Winter Kills
It was not the coldest winter he had ever encountered, but it was certainly the cruellest, Vladislaus thought as he urged his horse on towards the far-distant southern Carpathians. Cruellest not in terms of weather, but in the death of hope; and hope was what had kept his men loyal over this past half-year. It seemed to him that hope and loyalty were things reserved only for the victors of a war, not for those who lost, or who merely survived.
He had been losing men ever since they'd crossed the border into Bulgaria. The very first night they'd slept on free soil, the first of his men had slipped away into the darkness. The desertion – could he even call it that? – had worsened as they drew closer to Wallacia, as they moved further away from the shambolic collapse of one of the greatest cities in the world.
Constantinople. Once it had been a name to conjure with; now the word lay bitter on his tongue and heavy in his heart. Vladislaus supposed that he should consider himself fortunate to have lived through the final siege of the city, but all he felt was shame. The dent to his pride was more than considerable, and he had been harsh with his men on their wounded retreat as a sop to that pride.
It had not worked.
His Crusade had been met with derision when he had first suggested it, back in autumn. He could still remember the sullen faces of the townsfolk; could imagine their thoughts at being summoned from their dull existence to answer the call of an overlord largely absent at court. But he, Count Dracula, had fully expected the people of his estates to be overjoyed at the chance to escape the hardship of the mountains. After all, he had been only too eager to leave, so why should not they?
"A Crusade," the priest said slowly, as if the idea was loathsome. "My lord, with all respect, the days of the Crusades are long gone. They are a fantasy of the past. Far too many Christian souls have perished following that dream, and very little has been achieved for their loss. Only a madman would heed the call to arms today."
"The only people who are heeding the call of the Pope are the Venetians and the King of Hungary!" Vladislaus had shouted. "Will you not join me? We are bound subjects of His Majesty King John – and if he wishes that we should go to war against the Infidels, then so we should!"
There was not a flicker of interest from his people. Like sheep, they all looked to the priest to put words into their mouth; and Vladislaus had felt only contempt for the old greybeard who dared oppose him.
"Too many countries owe their allegiance to the Ottomans, either by force, fear of force, or by trade alliances," the priest had continued. "So King John wants to go to war to protect the southern borders of his lands? Well, that is his prerogative. We, however, do not have to do anything. Even the Ottomans would think twice about invading a land so remote and far from the sun. Let the king levy his troops from elsewhere, and leave us alone."
Vladislaus had cursed the priest for a fool, and only when he showed his anger did he see a flicker of emotion on the faces of his people. Fear, he thought; and what a powerful emotion that was.
But the old man had continued: "Count, with all humility I must ask you: why is it that you wish to go on this foolhardy Crusade? What do you hope to gain? Imperial favour is not what it used to be."
"It is not favour, or lands, or anything so material," Vladislaus sneered. "It is an ideal – the greatest, most worthy ideal of them all."
"For one raised in such an ungodly manner, your conversion to the cause seems swift," the priest said lightly; and that remark was to be his last. Vladislaus had strode across the church floor, drawn his knife, and stabbed the priest through the heart.
The townsfolk had shrieked and squealed in horror. For a moment, Vladislaus had been appalled at what he'd done, and then cold reason took over and he turned to face the crowd.
"Who will join me on Crusade? Answer me now, or…"
He had no intention of murdering every soul on his estates – it would be wasteful to say the least – but, stricken by the act of witnessing the priest's murder, men began to step forwards. Sometimes they were shoved forwards by their womenfolk, all of them desperate to avoid the Count's fury.
And so it was, that, by the close of day, Vladislaus had a ragtag band of eighty men, none of whom had been beyond the mountains before. He had fancied himself quite the loyal vassal as he rode in splendour at the head of the straggling column, and imagined how he would greet King John when next they met. The king was, after all, the former voyevod of Transylvania – surely if he examined his genealogy closely enough, Vladislaus would find dynastic ties between the Ladislas' and the Draculas.
Of those eighty men, only sixteen now survived and remained loyal. Eight men had perished on the journey to Constantinople. Two men had drowned in the Bosphorus. Vladislaus had lost count of those who had fallen, victims of cannon-fire, of deadly flights of arrows, or in the insane, murderous melee that had taken place as the city defences crumbled beneath the Ottoman onslaught.
But he had got out, whole and well and blessedly alive, and with him had gone the remnants of his band. He supposed that some people would call his escape a miracle, but privately he was beginning to have doubts.
Somebody else had come with him from the broken city. Vladislaus wasn't yet ready to call him a man, although in form he resembled a man and a rather pleasing one, at that. But Vladislaus had seen with his own eyes how this man – this creature – had dropped from the heavens on the day the city fell to the Ottomans. He had seen the creature bathed in light, even though smoke lay thick over the city. He had seen the creature tirelessly killing Ottoman soldiers, one after the other. And he had seen how the creature became increasingly desperate as it searched from one street to the next, in and out of churches and public buildings.
Vladislaus had followed the creature, fascinated. When at last the creature had noticed him standing there with drawn sword and tired eyes, Vladislaus saw the creature change. He shrank, somehow: became smaller, although he remained tall; his features blurred, although his face remained distinct. It was only later that Vladislaus realised that the light, the heavenly light that had radiated out of him, had disappeared completely.
"Whom do you seek?" Vladislaus had asked.
The creature – now a man – had looked bewildered. "The emperor," he said. "Where is Constantine?"
Vladislaus had laughed. "Everyone is hunting for Constantine: the Ottomans, the Greeks, the Venetians – and all for very different reasons. Why do you want him?"
"I must save him," the man said.
"Save him? What for?" Vladislaus shook his head. "In any case, it is immaterial now. The emperor is dead. I myself saw him fall, down by the Golden Gate. The bodies are five deep there. I doubt anyone would recognise him by the end of this battle."
The effect of these words upon the man was extraordinary. He had paled, and a look of despair had crossed his face – and then he leapt into the air and vanished.
Vladislaus had stood staring up into the sky, at the exact place where the man had disappeared, and for several seconds he tried to find a rational explanation for what he'd just seen. He could not think of a single one.
The few hours following this meeting had passed in a blur of attack and defence. He had rejoined his men, and then found himself hemmed in by the encroaching Ottoman soldiers. Vladislaus was certain that he would die, unknown and unmourned, in this foreign land – and his death would mean nothing. No great gesture for the idealist; just a pitiful death, as lonely and abandoned as Constantinople's end.
And then he saw him again – the creature, the man – standing on top of the city wall and looking down at him with curiosity.
Vladislaus raised his sword-hand in acknowledgement, for he knew now that this creature could not possibly be mortal, but must instead be either demon or angel.
The man leapt down to join him – an impossible jump for a human to survive, but he landed as gracefully as a cat – and he said with determination, "You were right. The emperor lies dead. There is nothing else I can do here."
Vladislaus stared at him, and saw his chance. "There is something."
How he had got them out of the city, Vladislaus did not know. He only knew that within moments of him asking to be saved, he and his men were outside Constantinople; far enough away to be out of sight, but not so far that they could no longer hear the sounds of battle.
The men of his war-band had looked as confused as he had felt, and so he had ordered them to march for home as quickly as possible. This they understood. They recognised escape when it was offered, and their relief was too great for them to question why the tall, dark-haired stranger came with them. Only Vladislaus mourned the passing of Constantinople, and the damage to his pride.
For the first three hours, they marched in silence. Then the stranger spoke, saying to Vladislaus, "War is supposed to be a great leveller."
"I like to maintain the distinctions of rank," Vladislaus said; and indeed it was true, because even amongst the turmoil of the past few weeks, his attire and grooming had been as faultless as he could make it. "My family honour demands it," he added.
"I have no family," the man said simply.
"But of course not. You are an angel. You were created by God." To Vladislaus, it sounded foolish, if not presumptuous, to say the words aloud, but the stranger merely nodded in acknowledgement, comfortable with the fact that the truth was known, and so obviously.
"My name is Gabriel."
Vladislaus snorted. "A harbinger of doom this time, rather than a herald of great tidings."
"Yes."
They walked further, lapsed into silence; and then Vladislaus asked, "Why did you save me?"
Gabriel gave him a blank look. "Because you asked me to."
"It is strange to owe one's life to an angel."
Gabriel smiled. "Surely you know the story that every human has a guardian angel watching over them? It is the duty of the guardian angel to save their charges."
"A story, you said," Vladislaus remarked. "When an angel speaks to me of stories, I am not inclined to believe him."
"You do not think that I am real," Gabriel said, and he almost laughed.
"Oh, I know what you are," Vladislaus said softly. "What I don't understand is why you are still here with me. Did St Peter close the Gates of Heaven against you?"
"In a manner of speaking." Gabriel's expression, so open a moment before, was now shuttered so tightly that Vladislaus stared in astonishment.
"I would have thought that the left hand of God had no need of a key," he said, probing beneath the surface of their superficial conversation. "I admit that my theology is somewhat limited, so I do not know whether an archangel ranks higher than St Peter -"
"We do."
Vladislaus ignored the interruption: "- but even so, I can find no earthly reason why you would be here. With me."
"Maybe it's not for an earthly reason, but a heavenly one," Gabriel suggested with an attempt at humour.
"An archangel and a Transylvanian count," Vladislaus said, shaking his head.
"Perhaps there are demons and creatures of darkness that I must slay, far off in your cold mountains," Gabriel said.
Vladislaus laughed. "The mountains are demons enough, and the cold a most bitter foe. Every year, the winter kills more people than any of Satan's spawn. I cannot yet remember a Christmas that was not marked by mourning, rather than celebration."
He turned to face him, and pointed in the direction of the far-off mass of the Balkan Mountains that lay between them and the borders of Wallacia and home. "You cannot fight the mountains, Gabriel; and you cannot fight the winter. Nobody can. It kills so silently, borne on the softest, bleakest wings of frost and snow. Not even an archangel can stop that."
The journey home seemed endless, and the seasons changed all too swiftly. It had been the end of May when they had left Constantinople. It was the middle of autumn, the shortest season of all, by the time they reached the Carpathians. Winter, and death, beckoned them on into the mountains: vicious, rugged peaks and sheer slopes that supported nothing but scree and darkness.
His men still looked upon Gabriel with wary, suspicious eyes. But Vladislaus looked upon him with quite a different expression. It was not that Gabriel was handsome, for Vladislaus had seen many beautiful and handsome men at court; it was not merely the fact that he owed him his life. It was wholly the fascination of the angelic that drew him, and hardly an hour went by when Vladislaus would not think, dream, of discovering how an angel would fuck.
He wondered if intimacy with an angel would buy him the remission of sins, or if it would be an even greater sin; and it reminded him, for he had almost forgotten, that he had murdered a priest in order to go on Crusade. Vladislaus wondered if the very action of going on Crusade still carried with it the forgiveness of bloodguilt; and then he realised that he didn't much care. He wanted Gabriel in much the same manner as he'd wanted to go on Crusade; and what he wanted, he always managed to get, one way or another.
Gabriel had been quiet for some time, but now, as if he knew what Vladislaus was thinking, he stirred and looked up, and asked, "Why did you go to Constantinople?"
Vladislaus paused, and waited until none of his men were in earshot before he replied in honesty, "For my pride."
He waited for the denunciation that would surely come, for Gabriel to chastise him; but there was nothing. No rebuke or ill-favoured look, but a silence that was almost complicit with understanding. Surely they were cut from the same cloth, the man and the archangel; they were more alike than he had ever imagined.
It made him bold enough to ask, "And why were you sent to Constantinople?"
Gabriel grimaced rather than smiled. "Because of my pride."
The answer was too short, and so he tried again: "I was sent to save the emperor. If I failed, then my punishment would be to take on human flesh, human form, until I had atoned for my failure. I was so sure of myself that I delayed in leaving Heaven." He shrugged lightly. "And so I failed."
Vladislaus nodded. "A fallen angel."
"It could be construed that way, yes," Gabriel agreed, with rather more cheer than Vladislaus expected. "But being in human form is not so very bad. Certainly it's not as bad as once I thought it to be. There are limitations, of course, but then there are benefits, unlooked-for and unexpected."
Vladislaus was curious. He had not seen anything much in their journey that could possibly be seen as beneficial. "Such as?"
Gabriel smiled at him. "Companionship, for one."
"I see." Vladislaus returned the smile briefly. "And is it as lonely to be an angel as it is to be a Transylvanian count buried high in the cold mountains?"
"Probably worse," said Gabriel. "You at least can indulge yourself. An angel cannot ever do that, for if we do, then we… fall."
Vladislaus' curiosity grew keener. "And now that you are in human form, what is it that you wish to do first?"
Gabriel looked at Vladislaus. "I would like to indulge myself. I would like to get warm."
"There are many kinds of warmth a man can kindle," Vladislaus said slowly, daring to hope. "Perhaps I could show you."
"Yes," said Gabriel, and his gaze swept over Vladislaus, lingering on his hands, his mouth. "Perhaps you could."
Vladislaus smiled. This year, the winter would not be so cruel.
end