Grantville Gazette, Volume 69

by Bjorn Hasseler

  There had been pity in the reverend's eyes as he looked Bálint over.

  "My poor son, God has visited you for your crimes. Your enemies want your life badly."

  Bálint had already guessed this much but he was utterly puzzled why the man should care. Silently he kept looking at his visitor, becoming more alarmed as the priest continued.

  "How fortunate you are, however, that I happened to hear about you. I might well be convinced that you were innocently accused and perhaps then, I could help you. Just perhaps."

  "What am I to do to make you believe, Reverend?" Bálint asked as he looked up at him. "I was provoked to engage in an unfair duel where my opponent had chainmail hidden under his robes." The pastor puffed his cheeks and made a pious face.

  "I know you are still an idolator and haven't come to know our Lord. If I saw your willingness to repent your sins and embrace the new and clear faith in fear of the wrathful God, I'd be possibly inspired to save a true man's life."

  Since Szeklers speak little and Scots talk just as much, Bálint pursed his lips and said nothing.

  "Do you know, my poor son, that the Turkish envoys' servants are already looking for the place where they can impale you? The Austrians are also readying the gallows-tree for you. Only God can save you now."

  "Reverend, tell me please…is it true that the third Jesuit you murdered finished his life after being left for three days in a cesspit? What was his name? Will I have a trial, unlike them?"

  The thin man leapt to his feet as if bitten by a snake.

  "You, you will be sorry for this—very, very sorry," he said. Alvinczi left the cell in a fury.

  Bálint sighed and thought of his late father and smiled. "He would have liked this jest," he said aloud, to no one in particular. "I might tell the old bugger soon, in person, while drinking his favourite ale." And he hoped sincerely that there was beer in heaven.

  ****

  The next morning he was not surprised when two blue-clad Hajdus, the uniformed palace guards of the prince of Transylvania, came for him.

  "Is the hangman Turkish or German?" he asked.

  "Why should it matter?" The first soldier shrugged. "You Szeklers are very funny folks. Rather tell me—can you walk or should we give you a hand?"

  Bálint snorted at the question and mused aloud. "Once a man was being taken to Hell by the Devil, he met his pal on the way who felt sorry for him. But the Devil pointed out that it would be really sad if the friend was made to carry them both all the way to Hell. So why should I complain?"

  After taking a moment to catch his breath, Bálint struggled into a standing position and left the cell on his unsteady feet.

  To his great surprise, outside he was gently helped into a sedan-chair and the guards carried him to the huge palace that had been newly built by Prince Gábor Bethlen.

  It was not for nothing that the previous Prince of Transylvania had been called the man who had turned his realm into a prosperous Fairy Garden in an age when half of Europe was busy killing their neighbours or their own people who happened to be of a different faith.

  The palace had been built in the late Renaissance fashion, its four wings enclosing an elegant square surrounded by a circular gallery in the Italian style. A baroque fountain, now covered for winter, adorned the centre with four stone benches around it. The rest of the square was divided by a labyrinth of neatly trimmed evergreen hedges that opened up to small courtyards where green wooden benches awaited the noble guests and residents when the weather was mild.

  Bálint was led to the southern wing where he soon learned that he was not to leave the palace without permission and was never to venture to the northern wing as that was reserved for his Highness, György Rákóczi I, his lady wife, and his two sons.

  Bálint was looking around in awe while he was ushered into a reception hall where a clever-looking, bald man dressed in simple grey robes with a delicate lace collar had just finished the briefing of a large group of scribes…all but one of whom hurried away to their duties.

  "Good morning to you," the man said pleasantly. "Please come with me to the library on the second floor. Later, you will be shown your room on the third floor where the rest of the lads have their lodgings." Gesturing to the young man who remained at his side as he walked, he continued. "This is Johannes, a very bright apprentice of Herr Professor Alsted. He will supply you with all the necessary things you need. But forgive me, my name is Pál Bíró of Keresztúr, but please just call me Professor Bíró…"

  Darting eyes were assessing him, making Bálint acutely aware of the sorry state of his bristling skull which was neither properly shaved in normal Szekler fashion, nor fully grown out in the manner of the palace servants. Bálint could find no words for a moment—for he had been addressed in English.

  "Professor Bíró…I am honored to make your acquaintance instead of a hooded figure in black," he responded, also in English. "I am called Bálint the Highlander or Felföldi, and I am gladly in your service unless you wish to convert me."

  "Very well." Bíró nodded approvingly. "You can really speak the tongue, I see. No, I don't need your soul but your brain. You have had the good fortune to meet Reverend Alvinczi, haven't you?"

  "I think he might have not felt it so."

  "So I heard, so I heard," Bíró said as he shook his head sadly. He was also a Protestant pastor, as Bálint was to learn later, but in his teachings he focused on the individual's personal experience of a loving God and was not liked by Reverend Alvinczi for it. He had studied in England so his position in court had greatly appreciated since the appearance of Grantville.

  "I am hopeful that you will join our community of scholars. Our rules here are simple and clear enough. Johannes will tell you the details. As much as I know of you, you like reading and stand against injustice,and you don't abandon your faith," he added. "So far, so good. I promise to introduce you to the greatest intellectual challenge a Scot or a Szekler might face. To tell you the truth, we need your language skills quite badly, but if you are afraid to join us, you are to be given a horse and a saddle so you can go back to General Mikó and continue to serve—as an honest Szekler would."

  "Sir," Bálint said hesitantly, "Professor Biró…what about my duel?"

  "What duel? I know nothing of the sort. Just go ahead, and Johannes will take care of you. Report back to me in the evening, Bálint."

  With that, Biró squeezed his hand where it was not bandaged and strode off, leaving Bálint staring after him.He started when his sleeve was tugged and looked around to find the young scholar still at his side.

  "Come with me, friend," he said in Hungarian. "I am Johannes Deák but call me Jancsi. Did you really cut the Turk's head off and throw it before the legs of that beauty called Mary? Is her hair reaching down to her ankles as they say? We have prepared you a snug little room upstairs, and I wager you have had not had breakfast yet."

  ****

  The scribes lived on the third floor, two to a small room, but their daily routine kept them busy at various places of the building. Bálint listened eagerly to Jancsi's chatter while systematically devouring the flavorful bacon and white bread. The youngster had black hair and matching eyes that sparkled with intelligence and good humor as he related the information Balint needed to know along with a good amount of palace gossip.

  Jancsi's master was Professor Heinrich Alsted, the theologist-philosopher from Germany. Renowned for his encyclopedic works, he had come to Transylvania in Prince Bethlen's time. He was accompanied by two of his German colleagues, Heinrich Bisterfeld and Ludwig Piscator. Initially, their task had been to collate all the information gathered from Germany, and their scribes tried to summarise it in Hungarian. Now they had the task of researching the American "up-timers".

  Like Jancsi, these scribes were students who had studied in Wittenberg or in the Netherlands and had a strong command of either German or Dutch. Their numbers were ever increasing—currently there were more than one hundred twenty of th
em, not counting the servants and the palace guards, but there was still a great need for more teachers of English.

  Every Friday Reverend Alviczi called them together to summarize their weekly work. Jancsi grinned as he talked about it, but he said that Bálint would see the thing for himself in due time. Jancsi also told him about the pretty serving maids who lived and worked in the western wing, and if anybody needed anything, the chief-butler arranged it without a question. Scribes were not allowed to leave the palace, except when they visited their churches on Sundays and even then they were guarded by the hajdus. No weapon was permitted, except during the regular fencing lessons.

  Jancsi also made his dislike of Reverend Alvinczi clear as he let Bálint know that the reverend had a network of informers reporting on all behavior that undermined discipline. He dropped his voice to a whisper to tell of lads who just happened to disappear all of a sudden. It was said they were taken to Déva castle where dangerous "laboratories" had been set up and "field experiments" were being conducted.

  He admitted he found the work hard. Sometimes whole sections of texts made no sense, and there were dozens of new terms and words appearing every day.

  "Sometimes I feel hurled into the depths of a well made by demons," he said. "It is one thing to hear about the Americans from the future but touching their objects gives all of us goose pimples. The up-timers' pen that was issued to me to work with is a smooth, flexible, and transparent stick that writes by itself, without having to mess with ink and constant dipping. And there are small pictures called photographs that open a window to peep into another universe." Jancsi was slowly shaking his head as he poured some wine for his friend. "I prefer the books, above all. With their small type and thin pages and the wonders they talk about. These books and newspapers that we are given to translate and read aloud fly us to a land of fairies and impossible miracles. I warn you, there are hundreds of words and terms that make understanding very hard, and sometimes we can only guess what they mean."

  "Is the reverend so hostile with all new ideas?" Bálint asked when Jancsi had paused to take a breath.

  Jancsi nodded. "Why, it is not for nothing we call him the 'Old Vampire.' Unfortunately, Reverend Alvinczi seems to have a ready explanation for everything. During his weekly summaries he puffs his cheeks, like this, and spends the first hour by cooling down the more enthusiastic researchers. He thinks there are many of us who have been dangerously infected by the new ideas and fantastic scientific facts we are learning. He goes into great detail as to how these concepts will be put to use by hostile and evil envoys of Satan to create horrible devices to destroy the true believers in the wars of the future."

  "What does he conclude?" Bálint asked as he finished the last morsels before him and looked around for more wine…in vain.

  Jancsi made a sour face and began imitating the pastor again.

  "—'Why, don't the up-timers themselves admit that they were our enemies in both terrible world wars? Didn't President Wilson's intervention turn the balance of the Great War against us? Without the Americans' intrusion, Hungary would have become the leading power of the continent…maybe even of the world! Think on that! Which country suffered the greatest injustice after that first World War? We have just learned that in the future three-quarters of our country will be torn off and given to riffraff, upstart, never-heard-of countries like Romania or Yugoslavia…and let us not speak of that creature called Czechoslovakia."

  Bálint couldn't help laughing.

  "You say Ceczho…sclovo…or what? You are pulling my leg!"

  But Jancsi could not abandon his role as teacher and he continued.

  "In the second great war they just repeated this crime and after twenty years of that they were still our enemies. Count Csáky recently put his life in danger to bring us a few pages from one of their encyclopedias. Brothers, the Americans considered Hungary was their deadly enemy just because we were ‘Communist.'—" Jancsi was rolling his eyes as he spoke.

  Bálint was afraid his wounds would tear again because of his laughter.

  "But—" Jancsi held one finger up in the air as he continued his narration. "—who might Communists be other than humble Protestant folks who shared their possessions in their communa as it was done by the first Christians before the Catholics corrupted the holy religion? The Americans admit that their presidents and bankers are all shape-shifters!"

  Bálint's eyes widened at this revelation.

  "They are lizards, the demons from hell!" Now Jancsi gave out small whining sounds to indicate Alvinczi's terror and said, "If somebody catches a glimpse of their terrible true nature, he is instantly eaten up alive. So don't let yourself be misled by their glittering object and lies. Besides, they are openly trafficking with the Turks to get coffee!"

  "Jancsi, stop it please. And send for the barber!" replied Bálint, choking.

  Gyulafehérvár, Transylvania

  March 22, 1634

  Bálint's wounds were nicely healed by the time the fields were all dressed in green. He was fidgeting like a badger in the thorn-bush and was just grumbling about everything in the palace. His hair had grown out and both it and his moustache were trimmed short. He had a new kilt obtained from the palace tailor after he'd given a careful explanation of how his clan tartan should be woven.

  When he began to attend the nearest Catholic church, accompanied by two of the palace guards, he was pleased to find copper-haired Mary in the congregation, and they exchanged warm smiles. The next day he begged a special dispensation from Spymaster Böjthy so that he could have his Sunday afternoons free as well. From then on he and Mary spent their Sunday mornings attending Mass and the afternoons in her father's tavern.

  Some other afternoons, Bálint gave his friends fencing lessons in the palace's wide corridors or in the yard if the weather was good. It was on one such occasion he met Achmed.

  As Bálint was explaining a particular stroke to Jancsi and two other scribes he became aware of a stocky man in a kafthan with a small silk turban on his head. Seeing Turks in the palace was not unusual for quite a few of them served there as musicians, scribes, or cooks but Bálint became annoyed when the Turk began shaking his head.

  "What's wrong with this saber-turning?" he asked him, putting his limited Turkish to use.

  "Young man," came the answer with a friendly smile. "It is a nice drill for the parade ground but such a stroke can be outsmarted with ease."

  "Then show me how you do it…"

  As soon as the soft-looking, plump Turk was offered a saber the tip began flying about his opponent's head like a butterfly, and Bálint found himself disarmed in a heartbeat.

  A deep and sincere friendship developed from that first fencing lesson. Bálint was happy to pick up more Turkish while they were discussing many interesting things they had in common. Every Sunday they met, sometimes practiced a bit or just talked.

  It turned out that Achmed was a musician and had seen many battlefields for the Turks never fought without music. Bálint's father had been a piper and taught the skill to his son. Achmed brought out his Turkish clarinet, and they played for each other. Bálint also knew the Szekler flute and showed him all the Scottish and Szekler tunes he could play.

  Achmed had been a war prisoner of Prince Bethlen. Some years ago he had been freed for his musical skills, and he had decided to stay on and serve the prince of his own free will. Bálint slowly realised that not all the Turks were evil—at least not those ones who were not the subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

  Gyulafehérvár, Transylvania

  March 23, 1634

  Professor Bíró and Spymaster Gáspár Bojthy silently regarded the tall young man before them. Bálint was not offered a seat since both gentlemen were pacing the length of Sir Gáspár's elegantly appointed reception room.

  The professor's voice finally broke the silence. "Tell us freely. What do you think of the intentions of these folks called up-timers, according to your observations?"

  "Pray, mak
e it short," added Sir Gáspár.

  Bálint took a deep breath and looked into their eyes.

  "I entirely disagree with Reverend Alvinczi. These Americans may have come from the future but they did not ask for it. Therefore making them our enemies is the greatest wrong that can be done against both our nations. They could be powerful allies, and with their assistance we could chase the Ottomans out and build up a stronger state than even King Matthias' had been. With their scientific knowledge there would be neither poverty nor epidemic anymore. Their ideas would be certainly welcome compared to how Reverend Alvinczi views the world."

  Professor Bíró was nodding his bald head in agreement but Spymaster Gáspár seemed to have some doubts. So far, Reverend Alvinczi had refused to send anyone to Grantville after Count Csáky had returned, but perhaps Sir Gáspár believed the time was now right. Finally, after another long pause, he gave the instructions to Bálint Felföldi as if he was talking to a soldier:

  "You are to go to Grantville, accompanied by Johannes, the apprentice of Professor Alsted. He has stronger German skills and he speaks Dutch, too. You must observe how these American people live and worship, spending enough time with them before you contact and greet them officially, on behalf of Prince Rákóczi. Tell them we are not friends with the Austrians, and the Turks are our enemies. We seek peace and trade, first. Their ambassadors are welcome. You can show them the way. Here are your credentials and traveling letters. Take this ring. Use it to seal all the reports you send.

  "Your contact in the Netherlands is Gábor Haller. He has had a well-built intelligence network from the time of Prince Bethlen. You are to accept orders or instructions if you see the sign of the same ring or the ring itself. Your contact in Vienna is Cardinal Péter Pázmány. Again just show him your ring and he will provide you with everything you may ask for.

  "In short, make your best attempt to prove to the up-timers that the Principality of Transylvania is a strong power in the civilized part of Europe and has plentiful resources. Tell them that our land has remained untouched by those terrible wars that have laid waste to half the continent. Moreover, we offer asylum to religious refugees fleeing England and Switzerland because we have given shelter to everyone since our first Prince Johannes Sigismund introduced the freedom of religions in 1568. Since the time of Prince Gábor Bethlen even the Jews are free to trade and live unmolested without having to wear the signs of Solomon.