The Countess (17 page)

After the first dance was over, we changed partners, and I found myself this time with Thurzó. It was only right that the groom’s messengers should both dance with the bride, so he spun me around the floor and conversed safely about my journey from Sárvár, the friends we had in common. It seemed he knew my brother, too, from Bécs, where they had sometimes crossed paths at court. In a moment
of gravity he told me how sorry he was to hear of the death of my mother, both for my own sake and for my brother’s. He looked to where István sat alone at the table, watching the proceedings from a distance and flipping through a book he’d brought to keep himself occupied during the revelries. “István seems to take the loss of her very hard,” he said.

“He does,” I answered, touched that Thurzó would take such interest in my family. “They were very close, especially after my father died. My mother relied on him a great deal. I don’t know how he will bear such a loss, and I will be so far away that I cannot help him.”

“And who will help you in your own grief?” he asked.

I thought this a strange question, but I answered, “My husband will be my comfort, of course.”

“Of course,” he said, but I could not read his expression or his voice, to tell what he meant by such a statement. If he were making an offer, or a threat.

In a little while the dancing ended, and the men got back on their horses to return to Ferenc’s retinue, their formal duties performed. “The groom will be at Varannó in two days’ time,” said Bocskai, “and he is eager to make you his wife.”

“As I am to become his wife,” I said. Such politeness I endured, such rituals that were meant to give a sense of romance to the occasion of a marriage in which there was likely to be none. I could almost have laughed at it, if I had not been so occupied with my own feelings, my own wishes and fears. “Thank you for coming, gentlemen,” I said. “Please give my love to my husband, and send him with all speed to my side.”

They said they would, and we settled in to watch and wait.

On the day Ferenc arrived with his retinue, his guests and companions and their servants, and took up residence in one of the opposite wings of the vár, I kept to myself. The conversation I’d had with Thurzó a few days before made me wary, so I avoided the male voices I heard in the halls, afraid that if I saw András I might forget my place and my purpose and make a spectacle that would destroy the match my mother had made for me, a match with a young man of wealth and consequence, not a poor dependent cousin without a penny to his name. Everywhere I felt an impending sense of possession, of myself as something that had been bought for Ferenc, my name and my family, my money, my future. The dressing, the dancing, the feasts and music—all was celebration, but with the appearance of gaiety more than the substance of it, a play that Ferenc and I were acting for the benefit of our families and friends.

We sat together at dinner, and when the music began, my betrothed turned to me with his face unreadable and asked if I would join him for a dance. I was surprised at the request, since it was the first time he’d ever shown much interest in me, but I agreed. He put his hand on the small of my back and led me out onto the floor, a gesture of intimacy that gave me an unexpected rush of warmth. His face was utterly calm and still and intensely focused. He was at least a head taller than me, so that when I faced forward I looked directly into the middle of his chest. As we turned around the floor I strained my eyes for András Kanizsay, my husband for only a month, and though I saw many young men of Ferenc’s acquaintance from Bécs and Pozsony—including Bocskai and our new friend Thurzó—I didn’t see András anywhere. Nor at the tournaments, the races. I began to wonder if he had not come. Perhaps he could not bear to see me wed to his cousin.

The day of the wedding came at last, hot and dry and with a heavy southerly wind, so that the flags flying from the battlements snapped and whipped like dogs worrying their tails, and the ladies had to keep tight hold of their skirts to retain their modesty. Outside the walls of the
vár
one of the fires burning on the plain got loose from its pit and set fire to the dry grass outside, surrounding the palace with smoke for a few hours until a fire brigade could be assembled to take buckets from the river to put it out, but our clothes smelled of the smoke, and the taste of smoke filled my mouth long after the fires had died out. Along the castle walls the colorful shutters thumped in the wind, lending a cacophony to the events of the day, thudding underneath the sweeter strains of music meant for the celebration like a persistent call to arms.

Before the ceremony I sent my brother as my representative to Ferenc with my gifts to him. First there were some fine clothes, including a great cloak trimmed in white ermine to wear during the cold winter months, then the small Spanish dagger that my father had treasured when he was alive. Finally István himself carried to my new husband the sword of the Báthory family hero Vitus, one of our most cherished possessions, signaling the joining of the Nádasdy line to the Báthory. All these, István said, my betrothed accepted with pleasure.

For his part, Ferenc sent to me, via Bocskai and Thurzó, a Milanese gown of yellow silk that pleased me very well, as well as a costly necklace made of fine yellow gold in a rose pattern containing a glowing red cabochon—the same jewel I had seen on his mother’s neck the first time I had met her at Ecsed. This I placed around my neck to wear with my wedding gown, to show my pleasure at his gift. Then Bocskai handed me a scroll, closed with wax and bearing the Nádasdy seal. I unwrapped the document. It was the deed to my own piece of land in northwestern Hungary, a two days’ ride from the capital at Pozsony. This scroll named me the sole owner of the Nádasdy estate at the stronghold of Csejthe, as well as the seventeen
villages surrounding the castle, to keep or dispose of at my wish. As I read the document and realized what it was I held in my hands, I felt a rush of warmth toward Ferenc Nádasdy. At the moment when all my possessions, my dowry and lands, even my very self, were to become his, the richest gift any husband could have given to his bride was a place in the world to call her own. That he recognized such a fact spoke of more feeling than I had ever before given him credit of being capable. The scroll trembled in my hands. I thanked Bocskai and Thurzó and sent them back to Ferenc to express my profound gratitude.

After I was dressed, we were joined by my brother and the male members of the family, and at the appointed hour we went out together to meet my husband. The wedding was to take place in a new hall Orsolya, before her death, had ordered built for the occasion, a wedding annex constructed over the past two years inside the cramped walls of the chateau, and in the late afternoon, when the sun was already past its zenith, I went down with my sisters and brother and a great retinue to the wedding hall. Around the keep gun salutes sounded, and musicians played sweet strains of music, and on the plains outside the walls people shouted and cheered and called the bride forth. My sisters kept the hem of my dress—a heavy Florentine silk brocade with threads of real gold—out of the dust that rose and coated everything.

Inside the pavilion the guests were assembled. Then, as we were approaching the front door, Bocskai, as best man, stepped forward to greet us on Ferenc’s behalf. Ferenc himself—almost unbearably handsome in velvet breeches the color of blood, a matching jacket with gold buttons, and soft yellow calfskin boots—stood back a little, surrounded by his friends. Among them I recognized András, the lighthearted tilt at the corners of his eyes the same as it used to be. Green-jeweled eyes, the color of jealousy. He glanced at me only once. At first I thought he was merely being prudent, keeping his feelings a secret still. But some strange expression—was it joy?—played
over the corners of his mouth as he stared at the place where my cousin Griseldis Bánffy stood blushing behind one of my elbows. Until that moment I hardly remembered she was there.

By that time little Griseldis was a thickheaded but pretty girl with her mother’s exotic coloring—long tresses the color of August wheat, pale gray eyes. A chest flat as a shield, Zsofía had joked that morning, to keep the men at bay. She had no education to speak of, but Griseldis was the sole surviving child in a family with several small but profitable holdings in the west, including a good vineyard and croplands and a small
kastély
, and I had heard the speculation among the ladies in the past few days about who would be lucky enough to secure her and her small fortune, her yellow curls and plump red mouth. Now I heard whispers and giggling behind me, the other ladies teasing young Griseldis about her betrothal to the elegant young cousin of Ferenc Nádasdy.

For a moment I felt faint and reached out to Zsofía to steady myself. My sister took my elbow and in a whisper asked if it was too hot, if the sun and the dust were in my eyes. No, I said—I only lost my balance for a moment. The little Italian shoes I wore under my gown took some practice. I stood up straight again, but Zsofía kept hold of my elbow, just in case. I could not quite make out Ferenc’s expression, if he were amused and delighted by the proceedings, or if, as usual, he endured all this fuss and ceremony with the barest of tolerance for the sake of his departed mother and all her grand ambitions for him.

Bocskai bowed, the edges of his elegant cloak touching the ground, his eyes twinkling for the bit of teasing that he was about to undertake, the good-hearted bit of fun that the bride’s party enacted to test the groom before the wedding, a long-standing tradition that both parties had anticipated with pleasure. “Welcome,” Bocskai said, hailing the assembled Báthory clan and wishing us health and happiness. “Would the bride kindly step forward to be married to this man?”

At this appointed signal, each of my ladies came forward one by
one to offer herself as a bride to Ferenc Nádasdy, bowing and smiling and making a great show of being worthy of the attention of such a great man and noble warrior, the first man of Hungary. On and on the accolades piled up. I felt ill, watching the flags on the battlements snapping so hard and fast that I thought I would be dizzy. Griseldis and some other cousins went first, then my sisters—first Klára, then Zsofía, each elegantly coiffed and dressed in golden cloth, more beautiful than I had ever seen them. At the approach of each lady, Ferenc bowed, then shook his head. “No, she is not the one,” he said, and the bridesmaid would return to her place at my side.

Soon each of my ladies had taken her turn, and then it was up to me. I stepped forward and bowed and smiled at Ferenc Nádasdy, complimented the greatness of his family name and honor, then offered myself as his bride. My eyes flicked ever so briefly to András, to see if I could find any gesture of pain on his face at this moment, but he was not looking in my direction at all. Ferenc stepped forward and raised the veil over my face. His expression was utterly unreadable—what there was of joy or hope, of amusement or anticipation, I could not tell. But then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to my cheek, and said, “Here she is, the lady of my heart.” He took me by the elbow and pulled me to his side, whispering, “Are you all right, miss? Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing is wrong,” I answered.

“Of course not. What could be wrong on such a grand occasion, the marriage of the house of Nádasdy to the house of Báthory?” There was resentment in his voice, a resentment I had felt myself until that morning, when he had given me a place in the world of my own and filled me momentarily with hope. Now Ferenc’s voice dripped like cold water from the roof of a cave. He had no more desire to be sold in marriage than I did. Perhaps he might have chosen someone else, if the decision had been left up to him. Judit, or someone like her. “I think our parents would be pleased if they could have been here to see it. Don’t you think?” he asked.

“Yes,” I whispered, keeping my voice measured, my outward demeanor as calm as possible despite the turmoil in my breast. “I think they would have been very happy for us.”

“I’m sure they would have been,” he said. “A great day for Hungary, isn’t it?” Then Ferenc took my arm and led me into the chapel before the assembled guests, the grand families of Hungary, our friends and relations. We stood before the priest and were married according to the holy rites, and Ferenc kissed me again before that grand assembly, to joyous shouts, to the stamping of feet. “Congratulations, Countess,” my new husband said in my ear. “God has now sanctioned the schemes of family and fortune. Pray he knows what he is doing.”

For the first ten years of our marriage Ferenc and I would rarely see each other, so involved was he in the wars across Europe, intent on making himself a great hero and soldier the way his father had been a great statesman. There were plenty of troubles with which he could distinguish himself. The election of my uncle István as the new king of Poland raised tensions between the Habsburg Maximilian and our family, since my uncle believed Poland was Hungary’s strongest ally and best hope against the schemes of the sultan in Constantinople, the king in Bécs. My uncle’s plans for a Hungary united with Poland against both the Turks and Austria excited many of the nobles of the old kingdom, dreaming of former glory. So when the previously elected Polish king, Henri of Valois, abdicated in favor of the French throne, my uncle—now married to the Polish queen—claimed the support of most of the country. The Polish primate, however, defied the will of the people and supported the Catholic
Maximilian against my uncle’s legal rights. There was threat of civil war. Ferenc—newly united to the Báthory family but still on friendly terms with Maximilian—went to the king to try to ease the tensions between those factions, taking his friends with him: István Bocskai, György Thurzó, Miklós Zrínyi, Ádám Batthyány. András Kanizsay. They left one morning before daylight, to get a good start before the weather turned, eager to distinguish themselves as their fathers had, joking and bragging who would be the greatest among them. I watched them ride out in a column from Sárvár, turning up a white cloud of dust in the darkness, my hand raised to no one in particular. All of them at once.