Rakóssy

by Cecelia Holland

  He thought of the Emperor and the Archduke and all their advisers sitting in Vienna and the Emperor saying, perhaps, “It would be difficult now. Let him have Hungary. We can give him Hungary for now. Let him gnaw on Hungary. Let him trample Hungary. Let him—”

  Suddenly Rakóssy had the irresistible feeling that the Sultan was looking straight back at him, that across hundreds of yards of the fighting ground they were looking into each other’s eyes.

  No, he thought. You aren’t looking at the Emperor’s ally and kinsman, Turk. You’re looking at a Magyar, damn you. A free Magyar. Let you choke on Hungary.

  The feeling passed. He saw the Sultan rise and shake out his sleeves. Mustafa turned and mounted the chestnut mare. Rakóssy watched Mustafa ride across the field. It had been fun fighting Mustafa with his schemes and tricks and jokes. That was over now. He wondered what Mustafa was thinking.

  Catharine tended the King’s messenger, washed his wound, and fed him. She nursed him through a fever that lasted two days, staying by him all the time. When the fever broke, she thought he would get well. She slept in her own bed that night. In the morning, when she went to the great hall, they told her that he had died.

  “It isn’t fair,” Catharine said.

  “No,” Rakóssy said.

  “I hate it. I hate it.”

  “I know,” he said. He went up on the ramparts.

  They ate that evening in silence, the two of them. He pushed back his dish and said, “Still brooding over your lost lamb?”

  “Must you be quite so snide?”

  “With the number of people who have been killed or hurt so far, I don’t see why you’re so upset over one of them.”

  “Has compassion gone out of style? You may have a heart of stone, but I don’t. And I have the right to be unhappy if I want to.” She stood up, trembling. “Haven’t I? I’m stuck out here in the middle of a war, away from everything I’ve ever loved, and I can’t even save a hurt man. What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with all of us?”

  He came toward her, and she backed away.

  “Don’t come near me. I’m unhappy and I have the right to be. I’m going to cry and scream and—”

  He slapped her. She swayed and put her hand to her cheek.

  “How dare you.”

  “If you’re going to cry and scream,” he said, “go someplace where nobody can hear you. Every time you put on one of these exhibitions, you’re helping the Turks. Shut up and go to bed and sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  “I suppose I have to be strong. And smile all the time. Why me? If you’d married Carlotta—”

  “I didn’t marry Carlotta. I married you. Shut up or I’ll hit you again.”

  “Go ahead. Hit me. Hit me. Because I’m—”

  He slapped her, much harder, and she fell. He picked her up and undressed her and put her to bed. She stared at him.

  “Good night,” he said and went out.

  He went down to the great hall and looked at the wounded. They were carrying out two corpses, wrapped in their knights cloaks. They would bury them in the back courtyard, where the sheep had been penned before they slaughtered all the sheep. Rakóssy went back after them and watched.

  Béla read a part of the burial service from a book left behind by the priest. The moon had set already, and no stars were out. The sky was like charred wood. It would rain again tomorrow. Rakóssy twitched his shoulders under his shirt.

  The Turks would break through the wall by the stable within a few days. He would have to remember to move the guns off. They could put them on the stable roof, which was flat. The two corpses were put into the graves and covered over. There were many graves here now, all marked with slabs of wood, all crowded together.

  “My lord,” Béla said.

  Rakóssy looked up at the wall. A rope with a heavy stick tied to the end flew over the wall from the other side. The rope slithered back until the stick was wedged against the battlement.

  “Who’s there?” Rakóssy called.

  “Somebody’s climbing,” Béla said.

  “Not even a Turk’s that stupid. Who’s there?”

  “Gently, gently, brother.” A blond head appeared over the top of the wall. “Nobody but me.”

  Denis crawled over the wall and let himself down. He shook his rope loose and coiled it. Rakóssy stood motionless. Denis was soaking wet and wore only a ragged pair of trousers. He came over to Rakóssy, stopped before him, and said, “What, no greeting for the Prodigal?”

  “Prodigal, hell.” Rakóssy lifted one hand awkwardly, and Denis with a laugh embraced him. Rakóssy wrapped his arm around Denis’ neck and hugged him.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Jesus.” He pushed Denis back. “Let me look at you. Are you alive? You look more like a ghost.”

  “Very like. I’m starved.”

  “Come to the kitchen. I’ll feed you with my own hands.” He put his hand on Denis’ arm. “By God, you’re real.”

  Denis pushed his soaked hair out of his eyes. “Yes.” He smiled.

  They went into the kitchen, and Rakóssy called out a woman to feed Denis. He sent Béla and the others to find Arpád and Alexander and sat himself down opposite Denis at the table. Denis ate steadily. Rakóssy put his chin on his hands and watched.

  Finally Denis sat back, sighing. “Well,” he said. “I suppose you want to know about the fate of the ancestral home.”

  “You sound like Mustafa. Yes. What happened?”

  “We lost Hart five — no, six days ago. They came in over the front wall, through the gate, and over the back, all at once. I didn’t know if I was supposed to stay and die or not. So I didn’t.”

  He wiped his mouth. “I finally found out that it was Kamal who was commanding there. They beat at us until we had only two guns left. Then they just came up the hill like the Great Flood and we were finished. I only had forty-three men left. Even Leonidas had three hundred. So I ran like a dog.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I ran.” He grinned again. “I had a raw rabbit and some old vegetables. Turnips. Pulled them out of an old field. There isn’t anything left to eat between here and Hart. You can see where the Turks marched like a burn.”

  Rakóssy said, “Do you want more to eat?”

  “No. I’m stuffed. Before I left Hart I blew it up. I blasted my way out through the back of the stable with some of the powder and the rest just went off by itself, I guess. They had gotten into the kitchen, where I was keeping my wounded, and they were killing them. I don’t think there were many left. I got a lot of Turks.”

  Arpád came in. “By God,” he said. “By God.”

  Rakóssy said, “They took Hart — or what was left. Where’s Alexander?”

  “Right here. Hah!” Alexander pounced on Denis and wrestled him around the kitchen, finally plumping him back down again. “Now that you’re here the Turks will all run and hide.”

  Denis said, “You may kill me with all this sudden affection, the bunch of you.”

  “We missed you,” Rakóssy said. “I didn’t have anybody to shout at. Did I, Arpád?”

  “Oh, he did well enough.” Arpád nodded several times.

  Mari came in behind him. Her body had shrunk down around her bones, but she smiled as well. “Denis. You look perfectly healthy to me.”

  “And you look as beautiful as ever.”

  Arpád snorted. “Listen, boy—”

  “Shut up,” Rakóssy said. “Mari, go up and get Catharine, will you?”

  “How is she?” Denis said.

  “She’s not feeling well,” Mari said.

  “Denis will do her good,” Rakóssy said.

  Mari left. Denis said, “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s nervy. God knows she does enough. You can see the Crusader sticking out of her like . . .” Rakóssy shrugged. “But she does get unhappy.”

  “She’s a good woman.”

  “I should have sent her away,” Rakóssy said. “When the
whole thing started.”

  Denis studied him for a while. It seemed to Rakóssy that Denis’ face had changed, somehow, deep in the bones; he looked the same, no older, no more worn, and yet he looked different.

  “That wouldn’t have helped,” Denis said.

  “No,” Rakóssy said.

  Catharine came through the door, smiling, holding out both hands. “Denis. My dear Denis.”

  “Catharine, I came all the way back here to see you.” He got up and kissed her forehead. “But what will we do with your husband?”

  “Well,” Mari said. “Isn’t he the fresh thing.”

  Rakóssy looked up at Catharine, and she smiled at him. She put her hand on his hair and stood with her hip against his shoulder. “Let’s have some wine,” she said. “Let’s celebrate.”

  “There,” Rakóssy said, “is an intelligent woman.”

  Arpád went down into the basement and came back with two jugs.

  “Did you talk to Kamal at all?” Rakóssy said to Denis.

  “Yes. He tried to convince me that they’d taken Vrath and that you’d been made into stew for the Sultan. He may have been killed in the explosion.”

  Arpád filled cups. “Shall we send some to the Turks?” he said, holding up the jug.

  “Let them drink horse urine,” Denis said. Catharine laughed and put her hands over her ears.

  “Kamal leads a charmed life,” Rakóssy said. “He’s so stupid he should have died long ago. What happened to Zoltan?”

  Denis paused a moment, fingering his cup. “He put a knife through his heart,” he said.

  “Well, well,” Rakóssy said and smiled into his cup.

  “Why do you dislike Zoltan so much?” Denis said.

  “I don’t anymore.”

  “Did it have something to do with Mother?”

  “Why, I loved Zoltan like a father.”

  Denis filled up his cup again. “He wasn’t much good to me. How are you doing here? I swam down and didn’t see a thing.”

  “Oh, hell,’ Rakóssy said. “We’re setting them back on their butts. They’ve got over fifty thousand men out there and they can’t take an inch without our permission in writing.”

  “What’s going on up north?”

  Catharine said, “That’s the touchy subject.”

  “The Emperor,” Rakóssy said, “the Holy Roman Emperor his Universal Greatness Charles, fifth of that name, first lord of Europe and God’s own warrior on earth—”

  “I get the idea,” Denis said. “Is he not coming at all, or just delaying?’

  “He’s not coming.”

  “Do you think the King can—”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Rakóssy said. “The King is twenty years old. He turns pale whenever he sees a piece of armor.”

  Arpád said, “Do we tell the others, or not?”

  “They probably know already.”

  “We didn’t.”

  “Tell them.” Rakóssy shoved his cup away. “We’re finished no matter how you look at it. They might as well know.”

  “János,” Catharine said soothingly.

  “It’s the God-damn truth. If I were—”

  “Don’t shout,” Denis said.

  “If I were inclined to be a martyr I’d surrender and let as many as possible get out with their skins whole, at least.”

  They were silent. He lifted his head and looked at them, one by one, surprised. Catharine went across the room and sat down.

  “You aren’t inclined to be a martyr,” she said. She looked at Denis, smiled slightly, and turned back toward Rakóssy. “As for surrendering, you’re acting like a child. I’m surprised that you should even think of something like that.”

  “We aren’t finished,” Mari said. “We can’t be finished. We’re beating them here.”

  Arpád was pulling his mustaches. He glanced over at Alexander, and they both looked down at the floor.

  “All right,” Rakóssy said. “Forget I ever said anything. Denis, you’re tired. Come with me and I’ll show you were to sleep.”

  He got up, pulled his doublet straight, and said, “Arpád, we have to move the cannon off the wall they’re bombarding. Do it tonight. Come on, Denis.’

  Denis followed him. When Rakóssy passed by Catharine’s chair, he paused a moment and looked down and said in German, “Wrong fairy tale, sweet.” He touched her cheek briefly and went on.

  On the way up the stairs Denis said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  Denis shrugged. Rakóssy put him in the rooms just past his, said good night, and went back to his room. He took off his boots and lay down on the bed, on his back, with his arms behind his head.

  Catharine came in almost immediately with Mari. Mari helped her undress and left quietly. Catharine moved around the room, putting things minutely in order.

  “If you think I help the Turks with my tantrums,” she said, “you just almost lost us the game, my dear.”

  “Well, well,” he said.

  “That’s what you said about Zoltan. You’re in a terrible mood.” She moved a chair slightly and sat down, drawing the light cloth of the dressing gown over her legs. “What exactly is the matter?”

  “I hate to lose.”

  She laughed. He moved slightly, hitching himself around on the bed.

  “If we had been born in another time,” she said, “perhaps we would have been happier, but we weren’t. We were born now, and we have to take what we were given, and we might as well make the best of it.”

  “You and your bloody homilies.”

  “János, please tell me what’s bothering you.”

  He hauled himself up on one elbow. “Do you really want to know? I’ll tell you. I sweated and schemed and got myself called traitor to get here, and where am I? What have I done? I’ve gotten you and my brother and five hundred men into a death trap.”

  He flopped back down flat on the bed. “That’s what’s bothering me.”

  She sat still a moment. After a while she said, “You may look at it that way, or you may want to think that you’ve done the best you could possibly do.’

  “Oh, well,” he said. “What difference does it make?”

  “There’s a question of honor involved.”

  “Honor? What’s honor got to do with it?”

  She burst out laughing. “János, you’re so funny sometimes.” She went over to the bed and sat down next to him and put her long hand on his forehead. “You don’t have a fever. Perhaps I should dose you with a purgative.”

  “That would be wonderful. I can see me now, running back and forth between the ramparts and the nearest drainage ditch. Just as the Turks attack I say, ‘Oops, excuse me a moment, men, I have this irresistible urge to —’ ”

  “Kiss your wife,” she said and bent down and kissed him.

  “Exactly,” he said. He put his arms around her. “Do you want me to be honorable, I shall fight thirty thousand Turks from the balcony to defend your virtue. I’ll challenge the Sultan himself. I’ll—”

  “Shut up,” she said. “My dear.”

  The following morning the section of wall opposite the stable collapsed at last under the Turkish guns. Rakóssy put Denis to command the rest of the cannon and set about organizing a defense against the charge that must come. He sent Alexander with fifty men to get pikes and shields and put another fifty men with crossbows on the stable roof. Arpád and several other men brought cauldrons of oil from the kitchen to fling on the brush in the ditch before the destroyed wall. The Turks were still firing, trying to knock the rubble flat, and the shot streamed through and smashed into the stable. The horses began to neigh and kick inside the stable, but Rakóssy had no time to move them, and the shot was doing no great damage.

  The Turks had attacked that section because, once the guns were knocked out, there was no way to prevent the Spahis across the river from charging over the bridge. Rakóssy had moved some of the guns up onto the stable roof. He put Arpád up there to
command them and the crossbowmen, and he himself went up on the wall beside the breach. He saw Catharine on the balcony with Mari and waved.

  Béla came up beside him. “Will we hold them this time?”

  “We’re going to hold them until their beards turn gray. Go down there with Alexander.” Rakóssy took a torch from the pile near the edge of the rampart and lit it. The ditch with its dry brush was half choked now with the fallen rock of the wall.

  “Stepan,” he shouted, and the nearest man ran over.

  “Fetch me two kegs of powder and a sack of scrap shot. Two half-empty kegs. Hurry.’

  Stepan ran off. The Turks suddenly stopped firing. The drums beat, and the flutes and pipes picked up the rhythm in their reedy voices. Stepan came back, panting, and Rakóssy said, “Watch them while I do this.”

  He could hear the sound of feet, thousands of feet padding over the earth, softer than the drums. Down by the Main Gate Denis’ voice lifted in command, young and fresh and firm.

  They were coming from the plain and from across the river. The guns on the stable roof roared out. Rakóssy looked up from putting the scrap into the powder kegs and saw that the bridge rail had blocked most of the shot. The cannon would not be fired again; by the time they would be reloaded the Spahis would be across. The crossbowmen lifted their bows. The Spahis were galloping across, packed together on the narrow bridge. A horse reared and fell, almost blocking the bridge, and two of the Spahis leapt quickly down and flung the horse into the river, forcing it up before it died and driving it over the rail.

  Rakóssy tore two strips of cloth from his shirt, soaked them in oil, and threaded them through the bungholes in the kegs. He hooked the inside ends of the cloth fuses over the sharp edges of the scrap and pounded the covers on tight.

  Denis’ guns began to roll, a light patter like rain.

  The Turks from the bridge plunged into the gap in the wall, howling, their lances thrusting forward, trying to get in and hold the breach by momentum alone. Rakóssy lit another torch from his and tossed it down into the ditch. The brush flared up, half strangled by the dust and the debris on top of it. It did little good, and Rakóssy swore.