An older man was striding across to us now, a thin, straight-backed individual with fine, military moustaches.
“Colonel Drényi,” said the Captain, with relief. “This is Madame Lázár, Lajos’s wife...”
Tired of hearing it, I opened my mouth to deny it, but as I moved I caught sight of my escort and was silent. If I was not Lajos’s wife, I had no business being here. What was I doing here?
The Colonel looked as amazed as the Captain, but he recovered better. “Why, how is this, Madame? But won’t you dismount? You must be tired.”
Obediently, I came down, but the sudden twinges caught me by surprise, and the Colonel must have seen the pain in my face. His kind hands helped me the rest of the way, while I held my spectacles on to my nose.
Colonel Drényi was looking concerned now. “Madame, you are hurt. How come you to be in the company of these rascals?”
The rascals were staring at me fixedly. I took a deep breath.
“They saved me,” I said, “from attack. They thought I should come here — but I can see it was a mistake. I was upset, you understand. Perhaps you could direct me...?”
“Madame!” The Colonel clasped my hand. I tried not to wince. “You cannot go anywhere without seeing Lázár! I’m afraid he is not in camp just now — he is leading a reconnaissance party — but we expect him back before nightfall.”
“Oh,” I said inadequately
Colonel Drényi offered me his arm. “Come. I’ll take you to Lázár’s quarters. I’m sure you would like to rest. Nyergesz — set these two to something unpleasant until Lázár sees them.”
Meekly, I took the Colonel’s arm and walked stiffly with him towards one of the outhouses. It was a low-ceilinged, bare building of two rooms.
“Nyergesz sleeps there,” said the Colonel, indicating one door. “And Lázár is in here.”
He opened the second door, showing me a room with a low, narrow bed and a small, open trunk, untidily scattered with books and papers, his disreputable old bag and a discarded shirt. My heart jumped into my throat. I wanted to cry.
“Thank you,” I managed to say. “I shall just rest until Lajos comes.”
“Can I send you over some food?”
“No. No, thank you. I’d just like to lie down.”
He still looked worried, but my uninviting manner seemed to quell even the kindliest questions. He left me. I went across to the window, which looked out onto the courtyard, and watched him stride across to his own quarters. Slowly, I sat down on the bed, touching the shirt that lay there.
Involuntarily almost, I lay down with the shirt under my cheek. If I closed my eyes, I could breathe in the distinctive, clean, male smell of him which clung to the blanket and the shirt. After a while, I realized that the shirt was wet, and threw it away from me, angrily wiping my eyes.
I could not think how to deal with this situation. After all that had passed between us, what in the world would he think of me turning up like this, pretending to be his wife? I could already tell from the officers’ attitudes that my presence here was a considerable inconvenience. To Lajos, I would be an embarrassment, a pest, a burden of surpassing insolence. I, who had refused in July to marry him, was now claiming that privilege falsely, and getting in his way. Unbearable humiliation.
I don’t know how long I lay there, going over and over everything in my head. Only the sound of horses’ hooves clattering into the courtyard brought me out of myself. I heard shouting, laughter, orders being barked out, the clank of weapons. My heart was beating faster again as I knelt on the bed to look out of the window.
I saw him at once. In the smart hussar uniform I had only glimpsed on him before, he looked unexpectedly splendid against the white background of the snow. He sat astride a large, grey horse, dashing, almost magnificent, but somehow a stranger. Issuing commands with a briskness I found quite alien, his posture seemed more erect, more inflexible; and his face, half-turned towards my window, was at once heart-rendingly familiar and frighteningly changed. It was as if his natural watchfulness had grown sharp, his calculation ruthless. And yet I couldn’t possibly have seen so much in that one, brief, distant glimpse. It was my imagination, my fear, my guilt playing those tricks.
Now he was speaking quietly to the man beside him. A faint smile crossed his lips, and I recognized it with relief. Then, as the man saluted and rode off, his attention was caught by Colonel Drényi. Dismounting with his quick, casual grace, he released his horse to another waiting soldier and went to meet the Colonel.
With dread, I watched him listen to the older man. I saw the sudden frown furrow his brow. He looked quickly towards me, and I dropped underneath the window. I didn’t want to be seen, not yet. Instinctively, I reached up to make sure my hair was tidy. I pulled the sable cloak more closely around me, and settled with what calmness I could to wait for Lajos.
He was not long: perhaps five minutes. I heard his footsteps under the window — even they sounded more determined than they used to. The outer door opened and swiftly closed. Then the door opposite me opened quietly and Lajos stood under the lintel, his cloak hanging over one shoulder, a sword swinging at his belt.
Across the space between us, our eyes met, and I was glad of the shadows and the failing light.
“You,” he said.
One word. It didn’t sound like an accusation, but it did nothing to comfort me. He came into the room, closing the door firmly. Without meaning to, I stood up.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and my voice was little more than a whisper. I couldn’t look at him. “I know I should not have come here. I wouldn’t, if only I could have thought of another way...”
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me.” There was a touch of the old humour in his voice now. “I am, of course, delighted to see you, but I’m afraid I missed the wedding. In fact, I was under the impression you did not wish to marry me.”
As he spoke, he crossed the room towards me; the light moved, and suddenly I heard his breath catch. But my fearful mind was still on his last words.
“Lajos don’t,” I pleaded. “This is hard enough to...” I broke off abruptly, for his hand had reached out to my chin, turning my ugly, bruised cheek towards him, and I cringed inside. Slowly, he let me go. His eyes sought and found mine.
For the first time I could see him properly now. He looked tireder, a little tougher than I remembered; there was a new hardness around his eyes that frightened me, and there was a sharp, angry-looking scar running from his left eye to his ear. He was a soldier now, a veteran of several battles, no longer the idealistic, compassionate youth I had so unwisely fallen in love with.
And yet his voice was dangerously gentle as he said, “What happened, Katie? What brought you here?”
“Two of your men...”
“So I understand. They deserted more than two weeks ago.”
“They merely left without permission,” I corrected wryly. “They brought me here.”
“But why? Where is your family?”
“Debrecen, I think.”
“You think? Why aren’t you with them?”
“I — we became separated,” I said vaguely, unwilling to throw István’s iniquity in front of him.
“I see. But how did you come by this?” He touched my bruised face with fingers that were butterfly light.
“I was attacked.”
“I can see that. By whom?”
My eyes fell. I passed my tongue over my lips. “It doesn’t matter.”
A moment longer I felt his eyes upon me; then abruptly he turned away, striding to the door. I heard him calling some order into the yard, and found the time to be surprised again by this change in him. I had never heard Lajos command before: he asked, persuaded, cajoled, never ordered — except with Aaron Klein’s attackers, I remembered. He had always been capable of it...
He came back into the room, and I saw that his face was grim. “I’ve sent for the ruffians in question.”
“No, Lajos,” I said agitatedl
y. “Please...”
“Are you afraid of them?” he asked at once. “Did they hurt you?”
I gazed at him dumbly, unsure how to respond to his questioning.
“Did they do this?” he asked, again touching my cheek, and the broken end of my spectacles.
“I was attacked. They brought me here.”
“I know that, Katie.” His voice was still gentle, but I could not trust the new hardness in his eyes. I could not confide in this strange, commanding Lajos who interrogated me.
I jumped as their hesitant footsteps sounded under the window. Lajos moved away from me to let them in. I drew back as far as I could, but I needn’t have worried — under his watchful gaze they did not dare to look at me. They stood stiffly to attention in front of him.
“I suppose,” he said briefly, “you have a good reason why you should not be hanged?”
“We came back,” said Tamás.
“And we rescued your wife,” Béla added modestly. “We brought her to you.”
“Two good reasons, in effect. I presume you would not have chosen to come back had you not, providentially, happened upon my wife?”
They hung their heads. I felt revulsion rise again like bile.
“We knew we’d done wrong,” Tamás whined, “so it was a real bit of luck that we could do you this service to make up for it, Captain — we hoped...”
“You think I shall forgive you on account of what you did for me?” Lajos said softly, and there was a clearly dangerous note in his voice now. The soldiers looked daunted, uneasy in the extreme.
“Knowing your justice and generosity, Captain...”
“Justice,” Lajos repeated. “Yes. Perhaps you can explain to me, since my wife is still upset, how she came by this brutal mark on her face?”
“She was attacked,” came the prompt reply, “by wicked soldiery, when she was trying to get to Debrecen. We rescued her, and thought she’d be better off here with you.”
Lajos said drily, “You mean you were afraid to go to Debrecen.” He turned to me. “Is this true, that they rescued you?”
Now they were free to stare at me, and they made it as intimidating as possible. My eyes flickered to them, and back to Lajos.
“Yes...” After all, I had sworn on my mother’s grave.
“Dismissed,” said Lajos, without looking at them. “I’ll deal with you later.”
When they had gone, I sat down rather abruptly on the bed. After a moment’s hesitation, Lajos came and sat beside me.
“Katie.”
Reluctantly, I raised my eyes to his face.
“Will you tell me how, exactly, you were hurt?”
They tried to rape me. It should have been easy to say, truthful, and breaking no vows, however worthless, but I couldn’t. I knew what had happened was not my fault, but shame seemed to rise up from my toes and spread all through my body which still ached from the assault which had occurred, the assault that would have been the lesser...
I said nothing. His eyes were searching my face. I saw a slight frown, and then his fingers moved quickly to my throat. The suddenness made me flinch. Immediately, he dropped his hand.
“Come, Katie,” he said quietly. “You know I could never hurt you.”
Tears rose in my throat. I tried to swallow them. Slowly, his hand lifted again, unfastening my heavy cloak. I knew that the bruises on my shoulder and neck still showed dark and disfiguring. He looked at them, then back to my eyes.
“Do they still give you pain?”
“A little. Not much. Really, I am fine...” I moved uncomfortably; his eyes fell again. Slowly, he raised his hand, and I saw that my cloak had gaped open. But by the time I was clutching agitatedly at it, he had already drawn the torn pieces of my bodice together and held them there on my shoulder.
“I’ll only ask you this once,” he said, still with that quiet, controlled gentleness, “and then we need never talk about it, or think about it, ever again. Katie, did they rape you? Do you know what I mean?”
The shame flooded me, yet I could not draw my eyes away from his. I closed them instead, and that was easier.
“I know what you mean. They did not rape me, though they tried to.”
He didn’t speak. I didn’t expect him to. On the other hand, he hadn’t moved away from me either. His fingers were still warm on my shoulder. I opened my eyes.
“How did you prevent them?” he asked quietly.
“I spoke your name. I said you would punish them.”
Of course, he knew who I meant. There had never been any real doubt in his mind. “And they came up with this alternative plan to return to the army’s good pay, and keep me sweet by bringing me you and a cock-and-bull story of a rescue.”
“I swore on my mother’s grave not to tell you. I also swore on the Bible...”
He said softly. “I promise you, you needn’t be afraid of them again. Ever.”
I swallowed. “Will you hang them?”
“Not with my own hands.”
Some difficult thoughts were struggling to form in me. “They didn’t do it, in the end... In their own way, they even cared for me, afterwards...”
“What they did was more than enough.”
I heard the intensity, the implacable anger in his gentle voice, and strangely, it warmed me, shifting some of the unreasonable shame. But I was thinking of Mattias, defending the indefensible at Buda-Pest, of the ruined village we had slept in last night, of the six thousand dead at Mór.
Slowly, I shook my head. “There is enough death, Lajos. Please.”
There was an arrested expression in his eyes. Almost abruptly, they softened, till I could barely see the new, disconcerting hardness.
“If you don’t want them hanged, I’ll go along with their tale. But I shall also make sure they never frighten you — or anyone else — again. You know there is nothing they can do to you here?”
“I’m not afraid of them any more.” I wasn’t. At least, not while Lajos was with me.
He picked up my hand with the same, slow gentleness, and lightly kissed it. “I don’t suppose you care to eat with the officers. Shall I bring some dinner over here for us?”
“Yes, please.” Wonderingly, grateful for the sheer normality of his words, I gazed at him; he was not angry with me in the least. “Lajos...?”
He had stood up, but paused now, looking back over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I said with difficulty, “about the — lies. They — they asked if I was your woman, and I said yes, through panic, and they seemed to think it meant wife. I thought it would be safest if they believed it to be true.”
“I think you were right,” said Lajos grimly.
“Then — you are not angry? I’m afraid I didn’t tell your Colonel the truth either — it would come better from you.”
His lip quirked. “I don’t think it had better come from either of us. For the moment, you have to stay here, and the only way we can manage that is for you to be my wife. We can arrange the discreet annulment later.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
While we ate, Lajos told me that this unit under Colonel Drényi was detached from Bem’s main army with the special duty of mopping up the resistance of the Romanian guerrillas who would otherwise have plagued the Hungarian rear.
“We move forward again tomorrow. Will you be able to travel?”
I nodded, and he regarded me, asking after a moment, with a deceptive casualness, “How did you manage to become separated from your family?”
“I — fell out of the cart we hired in Szolnok.”
Lajos blinked. “Didn’t they notice?”
“István was — angry.”
Lajos went very still. “He pushed you?”
“You know what his temper is like,” I said uncomfortably. “Everything recently has been such a strain on his nerves, making him worse. And you know, it was just bad luck that I bumped my head and knocked myself out. They probably passed me several times while I lay senseless
in the ditch. They’ll be worried sick by now.”
“Good,” said Lajos succinctly, rising restlessly to his feet. “Christ, I wouldn’t have believed this of István — of someone like Acsády, perhaps, but not István. Has he lost all control? What on Earth set him off?”
“Teréz was with us,” I said neutrally. He paused in mid-stride, and I met his gaze for a pregnant moment.
“Ah.”
“I’m afraid I upset her. She found the letters you wrote me, and when she began to read one — she is quite astonishingly vulgar sometimes — I slapped her. I suppose that makes us both vulgar.”
Lajos’s lip twitched. “I have the picture.”
I didn’t think it necessary to tell him Teréz’s accusations or my own confession. Instead, I sighed and said, “I should write to them at once.”
“No need,” said Lajos distastefully. “I’ll ask the Colonel to send a message.”
“Thank you.”
For a moment, he stood looking down at me enigmatically. Then, so gently that the tears threatened again, he said, “You should go to bed and sleep. I have some things to attend to, so I won’t disturb you.”
“I didn’t mean to deprive you of your bed...”
“These days, beds are a luxury I shouldn’t allow myself to get used to!” He moved to the trunk then and pulled out a shirt which he threw casually on the bed. “It’s the best night-gown I can offer you. If you wake in the night and hear someone in the room, it will only be me.”
A moment longer he looked down at me. Then he said, “Good night, Katie,” in the soft voice now so at odds with the new soldier in him, and left me.
The nightmares didn’t come that night, though I did wake up once. Opening my eyes, I saw Lajos sprawled on the floor on the other side of the room, his tunic loosened, his head resting on his hand while he read by the light of the pale, solitary candle. I felt a rush of aching tenderness, a strange, relieving comfort. I closed my eyes again, and the last clouds of confusion seemed to drift away from my brain, leaving it calm and receptive to the healing sleep.
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