Rakóssy

by Cecelia Holland

  “Will it work with a cannon?”

  Denis shrugged. “On the heavy ones — I’m not sure. I’ve got Sander carving screws for the lighter ones now.”

  Rakóssy turned the carriage over and wound the bottom screw. It raised and lowered the muzzle.

  “I haven’t figured out how to raise it in any position other than dead center,” Denis said. “The elevation screw has to be stationary.”

  “What made you think of this?” Rakóssy said.

  Denis almost sneered. “Trying to be helpful.”

  “Answer my question.”

  Denis tried to meet his stare. Rakóssy did not blink. As last Denis looked away. “I studied mathematics in school,” he said, “and I read Archimedes and some of the Greek geometrists.”

  A snowflake drifted down between them. Rakóssy looked up at the sky. He turned and called, “Arpád, put everything under cover.”

  He looked back at Denis. The snow was falling steadily. Denis brushed at his shoulders.

  “Hungry?” Rakóssy said.

  Denis would not look at him. “I’m starving.”

  “Come on.”

  He went down to the courtyard. The wind was bitter, and the snow skittered in curls over the ground. Denis was a few steps behind him. Rakóssy said, “We’ll eat in my room. It’s warmer there.”

  “Catharine’s room?”

  Rakóssy hunched his shoulders against the snow. “In my room and Catharine’s room.”

  Denis stopped. Rakóssy went on a few strides and turned.

  “So you got to her,” Denis said.

  Rakóssy stared at him a moment, spat into the snow, and went on. Denis ran to catch up. Rakóssy whirled in the doorway to face him.

  “She is my wife,” he said. “Remember?”

  “You don’t love her.”

  “Whether I love her or not is no business of yours.”

  Denis opened his mouth, shut it, and looked down. “I guess it isn’t.”

  “Mother hated Father. I never heard you object to being born.”

  “She didn’t really hate him. She just—”

  “She hated him.”

  Denis looked at his brother’s face. “I’m sorry, János.”

  Rakóssy shoved him gently. “Get married. It’s quite an experience, take it from big brother.”

  The snow fell for three days. The knights sat in their quarters and talked or slept or drank. Mari and Catharine wove cloth in the great hall. Rakóssy, in a bad temper, stormed around the castle for the first two days and on the third disappeared. Nobody asked where he was, being too relieved that he was gone. Denis sat reading Archimedes by the fire in the hall, listening to Catharine and Mari talk.

  “Denis,” Catharine said, “is there a lute here? Or a harp, or anything? Even one of those Gypsy fiddles? I’m dying for music.”

  “I’ve got a lute, but I haven’t played for months.”

  “Does János play?” Catharine said, and Mari giggled.

  “God, no.”

  “Please fetch it, Denis.”

  “Gentlemen don’t play the lute.”

  “Fetch it. You probably play beautifully.”

  Denis sighed. “Mari, why don’t you get it for me?”

  “Charmed, my lord.”

  Mari ran out. Denis looked after her. Catharine straightened out a tangle of wool. “So we are alone.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “You’ve made a terrific change in János.”

  “In János? There’s been no change in János. In me, perhaps, and in you, but János is as inflexible as steel. Oh, look, here comes Father Zoltan.”

  Zoltan came in, bowed to Catharine, and said, “What a terrible storm this is. I thought to bother you with my presence for a while.”

  “It’s no bother at all.” Catharine indicated a stool. “Bring that nearer the fire.”

  Zoltan did. “Ah. It’s certainly warmer here than down in the basement. My lady, permit me to compliment you. I have never found Hart Castle so congenial.”

  “Where have you been?” Denis said. “I had the feeling you were avoiding me.”

  “Oh, my dear child, hardly that. I was waiting until it was safe to come out again. Your brother was reminded of my presence a bit too precipitously.”

  Mari came in with the lute. Zoltan smiled. “My lady, you are making yourself quite a court here.”

  “Yes, and now we’re even to have music.”

  Denis played several Italian songs, passably but not well, and Catharine gave him some instruction. She took the lute and taught him a Spanish love song as old, she said, as the Moors. She played better than Denis, and he knew it and was proud of her.

  “My mother used to play by the hour for the King,” she said. Her hands moved lightly over the strings. “He had difficulty sleeping at night, and she would play until he did sleep.” She sang in Spanish and in French, taught them a round, and they sang it, laughing.

  Catharine took the lute up to her bedroom with her that night. She was beginning to worry about Rakóssy, and she sang to comfort herself. The door opened in the midst of a song and she saw that it was he.

  “Where have you been?” she said.

  “Upstairs. Where did you get this?”

  “It’s Denis’. Do you play?”

  He laughed and sat down, running the heel of his hand over the pearwood. “How is the forlorn lover these days?”

  “He’s very happy. He thinks you’ve forgiven him.”

  “Forgiven him what?”

  “For being educated and traveled and witty and worldly.”

  “That wasn’t it. That idea about the screws, it works, it’s good. I wouldn’t have thought of it.”

  “You don’t have his education,” she said.

  He glanced at her, amused. “No. He’s finally beginning to be useful, in spite of it. He’s gotten it into his head to be a Rakóssy.”

  “He always was a Rakóssy. He was like your father.”

  “Father was a misfit and a failure. I can leave Denis to command Hart when I go.”

  She paused a moment. “Do you think that’s wise?”

  “Well,” he said, “he doesn’t have my education, but he should do well enough in spite of that.”

  “I don’t know if he will like being left here.”

  “He’ll have to like it.”

  She frowned. He had been smiling, but his eyes were beginning to sharpen and harden.

  “Poor János,” she said. “Being stuck in here aggravates you, doesn’t it?”

  “He’ll stay,” he said. He put the lute on the table. “If I have to beat him into it.”

  “János,” she said, “come undo my laces.”

  “I think,” he said, “I’ll take off my boots first.”

  The next day, when the snow had stopped, Rakóssy and Denis worked over the cannon. Denis had fit a light gun to his new carriage. It worked almost as well as the model. Denis said, “We could figure out a way to put a lot of barrels on one breech and spray shot all over the place.”

  “They make that kind. They’re called death organs. They’re too light and unsure for castle guns.”

  “Or we could hang a cannon in chains in a kind of A-shaped framework and put that on wheels and take it out onto the field. That way the cannon would be straight no matter how the frame was sitting, up a slope or down.”

  Denis was looking at a diagram of a catapult. “They’re very similar,” he said. “Catapults and cannon. Except you can shoot fireballs from a catapult.”

  “We could heat up the iron balls.”

  “How would we put them into the breech? And they might fire off the gunpowder too soon.”

  Denis sketched something on his paper. “I’ll see if I can work it out, though. And firing little stones.”

  “You like this, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s like chess. It’s an objective problem, you know. It’s fun to fig
ure things out.”

  Rakóssy shrugged. “Well, I’m glad you like it. I’ve got to go check the feed bins. Want to come?”

  “I’m going to work some of these things out.”

  Rakóssy went down to the courtyard. He was surprised at Denis and Denis’ way of thinking, but when he considered it he knew that he shouldn’t have been surprised. That irritated him.

  There was nothing to do but wait for spring. Rakóssy had the cannon taken down and stored in the stable. Denis drew things on paper and made models. Just before Christmas the Turks made a raid against a winter sheep camp down by the eastern springs. Rakóssy heard of it and took fifty men to the springs, although he knew it would be too late. He left Denis in the castle.

  The shepherds had built a snow wall around their camp, and they had fought from behind it, holding the flocks in the middle. Red stains in the old snow marked the edge of the Turks’ raiding line. Only one of the shepherds had been killed. The flocks were safe. Rakóssy rode around the camp studying the tracks in the snow. Arpád talked to the head shepherd. Rakóssy came back and reined in. He was riding a big roan, because the mare was not made for riding in snow.

  “How many?” Rakóssy said.

  “About forty,” the shepherd said. “We killed a lot of them.”

  The other shepherds were sitting around the fire. They watched Rakóssy covertly.

  Arpád said, “How many did they kill?”

  “I can’t tell. Three or four, maybe. Probably they wounded a lot more. Those longbows aren’t much use against Turk armor.”

  “Late, for a raid,” the head shepherd said.

  “They’re hungry.”

  Rakóssy nodded to Arpád who brought over a pack horse.

  “Harquebuses,” Rakóssy said, “and some bolts. Do you know how to use them?”

  “No.”

  Rakóssy dismounted, tossed Arpád his reins, and opened the pack. He took out a harquebus and a bolt. “Come here.”

  The shepherd came over. Rakóssy said, “You wind it with this crank. Wind it before you put the bolt in. Slide the bolt in here, put the stock to your shoulder like this.” He looked around. “Do you want that sheep especially?”

  “Not if you’re hungry, my lord.”

  Rakóssy shouldered the harquebus. “Aim through those prongs. And pull the trigger.” He shot, and the sheep plunged into the snow without a sound, without a leap.

  The shepherd reached for the harquebus, and Rakóssy handed it over.

  “For Turks, you understand? If I hear of any of you fighting Magyars or Slavs or Slovenes or Croats — anybody but Turks — I’ll make you wish you were never born.”

  The shepherd grinned.

  “Cook me that sheep. It’s a long ride back to Hart.”

  The shepherds moved languidly into action. Rakóssy and his men sat down by the fire. It began to snow, and Rakóssy cursed.

  “It’s going to be three days going back,” he said. “We’ll pack some meat with us.”

  The older shepherd came over and sat on his heels. He directed his men with his hands.

  “It used to be that we could count on this water during the winter,” he said. “The wind keeps the grass clear, over there.”

  “And the spring never freezes,” Rakóssy said. “I know.”

  “That’s right. What happened to these Turks, anyway?”

  “We burned a lot of their graze last summer. Maybe their herds ran out. Maybe they’re starving.”

  “I hope so,” the old shepherd said. He spat. The spittle crackled in the cold air.

  Rakóssy blew on his hands and thrust them back into his gloves. “I’m beginning to think that they’re going to attack us soon. The whole Turk army.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just said I was beginning to think it.”

  “I’ll believe you. You always know everything. There’s nothing a man can do that ibn Shaitan doesn’t know about.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  The old shepherd poked the fire with a stick. His hands were bare. The skin of his hands was chapped and red, so rough that looking at them made Rakóssy grit his teeth. “He calls you something else,” the shepherd said. “The Lion of Hungary, he calls you.”

  “How do you know?”

  The old man shrugged. “I speak Turk — you have to out here. I listen.” He stared at the fire. He lifted his eyes. His face was full of confidence. “You’ll beat them.”

  “I’ll try.”

  The old shepherd spat again. “You will.”

  If the Emperor should not come . . .

  “Kismet,” Rakóssy said and shrugged. “I’ll do what is possible.”

  They ate the roasted sheep and slept there that night. Rakóssy thought, Who am I to think that I might lose? The next morning he packed cold meat on the spare horse and led his men back to Hart. The snow fell all the way home. They followed him blindly. They reached the castle in the middle of the night.

  “I’m a coward,” he told Catharine.

  “Ah, my love, cowardice is not one of your vices.”

  “God damn it,” he said, “God damn it.”

  * * *

  Mustafa was in Constantinople before the winter solstice. The Sultan showed him a letter from the King of France, beseeching the Sultan to attack Hungary and rescue the King of France from the wicked clutches of the Emperor. Mustafa, who, like Rakóssy, could not read, admired the fine flourishes of the handwriting and the ornate forms of the seal.

  “I will attack Hungary in the spring.”

  Mustafa bowed. “Your Magnificence is, as ever, direct and purposeful.”

  “The army has been summoned. I will have seventy-five thousand men, including and centered upon the Janissaries, and three hundred cannon. Do you deem this sufficient?”

  Mustafa moved easily around the small room. “Your Magnificence honors me in this. Yet the problem is complex. Such an army would naturally take Hungary in a single month, provided that the lords and kings of the West do not come to the aid of the Magyars. But, even if they do — yes, even then, such an army, commanded by the Magnificence of the Servant of Allah—” Mustafa bowed — “would be enough. But it would be difficult.”

  “Will they come, these western lords?”

  “I cannot say. What I said, Magnificence, would be a lie. I have no certain proof in either direction.”

  “You are ever wise. What are your suspicions?”

  “I suspect nothing, Magnificence.” Mustafa looked at his hands. “There is a man in the south who lately married the Emperor’s aunt. She is the daughter of a concubine, not the true wife of the Spanish King. I can say no more of it. I know nothing of her. Nor do I know why he married her.”

  “Is he a great lord?”

  Mustafa shook his head.

  “So, then. With you, how goes the campaign?”

  Mustafa paused. His eyes swept the elegant tracery of the ivory screen. “Not well, Magnificence.”

  “Oh?”

  “The past season has nothing in it to equal or recall the successes of past years. I have lost too many men, and my supply lines are too vulnerable to attack, and my . . . opposition too cunning.”

  “The task is difficult at best. But for one of such ability to find it impossible, that is a thing of amazement.”

  “Not impossible, Magnificence. I said only that it does not go well. I have gained nothing, and they are wearing us.”

  “This is this . . . the Count you spoke of?”

  “Magnificence. Should I fail to rend this Malencz every time I meet him in battle, should I neglect the laughable task of turning him into a fool and a dupe to make mock of, should I not ride circles around him and rub his proud Magyar nose in the dirt — then I would have no courage to face you. I could not tell you that I had so dishonored my family and my Sultan.”

  “Who is it, then?”

  “Rakóssy.”

  “This name I have never heard.”

  “A m
an of cunning and subtlety, of such a Devil’s craft and guile, a lion of a man, a wild dog of a man — in short—” and Mustafa smiled — “a man in every way my equal.”

  “Mustafa, Mustafa. When you are thus impudent, all cannot be ill. Put it aside for now. I will rescue you from your Magyar lion. When I invade Hungary, I shall do one of two things. The first is the more orthodox. I will ravage the south and east and conquer it, and, on the conquest, move to fight the north. The King and his paladins. The more central task, of course. The second is perhaps the better in this case. I will invade through the south and march directly against the King, pausing only to rest and regroup my army.”

  “The second is quite the finer plan,” Mustafa said. “But if I might make a suggestion.”

  “Ah?”

  “Your Magnificence ought then to take and hold the area due north of Belgrade, in case, by some slim chance and the chastisement of Allah, we need to retreat quickly.”

  “You anticipate me in every way.”

  Mustafa bowed. “And may I request one boon of the Magnificence of Allah?”

  “It is in your hands. You will command the troops who take and hold this territory. I shall give you sufficient men, although I doubt if I can give you guns. We may, indeed, pause in our march north to destroy any fortresses there.”

  “I am speechless with delight.”

  “Am I wrong in assuming that this territory is that held now by your Hungarian lion?”

  “Is your Magnificence ever wrong?” Mustafa said.

  The winter was short and furious. By the end of January the snow was so thick on the ground that even the sleigh was useless. Rakóssy spent that month composing a letter to Levolt in Kutess. Catharine wrote countless drafts of it. She did not understand the single threat in the letter, and she got tired of it long before he was satisfied. The letter waited for the snow to melt to be sent out.

  After January it did not snow again, and one day toward the middle of March, Catharine saw the unmistakable signs of a thaw. She sighed and turned from the window. The winter had been almost unbearable. Now, she thought, I can admit, because it’s over. She almost laughed.