“I believe in thieves, but I don’t think they light campfires to lure unwary travelers. Anyway, if my guess is right, and if the Danube is on the other side of this wooded area, then once we find a way across, we’ll be in Romania—and only a few hours’ walk to Bucharest.”
“Or we’ll be stripped of our belongings and drowned in the river.”
“Either way, it’s better than trudging through mud.”
Huck made a soft snorting sound. “You may be right about that.”
The wind was getting colder and night was upon us, so we agreed to a compromise: to investigate the light in the forest from a safe distance. A good plan, I thought. And it was a relief to realize that even though things were still not okay between us, we could at least be civil.
We began trekking in the fire’s direction and soon picked out a path made of wheel ruts leading straight to the light. Halfway there, we began to hear noise. A lot of it. Singing, cheering. Laughter.
“Is it a fair?” I asked. “A festival of some sort?”
“In the middle of Nowhere, Bulgaria?”
It did seem far-fetched. We concentrated on listening to all the sounds. In fact, we listened so intently that we failed to hear the approaching cart until it was too late.
JOURNAL OF RICHARD FOX
June 22, 1937
National Archives, Bucure?ti, Kingdom of România
Wasted a perfectly sunny day stuck inside the archives building, looking through proclamations, letters, maps, and anything else I could find relating to Vlad III and his bone ring. Only two things I reviewed are worth mentioning.
The first is a document related to the sale of a piece of Wallachian land. The steward here tells me it is the earliest written document that mentions Bucharest. Vlad wrote it in 1459 and signed it with a curse—basically, anyone who doesn’t honor this agreement will be cursed by God and die a horrible death. For the people of Wallachia, who believed in spells, witchcraft, and curses, I’m certain this was an effective way to make sure both parties stuck to the deal.
The second document was only a fragment of a parchment letter, written in 1475 by a Catholic bishop to a Wallachian priest, presumably one who was ministering over Vlad’s wedding to his wife, Jusztina Szilágyi. It was a warning of sorts, a for-your-eyes-only piece of information. The bishop claimed that Vlad had a previous wife, the illegitimate daughter of John Hunyadi, a famous military leader and prince of Transylvania, whose son would take the throne of the Kingdom of Hungary.
This isn’t the first time I’ve come across Vlad’s first wife, but that’s neither here nor there. The important thing I learned today is that this woman was reputed to dabble in astrology and the occult. She died under scandalous circumstances, but exactly how we’ll never know, because the letter was ripped in half, and only the top of it survived.
However, this reminded me that some of the symbols on the bone ring look remarkably similar to grimoires of that time period (Hygromancyof Solomon, etc.), which provided demonic seals, magical spells, and esoteric methods for conjuring both angels and devils.
Makes me more curious about exactly when (and why) the ring was made....
8
HUCK PULLED ME OUT OFthe cart’s path just in time. The driver jerked on the reins, and his horse whinnied before coming to an abrupt halt. A single lantern swung at the front of his wagon, illuminating a young man’s surprised face. He shouted something in a language weighted with Slavic tones—Bulgarian.
When we didn’t respond, he switched to a Romance language, one I knew intimately. My mother’s tongue: Romanian. “Are you lost?” he asked, holding his horse steady.
“Yes! We are very lost and very cold,” I answered in Romanian, utterly relieved to be conversing with someone who spoke it. Relieved to be speaking to anyone at all!
The cart driver was perhaps a few years older than us, with a long, clean-shaven face. Dark, wavy hair spilled out of a floppy felt hat, and under a road-dusted coat, he wore a loose-sleeved tunic, a vest, and dark trousers.
“You are Romanian?” he asked.
“My mother was. She died seven years ago.”
He placed a hand over his heart. “I am sorry. Is that why you are here? You are on your way to visit family in Romania?”
“Yes. We’re here to... visit family in Bucharest.” Well, it was partly true, wasn’t it? “We’re American,” I said, gesturing toward Huck. “Irish American.”
A handsome smile lifted the man’s face. “Oh, I speak English!” he said eagerly. “I speak it very good. My name is Valentin Krastev.”
“What a relief it is to run into you—well met, brother,” Huck said, smiling back at him. “I’m Huck and this is Theo. We’re lost travelers.” He then quickly offered Valentin a bare-bones account of how we’d gotten here: We wandered away from the Orient Express and found ourselves lost, and then night fell.
“One of my fellow travelers saw you earlier and wondered why you were out here, trying to wave him down. We’ve been robbed before, so he’s a little wary of strangers.”
