Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

The dust had hardly settled when another carriage appeared beside him, a carriage drawn by four heavy strong bays, trotting unhurriedly in steady unison together. Clearly, like all the horses of the plains, they were used to long distances. They were the opposite of Abonyi’s Russians, who would make ten kilometres in as many minutes but then could do no more. These bays could travel a hundred kilometres a day but, though in high spirits, they never altered their even steady trot. Abady loved these old-fashioned Transylvanian carriage horses and gazed at them with the eye of a connoisseur. So intent was he on admiring the team that it was only when the carriage was almost past that he saw who the passengers were. At first Balint only saw a man unknown to him, then beside him with her back to the coachman he recognized Margit, the youngest Miloth girl. In the rear seat there were two ladies. Though he couldn’t see the face of the one on the left he assumed that it must be Judith, because on her right sat Adrienne, her profile turned towards her neighbour. A moment passed before he was sure, because her distinctive flaring hair, her most recognizable characteristic, was concealed in a turban, which in turn was swathed in a voluminous dust-wrap which covered her neck and shoulders in thick coils, and a fine veil caught under the chin. It had to be her, with her fine slightly aquiline nose and chiselled lips. So Adrienne would also be at the ball.

Balint realized that, as a married woman, she had come to escort her younger sisters, replacing their sour-faced mama who had made such heavy weather of Addy’s coming-out. He wondered how old the younger girls were now. When he had last seen them they were still in the schoolroom. Even so they must still be rather young to come out. Perhaps Judith was already seventeen but Margit could hardly be more than sixteen at the most. But then he remembered how closely related they were to the Laczoks — Countess Miloth and Countess Laczok were sisters, Kendys from Bozsva — and young girls could always attend family parties.

Though Balint realized that he would see Adrienne that evening the thought had little effect on him. It caused neither joy nor that slight irritation he had felt previously when he had thought of her marriage. He felt only indifference and soon his mind was occupied with other things. Other carriages passed, some with single carriage-horses, some with teams of two and occasionally a four-in-hand. One-horse farm wagons started to appear, filled with farmers and their wives, and those who had had a drink at the races would be yodelling and singing in high good humour as they raced each other home. These were the Szeklers, who loved their little grey and bay horses with the same passion as the young aristocrats loved their thoroughbred teams. The Szekler farmers would let no one pass; they drove to the right, to the left, or weaving in the middle of the road so as not to be overtaken, jangling their bridles and shouting encouragements to the horses.

Some middle-class townsfolk, each trim little carriage driven by their single servant, were also on the road. They were the parish clerk, the vicar, the orthodox priest, but however loud they shouted the Szeklers would not give way.

The dust became so thick one could not see five yards ahead.

A single rider, unimpeded by the carriages, rode briskly up. It was Gaspar Kadacsay, known to everyone as Crazy Baron Gazsi. He was still wearing his white racing breeches and brown-cuffed boots. On his head was a soldier’s red field cap and over his shoulders the light blue cape of an officer of the 2nd Hussars. He had ridden four hurdle races that afternoon and now, as if that were not enough, he was riding to Siklod on a fresh young piebald. He galloped in silence, weaving between the trundling one-horse farm carts, pulling up when a lumbering wagon appeared out of the dust clouds, spurring on, reining in, zig-zagging through the carts and carriages as if they were obstacles in a slalom race. No sooner had Gazsi disappeared than the sound of cracking whips was hear from behind, whips cracking like gunfire coming ever closer, a tremendous clatter of hoofs, bells and harness coming up like thunder. A high, shrill commanding voice could be heard, ‘God damn it! Out of the way! Make way there!’ The Szeklers, who had paid no attention before, pulled their wagons off the road in great speed, only with seconds to spare before a team of five horses drew level with Balint’s fiacre. First the three leaders, their nostrils flaring, their mouths foaming and their harness covered with ribbons and rosettes, and then the two shaft-horses, all so close to Balint they almost brushed against the old carriage. Behind the rushing team of five dappled greys was a long, low wagon, skidding to and fro as the speed brought the hind wheels off the ground.

In the deep leather driving seat, swinging on its straps like a spring, sat Joska Kendy, proudly erect, his legs spread wide, his body rigid and a pipe between his teeth. In his left hand, tied in a wreath, he held the reins of the five horses tight as cables, while in his right he wielded the fourheaded driving whip, cracking incessantly and rhythmically and making figures of eight in the air.

In front of him the road cleared as if by magic, for everyone knew that delay would be fatal when Joska Kendy had the whip in his hand and cried out for room on the road. With his strong wagon he could tear a wheel off any cart and send everyone into the ditch. It was wiser to let that one go by! And so they gave way, letting the racing team of five vanish swiftly into the distance.

At last, through the dust, Balint began to make out the long avenue of Lombardy poplars which led to the Laczoks’ place. The old fiacre turned in on to the straight pebble-paved drive and the clatter of wagons which had become so deafening during the last half hour, began to die away behind him, leaving only the slight tinkling of the harness bells and the soft hiss of the wheels on the ground.

THE CASTLE OF SIKLOD, the home of the Laczoks for many hundreds of years, was a typically Transylvanian fortress erected on a slight rectangular platform that jutted out from the side of the hill behind. Hardly more than ten metres above the surrounding country it had been built during the Middle Ages on the site of an old Roman fort, open on three sides and backed on the fourth by the rolling hills of the Maros valley, now covered in vineyards. The first Laczok to make his home on the edge of this smiling valley, which now lay between the main road and the village where the peasants lived, seems to have chosen the site as a strategic point between the counties of Maros and Torda, where he could best protect his lands and serfs from marauding bands of Szekler huns.

Even in those early days Var-Siklod can never have inspired the same awe as those great frowning fortresses of stone that we know from drawings in medieval French and German monastic manuscripts. The four square walls, following the lines of the Roman camp, were joined at each corner by stout little towers. Over the entrance gates was another small castellated tower and in the centre of the wide courtyard stood the keep, where the lord and his family lived, and which, in those days was merely a two-storey building standing by itself, with massive walls and tiny windows set in deep stone embrasures. Useless against cannon and sophisticated siege machinery, the little fort had been all that was needed to hold the land against the fierce raids of Tartars, armed only with their courage and primitive weapons, and, later, against the bands of brigands and free Szeklers. If the raiding party was large, and enough warning had been given, the livestock for miles around could be herded into the great courtyard around the keep.