3

Dracul lay on the ground outside the monastery entrance. No one had ever hit him that hard before. Not even his father in one of his drunken rages. Dracul felt as if his jaw might be shattered. And one or two of his ribs.

He dry-retched like a cat. Then he levered himself up onto his knees. He remained on all fours for some time, his head hanging down between his shoulders. Then he lurched to his feet and staggered towards the great stone cross, his body bent double, his hands cradling his stomach like a man with colic.

Dracul collapsed in the lee of the cross. An icy wind bit into his thin jacket. He could feel it searching up the legs of his trousers.

Despite the intense pain, all Dracul could think about was the man in the astrakhan coat. The man filled him with an intense admiration. This nameless person was clearly someone of immense importance. Someone he must learn to emulate. No one, in all the years that Dracul had eked out his living from blackmailing visitors to the monastery, had ever responded as this man had done. One or two had grabbed him, it is true, or pushed him roughly aside – but never with violent intent. They had simply been reacting out of frustration.

But this man had acted without compunction. Dracul had got in his way. So he had forced Dracul out of his way. The fact that Dracul was only twelve years old had clearly not clouded the man’s thought processes in the least.

Dracul hugged himself and moaned. The pain in his ribs was spreading out across his stomach. He coughed in an effort to clear the congestion in his throat, but the pain from the movement was so great that it nearly caused him to black out. He clutched at his mouth to prevent a further unwanted spasm.

It was October, and the autumn was shaping up to be a hard one. Dracul knew that he would not be able to walk far with the injuries he had sustained. Perhaps not even as far as nearby Butuceni. Would the hermit agree to take him in? Might he lie up for a while in one of the stone cubicles the former monks had used as bedrooms? Probably not. The old man spoke to no one. And he mistrusted Dracul – that much was clear. Suspected that Dracul was misusing the monastery site.

Dracul sensed, rather than saw, the man’s approach. The man still had the astrakhan coat draped across his shoulders like a cloak. He stopped at the cross, ignoring Dracul completely. Then he strolled to the lip of the plateau and peered out over the edge.

Everyone did this. It was hardly surprising. It was one of the wonders of Moldova. The river snaked below the limestone escarpment – a sheer 200-foot drop from the base of the great cross – and slithered on through the distant countryside like the retreating back of a meadow viper.

Dracul leapt to his feet and ran at the man. He did not think of the pain. He did not ask himself whether he was capable of achieving his end. He simply acted. Just like the man had acted at the monastery door.

At the very last moment the man began to turn, as if he intended to fend Dracul off with the flat of his palm. But it was too late.

Dracul struck the man full in the back, just as he was swivelling, on one foot, to face his assailant. Just as he was at his most vulnerable.

Dracul was not a large boy. But he was strong. He had been used to hard physical labour in the fields ever since his sixth birthday. He was a master scyther and a master hayricker, just as all village boys his age were. His body was as hard as iron from the summer harvest.

The man began to fall.

Dracul’s last conscious act was to drag the astrakhan coat from about the man’s shoulders.

Then he blacked out.