Bound & Bound – the Curse and the Captives – - 26. Chapter 26: In the Bear Pit

Chapter 26: In the Bear Pit

Grey clouds cap in the sky a bit too close for comfort, but at least rain does not pelt Silviu and I as we walk around.

A few minutes ago we passed under Targoviste Castle's gatehouse for the second morning in a row. It is an impressive structure built to house the portcullis, and which is crowned by a wicked-looking square wizard's hat roof of green tiles.

The path we follow is the same one as yesterday, but now the looming silhouette of the citadel's rook seems dimmed, like its internal light source has been extinguished. Perhaps the budding 'seer' in me feels that whatever test I was to take from my actual physical contact with its stone, bricks and mortar has been passed. Now it's just up to me to fit that piece of information into the jigsaw puzzle I do not have the master image of. Who can solve such a puzzle when the end result is a total mystery? Well, at least I figure I know how to go about the issues of reconstruction: one piece at a time, slow and steady, make a mental inventory of the pieces at hand, and then ad hoc, when and where I am able, slip them into one another, stand back and assess at the emerging picture.

Now the only question that remains is how do I see Silviu fitting into that picture?

His hand brushes mine.

I glance over to him, and I can tell my sullen introspection has him worried again; maybe I'd even say 'has him on edge again.'

"It's all right, Silviu. Where do we go?"

The church is coming up on our right, behind some trees.

"Do you want to go in there?" he asks.

"I don’t think the chapel is relevant. It's as if I sense it wasn't here at the time."

"Ok."

His leather jacket suddenly brushes up against the fabric of mine.

"What..?" I ask playfully.

"Nothing. May I?"

His hand pops out close to me, open-palmed, fingers splayed. Silviu holds it just above his belt line. "We're alone," he adds with hushed expectation.

"We don't have to be alone…don’t you think I want people jealous of me?" I take his hand and interweave our fingers. His grip is firm, yet exploratory and coaxing. The slight caress of his thumb over the top of my hand – close to where my thumb splits and forms the rest of the fingers – feels relaxing, smooth, and I have to say, very very hot.

I suddenly ask, "Can I ask you a question?"

Silviu sneers back at me. "Like if I say 'no' you will hold back? Well, maybe if I say no, you will brood a bit and make me feel guilty, and – so, ask already!"

We walk on for a bit. I have to smile in spite of my serious mood. "Sil, it's just this. When I confronted you in our room about working for my father and all, how come you did not get mad at me?"

He looks truly puzzled.

"I mean," I continue. "You could just as likely have taken my emotional state as simply a temper tantrum, and then responded in kind. So, how come you did not call me out on my 'childish' behavior."

Silviu frowns in the way that I have seen moms do when they think they've unintentionally upset their child. He takes my hand. "Emeric, you had every right in the world to be pissed at discovering that information. As for why I did not get mad, well, it's because I felt like shit. I kept a secret from you, I lied to you, I deceived you and damaged your trust in me. Plus, if I had become defensive, we would have ended up shouting at each other – like two silly tantrum toddlers."

He actually winks at me, a slip of blue sparkle informing me that 'all is forgiven.'

"Wow, Romani stud – way to bring me almost to the state of tears, and then call me a big fat baby. Nice."

"Come here, big, fat, baby. Let me make it up to you."

He pulls me roughly into a kiss, and any lingering doubts on my part float up and away like iridescent soap bubbles. "I love you, Mr. Corvin."

"Oh please, for you – you may call me 'Prince Emeric.'"

"Ha-ha. Princely ways, that's true. A peasant like me is lucky as shit to have the love of a blue-blood like you. That's true, isn't it?"

"Which part?"

He leans in and shows me some of the bottom whites of his eyes. "The part where I said I have the love of you..?"

I squeeze his hand with a couple of confidence-ensuring grips. "Yes, Mr. Vasile, you have monopolized all my love."

"Good." He stops, scanning the environment. "Now, where do we go?"

I let loose of his hand so I can reach for the inside pocket of my jacket.

I pull out the triple-folded glossy castle brochure I had picked up yesterday.

As I unfold it, Sil bends his elbow and props his forearm heavily on my right shoulder. His face comes close to mine as we give the tourist map a once over.

"Look," he tells me, pointing. "There are underground chambers. I say we check them out."

I shrug and simultaneously duck out of his heavy leaning. With a puckish grin, I tell him, "Let's go, I bet we can find some out-of-the-way corners down there."

I start walking.

Silviu trails me a few paces behind, and his voice calls out to me with a twinge of the confused ringing in it. "And why would we want to find some out-of-the-way corners?"

I shove fists in my jacket pockets, and rotate to face him. Walking backwards, I can feel my cheeks sting red and my mouth pulling up a huge little-boy smirk. "If somebody happens to corner me in one of them, there's no telling what I would do to escape."

"Oh, yeah?" He smiles too. "A Hunger Game of kisses..?"

"Who knows? – Like you said, 'we are alone.'"

˚˚˚˚˚

Through a slight maze of ramps, and a continually sloping decline, we are brought to an odd space.

Many parts of the castle structure are in tumbledown condition, but this grand room we have just stepped into is different.

The walls are thick masonry, and the arching vault of a perfect half-circle rises eight metres above our head. The far end of this long room is open – the ceiling has collapsed, but long ago was cleaned up and is now covered by a steel mesh roof. Silviu gestures and moves to a placard mounted on the wall. As I come up to him, he reads it aloud:

"The castle's throne room. Here Vlad Ţepeş would receive emissaries from the Ottoman Sultan who had come to collect the yearly tribute of 10,000 ducats of gold as 'taxes,' and here it was that the last of these diplomats were slain by Vlad's own hand in a fit of rage. He drove nails through their brains on the pretexts that since they did not doff their hats to him, it was only right that they never be able to doff them again. That was in 1459 – "

"Wrong," I cut him off by announcing generally.

"Wrong..?"

"Yeah," I proceeded a bit scared to question myself on how I know this. "Look around. This is no throne room. First of all, we are in the cellar of the castle's residence. What prince would receive emissaries in his basement?"

I stride out into the light coming through the mesh roof. "No, this space was used much differently."

Silviu joins me. "This is where prisoners were 'enhanced interrogated' until they made up useless intelligence on the activities of the Turkish and Hungarian armies."

Sil looks skyward. "A torture chamber, huh; if these walls could talk, eh?"

"If these walls could talk, they would be screaming."

˚˚˚˚˚

In another area of the subterranean labyrinth, I inspect a diagram mounted under plexiglas. It's of a medieval potentate sitting on a throne in a windowless and columned room. In front of the man on the throne is a be-robed and turbaned Ottoman.

This Turk seems to be under arrest, as others are grabbing for him, and his left arm is lifted high and outreaching for the man on the dais. A pageboy is stepping towards the prince with a tray. Upon the silver charger are several nasty looking iron spikes and a wooden mallet.

Silviu steps up quietly behind me.

"Brutal business," I mumble.

His lower arms expertly slide over my belt loops one by one until his fingers interlace just above my belt buckle. In other words, they come to settle right above the starting point of my zipper.

My boyfriend's right pinky flicks at the fabric of my fly as if threatening to undo me right here and now.

His torso dips slightly, the front of his knees fitting perfectly into the back of mine. His hands slide down to stroke my upper thighs, and in the same smooth movement, his chest comes to rest on my upper back.

I thrill as his head settles on my shoulders and his lips brush the side of my neck, which begins to arch achingly towards him.

"Is this out of the way enough?"

"Ummm," leaves my closed mouth as if issuing straight through my Adam's apple.

"Kiss me, Em."

I rotate my head, my hand going up to wander over the back and top of his spiky hair. I feel his fingers stiffen and caress my growing bulge with insistent strength. Our lips touch and I have never felt so alive, despite being surrounded by the malaise of historic death and destruction. There seems to be light in his very kiss, and the gold coin against my skin tingles warm and comforting; I imagine the one he is wearing is radiating the exact warmth into the flesh of the man I love as well.

We kiss for a moment longer, and then his pelvis thrusting on my ass makes sure I know my Silviu is excited too. His hands on my jeans, pressing my dick full against my upper thigh, are like heaven.

I rotate to face him within his embrace. His grip doesn't miss a beat, and slips right behind to reassert itself on my ass cheeks.

"Fuck, Sil. You are so hot."

"Ditto, my dear sweet Emeric."

My eyes falter shut for a half a moment because Silviu's manly digits are busy pulling open and exploring my tenderest spot through the rough seams of my denim.

"Did you like what we did last night?" He asks knowing full well what the answer is, and that the mere intoning of his question is the ultimate turn on for me.

I moan, "Yeah. I am still all aglow, down there you know."

"Good." He kisses me. "It's my turn next." And he hand-pumps my bulge with loving skill.

"Hey look," I say, pushing on his chest a bit. I then recommend slow and methodically, "How about we finish up here, have some lunch, and go back to the room."

"Ok. Love you."

"Love you back, my crazy Romani."

After a quick peck on the lips, with its noisy accompaniment, Sil releases his weight from me.

The sudden loss of body heat makes me shudder, but then he smiles at me, and I grow warm all over again.

˚˚˚˚˚

The sky, as I can see peeks of it through gaps in the broken vaulting, has darkened.

Sil and I have drifted into different parts of the underground complex. Being the master of all things myth, magical and historic, my 'bodyguard' had ensconced himself in front of a wall-sized body of museum text. After ten minutes of watching him read every minute detail, and of feeling myself getting bored, I told him I was going 'over there,' and he grunted 'okay.'

That was twenty minutes ago and now I don’t know where he is. However, I do find that my thoughts have become distracted by urgent notions of getting back to our plain hotel room, and to those two delightful single beds pushed together. I hope the chambermaid left them as she found them, and I can almost see in my mind's eye the kind of smile she indulged in while changing our sheets for us.

Gradually my attention is drawn to and settles upon a smaller-sized opening. It is like a door, but reduced in proportions, as if it is intended for an animal to use. It's funny to think that Vlad the Impaler needed a kitty door in his castle, but then again it would be one impressive cat to need a cage door of the size I see before me – you'd think he would be paranoid about a Turk sneaking in through it. Behind this portal I can make out the moss-covered paving of a court open to the full sky above.

I duck down low and go out.

Just as I suspected, this is a courtyard. The stone walls rise about five metres on all four sides, and the space is about seven metres square. The bare stone walls are rough and unchanging, except for a narrow and steep set of steps rising on one side.

I go to the steel gate at the bottom of these steps. My hand reaches out and rattles it: locked.

'What is this place..?' I think silently to myself, and just as wordlessly, an answer is there. Speaking to me in my own voice, "bear pit," it says.

Suddenly a phantom smell hits me. It's like iron-rich night soil mixed with unwashed animal fur and sugar. Yes, in this stench is also something sweet.

My eyes cast aimlessly up, and the leaden brightness of the square of sky above hurts me to look at it. Now, slowly, as I stand in one spot and rotate, it seems as if there is a crowd gathered up there to watch. They lean with elbows on the capping stones of the parapet, and hoist expectant faces over the side. They are all looking down onto me.

Their gazes chill me to my core; they are craving a blood spectacle, and expect it to be my blood on display.

I hear a sound.

I lower my vision, and scan around methodically – it was nearby, whatever it was…

I blink, almost too intimidated to believe my own sight.

I begin to back up slowly towards the wall, because a shadow lurks from behind the animal gate.

A low frequency growl echoes off of the stone walls enclosing – trapping – me here. The sound is more like an internal palpitation in my heart than a sensation on my eardrums coming from an external source.

Slowly, a grey paw takes one step over the gate's threshold and onto the green moss of the courtyard.

This is followed by a leg – a muscular leg – and then the chest and bare-teethed jaws of a massive wolf. His breathing is jagged and laboured with some barely controlled ire to feed. His ribs rise and fall, and it is clear that this beast has not eaten solid meat in a long, long time.

Its red eyes lock onto mine, and in them is a malice I have hitherto only associated with depraved criminals. Crazies who kill for sport, but then calmly relay all the grisly details to a reporter from the bowels of their death row holding cells as if talking about a sporting match or a weather report: they are devoid of any compassion for what they look upon, whether it be joy or suffering.

My back hits the wall with a painful thud that shoots fear up from the back of my tweaked heels to the ringing back of my head. All of the hair over every millimetre of my body is now standing on end.

The wolf comes out. It flicks its tail in a slow sweeping arch as its deep-throated growl turns along with its hate-filled eyes to inspect the four corners of the pit. It must be ensuring there are no other occupants.

As it does this, a second wolf appears. It is not as large as the first, and its grey coat is salted with shocking patches of white hair on its neck and upper body. Its fangs are just as intimidating, and its step into the pit is just as calculating and cautious.

My hands go flat, and reach out to grip the stones on either side of me at my waist level.

The second wolf advances into the court, and to my horror, a third wolf emerges through the gate.

Their menacing, guttural vocalizations merge and blend with the sweet stench of gore all around me; this combination suddenly winds up knotting my viscera into an agonizing convulsion.

I may want to double over in pain, but I dare not take my eyes off of the threat before me.

The first wolf shifts its balance. As the centre of its gravity slides back, the creature stands with ease on its hind legs.

Strangely, a small and annoying notion tells me there is something oddly familiar about these hellions, but what..? Have I seen them before..?

The other two behind their leader rise to stand on two legs too, and now all three glare at me with fangs slowly dripping with hunger-induced drool. Their eyes have changed too, and now there is no doubt that all force and evil intent possible in the human soul is latent behind them. These are cursed men who unleash their animal malice direct to the ruthless heat of a human heart.

Now I can see the leader is substantially larger than the other two. All three begin to advance on me, tightening the noose, so to speak.

I blink fast, desperately considering what my options are. None, unless I can teleport all of a sudden. But if so, I would already be back at our hotel room, in my Silviu's arms. Sil!

As quickly as I dare – which is very slow indeed – I raise my right hand. I undo the three buttons on my polo shirt, and then fumble with it to latch onto my gold chain. I will the coin to be fished up with it, and soon can feel it pressed into my palm.

The were-creatures are only a pace away.

My eyes shut. 'Silviu, I need you!' I shout internally. 'Come to me, now!'

With my eyes tightly closed, I turn my head so one cheek is pressed against the ice-cold stone.

I cannot open them now; I feel the hot, growling exhalations of the largest wolf upon my cheek. His breath is rancid and his nose burns dry like a madding fever.

"What do you want?" I whisper.

A gargling rasp sputters out an intermittent moisture on my face as it says, "Our master is imprisoned. Only you can free him."

Suddenly, it seems the clouds from overhead have parted. A ray of warming light breaks upon my shivering frame. The stench of gore is gone, and with it too is the feeling of being oppressed. My heart pounds for a few moments in my self-imposed darkness.

"Emeric..?"

I hear a soft voice speaking to me from only a few metres away.

I open my eyes, realizing I am still clutching my coin. Silviu is standing glued to a spot in the middle of the empty bear pit.

Without looking, I see a sharp shadow dart from the top of the parapet high above. Before I can organize my thoughts that whatever it is, is not part of the phantom crowd, which have departed just like the were-creatures, a shockwave of sound strikes my eardrums. It is sharp and lurches my head back for a second.

I open my eyes and find Sil again; somehow it feels like I have just been forced to take a strong shot of whiskey.

Without any explanation, Sil's hand rises and points a shaky finger at my forehead; he looks horrified.

There is a bit of a stinging sensation in my left eye, like water is getting into it. My hand goes up and draws back bloody fingers. A mysterious gash at my hairline bleeds freely, just like it did that day at the cemetery.

Sil exclaims, "My God!" and comes at me while he extracts his handkerchief from his back pocket.

He gently pushes my head to the wall and presses the fabric to my cut. I glance from my partially turned position to see his beautiful blue eyes are awash with worry. "What happened..?" he asks softly.

"Um, we're in trouble."

"Emeric, please don’t scare me. What do you mean?"

"Sil, you know how all of my visions have been just that – visions?"

"Yes."

I swallow hard before I go on. "Well, things have changed. This one was personal."