Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

Then the abbot came forward and I saw in the light of the torch he held that he grew very pale and awed at the stories they related, crossing himself many times. He reminded all who were present that the soul of this nobleman was in our hands and that we must act accordingly. He led us into the church, relighting the candles there, and we saw that the body lay quietly as before in its coffin. The abbot caused the church to be searched, but no animal nor any demon was found in any corner. Then he bid us to compose ourselves and go to our cells, and when the hour for the first service came it was held as usual and all was calm.

But the next evening he called eight monks together, honoring me by inclusion among them, and said that we would only make a pretense of burying the prince’s body in the church, but that it must instead be conveyed at once from this place. He said that he would tell only one of us, in secret, where we were to take it and why, that the others might be protected as long as possible by our ignorance, and this he did, selecting a monk who had been with him there for many years but telling the rest [of us] only to follow obediently and ask no questions.

In this way I, who had thought never to wander again, became a traveler once more and crossed a long distance, entering with my companions the city of my birth, which had become the seat of the infidels’ kingdom, and I found much that was changed there. The great church of Saint Sophia was taken for a mosque and we could not enter it. Many churches had been destroyed or allowed to fall into ruins, and others turned into houses of worship for the Turks, even the Panachrantos. And there I learned that we were looking for a treasure that might hasten the salvation of the soul of this prince, and that this treasure had already been procured at terrible risk by two holy and brave monks from the monastery of Saint Saviour and taken secretly out of the city. But some of the sultan’s Janissaries had become suspicious, and because of this we were placed in danger and forced to wander once more to find it, this time traveling into the old kingdom of the Bulgars.

As we passed through the country, it seemed that some of the Bulgarians knew already of this mission, for more and more of them came out along the roads, bowing silently to our procession, and some followed for many miles, touching our wagon with their hands or kissing the side of it. During this journey a most terrible thing occurred. While we were passing through the town of Haskovo, some of the guards of the town rode out to us and stopped us with force and harsh words. They searched our wagon, declaring they would find whatever we carried, and discovering two bundles, they seized them and opened them. When these proved to be food, the infidels threw them in the road with wrath and arrested two of our number. These good monks, protesting that they knew nothing and thus angering the evil ones, had their hands and feet cut off, salt being put in their wounds before they died. They let the rest of us live but dispatched us with curses and whippings. We were afterward able to secure the bodies and limbs of our dear friends and reunite them for Christian burial in the monastery of Bachkovo, whose monks prayed many days and nights for their devout souls.

After this event, we were very much saddened and terrified, but we traveled on, not much farther and without incident, to the monastery of Sveti Georgi. There the monks, although they were old and few, welcomed us and told us that indeed the treasure we sought had been brought to them by two pilgrims some months previous to this, and all was well. We could not think of returning to Dacia soon through so many dangers, and thus we settled there. The relics we had conveyed thither were secretly enshrined at Sveti Georgi and their fame among Christians brought many to worship there, and they also kept silence. For some time we lived in peace at this place and the monastery was built up greatly by our labors. Soon, however, a plague broke out in the villages near us, although at first it did not infect the monastery. I learned [that it was no ordinary plague, but instead]

[At this point the manuscript is cut or torn off.]

“When Stoichev had finished, Helen and I sat mute for a couple of minutes. Stoichev himself shook his head now and then, drawing one hand over his face as if to wake himself from a dream. At last Helen spoke. ‘It is the same journey-it must be the same journey.’

“Stoichev turned to her. ‘I believe it is. And surely Brother Kiril’s monks were transporting the remains of Vlad Tepes.’

“‘And this means that-except for the two who were murdered by the Ottomans-they reached a Bulgarian monastery safely. Sveti Georgi-where is it?’

“It was the question I had most wanted to ask out of all the puzzles that pressed on me. Stoichev put his hand to his brow. ‘If only I knew,’ he muttered. ‘No one knows. There is no monastery called Sveti Georgi in the Bachkovo region, and no evidence that there ever was one there. Sveti Georgi is one of several medieval monasteries in Bulgaria that we know existed but which vanished during the early centuries of the Ottoman yoke. It was probably burned, and the stones scattered or used for other buildings.’ He looked sadly at us. ‘If the Ottomans had some reason to hate or fear this monastery it was probably completely destroyed. Certainly they did not permit it to be rebuilt, as Rila Monastery was. I was very interested, at one time, in finding the location of Sveti Georgi.’ He fell silent for a minute. ‘After my friend Angelov died, I tried for a while to continue his research. I went toBachkovski manastir, and I talked with the monks and asked many people in the region, but no one knew of a monastery called Sveti Georgi. I never found it on any of the old maps I examined, either. I have wondered if perhaps Stefan gave Zacharias a false name for it. I thought that there would be a legend among the people of the region, at least, if the relics of such an important figure as Vlad Dracula had been buried there. I wanted to go to Snagov, before the war, to see what I could learn there -’

“‘If you had, you might have met Rossi, or at least that archaeologist-Georgescu,’ I exclaimed.

“‘Perhaps.’ He smiled strangely. ‘If Rossi and I had indeed met there, perhaps we could have joined our knowledge then, before it was too late.’

“I wondered if he meant,Before the revolution in Bulgaria, before I was exiled here; I didn’t want to ask. A second later, however, he explained. ‘You see, I stopped my research rather suddenly. The day when I returned from the Bachkovo region, with my mind full of a plan to go to Romania, I came back to my apartment in Sofia to find an awful scene.’

“He paused again and closed his eyes. ‘I try not to think about that day. I must tell you first that I had a little apartment nearRimskaya stena -the Roman wall in Sofia, a very ancient site-and I loved it for the history of the city all around it. I had gone out to buy groceries and left my papers and books about Bachkovo and other monasteries open on my desk. When I returned I saw that someone had gone through all my things, pulled books off the shelves, and searched my closet. On the desk, all over my papers, was a small trail of blood. You know how ink-stains-a page -’ He broke off, looking piercingly at us now. ‘In the middle of the desk there lay a book I had never seen before -’ Suddenly he rose and shuffled into the other room again, and we heard him moving around, shifting books. I should have gotten up to help him, but I sat instead staring helplessly at Helen, who seemed frozen, too.

“After a moment Stoichev returned with a large folio in his arms. It was bound in worn leather. He laid it in front of us and we watched as he opened it with his reluctant old hands and showed us, wordlessly, the many blank pages, the great image in the center. The dragon looked smaller here, because the larger pages of the folio left considerable empty space around it, but it was certainly the same woodcut, down to the smudge I’d noticed in Hugh James’s. There was another smudge, too, in the yellowing border near the dragon’s claws. Stoichev pointed to it, but he seemed so overcome with some emotion-distaste, fear-that he apparently forgot for a moment to address us in English.‘Kr’v,’ he said. ‘Blood.’ I bent close. The brown smear was clearly a fingerprint.