* * * *
We had an early start in the morning. It seemed odd, yet rather wonderful, to be woken at dawn by Lajos bearing a cup of strong coffee.
“How are you?” he asked, as I struggled to sit up, blushing and drawing the blankets about me.
“Much better.”
“Good. I have things to see to, but I’ll come back for you in half an hour.”
It gave me time to drink the coffee, sew up my torn gown more securely, and dress myself. I was putting the last pin in my hair when Lajos returned, asking briskly if I was ready to go.
“This is Oszkár, by the way,” he added, as a young soldier came into the room. “He will look after the trunk — and you, when I can’t be with you. You can trust him implicitly.”
Oszkár gave me a shy smile on his way past, banishing my inevitable doubts, and seized the trunk before hurrying away. Lajos came towards me.
“You look much better,” he observed. I smiled, a little uncertainly, and he smiled back into my eyes, casually brushing my cheek with one finger. Involuntarily, I moved at his touch, a very small, evasive gesture as the breath caught suddenly in my throat. At once, his hand fell to his side and he stepped back.
“I’m sorry,” he said contritely. I flushed, for the truth was, my evasion had not been inspired by fear but by the old remembered feelings his slightest touch had always aroused in me. But he was brisk again. “Come; I’ve found a horse you can ride. I’ll introduce you.”
But first there were other introductions. As we stepped outside, a group of officers seemed to appear from nowhere, smiling amiably and expectantly. Lajos paused, an expression of amusement lightening his face.
“Very well, let’s get it over with,” he said wryly. “These idle, nosy fellows desire to be presented to you, Katie. Captain Nyergesz I believe you have met already. These are Lieutenant Lukács, Lieutenant Király and Major Jászi.”
They all bowed and professed themselves delighted to make my acquaintance.
“I can see now why Lázár has kept so quiet about you,” Major Jászi said gallantly. “You are much too beautiful to associate with these low fellows. You must allow me to look after you, Madame!”
I laughed — with genuine amusement when I considered the state of my poor face — and Lajos said drily, “She’ll let you know if she needs you — but I don’t advise you to hold your breath.”
“I hate jealous husbands,” the Major complained.
“Then take yourself off,” Lajos recommended insubordinately.
Just then, Oszkár appeared again, leading two horses: the big grey which I had seen Lajos riding last night, and a slightly smaller chestnut, which Lajos took from him.
“Katie, this is the best mount we could find — he’s rather large for you, but he’s a gentle beast. And Oszkár spent last night altering the saddle for you.”
He had indeed. I was to have the dignity of a lady’s saddle. Touched, I shifted my gaze from the placid horse to the shy young soldier who had brought it.
“Thank you,” I said sincerely. “You have no idea how grateful I am for that kindness!”
Oszkár blushed, but he managed to return my smile, and I believe that from then on he would have done anything for me, even if he had not imagined me to be his Captain’s wife.
When he had carefully lifted me into the saddle, Lajos said, “Oszkár will stay close to you, whatever happens. Do as he says, and there will be no problem.”
Sudden panic rose in me. “But where will you be?” I asked urgently. The fleeting smile touched his lips.
“Not far away,” he said soothingly, if vaguely.
“Lázár is our expert Vlach tracker,” Major Jászi said jovially. “Very well, gentlemen — let us mount up and be gone!”
He herded his subordinates away as he spoke, leaving me alone with Oszkár and my huge chestnut horse. A moment later, I saw Lajos ride out at the head of a troop of soldiers, and I couldn’t help the wave of desolation which swept over me. Everyone else was forming up in the courtyard and on the road beyond. Soldiers on horseback, carts bearing baggage and provisions, and one containing five women. I blinked at this last spectacle.
“Should I not travel with these ladies?” I asked innocently, and Oszkár blushed uncomfortably.
“Lord, no, Madame — that wouldn’t do at all! They are not wives. But we can’t shake them off, so they hang around and help out with the cooking and — er — other things.” He urged his horse forward, and I, duly abashed and obedient, followed him. We took our place in the column close to the baggage carts.
“If the women give you any insolence, let me know,” Oszkár said, as we rode past them. But for the moment the women seemed to be struck dumb with amazement — or curiosity — at the sight of me.
Colonel Drényi rode down to ask civilly after my health and comfort, adjured Oszkár to take care of me for the Captain, and returned to his place.
As we moved forward, I looked at Oszkár rather guiltily. “I’m taking you away from your real duties. You would rather be with La — Captain Lázár. I’m grateful to you, but truly, I do not need an escort.”
“Orders,” Oszkár said briefly. “And I don’t mind.”
“Are you the Captain’s — servant?” I asked hesitantly, and unexpectedly he grinned.
“I try to be, but he says he doesn’t know what to do with me, so mostly I just look after his horse and his baggage. But I’m very glad he asked me to serve you, Madame. It shows he trusts me.”
There was nothing I could say to that. Once we were under way, the cavalcade moved on quickly, mostly at a brisk trot or a canter. I saw no sign of Lajos, or of my two recent companions. I wondered if Lajos had hanged them anyhow. It would have been no loss to humanity, of course, but I felt an inexplicable unwillingness to be even the indirect cause of anyone’s death
Oszkár rode beside me, cheerfully enough, his shyness gradually giving way to a pleasantly open, sunny good nature. He was a Plains peasant who had joined up from patriotism, to save the Fatherland from invasion, and he had, apparently, two brothers and three sisters at home. His mother was dead, but his father was still in excellent health, working all the hours God sent.
While he revealed these and other details of his life, I noticed that his eyes were watchful, glancing frequently to left and right, especially when we passed through wooded areas. Something of his tension began to communicate itself to me till I felt distinctly uneasy.
Briefly, I was distracted by one of the women in the cart, who called out to me, “Good morning, Madame!” She was a youngish, untidy woman, none too clean but comely in a rather voluptuous way, and she seemed friendly enough. “They say you’re Captain Lázár’s lady.”
I shifted uncomfortably in the saddle as I inclined my head.
“Never tell me he gave you that shiner,” she said, awed, and I felt a quick flush of shame and outrage mount to my bruised cheeks.
“Of course not,” I snapped.
“Told you,” said one of the other women with satisfaction. “The Captain’s a real gentleman!”
Before I could think of a suitable response, a sudden command brought the whole column to an abrupt halt. I turned quickly to Oszkár, an urgent question on my lips, but he didn’t even hear me. He was looking intently the other way, towards the woods, and his sword was drawn.
With a painful lurch of alarm, I looked around me. The soldiers had all assumed defensive positions, but they were still and silent, as though waiting for something. A second later, men seemed to fly out of the trees on the left, some on horseback but most on foot, falling upon our column some yards ahead of where I waited.
More orders were shouted amid a fearful clash of weapons. I remember being amazed as well as relieved that I heard no gunfire — it seemed the fighting was all hand-to-hand. Nevertheless I was appalled; I felt paralysed, for I had never seen such violence before. Beside me, Oszkár’s hand twitched on his reins, as if he would go to his comrades’ aid, but his
instinct to obey proved stronger in the end than his will to fight — for which I was selfishly grateful.
The confusion ahead could only have lasted a few seconds when there sounded another, much more concerted shout which pierced even the terrible din of the fight, and the next instant I saw more horsemen bolting out from the wood.
Oszkár was grinning now. I think he meant it to be reassuring. “There’s the Captain,” he said with approval, and indeed the newcomers wore hussar uniform. A moment later, my distraught eyes could even pick out Lajos himself, laying about him energetically with his sword.
It was all over very quickly after that. One moment there was frightful, chaotic confusion — at least in my eyes; the next, our attackers were herded between a circle of hussars, and the dreadful noise had stopped. Into the silence, I heard Lajos give an almost casual order in Romanian. The prisoners dropped their weapons, causing a renewed clanking of steel, and some of our soldiers began to collect the enemy’s horses and weapons — which varied, so far as I could see, from broken sabres to farming implements.
The Colonel was riding back from the head of the column. “Well done, Captain!” he said loudly. “Good work, men!”
“Thank you, sir,” said Lajos. I watched him wheel his horse around, giving a few orders in his new, natural way, and then he was riding towards us. “Everything well?” he said briskly to Oszkár. My eyes anxiously devoured him, but could detect no hurt, not even the smallest scratch. His eyes were still bright with the excitement of battle; the breath seemed to steam out of him in great streams. More than ever, he was a stranger.
He glanced at me, then. “I’m sorry about the disturbance, but there shouldn’t be any more. I think that was the last of them.”
I swallowed, still shaken by the recent violence. “Are they Romanian guerrilla fighters?”
Lajos nodded.
“You set a trap for them?”
“We were ready for them,” Lajos amended, adding briefly, “We tracked them down yesterday.”
“Oh.”
He transferred his attention to the silent women in the cart, who had been watching this brief exchange between us with interest. “Ladies, have you room for any more on there?”
One of them, a rather stringy blond, screeched with joy. “Bless you, Captain, are you going to join us at last? Under your wife’s very nose?”
Naturally, Lajos was not in the least put out, either by the suggestion or by the ribald, distinctly unmusical laughter which greeted it. “I haven’t the excuse,” he said mildly. “But there are a few — less able than I — who need a seat in your chariot.”
“Oh, wounded,” said the dark woman who had first spoken to me.
“Are there many?” I asked with foreboding.
“A couple of the Romanians who can’t walk too well, but I expect they’ll survive. Ours have only minor scratches.”
Already two wounded peasants were being carried towards us. They were dumped unceremoniously on the cart with the women, and then the cavalcade moved onwards, taking the prisoners with it.
“What will happen to them now?” I asked uneasily.
Lajos shrugged. “They will be given the choice of imprisonment, or enlistment with us.”
I blinked. “Is that the best method of recruitment you have?”
“No, but sometimes it’s the only one possible.” He glanced at me. “I’ll come back later,” he said abruptly, and galloped away again.
Bemused, I gazed after him for a moment, then turned my attention to the wounded. The women, whatever their opinion of ‘Vlachs’, were tending the two in the cart as if they were their own. Fascinated, I watched them bathe and dress wounds, settle limbs more comfortably, all without being asked. The two Romanians, sullen, suspicious and in pain as they were, seemed to be as surprised as I.
Less than an hour later, Lajos, as good as his word, rode back to us, dismissing Oszkár with a friendly word of thanks, apparently taking over the role of escort himself. I couldn’t help being glad, even though there was something new and alarming about him now.
There seemed to be a gulf of difference, a lifetime of experience between the witty, quietly spoken intellectual of the Pilvax café, and this tough, decisive, scarred young soldier. I cast a swift, surreptitious glance at him, and found him watching me.
He smiled slightly. “Tell me about Buda-Pest — has the Government really fled so soon?”
I nodded.
“And István intends to stay with it? That surprises me — I hadn’t thought he would go so far along that road.”
“It isn’t easy for him. To be honest, it’s driving him mad.”
“Perhaps he’ll end up in the asylum with his friend Széchenyi,” Lajos said callously.
I cast him a hostile glance. “I’m glad you are amused.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t I he threw into the road and deserted. Are the whole family in Debrecen?”
“Except Maria. And Mattias.”
“Ah.” Now I thought he was genuinely interested, rather than making conversation. “Mattias finally broke free?”
“What is the point of being free and dead?” I retorted. His expression was enigmatic, and for a moment he did not answer.
Then: “He’s probably safer in Buda-Pest than anywhere else — it will fall easily. The Austrians are probably there already.”
I regarded him curiously. “The prospect doesn’t appal you?”
“It’s not the end of the war. The Austrians are not invincible — we’ve proved that here. Bem has taken Kolozsvár and Beszterce, and is currently chasing the enemy out through the mountains of Bukovina.”
“Then — then you have won back Transylvania?” I said eagerly.
“Not quite,” he replied gravely, “but I suspect we will. Bem is a very clever man.”
“Despite being a ferocious lunatic?” I said provokingly. I felt unaccountably irritated by the loss of the old, idealistic, pacific Lajos.
But he only smiled faintly. “I’m glad you read my letters.” Those friendly, impersonal letters. I looked quickly away from the face I still found all too fascinating.
“I suppose you have fought in many battles,” I said, a little desperately.
“No, not many.” He glanced at me quizzically. “Why, do you think I have become a brutish soldier?”
I smiled, rather seriously. “Hardly; but I do see a change in you... Are you happy here?”
“As happy as can be expected,” he said drily, and I was obliged to laugh.
“I meant, do you quarrel with this Colonel as you did with your last?”
“Not at all. Drényi is a sensible man.”
We rode on for a while in silence, and for the first time I became truly aware of the winter beauty of Transylvania. Everything was white, from the distant mountains to the villages and fields and woods around us. It was still like a fairy-tale, yet breath-taking as the serene summer loveliness of the place was not.
When we stopped to rest, I could not stop gazing into the distance. It was Lajos who, catching me around the waist, lifted me lightly to the ground.
“Give the poor beast a rest,” he said lightly, and I smiled up at him apologetically.
“I’m sorry. I have never been here in winter before — it’s hard to believe such beauty is real.”
But Lajos was real. The lithe, fit body so close to me, the rough, scarred face above me, they were so tangible that I was suddenly afraid — afraid of my own emotion, afraid of his intriguing unfamiliarity. I moved quickly out of his hands.
Despite the snow on the ground, the young officers were strolling around as if they were on a summer picnic, trying to out-do each other in their civilities to me. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or amused. Eventually I realized they were being kind to me, because of my bruised face and the unhappy state in which I had joined them, and I was touched. Lajos, who seemed to be on easy terms of friendship with all of them, watched the proceedings with a benign eye.
&n
bsp; For the rest of the day, Lajos and Oszkár alternated as my escort. Whenever Lajos approached, I felt my heart lift in a curious mixture of comfort and unease. I had to struggle to maintain my front of friendly indifference, yet I was both piqued and depressed by his manner to me.
He accorded me a kind of gentle, half-sardonic civility, so that I felt both protected and distant from him — which was exactly how it should be, I reminded myself. I had placed Lajos in an impossible, embarrassing position where he could do nothing but help me. I was only an added burden, another responsibility to him, and I was obliging him to lie to his fellow officers. The list of my iniquities was endless, and still I had to keep telling myself that even less than before was there any future for Lajos and me together.
“Discreet annulment,” I said aloud, startling both of us, and he regarded me with eyes that weren’t quite amused.
“Content your soul in patience,” he said drily, “at least until we reach Beszterce.”
“When will that be?”
“Tomorrow, perhaps.” He looked thoughtful. “I suppose from there you might go back to Debrecen with the next despatches — or on to Szelényi, if it is safe now.”
Ridiculously, foolishly, I felt a pang of hurt at his eagerness to be rid of me.
“I suppose Szelényi would be best,” I said calmly. “I can get there easily from Beszterce.” I drew in a breath. “I don’t think I have thanked you, Lajos, but indeed I am grateful for...”
“No doubt,” he interrupted, and there was an odd harshness in his voice that brought my eyes flying back to his face. “But it was never your gratitude I wanted, was it, Katie? It still isn’t.”
Mutely, I gazed at him, trying to quell the quickened beat of my heart, for this was the first remotely personal remark he had made to me all day. For a moment, he continued to hold my eyes, then he let out a low breath of laughter and spurred forward, shouting for Oszkár.
As the light began to fade, we came to a village where the occupants, contriving to appear both sullen and obsequious, opened their cottages and huts to the troops. However, I saw a middle-aged nobleman come riding in from the other side, and he was soon in conversation with Colonel Drényi.
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