“‘Paul,’ she said, and her face was so strange that I caught her around the shoulders, thinking she might faint. ‘His head! Don’t you see? Dracula went back to Constantinople to get his head!’

“Stoichev made a little choked sound, but too late. At that moment, glancing around, I saw Brother Rumen’s angular face around the edge of a bookshelf. He had come silently back into the room, and although his back was to us while he put something away, it was a listening back. After a moment, he went quietly out again, and we all sat silent. Helen and I glanced helplessly at each other and I got up to check the depths of the room. The man was gone, but it would probably be a matter of a short time before someone else-Ranov, for example-heard about Helen’s exclamation. And what use might Ranov make of that information?”

Chapter 62

“Few moments in my years of research, writing, and thought have prompted for me such a sudden access of clarity as that moment when Helen spoke her guess aloud in the library at Rila. Vlad Dracula had returned to Constantinople for his head-or, rather, the abbot of Snagov had sent his body there to be reunited with it. Had Dracula requested this ahead of time, knowing the bounty placed on his famous head in his lifetime, knowing the sultan’s penchant for displaying the heads of his enemies to the populace? Or had the abbot taken this mission upon himself, not wanting the headless body of his possibly heretical-or dangerous-sponsor to remain at Snagov? Surely, a vampire without a head couldn’t pose much of a threat-the picture was almost comical-but the disturbances among his monks might have been enough to persuade the abbot to give Dracula a proper Christian burial elsewhere. Probably the abbot couldn’t have taken upon himself the destruction of his prince’s body. And who knew what promises the abbot had made Dracula ahead of time?

“A singular image drifted back to me: Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, where I’d strolled that recent sunny morning, and the gates where the Ottoman executioners had displayed the heads of the sultan’s enemies. Dracula’s head would have warranted one of the highest spikes, I thought-the Impaler finally impaled. How many people would have gone to see it, this proof of the sultan’s triumph? Helen had told me once that even the inhabitants of Istanbul had feared Dracula and worried that he might fight his way into their very city. No Turkish encampment would have to tremble again at his approach; the sultan had finally gotten control of that troublesome region and could set an Ottoman vassal on the Wallachian throne, as he’d wanted to years before. All that was left of the Impaler was a gruesome trophy, with its shriveled eyes and tangled, blood-caked hair and mustache.

“Our companion seemed to be musing over a similar picture. As soon as we were certain Brother Rumen had left, Stoichev said in a low voice, ‘Yes, it is quite possible. But how could the monks of Panachrantos have gotten Dracula’s head from the sultan’s palace? It was indeed a treasure, as Stefan named it in his tale.’

“‘How did we get visas to enter Bulgaria?’ Helen asked, raising her eyebrows. ‘Bakshish-a lot of it. The monasteries were quite poor after the conquest, but some of them might have had hidden stores-gold coin, jewels-something to tempt even the guards of the sultan.’

“I pondered this. ‘Our guidebook for Istanbul said that the heads of the sultan’s enemies were thrown into the Bosphorus after they had been displayed for a while. Maybe someone from Panachrantos intercepted that process-that might have been less dangerous than trying to get it from the palace gates.’

“‘We simply cannot know the truth about this,’ Stoichev said, ‘but I think Miss Rossi’s guess is a very good one. His head was the most likely object they could have sought inTsarigrad. There is a good theological reason, too, for their having done so. Our Orthodox beliefs state that as far as possible the body must be whole in death-we do not practice cremation, for example-because on the Day of Judgment we will be resurrected in our bodies.’

“‘What about the saints and all their relics, scattered everywhere?’ I asked doubtfully. ‘How are they going to be resurrected whole? Not to mention that I saw five of Saint Francis’s hands in Italy a few years ago.’

“Stoichev laughed. ‘The saints have special privileges,’ he said. ‘But Vlad Dracula, although he was an excellent Turk-killer, was certainly not a saint. In fact, Eupraxius was quite worried about his immortal soul, at least according to Stefan’s tale.’

“‘Or about his immortal body,’ Helen pointed out.

“‘So,’ I said, ‘maybe the monks of Panachrantos took his head to give it proper burial, at the risk of their lives, and the Janissaries noticed the theft and began searching, so the abbot sent it out of Istanbul rather than bury it there. Maybe there were pilgrims going to Bulgaria from time to time’-I glanced at Stoichev for confirmation-‘and they sent it for burial at-well, at Sveti Georgi, or some other Bulgarian monastery where they had connections. And then the monks from Snagov arrived, but too late to reunite the body with the head. The abbot of Panachrantos heard about it and spoke with them, and the Snagov monks decided to complete their mission by following with the body. Besides, they had to get the hell out of there before the Janissaries got interested in them, too.’

“‘Very good, for a speculation.’ Stoichev gave me his wonderful smile. ‘As I said, we cannot know for certain, because these are events at which our documents only hint. But you have made a convincing picture of them. We will get you away from the Dutch merchants, eventually.’ I felt myself flush, partly from pleasure and partly from chagrin, but his smile was genial.

“‘And then the Ottoman network was put on guard by the presence and departure of the Snagov monks’-Helen picked up the possible story-‘and maybe they searched the monasteries and discovered that the monks had stayed at Saint Irine, and they sent news of the monks’ journey to the officials along their route, perhaps to Edirne and then to Haskovo. Haskovo was the first large Bulgarian town the monks entered, and that is where they were-what is the term?-detained.’

“‘Yes,’ Stoichev finished. ‘The Ottoman officials tortured two of them for information, but those two brave monks said nothing. And the officials searched the wagon and found only food. But this leaves a question-why did the Ottoman soldiers not find the body?’

“I hesitated. ‘Maybe they weren’t looking for a body. Maybe they were still looking for the head. If the Janissaries had learned very little in Istanbul about the whole thing, they might have thought that the Snagov monks were the transporters of the head. The ”Chronicle“ of Zacharias said that the Ottomans were angry when they opened some bundles and found only food. The body could have been hidden in the woods nearby, if the monks had some warning of the search.’

“‘Or perhaps they constructed the wagon so that there was a special place to hide it,’ pondered Helen.

“‘But a corpse would have stunk,’ I reminded her bluntly.

“‘That depends on what you believe.’ She gave me her quizzical, charming smile.

“‘What I believe?’

“‘Yes. You see, a body that is at risk for becoming undead, or is already undead, does not decay, or it decomposes more slowly. Traditionally, if villagers in Eastern Europe suspected vampirism, they would dig up corpses to check for decomposition, and ritually destroy those that were not decaying properly. It is still done sometimes, even now.’

“Stoichev shuddered. ‘A peculiar activity. I have heard of it even in Bulgaria, although of course it is illegal now. The Church has always discouraged the desecration of graves, and now our government discourages all superstitions-as well as it can.’