under the table again than from any conviction that Turgut was aligned with the powers of darkness. But she was staring at him, too.
'What about the legend of Dracula? Have you heard of that?'
"'Heard of that?' snorted Turgut. His dark eyes shone, and he twisted his napkin into a knot. 'You know that Dracula was a real person, a figure of history? A countryman of yours, actually, madam - ' He bowed to Helen. 'He was a lord, a voivoda, in the western Carpathians in the fifteenth century. Not an admirable person, you know.'
"Helen and I were nodding - we couldn't help it. I couldn't, at least, and she seemed too intent now on Turgut's words to stop herself. She had leaned forward a little, listening, and her eyes shone with the same rich darkness as his. Color had blossomed under her usual pallor. It was one of those many moments, I observed, even in the midst of my excitement, when beauty suddenly filled her rather harsh countenance, lighting it from within.
"'Well - ' Turgut seemed to be warming to his subject. 'I do not mean to bore you, but I have a theory that Dracula is a very important figure in the history of Istanbul. It is known that when he was a boy, he was held captive by Sultan Mehmed II in Gallipoli and then farther east in Anatolia - his own father gave him to the father of Mehmed, Sultan Murad II, as ransom for a treaty, from 1442 to 1448, six long years. Dracula's father was not a gentleman, either.' Turgut chuckled. 'The soldiers who guarded the boy Dracula were masters in the art of torture, and he must have learned too much when he watched them. But, my good sirs' - he seemed to have forgotten Helen's gender for the moment, in his collegial fervor - 'I have my own theory that he left his mark on them, too.'
"'What on earth do you mean?' My breath was coming short.
"'From about that time, there is a record of vampirism in Istanbul. It is my notion - and it is still unpublished, alack, and I cannot prove it - that his first victims were among the Ottomans, maybe the guards who became his friends.
He left behind him contamination in our empire, I propose, and then it must have been carried into Constantinople with the Conqueror.'
"We stared at him, speechless. It occurred to me that, according to legend, only the dead became vampires. Did this mean that Vlad Dracula had actually been killed in Asia Minor and become undead then, as a very young man, or that he'd simply had a taste for unholy libations very early in his life and had inspired it in others? I filed this away to ask Turgut in case I ever knew him well enough. 'Oh, this is my eccentric hobby, you know.' Turgut lapsed into a genial smile again. 'Well, excuse me for climbing up onto my soap dish. My wife says I am intolerable.' He toasted us with a subtle, courtly gesture before sipping from his little vase again. 'But, by heaven, I have proof of one thing! I have proof that the sultans feared him as a vampire!' He gestured toward the ceiling.
"'Proof?' I echoed.
"'Yes! I discovered it some few years ago. The sultan was so much interested in Vlad Dracula that he collected some of his documents and possessions here after Dracula died in Wallachia. Dracula killed many Turkish soldiers in his own country, and our sultan hated him for this, but that was not why he founded this archive. No! The sultan even wrote a letter to the pasha of Wallachia in 1478 asking him for any writings he knew of about Vlad Dracula. Why? Because - he said - he was creating a library that would fight the evil that Dracula had spread in his city after his death. You see - why would the sultan still fear Dracula when Dracula was dead, if he did not believe Dracula could return? I have found a copy of the letter the pasha wrote to him in response.' He thumped a fist on the table and smiled at us. 'I have even found the library he created to fight evil.'
"Helen and I sat motionless. The coincidence was almost unbearably strange. Finally I ventured a question. 'Professor, was this collection by any chance created by Sultan Mehmed II?'
"This time he stared at us. 'By my boots, you are a