quality of the blood that she was using and so she set upon getting a higher calibre of victim. Erzsébet started to kill the daughters of nobility. If you had not have found us, I am sure the killings would have ended soon.”

“And yet you did not leave or try to stop her?” Isabella asked.

“How could I? She would have killed me.”

“I suspect you enjoyed it too much to leave?”

“That’s not true. It is as you said; I am a victim in this too.”

“Don’t believe your lie. I will save you but I will not tolerate hypocrisy. What have you told them about me?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re sure?” Isabella knew she was telling the truth. Katalin would not implicate the only person who was capable of saving her. “You have to look like the victim in this,” Isabella continued. “You have to look pale and half-starved. You also have to be seen to be suffering from blood loss yourself.”

“How can I do that?” asked Katalin.

Isabella answered Katalin’s question without making a sound. Isabella caught Katalin’s arm and pulled her close into her. Isabella bit down hard into Katalin’s neck and drained as much blood as she possibly could without killing her. When she let go Katalin fell back exhausted, hardly capable of moving without assistance. Katalin for the first time in her life looked like a victim.

On the first day of the trial everything was in place, Katalin looked as close to death as Isabella could safely take her. Dorottya and the others would be the last victims in this sorry tale. Isabella was unsure what would happen to Erzsébet. She knew she would not be executed, but Isabella would ensure that she had a just punishment for what she had done, no matter what the outcome of the trial was.

As Vlad and Isabella approached the castle on the day of the trial, Isabella looked outside at the crowds of people who had gathered along the road to Bytča. Peasants and nobles alike lined the paths that lead to the castle. Isabella could not help but notice the mothers weeping for their lost daughters. There were hundreds of distraught families and a lot of them were Slovak.

Isabella was sickened but her righteous indignation was to be short-lived. When she got out of the coach in front of the castle she recognised one of the weeping women. She was a German woman who Isabella couldn’t help but remember; she had killed her daughter, not Erzsébet. As Isabella went inside she wondered how many others she had been responsible for. How many had Vlad been responsible for? She didn’t know and couldn’t remember. She didn’t want to remember and somehow it made the task ahead of her a little bit easier. She could easily save Katalin now, because she realised that she was indeed just as guilty.

Vlad and Isabella entered the makeshift court. Katalin, Erzsébet Ilona, Ficzkó and Dorottya were all lined up together. Isabella had decided to wear a veil just in case she was recognised by any of them. The highest judge in the land presided over the trial. This was to ensure that King Matthias knew exactly what was going on. Vlad placed himself at one side of the court and Isabella was at the other.

Vlad and Isabella stared at each other from across the room and smiled. They were about to put their plan into action. The first person to testify was Csaba. He brushed passed Vlad as he went to the stand. Vlad whispered in his ear, “
Forget the woman who talked to you when you found your sister.
” Csaba nodded and went to the stand. He made his testimony without any mention of Isabella.

The next important testimony was Ficzkó; he pushed his way through the crowd in the courtroom. Isabella caught hold of his coat and said, “
You have never seen me before and Katalin did nothing to hurt these girls. It was the others only
.” Ficzkó as directed did not mention Isabella and told the crowd that Katalin was innocent of any of the crimes.