“Will your father’s guards have turned against you?” Malik asked as they neared the gate. It was, unsurprisingly, shut, the bridge pulled up. A man in helm and mail, a spear propped on his shoulder, left the guard tower and signaled them.
They pulled their horses up to a halt. “Anyone still loyal to my father is either dead, or rotting in chains in the dungeon. These at the gate – they’ll belong wholly to Vladislav.”
The guard walked closer, face set in a scowl.
“What do you mean to do?”
“Just listen. And play along.”
“Ho!” the guard hailed, raising a gloved hand. As if they hadn’t already halted. “State your names and your business.” His accent was Transylvanian; not even one of Vladislav’s then, but Hunyadi’s.
Vlad left his hood in place, shielding his features from full view, but he reached for the clasp of his cloak. “Easy,” he said, when the guard twitched and took his spear in both hands. Vlad affected a Turkish accent, made his Romanian clumsy and thick. “I am Iskander Bey, and this is Malik Bey.” He opened his cloak to allow a glimpse of his clothes, the plain, but very fine kaftan and sash over his riding leathers. He wore the ornamental dagger with the rubies in the hilt. He knew he looked a foreigner, down to the curved toes of his boots in the stirrups. “We are cavalry captains in the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman Empire, sent as envoys from His Imperial Majesty Mehmet, son of Murat.”
The man frowned. “Janissary Corps?” He hedged backward a step, though. He knew what the Corps was. Everyone all the way to England did.
Malik opened his own cloak, showing the crimson cape beneath, and the unmistakable cavalry uniform of his office. He pushed his hood back as well, and there’d be no mistaking him for a rival Romanian lord. “We are a small host, only the two of us, and didn’t wish to attract undue attention on the road,” he explained in his own halting Romanian. That part, at least, was no act.
“Word reached Adrianople that there is a new prince in power here,” Vlad said. “One who has not agreed to proper peace terms with His Majesty yet. We bring the sultan’s demands.” From his saddlebag he produced a scroll, sealed with a blob of red wax and Murat’s personal seal. The missive inside was written in Slavic, in a scribe’s elegant hand, but it did not offer peace terms. Instead, it was a message to Vladislav from Murat himself, informing him that, effective immediately, Vlad Dracula was the prince of Wallachia, and that Vladislav was a pretender, and fugitive.
The guard reached to take the scroll, and Vlad pulled it out of reach. “We have orders to hand it to the prince himself. Or his second in command. Not to a gate crew.”
The man made a face, but withdrew, chin lifted to an imperious angle. “Wait here.” He headed back for the gatehouse, where two of his comrades were now peering out the door at the riders.
“I’m not sure this will work,” Malik said quietly.
Vlad tipped a covert glance toward the sky. It was midday, or only a hair shy of it. “It doesn’t have to work for very long. Only until the gate’s open.”
“Hmm.”
Let him doubt. Vlad’s first approach was trickery – if that failed, he’d bash his way into the gatehouse, kill all the guards, and open the damn gate himself.
The first guard returned with two of his fellows in tow. It was one of the new ones who spoke, his hand extended. “If you’ll let us look at the missive–”
“What part,” Vlad said, slowly, forcefully, “of ‘only the prince or his second in command’ did your idiot friend not understand? This isn’t a birthday congratulations. It’s an official treaty document from the sultan. It is not going to touch your hands, underling. Now open the gate and let us speak to your master. Or have you forgotten who owns Wallachia?”
All three men glared savagely at him, grinding their teeth, no doubt wanting to pull him down off his horse.
But, finally, the speaker gave a jerky nod and turned back toward the gatehouse, hand half-cupped around his mouth. “Lower the bridge!”
Careful to keep his expression haughty and shuttered, he darted a glance toward Malik, whose gaze was likewise surprised, his face carefully blank.
Groaning, creaking, rattling, the gate lifted, and the bridge began to lower. Straining to hear over these sounds, Vlad could detect hoofbeats, many sets, moving at a steady trot up the hill.
He gathered his reins and tried to make the motion look casual. “Be ready,” he muttered.
The moment the first row of riders crested the last hill, the guards would know something was wrong. Vlad needed to be on the other side of that bridge when that happened, whether or not he had backup.
It lowered, lowered, lowered…
He tightened his calves, and his mount danced.
The hoofbeats drew closer; a vibration he could feel through his own horse, through the ground.
The bridge landed with a thump and a puff of dust.
The riders crested the hill.
“Go!” Vlad put his heels in his horse and the gelding lunged forward. He dropped the reins, and reached back beneath his cloak to pull free his bow, already strung, ready, a curved little short bow perfect for the task. With his other hand he drew an arrow from the quiver hidden between his shoulders.
