THE IMPALER'S WIFE

18 ~ ILONA~

Winter 1467

Buda Castle, Hungary

Songs, shouts, and music rise into the air, the breeze carrying their joy all the way to the castle's courtyard. Everyone in Buda celebrates the first of the twelve days of Christmas.

I want to dance a jig in the square. Eat roasted pork from a street vendor. I cannot. Ladies must be content with more sophisticated celebrations.

"Well, aren't you looking smug." Margit pokes at her embroidery. "Did Matthias find another fat old man for you to wed?"

"Perhaps two fat brothers." I wink. "One for both of us."

Margit rolls her eyes and scowls. "Aunt Erzsébet says your reputation is ruined because the marriage was consummated in the carriage."

"It wasn't." I draw the needle through a blouse.

"Do you have proof?"

"Margit." Aunt Orsulya looks up from her stitchery. "Are you calling Ilona a liar?"

"They were alone for hours." Margit yanks hard on the needle and breaks the thread.

The hours after the attack are a blur. A wool merchant traveling with his wife found me dazed, weeping, and surrounded by the dead. After telling them my name—no small feat, they insisted—they brought me to the castle. Matthias ordered the forests searched, promised death to anyone caught with the stolen goods or heard bragging about the slaughter.

The attack was a diplomatic nightmare. The Captain of the Guard demanded I identify the bandits' language. They hoped to blame the massacre on feuding Venetian or Milanese factions. I did not lie to them. Nor did I tell the truth. I said the language was unknown to me. Two days after the attack Matthias sent Vlad back to Solomon's Tower in Visegrád.

"Margit, enough," snaps Aunt Orsulya.

Margit drops her embroidery on her lap and turns to me. "Do you know Vlad Dracula has returned to Buda?"

"No." His letters never mentioned a trip to the castle.

Aunt Orsulya nods. "Matthias summoned him because the pope demands a crusade."

"Not to mention he needs Dracula to figure out how a single mercenary convinced a hundred cutthroats to seize a Slovakian village." Zsazsa threads her needle with bright green floss. "Luckily, Matthias thwarted the attack—he does employ the best spies—and hung every guilty man and woman."

"A king is only as clever as his best—or in Dracula's case, most shrewd—advisor," says Aunt Orsulya.

"Just like another devious person I know." Margit glares at me.

Instead of taking the bait, I attack my embroidery with a vigorous stitch, pricking my finger in the process. I suck the bright crimson droplet from my fingertip before it stains the linen's pristine whiteness.

Aunt Orsulya sets down her embroidery and puts her hands on her hips. "You girls act like Dracula is the only rooster in the hen house. He's not. Besides, it doesn't matter who you marry. Old man. Young man. Prince or count. Men are all the same. Brutal beasts with two desires—fornicating and fighting. Anyway, the decision is Matthias's alone. Not Erzsébet's."

We lower our heads and sew in silence until heavy footfall makes us look up.

"Lady Ilona." The king's squire bows. "His Highness summons you."

I stare at the squire. "Me?"

Aunt Orsulya nudges me. "Don't sit there like a stunned child, Ilona, His Highness expects you at his good pleasure not yours."