Almost as soon as he came to power, he gave a party for his boyars and their families to celebrate Easter. These nobles were part of the conspiracy around his father's death. Vlad, to avenge his father's death, had all the assembled nobles arrested. The older boyars were impaled on the spot. The younger nobles and their families were marched north from Târgovişte to the ruins of the Poienari Castle in the mountains above the Argeş River. The boyars and their families were forced to work for months rebuilding the old castle. According to the reports, they worked until the clothes fell off their bodies, and then were forced to continue working naked. Very few survived the building of Vlad's castle.