C10 Chapter 10

When they went outside, the whole village was standing in the square – all the many women in their widows’ weeds and a handful of men.

Everyone was looking at Heike and Peter with suspicion, but also hope, it seemed. Heike could read a silent, desperate prayer in their eyes, arising from a sense of extreme despair that had been present for longer than he dared to imagine.

This sent ripples of fear down his spine. What if he didn’t succeed? It was highly likely, because he knew nothing!

Light clouds had gathered in the sky to the west. That wasn’t so good, the two young men said to one another. They could make use of the full moon that was also rising, still pale and powerless since the sun was only just starting to disappear behind the hill.

“We should have brought a torch,” Peter muttered.

“There’s a lantern at the cemetery,” Heike answered. “That’s what Zeno said.”

“That’s a relief! But we still have plenty of time before the daylight completely disappears, don’t we?”

“Yes, it won’t get dark right away.”

They went round the corner of a house and were now facing the church that rose before them. A man was waiting for them at the gate, most likely the man whom Zeno had summoned.

At that moment the sun disappeared behind the mountains, and long clouds fell across the valley. It was as though the coldness of death embraced them, and Peter turned on his heel.

“I don’t think I want to go in there after all! Walking around a cemetery at this time of night doesn’t really appeal to me! Especially when I know what you are planning to do!”

“And what am I planning to do?” Heike asked.

“Do you think I don’t know what has to be done to the undead? How they are neutralized?”

“Very well! Then we’ll ride away from here. Without Nicola.”

“No!” Peter protested. “Come on, let’s get it over with!”

They greeted the old, hunch-backed man.

“Are you the priest here?” Heike asked.

“No, we no longer have a priest. The princess doesn’t want it. I am responsible for the cemetery. Actually, I’m an invalid,” the old man continued, his voice shaking. “But when I heard what it was all about, well ... But I don’t want to take part in anything!”

“You won’t have to. If you would just show us the graves, we’ll take care of the rest.”

Peter still didn’t look too happy about having to wander about in the cemetery. He was constantly looking around and Heike was very concerned to see that he was also glanced up at the castle.

“It’s somewhat late to be outside,” the old man said anxiously, “It’s past sundown.”

Heike understood. The undead were helpless in the daytime when you could surprise them in their graves. They came to life at night when they were impossible to defeat.

It was still light. Beyond the mountains the sun was still shining brightly – it was only the narrow valley of Stregesti that its rays couldn’t properly reach.

But once the darkness finally fell, the carriage could come rolling down from the castle at any moment. And then it would be unwise to resist the fine lady and her strange coachman!

“We have to hurry!” Heike said frantically.

The old man nodded. His gnarled hands struggled with the lock on the gate. Then it opened. The gate creaked as though it hadn’t been opened for many years and they entered.

“I don’t understand these letters,” Heike said without revealing that there were no letters he was able to read.

“I do,” Peter said. “It’s so nice to be of some use!”

He said it crossly, just the way he had behaved all the time they had been at Stregesti. Heike felt guilty for having dragged Peter into this macabre project, but he wouldn’t be able to lift the heavy gravestones by himself.

The cemetery was extremely poorly kept – Feodora had been right about that. Roots as thick as hawsers twisted around everything. Heike discovered to his horror that the forest was creeping across the cemetery wall at the back. The trees stood there, dripping and slimy, their branches hanging down over the graves, and their long roots fumbling across the ground, as though they wanted to conquer it secretly without anyone noticing.

The standing gravestones were easy to read but they weren’t relevant, the old man explained. The stones that were lying down were the ones that concealed the more prominent members of the dynasty.

“This cemetery must be old!” Heike said.

“Oh, yes! Older than you’d like to think.”

Heike was carrying a long, sharp iron bar under his jacket. He had also concealed a small hammer there. He didn’t show these to anybody because he had stolen them from the courtyard of the inn. Not even Peter knew about them.

Peter kicked some dead leaves off the nearest grave and read, “Sabine de Muntele. Muntele – was that the name of the princely family?”

Heike had to translate and the old man nodded. “Yes, they were named after the mountain you can see to the south. May their souls rest in peace.”

The words were followed by a brief, terrified sign of the cross.

Heike translated the old man’s words for Peter.

It was clear that their guide was nervous. He trotted away, taking short, old man’s steps, looking around and moistening his lips incessantly.

Peter continued walking. “Voivode Mikhail de Muntele ... I always struggle to read the dates, ‘Died MDLXXIV.’ What does that come to? 1574?”

“That sounds about right,” the old man said, his voice trembling, when Heike had translated for him once more. “But if you gentlemen would be so kind as to follow me now, we’ll find the graves you’re interested in.”

They followed the man but suddenly he stopped so abruptly that they nearly bumped into him.

“I can’t stay here much longer now,” he said, his eyes flickering. “It’s too dangerous for me and my family. The graves are over there, closest to the wall. I’m sure you’ll be able to find them,” he murmured, so quietly that they could barely hear him. He made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the most dilapidated part of the cemetery. The forest had practically crawled across the wall there, concealing the graves in a tangle of branches and roots.

The little old man darted off, as fast as his short legs would allow him.

Heike looked anxiously up at the sky, which displayed a range of colours from pale yellow to orange to flaming red. Against the backdrop of these colours, silent black birds were gliding around, crows and ravens, heading for the cliff that divided the valley into two parts: a living village and one that was deserted. Between them the Witch’s Castle, Cetatea de Strega, protruded from the forest, but it couldn’t be seen from the cemetery.

The village that had been located at the foot of the castle had not survived ...

“We must hurry,” Heike said. “It is still light. Perhaps later ...”

“... The carriage will come!” Peter finished Heike’s sentence. “I’m well aware of it. I am keeping an ear out for it.”

But perhaps for other reasons than I have? Heike thought. All you’re thinking about is seeing your lovely Nicola again.

It wasn’t that Heike didn’t understand Peter, but the man had to have a little patience! One thing at a time!

Peter, who was suffering from a nervous, irritable kind of restlessness, was already walking around among the tangled roots. He had been given a small axe by the old man, which he used to cut through the roots.

“Here!” he shouted. “Come over here!”

Heike climbed over a big root that closely resembled a snake and bent over the barely visible marble slab. Peter removed some sticky leaves and tried to move some rootlets.

“Look what it says here! Feodora!”

“Oh my,” whispered Heike.

“It’s not really so strange,” Peter said dryly. “Look over there, the one that’s crooked. It also says Feodora on it!”

Heike’s hopes began to sink. “Yes, of course, she said it was a common name in the dynasty. But that’s not the name we’re looking for, Peter.”

“I know. Come, let’s continue.”

Peter had been gripped by zeal now. He got down on his knees, scraping roots and leaves away in several places, and Heike helped him.

They found a gigantic sepulchral monument that was almost fully concealed by the undergrowth.

“Bogdan,” Peter read. “Without a doubt the one who was wild.”

“And this must be Boris and his four wives,” Heike said. “For here is a big stone with four smaller ones surrounding it. But where ...?”

They had clearly reached the area where the more significant members of the family were buried. Their times of glory were reflected in the various monumental graves that outdid one another in size and splendour.

“Heike, come over here!” Peter hissed hoarsely. “Look here! Closest to the wall!”

He had dug and worked his way down to a grandiose gravestone, one of the newest in the cemetery it seemed. “Here it is,” he whispered to Heike as though he were afraid somebody might hear him. Look, it’s a double grave! You can recognize the topmost inscription, can’t you?”

“Yes, it’s Feodora again.”

“Yes, but the other one ...” Peter spelled it letter by letter: “A-N-C-I-O-L.”

“That’s the one! That’s the one!” Heike gasped. “Hurry! Before the sunlight disappears entirely! The light is already fading.”

Only a few of the graves had been this overgrown. It was a chaotic confusion of roots and everything they couldn’t cover had been buried under several years’ worth of fallen leaves. It was a miracle that Peter had even found the grave.

“The axe won’t cut through it,” he complained. “It’s like cuttíng into thick leather.”

“It should be sharp enough. Here, let me try.” Heike got the axe and chopped hard at the sinuous root. Nothing happened at all.

He tried again.

“It’s useless,” Peter muttered. He bent down and examined the soil around the gravestone.

“What are you doing?” Heike asked.

“Looking for holes.”

Heike looked at him. He knew what his companion meant. When dealing with vampires, you would usually look for small holes, almost like mouseholes, around their graves because that could be how they got out at night. For vampires could transform themselves into anything.

But Anciol-Feodora was no vampire.

“Did you find anything?”

“No. I hadn’t expected to, either.”

Heike just nodded. He chopped away again at the root with his axe, but to no avail.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to give up,” Peter said. He clearly wanted to get out of there and up to Nicola as quickly as possible.

Suddenly it was as though Heike was filled with the memory of having been abandoned for all those hours in that little, cramped cage. He remembered songs that had passed his lips, words he hadn’t understood.

“Wait,” he said to Peter.

His friend obeyed him reluctantly.

Slowly the unfamiliar words, which joined into a long string, returned to Heike’s consciousness. They formed by themselves and softly glided across his lips, with hesitation, fumbling, tentative ...

“Oh God!” Heike cried. “Those are incantations! Zauberlieder! Du bist doch ein Mabner!”

Heike listened with only half an ear as Peter called him a conjurer and said that the songs he was singing were bewitched. Heike was no longer himself: the song had full power over him, just as it had once taken full control of Ulvhedin.

Spellbound, Peter sat staring at Heike, unable to do anything sensible, such as trying to use the axe. Heike was the one who lifted the axe and, without ceasing to sing, let it fall.

The root broke with a crack and curled up in spasms of death. Peter merely shook his head defensively at the sight of it and was still unable to move. Heike chopped through root after root until it was like a suffering bundle of snakes writhing around the gravestone.

The leaves rustled in reaction to the spasmodic movements of the roots.

Then the stone slab was free. Peter came to and began hectically to push the blanket of leaves away. It was a tough, slimy layer and he had to dry off his brown, sticky hands.

They looked at one another, surprised. Heike had stopped singing.

Then they set to and took hold of the stone. It was heavy. They had to stand on the same side and lift it up against the wall, as if they were lifting a trapdoor in the floor.

They looked down into the grave. There was a big, heavy coffin there that was unusually wide.

“They’re lying in the same coffin,” Peter said in disbelief. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“Neither have I. But it can be no other than our Anciol.”

“No.”

They looked again at one another quizzically Then they jumped down into the grave, which was not very deep, and examined the coffin. They could see that it wasn’t a wooden one, but it was so old that they could not identify the material.

“It’s not made of wood,” Peter whispered, and Heike knew why he said it. It had been to ensure that the deceased could not come back as a ghost.

Owing to its age, the numerous seals of the coffin had rotted away, making it less difficult to remove them. Then they carefully lifted off the lid. If there were vampires lying down there, the corpses would look alive, their complexions would seem fresh, and there might be fresh blood in the coffin as well. All other kinds of undead would look similar.

But there was nothing like that to see. There were two skeletons lying there: a grown woman who had been holding a small infant’s corpse in her arms at the moment of death.

At first they understood nothing.

“Did Anciol have a child?” Peter whispered. “Before she was married?”

“It would seem so. But no one’s mentioned that.”

Heike gazed at the two corpses. It was a moving sight. “Well, there’s nothing interesting for us here, there are no undead here. And now we’ve desecrated their grave.”

“And we can kiss our theory good-bye.”

“Yes. Or no, I’m not sure. They may be ghosts.”

“Perhaps we should throw some steel here?”

“I have steel,” Heike said. “I brought an iron bar with me so that I could stick it through the heart of a vampire or the like. But it would be a waste here. No, had I been a Christian, I would have placed a cross in the coffin as a penance for having trespassed and disturbed the peace of the dead.”

Peter had already pulled a chain over his head from which hung a small cross. “I feel guilty as well. I’ll place this between them. Should I say a prayer?”

“Yes, could you do that?”

“Of course.”

He put the cross in place and when they had closed the coffin and clambered out of the grave, he folded his hands and said a short prayer, at the same time asking for forgiveness for their offence. Then they replaced the large stone. A strange sense of peace came over Heike.

“I don’t understand it,” Peter said as he studied the inscription on the grave for a second time. “Look at this!”

“What?”

“I just don’t understand! Look! ‘Feodora: born 1580, died 1618; Anciol: born and died 1618.’”

“You and your dates, are you certain about that? That means Anciol was the infant?”

“Yes. But it doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Heike said anxiously as he looked about. “Then we’ll have to continue looking for the real Anciol. The jilted bride.”

“We can’t do any more searching tonight, surely,” Peter said irritably. “There’s hardly any daylight left. The sky is grey and soon it will be completely dark.”

“But we’ve got to find her, Peter! How else do you intend to free Nicola?”

“I’ll figure something out. Anyway, your theory that Princess Feodora is really the rejected Anciol is just stupid.”

“It’s more than just a theory. Didn’t you notice that she was caressing that bridal gown?”

“But I can’t wait any longer! I have to go to Nicola, don’t you understand? It is just like yesterday morning. I love her!”

Heike took a step towards him. “Have you lost your wits? You can’t go up there tonight! It’s always at night that the men disappear! We had a remarkable chance today, you and I. No one has ever managed to escape that place alive. I don’t understand why the princess let us leave, but I fear the worst. Come on, let’s go on searching, there’s supposed to be a lantern somewhere by the gate, isn’t there?”

“I couldn’t care in the least!” Peter said crossly.

“Please don’t make this more difficult than it already is!” Heike pleaded.

“Oh, you’re just a prophet of doom!”

“That may be, but I don’t dare be anything else. “

The cold of the night slowly began to stream down from the mountains. Heike now understood why the beautiful horses wouldn’t make it through the winter here.

He wouldn’t mind knowing what had really happened to the Frenchmen.

Along with the night, the sense of fear also returned. The deceitful light of day had kept it in check.

If only Peter was being a little more cooperative! But it was as though he was bewitched and it grew worse as night gradually fell upon them.

The moon was shining more brightly now, but it wasn’t much help to them because the cold wind from the mountains made the clouds move faster across the sky, so the moonlight would come and go during the night, Heike deduced.

He didn’t realize how majestic he appeared standing there deep in his own thoughts in the horrible little cemetery. He looked handsome in the semi-darkness, when his peculiar and frightening features weren’t visible. Peter could see that his friend was really far from ugly, and a jealousy he never knew he possessed before he arrived in Stregesti and met Nicola was awakened within him.

Oh Nicola, his poor love!

Filled with a previously unfamiliar feeling of envy, Peter scowled at Heike. There he stood, much broader across the shoulders than you could ever think possible, his hips narrow below his jacket, which fitted tightly around his slender waist. His black hair fell uncombed and untamed over his shoulders and his movements were measured and catlike. Peter knew that Heike was completely unaware of his own attractive appearance. Heike thought of himself as a frightening and ugly wild man. But once he matured into a full-grown man, he would have a bewitching power over women.

What did it matter if you had a Satanic-looking face? It might even prove to be an advantage!

Peter’s jealousy was burning within him.

“There is nothing we can do but search,” Heike suddenly said, coming back to life. “Where is the lantern? Have you seen it?”

Peter sighed. “Yes, it was over by the gate. But is it really necessary to ...?”

It was truly frightening in the cemetery. Not until now had Heike realized just how old the graveyard of the royal house was.

“Peter, what is the most recent date you’ve seen?”

“We haven’t seen all of them yet, but the most recent one I’ve seen is 1618.”

“Do you think there are any of a later date?”

“There must be. Don’t start getting macabre! Princess Feodora and Nicola are living in the castle and Feodora’s father was a voivode!”

“Nicola is not related to Feodora. She’s more likely to be a girl from the village. A girl who is at the mercy of the witch. And on top of that, Feodora’s father was a voivode ... when did the voivodes lose their power in Siebenbürgen? What do we know about them?”

“You’re right,” Peter said, slightly deflated. “Perhaps there are still voivodes living? But I thought there hadn’t been any since the seventeenth century? No, stop scaring me,” he concluded. “I want to get away from here!”

Heike was stubborn. So Peter finally agreed to go on searching a little longer.

As the moon slowly began to dominate the vaulted sky, coming and going behind the chasing clouds, they searched randomly among the graves. A shiver went down Peter’s spine every time he saw the name Feodora.

But no one else had the name Anciol.

They knew they had not examined all the graves. Some of the stones were so weathered that their inscriptions were no longer legible. Others had caved in beneath the frightening, creeping plant growth. Yet others were so old that they didn’t have any inscriptions.

There was only a small corner of the cemetery they had yet to search, but Peter became increasingly unwilling to cooperate. Suddenly Heike lifted his head.

“Listen!”

Peter listened but could hear nothing but a faint rustle in the leaves and something that sounded like whispering. Perhaps it was the deceased that were mournfully lamenting their trespassing. It was unpleasant to be there: Peter itched to leave but he didn’t dare turn around for fear of what he might find if he did.

“No. I don’t hear anything.”

Heike tried to catch his eye in the darkness. “Didn’t you hear the vultures?”

“The vultures? Have you gone mad?”

“Listen to their screeching, they are echoing through the valleys. They are looking for something. They tend to flock looking for prey.”

“The prey of vultures are dead animals,” Peter said matter-of-factly.

“Yes,” Heike said. “Or those that are dying. Don’t you hear them at all?”

“Not a sound.”

“I don’t understand,” Heike said, confused.

“You’re just trying to scare me!”

“No, I’m not ... Shhh ... I can hear something else now. Can you hear it?”

Peter listened. Suddenly he started. Now they both heard it: a sharp, persistent, crackling sound on gravel and stone and the brisk clopping of horse’s hooves.

“The carriage!” Peter shouted anxiously. “The carriage is coming! They are on their way to the inn to look for me and I’m not there!”

Heike grabbed hold of Peter’s arm as he was about to rush off. “No ... stop! Wait, have you lost your mind? Are you going willingly to meet your own death?”

“Let me go!”

“We haven’t found the witch yet!”

“Stop that nonsense! It’s too late now, anyway. It’s dark. We won’t find her here now.”

Heike saw the logic in that conclusion. The undead did not spend the night in their graves. But he had to hold his friend back.

“Peter, wait!”

“Let me go! I said, let me go!”

“I don’t want you to die!”

“I won’t die! Nicola needs me. Oh, no! The carriage is leaving again!” he shouted in despair. “Wait! Wait for me, I’m right here!”

But Heike’s grasp on him was hard as steel. Frantically, Peter whirled around and tried to hit him with the axe. Heike managed to jump aside but he was hit anyway. He let go of Peter and curled up in pain holding his head in his hands. The axe had grazed his ear, neck and shoulder.

Heike saw stars. He moaned faintly and had the feeling that his legs would give way under him at any moment. Still he tried to grab for Peter again.

Peter hesitated and stood still for a moment. He could see that Heike was about to lose consciousness. He dragged his dazed friend into a small chapel, pushed him in and bolted the door shut.

Then he ran as fast as he could after the carriage, which was on its way out of the village.

“Wait! Wait for me, I’m coming, here I am!” he shouted so the whole village could hear him.

But the carriage had already disappeared around the cliff in the darkness.

Peter ran after it. He was determined to save Nicola from the princess’s clutches, on his own! Love conquers all, he thought, racked with sobs, as he stumbled along in the darkness.