didn’t know what she was working on.”
“She didn’t tell you? Yes, she has a publisher lined up and a title. Countess Bathory: A Study of a Madwoman. ”
Betsy blinked in the early light filtering in through Japanese paper blinds. The bedroom was awash in an eerie rosy pink. “Study of a madwoman? What kind of historical treatise is that? She’s no psychologist, she’s a historian.”
“She told me the publishers came up with the title. The point is that she was in Eastern Europe researching Countess Bathory. She had a special week-long seminar on the Habsburg Dynasty to teach this week. I can’t imagine why she hasn’t written or called. She had a hundred and twenty students waiting for her to appear.”
“That’s not like my mother. She would never miss a class without—”
The heat clicked on and the floorboards creaked. A branch rasped against the windowpane.
Betsy realized she had stopped talking midsentence. She could hear a faint buzzing on the line.
“Yes,” the dean said at last. “That’s why I am so concerned.”
Betsy sat down at her computer and began to hunt through her e-mails. The pink glow of the rising sun reflected on her screen.
Shit, Mom. What have you gotten yourself into now?
Her mother was never good about itineraries, so the e-mail mentioning Countess Bathory was the only clue to where she had gone.
When Betsy looked on the internet, she found hundreds of entries for Countess Bathory, some spelling her Christian name as Elizabeth, some as Alzabeta or Erzsebet—English, Slovak, and Hungarian spellings. The countess had at least a half a dozen castles in the lands that were now Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia, but were then part of the Habsburg-ruled Holy Roman Empire. But Royal Habsburg Hungary was just a meager crescent, a stingy slice of territory. More than two-thirds of the once mighty Hungarian Empire was either part of Transylvania or had fallen to the Ottoman invaders.
In what remained of Royal Hungary, Countess Bathory owned more lands than the House of Habsburg itself.
Betsy checked the two castles her mother had mentioned in the e-mail: Č achtice and Beckov, both reduced to ruins. They were less than fifty kilometers from Bratislava and about fifteen kilometers from each other.
Why hadn’t she mentioned that she was researching Bathory, when she normally stuck to the Habsburg kings? Rudolf II and his younger brother Matthias, in their fraternal struggle for the crown, were usually her focus. Why, suddenly, this Bathory woman?
Betsy clicked on travel articles and excerpts of books. Most of the write-ups described the ruins of Č achtice, at the foot of the Little Carpathian Mountains.
Then she read:
B LOODY L IZ WAS RUMORED TO HAVE TORTURED AND KILLED PEASANT GIRLS DURING HER MURDEROUS REIGN. S HE IS ACCUSED OF BATHING IN THE BLOOD OF BEAUTIFUL YOUNG VIRGINS IN ORDER TO KEEP HER YOUTHFUL APPEARANCE ETERNAL. C OUNTESS B ATHORY, ALONG WITH HER ANCESTOR, V LAD THE I MPALER, WAS THE BASIS OF B RAM S TOKER ’ S D RACULA.
Betsy realized she had stopped breathing. She drew a deep breath, filling her lungs to capacity, and tried to quiet her mind.
What twisted psychological condition did this woman have? Preying on girls, obsessed with their blood! Was it a genetic predisposition for psychosis, passed down through generations of inbreeding among the aristocracy?
A dog barked in the neighborhood. Ringo growled. She glanced up at the windows, but the paper shades were lowered. No one could see her. She turned back to the glow of the computer screen.
There were no hotels near Č achtice, not even a bed-and-breakfast. This was a tiny village at the foot of the mountains. The closest hotels were about thirteen kilometers away in the spa town of Piestany. Betsy couldn’t picture her mother staying anywhere fancy, so she began e-mailing every small hotel and B & B she could find in the Piestany area. She couldn’t think of what else to do. And the repetitive act of
“She didn’t tell you? Yes, she has a publisher lined up and a title. Countess Bathory: A Study of a Madwoman. ”
Betsy blinked in the early light filtering in through Japanese paper blinds. The bedroom was awash in an eerie rosy pink. “Study of a madwoman? What kind of historical treatise is that? She’s no psychologist, she’s a historian.”
“She told me the publishers came up with the title. The point is that she was in Eastern Europe researching Countess Bathory. She had a special week-long seminar on the Habsburg Dynasty to teach this week. I can’t imagine why she hasn’t written or called. She had a hundred and twenty students waiting for her to appear.”
“That’s not like my mother. She would never miss a class without—”
The heat clicked on and the floorboards creaked. A branch rasped against the windowpane.
Betsy realized she had stopped talking midsentence. She could hear a faint buzzing on the line.
“Yes,” the dean said at last. “That’s why I am so concerned.”
Betsy sat down at her computer and began to hunt through her e-mails. The pink glow of the rising sun reflected on her screen.
Shit, Mom. What have you gotten yourself into now?
Her mother was never good about itineraries, so the e-mail mentioning Countess Bathory was the only clue to where she had gone.
When Betsy looked on the internet, she found hundreds of entries for Countess Bathory, some spelling her Christian name as Elizabeth, some as Alzabeta or Erzsebet—English, Slovak, and Hungarian spellings. The countess had at least a half a dozen castles in the lands that were now Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia, but were then part of the Habsburg-ruled Holy Roman Empire. But Royal Habsburg Hungary was just a meager crescent, a stingy slice of territory. More than two-thirds of the once mighty Hungarian Empire was either part of Transylvania or had fallen to the Ottoman invaders.
In what remained of Royal Hungary, Countess Bathory owned more lands than the House of Habsburg itself.
Betsy checked the two castles her mother had mentioned in the e-mail: Č achtice and Beckov, both reduced to ruins. They were less than fifty kilometers from Bratislava and about fifteen kilometers from each other.
Why hadn’t she mentioned that she was researching Bathory, when she normally stuck to the Habsburg kings? Rudolf II and his younger brother Matthias, in their fraternal struggle for the crown, were usually her focus. Why, suddenly, this Bathory woman?
Betsy clicked on travel articles and excerpts of books. Most of the write-ups described the ruins of Č achtice, at the foot of the Little Carpathian Mountains.
Then she read:
B LOODY L IZ WAS RUMORED TO HAVE TORTURED AND KILLED PEASANT GIRLS DURING HER MURDEROUS REIGN. S HE IS ACCUSED OF BATHING IN THE BLOOD OF BEAUTIFUL YOUNG VIRGINS IN ORDER TO KEEP HER YOUTHFUL APPEARANCE ETERNAL. C OUNTESS B ATHORY, ALONG WITH HER ANCESTOR, V LAD THE I MPALER, WAS THE BASIS OF B RAM S TOKER ’ S D RACULA.
Betsy realized she had stopped breathing. She drew a deep breath, filling her lungs to capacity, and tried to quiet her mind.
What twisted psychological condition did this woman have? Preying on girls, obsessed with their blood! Was it a genetic predisposition for psychosis, passed down through generations of inbreeding among the aristocracy?
A dog barked in the neighborhood. Ringo growled. She glanced up at the windows, but the paper shades were lowered. No one could see her. She turned back to the glow of the computer screen.
There were no hotels near Č achtice, not even a bed-and-breakfast. This was a tiny village at the foot of the mountains. The closest hotels were about thirteen kilometers away in the spa town of Piestany. Betsy couldn’t picture her mother staying anywhere fancy, so she began e-mailing every small hotel and B & B she could find in the Piestany area. She couldn’t think of what else to do. And the repetitive act of
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