House of Bathory Read online

  ALSO BY LINDA LAFFERTY

  The Bloodletter’s Daughter

  The Drowning Guard

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Linda Lafferty

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  ISBN-13: 9781477808641

  ISBN-10: 1477808647

  Cover design by theBookDesigners

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013914136

  FOR MY BELOVED SISTER NANCY LAFFERTY ELISHA (BECAUSE DAISY SAID I HAD TO)

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  PART 2

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  PART 3

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  PART 4

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Epilogue

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Prologue

  SARVAR CASTLE

  HOUSE OF THE NADASDY HORSEMASTER

  WESTERN HUNGARY

  OCTOBER 31, 1589

  In the first minutes, the midwife Agota did not notice anything strange. Her purple-veined hands cradled his head, the baby slick and silent. She smiled at the infant as his eyes opened, blinking at the dim candlelight.

  “He is a Magyar, sure enough,” she said, admiring his eyes.

  The mother groaned, her pelvic muscles still contracting.

  “His eyes will be green as his grandfather’s,” the old midwife said, nodding in admiration.

  Sarvar Castle would rejoice tonight, for at last a son was born to the Master of the Horse.

  But as she prepared to sever the umbilical cord, the old midwife gasped. Her hands, still stained in warm blood, flew to her face.

  The mother pulled herself up, sweat dripping into her eyes.

  “What is wrong?” she groaned. “Speak, Agota!”

  The old woman shook her head. A second later the babe bawled, a hearty bellow from his tiny lungs.

  The mother held out her arms, begging for her baby.

  The midwife swaddled the baby in a clean linen sheet, stopping once to drag her withered fingertips over her body in the sign of the cross. Then she thrust the baby into his mother’s arms. He quieted immediately, staring silently into his mother’s eyes.

  “Look, Mistress!” Agota dug her wrinkled pinkie finger under the baby’s tiny lips. He mewed in protest.

  The mother saw what had so disturbed the midwife. Under the lips was a full set of tiny white teeth, fully formed. “He is a Taltos,” hissed the old woman. “One of the Ancients!”

  Agota pried open the tightly balled fist of the infant’s right hand. Her breathing resonated in the small room, still heavy with the scent of sweat and birth.

  “Only five fingers, blessed mercy!” she said.

  It was the baby’s mother who tenderly loosened his left fist. It was she who discovered the sixth finger.

  “It is the sign!” she cried. “What shall I do? What will become of him?”

  The candle guttered, a draft crawling under the door. Rain pelted the thick leaded glass.

  “Show no one your babe,” said Agota. “If the Habsburgs learn, they will dash his brains out.”

  There was a knock on the door. The midwife and her patient exchanged looks.

  “Send him away!” the mother whispered. “Let no one enter this chamber.”

  The midwife nodded. She opened the door only a crack. One of the stable boys stood outside.

  He doffed his cap, revealing dark hair studded with bits of straw and oat chaff.

  “The Horsemaster would like to meet his new—excuse me, is it a son or a daughter?”

  Agota hesitated, her old tongue licking her cracked lips before she spoke.

  “Tell the Master he is the proud father of a healthy baby boy. But the Mistress is still weak and begs he visit her later, when she is fit to receive him.”

  The door shut quietly. The midwife waited, listening to his retreating steps. Then she slid the bolt.

  The mother clutched the baby close to her breast.

  “No one shall learn this secret but my husband,” she said. “Swear to me
you will tell no one and carry this secret to the grave!”

  “Mistress, I swear by all that is Holy,” murmured the woman. “A Taltos is a divine power. I would be cursed should I bring any harm to this babe, for they are of powerful blessed magic.”

  The young mother swept back her sweaty hair, her eyes unfocused as she thought.

  “I shall feign sickness and the baby’s as well. I shall allow no one to visit.”

  “Still there will be talk. You must go away, far from this kingdom,” said the midwife. “And I will cut off the sixth finger, this very day.”

  “My baby!”

  “Hear me, mistress. Either the Church or the King will seek him out. Even the Bathorys themselves might fear him. The mistress Erzsebet who has married Master Ferenc is—strange.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The old woman’s face twitched.

  “She has cruel ways—” Agota looked over her shoulder, whispering these last words. “There is more of Transylvania in her than Hungary. The Ecsed Bathorys would put this baby to death, for they fear the power of a true Hungarian Taltos.”

  “But he is innocent!”

  The baby nestled against his mother’s breast now, nursing gently. She felt only the gentle pull of the newborn’s lips, like the sweep of a brook’s current, sensing his tiny teeth only as the rocky bottom in a wave of sweet kisses.

  “You must leave Sarvar until the babe is five. That is when the baby teeth are set in the jaw of a normal child.”

  “But the finger! The wound that is left?”

  “Say the child tangled his hand in a well rope. Or the slip of a kitchen knife as he reached for a carrot piece.”

  “So much deception!”

  “You must protect your son.”

  The mother nodded, her face etched in misery.

  “And watch for the signs,” said the midwife. “He will see things we mortals cannot. The Taltos are possessed in a waking dream, going between the human and spirit worlds. And they communicate with animals, especially horses.”

  The young mother closed her eyes. “At least his father will be thankful for that.”

  PART

  -1-

  Chapter 1

  CARBONDALE, COLORADO

  OCTOBER 31, 2010

  Daisy.”

  Alone in her office, Dr. Elizabeth Path murmured the name of her patient, her chin propped in her cupped hand. Her mother hated it when she did that. “Sit up straight,” she’d snap.

  The oak office chair the psychologist had inherited from her father creaked as she hooked her ankles around the base. She gazed out her office window at the light dusting of snow on Mount Sopris.

  The fingers of her left hand absently twirled her wavy brown hair into a thick rope stretching below her collarbone. Her mother hated that, too. “Fidgeting,” she called it. Bad enough for a woman nearing forty to have hair past her shoulders, but then to play with it like a child! And such pretty blue eyes—wear some makeup. What are you saving yourself for?

  Mom, thought Betsy. What a piece of work.

  The digital clock transformed into a new minute, a ghostly parade of time dissolving into the black background. Betsy had exactly thirty-three minutes until her patient arrived. She had no answers for Daisy. No answers for Daisy’s desperate mother, either.

  Damn it. An image of her father crossed her mind, a look of disappointment in his sky-blue eyes. “Listen, Betsy. Hear what lingers in the air unspoken.”

  Unspoken, yes, Papa. I can hear “unspoken.” But what can anyone hear in utter silence?

  Betsy needed to find something, anything to break through the silence of Daisy Hart. The sullen girl refused to offer anything more than listless sighs and shrugs, her black fingernails rending larger and larger holes in her dark fishnet stockings.

  She would cough occasionally, closing her kohl-rimmed eyes so tightly she smeared her cheekbones black. Betsy would see a flash of that one canine tooth that hadn’t been corrected with braces, incongruous amid an otherwise perfect row of straight, white teeth.

  Session after session, Daisy’s strangled cough echoed in the little Victorian parlor Betsy’s father had converted into an office for his own psychiatric practice years ago. The Viennese clock would chime the hour and her Goth patient would rise without saying a word and leave.

  Silent as a ghost.

  Daisy was an enigma, all wrapped up in a black crepe bow. And her psychologist had not managed to untie the convoluted ribbon.

  Betsy shifted the copy of A Jungian Analysis of Dreams on her lap. Freshness, purity. Daisies symbolize illumination, enlightenment, a reflection of the sun.

  That only told her about Daisy’s parents’ state of mind when she was born, but nothing about the girl herself.

  Betsy pressed her thumbnail against her front teeth, thinking.

  Freud tended to interpret dream symbols literally, but for Jung it was the personal feeling associated with the symbol that was the key.

  Betsy leaned over to her laptop, in the autumn light that streamed in the south-facing windows. She typed “Daisy” in a dream analysis website, the kind that would leave fellow analysts sneering in disdain. It was like reading a horoscope in the local newspaper.

  Still, when a patient presented a dilemma, it was a sinful pleasure to cast off her formal training and indulge in a quick chuckle.

  Her computer screen filled with diet ads: grossly shrinking and swelling bodies beckoned on the right margin. Tarot card readings flashed in neon colors.

  TO SEE A DAISY OUT OF SEASON IS TO BE ASSAILED BY EVIL IN SOME GUISE.

  She looked out the window at snow-capped Mount Sopris. Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head.

  She Googled again.

  DREAM MOODS

  TO DREAM OF WALKING IN A FIELD OF DAISIES REPRESENTS GOOD LUCK AND PROSPERITY. SOMEONE WILL BE THERE TO OFFER YOU A HELPING HAND AND SOME GUIDANCE FOR YOUR PROBLEMS.

  Ha! Betsy thought. Offer me guidance! That’s a good one. Daisy couldn’t guide herself out of a hall closet.

  Betsy’s short fingernails clicked over the keyboard. One more try.

  TATTOO SYMBOLOGY—WHAT’S BEHIND THE TAT?

  DAISY IS THE SYMBOL OF SISTERHOOD.

  Betsy snorted, the way her father loved to hear her laugh. The laughter was swallowed in the silence of the empty house.

  Winter was near. A few remaining aspen leaves quivered in clusters of bright gold on the branches. Fallen leaves rustled dry and curled, chasing each other across Main Street, crushed to crackling bits under the occasional slow-moving car. Overnight all the remaining leaves could wither and the ground freeze rock hard.

  Betsy was desperate to get outside. The warmth of autumn did not linger in the Colorado Rockies. Snow was in the five-day forecast.

  There was just this one patient—Daisy—to see before she could close her laptop and head out into the last of the sunshine. Hurry up, damn it!

  Still another quarter of an hour. She opened her e-mail and read her mother’s brief message again.

  BRATISLAVA AND THE SLOVAK COUNTRYSIDE NEVER CEASE TO ENCHANT ME. I GO TO VISIT CACHTICE CASTLE TOMORROW, HOME OF THE INFAMOUS COUNTESS BATHORY.

  I WILL SEND YOU A POSTCARD, DARLING.

  Betsy closed her eyes. She stifled a sob, biting her fist. How could her mother be so nonchalant, so callous? Enchant her? It was not a decade ago that Betsy’s father had died in a car accident in Slovakia. How could her mother bear to go back?

  Enchanting? What the fuck was wrong with her mother?

  Betsy drew a breath. Her mother, a historian and professor, had loved Eastern Europe long before she married the handsome Slovak-born Jungian psychiatrist. No doubt the Bratislava she spoke of was the Bratislava of seventeenth-century Habsburg Hungary, the heart of her research. The death of Betsy’s father had not stained that image. Dr. Grace Path’s eyes and ears would not see her husband’s blood streaking the rocky ground. His widow would see only the Court of Matthias II, Holy Roman Emper
or.

  Grace’s research was what she had left. Who was Betsy to deny her that?

  There was a knock on the door and then the sound of retreating steps. Through the window, Betsy could see a well-dressed, shapely woman in her midforties—only a few years older than Betsy herself. Jane Hart, Daisy’s mother. And her coming to the door—even if only to knock—was a significant event. In the weeks Daisy had been coming to Carbondale, Jane had never visited the office, as if afraid of some kind of contamination. She would drop her daughter off, then pick her up again when the session was finished, never leaving her car. She’s afraid of infection, thought Betsy. As if she’d pick up a mental illness by crossing the threshold.