The tower window was only ten feet above the ground and it looked out over rows of what appeared to be more rosebushes and another low vineyard. Half a dozen blackgarbed sentries stood in the rose garden and along the trellised vines nearer the path, their presence made visible in silhouette against the torch lit chapel. More torches were visible through the open doors, the male voices audible.
“What are they saying?” whispered Kate.
Lucian shook his head. “It's not Romanian.”
O'Rourke leaned closer to the halfopen window. Birds rustled above them in the raftered recesses of the tower. “It's Latin,” he whispered.
Kate recognized the cadence of the Latin syllables but could not make out words. She strained to see through the chapel doors, strained to see the form of an infant in the arms of one of the black forms, but there were only the vague shapes, the occasional Latin syllable, and the frustration at not being able to see better. She clutched Lucian's jacket and pulled him closer until she could whisper directly in his ear. “Did you remember binoculars along with your pistol and knife?”
The young man shook his head.
Suddenly, with the abruptness of a church service ending, the chanting and moaning of ritual voices ceased, there was a moment of silence within the chapel and a general stirring among the guards, and then the cloaked figures came out onto the paved area between the church and the whitewashed cottage. Hoods came off, cloaks were removed, cigarettes were lighted, voices were raised in a more conversational tone, and the effect was startling in its resemblance to the scene outside any American church after a Sunday morning service. Men stood in clumps of three or fiveKate heard no women's voices, so she assumed they were all men, smoking and talking softly.
Kate leaned so far out in trying to see and hear that O'Rourke had to pull her back before one of the guards in the rose garden below looked up. The voices were maddeningly indistinct, but she had made out German, Italian, and English amongst the murmur of Romanian. “Can you understand“ she hissed at Lucian.
He shushed her and listened. It was hard to tell the actual size of the gathering since the dark forms looked much alike as they moved in and out of torchlight, but Kate guessed that there had been almost a hundred people in the chapel or waiting outside along the walkway to the dock.
“There . . . that's Radu Fortuna!” whispered Lucian and pointed at one of the men just emerging from the chapel door.
“Yes,” whispered O'Rourke.
Kate strained to see, but the torchlight was tricky, the men were moving, and she saw only distant faces in shadow before Lucian pulled her back. “Did you hear?” she whispered again. “Did you understand?”
“Shhh.” Lucian's finger touched her mouth. Guards were shouting to guards in Romanian. A deep voice barked commands from near the chapel doors.
They saw me, was Kate's panicked thought. A second later, they've found the boat. We'll never get off the island.
Flashlights stabbed on and one of the guards in the garden below switched on a handheld spotlight much brighter than the flashlight beams. Kate, Lucian, and O'Rourke all flinched back from the window, but in a moment it was apparent that the beams were aimed elsewhere. Kate edged up to the window and looked just as one of the men fired a short burst from his automatic weapon.
She flinched away again but not before seeing a large brown dog running between the trees in the orchard near the monastery huts. They all heard the howl and barking.
More shouts in Romanian. Some laughter. One by one the flashlight beams switched off.
It took half an hour for the men to file back to their boats and board, for the torches to be extinguishedthe guards snuffed and retrieved the last ones along the walkwayand then there came the sound of the patrol boats roaring away to escort the ferries. The chapel was dark.
Kate sat on the narrow landing with the two men for the better part of an hour before anyone spoke or moved. She imagined the blackgarbed guards still lying in ambush in the dark. Finally the resumption of insect sounds, the throb of frogs from the lake's edge, and the sight of the brown dog sniffing along the chapel stones unchallenged gave them courage to tiptoe downstairs, open the heavy door, and retrace their tracks back through the orchard and east. The stars had come out and Kate caught a glimpse of the knife in Lucian's hand.
“For the dog if he barks,” whispered the medical student, but the dog did not approach them as they scurried around the edge of the old courtyards.
The boat was where they had left it, The two men waded in and tipped the boat to let the half foot of water out. Kate was last aboard, untying the line and slipping down rocks onto the bow. Lucian pushed off with one of the oars and edged out slowly from under the tree.
The broad lake appeared empty. The great estate on the southwest shore was dark. They did not speak as Lucian rowed them across the lake and into the lagoon. They were silent as the three of them carried the rowboat back to its heap of rowboats, flipped it, and set it softly on the pile of rowboats. There was still no light or sound from the shack in the boatyard.
The Dacia looked undisturbed, but Lucian had them wait in the darkness of the trees as he slipped out, approached the car warily, and checked its interior. The two joined him and the old vehicle started without protest.
Lucian left the abandoned park area with the car lights out, picking his way along by starlight, finally turning the headlights on as they left the sleeping village of Snagov.
“I didn't see Joshua,” Kate said, her voice sounding strange and strained even to herself. “I didn't see any children.”
“No,” said O'Rourke. The priest had slid into the front passenger seat; Kate rode in back.
“Did you hear any of what they said?” she asked Lucian.
He drove in silence for another minute. “I think I heard someone say something about it being the first night . . . good for the first night, I think.”
“First night of what?” Kate pressed her cheek against the cold window on her right to help her stay awake.
“The Investiture Ceremony,” said Lucian. “I should have known Snagov Monastery would have been the site of the first night's ceremony. “
“Because it's important to the strigoi?” said O'Rourke.
Lucian chewed his lip. His face was very pale in the dim light from the instrument lights. “It was one of Vlad Tepes' fortresses. Legend had it that he was buried there.”
“You said that the grave was empty,” said Kate.
“Yes. But they found a headless corpse in another tomb in the chapel, set near the doorway rather than next to the altar where one would expect royalty to have been buried.” He slowed the car at the intersection to the main highway and turned left, toward Bucharest. “Archaeologists think that it may have been a little joke the monks pulled . . . moving his corpse. “
O'Rourke scratched his beard. “Or a deliberate act. They may have considered his burial so close to the altar a sacrilege.”
Lucian nodded. “If it was Vlad Dracula. The Order maintains that the Prince had one of his servants decapitated and buried in royal robes . . . even wearing one of the rings of the Dragon . . . in order to throw off his enemies.”
Kate was close to losing her temper. “It doesn't really matter who was buried there five centuries ago, does it? What matters is what they were doing there tonight . . . and what it has to do with Joshua.”
They passed Otopeni Airport and saw the reflected lights of Bucharest ahead. It was clouding up again. Only trucks were on the highway. “If it is the Investiture Ceremony,” said Lucian as if thinking aloud, “and if Joshua is the chosen one, then there will be several more nights of strigoi ceremony before he receives the Sacrament of human blood.” He rubbed his cheek. “Or so go the legends.”