Your Excellency, Lord Abbot Eupraxius:

We have left the city some weeks behind us and are now riding openly in the territory of the infidels. I dare not write our location, in case we should be captured. Perhaps we should have chosen the sea route after all, but God will be our Protector along the way we have chosen. We have seen the burned remains of two monasteries and one church. The church was smoking as yet. Five monks were hung there for conspiring to a rebellion, and their surviving brothers are scattered to other monasteries already. This is the only news we have learned, as we cannot talk long with the people who come out to our wagon. There is no reason to think one of these monasteries is the one we seek, however. The sign will be clear there, the monster equal to the saint. If this missive can be delivered to you, my lord, it shall be as soon as possible.

Your most humble servant in Christ,

Br. Kiril

June, the Year of Our Lord 6985

“When Stoichev had finished, we sat in silence. Helen was scribbling notes still, her face intent over her work, Irina sat with her hands folded, Ranov stood negligently against a cabinet, scratching under his collar. For myself, I had given up trying to write down the events described in the letter; Helen would catch everything anyway. There was no clear evidence here of a particular destination, no mention of a tomb, no scene of burial-the disappointment I felt was choking.

“But Stoichev seemed far from downcast. ‘Interesting,’ he said, after long minutes. ‘Interesting. You see, your letter from Istanbul must lie between these two letters here, chronologically. In the first and second letters, they are traveling through Wallachia toward the Danube-that is clear from the place-names. Then comes your letter, which Brother Kiril wrote in Constantinople, perhaps hoping to send it and the previous letters from there. But he was unable or afraid to send them-unless these are just copies-we have no way to know. And the last letter is dated June. They took a land route like the one that is described by the Zacharias ”Chronicle.“ In fact, it must have been the same route, from Constantinople through Edirne and Haskovo, because that was the major road fromTsarigrad into Bulgaria.’

“Helen looked up. ‘But can we be sure this last letter describes Bulgaria?’

“‘We cannot be absolutely certain,’ Stoichev admitted. ‘However, I believe it is very probable. If they traveled fromTsarigrad -Constantinople-into a country where monasteries and churches were being burned in the late fifteenth century, it is very likely that this was Bulgaria. Also, your letter from Istanbul states that they intend to go to Bulgaria.’

“I couldn’t help voicing my frustration. ‘But there’s no further information about the location of the monastery they were looking for. Assuming it even was Sveti Georgi.’ Ranov had settled at the table with us and was looking at his thumbs; I wondered if I should hide my interest in Sveti Georgi from him, but how else were we going to ask Stoichev about it?

“‘No.’ Stoichev nodded. ‘Brother Kiril would certainly not have written the name of their destination in his letters, just as he did not write the name of Snagov with Eupraxius’s titles. If they had been caught, these monasteries might have suffered extra persecution, eventually, or at least might have been searched.’

“‘There is an interesting line in here.’ Helen had finished her notes. ‘Could you read that again-that the sign in the monastery they sought was a monster equal to a saint? What do you think this meant?’

“I looked quickly at Stoichev; this line had struck me, too. He sighed. ‘It might refer to a fresco or an icon that was in the monastery-in Sveti Georgi, if that was indeed their destination. It is difficult to imagine what such an image might have been. And even if we could find Sveti Georgi itself, there is little hope that an icon that was there in the fifteenth century would still be there, especially since the monastery was probably burned at least once. I do not know what this means. Perhaps it is even a theological reference that the abbot would have understood but that we cannot, or perhaps it referred to some secret agreement between them. We must keep it in our minds, however, since Brother Kiril names it as the sign that will tell them they have come to the right place.’

“I was still wrestling with my disappointment; I realized now that I had expected these letters in their faded binding to hold the final key to our search, or at least to shed some light on the maps I still hoped to use.

“‘There is a larger issue that is very strange.’ Stoichev ran a hand over his chin. ‘The letter from Istanbul says that the treasure they seek-perhaps a holy relic fromTsarigrad -is in a particular monastery in Bulgaria, and that is why they must go there. Please read me that passage again, Professor, if you will be so kind.’

“I had taken out the text of the Istanbul letter, to have beside me while we studied Brother Kiril’s other missives. ‘It says, ”… what we seek has been transported already out of the city and into a haven in the occupied lands of the Bulgarians.’

“‘That is the passage,’ Stoichev said. ‘The question is’-he tapped a long forefinger on the table in front of him-‘why would a holy relic, for example, have been smuggled out of Constantinople in 1477? The city had been Ottoman since 1453 and most of its relics were destroyed in the invasion. Why did the monastery of Panachrantos send a remaining relic into Bulgaria twenty-four years later, and why was that the particular relic these monks had gone to Constantinople to find?’

“‘Well,’ I reminded him, ‘we know from the letter that the Janissaries were looking for the same relic, so it had some value for the sultan also.’

“Stoichev considered. ‘True, but the Janissaries looked for it after it was taken safely out of the monastery.’

“‘It must have been a holy object with political power for the Ottomans, as well as a spiritual treasure for the monks of Snagov.’ Helen was frowning, tapping her cheek with her pen. ‘A book, perhaps?’

“‘Yes,’ I said, excited now. ‘What if it was a book that contained some information the Ottomans wanted and the monks needed?’ Ranov, across the table, suddenly gave me a hard look.

“Stoichev nodded slowly, but I remembered after a second that this meant disagreement. ‘Books of that period did not usually contain political information-they were religious texts, copied many times for use in the monasteries or for the Islamic religious schools and mosques, if they were Ottoman. It is not likely that the monks would make such a dangerous journey even for a copy of the holy gospels. And they would already have had such books at Snagov.’

“‘Just a minute.’ Helen’s eyes were wide with thought. ‘Wait. It must have been something connected with Snagov’s needs, or the Order of the Dragon, or maybe the wake for Vlad Dracula-remember the ”Chronicle“? The abbot wanted Dracula buried somewhere else.’

“‘True,’ Stoichev mused. ‘He wanted to send Dracula’s body toTsarigrad even at the risk of the lives of his monks.’

“‘Yes,’ I said. I think I was about to say something else, to meander down some other path of inquiry, but suddenly Helen turned to me and shook my arm.

“‘What?’ I said, but by then she had recovered herself.

“‘Nothing,’ she said softly, without looking at either me or Ranov. I wished to God he would get up and go outside to smoke, or get tired of the conversation, so that Helen could speak up freely. Stoichev glanced at her keenly, and after a moment he began to explain in a droning voice how medieval manuscripts were made and copied-sometimes by monks who were actually illiterate and encoded generations of small errors in them-and how their different handwritings were codified by modern scholars. I was puzzled about why he was going on at such length, although what he said held considerable interest for me. Fortunately, I stayed quiet during his disquisition, for after a while Ranov actually began to yawn. Finally, he stood up and made his way out of the library, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. As soon as he was gone Helen seized my arm again. Stoichev watched her intently.