Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

The walls of the large drawing-room, under the baroque plaster scrolls on the ceiling, were hung with more hunting trophies. These were the best in his collection, unlike the massed legion out on the entrance portico. What hung here were real treasures and some were so rare or so exceptionally large that their equal was nowhere else to be found, though Absolon had never bothered to advertise the fact; these were his private solace, not symbols of achievement to dazzle the world.

There were the heads of three gigantic mountain-goats from Kuen-Lun, a mountain ram from the high Pamir plateau, some weirdly-shaped yaks’ horns, and the stuffed neck and head of a wild camel which was already slightly moth-eaten. These bizarre trophies were placed sparsely on the white walls of the great room. Two other objects stood out, perhaps because they were not also the harvest of far-flung hunting forays.

One was a small and now faded photograph. ‘This,’ said Absolon, ‘was Przewalski, the famous Asian explorer, and standing next to him in Tartar dress, that’s me. A Russian officer took us together in Kotan. It’s one of my most treasured souvenirs.’

The other object was more spectacular. It was an exceptionally long sword, beautifully wrought and decorated. It was hung horizontally above a sofa in the middle of the wall. Adrienne had exclaimed with astonishment when she first saw it.

‘Yes, it is a good one,’ said Absolon modestly. Then he laughed and said, ‘I don’t know of another like it, even in the East. Wait a moment, I’ll take it down.’

He unhooked it from the wall and handed it to his guest.

The sword was purely ornamental and was more than four feet long and completely straight. The hilt and the mounts of the scabbard were of enamelled gold studded with precious stones and between the metalled parts the rest was covered with cherry-coloured velvet, so vivid that if there had not been some slight signs of wear anyone would have taken it for new.

‘How beautiful!’ cried Adrienne and then repeated the word ‘beautiful’ several times.

The old man beamed with pleasure. His Tartar-like face was again creased with laughter as he said, ‘You’ve seen nothing yet! Look at the blade! There’s nothing in the world like it!’

He leaned forward and took the sword from Adrienne and, balancing it on his arm, drew out the blade.

What the old man had said was indeed true: the blade was even more beautiful than its case. Near the hilt the steel had been inlaid with a lattice-pattern in gold and its whole length was decorated with an inscription, also in gold, and the letters were interspersed with inset rubies so placed that they looked for all the world like drops of blood.

When they had both looked at it for some time Absolon put it back on the wall and then started to tell its tale.

‘Legend has it,’ he said, ‘that it once belonged to Tamberlane. This might be true, but the old paper I was able to see said nothing about it. Of course the man from whom I had it had himself acquired it in no very straightforward fashion, for it seems that his father had somehow extracted it from Timur’s tomb.

‘How did I get it? That’s another story. It’s true that I did not buy it, indeed I never have had the money to spend on such a treasure. Anyway the Kirgiz nomads would never sell such a valuable possession. Camels, women, horses, yes; but not weapons ever, they are heirlooms. No, I got this from Alp-Arslan Beg who had been my friend for some years. It’s quite a story. His tribe lived on the northern slopes of the Pamirs and in one of his frequent wars with his neighbours he was wounded and three of his sons had been killed. Only one boy remained alive, a three-year-old child. Prince Arslan fled to the mountains with him and his women, and there they were again attacked, this time by Kashmiri bandits. Arslan was wounded again, and the boy, and his mother, with the other women and all their remaining possessions, were carried off. I came upon him the next day — it was just after I had shot that big ram over there — and found his camp almost totally destroyed.

‘As it was clear that the bandits had gone off to the south, and as there was only one track, even for bandits, through the eternal snows of the road to Kashmir, it wasn’t difficult to follow them and surround them with my three faithful Tartars. The bandits had their women with them, and were also driving some stolen herds of sheep, and these had slowed them down. With my hunting rifle it was quite easy to pick them off — the wild ram was much more trouble! So I came back to Arslan with the woman, and with his son and all his other possessions. Among them was this sword. Alp-Arslan was overjoyed to get the boy back but he wouldn’t touch the sword. In fact it was quite a problem to get him to accept the sheep. The sword, he said, was mine, the rightful spoils of war. And that is how I got it.’ Absolon laughed again. ‘Paid for in blood, eh? Other people’s blood, of course! But then that was how our own wild ancestors acquired their land, was it not?’

He continued to fascinate Adrienne with the stories of his extraordinary adventures until well after dinner. Then Adrienne told her host that she must go to bed because she would have to leave for home very early the next morning.

‘I won’t keep you up,’ he said. ‘I know you have a long way to go. It was brave of you to have come all this way to take me into your confidence and I feel most honoured by your visit and by your trust in me. As you have to go in the morning perhaps you would be so kind as to take me as far as Regen? I have a little business there and I would so enjoy your company on the trip.’

‘Why, of course,’ cried Adrienne. ‘I would love it.’

Absolon himself showed her to one of the principal guestrooms. Marisko was there waiting and she explained how to turn out the lamps and showed her that there were candles, matches and water on a table by the bed. Then she turned to go but stopped at the door and said, ‘Kiss your hand, my Lady!’ and went swiftly out.

Adrienne lay back on the lavender-scented pillows and thought about what had happened that day and what was to come in the future. She was pleased about how the day had turned out and, as she recalled how well she had been received by her husband’s uncle and how kind he had been in promising to help her, something he had said when asking if he could drive with her to Regen kept recurring to her mind. Those words ‘I have a little business there’ seemed to have no particular significance and might indeed have referred to a hundred different little errands, and yet, and yet? Surely there must have been some reason for her to remember just that phrase so clearly?

Had it been that, as he spoke, he had raised one eyebrow in just the same way as he had when he had been so careful in choosing his words about the arrangements for her divorce, about her special responsibility, about Pali Uzdy? She was sure it had been that, it must have been that.

As the thought came to her she drifted off to sleep.

The sturdy Miloth chestnuts trotted so eagerly in the morning air that it seemed that they had hardly set off when they were already approaching the town of Regen. Absolon had been unusually quiet on the way for he had been doing some hard thinking and felt he had to prepare himself for something unexpected. He had noticed something wrong at the time of Margit’s wedding. Although it seemed to most people that though he might be calm and wise he was also perhaps rather remote and unconcerned, it was rarely noticed what a sharp observer he was. It was the constant awareness of the hunter, still as much a part of him as it had been in those years in the wild where for more than a third of his life he had trained himself to notice everything, the faintest sounds, the slightest movement, the least sign of something out of the ordinary; for it was on such things that a hunter depended, sometimes even for his life.