COUNTESS ADTEH

                   COUNTESS ADTEH
                                ALEXIS HENRIQUEZ

         Death is upon her, in more ways than one, but she cannot stop.  Every breath she takes is like fire in her lungs.  The cool air feels like sharp blades on her dry lips.  Bare foot, she does not notice the small splinters embedded in her skin.  Her mind is on one thought, to find help, to find someone that can stop the horrors that has been afflicted upon her.  She is so entranced on this thought that she does not notice or does not care that she is nude.  Her name is Silvonda Crosten, and she has just escaped from the devil herself.
         Entering the small village of Tenelova, Silvonda reaches in herself to keep walking until somebody sees her.  Her eyes are damaged from being hard-pressed by short fat thumbs, but she can still make out buildings and cottages.  She has not eaten in three days and only moves with will power alone.  In the middle of the road, between death and life, between escape and capture, she marches slowly waiting for salvation.
              A few yards in front of her are the town church and outside the church, Father Mictavalo is sweeping as he does every night.  While he is finishing his head is tilted down but in the corner of his eye, he notices the young girl.  He drops the broom and runs to her, but before he can reach her a horse and carriage swiftly enters the street and moves to their direction.  With full force, the carriage heads towards the naked girl.  Silvonda focuses to the noise behind her and in horror see the persistent carriage that has followed her from her tormenter.  The sight of it turns her already pale complexion white.  Her legs give in to her fear and she collapses on to the ground as tears of exhaustion and hopelessness run down her face. 
              The driver of the carriage pulls on the reigns and the horses come to a stop.  Dressed all in black, the driver stares at the priest with coldness he has never seen before. He has the appearance of over forty and the face of a fighter.  The door of the carriage swung open and a small dwarf emerges out to hold the door.  He is also dressed in black, but with an apron covered in dark stains.  He is a little over weight so the jump to the ground made him loose his breath.  As he opens his mouth to breath, the Father can see that he is missing almost all his teeth.
                After him, two women creep down to the floor.  One is dressed as a nurse and the other in men’s hunting clothes.  The nurse is a mountain of a woman with a look on her face of dead intensity.  Surprisingly, the hunter looks as the complete opposite, she is trim and has a smooth face as if she was a great beauty at one time.  She also has long flowing black hair.  Another figure sits in the carriage, but does not come out of the shadow.  The priest notices the carriage is from Castle Hernstead, which is located ten kilometers on the large hill, and assumes to himself if the figure in the carriage is Countess Mary Adteh.  The two women raise the young girl from the ground with brutal force.  Father Mictavalo mentally notes that the girl has cut and burns marks all over her body, as she is pushed into the carriage.
              Slowly turning her head to face the father, the woman in the hunting uniform speaks with a low monotone voice, ‘go back to the church and forget what you saw.’  The dwarf follows her into the carriage and slams the door shut.  The driver whips the horse and the carriage begins to turn around.  The moonlight hits the roof of the carriage and the priest makes a distinction that the driver is also a woman who he mistook for a man.  Father Mictavalo is left alone to watch them turn the corner and out of sight.  He then runs back to the church to write a note to the King’s court for an immediate investigation on the Countess Adteh and the goings on in her castle.
              It is around noon and inside a lavishly decorated castle, I, Duke Namoft, sit at my piano practicing.  I am dressed in the usual attire of a Transylvanian Duke, topped off with a regal mustache.  After serving the courts in the morning, I always play the piano to relieve stress.  A maid comes in and quietly puts a cup of tea on the table and then leaves.  The music sores through the air in a lovely manner that gives me peace.  Life is very good to me, and life is worth living.
Suddenly my daily routine is interrupted by a very low knock at the door.  It takes me a few seconds to hear it, but when I do the irritation is too much and I stop playing. 
              “Come in,” I say abruptly, obviously annoyed by the knock.
Serg, my court assistant, slowly opens the door and pops his head in.  “I’m sorry sir, but there is a man here to see you.  It’s about a relative, and he has a very disturbing story to tell.”
              “Bring him in,” I go about my playing, as Serge turns his head and orders a servant to bring the man in.  After entering, he walks towards me.
              “Sir, I was at the courts where you left me, doing my paper work, when I heard a man asking to see the King on matters of Castle Hernstead,” Serg whispers in my ear.  “I remembered that a distant relative of yours lives there, so I intercepted the letter and came straight to you.”
              “Good work Serg, what does the letter say,” I ask between bars?
              “It’s better that he personally tells you his ordeal and then you read the letter,” Serg replies.
              A low rap at the door is heard and Serg jumps to attention and walks towards it.  As he opens the door a middle-aged man arrive dressed in old weathered weary clothes.  A bruise, that is slowly healing, is under his left eye.  A tattered hat is clenched in his right hand as a letter is carefully held in his left.
              “Tell me your story old man,” I order, as I stop my playing of the piano and sit facing him for deliberation.
              The man takes a deep breath and tells his tale.  “Well sir, it started with Father Mictavalo.  He came to the Tenelova courthouse to send you a letter.  Town law states that you give a letter to the appointed magistrate and in turn the judge sends one of the messengers to deliver the letter.  But the Father said to us in private that he could not trust the magistrate because he was being bribed by the Countess and the Countess did not want this letter to reach the King.  He then paid us double our regular fare and told both of us to go, for the letter was too important to be carried by one.  That night my companion and I left in the cover of darkness to deliver the letter, but the Father was right and the Countess’ damned servants were on to us.  Two women, on horseback, followed us to the trail.  It was as if the horses were damned as well, because they reached us in no time.  I turned my head for a second to witness one of the women jump off her horse onto my partner and snatched him to the ground.  She was like an animal, all I heard were his screams as I raced into the woods.  The other wench rode beside me in the same hurried pace.  She took out of her garment what seemed to me as a mace and struck my left cheek.  The blow surely would have taken my head off but I kept my stride and quickly reached for my knife.  Not thinking straight, I swung it wildly, hitting her in the right shoulder.  I must have cut her deep because she began to slow down and I managed to get away with my life and the letter.”
Serg and I both looked at each other with amazement.  Then I turned to the man and motioned for the letter.  As I read the letter Serg walked the man out the door. 
              “Are you sure you hit the woman in the right shoulder,” I asked abruptly?
The man turned around and nodded his head and then he exited.  As I read the letter, my face suddenly became very serious and tame.  I then put the letter down and stared at Serg for a moment.  “No one saw this letter,” I asked?
              “No sir, no one but me,” Serg quickly answered.
              “Then make up my carriage and suitcase,” I said to Serg, “I’m going to see my cousin.”
              The next day, Serg, two guards Gunter and Frederick, and I were set off to Castle Hernstead to see what trouble the Countess Adteh has caused.  It is less than a weeks travel south, through the hills and over rivers and banks.  Stopping to sleep and eat, the entourage does not meet any opposition and/or difficulty on our travel.  But at a lodge to find some breakfast, Serg approached me with a few questions that have been haunting him for days. 
              “Sir,” Serg politely began, “have you ever met the Countess before?”
              “Yes I have,” I sat back and remember the night I met the black sheep of the family.  “It was about twenty years ago, I was nineteen or twenty, and my family went to the celebration ball of the new King Willam.  The entire royal family went and some other nations royals also.  Every body was being overly courteous and diplomatic, so everyone to me is a blur.  Except the Countess Adteh, my cousin, I didn’t know she was my cousin yet.  She was in her late thirties, but did not act like so.  She was loud and obnoxious and drew my attention from the very start.  She was not like anybody at the party, and the people around her were not thrilled she’d arrived.  It was a few years after her husband died, Count Montruos of the Knights of Death.  You remember them?  The Knights of Death intrigued me as a youth.  Hearing their exploits in the battlefield, how they attacked with such supremacy and lots of times with cruelty.”
              “Yes,” Serg eagerly interrupted, “the poem went like;
-With an icy glare and a gnarly bite, death comes quickly in the darkness of night. 
-Sword in hand and war in mind, innocents and victims is what they find.
-As if hell was slashed open by the might of their claw, kingdoms and empires quiver and fall. 
-Nothing is left standing nothing is left alive, except the memories of their horrors survive. 
-So if you see the Knights of Death coming ‘round the bend, pray the lord for forgiveness and a quick and painless end.”
              “Count Montrous was a childhood obsession of mine,” I began again, “So, since he was dead I stayed close to and hung on every word of my dear cousin.  Her tales of torture and debauchery upset the stomachs of her listeners, with the exception of her eavesdropper cousin of course.  At one point she told a story on how she would tear the toenails of her servants that faked an illness to have a day off.  She said that no one has been sick in her home for years.  After the dinner, everyone departed to his or her respected room.  It was a restless night for me, so I decided to roam the giant castle alone.  As I sat to rest and stare at the night sky, Adteh, without making a single sound approached and sat next to me.  When she spoke it startled me but she raised her hand to my mouth so I wouldn’t make a noise.  Maybe it was the sleep suddenly catching up to me, but in the moonlight I noticed a beauty in her face that entranced me.  She put one hand on my thigh and spoke with the most enchanting voice that I have ever heard.  I was jarred back to reality by the strong tug she gave my member with her hand.  I was so panicked that I ran back to my room without a single glance back.  That was the last I have seen or heard of the Countess Adteh until now.”  Serg sat quiet; no words came to mind, but astonishment and loathing to the very woman he will meet in the next couple of days.
         A few days later, my carriage rolled into the village of Tenelova a couple of minutes before sunset.  Glancing out the window I encounter a very quiet town, and if not for the smoking chimneys I would have thought it was deserted.  The driver makes a direct rout to the magistrate’s house.  Stopping at the front steps, my entourage and I leave the carriage.  I burst through the front doors like a father who has heard horrible stories of his children and expects the worst.  I am stunned to find the place empty.  I say to my group to search the place for any evidence of wrongdoings, while I investigate the other quarters.
         Passing each vacant room, I then reach the end of the hall where the magistrate stays.  Slowly I open the door and find a man asleep in a chair with an empty plate on his lap.  Very silently I walk to the portly man and stand over him like a vulture.  Reaching over I take the plate, raise it and quickly smash it on the floor.  The slob is startled by the sudden crash, and staggers in his chair that in turn rams his knee into the desk.  Looking up and realizes he is in trouble when he notices the royal seal on the man standing in front of him.  The magistrate nervously mutters,”Can I help you my lord?”
         “Yes you can,” I reply annoyed at his unhygienic ways, “I received a letter from a Father Mictavalo, and he states that there is a problem with the Countess Adteh, and that you are in the middle. “
         “Oh, Father Mictavalo,” the magistrate speaks in a surprisingly calm voice, “For a second I was a little worried.”
         “Why is that,” I ask intrigued?
The magistrate gives a smirk and takes a slice of apple off of his desk.  “Well…the Father is a little absentminded,” he answers with a composed glee, “He is always making up stories and telling tall tales.  I’m surprised that you took his fairy-tale to heart.  Also, he has disappeared recently and it’s probably due to that letter he sent.  Feeling he might get in trouble.”  The grotesque man then tosses the apple slice in his mouth and slowly chews.
              I stand still, staring at the chubby magistrate.  Suddenly, out in another room, there comes a yell from one of my men.  I smile and yell to my man to bring what he has found.  The magistrate then stops chewing and grows extremely pail.  Then Gunter enters the room with a note in his hand.  “There is more where that came from,” he tells me as I read the letter.

Dear Countess;
         I am writing this letter regarding my daughter, Olga Sanegal.  She was sent to you so she can be taught on how a refined woman should behave.  It has been four months now and I have not received a letter from her.  If she displeases you, please contact me and I will see to it personally that she is reprimanded.  Otherwise, have her write as soon as possible; I will be waiting for a response from you concerning her.
                                                           Sincerely;
                                                           Vernala Sanegal

              Putting the letter down I follow my guard to the filing room.  There I see a giant pile of letters on the ground.
              “There is a least a thousand,” Serg utters in disbelief.
              I turn and quickly walk back to the magistrate.  “You stay there,” I barked at him, “If you move, you will be beheaded!  Let’s go see the Father,” I tell my men.  The four of us hurriedly walk back into the carriage and ride towards the church.  The magistrate is left in the dark, waiting for me to return with my retaliation.
              We pass a couple of small-unlit walkways until the carriage reached the intended target.  It has been two weeks since the priest wrote the letter but the church looks as if it has been abandoned for years.  The carriage stops and I leap out and rush into the church followed by the other three.  The door was a bit stuck so I pushed it with my shoulder, which threw me a foot or two inside.  Darkness engulfed the entire inside of the church.  I yelled out for Father Mictavalo but no one answered.  My companions and I crept with caution deeper into the church.  Our swords ready to be unsheathed at any sign of danger.  I squinted and tried to make out objects in the darkness but to no avail, everything looked as if they were connected to each other.  The only obstacle free pathway was the one between the pews in front of us so we kept on walking.  At the end of the passage there were steps leading up to what seemed to be a stage?  My driver found a candleholder with a candle and lit it.  Illuminating only a few feet in front of us, we saw blood on the stage floor.  The blood trail ended to a scene only before described to me in the bible.  An upside-down cross with Father Mictavalo nailed to it reminiscent of the death of Saint Peter.  After examining the body I have determined that he has been dead for at least a day.
              The sight of the Father in that position was too sickening for us.  With our swords, we cut the ropes that kept the cross up.  It fell on its backside with a loud noise of wood hitting wood.  Using the flat end of the candleholder, we pulled the nails from his hands and feet.  We wrapped him up with on of the large drapes that covered the window.  So no animals should reach him, he was set on top of the table that stood on the stage.  We left the body but promising to be back to give the Father a proper burial. 
              Back in the carriage I tell the driver to go to the castle Hernstead.  We pursued the only stretch of road that leads to the castle.  It was built on a hill that over looked the town.  Once a beautiful structure, it has turned into some nightmare after years of neglect.  The trees that were planted at the side of the hill have grown wild and look as if they are trying to strangle the surrounding wall.  The trees and bushes on the road also reach outward making it hard for the driver to stay clear of the branches.  At the gate, we notice a stench that rose from the castle.  I wonder what kind of person can live like this.
              Leaving the carriage outside of the walls, my men push the unlocked gate open.  I lead the pack walking up the pathway stepping on wild thorns and thickets.  As we walked closer to the castle, Gunter noticed an object protruding from the garden.  After examining it closer he realized that it was a human leg.  He came back and told us what he found.  Looking around in the dark, everything that stuck up from the ground looked to be part of the human anatomy.  We now approach the castle door with caution, ready for any surprises. 
              Curious, the door was unlocked like the gate before, I doubt if she has any fear of strangers coming unannounced.  Entering the main hall of the castle, we three felt an icy breeze past us.  Our eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness that surrounded us, but yet we could not see past a meter in front of us.  I order my driver to stay with the carriage.  As we slowly made our way, Serge tripped and fell on an item that was on the floor. 
              “I believe I found one of the missing girls from the letter,” Serge whispered as he stood back up.
              Seeing a candelabrum on a mantel, I grabbed it and lit the three candles that were in it.  Certainly, there was the body of a deceased young girl sprawled out.  Suddenly, I heard a noise from a room in the hall to the left of us.  We ran towards the clatter as Frederick thrusts the door open to find a dozen girls inside.  All were naked with cuts and bruises covering their entire body.  I order Serge to take these youngsters to the carriage and drive them to the town and to hurry back for we might find more.
              Giving a candle to each of us, Frederick, Gunter and I separate and headed in different directions.  Gunter stayed on the first floor and searched the kitchen and maid chambers.  As Frederick and I set off to the second floor, he departed to the left wing and I to the right wing of the castle.  In the main corridor, Gunter opens the door to the kitchen discovering a disgusting display for sight and smell.  Rotten food, dirt, and stained pots covered every table and the floor.  Wherever he stepped there were decayed foodstuff and he believed animal droppings.  In the corner he found the Countess’ driver dead of some kind of infection of the mouth, she was also rotting.  He continues carefully tip toeing. 
In the dark, behind him, a cupboard door silently opened, and the dwarf wielding a carving knife jump at Gunter slashing at his back.  Gunter quickly turns and unsheathes his sword but his foe is gone.  Gunter then hears rough breathing in the silence of the room.  He follows it to find the dwarf under a table.  The dwarf thrust his knife forward but with one quick move Gunter runs his sword through the dwarf’s neck.  Bleeding, Gunter goes to check the other rooms.
              Up on the second level in the left wing, Frederick hears a noise coming from the last room in the hall.  He opens the door very slowly, ready for the unexpected with sword in hand.  A darkened room filled with unknown objects covered with sheets.  With his sword Frederick removes one of the sheets to reveal a mound of dead girls.  Startled, he quickly takes a couple of steps back and bangs into the large nurse.  Before he can react, she places her powerful arms around him and squeezes.  Frederick swings his sword over his shoulder, slicing her on the neck.  As blood gushes from her wound, she marches in the direction of the window, crushing the lifeless bodies on the floor. 
              By the time the nurse gets to the window, her arms loosen because she is weakening from the blood lose.  Taking advantage, Frederick struggles free and swiftly heaves his sword into her abdomen.  The nurse then leans back and crashes onto the deceased young women.  Gurgling and coughing from the blood in her throat, she stares at Frederick as waiting for him to end her life.  He takes a second to look at the many dead women on the floor then walks away leaving her to die slowly.
              “Maybe you will feel a little of the pain that you inflicted on these innocent girls,” he solemnly utters.
              Within the corridors of the right wing of the castle, I cautiously check on all the doors that I come in contact with.  And to my repulsion each room is as terrible as the last.  Bodies and bodies of adolescent women fill every space on the floor.  I imagine that there could be fifty, maybe more.  Subsequently, I reach the master bedroom, no doubt where more terror awaited me. 
              In the shadows a figure stands behind me ready to strike.  My assailant gave her position away with the noise her leather clothes made.  I unsheathe my blade and parry but she also had a rapier and dodged it, she is good, but I am better.  Going for another attack, I notice that she is using her left arm to battle.  Remembering of what the messenger informed me, I began to shuffle to my right forcing her to also move to her right.  Until she has no room in the tight passageway having her expose her right arm.  Untrained in fighting in close quarters, she drops her guard and I take the opportunity by jamming my sword into her wounded shoulder.  Striking her not yet healed injury, she gives out a painful howl and collapses onto the flooring. 
              Gunter comes running up the stairs and into the hallway.  He sees the woman sitting on the ground in front of me.  Frederick also joins us.  Gunter watches over the woman as Frederick and I crossed the threshold of the master’s chamber.  Just like the other rooms, dead bodies everywhere.  There were at least a dozen under the bed decaying.  As Frederick investigated the closet, I entered the bathroom.  I was alarmed to see the bathtub filled to the brim with blood.  Abruptly I realized that all the lifeless girls that I have seen there wasn’t a single drop on them or on the floor.  These monsters have been draining the blood of the children and bathing in it.
              Contemplating on how any human can do any of these atrocities, I turn around to speak of this to my men.  Unexpectedly, from the darkness of the bathroom, an aged woman in her nightgown jumps on top of me.  We both fall to the ground and she pierces my arm with her nails.  With a crazed look on her face, she then takes a piece of my cheek with her teeth and rips it off.  Frederick dashes into the room and forces her off of me.  Heaving the Countess on to the bed, he stumbles on an appendage of one of the corpses under the mattress.  Bleeding, I take a small towel that was on a chair and situate it carefully on my wound. 
              I stand in disbelief, that this woman, a member of the royal family could do these unspeakable atrocities.  Watching her struggle with Frederick, I noticed the zealousness of her appearance; her wildly unkempt hair, the aged oversized rags of clothes, her long yellow chipped fingernails, and now with my red blood in contrast with her pale tight wrinkled face.  She appears not to notice that people are in the room; she just fights wildly at he captors.
              “By the power that is wielded to me by the courts of this nation,” I coldly state keeping my disgust hidden, “you and your companions are apprehended and put under scrutiny of the law.”
              We take the elderly woman to the first floor where Gunter has the other assailant.  At the ground level, Serge has just arrived from dropping the women off at the magistrate’s house, where they ate food and found clothes to wear.  We all take the carriage back to the town, with the two assailants bound with ropes.  Every one is silent on the ride back, uncomfortable that they had to share the ride with the horror of Castle Hernstead.
              The next day each girl contacted their parents and headed home, they were malnourished and in pain thanking us as they left.  As for the Countess Adteh and her assistant, they were given the full extent of the law.  The woman in men’s clothing was Gabriela Blevicht, a would-be spiritualist.  About twenty years ago, she convinced the countess that if she bathed in the blood of virgins, she would never age.  When we excavated the castle and the surrounding land we found about five hundred bodies.  So for those lives that she took, she was tortured, hanged and then burned in the middle of the town.
              My cousin, the Countess Mary Adteh, was given a special sentence.  Since she is of royal lineage and her husband is a national hero, I spared her life.  Instead, she lived out the rest of her days walled up in her bedroom alone.  There was a small hole at the bottom of the wall for her food that the ex-magistrate attends to.  The castle was closed to the public.  For the past thirty years Countess Mary Adteh has been deceiving mothers to send their young daughters to her castle.  And for the last thirty years, she has been killing and bathing in their blood.  How can one person be responsible for so many deaths?  But she will never again harm another soul.    She died eleven years later, alone, of old age, and some say for lack of virgin blood.
                             THE END