III.
31 July 1156 – 28 August 1157
‘
Ežva ju kuźa, teryb gy vyvti
Lebźe ydžid pyž jedžid parusa.
Pyžas pukale das vit udal zon.
Öťi zon kyndźi stavis gažaeś.
Naje vorseni kujim gudeken,
Naje śyleni das ńoľ gölesen.
Öťi burlak-zon mića ćužemnas
Arśa kymer moz vaas vidźede.
Jurse ledźema, oz i leptivli,
Vomse tupkema, oz i goredli.
“Myjla burlak-mort, tadźi žugiľtćin?
Myjla jortjasked te on gažedći?”
Kinas šeništis šogśiś burlak-mort,
Šuis-goredis nora gölesen:
“Jona, jortjasej, udal zonjazej,
Ene ďivitej, ene lögaśej.
Menam śölemej šogen tyrema,
Menam dolidej yle kolema.
Musa Ćenźukej mene enovtis.
Jugid šondiej menam kusema.
Me ke mustemmi mića Ćenźukli,
Ovni mu vylin menim ńinemla.
Bośtej šybitej mene końeres
Džudžid va pyčke, gudir kyrkeče!”’
No one was as taken aback by this strain as Czenzi herself. It provoked some distant, deep ancestral memory in her, hearing this ancient Asiatic love-song from the faraway Urals—older than the written word in Slovien
or in Mögyer—with the words upon the tongue of her beloved husband. The primal, chthonic longing stirring within her… she hadn’t felt anything like this since she’d first brought him to the tumulus that held the remains of her ancestors. That had been that wondrous night, her
first night together with Bohodar, at Halastavak.
And here was Bohodar himself kneeling in front of her, his eyes holding her own as though with a gentle caress, singing to her in such a bardic tongue the tale of a young man spurned in love, with not one note and not one syllable out of place or mispronounced. In most traditional versions of the song, the distant young woman immortalised in this song of passion was named ‘Maria’ or ‘Maška’—for Bohodar to replace the ‘
Mašukej’ and ‘
Mašukli’ in the song respectively with ‘
Ćenźukej’ and ‘
Ćenźukli’, without once muddling a beat, and furthermore cleverly echoing her name against ‘
ćužemnas’ (‘handsome face’) several stanzas before, was nothing if not flattering.
Or would be, if Slavomíra and Gorislava weren’t cheek by jowl with her, hearing the same thing she was.
Czenzi, who had already been blushing furiously for the past two minutes, muttered something to Bohodar which she could never rightly remember later. She’d hoped it was complimentary, but at that moment she had to get some distance between him and her and catch her breath.
That was easier thought and said, than done. Not only because Bohodar had sung a folk-song of such deep affection to her, in an archaic Ugrian dialect which was as much
felt as
understood. But Czenzi’s hand went down to her abdomen, to the little bump of her wame where her and Bohodar’s Number Four was. She felt a bit dizzy and had to steady herself against a handy rowan branch—though whether it was an ill dizziness from the morning sickness or a good one from her husband’s ardour, she couldn’t yet tell. She took a few breaths to calm herself. She pressed her hands to her cheeks. They were still hot.
Czenzi blew out a breath—then drew in another, and blew it out again, still leaning on the rowan for support. She hadn’t felt this giddy with raw, surging emotion since… well, since she saw Bohodar best Büzir-Üzünköl in the ring at Szarka, for her sake. Surely she was too old to be feeling this way? Heléna was already a young woman, full-grown… and a far better head and hands for figures, plans and household management than either Czenzi or Botta ever had. And even Bohodar’s baby brother Daniel had started taking an interest in girls—although it was a tad unfortunate that Živoslava, the object of his affections, did not return them.
Her two female companions approached her.
‘What a fine sight that was!’ Gorislava crossed her arms. ‘Frankly, my Queen—I’m envious! My Zdravko never knelt down in our courtyard and sang
me a love song before!’
‘Who—who said it was a love song?’ Czenzi murmured.
‘Your face did,’ Gorislava smirked. Czenzi covered over her still furiously-blushing cheeks with her palms.
‘No, honestly, it wasn’t that hard to figure,’ Slavomíra soothed the queen somewhat. ‘What, do you expect us to believe that he was merely asking you about the details of manor administration, on his knees down there? In verse? In melody? And in such a sweet voice?’
Czenzi let out a nervous giggle, but followed it up with: ‘… What should I do?’
‘What else should you do?’ Gorislava grinned. ‘Enjoy it! Savour it! To be a noblewoman in a political marriage, and have a husband who truly dotes on you like this, is a rare blessing indeed.’
~~~
‘Lady Czenzi,’ Bohodar approached her in their room later that evening. ‘If it has caused you any unhappiness at all, being here in Moravia with me—if there is any deep desire of your heart that I, in my unworthy negligence, have left unfulfilled—speak it to me, that it may be done.’
‘
Ó, kedves Botta,’ Czenzi traced his cheek. ‘I have nothing to complain—nothing at all! You treat me very well here. Here I have good friends… a fine court to receive them in. I have plenty to occupy my time. And of course I have you, my dearest one! To think of it, all my life, I lived in a teld in a Csángóföld camp. Though the blood of many Bertalans flows in my veins, I had never thought to be embarking upon this great journey into Moravia—!’
‘Oh, dearest one,’ Bohodar knelt and kissed her hands. ‘Are you homesick at all?’
Czenzi looked at Bohodar. He was completely in earnest—he wasn’t making fun of her at all. That wasn’t in him. He genuinely wanted to know if he’d caused her distress, by removing her from her homeland.
‘Darling, you’ve
taken me back there whenever I asked,’ Czenzi told him. ‘Remember?’
‘But that was years and years ago!’ Bohodar objected. ‘Before my coronation, before the wars. Tell you what—how about I bring the Csángóföld to you?’
Czenzi didn’t quite know how to respond to this, but it was clear that her husband—still younger and less mature in many ways than she was—was desirous of doing something special for her. Suddenly she felt that it might be cruel to refuse him. And so she gave him a tentative nod. That was all the encouragement he needed. He kissed her hands, one by one. But in her heart Czenzi was still a bit doubtful, how he meant to ‘bring the Csángóföld’ to her.
Weeks went by. The morning sickness passed, and the baby bump of Czenzi’s abdomen swelled and grew noticeable. Bohodar absented himself from the castle for long stretches of time during the days, and no one really seemed to know what he was about. He took with him, however, an elderly Magyar man who was an expert in estates management and history, which certainly aroused Czenzi’s suspicions.
And then, one day, Bohodar showed himself before Czenzi. Czenzi turned and grinned broadly—it was all she could do to keep from laughing, partly in delight and partly at the mild absurdity of the sight that greeted her. Bohodar had dressed himself in a fur-lined cap, a leather overcoat and soft boots. He had over his shoulder a longbow and a quiver of arrows, and bore a hunting-knife at his side—he looked to all intents and purposes like a Magyar huntsman. But earnestly Bohodar extended a hand to her.
‘Come with me, my queen.’
Czenzi followed her ‘huntsman’ hand-in-hand out of the castle, out into the bailey and past the gates into the town, over the bridge and out into the woods. Bohodar led her along a seldom-used woodland trail into a tract of remote woodland, where the woodsman had evidently allowed him to live. He drew her further in among the trees, leading her by the hand, until they came to—
—a rough-hewn wooden cabin with shallow thatch eaves and a narrow door, a simple chimney and a fire-pit. As Czenzi entered within, the urge to laugh grew stronger. Bohodar, together with the elderly Magyar antiquarian and historian he’d been consulting, had evidently tried and gone to considerable effort to recreate a Magyar winter hunting lodge in the style that had been popular before Álmos’s conquest of the Pannonian basin. Czenzi was no expert herself and had no way to judge the correctness of her husband’s efforts. But she had to admit to herself that she felt flattered by all this effort.
‘These coming seasons, my love, I shall live here,’ Bohodar told her. ‘You may stay with me as you choose, as long as your health and your condition permit it. I will live on my own like a Magyar huntsman from long ago, with my bow, my knife, my shovel, a goodly supply of twine, and whatever springes and pit-traps I can fashion therefrom. I shall live only on what I catch this coming year. And if I happen upon a great beast—I shall dedicate the kill
only to you.’
‘Botta,’ Czenzi grabbed his hands and pressed them to her lips one after the other. ‘My love, my heart—! This is all very flattering! I can tell how deeply you care about me, and with what great care you want to honour the ancient traditions of my people, which I hold dear. But isn’t this all a bit… too much?’
‘What could be too much for the one, the true, the only she which will ever reside in my heart?’
‘A
great deal could be too much,’ Czenzi chided her ardent young husband. ‘I
do desire your love, I
am flattered by this undertaking of yours, and I won’t try to discourage you from any rightful part in it. But
please do show some common sense. Don’t take unnecessary risks in the name of any romantic notions! Remember this above all: a Magyar hunter
kept his caution and
knew how to take care of himself—he would do no one any good injured or dead.’
‘I listen and obey, milady,’ Bohodar knelt to her.
‘It is well to obey me, my huntsman,’ Czenzi told him. But she held him tenderly, letting his head rest gently upon her befruited belly, where their child was busily growing and taking shape.
~~~
‘
What did you say the
Kráľ is doing?’ asked
Knieža Bystrík Mikulčický of Nitra.
His cousin Zelimír Kopčianský answered: ‘My reports tell me that Bohodar’s taken to living in the woods alone like a wild man, like some Asiatic barbarian hunter. He isn’t even using a proper spear like a self-respecting Moravian would do, but only a bow and a knife and traps.’
Bystrík stroked his long, iron-grey beard. ‘Rather strange occupation for a new king.’
‘Do you think he’s gone mad?’ asked Zelimír.
Bystrík shook his head hurriedly. ‘No. No, there was no trace of madness on him when he gave his decrees at Jihlava. This is something else entirely. Are you
sure he was alone? No light troops or archers or other armigers with him?’
‘That was the most I could tell,’ Zelimír answered his cousin.
Bystrík gave his long beard another few thoughtful strokes. ‘Keep an eye on him for the time being; let me know of his movements. Such solo hunting expeditions can be… dangerous. We wouldn’t want any… unfortunate
accidents… to befall our king, now, would we?’
‘Of course not, milord.’ The corner of Zelimír’s mouth twitched.
Bohodar went back to the tanner’s to retrieve the hide he’d taken, and took it with his own hands back up to the castle. This fine grey fellow had stumbled into one of his pit-traps by accident; Bohodar had leapt down and despatched him with a merciful stroke of his knife. Was it possible that this was a distant descendant of that one which Bohodar’s ancestor and namesake
slovoľubec had taken in a similar way for his beloved Mechthild’s sake? Possible indeed.
Bohodar knelt down before his wife and unfurled the six-foot-long wolf-pelt before him, entirely dried and cured and intact, the textured white and black hairs patterning themselves in every shade of grey between black around the ears, shoulders and tail to and white along the cheeks and flanks. Czenzi held her hand over her mouth in awe. Then, with the deliberation and care of a woman as far along in the family way as she was, Czenzi knelt down herself to feel the luxuriant, dense, springy fur of the mighty beast. No doubt this would make a warm covering in the oncoming winter, or a fine ornament elsewhere in the castle.
‘It’s
beautiful, Botta!’ Czenzi marvelled. ‘And so
soft…’
‘It is yours. All in your name and in your honour, Árpád Czenzi,’ Bohodar declared.
The glowing smile she gave him made his whole effort worth it. Bohodar stood and saluted her. He then went straight back into the woods and continued his solo hunting efforts. However, it seemed that with the wolf’s falling into the pit trap, his luck in the hunt had completely run dry.
Something about living alone in a hut on the unkith edges of society had given Bohodar something of a superstitious temper. He was quick to notice that the wild coneys and fowl were avoiding his springes and traps, after he’d taken the wolf. Had the spirit of the wolf become angry, at having been taken in such a way? Or had he gone too far in taking the wolf to a tanner rather than dressing the hide himself? Such were the thoughts that Bohodar was prey to, alone in his hunting lodge. He suddenly found himself wholly lacking in things to eat.
True, Czenzi had not told him to do this herself. Indeed, she had told him
not to take any unnecessary risks, or to approach his hunting excursion with any deluded notions of romanticism. But Bohodar felt he was honour-bound to continue in his rude little hut without assistance from the outside. Did the ancient Hungarian hunters have at their beck and call armies of servants to go out and provide victuals for them? Or did they have a castle nearby at the ready, to which they could retreat for comfort and safety when they felt like it?
No, they did not. As December made its way into January, Bohodar was torn between the demands of his body and the ‘romantic notions’ of ancient Magyar hunting practices which his wife had told him
not to entertain. Ultimately the ‘romantic notions’ won out. Bohodar found the hunger easier to bear if he told himself it was for his beloved wife’s sake. He was doing this, after all, for her honour.
Whatever was behind the dry spell lifted in January. The springes he had set up caught first a grouse, and then several small burrowing animals. By that time, despite it being a fast season of the Church, Bohodar was not too picky about what he ate. He ate happily what God had provided to him in his solitude, and thus restored his health.
All through that early winter, owing to her state, Czenzi didn’t visit him very often, but kept to the castle… otherwise she would certainly have discouraged him from starving himself—and done so in particularly strong terms. However, she did send one of the maids from the castle to fetch her husband to her. And given the tide—it was then in early February; Bohodar had forgotten the day—he hurried along with her when she beckoned.
When Bohodar entered the castle and went his way up to her chambers, the midwife made him wait outside. She was already in labour. Bohodar tholed outside, though each hour out here passed as painfully as a day of hunger he’d endured already. Was Czenzi well? He worried each time she gave birth, and prayed fervently to the Birthgiver of God to watch over his wife in her agonies.
At last, however, the midwife beckoned him inside, and presented him with a baby girl: a healthy, large, strong-featured and tawny-skinned baby girl, who possessed her father’s brows and nose, and her mother’s long mobile mouth already. Bohodar came with her into the room. Czenzi, her brow gleaming with sweat and pain, turned her amber eyes to her husband as the midwife handed the formidable-looking little girl back into her arms.
‘
Kedvesem,’ Czenzi murmured to her husband. ‘May I make a request of you?’
‘Name it,’ Bohodar took his wife’s hand lovingly.
‘Could we name her after my elder sister?’ she asked weakly.
‘Hmm,’ Bohodar chuckled. ‘Léna, Vojta, Anna and Rózsa. By now I think I’m getting the hang of your preferences, dearest.’
‘Is that a yes?’
Bohodar traced Czenzi’s hair, drawing one sweat-matted strand away from her eyes. ‘That’s a yes. I’m fond of your sister; she made me welcome in Szarka. Not as much as you did, of course.’
Czenzi caught his hand and kissed it.
‘Now I’m free again, I’ll come and visit you. It’ll be just the two of us out there,’ Czenzi promised.
‘I’d love that,’ Bohodar told her.
~~~
After Rózsa was born, Czenzi frequented Bohodar’s solo encampment much more often. She was happy to bring victuals from the castle and share them with her husband, and moderate his other occasional excesses with good sense and proper preparation. But she couldn’t help but admit to herself that he had thoroughly impressed her with this whole project of his. It was sweet as well, how Bohodar had gone to such pains to make himself a royal huntsman in the Magyar tradition for her sake.
Zelimír Kopčianský, doing the bidding of the head of his dynasty, had been keeping the hunting-grounds under surveillance since winter. However, after the thaw, and after the melt had drained out—Zelimír got careless. He was spotted by the king coming into the hunting-grounds just minutes after Czenzi had arrived at the cabin—and Bohodar made an assumption about his presence that was entirely misguided.
‘Turn about, Kopčianský!’ Bohodar shouted at the one-eyed
hrabě of Jihlava, a stave in his hands. ‘Leave now, or I’ll beat you like a dog!’
Zelimír stood his ground, but he barely had time to register the wrathful
Kráľ in front of him before Bohodar’s stave was out and swinging. Zelimír had taken his sidearm off his belt complete with its scabbard and was frantically fending off blows, but to little avail as heavy wallops caught him on the leg, in the side, across the side of the head, and right in the pit of his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Bohodar continued to thrash Zelimír where he was doubled over on the ground, before the one-eyed
hrabě managed to get to his feet and slink away whence he’d come.
Zelimír and Bystrík hadn’t had the last word quite yet, though.
‘Do you hear that?’ asked Czenzi of her husband, one night in August. ‘There. That snapping of twigs. Something’s out there—and no small beast, either.’
‘Shall I have a look?’
Czenzi flung her husband a pleading look. ‘Be careful,
kedvesem.’
Bohodar went out into the night forest, but heard nothing and saw nothing but the ordinary sounds and black stillness of the woods. He looked about for a long, long time—encircled the cabin three full rounds. But nothing came out at him. Whatever it was that Czenzi had heard—it might have been long gone by now. He turned to go back within, when he saw a shape that looked very much like a human form, with hands, part the thatchwork in the roof and lower himself inside. Bohodar caught, below a stray shaft of moonlight, the cold glint of steel on the man’s belt. And it was then that he knew that Czenzi was in danger.
Heedless of his own safety, Bohodar flung himself back inside the door of the hunting cabin, went to the chest at the end of his bed, and pulled free his sword—just as the black form of the man in his cloak descended from the ceiling through the thatch to the floor, and pulled loose his blade. With a stillness like a stray gust of wind, the black figure sailed in toward where Czenzi was lying on Bohodar’s bed, only for Bohodar to interpose himself between it and her, his own sword-edge at the ready.
There followed a brief but terrible struggle in the dark. Czenzi tugged up the sheets and retreated as far back toward the wall as she could, watching what little she could make out of the life-or-death
mêlée in front of her in uncomprehending horror. Both figures had long since gone to the floor. One of them stood up, blade in hand. In what little moonlight there was to see by, Czenzi couldn’t properly tell if it was the intruder, or her husband who had risen.
But she
did catch something else. The figure who had been on the floor
scampered toward the door. And that was when she recognised the broad shoulders of the standing man as those of her husband, and saw the sheer length of blade he carried as he sheathed it. Czenzi breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Are you hurt?’ asked Bohodar in front of her.
‘No,’ Czenzi answered meekly. ‘But… what might have happened—! Thank God, Botta—!’
Bohodar leaned down over her. He brought his face close to hers. Czenzi knew him by scent now, all doubt dispelled. And Czenzi gripped her arms around his neck so hard that it threatened to cut off his wind as she kissed him harder than she ever had before.
‘Light the fire, Botta,’ Czenzi whispered to him. ‘Lay me out in front of it, and love me.’