Twelfth Moon, 347
"There is a traitor in the camp, you know," Alek Gwilym said, not looking at me, but at the bottle of wine standing tall on the table between us. He studied the graceful shape of the dark green glass as an artist might admire an especially beautiful model. After a long moment during which he satisfied his aesthetic sense, he finally reached for it, blandly intent on satisfying some other senses as well. Touch, in the way his hands closed around the bottle's dusty surface, and smell, once the cork was off and the contents were breathing. Taste would come later. I had little understanding of such ritual for myself, but Alek's obvious enjoyment of the process had taught me to respect it.
I raised one eyebrow when his eyes briefly shifted my way.
"I think he will try to kill you," he added, in the same lazy tone.
"There are always traitors in every camp. They have to kill somebody."
"You should worry about this one, Strahd. You really should."
Having been my fighting comrade for fifteen years, he was more than entitled to use my given name in private. This time, however, it irritated me, perhaps because he managed to work in a slight, patronizing tone as he spoke. I was expected to ask him why I should worry more about this one than any others, but remained silent. Sooner or later, he would tell me. Alek always seemed to know all the gossip worth knowing in the ranks and, despite his coolly amused manner, found it physically impossible to keep anything really interesting to himself.
He reached for the wine and carefully poured some into a gold chalice he'd acquired on a long-ago campaign. The heavy red fumes drifted over to tantalize my own senses. The flavor, I knew, would be ambrosial, but unless I drank it with food I'd have a headache before finishing my second cup.
With eyes closed, Alek sipped slowly, holding a few drops on his tongue to take in all the subtleties of flavor. When the last of it was gone, he opened his eyes again and shot me a chagrined smile. "Anyone else would be demanding explanations from me at sword point, but there you sit like a cat before a mouse hole, waiting for the inevitable to happen."
I said nothing.
The need to share his news finally overcame him. He put his cup on the table and leaned forward, though there was no one within earshot who could have heard him.
"The traitor is a Ba'al Verzi assassin, Strahd," he whispered.
The time for games ended with the utterance of that name. I straightened in my chair, fighting down the burst of rage that wanted to rush out. "Who? Who would dare?' He shook his head. "If I knew, he would be dead by now."
"How did you learn of this?"
"From one of our wounded. He thought he could buy special treatment with the information. Unfortunately, he waited too long and died."
"Lady Ilona can still find a way to speak with him."
"I've already seen to that. She found out no more than what I've been able to tell you now."
"Have him raised."
"That's been tried as well. Once she was aware of the threat to you, she made the preparations and performed the spell." He lifted one hand, palm up.
"Nothing."
"Why not?"
"The very question I put to her. She said he was simply not strong enough to survive the attempt."
Other alternatives came to me, each to be dismissed. Between them, Ilona and Alek would have done everything possible to learn all that they could. "Who else knows of this?"
"No one. Others are being questioned. So far none of them knows anything about an assassin."
"Unless you're the assassin."
"An excellent point, my lord," he said evenly. "And the first one I thought you would consider. But I decided to take the chance and warn you anyway."
A wise thing to do, especially since Ilona would have also told me.
"If you should wish to put me out of the way, though, then please do not relax your vigilance, for I can promise that the Ba'al Verzi will still be out there, waiting for his moment."
Indeed, yes, for deception was the greatest weapon of that particular guild of killers. Once they had operated openly, brazenly, until strict laws and liberal executions forced them into society's shadows. Your oldest friend, your most faithful servant, by the gods, even the mother that bore you could be a Ba'al Verzi. Their ways were a secret among secrets, and should one be hired to kill you... why then, you would die.
Unless you got him first. The Ba'al Verzi were uncannily sportsmanlike about their victims. Should one of their number be caught out and stopped, then the assassination was called off, never to be completed. The target had earned the right to live, and an unworthy assassin had been handily culled from their ranks.
"Why?" I repeated. "The war is over. What enemy could benefit from my death now?"
"The man's exact words were 'beware the Ba'al Verzi, the great traitor who will take all for himself.' I would rather expect the beneficiary would be among your friends... such as you have."
True. A man in my position could not afford to have friends. The art of forming friendships had not been one I'd ever sought to cultivate, anyway. Of all the people I worked with or commanded, Alek Gwilym came the closest to fulfilling that position. By right of battle skills and quick wit he'd earned his own place in the ranks as my second-in-command, no small feat for a man who'd initially joined our forces as a hired mercenary - and a foreigner, to boot. He said his homeland was so far away that the name would have no meaning, so he never bothered to name it. I couldn't honestly say that we really liked one another, but we worked well together, and there was no little respect between us.
"Until he or she is discovered, you can trust no one. I expect that common sense will guide you to include me in that number. I shan't be offended." His thin lips quirked into a smile, and he sat back in his chair again.
"I'm so relieved to hear it," I informed him.
"There's no need for me to remind you what precautions must be taken."
"No," I agreed, and called to the guards standing just outside my tent. Both hustled in with a minimum of noise, waiting for orders. If their instructions puzzled them, they did not show it, being well trained and used to my ways.
While one remained inside, the other went off to roust out two more for duty.
From now on, or until I found the traitor, I would not be alone, waking or sleeping. The Ba'al Verzi were known to strike only when their victim was isolated, their chosen weapon being a special dagger. At least I would not have to worry about being poisoned, smothered, or shot by an arrow or crossbow bolt.
Cold comfort, I thought darkly.
The guard watched over us with a stoic face as our supper was brought in and consumed. He was insurance for us all. If either of them was the assassin, neither could take action for the other's presence. It was a tidy little standoff, but not one I planned to maintain forever.
I was not inclined to think that Alek was the man, not unless he wanted to make things difficult for himself in order to enhance his reputation within the killers' guild. Then again, I was not inclined to take chances, period. On the field of battle it was different: you had a clearly defined enemy to fight, and the blood rage was upon you. But when the battle was over and the political gaming began, caution was the best watchword for survival.
A half-dozen names churned through my mind as we ate and discussed tomorrow's activities as though nothing were wrong. I could assume that, since the Ba'al Verzi would directly benefit from my death, he would be among my inner circle of officers and retainers. Anyone of lesser rank would not have as much to gain from the risk. There was the Dilisnya clan, the Wachters, the Buchvolds, even Gunther Cosco. For each one that came up, I could think of many reasons they should not kill me, balanced by an equal number of reasons they should. Beyond that core were others, and still others beyond them. After a long life of soldiering, I'd made many, many enemies, a bitter return for all my service.
The candles burned low around us, flickering whenever a servant came in with another course of food. Alek's look followed one young woman in particular, and he got a shy answering wink for his trouble. Despite his hard gray eyes and a sharp blade of a nose, which did not flatter his long face, women seemed to find Alek handsome enough. He enjoyed his ladies as thoroughly as he did his wine. In the fifteen years I'd known him, he'd never suffered through a lonely night unless he was too drunk or too battle-tired for such amusements. This night looked to be no different from any other.
When he took his leave to pursue this new conquest, two more guards came in to take his place. I did not inform any of them about my situation. There was no need for the entire camp to know that a Ba'al Verzi was after me. Alek's desire to share his news had been fulfilled; it would go no farther now. Lady Ilona, too, could be trusted to remain discreetly silent.
Could she be the assassin? Very unlikely... but not impossible.
Another problem to consider was that by keeping the guards around me, I was informing the assassin I knew of him. A moot point if he turned out to be Alek or Ilona, a warning to be more cautious if not. I pinched the bridge of my nose wearily. With this kind of worrying I could think myself into circles within circles, ultimately meeting myself along the way. Perhaps that was another Ba'al Verzi strategy: let the victim exhaust himself with suspicion and speculation before striking. The task would be all the easier.
I smiled sourly. The only way to overcome the assassin was to strike first.
Unless he chose to flout the guild's traditions and do something tonight, it was safe enough to indulge in some restorative sleep. The day had been hard, and a more difficult one lay ahead. Just because the battle had been won and a generations-long war was ended did not mean the work was over. There were bodies to bury or burn, spoils to divide, honors to bestow, and a thousand other details awaiting us in the morning.
And so the morn provided. I dragged my aching body from my cot and began the day with a fresh loaf of cheese bread and a hot cup of beef juice drained from yesterday's joint. Gradually, the pains in my limbs began to recede as the rich liquid performed its usual miracle of waking me up. I was in better shape than most men half my age, but that knowledge did not gainsay the fact that I was forty-two years old and growing older. Every day it took longer for the night's stiffness to wear off, longer still on a cold and damp morning like this one.
The charcoal braziers in my tent could do little against the chill and nothing at all against the approach of age.
My barber was sent for, and he silently scraped at my chin and cheeks as the guards watched his every move. Though they'd been given no specifics, they knew something was up. After all, a man getting a shave is in a singularly vulnerable position: head thrown back, neck exposed to a sharp razor. But a razor was a razor, and a knife was a knife. I could trust the Ba'al Verzi would cleave to tradition and so relaxed as usual for this daily necessity.
The bristles that were wiped off on the barber's towel had a gray cast to them.
At least the hair on my head was not yet affected, being thick and black as ever. When the time came for it to go gray, would I resort to some sort of dye to hide it, or simply cease to look into mirrors?
With some disgust, I shrugged off the bout of self-pity even as I shrugged into my fur-lined cloak. Men grow old, I was no different, and there was little point in wasting any thought on the fact.
Flanked by the guards, I emerged from my tent just as the sun broke free of the horizon. Its light flooded the valley and bounced off the high peak beneath which we'd made camp. It shone, too, on the more formidable crags to the north and west. A thousand feet up, perched on a natural and most convenient outcrop of rock, stood the castle. Its high walls of cream-colored stone caught the new sun's rays, reflecting them back like a beacon. For miles around, it was the most visible of landmarks and something of a lodestone for every army that had ever passed through this country.
Its warlord had allied himself on the wrong side during the conflict, and now his head was on a pike near the place where the dead were buried or burned. I'd killed him myself, and though not an easy task, he hadn't been an especially skilled fighter. His talents had lain in bluster and bullying, which were of no use against the strong downswing of a sharp broadsword.
And now his lands and the ruined castle overlooking them were mine, by right of combat and conquest. Today I would enter its walls for the first time and take formal possession.
The camp was already well astir as the cooks and their innumerable helpers worked to get the morning meal ready. Other servants attached to various officers were busy with their chores. I saw them and ignored them, this invisible army that kept my own army afoot. They were part of the normal background of the camp, always there, like one's own heartbeat.
And any one of them could be the Ba'al Verzi in disguise, I thought with a new and entirely unpleasant alertness.
I managed to throw off the feeling. I was as safe as I could be until the assassin was caught. Beneath my outer tunic, I had on a finely worked shirt of chain mail. Heavy, but I'd worn it so much over the years that the weight was noticeable now only when absent. It could be penetrated only by the thinnest blade, and I knew the Ba'al Verzi's traditional weapon would be something more substantial than a slender stabbing dirk. Few had ever seen the assassins' knives and survived, but many knew that the blades were small, with hilts decorated in red, black, and gold. Red stood for the blood the assassins took, black for the darkness of death they brought to their victims, and gold for the payment they accepted for their grim work.
Ah, well, every guild was entitled to its symbolism.
The knives were also said to be magical, which meant that even someone with a less than strong arm could cut deeply into some vital spot and make a kill. I'd studied enough of the Art to take such hearsay very seriously.
High Priestess Lady Ilona Darovnya came striding toward me. A tall, hardy woman in her fifties, she somehow managed to keep the light blue robes of her order clean in the rough-and-ready world of an army camp, as if she were back home in her distant temple. Her long, gray-streaked blond hair was in its usual thick braid over one shoulder. Only by the bruised circles under her eyes could I tell she'd been up all night with the holy brothers and sisters, tending the wounded and dying. We stopped about ten feet from one another and exchanged the expected bows and courtesies that our respective ranks demanded. Only then did she approach close enough to speak quietly.
"Alek told you?" she demanded in her low voice. She rarely raised it, except when singing the songs of her devotions.
"Yes. Have you anything to add?"
"My regret that I was unable to get anything really useful for you."
"Who was he?"
"One of ours. Called himself Vlad, a common enough name. Young fellow, no more than twenty, perhaps younger. Nothing special about him. Looked to be a jumped-up farm lad like a thousand other conscripts."
"Are you sure he was just what he appeared to be?"
"Yes, my lord. When I was trying to call him back... well, there's a feeling you get. You seem to brush against the other's soul. And the feeling I got was that he was no more than what he appeared to be."
"Then I am very curious as to how a young nobody like that should know of a... plot against me." Mindful of the guards, I chose to keep the matter vague. "Do you think he was lying?"
"No. He spoke the truth. I can only guess that he overheard something he shouldn't and passed on the little he knew, hoping for protection."
"Who was his commander?"
She hesitated, looking both unhappy and embarrassed.
"Well?"
"You were, my lord."
If it hadn't been my life at stake I might have laughed. Instead I shrugged it off, making a throw-away gesture with one hand. "If he'd just had the wit to give you something useful, like a name."
"On the other hand, he might have been misinformed or not known it."
"I can't take that chance."
"Perhaps you could."
She weathered my harsh look with no change of expression. My jaw tightened from the effort to hold in some equally harsh words. She took it as a sign to continue.
"You can spend the rest of your life waiting for it to come or run out and meet it and trust me to bring you back again if things go wrong."
"You think your god would grant a miracle to one such as me?"
Her eyes crinkled. She had a nice smile, when she deigned to use it. "Faith makes a miracle and a miracle makes faith," she responded. Members of her order abhorred the slaughter of war, but the truth was that they made many converts from those they helped during such hard times.
"Trying to bring me around, Lady?"
"That will happen when it happens," she answered. "I'm only offering you an alternative to looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life."
"A choice that might not be what it seems, should you be the one."
"I expected to hear that from you, my lord," she said, taking it without insult.
"Decide as you will. There are others besides me who can help you if help is needed."
"The Most High Priest Kir? He's a bit far away to be of much use."
"There are many right here in the camp."
"And all subordinate to you, Lady," I pointed out.
She smiled again, gently giving up with a shake of her head. "Very well." She sighed and fell in beside me, walking back the way she'd come, toward the tents of the wounded. "If I could hate anything, it would be the Ba'al Verzi guild.
They destroy trust, and how can one live without trust?"
I almost argued the point with her, until I thought of my barber again. It was true. I trusted him not to nick me, much less cut my throat. Every moment of the day I trusted all those around me to one degree or another. The Ba'al Verzi could be any of them, and unless I flushed him I would spend all my time waiting, waiting, waiting for him to strike. What pleasure was to be found in that kind of skulking existence? None.
There was work waiting for Ilona when we reached the tents, and she went straight into it, as though the stench of the dying and dead was nothing to her.
Perhaps it was so. She was a dedicated woman with an unshakable faith. Had she worn it like a proud banner as did some others, she'd have been insufferable, but she had no time for such posturing and no patience for those who did.
I left her to it and set a good pace over to where the horses were kept. The grooms stood a little straighter and worked a little harder when they caught sight of me. It was only to be expected, so long as the discipline continued without my inspiring presence. Judging from the condition of the animals in their care, it did.
One of the older men bowed as I approached. "All is ready as you ordered, my lord."
He indicated a number of horses, saddled and waiting. Close by stood their riders; Alek Gwilym stood with them. His eyes flickered as he looked me over, no doubt assuring himself that I hadn't picked up any stray blade points during the night. He was refreshed and ready to go, having a natural resilience for surviving a good victory celebration. Few of the others possessed his gift. Next to him, barely standing, was Ivan Buchvold, who was a better soldier than drinker. Propping him up were his younger brother, Illya, and his brother-in-law, Leo Dilisnya, who also looked worse for wear. All three had proved themselves a dozen times over in battle, so I wasn't going to chide them for their excesses. The morning's ride would sweat the wine from their blood soon enough.
Behind Leo stood his oldest sibling, Reinhold Dilisnya. He was only a few years younger than I, but managed to look much older. His grim face seemed daunting until one learned that it was the result of chronically poor digestion. On his left was his sister's husband, Victor Wachter, on his right, their old family friend, handsome Gunther Cosco. Though the oldest in the group by some ten years, he still cut a dashing figure, but his famous looks were a trifle blurred this morning from too much wine and too little rest.
"Good morning, Lord Strahd," he rumbled, bending slightly forward. The others imitated him.
Could he be the one?
Of course he could, I impatiently answered myself. Alek glanced at me as though he'd somehow heard my thoughts. I ignored him and mounted my horse. The others followed my example, along with their retainers and the rest of our entourage.
We made quite a parade, walking the length of the camp, and even collected a few cheers on our way to the Svalich Road.
Once there, we took the southwest branch, seemingly the wrong direction to get to the castle. The northwest turning looked like a shortcut, but the local guides agreed with our sketchy maps that though it cut off many miles from the journey to the Tser Falls, it also led to a dead end at their base, rather than to the bridge over them.
The road curved and climbed, making a lengthy switchback into this edge of Mount Ghakis. The air grew colder, not warmer, as the morning progressed, and patches of snow became more frequent until they were unbroken. I'd already sent a sizable party ahead of us to secure the castle, and evidence of their previous passage lay clear on the road in the form of churned and frozen mud. Our horses struggled through it, up and up to more rocky ground. This firmer footing had its own slippery hazard from hidden ice, and Gunther's mount nearly threw him off when its hind feet encountered some. He kept hold of his reins and head and even laughed about it later, though a careless fall in these mountains was tantamount to a death sentence.
The morning was almost gone by the time we reached the bridge. A dozen guards had been posted there and made their report of having spent a relatively quiet night. The falls made a very noisy rush, after all, in their nearly six-hundred-foot drop to this end of the valley. I peered over the high parapet of the bridge, taking my first real look at the land, at my land, at Barovia.
Almost directly below was the dead-end trail winding through dense thickets of trees. Except for the pines, the trees were bare and gray from the winter, making this the only time of year one might spot the Gypsy camp by the Tser Pool. Their wagons were gone now, driven far to the east, away from the war.
Locals said that they would doubtless return in the spring. Beyond the campground to the right, I could just glimpse the crossroads where my army quartered. Hundreds of fires sent up thin lines of smoke into the still sky. In the center of the valley sprawled the village of Barovia, neatly cut in two by the Svalich Road. The trees were considerably thinner there, or missing altogether from marked off stretches of cultivated fields and pasture. Though hard to judge now, the land looked to be rich enough to make living here worthwhile.
Days earlier, when the army had marched through the village, the inhabitants had not impressed me much. Dark and stocky, either surly or too anxious to please, but one could hardly find fault with their ill-behavior in wearily trading one ruler for another. My predecessor had been a hard man, but better the devil you know than the one you don't - as Alek had said later, repeating their sentiments to me. I didn't care what they thought, as long as the taxes were collected and promptly turned in.
On my left stood the castle on its high spire of rock, but I couldn't see it from the bridge as an even higher outcrop bulked in between.
Alek Gwilym appeared suddenly at my side. I hadn't heard him because of the falls. I did not quite jump.
"The food is ready, my lord," he announced, shouting over the water's constant roar.
I ate with the men, but silently, watching their faces in vain hope that I might discover a clue. Leo Dilisnya and Illya Buchvold had recovered enough to joke about the previous night's revels. Reinhold listened to his younger brother's bragging with amused tolerance, but Ivan Buchvold barely heard them at all, appearing to be preoccupied with something.
"Your thoughts are very much elsewhere, Ivan," I said.
He jerked and blinked, offering a thin smile. "Yes, my lord."
"Perhaps if you shared them with us they would not distract you so."
"'Tis nothing of any great interest to you, Lord Strahd."
"I will make my own judgment on what I find of interest."
Reinhold looked ready to jump in at that point, but my eye was on his brother-in-law, not him.
"Well, Ivan?"
He offered a sheepish smile. "I was only worried about my poor wife, Gertrude.
She's nearing her time, and I've heard no news of how she is doing."
"Her time?" Perhaps she had some fatal disease, I thought.
Now Reinhold did speak. "He's hoping the brat he got with my sister on his last leave will be a boy, my lord, as if the two fine daughters he has were not enough of a handful to raise."
Family matters. Ivan was right: I had no interest in such things, and they all knew it. But there was another level to discuss, and I went straight to it. "If you have a son, then will you not get an additional share from your father-in-law's estate?"
"Yes, my lord. But that hardly matters to me now. My wife..."
He went on to speak of his dear Gertrude's many virtues and his concern for her continued good health. I quickly lost the thread of his talk. After all the honors and booty he'd picked up on this last campaign, Ivan's disinterest in the Dilisnya estate seemed genuine. Not so for Reinhold, the eldest and the head of the clan for the last two years. He hadn't done as well as he'd hoped during the war. The Dilisnyas were not a small family, what with a brother and two sisters and nearly a dozen offspring to support along with various in-laws, poor relations, servants, and serfs. Among them only Leo had not yet married, probably a wise choice. He was the youngest and thus had the least share in the family fortune.
Reinhold drifted across my thoughts again. Were I to die, control of Barovia would naturally pass to him as the senior officer. A rich prize indeed for a man with the boldness to strike for it.
Except for Gunther and Alek, all the others were related by blood or by marriage. The Dilisnyas had served the Von Zarovich family for generations, but betrayals had happened before and for less cause.
As I watched, Reinhold's face twisted from some inner torment. He passed his half-finished plate of food back to his servant and got up, clutching his stomach. Indigestion, then, not guilt, though I could hardly expect a Ba'al Verzi to possess a mundane vulnerability like guilt.
There is a traitor in the camp, you know.
Alek's words turned my own meal to ashes. I gave my plate back even as had Reinhold and signed for the others to remain seated as I rose.