The Wallach stood silent for a moment in the dusk. ‘You’ll send me back to the southern steppe, then?’
‘I might, and I might not. I might stand you down from the fighting entirely, make you a Boyar, give you land and men to look after it for you. There’s a lot of good land here, Thibor.’
Thibor shook his head. ‘Then I’d prefer to return to Wallachia. I’m no farmer, Prince. I tried that and the Pechenegi came and made a warrior of me. Since then -all my dreams have been red ones. Dreams of blood. The blood of my enemies, the enemies of this land.’
‘And what of my enemies?’
‘They are the same. Only show them to me.’
‘Very well,’ said the Vlad, I’ll show you one of them, Do you know the mountains to the west, which divide us from the Hungarians?’
‘My fathers were Ungars,’ said Thibor. ‘As for the mountains: I was born under them. Not in the west but in the south, in the land of the Wallachs, beyond the bend in the mountains.’
The prince nodded. ‘So you have some experience of mountains and their treachery. Good. But on my side of those peaks, beyond Galich, in that area called the Khorvaty after a certain people, there lives a Boyar who is … not my friend. I claim him as one who owes allegiance to me, but when I called in all my little princelings and Boyars he came not. When I invite him to Kiev he answers not. When I express a desire to meet with him he ignores me. If he is not my friend then he can only be my enemy. He is a dog that comes not to heel. A wild dog, and his home is a mountain fastness. Until now I’ve had neither the time, the inclination, nor the power to winkle him out, but – ‘
‘What?’ Thibor was astonished, his gasp cutting the Vlad short. ‘I’m sorry, my Prince, but you – no power?’
Vladimir Svyatoslavich shook his head. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Of course I have power. Kiev has power. But all so extended as to be almost expended! Should I recall an army to deal with one unruly princeling? And in so doing let the Pechenegi come up again? Should I form up an army from farmers and officials and peasants, all unskilled in battle? And if I did, what then? An army could not bring this Ferenczy out of his castle if he did not wish to leave it. Even an army could not destroy him, his defences are so strong! What? They are the mountain passes themselves, the gorges, the avalanches! With a handful of fierce, faithful retainers, he could hold back any army I muster almost indefinitely. Oh, if I had two thousand men to spare, then I might possibly starve him with a siege, but at what expense? On the other hand, what an army cannot achieve might just be possible – for one brave and clever and loyal man . . .’
‘Are you saying you want this Ferenczy taken from his castle and brought to you in Kiev?’
‘Too late for that, Thibor. He has shown how he “respects” me. How then should I respect him? No, I want him dead! His lands then fall to me, his castle on the heights, his household and serfs. And his death will be an example to others who might think to stand apart.’
Then you don’t want his thumbs but his head!’ Thibor’s chuckle was throaty, without humour.
‘I want his head, his heart, and his standard. And I want to burn all three on a bonfire right here in Kiev!’
‘His standard? He has a symbol, then, this Ferenczy? Might I enquire the nature of this blazon?’
‘By all means,’ said the prince, his grey eyes suddenly thoughtful. He lowered his voice, cast about in the dusk for a moment, as if to be doubly sure that no one heard. ‘His mark is the horned head of a devil, with a forked tongue that drips gouts of blood . . .’
Blood!
Gouts of blood soaking into the black earth. The sun had touched the horizon and was burning red there like . . . like a great gout of blood. Soon the earth would swallow it up. The old Thing in the ground trembled again; its husk of leather and bone slowly cracked open like a desiccated sponge to receive the earth’s tribute, the blood that soaked through leaf-mould and roots and black, centuried soil down to where the thousand-year-old Thibor-creature lay in his shallow grave.