Midnight`s Daughter Page 0,97
cowed by Turkish threats. Whenever he was taunted by his guards, he taunted them right back. Every insult of theirs was met with one of his, usually even more inventive because he’d had enough education to provide inspiration. He cursed them, their ancestors and their Prophet. He was brutally beaten, then thrown back into a solitary cell from which he could see the even-worse punishments visited on others. The execution methods varied depending on the extent of the prisoner’s offense: some were given a plain old hanging, while others were shot full of arrows, beheaded or, worst of all, impaled.
Impalement was reserved for those guilty of the most heinous crimes, but in a time of war, it ended up being used fairly frequently. The teenage Vlad got a ringside seat for one on a weekly basis, and apparently took notes. He watched the crows pick at the carcasses that were left under the hot Turkish sun until they were only blistered meat. Maybe he managed to endure his punishment by dreaming of impaling his torturers one day—I don’t know. But when he finally took the throne of Wallachia, it became his favorite way of scaring away invaders and enforcing his decrees.
Almost any crime, from lying and stealing to killing, could be punished by impalement in Drac’s reign. Mircea once told me that his brother placed a golden cup on display in the central square of the city to be used by thirsty travelers. It was worth more than a lifetime’s wages for a worker, but it was never stolen. I would be willing to bet that nobody even thought about it.
Even more famously, two Turkish ambassadors to Drac’s court failed to remove their turbans in his presence. Drac ordered that the hats be nailed to their heads so they would never have to remove them again. Likewise, he once held a picnic in the middle of a field of impaled bodies just for the hell of it. And, when one of his nobles held his nose to keep from gagging at the smell, Drac had him impaled on a stake higher than all the rest, so that he might be above the odor.
He justified his actions by pointing out the lawlessness of the land before he took over. The problem with that excuse was that Drac’s “law and order” had ended up killing far more of his people than even serious disorder would have done. I looked up some statistics once, out of curiosity, and discovered a chilling fact: in his short, six-year reign, he’d had at least forty thousand victims. No, the expediency excuse had never worked for me.
“But, in the end, it was Vlad who chose to use the tactics they taught him, both against the Turks and his own people.”
I blinked at Radu, surprised to hear my own thoughts echoed back to me. “It’s getting a little hard to follow your logic, ’Du,” I told him honestly. “Are you saying that you are in favor of killing him?”
Radu shot me an irritated look. “I am saying that, while it may be a necessity, I will take no pleasure in it. Not because I have any affection for Vlad—in truth, I don’t believe I ever had any—but because it might have been me. If he had been born with the face to tempt a prince, and I had been left in the dungeons, would our positions be reversed today?”
So that was what was eating him. “I doubt it, ’Du. You said it yourself—you were always very different people.”
“True. I doubt I would have survived the dungeons. I have never been brave.”
“You would have survived.” Louis-Cesare’s harsh tones made me jump. I whipped my neck around, and there he was, less than three feet away, and I hadn’t heard a thing. If I didn’t get some sleep soon, I was going to be completely useless. Caedmon was nowhere in sight, but since Louis-Cesare wasn’t covered in blood, I assumed he was still alive. “There are many forms of courage,” Louis-Cesare said. “You would have done what was necessary. But no more.”
I nodded in agreement and gave Radu a slightly greasy kiss. “The Turks didn’t make Drac a monster, ’Du. They just brought out the one that was already there.”
Louis-Cesare and I exchanged a look. The expression in his eyes said that Drac was suddenly a lot closer to a permanent resting place. I didn’t know what had caused the change of heart, but I wasn’t about to complain. For