For Whom The Dragon Cires

November 1608, Kolozsvár

Gentle but insistent fingers worked to untangle the baleen from the plaits, releasing her red tresses to cascade down over her shoulders. As she stood still and poised, yet more fingers reached for the lacing of the heavy velvet dress richly embroidered with gold, the cords slipped from their delicate golden loops. Freed from its supports, the voluminous garment’s heaviness dragged it from her shoulders and down to the ground. Such was its weight and intricacy that as she stepped out, she left it almost upright behind her, mimicking the shape of her now absent body. She cast her gaze over the woven silk threads of countless colours dancing in the candlelight, the richly embroidered pearled lilies, tulips and lush vines snaking up and around, seemingly alive in the shifting shadows. Stretching almost lazily from the bottom of the skirt, a great dragon reared its head towards the blouse, powerful wings sprouting from his curved frame to wrap the wearer in his strong embrace, and in his claws, he gripped the Báthory family coat of arms: three dragon’s teeth. Such a heavy, fussy garment – too heavy, too costly – but such had been the prince’s order for the bride-to-be.

At that time, the sorrow which had previously blanketed the land seemed to have moved on; but in truth, it had only been pushed back so far. It loitered still on the highest points and mountain peaks, casting its predatory gaze down over the principality of Transylvania, and biding its time until its invitation to return.

Transylvania had long been plundered, her cities burnt to the ground. The Ottomans had taken Buda, and in Transylvania, the sultan’s word had been law, despite the Hungarian crown resting upon the brow of a Habsburg. As a petty fiefdom that dutifully paid its taxes, Transylvania had presented the Habsburg emperor with an opportunity to extend his reach to the western edges of the Ottoman Empire - something that simply could not be tolerated by the members of the Sublime Porte. The will of a Christian emperor to claim Transylvania as his own had been greeted with outrage by the sultan, and so the advancing German armies had been met by Janissaries sent by the Turks. While the emperor’s forces had pillaged and laid waste to the land, the sultan’s legions had taken captives and herded them in droves into the endless stretches of Byzantium. Even the Voivode of Wallachia had made occasional forays into Transylvania – sometimes in the service of the prince, sometimes in that of his enemies – as had the Hajduks, a regiment of cattle-drover mercenaries numbering in the tens of thousands who worked in the pay of whomever they thought might offer them more. The land had been empty, its people hungry, weary and worn.

True, the dead prince had negotiated a hard-won peace to bring the land back from this brink; but it remained to be seen whether his successor would succeed in safeguarding it.

The aging Lord Rákóczy, set upon the throne by the lords of Transylvania, had cared little for such concerns, and even less so given the increasingly forceful demands for the throne from a powerful young nobleman desiring the title of prince for himself. After little more than a year of rule, Rákóczy abdicated peacefully in exchange for a large sum of gold and two impressive castles, retiring to his estates in Hungary to practise beekeeping. Claiming the sceptre was the young Count Báthory, a gallant, handsome champion who had only just reached his eighteenth year. He had been raised from birth to rule and was heir to a vast fortune that he dispensed freely. His impressive family name preceded him, and though tradition dictated that the Transylvanian prince was to be elected by the lords and the Transylvanian Diet, so many Báthorys had occupied the throne before him that the family were often heard to speak of their claim to it, as though it were the family’s own to be passed down. Gábor Báthory had been proclaimed prince by the Hajduks, and the Diet had nodded its assent – but what else could it have done in such a situation? And so, in March 1608, the gallant young man had ridden into Kolozsvár as prince.

*

Two of the attendants reverently took up the heavily embroidered garment from the floor, folding it between the soft cambric in Anna Báthory’s dowry chest like one might lay down a sleeping child. They returned to take the heavy, lace collar from her shoulders before removing her blouse and singlet. Freed from the thick, opulent layers and suddenly exposed to the bitter November air, Anna Báthory’s shoulders began to shiver violently. The embers in the glazed Turkish tile stove strove in vain against the cold, as icy draughts blew in through the window and carried any residual warmth away with them.

Her reddish tresses flowed over her burgeoning bosom all the way to her narrow hips. Below, her feet were turned inwards, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist against the cold. She was presented with a new undergarment, gossamer thin, an almost transparent veil so sheer that it hid virtually nothing of her womanly curves – until yesterday, the curves of a child. The attendants began pulling an embroidered nuptial shirt over her head, its adorning silver plates sending myriad candlelight reflections dancing across the walls. As she snaked her arms through its sleeves and it dropped over her frame it became apparent that she had grown since they took her measurements; despite having been custom-sewn, it stopped short and exposed feet clad in soft leather slippers painted a dark shade of red, above which her ankles knocked together uncontrollably from the bitter wind. As if to complement the slippers, her hair shone a striking shade of copper, and her foster mother, Katalin Várday, approached her bearing the garland to place atop it. Katalin had raised Anna Báthory in her mother’s stead, and as she gazed on the gleaming tresses that Anna had so boldly displayed on arrival in Kolozsvár from Nagyecsed, she pondered who could have taught her such a thing.

Being November, little more than evergreen sprigs and pale roses had been available for the garland. Horrified with such simplicity, the bride’s aunt, Erzsébet Báthory, had insisted upon having fragrant lilies sent from her well-heated, many-windowed palace in the castle in Csetje, and they had arrived still rooted in their pots to provide the lilies more befitting the bridal garland of the young sister of the princeps. To mark the impending nuptials more properly, cannons were fired in the city of Kolozsvár – so many, indeed, that the chimneys in the houses on the main square collapsed.

            The bride, her fragrant crown now settled atop her head, placed one of her hands in that of the groom’s mother and the other in that of the bridesmaid. She knew she had only to put one foot in front of the other and walk gracefully down the white stairs, the centres of which carried the dull shine of innumerable footsteps gone before. Upon arriving at the door, the guardsmen – gazes averted - would open it into the space where the gathered guests would be waiting for her to dance the bride’s dance. So, it had come to pass. Anna Báthory threw back her head and fixed her countenance. As of the next day, she would no longer be Anna Báthory. She would be stripped of her name and maidenhood, tossed to the wolves like no more than hapless quarry. Worse, it would all be at her brother’s behest. Her only brother who, in the absence of her long-dead father, should protect her and care for her. Her brother, the Prince of Transylvania, that handsome, valiant youth, Gábor Báthory.

As she entered the old palace and proceeded alone towards the main table, some of those gathered began to fall silent. By contrast, jubilant cries and the sounds of great revelry continued to spill in from the main square in front of the Báthory house, where it sounded as though the city in its entirety was celebrating. Inside, the scene was not much different, with the majority of guests already feeling the effects of the strong wines. The embroidered tablecloths hung askew, spotted with heavy sauces and blossoming wine stains, and the plates were haphazardly strewn across the tables with no more than a few bones or leftovers to bear witness to the great feast that had gone before. The sideboards were also bare, awaiting the replacement of the gleaming dinnerware that would be returned to its rightful place the next morning. Little remained of the candles save for large pools of rapidly cooling wax and, in one of the darker corners, a few of the servants were already dozing. Dotted throughout the merriment, the palace hounds were busy chewing on the leftover bones, and in the growing quiet the musicians played wearily on. As she neared the main table, more of the guests began to notice her and watched her with something like contented curiosity.

“Silence!” Rhédey, the Captain of Várad and the groomsman, gave the order as soon as he caught sight of the pale bride approaching, his deep, firm voice resounding around the hall. The musicians stopped immediately, all with the exception of the harpist – the prince had specifically requested his presence at the celebration, and he was not yet accustomed to performing with the court musicians. Indeed, rumour abounded that he was a little deaf.

Outwardly, Anna Báthory seemed calm as she continued her solemn procession through the hall, graceful and majestic. Upon reaching the table, when tradition dictated that she drop her gaze and give thanks to her brother for his care and protection in her parents’ stead, she instead remained silent. She pointedly looked directly at the prince, then to the groom, and then returned her gaze to the prince. The guests – those who had not succumbed to the effects of the wine and fallen asleep – were finally all shocked into near silence, starkly highlighting the din continuing from outside, and causing even the harpist to notice the deepening hush and cease his playing.

In the relative quiet, the groom’s snores could be heard more clearly from the head of the wedding table. He clasped his goblet with one hand, his head slumped on the edge of the table and his legs spread wide to accommodate his bulging paunch, upon which rested his other hand. His right leg was placed on a footstool following a severe fit of gout that had been tormenting him for days, apparently paying no heed to the importance of the occasion. Dénes Bánffy was fifty years old and easily wearied by bouts of revelry. Of the ceremonies, he enjoyed only the feasts, the victuals and viands, but even these he rarely savoured, for only in a few places could he find food cooked to his very particular tastes. Next to him sat the prince, garbed in a crimson dolman ornately decorated with precious stones and extensive embroidery, his sword resting on the table in front of him – the sword once worn by István Báthory, their grandfather’s brother, when he took his seat upon the Polish throne. To his left sat a general who was in attendance as a representative of the emperor, and next to him Kata Iffjú, the prince’s aunt. To her fell the duty of liberally refilling the general’s goblet, ensuring that his ears were suitably dulled to the increasingly boisterous and uninhibited outbursts against the emperor. Both within the palace walls and on the streets outside, the people spoke of the Germans with abhorrence, and even more vigorously so as the wine flowed and the tongues of both guests and servants were loosened by increasing levels of inebriation.

Out in the courtyard the Hajduk captains were already dancing to the marching songs used to recruit youths. In their revelry they rebuked the emperor or the Turkish sultan, they drank to the prince’s health or – when it occurred to them – the health of the bride, and they lustily grabbed the servant girls and drank the prince’s wine by the barrel. And drink of it they could – as much as they pleased – for, as far as they were concerned, it was theirs. In preparation for the celebration, Gábor Báthory had set them to accompanying the peasants bringing the must into the city from the vineyards in the hills around Kolozsvár, ensuring that the valuable wines were delivered to the cellars and that the city had ample full barrels to offer the stalwart burghers at the wedding feast.

For three weeks prior to the celebration, the drays had trundled down the roads leading from the Báthory estates to the city, and herds of livestock had been brought from all over. For two days, wains bearing cages of poultry had flowed ceaselessly through the city walls – hardly had one been unloaded than the next could be seen arriving. Whole flocks of sheep were driven from Szilágsomlyó, with the Hajduks from Ecsed alone bringing two full herds. From Lord Zrínyi by the seashore had come Hutterite jugs, myriad sea creatures such as octopus and salted fish, along with tableware bearing the white pewter glaze that paid testament to their superior techniques. From as far as distant Italy and Spain, rich wines had been ordered by the prince, along with rare spices from Vienna and Pozsony, while the Báthory family had been hunting game in the forests of Transylvania and the hills around Kolozsvár for days. Pheasants had also been brought from the emperor’s game reserve near to Vienna, and wains piled high with mushrooms or trout from the Danube River and its banks had been brought into the city in seemingly endless droves.

“Die 8. octobris. Anno Domini 1608”, Gábor Báthory had written in an eloquent letter of honeyed tone to Pozsony, Vienna, Buda, and the Sublime Porte, inviting them to join in the celebration. The noblemen of Transylvania and Hungary had received their invitations, in which Gábor Báthory had eloquently summoned them: “Since in accordance with the laws of our God we hereby give Anna Báthory, our loving and beloved kinsman, to Bánffy in marriage, with the assistance of God we have ordained the eleventh day of November, the day of Saint Martin, as the day of the wedding. We ask that on the evening of the day of Saint Martin you and your lady grace us with your presence in Kolozsvár that we may rejoice together.” Everyone of any import or standing from that part of the world had been summoned, and all who had received their invitation had immediately begun elaborate preparations for the wedding of the prince’s young sister: ornate garments had been woven, gilded goblets fashioned, and decorative kerchiefs embroidered, while others had set about fattening animals, hiring servants, fixing their carriages and purchasing mounts. 

            While they had busied themselves preparing for a wedding feast the likes of which neither Transylvania nor its nobles had witnessed before, the bride, Anna Báthory, had withdrawn in solitude to the castle of Nagyecsed. There she had brooded alone, admitting no guest, counsellor, aunt nor lady of the court. Indeed, she had not set foot outside of the courtyard of the inner castle of Ecsed until, finally, her brother had come for her, and taken her to Kolozsvár.