Vibia Sabina remembered sitting down with Vlad; he was bloodsworn to Draveth ka’Szunai, and most of his family had been for generations, since Basarab the First. Draveth ka’Szunai, ****and it’s founder, Aleksandar Philipou ****helped put his ancestor Basarab on the throne, after he’d been especially helpful to Aleksandr and his Clan, first becoming oth’kaan, then khar’suleth. Putting Putting his ancestor Basarab the First on the throne seemed to serve the Virehnai initially, because it brought stability and order to the region. This worked well, until it…didn’t.

The family split into the Draculesti and Danesti branches, and began infighting among themselves for the throne, each claiming the right to it. There were oth’kaan and khar’suleth among both branches, and their children had all intermarried into several other European dynasties over several successive generations. Vibia would’ve counciled Aleksandr, known by most as Sasho, against such a thing, had she been there. At the time, she was moving between Aachen, Munich and Prague, until she got called into the beginnings of the conflict to try to avoid it by means of diplomacy – but it wasn’t soon enough. The set ups for the conflict, as well as the damage had been done generations beforehand.

Eventually, the split between the two Basarab houses became so contentious that the leadership of Wallachia changed like the wind direction for more than a century. Beyond the angst among both branches of the Baserab line, the wealthy and connected boyars, who were local nobles were engaged in their own treacherous schemes to remove and replace their leaders whenever it suited them. And if that weren’t enough, there was also a religious struggle between Christianity and Islam. The Holy Roman Church was backing one of those familial lines  by using the Prince of Hungary as a proxy. There were oathsworn in all these courts and places, and some bloodsworn as well…plus some of the Virehnai were physically related not only to the bloodsworn and the oathsworn…but some of the royalty, too. What a horribly tangled state of affairs.

All these problems came to a head when the Suthren Vahal’dim, a Virehnai Clan which was aligned with the Hungarian throne, was aggrieved because Vlad’s father, Vlad Dracul, had reneged on his blood oath to them, and appeared to change sides to the Ottomans. There was a virehnai clan associated with the Ottomans called the Nahrim Zah’tarûn.

Suthren Vahal’dim wanted the elder Vlad to die for the breach of his blood oath. What they weren’t taking into account is that Murad II, head of the Ottomans at the time, had both of Vlad’s younger children and heirs as hostages, living in the royal court…and Murad II’s brother Musa Çelebi was married to Vlad Dracul’s aunt Arina. There were Virehnai in and around the Sultanate in the court of Murad II, and to their credit, the Nahrim Zah’tarûn watched over Vlad Dracul’s children; not an easy feat, particularly during the Battle of Varna.

The Battle of Varna proved difficult, no matter how you viewed it. Vlad Dracul, forced to play both sides against the middle for the sake of his children’s lives, was forced to send 5,000 troops led by his eldest son Mircea AGAINST the Ottomans by his own father in law, John Hunyadi, who himself was acting on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor. All of this angered the Nahrim Zah’tarûn. Vlad Dracul was positive his children would be killed by Murad II because of his participation at Varna – a breach of his oaths. While young Vlad and Radu were both treated ill, they weren’t physically harmed in a way that would’ve marked them as infirm, ended their lives or prevented them from taking the throne; the Virehnai in the Ottoman court saw to it.

When Vlad the younger, now known as Tepes (who related this story to her prior to his tribunal) later took a blood oath to the Nahrim Zah’tarûn, he had no clue that his either the Basarabi Clan Draveth ka’Szunai, or the Hungarian Suthren Vahal’dim would take it as an affront. Vlad III wanted simply to honor them for the risks they took while protecting him during his time in Murad II’s court. He also had no clue that someday, he would find himself in the same position his own father had been – needing help from the Virehnai clans to get back on the throne. He made enemies, then.

Vlad’s attempt to reclaim his father’s throne served as the spark that set alight the long smouldering war between the Holy Roman Empire, the Catholic church, and the Ottoman Empire. What once only smouldered below the surface was now a hot war, and became horrible beyond words as the Virehnai were drawn into it. It was horrible because of all the oaths all the players in the conflict now called upon, along with Clans who were at odds with one another.

Vlad Tepes had been that child in Sultan Murad’s court, along with his brother Radu...raised and educated alongside Murad’s own son Mehmed II, Vlad and Radu’s cousin. All of it was horribly complicated – not only by war and allegiances, but also by family. Everyone always forgets that one of his grandfather Mircea the Old’s daughters - his Aunt Arina, was given in marriage to Musa Çelebi, Murad’s brother.

Vibia was stunned by the depth of hatred that Vlad had for his Ottoman relatives. She learned that his brother Radu was used as a male concubine to Murad. It hurt for him to know what was happening and be able to do NOTHING; he watched the change in his seven year old brother as he was used and groomed by kin who never should have touched him in the ways he did. He remembered hearing Radu’s bloodcurdling screams that first time Murad had him, leaving him bloody, shaking and traumatized. It left Radu mentally traumatized - but there was no lasting physical marks. Vlad remembered vividly Radu pissing the bed nightly in fear, as he endured Murad’s assaults on his body and psyche until some crucial part of Radu changed, the sweet boy and his trusting nature forever gone, and his loyalties changed. He watched Murad systematically strip his soul and identity from him, until all was left was a shell and a puppet Murad could control.

Vlad would never forget, and some among the humans and Virehnai around him knew the sordid tale involving Radu. Those who knew understood the underlying message Vlad had left for Murad II with the forest of the impaled. No wonder he left, sickened by what he saw. He saw his own evil deeds reflected in the forest around him, as they had been impaled by spears, poles - even trees - up their asses.

Years later, Vlad Tepes’ own children were ‘kept safe,’ by others, while he himself languished in Hungarian captivity for thirteen years after his Tribunal. Like his father, he would find himself reneging on oaths he’d sworn. All he wanted was to be reunited with his children, and resume rule of Wallachia. The result? Everyone was angry with Vlad, and they were all angry at one another, for what they perceived were other clans meddling in each others’ affairs one too many times. Vlad was rightfully angry. He looked back upon his life as he sat there in a gilded prison, and realized that there was never a moment in his entire life that he wasn’t a pawn on someone’s chessboard; a means to an end, serving someone’s ELSE’S agenda. It rankled.

Vlad Tepes was backed into a corner. He was being given orders, there were expectations, and he would fail to meet many of them, and no matter what side he served, whichever groups were on the other side of the equation would be angry.  He had lost so much; he was so angry at how he perceived he was treated, and Vibia had to admit he was correct.

Because a family was oathsworn or bloodsworn to a particular Virehn, or a Clan in some form didn’t mean that they should be expected to put that clan over their own kith and kin. Vlad resented how he feared for his life daily as a child in the Court of Murad II – made worse because they were family. What Vlad Tepes learned in the Court of Murad was that often, your worst enemies could be your family, because they knew the most about you, including your weaknesses, where you could be attacked most effectively.

Vlad also resented that he never saw his father or his elder brother Mircea again before they died. He was angry also at the manner in which they died: His brother Mircea, who led the army at the Battle of Varna was tortured, and buried alive; his father was beheaded while trying to flee for his life. Vlad Tepes was angry and deeply resented the fact that he was forced to alternately create or break oaths to simply have access to his wife, his children, and the throne that he saw as his, by right. Vlad the Younger spent most of his life angry, and Vibia felt that he had cause to be so.