“He doesn’t have hoofs, he has feet. I’ve seen them.”
“He’s bewitched you, too.” Malencz looked suddenly afraid. “Are you bewitched?”
“No, Louis.”
“I saw his face all lit up with sulphurous fire and I saw his footprints burning,” Malencz said. “I saw, and I know. He has to kill me. He knows everything. He sits in his room and he sees everything. The devils come and tell him what happens. I saw Lucifer himself come out of the circle he drew in the dirt.”
“When did you see this?” Denis said. He leaned forward. “Louis, please, you must get hold of yourself.”
“I saw it. I saw it all. I saw him outside, and he was digging in the dirt and drawing his circles and summoning up the devils. Jew-talk, he used, and Greek that he learned from his witch-whore mother, and Gypsy, and he spoke all the prayers backward and he throws spells on men, so that they can only see if he lets them and they must do as he wills. He won the Emperor’s daughter with a love potion.”
“Louis.”
Malencz rose. “He’s bewitched you, too. I see the mark on your forehead.” He stretched out his hand and touched Denis’ forehead.
He is mad, Denis thought. I mustn’t disturb him. I must get away and tell János.
“Shall I bring down some Ovid?” he said.
Malencz’s hot, shiny eyes looked confused and dulled. “Ovid? Oh, yes. We have to translate more of it. That helps, you know.”
“I’ll get some,” Denis said. He went carefully toward the door. Malencz stood by the bed, hunched slightly.
“Take some of these back, will you?” Malencz said in a perfectly normal tone.
Denis knelt to gather up a stack of books in his arms. Instantly Malencz’s furious weight was on his back. Denis straightened, reaching behind him with his good hand to drag Malencz off, and Malencz raised one arm and stabbed Denis in the chest with Denis’ own dagger. Denis gasped and tried to shout and the knife stabbed again and again into his chest.
“You Devil’s instrument,” Malencz whispered. He let Denis go. Denis slid quietly to the floor and lay still. There was blood all over the room. Malencz looked at the knife in his hand and forced his fingers open. He went to the door and said, “Warder. Warder, Sir Denis is ill.”
The warder came running. He threw open the door. “Dear God,” he said. “You’ve . . .”
Malencz caught him by the throat. The warder snatched at his hands, striking at him. Malencz threw him to one side and jumped on him with both feet when he fell. He grabbed the warder’s sword and stabbed him through the chest.
“So much for you,” he said. “You traitor.”
He had to hurry. Even now Rakóssy might be calling up his legions of imps to go find out what the turmoil was. He had seen them flying around the castle. The others were bewitched so that they couldn’t see the imps. Rakóssy had left his black powder here someplace. Vrath was his, lawfully his, and he could do with her as he wished. He must hide from the imps some way.
He had thought Denis was all right. All this time he had waited, testing Denis, and he had thought that Denis was still all right, but he wasn’t after all; he had been worming his way into Malencz’s confidence, trying to trick him, and like a fool he had told all he knew. They were all around him; no decent man was safe. He thought perhaps he should save the Emperor’s sister or daughter or whatever she was, but then he thought that she was probably bewitched too.
He found the cell where the powder was stored and took two kegs. He couldn’t carry more than that. He didn’t know if that was enough. It had to be a big explosion. He thought probably Rakóssy had raised a wall around the castle. The Turks would have taken it otherwise.
He went up to the kitchen and through that little door into the courtyard. The sentries were watching the Turkish camp, and he stayed away from the side where the wall was breached, lit brilliantly with torches and packed with men. He made his way to the high corner on the chapel side, hiding in the shadows.
* * *
“Denis has been looking for you,” Catharine said. “He’s frantic.”
“Where is he?”
“He took some books down to Malencz,” Mari said. She sighed. “I’m tired. May I go to bed, my lady?”
“Of course. János, have you had anything to eat?”
“No. I’m going to find Denis.”
He went to Denis’ room, and it was empty. He was with Malencz. Rakóssy swore. He went down to the kitchen and found Catharine there, fixing him something to eat. He went down to the basement.
He saw the warder lying dead, half in and half out of Malencz’s cell. He stared at the body. He turned.
“Catharine.”
“Yes?” She came to the kitchen door at the head of the stairs.
“Call Arpád.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Call Arpád.” He went slowly down the corridor and into the dungeon.
Arpád and Catharine came after him, it seemed almost at once. He looked up.
“Take her upstairs,” he said. “Arpád, Malencz has escaped. I want him. Alive.”
Catharine said, “It’s Denis, isn’t it?” She went by Arpád and walked toward the dungeon. Rakóssy thrust out his arm to hold her back. She looked at him. He drew his arm away from her. She went by him. She looked into the dungeon and shut her eyes.
Arpád ran up the stairs.
Rakóssy put his arm around Catharine to keep her from falling. “Now will you go?”
She went back down the corridor.
Rakóssy stepped into the dungeon. The books were scattered all over the floor, and the ink had spilled. He knelt and lifted Denis in his arms. He carried him up to the kitchen and put him on the table there. The pale hair seemed to have faded. Sometimes when they opened the graves of the long dead they found blond strands of hair still golden in the fresh light, but touching them destroyed them and the hair turned to dust. He felt that Denis had been long dead, that he had known long before that Denis was dead.
He lifted one of Denis’ hands, the long fingers cool in his own hand. There was an ink spot on the index finger. The light bones of Denis’ face seemed malleable as clay. He looked like a wax saint, neither dead nor alive.
“Better this way.”
He had not meant it the other time he had said it. Better this way. Oh, yes, better. I never meant to hurt you. Or if I meant to, I had my reasons.
But he wasn’t alive. I’m saying this to myself. Bereft.
There was an explosion, somewhere, outside. He lifted his head. The explosion rippled the floor under his feet. His legs shook. He went quickly to the door into the courtyard. The hot air struck him in the face.
Malencz. Malencz.
He ran to the front of the courtyard. The whole front wall was down in the rubble. Only the frame of the Main Gate stood. Malencz. Denis had told him about blowing up Hart. That was why. The cannon were in the debris, scrap and garbage, iron shards worth nothing. The sentries . . .
Arpád was shouting at him. He turned. Arpád said, “Shall I get everybody out?”
“Yes.” Rakóssy moved so that he could see the Turkish camp through the breach. “Will you look at that?” He looked up at the full moon. “Malencz, God damn your soul.”
He went back inside and found Mari and Catharine with the other women in the great hall. He drew Catharine aside.
“They’ve broken through,” she said.
“It was Malencz. He must have poured a couple of kegs of powder into a hole in the wall. The whole wall’s down.”
“It’s ended, isn’t it?”
“Yes. They’ll attack us. When they come in here, tell them who you are. They’ll ransom you.”
“I don’t want it,” she said. She pressed her hands against her skirt.
“I don’t want it either.”
He looked at the other women. “Please,” he said. “Stay here, tell them who you are. Please.”
“János, don’t.”
“
Catharine . . .”
Arpád came into the hall. “They’re coming.”
“You take the guns on the stable roof, I’ll take the ones by the Chapel Gate. We’ll catch them in a crossfire.” He turned back to Catharine. “You do as I tell you.”
She kissed him. He thought, Maybe, somehow, and pulled away from her, almost rough. “One kiss before dying,” he said. “Christ, I sound like one of your fairy tales.”
He walked out of the hall. He thought she spoke behind him.
The men were gathered up by the guns. He went up with them. Their faces shone and their eyes were full of fears.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s ram it down their throats.”
She had better go. Get away. She could be carrying his child.
That’s dynastic of you.
Out on the plain torches bloomed, first a few, spreading, leaping from hand to hand, like the lightning on the mountain that time. The plain was full of torches like a field of asters. The torches moved, coming closer, an army of fire. “Ready,” he said.
“Ready, my lord.”
Not your lord much longer, friend.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spirtus Sancti.”
The men around him were crossing themselves. His hand was like lead at his side. He closed his fingers over the hilt of his sword. Te absolvo.
“Light your matches.”
They heard, dimly, the sound of many hoofs on the beaten plain. The slow matches dipped over the torches and the smell of sulphur reached his nostrils, bitter and itching. He rubbed his nose.
“Shall we cry ‘Deus le vult,’ my lord?” Béla said.
“Shut up.”
The Turks were there, in the great breach, charging. Rakóssy said, “Fire.”
There was a moment of nothing but the hissing matches and the odd rolling charge of the Turks. The cannon roared. The Turks in the gap stopped short against the wall of shot closing from either side. Rakóssy saw Arpád on the roof of the stable, one arm raised, immense. There was no time to reload. The Turks were swarming toward them. He saw their faces in the shining torches. Their eyes were brighter than their shields. A lance flew past him and a Magyar shrieked and tumbled from the wall.
In this last fairy tale. He drew his sword, pulling back to the wall. The courtyard was flooded with Turks. They had ladders, they were scaling the wall. He and the men with him ran to turn the ladders over. The lances pelted the stone around him. Rakóssy snatched at Béla. Béla flung his hand aside, clasped the lance in both hands, and drew it out of his belly. The black blood sprang after it. Béla raised the lance and leapt, shouting, into the Turks below.
Rakóssy kicked a ladder away. He ran down the wall toward the breach, climbed down the edge of the broken wall, and raced toward the Turks, silent, his sword held low. The Turks whirled to meet him.
He hardly knew what he did. He held the sword in both hands and stood spread-legged, cleaving around him, seeing nothing, feeling only the contact of the sword with the Turks. A horse reared over him and he dodged it and killed it when it came down. He used it as a shield. The Turks charged him. Their swords swept the air around him like feathers.
The Turks drew back, making a wall around him. He looked up at the wall. There were no more Magyars there. His men were dead. He charged the Turks and they faded away before him. He rushed into the angle of the wall and stood with his back to the stone.
Arpád’s voice sailed over the heads of the Turks. He looked over them and saw Arpád, gigantic, jump from the stable roof into the midst of Turks. He saw Arpád’s head, swaying, the eyes darting back and forth, above the Turks. Arpád went down. He was washed over by the mob of the Turks.
There was a sudden stillness. He looked at the wall of Turks around him. Beyond them he saw Mustafa, sitting on the chestnut mare, watching him. On all their faces was the same waiting. They meant to have him alive.
He feinted, rushed them, drew back, and worked his way down the wall. They would not meet him. Arpád they would kill, but not him. He heard his own breath sobbing through his teeth. He charged them and they parted to let him through and followed him like herders’ dogs. Over the heads of the Turks Mustafa regarded him with cold eyes.
“János.”
He whirled toward her. She stepped from the shelter of the wall. She had a sword in her hands, and she lifted it. She ran on light feet toward the Turks. They backed away; they would kill no woman. He screamed her name. She turned her head toward him, the eyes unseeing, and attacked.
The Turks shouted. A lance ran through her breast. He saw her white gown, her white body, lying on the courtyard stone. The Turks rolled and howled around her. Over their rushing heads Mustafa said, “I think it best that we kill him.”
Rakóssy turned and ran for the kitchen door. He made it two jumps ahead of the Turks and slammed it shut. Mari was there, sitting by Denis’ body.
“Are they all dead but us?” Mari said.
He nodded.
She began to cry. “I’m not going to die. Nothing they can do to me would be worse than dying.” She put her head down.
“Pray for me,” he said. “Or something.”
He went down the steps into the dungeon corridor and ran along it. He passed the place where the torches stopped and ran through pitch-darkness. His leg began to ache. He ran limping. Malencz. Malencz.
He ran into the wall at the end of the corridor. For a moment he stood pressed against it, gasping. His leg almost refused to bear him. He reached out and felt the ladder’s rung. He groped to it and climbed up.
The sound of horses reached him. He pushed the trap door open. He smelled moldy hay and manure. The horses were stamping and neighing. He climbed up into the stable.
The last of the hay was piled against the back wall. He lit the tinder in his tinderbox and flung it into the hay. He went along the lines of horses, cutting them loose. There were almost one hundred of them left after the slaughtering. Their manes tossed like branches in the wind, and the dim flickering firelight shone on their skins. They screamed at the smell of fire and kicked out at him.
The black mare thrust her head under his arm. “Good girl,” he said. “Good girl.” He pulled her rope loose and mounted her. He rode her into the midst of the pack of loose horses. He could see the hay burning; the flames ran like mice through it.
The horses plunged against the stable door. Their hoofs rang on the floor and the walls. The door opened, and Turks, Turkish faces, slick with sweat, showed in the doorway. The horses galloped over them. The black mare ran in the middle of the pack.
The horses burst into the courtyard, running with their heads high, screaming, mad to be loose. The Turks scattered before them. Rakóssy bent over the black mare’s neck. He reached back to touch the hilt of his sword, in its scabbard. The mare raced toward the open plain. She slowed to pick her way through the litter of rock and nameless men. He clutched her, his face pressed against her foaming neck. She jumped the last of the fallen rock and bolted.
He dozed through the night. The dawn broke suddenly over him, and he straightened. The mare was grazing, the rope trailing down from her halter.
He turned her west, to the village there, and met a man at the edge of a field.
“Count Malencz? He left before dawn.” The man spat. “Got beaten, didn’t you? Not so great now, are you?”
“I want some rope.”
“Ask for it.”
Rakóssy looked down at him. The man spat again. “Turk or Magyar, you’re all the same. What difference does it make? In my hut. Ask the woman.”
“Just remember,” Rakóssy said, “that a Magyar didn’t kill you.”
He rode off to the hut and the woman came out. He said, “Get me some rope.”
“Rope.”
She went inside and came out again with a coil of grass rope. He dismounted and took it and made a bridle for the mare. The woman sat in the door and watched him.
“The King’s dead,” she said.
&
nbsp; “When?”
She shrugged. “We just heard.”
“Malencz. Which way did he go?”
“West.” She paused. “He’s mad, that one. He’s mad.”
He rode off. The sun rose higher. He rode west, across the plain, watching for Malencz ahead of him. There was a spring up ahead. He thought that Malencz would be there, but he rode slowly toward it letting the mare take her own pace.
He reached the spring and rode around it. Malencz was there, sitting under a tree, and he didn’t look surprised when Rakóssy rode in.
“Is there no killing you, Rakóssy?”
“None.”
Malencz got up and drew his sword. Rakóssy slid off the mare. Malencz said, “I knew you would come after me.”
“There’s blood between you and me, traitor.”
Malencz raised his sword and attacked him in a short rush. Rakóssy parried his thrust, struck back, and narrowly missed.
“Playing with cannon has lost you your skill, traitor.”
“Come on, then,” Rakóssy said.
They fought quickly together and drew apart again, circling. Malencz lunged, Rakóssy parried him and struck in over his sword, and Malencz’s quick return slit his arm above the elbow.
Rakóssy backed off. Malencz was hesitant. He attacked, almost tentatively, and withdrew a little. Rakóssy started after him. Malencz was working him slowly around so that the sun would be in his eyes, but Rakóssy stopped moving and forced Malencz back a step, toward the spring.
Suddenly Malencz leapt in with a wild rush, flailing with his sword. Rakóssy backed off a few steps, parried a hard thrust, drew Malencz’s sword out of line, and struck in over the blade, straight to the heart. Malencz slid from the sword into the grass. He lay still. Rakóssy saw that he was dead.
He wiped his sword on Malencz’s shirt and mounted the mare. She drank at the spring. Her mane was snarled, and he straightened it while she drank. When she was satisfied he turned her west.
Rakóssy Page 23
