Karpathia

The hunter’s keen eyes narrowed as he surveyed the frozen landscape spread out like a panorama before him. Snow-laden fir trees of the primeval forest disappeared into banks of mist that rolled down from the high peaks beyond, and heavy, black clouds parted above to reveal a cold, pale moon. By its eerie light every detail was etched as in a mezzotint, the lattice-work of ink-black shadows of trees and rocks as clear on the snow as blood on Carrara marble. The air too was painfully chill, and so transparent that he could clearly see the icicles hanging like daggers from frozen branches a mile distant.

‘Over there!’ he hissed to his manservant, who was behind him calming his own horse as well as the pack-horse. They could always sense when danger was afoot. Andras followed his master’s stabbing forefinger to where a clump of wild gorse sprouted from large boulders about twenty yards ahead of their position on the slope. Count Magnus leaned forward expectantly in his saddle as Andras checked his gun and set off in that direction. As he approached the spot indicated, the gorse shook violently and two small, fat, black fur-balls rushed straight at him, screeching like babies. 

Magnus from his higher vantage point quickly shouldered and cocked his firearm in one smooth, practised movement and let off his shots, narrowly missing Andras, who ducked in the nick of time as two bullets thumped into the bear cubs. He turned to see one of them dead against the rocks in a splash of blood and gore, its head completely gone; the other quivered in its death throes until Andras expertly dispatched it with one thrust of his hunting knife. He was setting to work retrieving the carcases when out of the bushes to their left came an almighty roar. Before they knew what was happening a monstrous shape had lurched from the shadows and landed in their midst, sending the snow flying in all directions before it rose on its hind legs and towered above them, grizzled, primeval and distraught. In the blink of an eye Andras had a clear vision of himself being ripped apart, and crossed his chest, preparing to meet his maker. Pieces of his life that he’d rather not remember flashed before him.

‘Stay still!’ Magnus commanded, and Andras froze to the spot without waiting to be asked again. In the eerie silence that had descended on them, the great head of the mother bear turned slowly from the bodies of its cubs to the figure of the man on the horse, hot saliva dripping from its lolling tongue and hissing onto the snow at its feet. Its lips drawn back to reveal monstrous fangs, the beast let out another unearthly roar that sounded like thunder from hell, and hunching on its massive hind quarters it launched its shaggy bulk straight at him. Magnus was as cool as the mountain, relishing the danger and aware that one false move on his part, or the failure of his firearm, would leave him at the monster’s untender mercies. But the bullet struck true, exploding the bear’s left eyeball and smashing out of the back of its head, taking a bloody comet’s tail of brain tissue with it, and Magnus had only to spur his mount a little to the left for the brute to crash into the snow beside him, perfectly dead. His horse, he noticed, was still shivering with fear but had stood its ground like a good soldier facing an advancing column of the enemy, thanks to his training. 

‘You took your time,’ Andras grumbled as he heaved the two cubs onto the spare mount and started strapping them to its wooden saddle. Andras was country-born and -bred and he knew the Magura district of Transylvania like the back of his hand, but knowing his own position frequently proved another matter. 

‘Hold your tongue!’ Magnus hissed, in a tone that Andras knew well and feared. He quickly lowered his eyes and took a long flaying knife from his jacket, and went back to start skinning the great mother bear. As he worked at his bloody task, count Magnus took time to appreciate the magnificent view spread out before him in the moonlight, made all the more enjoyable after the spilling of blood and the satisfaction of personal immolation narrowly avoided. It was moments like this that drew him from his home in Brasov to his hunting lodge in these wild foothills of the Carpathians, and made him glad to be alive in a world that was becoming increasingly uniform and dreary to him. 

It was in his veins, this need for danger and excitement. That valley over to the east was where his mighty ancestor had stopped the invading Turks in their tracks and added to the vastness of the forest by impaling them in their thousands. The Sultan himself on his next year’s campaign had turned back in disgust on seeing the rotting bodies of his janissaries still supporting a population of crows. Memories of the Turks lingered on in the region, not least in the legend of the Sultan’s Hell Hounds. These supernatural demons, their eyes blazing coals and their claws like scimitars, were trained to tear humans apart, and stories of them were to this day still told by the mothers of Magura to their children, to terrify them to bed.  The shadowy forms of the Hell Hounds were frequently seen by travellers at night, spectral monsters loping under the full moon, and when sheep were found mutilated or babies snatched from their cots the old folk knew very well what was to blame. Scoffed at as ever by the younger generation, they nodded wisely amongst themselves and kept their peace. What did kids know these days anyway, apart from nothing?

The count shrugged and let his gaze wander to the slender turrets and battlements of Castle Bathory, over to the south. Hugging the foothills of the mountains at the edge of the forest, its higher windows reflected the moonlight and twinkled like diamonds by candlelight against the velvet backcloth of the night. The castle was home to Eric Bathory and his beautiful wife Lizbet. Magnus felt a sudden stirring in his loins as he pictured her shapely body and recalled that glance she had thrown him when he’d come to pay his respects the previous week after arriving at his lodge. Eric had said he was getting married this year, but Magnus hadn’t for a moment imagined he could attract such a beauty. Her breasts were on the small side but perfectly acceptable, he thought now as he pictured her without her clothes on, smiling to himself and twirling his moustaches. He calmly anticipated another, unannounced visit when Eric was off on one of his frequent business trips to Brasov. Count Magnus knew a frustrated woman when he saw one. In fact he was a connoisseur of that particular species. They could be as vicious as wolves in their passions, but as soft and trusting as lambs if you knew how to handle them. The trick lay in finding one with the right balance, and his keen hunting instinct told him that Lizbet Bathory might well be it.

The only other man-made interruptions to the natural landscape spread out like a monochrome tapestry before him were the farmstead of that rascal Old Gyuri, who lived down there with his wife and son on a combination of farming and poaching, and just a mile or so beyond that the Tombil farm. Magnus chose to overlook Gyuri’s nocturnal activities for the time being, because although a dyed-in-the-wool crook there was something oddly endearing about him, and he was decent company when there was little enough of it in these parts. He also paid his rent on time and frequently added a hare or two that he said he’d caught in the forest, although Magnus knew well enough that the crook was only gifting him something that was already his. 

Andras had finished packing the skins of the mother bear in his saddle bag and her cubs were safely strapped up for the dogs. Magnus told him to head back to the lodge and feed the hounds, while he himself made tracks for Gyuri’s farmstead. The old man and his son usually stayed up late, seeing to the cows and pigs and finishing off odd-jobs, and Magnus fancied a bit of company tonight after all the excitement. Until he’d managed to seduce the delectable Baroness Bathory, Old Gyuri and his strange son Istvan would just have to do. Andras was worse than useless in that respect, and after tonight’s display of impertinence Magnus determined to give him his marching orders in the morning.

The farmhouse, as Magnus had expected, was in complete darkness when he arrived, but there was light coming from under the barn door.

‘Count Magnus!’ a voice shouted in surprise. It was Luca, Gyuri’s long-suffering wife, and mother to Istvan, going back into the house with a bucket of milk. She was a plump, good-natured soul, if like her son uneducated and pretty dim, but she knew how to welcome visitors as well as any countess. ‘Nice to see you, sir – cup of tea or glass of brandy, and something to eat?’

‘No thanks, Luca! I’ve just dropped by to have a word with your husband.’

When Luca went back inside Magnus dismounted and walked over to the barn. Pushing the ramshackle door open, he could just about make out at the far end a pair of figures bent over a hurricane lamp. As he approached, one of them stood up and shouted a gruff welcome. Approaching, Magnus was gradually able to make out Gyuri and his son. They were crouched over something on the hay, an animal of some sort. Interested, he quickly saw that it was a dog, and a big one at that. As big as a wolf, in fact, and lying on its side, panting heavily as they inspected it, but not objecting to their prodding and poking. 

‘What have we here?’ Magnus asked, glancing from the shaggy brute to the almost equally hirsute face of Old Gyuri and the smoother, almost effeminate one of his son. 

‘Bought him at the Brasov fair last week,’ Old Gyuri said, patting the dog none-too-gently with his fist and making it growl. ‘For the sheep,’ he added. Of course, Magnus thought, the old crook wouldn’t have paid out good money for a pet. Everything on the farm had to pull its weight, including his wife and son. He looked at the boy, who lowered his eyes shyly. Istvan had never been sent to school and couldn’t read or write, in fact he was clearly more than a bit backward, but he was strongly-built and harmless enough, ideal for the heavy farm work he was usually put to, and he seemed happy enough in his way. He was stroking the dog with a look of wonder in his usually dull eyes, until his father noticed it and abruptly pushed his arm away.

‘It ain’t no pet!’ he said angrily.

‘What’s the breed?’ Magnus asked, always interested in dogs and horses, almost as much as in women. Perhaps even more so, as they never answered back and were a lot less complicated.

‘Don’t know,’ Gyuri replied thoughtfully. ‘Some sort of wolfhound, I reckon.’

Inspecting the dog more closely, Magnus could make out a long, white scar that ran the length of its back close to the spine. It was clearly an old wound, but one that must have almost killed the poor brute when it was inflicted.  

‘Protected some sheep from a pack of wolves over the mountain there,’ Gyuri grinned, seeing the count’s expression. ‘Got spirit, this one has.’

‘That he has,’ Istvan chimed in with affection and admiration, ignoring his father’s irritated glance as he patted the dog again before getting to his feet. Magnus had never heard him talk so much.

An hour later that night, after Count Magnus had gone back to his hunting lodge and Old Gyuri had retired to his bed at last, Istvan crept from his bedroom back to the barn, feeling a strange attraction to the new wolfhound that he had never experienced before, even with the sheep. He used the sheep occasionally, it was true, but he wouldn’t have called it love or even affection. They satisfied a physical need: that was all it was. His parents knew nothing about it, of course, but he’d noticed some of the country girls giggling and pointing at him when they went to the fair at Brasov every few months, and making lewd gestures, so he took extra care now when he was with the sheep. The great thing of course would be to do it with a real woman, but there wasn’t much chance of that around here. The only proper woman he’d seen within walking distance of the farm was Baroness Bathory, and she didn’t even so much as look at him when he went to the castle with his father to do odd jobs there. He’d often fantasised about her, though, and about how much he would like to wipe that haughty look off her face and rip her clothes off and do it to her. She might even enjoy it – a bit of rough after Eric’s polite poking, assuming he could even get it up. Istvan wouldn’t disappoint her though, he grinned to himself.

He padded quietly over to the pile of hay in the corner where the wolfhound lay asleep, its side rising and falling gently with its breathing. It had its back to him and he crept closer with his lamp, just to say a few words to it he supposed. He didn’t know what fascinated him about what was after all just another workdog, but he felt a strange kinship with it nonetheless. He reached out his hand to gently pat the creature, and at that moment its head jerked around and it bit him, not viciously, but enough to break the skin of his thumb and draw blood. He snatched his hand back automatically and looked closely at the teeth marks, and when he looked back at the dog it was asleep again, or pretending to be. 

It was almost as if it had given him a friendly warning not to get too close, as it was a wild thing and had its self-respect and would not be petted like any domesticated hound. It was, he considered, a natural aristocrat, with its own rich inner life that ignorant people knew nothing of. The same could be said of him, Istvan reflected, not attempting to touch the animal again but instead backing respectfully away and closing the barn door quietly behind him as he left.