O LORD,
High on its jutting promontory, gaunt and austere, Castle Csejthe still stands, dark and muted now, its tenants none but rats and spiders, nesting birds, and one lone wretch, Elisabeth, Thy servant. In my sleepless desolation, I think upon those great rooms I am constrain’d to see no more, and roam in fancy through them, gliding like an insubstantial phantom through those high, broad, livid veils of dust that, when they catch the moonlight and a vagrant breeze, shimmer and ponderously sway, thus doubtless spawning village talk of ghosts—vast, shapeless, silent, silver minions now that once were solid men and women. Sometimes a bird, flapping and cawing, will start a shrill reverberation drifting through those bleak, abandon’d halls, filling their enormous emptiness with memories of screaming, and of pitiless laughter, and of the sharp cries of fleshly lust.
I do not starve for food, but pine for faces, and for the cherish’d sound of speech. The serfs whose task it is to hand my fare in through the narrow chink risk death by the whispers they afford me in their pity, yet they are good of heart, and when I plead with them and beg them but to speak, to utter any words, be they ever so plain and paltry, these lowly folk cannot gainsay me.
From them, I glean that in the village, in every inn and cottage, the church itself not excepted, all but one colour may be seen in draperies and raiment and every manner of trapping: no soul will dare display a thing of crimson. The sun itself is shunn’d when, at the close of day, it sinks into its scarlet bath; and should a wayfarer, ignorant of this strange conceit, enter the village, and he attir’d in red, be it no more than a kerchief of the offending hue, that garment is stripp’d from him, and burnt, and he is told, “We of Nyitra are sore surfeited with that colour; by firm decree we do not name it, we think not of it, we have forbade our eyes to look upon it evermore.”
Soon I will die, O Lord, and the fetters of mortality will be stricken from my limbs, and I will straightway fly into Thy Presence, into the waiting embrace of Thine Arms. The thought of that liberation is the sole thing that sustains me in my harsh imprisonment, and allows me to endure these final solitary days, seal’d off by stone and mortar from this world, from the blue of the very sky, denied all human congress, speaking naught, seeing no one, inaccessible to all save Thee.
The others are already dead—some dispatch’d mercifully, some torn and broken by protracted torture, then burnt while yet they liv’d. I alone (and how alone!) remain, passing the cheerless days with this my screed, a captive in a single room of this which was my castle.
Fifteen I was, and lovely, when first I came to Castle Csejthe as the bride of Ferencz Nadasdy. My flesh was as pearl, lit from within, the faint blue tracery of the veins lightly visible; my hair, a tumble of raven’s plumage that fell to below my waist; mine eyes, large and lustrous; my mouth, full-lipp’d and carmine. (Do women of the village now, I wonder, blanch the proscrib’d colour of their lips?)
We had met not many months before, in my father’s house, where Nadasdy had been an honour’d guest. He was handsome and masterful, a scant six years older than mine own few years. His sweet demeanour, the lightning flashes of his eyes, his melodious laugh, his arms, hard with latent puissance: these things commended him to me, and quicken’d my blood. No man had yet enjoy’d me, but I knew full well that Ferencz yearn’d to do so. He paid me compliments, bestow’d flowers and other gifts upon me, seldom left my side.
I took refuge in coyness, and reciprocated by presenting him with a dainty wooden box made of interlocking panels, a product of Cathayan cunning, impossible to open lest one knew the secret sequence of its intricate design. It had belong’d to my mother.
“There is a sweetmeat within,” I told him. “It is thine to savour, if thou canst extract it.”
At first, he tried without success to gain entry, his fingers vainly prodding and prying. “Canst find no way into that little toy, Count Ferencz?” I said, amus’d at his efforts. “How wilt thou find thy way into my heart?”
He laugh’d, and solv’d the problem simply—by crushing the box between his two strong hands and victoriously chewing the sweetmeat, his eyes aglint with mischief.
I feign’d vexation. “Brute strength,” I coldly said. “It is a thing to please foolish girls . . .”
“But it does not please Elisabeth Bathory,” he rejoin’d, “kin to bishops, cardinals, princes, kings. So be it. Pose me other problems, little Bathory, and Ferencz of Nyitra will solve them all!”
“Sayest thou? Then look upon these . . .” I shew’d him three eggs, which artisans had stain’d with divers patterns, each delightful, yet each different.
“Painted eggs,” said Ferencz, with a shrug. “Dost think I cannot open them, as thou thought I could not open that little box?”
He reach’d for the eggs, but I stay’d his hand. “This is a problem for thy mind, Count Ferencz, not thy sinews,” I explain’d. “Each of these eggs is pleasing to the eye, and yet each is different from its sisters. It is hard to choose among them, they are so beautiful. Is it not so?”
“It is so—if that be thy wish.”
“But once the pretty shells are peel’d away, one egg will taste much like another.”
“Doubtless. Does thy discourse have a theme?”
“Only this,” I said: “It is even so with women. Outwardly, one of us may seem more fair than others; but when our shells are crack’d . . .”
He smil’d; his white teeth gleam’d. “The riddling wisdom of the Bathorys is well-renown’d,” he admitted, “but Nadasdy wit can match it. Look thou here . . .” He gestur’d toward three carafes which stood on my father’s table. “Outwardly, all these are quite the same,” he said, “but do not be deceiv’d. One contains strong Bathory wine . . .” He drank deeply from the wine carafe. “One contains water . . .” He drank of the water. “And one is full of emptiness.” He flung the empty carafe to the floor’s stone flagging, where it was sunder’d into shards. He walk’d closer to me and look’d long into mine eyes before he spoke. “It is even so with women,” he said, echoing my words. “Elisabeth, God willing, I would quench my thirst with strong Bathory wine—not tasteless water.”
“And if . . .” I found it difficult to speak. “And if I fain prove full of emptiness, Count Ferencz?”
“My love should fill thee,” he swore.
That same night, when my old nurse, Ilona Joo, was undressing me, I ask’d of her, “What think thee of the young Nadasdy?”
“A noble gentleman,” she replied, “and all report him gracious, brave, and godly.”
“But of his person, what of that, Ilona? Is he not comely and well-favour’d?”
Ilona laugh’d at this, and said, “The time is past, my lady, when such things caught my fancy; and yet I deem Count Ferencz most agreeable to the eye.”
“Ilona,” I said as I climb’d into my bed, “would marriage to him suit me, dost think?”
“Thou art young,” she answer’d, “but it may be that thou art ready for reaping. The Bathorys are people of high blood. Thy brother, since the time his cheek first sprouted pallid down, has never yet been sated, and neither green-bud maids nor matrons far past ripe have been enough to glut him. Thine aunts and uncles, all, crave without end; thy noble cousin Zsigmond . . . tut, tut, thou mak’st me talk of things not meet.”
“Is marriage, then, not meet? For it is that I bade thee speak of, dear old goose.”
“Marriage, my child,” she said, after smoothing my coverlet, “is a key to a lock’d casket, full of many things.”
“What kind of things?” I ask’d her.
“Things unknown,” she said. “Bright things, most oft, but . . .”
“But what, Ilona?”
“But naught. It is time thou wert asleep.” She blew out the candles. “Good night, my little bud, and dream of pleasing things.”
I did. I dream’d of Ferencz. That same week, he ask’d for and receiv’d my hand, for he was look’d upon with favour by my father.
The wedding feast was prodigal, and spoken of throughout the land. Hundreds of guests attended, pounds of viands and gallons of drink were consum’d. The king himself was present, and his Prime Minister, my cousin. Another kinsman of mine, a great prince of Transylvania, sent gifts and lordly greetings across the miles. There was dancing, and there were songs of minstrels; and some of the men, my brother among them, giddy with the fumes of wine, quarrel’d and brawl’d and laugh’d and, I doubt not, had their way of serving maids in the priviest recesses of my father’s house.
Through all of this, my glance would catch the eye of Ilona; but she said naught, proffer’d me scant regard, and I was sore distress’d at this and could, at length, endure her silence no whit more; hence went to her, and took her two old hands in mine.
“Dear friend,” I chided, “whence come these glances? Have I done ought to vex thee?”
“No, my lady,” she said.
“Why, then, rejoice with me,” I begg’d her. “This is a merry time. Put off thy glumness and thy frowns, or I will think thou dost not wish to see me happy.” I then perceiv’d that both her cheeks were wet. “Dear nurse, weepest thou? Pray do not, lest mine own tears flow.”
“I weep to think of time’s too hurried passage,” she replied. “For fifteen years thou hast been my tender charge, and now . . .”
“Ilona,” I said, “dost think I am a heartless ingrate who would leave thee behind? Thou’lt come with us, and be with me alway.”
“Oh, lady,” she said in a rush of warmth, “those words are a benison to mine ears!”
And so, on that same day, I, my husband, and my nurse departed for Nyitra; and soon I was to behold Castle Csejthe for the first time.
Vasty, it stood upon high ground, o’erlooking all the countryside, and was, in truth, a bastion’d citadel, for the rich and noble of that region, in times past, being much given to feuds and bloodshed, had need of suchlike strongholds to subdue their equals and oppress their lessers. Such castles, too, gave protection ’gainst the invading Turk, rampant in our land. In the months to come, Ferencz was to shew me every inch of this his home, but this detailing was to wait upon his ardour: we had not been within the walls of Csejthe ten minutes ere he lifted me aloft in his strong arms, and with a lustly laugh, carried me up a winding, wide, stone staircase to our chambers.
“Now, Elisabeth; pale, trembling little Bathory,” he whisper’d when we were quite alone, “I will do that I swore to do: fill thy maiden emptiness with my love.”
In later days, I was to recollect the words of old Ilona Joo, and her likening of marriage to a key that opened seal’d and secret places, denizen’d by things unknown. For such it prov’d.