Chapter 1: Pledge

Transylvania between 1431 and 1448

The year Princess Cinea gave her husband his second son found our homeland in turmoil.

While my father was fighting an almost hopeless battle far from his castle and family, I was born into a country torn by anarchy and corruption, where murder, manslaughter and looting had become the nightmarish everyday life of its population. Fear ran rampant in those villages that had not yet been depopulated in never-ending fighting, and those who survived no longer even trusted their neighbours, friends or brothers. In addition, another Sword of Damocles hung over our already divided people: The ever-present threat of invasion by the mighty Ottoman Empire.

It was in this time of fear and bloodshed that Princess Cinea gave birth, but while her husband was full of joy at the birth of his second son and finally returned home, she herself seemed to sense that I, said second son, was threatened with a danger that might be worse than the approach of the Turkish armies.

How often did I later hear the whispering of the servants and maids as I wandered through the corridors, chambers and stables, how often did I notice them suddenly fall silent when they became aware of me, and how often did I see them crossing themselves when they thought I wouldn't see it. Though, whenever I asked my mother why, she just hugged me, while shaking all over her body, without ever giving me an answer to these questions.

She loved me as only a mother could love her son, and yet I knew that she had wished I had never been born, because the fate that might one day await me, would break both her and my heart. At that time, I didn't understand her fear or the meaning of what I heard others whisper behind closed doors, and when I finally became aware of what it was my mother feared, it was already too late.

Years passed in which my mother taught me everything that might one day be useful to me, while I rarely saw my father: When he deigned to pay one of his rare obligatory visits to his wife's quartes. Less, however, to inquire about her well-being than to find out how far my training had progressed.

In those years the threat from the Ottoman Empire had become real. The Sultan's army began to advance further and further towards the northwestern provinces and had already managed to gain dominance around the Black Sea. War swept across the Balkans and only a few Wallachian tribal chiefs had the courage to face the overwhelming odds.

A hopeless undertaking, doomed to failure.

Although I was only a boy of just ten, I did not miss the fact that emaciated figures often sought refuge in my father's castle with nothing left but what they were wearing. My mother made sure they had some warm meals, but she couldn't do much more to help these poor devils.

That accustomed to strangers knocking on our gate, I thought nothing of it when a band of horsemen appeared in the castle's courtyard on that fateful day. I ran through the halls to get my mother to open the door, but she didn't respond. She just dragged me with her to her chamber and waited as if she hoped the riders would disappear.

A vain hope!

Soon the knocking was repeated, accompanied by my father's indignant shouts, but my mother still didn't move. And I realized: "These men, they come because of me, right? Is that what you fear, mother?"

The sad look in her dark eyes was answer enough for me, and yet I still didn't fully understand what it was that frightened her so much.

She wrapped her arms around me protectively as the strangers broke open the door to her chambers and entered without being asked - my father right among them. Anger flashed in his eyes as my mother disobeyed him and held me even tighter to her, and he knew no mercy. Relentless and with an iron grip, he tore me from her protective embrace, hit her and pushed her to the ground. If until now I had only despised him, this was the moment when I began to hate him, and yet...

When I saw the blood running from my mother's nose and the corner of her mouth, slowly dripping to the ground, I knew she would no longer be able to help me. She was broken in body and soul and even if not in the truest sense of the word, my father gave her the death blow that day. His outstretched hand left no doubt as to what he would do to me if I dared defy his will, and so I took it, hesitantly and fearfully.

Before he dragged me out of my mother's chambers, he let her know that from now on I was to live at the Sultan's court. A pledge that would atone for his own transgressions if necessary. And yet I felt deep down that this was not the whole truth, because the men who accompanied him were not Turks. They were something worse...something thoroughly evil...

Another seven years passed after the events of that day, but the fighting and bloody battles were far from over. They hadn't even reached their climax yet.

At the Sultan's court I had grown into an intelligent young man. I had learned to fight and acquired immense knowledge in every field available to me. Politics and strategy were included as well as history, science and philosophy, and to this day I don't want to do without it.

In the meantime, my father had submitted to the Ottoman Empire and so one day I was allowed to return to our family's castle. I knew something inside me had changed, and although I could not say what it was, I was convinced it was connected with that dark place to which my father and those strangers had taken me back then.

I asked about my mother, but only found her gravesite where withered flowers showed that no one had cared about it for a long time.

I desperately hoped for an answer from my father about what he had done to me, but I received none from the weakling cowering in his armchair in front of me...