5 March 1820

5 March 1820 is the date heading of a diary entry in which Glynis Wright records leaving Vlad Dracula’s castle for Buda. The date marks a change of setting, but not an escape from Vlad’s power: he presents the journey as an opportunity for Glynis to visit her brother and hunt independently, while retaining the ability to summon her and preparing her for a future role as his bride.

The diary date and departure

The entry begins with Glynis’s exultant announcement that the party is leaving for Buda. As the carriage rolls out of the castle courtyard, she looks back at the three women gathered in the doorway. Cneajna raises a hand, and Glynis waves back. The moment gives the departure a double character: Glynis is leaving the place where she has been confined, but the farewell is also to the people and relationships that have shaped her life there.

The weather makes the journey anything but a clean break. Rain falls through the gloom, mist lies over the wet courtyard stones, and black clouds hide the moon as lightning and thunder accompany the carriage. Vlad orders Glynis to close the window and sit back. His command is small but characteristic of the larger arrangement: even as the carriage carries her away from the castle, he controls how she travels and what she may do.

A road marked by the failed flight

The night route takes the carriage through Rosu Village, the same place Glynis’s family had tried, unsuccessfully, to reach for safety nearly a year earlier. Seeing it again brings back the closeness of that earlier attempt and its failure. The village appears briefly in the carriage lanterns, then disappears into darkness; no one is visible in the streets. Only the inn is lit, its shutters protected by garlic wreaths, with narrow strips of firelight showing through the wood.

Glynis presses her face to the carriage window to look inside, then sits back as a tear runs down her cheek. The brief passage through Rosu ties the new journey to the disaster that preceded it. The carriage is now moving toward Buda under Vlad’s protection and direction, but the road retraces a landscape in which Glynis’s family once sought refuge and did not find it. The date therefore begins a journey forward while keeping the unresolved past close at hand.

Arrival at Bistriţa

The party reaches Bistriţa in the early hours, with the sun still below the horizon. Mist obscures the town’s ancient buildings, which Glynis associates with the character of the Carpathians. Their driver stops at Golden Krone Hotel, where the proprietor hurries out to greet Vlad and Glynis as Count and Countess Dracula. Porters in traditional dress follow to help with the luggage.

The arrival shifts the journey from the exposed mountain road into a prepared public welcome. The proprietor appears both excited and afraid, a response that reflects the deference surrounding Vlad’s rank. The entry does not give a new calendar date for this arrival; it places it in the early hours following the night’s departure. That distinction matters to the chronology: 5 March names the departure entry, while the onward journey continues into morning.

Freedom under Vlad’s conditions

Before leaving the castle, Vlad has told Glynis what the trip is meant to accomplish. In Buda, she will be allowed to hunt on her own and learn the powers of the night; he also expects her to answer The Beckoning whenever he calls. He describes this limited permission as a freedom she does not have in the castle, but links it to proving her loyalty and preparing to become his first bride when he moves to England. Glynis welcomes the chance to see Andrew Wright, yet fears that Vlad’s temper could put her brother in danger.

The preparations show how tightly that promise is managed. Vlad instructs Glynis not to take clothes or jewellery her brother might recognize, since Andrew has been told that everything was lost in the accident. Instead, she is to wear dresses her mother bought in Paris and jewellery belonging to Erzsébet Dolingen. After arriving in Buda, Vlad has special veils made to conceal Glynis’s appearance from Andrew and insists that she wear one around him. The journey thus begins with a disguise already planned: Glynis may travel to her brother, but Vlad determines what Andrew is allowed to see and believe.

The trip also belongs to a longer political and financial project. In September 1819, Sir Stephen Sheridan recorded that Vlad’s new plans were in motion and that he was to return to the castle before Sir Stephen went alone to arrange the sale of one of Vlad’s properties. Sir Stephen understood that Vlad could turn a difficult predicament to his advantage, though the prince’s scrutiny frightened him. Vlad later tells Sir Stephen that he intends to escape his confinement to his own country and reclaim a place in political power. In Buda, Sir Stephen points to the city’s recent development and the prospect that Buda and Pesth might eventually form a larger cosmopolitan centre. Against that background, the 5 March departure is both Glynis’s personal passage toward Andrew and one stage in Vlad’s wider ambitions.

The date’s significance in Glynis’s changing life

Glynis’s excitement at leaving the castle sits beside a longer struggle over the identity she is allowed to perform. Before this journey, she had resisted imposed clothing by changing into her own blue Italian silk gown and refusing a corset; she had also described the castle’s prescribed outfit as another form of confinement. Her earlier wish was to live as a woman without the restrictions imposed on women. In Buda, the veil becomes a new visible limit: she later tears it from her face in frustration because it would prevent her from truly seeing Andrew.

Subsequent Buda scenes place her between contrasting appearances. Before an opera, she descends in a black-and-gold gown to meet Andrew and Vlad, feeling radiant and, briefly, alive rather than undead. That later moment sharpens the meaning of 5 March: the journey opens new rooms, encounters, and choices, but it does not immediately release Glynis from concealment or control. Its significance lies in that tension between movement and captivity. The carriage takes her away from the castle, yet the return to Rosu, the planned veil, and Vlad’s claim on her future accompany her toward Buda.