The Blood Countess

August 21st, 1614

I am Erzebet Bathory.  Today is my last day alive.

I cannot stand this cell any longer.  I have not been outside of this prison in three years.  They keep me imprisoned, call me the Blood Countess, and why?  Because I dared to live, I was brave enough to embrace the darkest impulses of the human heart, and I did not shy away from them, as weaker souls are so like to do.  They are afraid, afraid of me and of what I have done.  Would they be so afraid, I wonder, if I was a man?  If I was a man, would they call me abomination, aberration, monster, demon?  Perhaps, but I think not.  Violence, even cruelty in a man is tolerable, in a woman, a weak, delicate, fragile, timid, demure and gentle woman, it is an unnatural phenomenon, something to be feared, something to be hidden, imprisoned, suppressed. 

The maidservants I killed should have been honoured to die at my hand, I who dared what no mortal ever dared even to dream before.  They should have come to me begging for torture, not shied away from my knives, my teeth, my nails.  But they were silly girls.  They deserved death.

I do not deserve to die, not like this, but at least I will not let them kill me.  By taking my only life I deny them the satisfaction of stealing life from me, giving it up freely at least allows me to keep my pride.  For I am proud, proud and stubborn and independent and cold.  I have loved nothing.  I have chained myself to no one.  I die alone, feared and hated and unwept, but I die strong and brave and untouchable. 

But I will not be forgotten.  My story will be written here, that years later it will be read and again the name of Erzebet Bathory will strike fear into the weak human hearts that shrink in fear from cruelty, that cower like blind worms in the burning heat of the sun even at the word murder. 

I was born on August 7th, 1560, in Hungary, to George and Anna Bathory, but my story truly begins nine years later...

1569

The peasants were rebelling.  The Bathorys have long held sway here, but our reign has always been tainted with blood, every since Stephen Bathory fought beside Vlad Dracula there has been innocent blood on Bathory hands, innocent lives taken by Bathory swords.  The peasants distrust and fear us, some open hate us.  None had ever before gone so far, or been able, to kill any of us.

Not so now.  While I was forced to watch, my two older sisters were brutally murdered.

Not long after this, I saw a gypsy sewn, alive and terrified, into the stomach of a dead horse, and left there to suffocate.  I was dragged away before they finished stitching the horse shut, but I returned not long after.  I could still hear faint screams emanating from the grotesquely bulging equine carcass.  I waited a few minutes, and they ceased.

I was repulsed, of course, but morbidly fascinated by the blood, the screams, the obvious agony.  I was too young then to realize I had the power to hurt others, but I was able to hurt myself.  I gloried not in the pain of the scratches that disfigured my wrist and the backs of my rough hands, but in my ability to control it, even to embrace it, to make it not a hated parasite, sucking my will to live, but a part of me, a beloved friend, held close to my heart and only reluctantly relinquished.  The scars constantly reassured me that I was strong enough, brave enough, controlled enough to inflict pain upon myself, to endure that same pain and to love it.

But the burning thirst rises in my throat, and the nausea grows ever greater, and the words begin to dance on the page before me, the smell of blood chokes me and I must stop writing, but soon, soon I will continue, soon you will know all...

1571

I was betrothed to Ferencz Nasady.  The marriage was arranged by his mother, Ursula Nasady, the most hateful woman ever to walk this earth. 

I hated him.  He was sixteen, arrogant, weak, and cowardly.  I refused to spend my life with him.

But what could I do?  I was a woman, not even that yet, but a girl.  How could I prevent a marriage that would benefit both families?

In 1674 I gave birth to a daughter.  I was fourteen.  I do not even know her father's name, only that he was a peasant.  As soon as it was known I was with child, they hid me away in a remote Bathory castle until the bastard girl was born. 

I did not want a child.  I wanted only to taint myself, to make it so that I could never have a husband who would not be ashamed of me.  A fourteen-year-old Bathory virgin, that is a desirable bride, but a fourteen-year-old Bathory who is not only no longer a virgin, but has an illegitimate daughter, that is something that can bring only shame.

But Ursula Nasady wanted a Bathory wife for her son, and my two sisters had been murdered.  I was the only marriageable Bathory left.  She was not willing to give me up, and so I was left a mother at fourteen, with a daughter I didn't want and a stain on my name that would never be sponged away.

But I was not long burdened with my daughter.  As soon as the missive came from the Nasadys, telling me that hateful Ferencz still was willing to marry me, I killed her. 

Not brutally, not painfully or slowly, I merely suffocated her in her sleep.  Better this way, so that she dies an innocent, happy infant, unaware of the horrors and injustices and cruelties of the world. 

I was fourteen, hers was the first life I took.  Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.  She was a part of me, the only part of me that would ever love, would ever weep, would ever feel pity or show mercy.  I killed her, and so I became a creature of darkness, cold and unloving as stone, merciless as Death, unloving as Time. 

At fourteen, I had given birth and I had murdered.  I am fifty-four now.  I have four living children, and the lives I have taken number the stars.

1585

I gave birth to Ferencz's daughter, after having been married to him for ten years, during which he was away at war more often than not. 

I named her Anna, after my mother.  I had not been particularly fond of her, but had she not been Anna, Ferencz would have insisted I name her Ursula, after his mother, whom I despise more than anyone or anything else in this life or the next. 

I had three more children not long after Anna's birth, three daughters and a son.  My second daughter was Orsika, or Ursula in your language, the third was Kato, or Katherina.  My son was Paul. 

I had never truly loved my daughters, but my son I hated.  I did not dare kill him, Ferencz would not hesitate to take my life did I murder his beloved son...for Hungary, and not doubt the rest of the world, places much value on male heirs. 

But now it comes time to begin to recount the focal point of my existence.

Ferencz was often away at war, and left the running of the household to me.  Mine to oversee was the cooking, the cleaning...and the disciplining of the servants.

They say that beating servant girls with clubs was the least of my punishments, and perhaps that is true.  I stuck pins in their lips, under their fingernails, and then they screamed, the silly, foolish things. 

The most disobedient would be led into the snow, and then I, assisted by my wonderful maidservants, would pour freezing cold water over the disloyal girl until she froze to death, an unrotting corpse, perfectly preserved in ice.

I was not alone in these endeavours.  The wet nurse, Helena Jo, was an indispensable accomplice in torture, as were Janos Ujvary--we called him Ficzko--Katarina Beneckzy, the washerwoman, and Dorothea Szentes--Dorka.  It was later that I found Anna Darvulia--or rather, she found me.

1604

It was ten years ago, I was forty-four.  An old woman requested an audience with me.

"I am Anna Darvulia," she said, "I am called boszorkány, witch .  But you--you are Erzebet Bathory, her they call nosferatu.  Are you not?" 

She taught me much of torture, taught me to make my girls scream and beg me for death, to spill their blood again and again, keeping them alive that I can use them more fully.  She taught me never to kill quickly.  A quick death is a waste of a murder, she says. 

I truly grew fond of the old woman.  She would never tell us where she came from or anything about herself other than her name, but she knew more of torture than I could have learned in ten lifetimes.

Six years late, in 1610, when I was fifty, four years ago, she was striken with a terrible illness, which left her blind.  We never knew what became of her, she simply disappeared one day, leaving me to torture alone. 

I had to sell Castle Blindoc that year, I was deep in debt.

Also that year, on December 30th, my cousin, Gyorgy Thurzo, raided Castle Csejthe, and arrested me, Helena, Dorka, Ficzko, and Katarina.

1611

The first trial, January 2nd. 

Dorka, Helena and Ficzko were found guilty.  Katarina was held, awaiting further evidence.  I myself was not tried.

The second trial, January 7th.

I begged the court to allow me to attend the trial, to defend myself, my thrice-accursed cousin Thurzo would not let me appear and thus disgrace the Bathory name. 

Helena and Dorka were sentenced to have their fingers torn out with red-hot pincers, and then be burnt alive.  I mourned the loss of my two willing helpers, but I envied the executioner...it was a torture almost worthy of my beloved Anna Darvulia.  Ficzko, my one male servant, was decapitated, and his body also burnt.  They said his punishment was not so harsh because he was young, but they lied.  It was because he was a man that he was granted a quick death.  For a woman to torture, to bathe in the blood of virgins, to tear chunks of flesh out with her very teeth...that is a crime worthy of a slow and agonizing death.  But for a man to assist her, to torture and to find joy in the afflicting of pain, that merits only a quick death.  For a woman who helps a torturer, a murderess, nosferatu, as they say I am, there is pain and a fiery death. 

During the trial, I attempted to escape to Transylvania, hoping that I might take refuge in the ruined castle of Vlad Dracula, where so many had died, so many had been so afraid...

My attempt at freedom was unsuccessful, and Thurzo condemned me to imprisonment in Castle Csejthe.

King Matthias II continued to try and bring me to trial, but I remained locked in a small room in Csejthe, with little light, little food, and little hope of ever leaving.  Deprived of victims to torture, I returned to slicing at my wrists at hands, reassuring myself that pain could still be born, be embraced, even, reassuring myself that I still had the power, the self-control, the will to inflict pain, even if only on myself. 

I had my diary still, in which every detail of the six hundred and fifty murders was painstakingly recorded. 

It is the torture and the murder that will be recorded here.  That is why I write this now, on the last day of my life, so that even if my diary is lost someone will know of my fumbling experiments, and, eventually, the hard-earned ease with which I could inflict pain. 

As I have said before, I used to shove pins under their nails.  In the summer, I would smear them with honey, drag them outside, often begging for mercy, and watch as the insects slowly stung them to death...I would slice their skin with razors, again and again.  I would sew their mouths shut and watch as they slowly starved, I would force them to eat strips of their own raw flesh, I would touch a candle to each of their open eyes, blinding them.  I would place rats on their bare skin, trapped by a metal bowl, and slowly would heat the bowl, until the rat became so afraid that it burrowed deep into their skin...they died hours later, in agonizing pain.  I would tear them apart with red-hot pincers, I would place paper between their toes and light it on fire, I would rip their heads apart, stretching their mouths wider and wider until the ligaments and muscles released their hold, I would draw blood with my teeth, drinking it directly from the wound, I would eat their flesh while they screamed.  I would trap them in iron cages, rock the cages back and forth until the spikes that lined the inside tore them to shreds, would prod them with red hot pokers, burn my name onto them before I ripped them apart...I found such joy in these tortures, such freedom, such wonderful freedom, watching them scream, hearing them beg for mercy, feeling the still warm blood covering my skin, burning, lending me the warmth and vitality of the living body it had so recently nourished...to bathe in blood, that is true power, true freedom...I have never felt, not will I ever feel, more alive than I did when I was first fully immersed in warm, scarlet, living blood...

My husband used to sometimes watch me torture, when he was home from the wars, but he was weak, he was afraid and, like the coward that he was, he fled in disgust even when I smiled and laughed as fountains of blood arched and sprayed, as burning scarlet droplets sprinkled my face, my dark hair, my pale skin, filled my mouth with fiery, iron nourishment, ran down my neck, along my arms, rivers and waterfalls of ruby fire, and even Anna Darvulia turned away in fear, whispering nosferatu, vámpir, boszorkány, but I was not afraid, I gloried in the pain, the agony, I danced on floors slick with blood, I lived.

But not now.  Now I am trapped, imprisoned in this tiny room, a worse torture for me than any I could concoct...even I would not be cruel as to do this, not even to the most disobedient of servants, this is true torture...but now it ends.  Today I will finally, in spirit, leave the four walls that my living body can never escape.  For many days now I have neither ate nor drunk, my head swims, my vision shifts in and out of focus, I hallucinate.  Now, this will come to an end, this pain-filled mortal life.  I will not live through another night.

The full moon shines through my narrow window, bathing me in cold silver light as once I bathed in warm red liquid...I can wait no longer, hunger is a slow killer, ponderously weakening me.  My teeth, still so sharp, flash, once, twice, and there is blood on my wrists.  The cuts are not deep enough to kill, and my teeth flash twice more, four times, again and again, until it seems I can have no blood left...yet still I bleed and still I write and still I live, but now I grow faint, my vision goes dark.  I am free!  At long last, free!