Rakóssy

by Cecelia Holland

  On the heel of his voice the guns by the Countess Gate went off. The Janissaries pitched down, reeled away, and charged back out of range. The guns above Rakóssy’s head roared once. Rakóssy went back through the gate.

  The Janissaries apparently had orders to quit the attack as soon as they were threatened. The Sultan would not commit so large a band of his prize troops this early in the game. Rakóssy, on the walls, watched the Turk guns being prepared.

  “What did he say?” Alexander said. He watched the men reloading the guns by the Countess Gate.

  “Surrender and he’ll ransom us after he’s beaten the King.”

  “You too?”

  Rakóssy looked at him. “Don’t be funny.”

  Sulphur flared out there behind the Turk guns. Rakóssy knelt down and sighted over the nearest cannon.

  “Take it up a turn of the screw.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alexander bent down to look along the cannon barrel. Rakóssy drew back a little. He sent a boy down to Arpád with orders to try to hit the green tent.

  The Turkish cannon began to fire. They seemed soft in the beginning; the guns at either end fired first, and the heavy spring air muffled the sound slightly. The noise grew as the order of firing moved along the crescent, until, when the center guns went off, the roar was like a concussion of the air. The Turk guns fired in a double row, in two long, peeling successions beginning at opposite ends and coming together in the middle and moving on down their separate ways. Rakóssy felt disappointed. It was not even as exciting as a clash between twenty Turks and twenty Magyars.

  He saw the shot strike the earthworks before the front wall. A mass of loose dirt flew up and sloughed back down again, spreading over the wooden spikes. The Turks moved their aim up. A ball struck the wall and the stone shuddered.

  “Fire when you’re ready,” Rakóssy said.

  It took the Turkish guns so long to fire in their succession that the first gun of each row was loaded and ready by the time the last had gone off. The stone dust and dirt and the smoke of Rakóssy’s own cannon made it hard to see. His guns fired whenever they were loaded. The rhythm of the guns inside the walls sounded odd and toneless, almost.

  He squinted and looked out. Arpád was trying for the green tent, but it was well out of range. The guns down there paused a moment and opened up again, this time cranked up as high as possible. Still the shot fell far short. Arpád quit.

  Because of the order of firing of the Turkish guns, Rakóssy’s men could anticipate them. They ducked rhythmically, all along the wall, like a long wave, rising after the gun opposite them had fired. They were not excited either. Rakóssy thought they would have been more excited if they had not known that this would go on for weeks at the least.

  The heat was strong. He leaned out to see where the Turkish shot was striking and felt the wall quake under his hands.

  “They’re raising their aim,” he said. “Watch out — and watch that they don’t swing their aim around and catch you when you aren’t looking.”

  A Turkish ball flew clear over the wall and crashed into the courtyard, shattering on the paving stones. A woman screamed. Nobody was hurt.

  “Dig it out,” Béla shouted. “We’ll use it for shot.”

  Suddenly the men all along the wall cheered. Rakóssy jumped up on the merlon of the battlement in front of him and shaded his eyes. One of the Turk guns was lying in a mass of rubble, the muzzle jutting toward the sky.

  “We got one,” he said. He jumped down. “They’ll move their guns back. Keep trained on that wreck, and we’ll see if we can’t get anybody when they go in to drag it off.”

  “Are they going to go on like this all the time?” Béla said.

  “They’re just giving us a . . . Duck.”

  They dropped behind the wall. Another ball, screaming in the air, whirled over their heads and crashed behind them. Rakóssy looked around and saw that one of the young boys had been struck by a piece of flying junk. “Clear that courtyard,” he shouted. “Get everybody inside. Go on.”

  “What was that noise?” Béla said.

  Rakóssy shrugged. “They’ll concentrate on one part of the wall after a while.”

  He went down the line a little and had two guns loaded with scrap. A group of mounted Spahis was loitering just beyond one of the Turks. Rakóssy set the aim on the guns himself. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and ducked with the rest of them when the guns opposite them fired. The stone dust sifted down over the men and the guns. The Turks were raising their aim on this side.

  “Fire,” he said. “This one. Hold the next.”

  The flame spurted and vanished into the touch hole. Rakóssy counted, automatically, and at three the cannon roared and hurtled back against its braces.

  “Fire the next,” he said.

  The wide scatter of junk from the first gun raked across the front rank of Spahis. Ten of them collapsed where they stood. Two wounded horses screamed and careened into a gun crew. The second gun went off. Its aim was slightly higher. The Spahis had withdrawn only a little and the shot ripped into them again. This time they whirled and galloped off far into their own lines. The bodies they left behind looked broken.

  The Turks were stilling their guns. Rakóssy concentrated on trying to knock out the guns nearest the wall. The whole Turkish army was drawing back, aware now of the range of Rakóssy’s guns. They moved quietly and in good order. Their guns all fell silent, and once all their cannon were out of danger, the Turks settled down for what looked like lunch. One of the guns by the Countess Gate had wiped out a gun crew, but before a heavier gun could sight in on the cannon a dozen other Turks had jumped forward to drag it to safety.

  “Stop firing, all of you,” Rakóssy shouted, and the order echoed down the walls.

  The smoke and dust blew slowly off to the east. The ground along the earthworks and way out by the Turkish guns was torn up in chunks and holes, stained black, and in places faintly smoking. Turks with litters jogged out to pick up the dead and wounded. The wind blew off the smoke. There was a strange smell in the air.

  “How many men we did lose?” Rakóssy said to Béla, and Béla laughed and shook his head.

  “Give everybody a cupful of wine at dinner,” Rakóssy said and went down to the courtyard to get himself a drink of water.

  * * *

  The Turks spent the afternoon building a sort of tower in the middle of their camp. No guns were fired. The Magyars in Vrath cleaned up the mess in the courtyard. The page boy was in a bed in the great hall with a gaping wound in his leg. Rakóssy went in to look at him and thought that he would die. He told one of the women from the kitchen to care for him.

  In the evening he want back onto the walls with Arpád. The tower was finished. A man in black climbed up to its peak. He lifted his arms. A ram’s horn blew somewhere.

  The Turks shook out prayer rugs and washed themselves. They knelt, that whole great army, facing south, and in a single thunderous voice began to pray.

  Béla had come up to stand by Arpád. He laughed at the Turks.

  Rakóssy whirled. “I didn’t hear you laughing this morning. Do you think they’re children? Get out of here.”

  Arpád turned to look down at him. Rakóssy said, “Have the women render some of the sheep’s fat in the kitchens and store it up here. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” Arpád said. “I will.”

  “And double the watch.”

  Arpád turned to look out onto the plain. “One of the women told Mari that she thought you would cast a spell on the Turks.”

  “That I would . . .” Rakóssy laughed. “Well, tell her to tell them that a Christian sorcerer can’t throw spells onto Moslems.”

  “A Christian?”

  “Yes. I am a Christian. They are Moslems.” He waved out at the Turks, who had stopped praying and were moving around their camp again. “Come on, let’s go. I have something I want to think about.”

  * * *

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nbsp; Rakóssy leaned on the balcony rail with Catharine, watching the gunners. It was very hot. His shirt was glued to his back. The smoke and dust made his throat gritty, and he coughed.

  “There,” he said, “that’s Mustafa, and I suppose that’s the Sultan with him, on the white horse.”

  “I can’t stand the noise,” she said.

  Half the Turkish guns were pouring heavy stone shot into the Chapel Gate. A lot of the Turks, with some guns, had left that morning, headed down the river. Rakóssy thought they were going to try to ford the river and come up on the other side. Rakóssy’s guns fired only if the Turks or their guns happened to come within range, and the Turks were careful about that.

  “He’s wasting shot,” Rakóssy said.

  The Chapel Gate’s wooden draw gate was splintered and wrecked. The iron portcullis and the wagons stacked against it still blocked the gate, and the Turk shot only added to the barricade. The portcullis was twisted into knots and one broken bar thrust out into the courtyard, spotted with rust.

  “I wish I knew how Denis was doing,” Catharine said.

  “If they take Hart, we’ll know it.”

  “They’ll try to fool us. The way Mustafa did.”

  “The only proof I’ll take is Denis.”

  “You mean if they capture him.”

  “If they take Hart, they’ll tear it apart looking for him. They’ll bring him here and pitch his body over the walls.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “Don’t say that.”

  “That’s the way it will be.”

  She recoiled and went inside. He leaned on the railing and watched the Turks play their games.

  They’re going to kill my brother, he thought. Denis with his fair skin and his small light bones.

  He thought that the Turks were only testing their guns. They knew by now that the gates were blocked. He had an idea for protecting the Main Gate, which the Turks were bound to work on next. He stared at his guns and their crews, gathered around and waiting, half naked and sweating, for the Turks to wander within range. A band of Spahis feinted toward one of the bridges, and the gun crews leapt up and stood by their guns. One gun went off. The Spahis skipped away, unhurt, light as sparrows.

  Rakóssy went inside. Catharine was sitting with Mari, talking about the colors they would use in a new gown. Mari was big as a barrel already, although the baby was not due until July. They gave him civil looks and words and he went down to the dungeons, where it was cool.

  He checked the supply of gunpowder. He had more than he would ever need. The King had not forced prices up on the stock of powder in Buda. The King was stupid.

  While he was there he remembered Malencz. He went to his cell and looked in. Malencz was sitting on the bed, reading. He looked up.

  His face changed from the quiet, heavy repose Rakóssy remembered to a tight anger. The blood mounted in his cheeks.

  “You traitor. You bloody traitor.”

  Rakóssy shook his head. “You’ll have to think of something new.”

  “Bastard, then. Will you take that? You aren’t Alexander Rakóssy’s son. You’re a stablehand’s son.” Malencz drew closer to the door. His voice whistled. “Your mother was a whore, bastard. A whore, brought to bed of a Devil’s imp.”

  Rakóssy threw back his head and laughed. Malencz’s voice rolled the vowels. “A whore, a whore, bastard.”

  “She’s dead,” Rakóssy said, “and she can’t hear you. And I don’t have to. So tell it to the walls, Malencz. Tell it to your books.”

  He went down the corridor to the stairs, laughing. He went up to his room and lay down on the bed, laughing.

  Catharine looked up. “What’s so amusing, my dear?”

  “I think Malencz is going mad.”

  “János, you can’t leave him alive.”

  “Oh, he’s locked up, safe as a church. Safe as a whore in Babylon.” He laughed again.

  “János, are you well?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “I think you should rest.”

  “All right.”

  He put his boots up on the bed and shut his eyes. The women stared at him. He laughed again, sleepily, and rolled over.

  Catharine tapped Mari on the shoulder, signed her to come closer, and said into her ear, “Go fetch up something to drink.”

  Mari got up and went silently away, Catharine stood and put down her sewing and went to the bed. She sat down next to Rakóssy. She put her hand on his back. He turned over and put his arms around her.

  “Kiss me,” he said.

  “If I may.” And she did.

  Mari came back with a pitcher of cold milk. At the door she heard their soft voices. She smiled. Rakóssy said something, and Catharine laughed. Mari took the pitcher into the next room and went down to find Arpád.

  Catharine lifted herself to one elbow and looked down at him. His face, sleeping, was a wicked face. The corners of his mouth were marked by deep short lines. The shadow of his beard was dark and rough. This is why Carlotta loved him, she thought. Because when she lay next to him and he was asleep she could look down at him and see . . . Lucifer naked beside her. Thou son of the morning, morning star, Hesperus, the most beautiful of the sons of God, the chosen angel who presumed too much, the rebel against God. The ultimate traitor, she thought.

  “O traitor,” she said, “I love you.”

  “I know.” He kissed her wrist. He put his arms around her and drew her down and kissed her mouth.

  “Thou morning star,” she said. “Who walked in the garden in the heat of the day.”

  “Accustoming myself to the fires of hell, obviously.”

  “Condemned forever to walk upon your belly.”

  “The better to slip through the Turks.”

  “Won’t you ever play?”

  “I don’t like to play at being guilty, somehow.”

  “Do you want a boy or a girl?”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Why can Mari get pregnant and not me? I want a baby, János. I want a baby.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Oh, stop it.”

  He ran the tip of his tongue around the rim of her ear. “Let’s have several of both kinds.”

  “You just want girls so that you can name them after your mother.”

  “Don’t be jealous of my mother.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “Not the way I love you. Go to sleep.”

  “János.”

  “Go to sleep, sweetheart. Go to sleep.”

  Rakóssy went down to the dungeons that night and got two kegs of gunpowder. He followed the dungeon corridor back into the foundations of the castle, curious suddenly. There were torches set in brackets along the walls for a stretch, but after a while they stopped. He took one from the bracket and went on, being careful with the gunpowder. The corridor wound on through the guts of the castle and ended in blank wall.

  There was a ladder standing against the wall. He set down the kegs, put the torch into a socket, and climbed up the ladder. It was rotten in parts and one of the rungs broke under his foot.

  He found a trap door in the ceiling above the ladder and opened it. The warm smell of a stable flooded him. He heard the horses stamping and breathing. He put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. The black mare nickered.

  He pushed the trap door all the way open and took the kegs out. The black mare nickered again when he passed her. He stopped and scratched her under the chin. “Getting fat, are you?”

  He went out through the front door of the stable. He heard the swallows in their nest right over the door. He had thought at first that the cannon would scare them away.

  His sentries on the walls were standing around talking. He told one of them to keep a watch on him and went through the Main Gate and walked quietly out to the breastworks. The ground smelled good out here. The stars were out. There was no moon, and the stars were faint and delicate.

&nb
sp; He buried the two kegs in the earthworks on the side facing Vrath and tore pieces of white cloth from his shirt to mark them. He sat on the torn, dried earth for a while, looking out at the Turk camp. They had their sentries out, too. He saw men dark against fires talking and strolling. It was almost time for the evening prayer.

  When the call to prayer went up, he rose and walked slowly back into Vrath. He found another ladder in the stable loft and lowered it through the trap door. He went upstairs and got into bed beside Catharine and went to sleep.

  * * *

  The next day the Turks started bombarding the Main Gate. The wooden part of the gate boomed like a drum. Rakóssy ordered some wagons hauled up near the gate in case it had to be blocked quickly.

  All that day, and the next, and the next after that, the Turks pounded away at the gate, smashing the wood to a ruin. They knocked out the whole outer part of the gate, so that no two stones remained together. Eventually their shot was reaching through to the inner gate. One of the Magyars walked by the gate and got a wood splinter six inches long in the chest when a Turk ball finally broke through the inner gate.

  When the gate was in rubble, the Turks stopped firing. Rakóssy ordered out two hundred men with pikes and held them at the ready, and he had the rendered fat taken up to the walls. Arpád thought that he meant to boil it and pour it on the Turks, but Rakóssy said that that was an old-fashioned idea and rarely worked.

  The Turks waited for a day and a half. On the second day, after the sun had gone down, they started up a heavy gunfire, aimed for the top of the wall all around the Main Gate. The Janissaries lined up, rank on rank. Their armor reflected the red glow of the slow matches and their lances were like blades of grass.

  Rakóssy climbed up onto the rampart by the Countess Gate. “Load up with scrap shot,” he said. “Swing these guns around and aim for those white patches. Can you see them?”