The Countess

by Rebecca Johns

  Late that night, not long after most of the house had gone to bed, there was an argument in the servants’ quarters. The little blonde and Doricza were having at it again, this time over a forint I had given the fat Doricza for finishing twenty pieces of lace on the journey, for I always rewarded industriousness in my servants. The blonde said she should share in the coin, since she claimed to have done some of the work, and so she had taken the coin from Doricza’s pocket and hidden it in a hollow of her heel. Doricza found it, of course, and started a row. Dorka and Ilona Jó were holding them apart when I arrived in the servants’ quarters, called by the noise from my soft warm bed. “Now look what you’ve done,” said Ilona Jó, her thin face so sour I could nearly taste it. “You’ve woken the mistress and upset the whole house.”

  Peace among the servant girls, even in good times, came rarely. Ferenc had taught me well after the incident with Amália so many years ago, not only how to revive an unconscious girl by “star-kicking” but how to administer a beating so that the beaten one could still perform her duties afterward, even how to hide the marks of a beating so that no outward evidence would show, even to a lover. The punishment of Amália had been the making of our marriage, the first time Ferenc had looked at me as someone with whom he might share more than a roof. I had proven a willing student for the techniques he wished to teach me, and he entirely trusting to let me employ them as I saw fit. Never once did he interfere with my running of the house, not even when my stick fell on the back of one of his favorites. It was, I think, his way of showing his respect for me. After I had punished his most recent favorite, he would find a new one, and I a reason to send the offending girl away—a new house that needed a servant, or marriage to a poor relation with a minor dowry. Peace would return, for a while at least, until the new favorite forgot her place and had the audacity to flaunt my husband’s favor in front of the others. Then I would again have to make an example of her, to remind them all that while Ferenc might bed them, it was I who ran the household, I upon whom their livelihoods depended. What was I to do—allow their insolence to proliferate? To let myself become a laughingstock in my own house? If they dared to bed my husband and then have the cheek to parade it in front of me, I would make certain they did not do so twice. It was my right as a noblewoman, as a wife.

  Thievery, too, was a constant problem. I had a system in place to keep track of all our fine dishes, our clothing and paintings and coins. I kept ledgers hidden in my cask of papers and often took inventory of the household without telling anyone I was doing so. When I discovered some item missing—a candlestick, a cup—I would have the house searched until it was found again in a trunk or under a mattress. The poor dumb things did not realize until it was too late that their mistress was such a careful housekeeper, and I would have to educate them at the end of my stick, as much to make an example of them as punishment for the offense. A few minutes in the courtyard with my stick or the end of my whip and the entire household would be quiet for months afterward, with no theft, no drunkenness or fornication, just whispered gratitude and modest hard work.

  Now it seemed another reminder was in order. In the servants’ quarters of my house in Lobkowitz Square I took the blonde by the wrist in front of her fellows and handed the stolen coin to Ilona Jó, asking her to heat it in the grate of the fire that burned at one end of the room. The child was little but strong, and she twisted this way and that, kicking and striking out at me to try to get away. “Don’t,” she said, “don’t.” I held her fast. When the coin was white-hot, Ilona Jó picked it up with the tongs and placed it in the girl’s outstretched palm. Dorka and I kept her still while the flesh burned for a few seconds, her body shuddering and heaving, but we were stronger than she. At last she screamed and dropped the coin on the floor, clutching her hand to her breast, the hand that now bore the likeness of the king’s face marked in the center of her palm. Around her the other girls murmured and looked at their shoes. For the remainder of our time in Bécs, I knew the other girls, at least, would cause no more trouble.

  Afterward I had Dorka and Ilona Jó take the girl down to the laundry to dress the wound. It would not do to have the injury fester and threaten the girl’s ability to do her work, and I was not so cruel that I wanted to see her suffering continue. I was not a madwoman who enjoyed the suffering of others but a fair mistress who had meted out her punishment under the eyes of everyone in the house, who had nothing to hide. “Take her and give her something for the pain,” I said to the old women, “and then wrap the burn and put her to bed.” They went, the girl still clutching her hand, her face dirty and streaked with the tracks of tears, her eyes full of anger as she passed me. I went back up to bed and tried to rest, but I was bewildered by the girl’s looks, how she seemed to blame me when it was she who had caused all the trouble to begin with. I had a feeling that she would cause more trouble before she was done.

  Sometime during the night I heard her cry out once, then again. Dressing, I went down to the laundry to see what was the matter, furious that my rest had been disturbed for a second time in a single night. There I found the girl crouched in a corner, half dressed, hissing like a feral cat. “What’s this racket?” I asked. “You’re waking the whole neighborhood. If you had an ounce of brains, you would learn to keep silent. Every time I have to speak to you, you make it worse on yourself.”

  “She won’t let me near her, mistress,” said Dorka, her voice tinged with no little bit of resentment. “I told her I need to dress that wound before it festers. She says she’ll write to her mother and say how we mistreat her. She threatened to go to the palatine himself to speak against you and show him the wound. She keeps coming at me, so that I needed this to defend myself.” She held up the poker she had taken from the dead fire.

  “She was beating me with it,” said the girl. “Not defending herself at all.”

  “I see.” I turned to Dorka. “Is that true? Were you beating her?”

  “I hit her once, but it was to keep her from scratching out my eyes, just so. She’s gone wild. See for yourself.”

  So it seemed I was expected to choose sides in this argument—the girl, or Dorka. The child had just about worn out my patience. Wearily I asked her if Dorka spoke the truth: Did she say she would go to the palatine and tell him we mistreated her?

  “I did,” said the girl, too young and stupid to know when to hold her tongue. “I’ll go to the palatine and tell him what happens in this house. I’ll tell him how you stabbed me with the needle in the carriage when all I did was poke fun at that fat Doricza. I’ll tell him about the girls you beat when you find out they’re with child. I’ll tell him how the old women keep us locked up at night without food and water when we don’t work fast enough. It isn’t right. Even rich noblewomen aren’t above the law. I’ll tell him everything, I swear it.”

  The walls went dark, and the light in the room narrowed to a small white tunnel with the child at one end and myself at the other. “I think you won’t,” I said. In my ears there was a sound like water rushing. I took the poker out of Dorka’s hand and went toward the girl, who curled into a little ball, and brought the poker down on her back once, twice. I threw all my weight into the blow, all my anger that she would blame me for her own failures, that she would take my kindness and turn it into something ugly. Who had taken her in and given her a place? Who had shown her favor by placing her in my own carriage? Who had shown her mercy in having her wounds treated? She had mutilated my kindness to her, made it ugly. The poker fell on her back again and again, making a heavy thump like the sound of the cook beating a piece of beef to make it tender. An awful noise rose out of the girl’s mouth, and I hit her again, harder. She would say nothing to the palatine, to anyone. She would shut her insolent mouth, or I would shut it for her.

  At length she fell and was silent. “Do you have anything else to say,” I asked, “or have you learned finally to hold your tongue?” She lay still, her chest rising and falling with her breath, and sai
d nothing.

  It was so quiet that from the monastery next door I heard someone throw a pot against the wall of the house, a loud clank that echoed in the otherwise quiet nighttime streets. A complaint for all the noise. In the morning one of the scullery maids would find the pot the monks had thrown in the street and bring it back, though the monks would not accept it, as if it had been tainted. I would have a mind to speak to the abbot, to tell him to mind his people better, but I would have enough to do without worrying about the monks and their silly superstitions. For the present I handed the poker back to Dorka and told her to keep the girl in the laundry until she regained consciousness. I said Dorka should tend to her in secret so that the sight of her would not upset the other maidservants, for the child was all over black and blue, and a thin trickle of blood came out of her nose. She had provoked me beyond the limit of what I could endure. Next time she would know better.

  With Dorka in charge I went myself back up to bed and slept more soundly that night than I had in some time, since before Ferenc’s death at least. When she came to me in the morning and told me the girl had died in the night, I felt a strange curiosity at what had happened, that it was I who had killed her, although I had not meant to do so. The light came into my room in long yellow strips like golden cloth and fell across the bedclothes, but otherwise I saw nothing, felt nothing. The girl was dead. She would trouble me, or anyone else, no longer. I would not have to find a place for her in someone else’s house. I would not have to pay for her dowry out of my own pocket, nor listen to another minute of her outrageous ingratitude. I washed my hands of her, and all the others like her.

  The next evening, under cover of darkness, I had my servants take the body to our Lutheran priest and bury her in the churchyard in a plain box, along with a coin or two for the priest’s coffers. Though Dorka and Ilona Jó complained that someone else should be made to do it—the boy Ficzkó, perhaps, who was younger and stronger than they—they did as I bade them and removed the body from the laundry. I told them I did not trust anyone else to do it, which pleased them so much they stopped complaining, and afterward I gave them each a fine dress of silk for their troubles. I thought no more about the girl. She had been a thief, a disturbance in my house, and a weakling besides, who could not even take a beating without rousing all of Bécs in the middle of the night. I could not afford to keep such troublemakers among my maidservants, to let their greed and jealousy infect everyone around them. Let them go to the churchyard, then, where they could be no more trouble to anyone.

  8

  Once the trunks were unpacked and we were settled into the city, the first thing I did was to send word to György Thurzó that we had arrived in town. Thurzó spent many months each year in Austria with his Habsburg friends, and he especially loved winter in the capital, with its music, and dances, and pretty young things in satin and velvet and lace, though he never seemed to indulge in the little affairs and speculations the way some of the other nobles did. He certainly seemed forlorn since Zsofía Forgách had died, and I wondered whether he would marry again. He might find ample companionship in me, I began to think, if he looked carefully enough.

  The next day Thurzó responded to my letter—with astonishment, because widows were expected to stay at home for at least a year—but then with pleasure, too, urging me to come to him at my first opportunity. My dear madam, I am surprised and gladdened to hear that you have arrived at court and rejoice, along with all the citizens of the city, that you walk among us. Please accept, at your earliest convenience, an invitation to dine at my house …

  His note pleased me, not because dinner at Thurzó’s house would be a grand affair—as a widower he did not oversee the quality of his hospitality nearly as much as he had when his wife was alive—but because the swiftness of his reply hinted that I had not been wrong to think he would welcome my company. I responded that I would join him the following week and set about making certain that the impression I made on Count Thurzó on this occasion would be a meaningful one.

  The seamstresses I had brought with me from Sárvár worked for several days to make me a new dress to wear especially to Thurzó’s invitation. It must not seem too ostentatious—I was still a new widow, which no one was likely to forget—but it should be becoming in color and style. I settled on an oxblood satin with a wide collar to frame my face, and a pair of new calfskin slippers so fine and soft that even walking downstairs to climb in the carriage might wear them out too soon. I dressed all my long hair in rose oil, spreading it out to dry by the fire. Afterward Darvulia and Ilona Jó helped me to braid it, using a special new coif that hid my ears and framed my eyes with little wisps of curls. A net of pearls stood out like dewdrops in my dark brown tresses, and the fat little seamstress Doricza brought down the new lace ruff she had made, larger and finer than any I had owned before. I thanked her and patted her arm, telling her she had done well, and went to press a silver tallér into her hand, which she refused with a great deal of modesty, saying that I had given her enough, that she was not worthy of so much attention. Dorka shuttled her out of the room before I could tell her how pleased I was to see that my punishment of the other girl, the little blonde, had made such an impression on her.

  I took my time at my toilette that evening, not wanting to appear too anxious. The longer Thurzó had to wait, the more he would anticipate my arrival.

  When I was ready, Darvulia had the carriage brought. Before I stepped inside, my old friend tucked a piece of parchment into my hand. “A prayer,” she said. “To bring you what you want.”

  I unrolled the parchment. As always, Darvulia knew what occupied my thoughts. “Will it work?”

  “It has always worked for me.”

  I smiled. “Has it?” I wondered what it was that Darvulia had wanted and got for herself that she had not told me. The inner workings of that creature had always been something of a mystery to me, no matter how I much I loved her. The other two, Ilona Jó and Dorka, frowned and put their heads together, but they had the good sense at least to remain silent on the subject of Darvulia, after the many times I had made it clear how much I loved her. “How many times must I repeat this prayer to make it work?” I asked.

  “As many as you can between now and the moment when you set eyes on the one you desire. Then afterward, when you have left his sight, repeat it three more times.”

  Thurzó was no Ferenc Nádasdy. It would take more than mistletoe and magic to make him love me, but I decided to trust Darvulia once more. Little cloud, grant me your favor. Holy Trinity, protect Erzsébet in her time of need, and grant your daughter your love. I whispered it again and again, under my breath.

  At last I stepped up into the carriage, being careful not to crush my new dress, and we were off through the torchlit streets of peacetime Bécs. Music fell down from the windows we passed and landed in my lap like droplets of silver. The darkness in the streets flowed around the carriage, and I felt myself awash in hope and possibility in the imperial city, which had withstood even the onslaught of the Turks following the disaster of Mohács, the siege of the sultan as he moved north and west through the kingdom in the years before I was born. Like the sultan I would now besiege the city and its inhabitants—Archduke Mátyás, György Thurzó. Unlike the sultan I hoped to achieve my aim and return home victorious.

  Thurzó’s house, a newer affair with marble columns and dark brickwork, was close enough for me to walk to, though it was unimaginable that a noblewoman would traverse the city on foot. We passed the red roofs of the Hofburg rising along the walls of the city, quiet now with its master the king away in Prága, but here and there a window showed a light. In a very few minutes we passed under an archway into a courtyard that opened into a small tier of windows where candles were lit, and maidservants scurried in and out carrying bouquets of flowers, polished silver, gilded candelabra scrubbed of their wax. Thurzó himself came out to greet me and open the carriage door, his deep-set eyes even more tired-looking than usual, the bags b
eneath them stuffed full as two down cushions. I wondered if it was the trouble with Rudolf that pained him, or if it was the loneliness that comes with the death of a spouse, loneliness that I had come to know too well in the preceding weeks. He took both my small hands in his large ones and placed a gentlemanlike kiss on my cheek, the length of beard ticklish against my mouth. “Welcome, cousin,” he said. The endearment warmed me, for although there was no blood shared between us, we were distant relations by marriage, as most of the nobility of Hungary were. I didn’t blush but looked at him with clear steady eyes and said how happy I was that he could receive me, what an honor it was for a poor widow to be a guest at the Thurzó house.

  He laughed. “Poor, indeed. You look remarkably well,” he said. “One might even think that widowhood agrees with you. Is that a new dress?”

  “It is,” I said, pleased he had been paying attention. “One cannot go around Bécs looking like an old crone, widow or not.”

  “One can,” Thurzó said, “but you cannot. I think you have never spent an ugly day in your life.”

  I laughed. “Thank you for that,” I said. “An old woman always needs to hear a little untruth every day. It keeps the mind sharp.”

  “You will paint me as a liar, madam,” said Thurzó, looking aghast, but he smiled at this old game. Feint and counterfeint. A politician through and through. He would be still my trusted friend, or else a most worthy adversary. “What brings you to town?”

  “Sárvár grows a bit small for me. There has been so little pleasure there lately, now that Ferenc is gone and my elder girl is married. I was so desperate for company that I simply had to bring Kata to town. You were the first person I thought of when I arrived, since I knew you would find some way to amuse me.”

  “I’m certain I can. Shall we go in?” He offered me his arm, and I took it and went inside.