with nausea and traces of the narcotic, he recalled the old man’s warning but had no idea if other liberties had been taken. He was seized with the urge to rush downstairs and stab the old man to death in his bed, the idea flaming up in his mind for a dazzling second. He knew something mysterious and supernatural was afoot, however; the old man’s strength and powers were beyond reasonable expectation and he would be powerful enough not to let himself be killed in his own lair.
He spent the day trying to summon the courage to flee. But a familiar fear chained Adair to the spot, the cold ache in his knitted bones a reminder of the price of disobedience. So, when the sun had traveled across the sky and darkness began to settle in, Adair sat in a corner, gaze fixed on the top of the staircase.
The old man wasn’t surprised to find his servant still there. A sly smile crossed his face but he didn’t try to approach Adair. He went about his business as before, retrieving his cloak from the peg. “I am going to the castle tonight, for a special function. If you know what is good for you, you will be here when I return.” When he left, Adair collapsed by the fire, wishing he had the courage to throw himself into it.
Life continued like this for countless months. The beatings became routine, though the old man didn’t use the poker again. Adair quickly saw that there were no reasons behind the beatings; he was so docile that there could be no excuse for them. The beatings merely served to keep him obedient and so there would never be an end to them. The molestations continued, unevenly. The physic had Marguerite drug Adair’s food or drink to facilitate these sessions, until the young man became wise to this tactic and refused to eat. Then the old man would beat him and force him to swallow debilitating narcotics until he was in a helpless state.
The physic’s decadence accelerated. Perhaps he’d opened some sort of floodgate: now that he’d indulged in these immoral acts, there was no stopping him. Or maybe this was how the old man had always been. Adair wondered if the old man had killed his last servant, and had sought out Adair to start over again. The count began to send a maid occasionally for the old man’s enjoyment, some unfortunate young woman captured by the count’s men during their raids into the Hungarian countryside. The young woman would be taken to the physic’s chambers and chained to his bed. The maid’s cries would waft upstairs during the day, haunting Adair, punishing him for not going down to the physic’s lair to help her escape.
Occasionally, after the old man had left on his nightly wanderings, Marguerite would send Adair below with food for the poor prisoner. He remembered the first time, creeping reluctantly into the chamber to see the poor woman, naked under the bedding, shivering in shock and fear, and unable to acknowledge his presence. This first one didn’t beg the young man to release her. Paralytic with fear, she didn’t move toward the food. Adair was ashamed to find he was aroused, staring at her feminine form under the blanket, her flat stomach rising and falling with each terrified breath. His sympathy for her plight and his own horrible memories of what had happened to him in this bed were not enough to keep him from filling with lust. He didn’t dare force himself on her, as she was the old man’s property, and so, shaking with desire, left her untouched and retreated upstairs.
The maidens usually died within three days and the old man made Adair dispose of them, retrieving their cold bodies from the bed and carrying them into the woods. They would lie on the ground like toppled statues as he dug their graves, sprinkled them with lime, covered them over with dark earth. The first maiden’s death filled him with shame, self-hatred, and despair, so much so that he couldn’t look at her as she waited for her anonymous grave.
But after the first one, and the third, and the fourth, Adair found that something had changed within him, and his yearning-which he knew to be abominable-outstripped his fear of trespass into the profane. His hands trembled as he surrendered to the desire to touch their breasts, now hard and inhuman, or run his hands over their curving bodies. Each time he lowered one of them into the ground, he brushed against the torso and thrilled at the stiffening in his body. But he never went further, never committed an act he found more repulsive than fascinating, and so the bodies were spared further molestation.
Several years passed like this. The beatings and rapes dwindled, perhaps because Adair had grown bigger and stronger and gave the old man pause. Or perhaps, because he was no longer a boy, he didn’t appeal to the physic.
After one particularly brutal winter, the old man announced they were traveling to Romania to visit his estate. Word was sent ahead to the vassal who ran the property so the accounts could be put in order and everything made ready for the physic’s review. Leave was secured from the count, and a second horse was purchased for Adair to ride on the journey. When it was time to go, only a few provisions were packed, some clothing and two small, locked trunks. They departed after the sun had set, riding eastward into the night.
At the end of seven nights of travel, they were deep in Romanian territory, having traveled through a pass in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains to get to the old man’s estate. “Our journey is over,” the physic told Adair, nodding toward a light glowing faintly from a castle in the distance. The castle had high turrets at each corner, the forbidding shape sharply visible in the moonlight. The last stretch took them through fertile fields, vineyards clinging to the mountainside, cattle sleeping in the fields. The huge gates were thrown open as the pair approached and a coterie of servants waited in the courtyard, torches held overhead. An older man stood at the head of the group, holding a fur robe that he wrapped around the physic’s shoulders as soon as he dismounted.
“I trust your lordship had a safe journey,” he said with the solicitousness of a priest, following the physic up the broad stone steps.
“I am here, am I not?” the old man snapped.
Adair drank in details of the estate as they made their way inside. The castle was massive, old but well tended. Adair saw that the servants wore the same look of terror he fancied he did. One servant took his arm and led him to the kitchen, where Adair was given a meal of fancy roast meats and fowl, and afterward was taken to a small chamber. He sank into a real feather bed that night, nestled under a fur-edged blanket.
Adair came to love this time away, living more grandly than he ever imagined possible for anyone, let alone a peasant boy. Freed from the regime of life in the keep, he spent most days roaming the castle, as the physic was immersed in the running of the property and lost interest in Adair’s whereabouts.
The overseer, Lactu, took a liking to Adair. He was a kind man, and seemed to recognize the unspoken burden the physic’s servant carried. Because Lactu also spoke Hungarian, Adair was able to have a real conversation for the first time in all the years he’d worked for the physic. Lactu had come from a line of servants who had been in the physic’s employ for generations. He explained that he didn’t find it strange that the physic was away most of the time: the lords of this property had been absentee landowners for generations, traditionally taking up service to the Romanian king instead. In Lactu’s experience, the physic returned only every seven years or so, to tend to important matters.
Through the overseer, Adair gained entrance to all the special chambers in the castle. He got to see the room that held the old man’s ceremonial robes, packed away in chests, and the buttery, filled with stocks of all the foods made on the estate. The most eye-popping, however, was the treasure room, filled with the cel Rau family’s share of conquest: crowns and scepters, gem-studded adornments, coins of strange mint. The sight of so much property and so many possessions put Adair in mind of the written alchemic recipes: the gigantic castle in the faraway land was such a waste. It was criminal to have such treasure and not put it to good use.
Weeks passed with Adair rarely seeing the physic, though one night the physic sent word for Adair to attend a ceremony in the great hall. The young man watched as the physic signed declarations that would have a binding effect on everyone who lived on the estate. Next to the old man’s right hand stood a heavy seal. Lactu brought out each proclamation, read it aloud, and then laid the sheet before the physic for his signature. Then the overseer would drip scarlet wax below the physic’s scrawl, into which the old man would press the seal with the family crest-a dragon wielding a sword. Later Lactu explained to Adair that it was the seal that conveyed the cel Rau rule of law: because the lords often died while away from the property and without their heirs properly introduced to the Romanian authorities or even the overseer, signatures were meaningless. Whoever held the seal was recognized as lord of the estate.
Weeks turned into months. Adair would have been happy never to return to Hungary. He enjoyed the dual benefit of being treated like a favored son while escaping the physic’s attentions. In his free time, he practiced swordplay with the guards, or rode through the hamlets. He discussed what he saw with the overseer, deepening his understanding of the property and its many aspects, such as the cultivation of crops, the production of wine, the care of livestock. Adair believed Lactu came to hold him in regard, but the young man didn’t dare share any details of life back in the keep. He returned Lactu’s affection tenfold but greatly feared what the overseer would think of him if he knew what he had suffered, or that he helped the old man in his practice of the dark arts. He
