The bishop’s servants were racing hell for leather, and the devil knew where. They questioned the peasants, they questioned the merchants, yet no one had seen a rider who resembled Kristian. The horsemen began to have doubts and slowed their trot. It looked as if the young count had left the road and they would not be overtaking him.
What should we do?" asked the one in charge, "our quarry is over the mountains, and Reiner is somewhere in the dust. Maybe that scoundrel caught up with the count, or maybe he’s betrayed us? However things stand, I suspect we’re risking our necks. In the villages the talk is of the king’s forces, I tell you, the jig is up for the brigands! I wouldn’t want to run across the soldiers, for what are we if not highwaymen? By all the saints! I’ve seen many a gallows in the towns of Bohemia, and I want nothing to do with their justice! Better to be flogged by the bishop than executed by the king. I would say nothing at all if our mission took only three days, but to go poking around for a whole week in a foreign land? Won’t making inquiries draw attention to ourselves? We might just as well be sticking our own heads in the noose. For the love of God, let us go back to the bishop and tell him the king’s men chased us hither and thither and that we barely escaped with our lives.”
Where is the loyalty in such wastrels? The fellows rode back at a brisk pace, but near Hanau they put their spurs to the horses and drove them till they were bathed in sweat and spattering foam.
After they arrived and the bishop heard their report, the matter came to a head. The enraged lord’s forehead momentarily quivered, and then he ordered them to saddle his horse. He rode to the home of Count Kristian. He found him sitting by the fire and conversing with his gamekeeper. The bishop noticed that the fur on the count’s tabard was shedding to the point where hairs were everywhere. The gamekeeper’s trousers were tattered. At that moment it occurred to the bishop that Kristian had more cause for thrift than mere obstinacy. This observation lent him confidence, and he began from an almost haughty position.
"My people have returned from Bohemia, Count, and they have just brought me news of your son. You know how I value our friendship, you know how despondent I was when your benevolence toward me found alteration, and so I am now doubly afraid that I have come at an awkward time. Consider, I beg you, the seriousness of the news by my apprehension, which I do not conceal from you. Your son has been taken captive in Bohemia!"
Having said this, the hypocritical bishop was moved to relate the story almost exactly as it had happened. He was remarkably prescient. He feared the young count had fallen among bad people.
Bishop, oh, Bishop! You have converted your scheme as if your only concern was that justice be served. You will have to answer for this on Judgment Day, and the Shepherd will extend your stay in purgatory by many a year for setting your malicious sights on a father paling from fear. No sooner was the conversation over and no sooner had the count thanked the bishop than the disastrous news was spread.
Count Kristian’s castle was called Freiheit, or Freedom in our tongue, and it was suddenly a bedlam. The servants led the horses out of the stables and took the saddles down from the pegs, the maidservants wailed, and Kristian’s brothers prepared for action and quickly exchanged their caps for plumed helmets. Everywhere urgency, everywhere people rushing about. In the barn the groom shouted at the varlets: Hurry up, hop to it, get moving, you sluggard! A moment later all and sundry was topsy-turvy, the scullion included.
That very day Count Kristian set out for Bohemia. He was making for Prague, and because he was in as much haste as his animals could muster, he arrived there on the fourth day. Now began the inquiries, and the affair reached the king’s ears.
The king! The king’s voice is like the clarion, and it stirs the heart. God forbid that his ire should be roused!
He gave the command, and a letter was prepared. One of the scribes conveyed it to a magnificent armiger. Meanwhile Count Kristian waited before rows of knights. See the gold of the escutcheons and the gold threads of the caparisons. Pennons glitter on towering lances, tall lances fit for hunting eagles. The sun flashes on the swords and armor. Frost and sun. Accepting the letter, Kristian departed with bowed head. Oh Kozlík, be on your guard, the king is calling for the punishment of whomever was so impertinent as to seize the young count. The regiments outside Boleslav are to be placed at Count Kristian’s disposal.
The next day the count reached those places we know so well. Pivo had withdrawn his forces from Šerpin Holt in the meantime. He was waiting for a cavalry unit to help end this pursuit without incurring disgrace. It was not difficult to find him, yet he listened with only half an ear and was not moved to speak. Face swollen from the cold, he scowled as he stared at his horse’s neck and shrugged his shoulders.
"I don’t know, I’ve heard nothing about a German count. Was he carrying merchandise? No? Well then, why do you think he was assailed by brigands? Those boys have no quarrel with Germans, money is their sole interest. They are noblemen, but they rob." The count did not know what to do. How should he proceed? Where to turn? He dismounted and walked through the soldiers’ camp, waiting perhaps for some inspiration to enlighten him. He put his trust in God, and that faith was more than sensible. He was pacing gloomily back and forth, and just as he looked up, a cloak on the back of one of Pivo’s ragged soldiers caught his eye. A cloak of a color so familiar to him, a cloak with silver thread that disappeared and reappeared with each step. The cloak of his son!
The inquiries began, and it came out that the soldier had picked it up in the courtyard at Roháček.
Count Kristian exulted, and wanted nothing more than to remain with Pivo’s regiment. He was firm in the hope that they would have those brigands’ hides and then he would be reunited with his dear child. Pivo said absolutely nothing, nothing at all.
This most excellent captain was as if in a fury at bearers of a coat of arms, and nothing got his goat more than when some count got himself underfoot his soldiers and pulled them around by their belts out of sheer joy that he was hot on the trail. Upon my soul, these nobles are in a league of their own! When in truth anyone so deserving is elevated by nothing more than his own worth and merit. Look at the captain, how dignified he is, how a bearskin would suit him! This is just the emblem for which he will petition the king when the time is right. Finally the long-awaited horsemen rode into camp. There were twenty horses and twenty greenhorns who would be hardly of any use. Pivo was in foul mood.
Let others gawp at them, the captain went off to bed. The next morning the troops infiltrated the woods. Pivo proceeded slowly. They established three posts, and the cavalry went from one to the other supporting the march of the infantry and the progress of their train. Well, they couldn’t advance empty-handed. They couldn’t expose themselves again to the savage winter and to hunger.
All this caution might very well play into the brigands’ hands. See them shadow the troops. Someone comes very close and spies on them. It is Mikoláš again. Mikoláš with his face made bright, Mikoláš with a mistress waiting for him. What’s that, a mistress? Well, it’s complicated. Thus far Marketa has been sullen, thus far she has wept. Let her weep! I detect joy in her sobbing. Poor creature, why such grief? What hope has passed her by? She had wanted to take the veil.
At times God’s grace consumes us. It has bestowed love upon Marketa, thanks for the fiery wings, thanks for the stream of breath wherein quivers her soul. Thanks and woe! Her love has the teeth of a hellhound, the fang of a dog in its lovely muzzle! I see the chasm part and a terrible claw tearing at its edge. I hear a whistling that makes the ears ring. Unfortunate girl, the devil is howling at your back. The ill-fated bride held her breath, more dead than alive, her amorous passion atremble from fear. Love and despair stood terrified within her soul, terrified like two children in a dark cellar.
Esteemed gentlemen, can you imagine Marketa’s nights? She was disgusted with herself, disgusted with her body, her sinful body, her arms and legs, her legs, her thighs that embrace her infernal paramour. She blamed her soul for being slack, she blamed her soul for sinking into lust like the sun into the sea.
It is high time you heard a little something about her character, and then judge the thing for yourself.
She dwelt at Obořiště in the house of her father, Lazar, who had an inconstant and unsteady nature. Bad examples exert too powerful an influence. It happened that when Marketa was ready to come into the world, her father was lying in ambush for the first time at a bend in the road. The devil knows whom he fleeced on that occasion, his haul of a few groschen less than the price of a sheep. But the back of one coin had been smoothed away, and in place of the king’s image were two words etched into the silver: Fear God.
People are often inclined to draw relationships between things strange and unusual and their domestic affairs. Lazar was afraid that this was a sign calling him to share a miserable fate. He was burdened with sin, and when a daughter was born to him, he pledged her to God.
It so happened that Marketa was fair and beautiful. She was the apple of Lazar’s eye. Her brothers spoke to her affectionately and kept silent about anything that might offend her. The child envisaged the convent. The hills surrounding Obořiště were striped with coppices, look, a magnificent grove rising up the slope, wending alongside the road, alongside the road of all the strolls of her past. Marketa was excused from all work. She learned to read. We do not know if she ever wept in those days. She was filled with happiness. She grew brown in the sun, and frequent fasting narrowed her cheeks. Her step was that of graceful birds, and if you had seen her, you would have said her step was free and easy. Around this grasping old man, who was more a craven slyboots than a bushwhacker, around these odious thieves, her enchantment remained unclouded. She kept everyone at a safe distance and grew up without incident, and if it happened that she actually did something or other, she bore herself in such a way that everyone could see how in absolutely nothing did she resemble her father and brothers. She was devout and of humble heart. By the dispensation of God it came about one day that Marketa was granted clarity of vision, and she then saw the miserable craft of her father.
A bitter grief overcame her then. She began to weep and was inconsolable. That day and that knowledge marked her for life. Ah, her woe was more powerful than a bull. She could not renounce her father, she could not dissolve the bond that outlasts all grievance, all renunciation, all crimes. She was a Lazar. She suppressed her racing blood, but to no avail, it surged to her heart, to her face. She prayed, and God taught her a piety that does not walk in the sun but seeks a hideaway.
Blessed art Thou, O Lord, forever and ever, for inspiring hope even at misery’s door. Like a potter, You break the soul to mold it anew. I know not Your designs, but Your justice is refracted by Your love. You shall shake Oboříště to its foundations, that my father and my brothers return to the right path. Show mercy to this unworthy maid, that she may live and die in a manner pleasing to You. Endow me, an innocent, with the strength to bear my portion of guilt. The neck of sin is stronger than the neck of a beast. Grant me the perseverance to avoid it, grant me a noble death, which would equal the weight of a single tear of a sinner, the single little tear of contrition.
Poor Marketa! Isn’t this prayer blasphemous? Do you not see how prideful the supplicant is? The unhappy child, she’s bringing about her own fall.
Well, as I've said, Marketa was that kind of girl, devout and sinful, even at her prayers. That’s the kind of girl she was and not one whit better, for, as they sing in the old carols, great are human frailties.
On that memorable day, as Count Kristian and Pivo’s forces were drawing near the brigands’ encampment, on that laceratingly cold day, Mikoláš returned from his lookout, and although his news was urgent, he nonetheless stopped at Marketa’s side to tell her that through the tree clusters he had spied Lazar and his two sons.
Marketa shuddered. My God, the thing she feared was coming to pass, the death she had implored was coming to pass.
Poor child, I see nothing in her soul to prepare her for the onslaught of her final hour. What a surprise awaits her.
The entire time she was in the camp, Marketa thought of Lazar and her brothers. She believed that no one had died after the terror of Mikoláš’s visitation, for her heart had whispered as much to her, diminishing the guilt of her lover. She was well acquainted with her father’s ways, she could easily imagine how everyone hastened away from Obořiště, how they trudged around the purlieu repeating over and over that, apart from the king and the landholders, punishment derived from God alone. She knew their craven ways and presumed they would come scurrying back when at midpoint the battle’s outcome became clear.
She paled upon hearing the news of their approach. This was the deadline she had fixed for herself, and she could delay no longer the release of her immortal soul from this body, from the pillar of flesh that quivered with her voluptuous love.
No sooner had Mikoláš left than the doleful bride seized a dagger and thrust the blade into her breast. Ah, she thinks she is dying, she thinks all her hopes are at an end, for even in the hour of death desire burns yet in this errant child.
Alas, desires all too mundane! Yet God judges the deeds of man differently than our reason and our heart understand them. Our Lord ordained that Marketa live, and what’s more, clearly displayed His will and disposition to show more mercy to wretches such as these than to the lunatics with burning knees and runny noses from spending their time in church.
It so happened that Marketa had stuck the dagger between her fifth and sixth ribs in the direction of her heart. A hair more and she would have been dead on the spot. But why dwell on danger when the young miss still breathes? No matter what frightful thing she might dream up, her health will be fine.
Seeing his mistress stained with blood, Mikoláš flung down his sword and let his horse roam free. He knelt down to the wounded girl, and a cry escaped from him that roused the entire camp. The brigands thronged around them, and the girl was unconscious. At that moment Mikoláš decided to speak, and love placed words of affection upon his tongue.
The brigands chuckled as the wound was of little consequence, and Marketa had already come to. She was now looking around for Kozlík, now reddening beneath Mikoláš’s kisses. He was kissing her on the mouth. But such a fruitless waste of time was of no use to Kozlík.
"To work, we have a job to do! Prepare for action, the king’s forces are coming ever closer!"
Kozlík intended to erect a fortification of some kind. He decided upon a hard-to-reach place in the forest where no paths led. They might use a battering ram on the gates of Roháček, but it was impossible to bring a war machine into Šerpin Holt.
Marketa was wounded, pah, this was of no concern to Kozlík, and he summoned Mikoláš.
"Mikoláš, take a fresh horse and ten riders. Go and annihilate the captain’s scouts."
The lover left Marketa on the snow without even looking back. In the meantime the bandits fortified the encampment, felling new trees, constructing abatises, digging traps, moving snow around, and sharpening spikes that would be set at the height of a horse’s gut. Marketa stood up. See how well she performs the bandits’ rite. She leaves a bloody footprint on the snow. Blood dripping from her wound, behold the stained virgin! Does she weep? Yes, she weeps!
Devil take it! Let us dispel once and for all any doubt about her innocence. She is Mikoláš’s slut, who sucks passionately at his shoulder, bruises his throat, writhes in mad desire on the snow. What’s the point, though once a placid virgin, the situation has been different for some time already. She has become a more splendid lover than even rumor has it, for the purple cloak in which love robes its mistresses was lined with spurned azure. This is not without significance, this is not without an elegiac beauty.
In our day, amorous passions are enfeebled. Sobs fill our throat, we howl and bay with lust, bite one another, and what of this impulse tomorrow? We will tell each other that around midnight our eyes were heavy and our faces bored. Ultimately it all becomes humdrum and we sleep like statues. But Marketa? Her fear is at the very core of the thing. She is the soul of love!
The wretched girl walked through the camp looking for Alexandra. She found her by a trench that Kozlík’s rogues had excavated against the troops. Alexandra and her beloved, Kristian, were carrying brushwood. They were deliriously happy and smiling.
My good gentlemen, you must believe me when I say this change was produced by love. It is the first cause of all happiness. Speaking in the vernacular of love, they needed no other tongue. They toted brush like hirelings, but what does menial work matter to two in love? They were happy at their labors. They watched each other leave the pits to the forest, as if entering into heaven. Just then the newcomer addressed Alexandra, and she was startled. “Alexandra,” she said, "what are you doing?" She uttered a few words more, the kind spoken without excitement, she uttered something casually, as if to the wind, but not a word of complaint. What do you say to those lucky folks, so levelheaded in their devotion to love? Marketa imagined that God had given her this couple as allies, and she clung to them for all that their stories had in common. She wished to speak with them, but alas, Alexandra and Kristian were clothed in their happiness as if in suits of armor. O you creatures so unbearably happy! Marketa’s sorrow knew no end. At least a word should be said about it, at least a word. She felt a prickling on her tongue and dizziness. She lunged at death, she swooned.
Dear gentlemen, Marketa’s wound was not so completely insignificant as all that. It reached the lungs. You may feel sorry for her, but the camp took no notice, the camp was a place for mockery, and it reveled in collegial insults. It was all rush and bustle. They were quite at home in the furor, with animal appetites, in their hope of victory. See the rosettes of self-satisfied smiles within whiskered muzzles.
That very day a sudden thaw struck and the snow turned to slush, forming a vile slurry that stuck to the horses’ hooves. A rain was unleashed, indeed weather as if produced for marching through a dense forest. The wagons flounder and slide away, one horse after another falls, and the soldiers grumble. You think an attack can be mounted from sheer heart even though we be numb with cold and soaked to the bone? What is it that drives the royal regiment on?
A thirst for glory.
Well, all right then, let’s breathe a little courage into them as the drums roll and the bugle cries, as the soldiers’ wenches, hands on mouths, come to the windows, as the livid swords gleam before their master, as the buckles rattle on their fine vestures. Once they have passed through the space of the deserted town, then their brisk step and the gallop of the host of horses will surely raise a wind that makes the sash billow and the plume sway. The royal troops have no equal! It suits them to show up in castles and with heads gory, these lovers of spoils and the position of captain, for which they will undoubtably be passed over, yet they are brave, by God, when the moment demands it! Why don’t you wax about the glories of war when the regiment goes clattering through the mud in pursuit of the brigands and after eleven days, snouts frostbitten, has managed to kill no more than one of them? And spoils? Hah! Do you think that louse Kozlík lugs his treasure around with him? No way! It’s a shame to send such good-natured troops against these maniacs, you’ll see how many of these splendid fellows bite the dust, for the brigands will be fighting for their very lives, and even the wounded will defend themselves like wild boars. So who are you going to take prisoner? No point in even discussing it.
Count Kristian rode alongside Pivo and offered him encouragement. It was unspeakably annoying. Pivo, my dear fatso, understood hardly every tenth word. The soldiers are proceeding like restive goats, and he’s expected to reply respectfully. Really? He’s supposed to kowtow to some guy on a scrawny jade? He looks like any old poor relation who has managed to cajole a letter of recommendation between two flare-ups of consumption and now dares not show his face again to his esteemed uncle. Damn it all, if we’re able to catch that brat son of his he’ll thank us in a voice so cloying it would make a horse sit on its ass. He’ll earnestly invite us to Saxony and give us a spur that he says brings good luck. This fellow in all his born days has never associated with anyone the captain would have any use for, and his gratitude is just a singing rooster. The hell with him! Pivo grimaced, like a young imp who makes faces behind your back, and like a naughty child he repeated to himself: nyah-nyah-na-nyah-nyah. He shamefully flouted at the count.
They rode to the edge of a ravine, and the captain halted his troops as he didn't want them to enter the gulch, for the brigands were now nearby.
Two winds, one icy and one mild, drove two coils of clouds against one another, the entire sky was split in two, and the discord produced snow and rain. See the shadow of a downpour, streaked by a slanting ray of light, see the belly of a snowdrift, shredded by the windstorm. At that moment the wind picked up with unusual strength, the lances stirred, the soldiers stooped, the soldiers clutched at their capes and wiped their eyes, full of tears. In the fissures of cloud appeared an olive wedge of squall. It was nearly dark. People took fright, people took fright, and chaos ensued.
Oh, how truly strange the ways of the Lord. Just then Mikoláš felt something prick his shoulder, it was the devil prodding him with the bayonet of time to strike against the king.
My good gentlemen, consider what was at stake, and do not lose sight of the time or the place. The captain was afraid he might be ambushed in the clough, and ordered that the troops be divided into two detachments.
“Advance along the slopes," he told his men, "and stay vigilant, a scout has spotted horsemen at the bottom, and they are the brigands. Well friends, God will deliver them up to us. The time has come for us to crush them and trounce them down to the last man. Onward to these cutthroats!”
Pivo kept repeating these words, not for an instant did he let up in his exhortations. He seemed a prudent captain, for all the signs indicated that God’s clemency toward the brigands was at an end. The sun now began to darken, and from the chasm below where no one could see came shouting and the sound of voices. The insolent scoundrels! Mikoláš and Jan’s bastard had throttled one of the royal scouts. This incident confirmed the captain’s suspicion that Kozlík’s band was down below and that he would outflank them. He set off with the troops that had crossed over to the other side of the clough. Count Kristian remained with the first detachment. A forest wilderness was not such a rare thing in those days. So the German was not taken aback by it, his gait was that of a soldier of justice, with the king's favor, within the purview of the All-Seeing Eye that keeps watch over its children.
Oh, how often we mistake our desires for God’s purpose! And so the soldiers were attacked at the highest point, where the side of the ravine was steepest, where the space was tight, in the place called Krupy, And it was man against man there.
On the other side of the gap stood Pivo. He was shaking with rage. The wind, that frantic smuggler of lamentations, rushed across the valley. Groaning and bellowing could be heard, as if the wounded were wailing right in the captain’s ears. What a mad day! The flashing of swords obscured the men’s faces. All that was visible was Mikoláš’s pelt, as he stood on an elevated place. Count Kristian was seen falling from his horse. Kristian, and then Lazar.
The soldiers ran away, some flinging themselves down the slopes of the chasm, some seeking safety in the forest, some escaping along the edges of the ravine. Pity these troops, these good fellows who so loved their hog roasts!
It is said that a brigand should never give in either to fear or to heroism. This is a good rule, and Mikoláš’s men abided by it. They began to withdraw at just the right time.
Arriving at the scene of the skirmish, Pivo counted nine dead. One of the wounded lay between life and death, and three had been rendered incapable of further action. Those who had fallen were buried in the snow, but what about the wounded? The captain, full of rage, had one of the carts emptied and ordered that it return with its grisly human cargo to Boleslav. Who should steer the horse? They settled on a peasant whom yesterday they had forced to abandon his work and march with the soldiers against the brigands. This fine fellow was named Kulíšek. He will keep at his prayers for the entire trip. Making the sign of the cross in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, he clambered up onto the driver’s seat and cracked the whip. The cart began to move, and the wounded took up their moaning.
Unlucky Kulíšek, fear and compassion contended for his soul. He was drawn by the pain and transfixed by the horror. A hundred times over he wanted to turn around, to ask these gruesome wretches where it hurt, but some imp kept his head from turning. He felt the breath of pestilence on the back of his neck. He was frightened by the silence in his cart, and a screak coursed through his bones. He took off his cap to wipe the icy sweat from his brow. He rode bareheaded, the rain and snow blinding him, the rain running down his face, and a corpse nodded his head in the cart as it jolted along its wild roadless way.
Ah, Kulíšek, the king has made you both guard over these sleepers and coachman of the graveyard, drive slowly, that you keep from knocking the soul out of even the humblest of his soldiers.
It is said that on this journey the peasant’s hair went entirely gray. Who knows the truth of it.
Meanwhile, Pivo surveyed the scene and reckoned his losses. He was careful not to make too much of the setback before his men , but by all the saints! How was the king’s captain to conceal his bile? He cursed and swore.
In their belts and in their saddles the dead soldiers had some gold. How’s that? Do you imagine the captain consoled himself with orphaned money? He distributed part to the troops, and the remainder would go toward the celebration of Holy Mass. Now, into the saddle and after the brigands!
"That Kozlík is nothing more than a scoundrel with his pants falling down over his butt and nothing to eat."
"In that case," replied Pivo, "so much the worse for us, Cornet. Everyone will point their finger at my regiment as one that chased after ants and couldn’t even kill them. Ugh! That mangy dog has taken Count Kristian from me!"
The more senior of the troops gathered around Pivo. What to do, what to tell the king? One of the men saw Lazar being captured along with the German noble. "It was Mikoláš who yanked them from their horses," said Lazar’s son, and he cursed the brigands.
Enough! The captain had had his fill of maledictions. He bade them each fall into place and proceed with all caution. The forest grew darker and darker, and shadows flickered among the clusters of spruce. Say what you might, the soldiers’ spirits gradually lifted. The men-at-arms had been faint and were now enraged. The snow, having absorbed a goodly amount of their blood, was now finally the right color, by God, the place had looked as if someone celebrating a christening had broken a bottle of wine while dancing. Keep an eye out on both sides, let no horse neigh, let no horseshoe ring, let no buckle clink against sword hilt. Go in silence, go, you chicks of the king, and do justice to his wrath.
You can be sure that Kozlík was not idle either. Everything was in ready for his defense. The lord of the bandits had a horse killed so that a proper meal could be had prior to battle. The men glistened with grease and licked their fingers. That’s the way to eat, that’s the way to wait, glutted. That’s the way to wait, left hand in the armpit and right hand on the hilt of a sword. Snow melted, water ran down to the low places, a thaw set in, the ground like ermine and northern hare shedding their coats, and the hillocks peeped through the snow like pigmented nipples. Nothing but the coming of spring. So soon? For goodness’ sake, haven’t you heard that a tree blossomed on the day of the Nativity? Let us not lose our sense of wonder, even if we live to be a hundred.
After a winter so cruel, spring came on suddenly. The southern slope of Kozlík’s fort was already free of snow. Kozlík at once perceived the disadvantage and ordered that snow be piled on the hillside. The hill was so slippery that it was necessary for the brigands to pull the horses up using a cord of withies. The place finally reached, the snow gathered up, the stakes sharpened, the barriers hammered into place, and now that most excellent lunch was drawing to a close.
Time to interrogate the prisoners. Lazar, beard white as smoke, was brought forth. Kozlík leaned on his sword and listened.
“I am in the midst of your clan, and you listen to me like a captain. You are the lord of all who surround you, and I understand that you shall fasten a noose around my neck. Your license is cruel, in you justice finds no haven. You have razed Obořiště, my home, you have murdered my people, you have abducted Marketa and shown her no mercy. You have no fear, I cannot frighten you, although the troops that you saw above the ravine are only part of their number. They will have your head. You will go down or be hung.
"Nothing can forestall one of these misfortunes from coming to pass. Turn your thoughts to God, Kozlík, maybe He will grant you one last opportunity to be more amiable."
The brigand took a moment before he answered Lazar:
"Ah, just listen to you, Lazar, what are you going on about, you speak as if you were at home with us at Roháček. Who are you? A spook haunting the highway who bangs his cudgel against his shield to frighten some merchant with his little bundle of yarn. My sins are great. I have not heeded the Lord’s commandments, and miserable human nature has led me to commit sin. Many times anger has gotten the best of me, and later I have regretted my actions – oh, God, too readily have I reached for the sword – but never have I attacked anyone who was unarmed, nor have I lurked by the side of the highway. I have waged petty war with lords and their people, and with merchants, to whom I have shouted from every bend in the road that they defend themselves. My sins are the sins of a nobleman, my deeds have the pallor of death, some darkened by the shadow of hell and others gushing blood. My deeds shall terrify me at the Last Judgment. They will march in gloomy procession, and I will feel dread gazing upon their faces. Dread, yes, but not shame. No, never that. We waged wars and we were victorious. We waged wars against the king’s will. For more than ten years he has admonished us through his captains and other foes who have come with the sword. I replied to them as one replies to foes. I did not hear them out, and I do not obey them. My sword is no shorter than the swords of captains. At one time I might very well have presented myself before the magistrates and the king’s tribunal, but now it is war, and a war that I am winning."
Lazar burst out laughing. God knows where he found the courage to laugh at such an inappropriate moment. "You wish to wage war against the king?" he said, wheezing and choking on his words, "even now, you wretch?"
The men assembled kept their silence, awaiting Kozlík’s angry outburst. His face could be seen swelling with rage as he stood, and Lazar grew quiet. Oh, dear gentlemen, it is all over for him! Kozlík has been riled, and he knows no mercy. Dear God, how to illuminate a soul always immersed in shadow? How to render such a brutal bandit intelligible, one animated with both a touch of pride and compassion? I do not know. He is ferocious, yet at times a smile escapes for things insignificant and full of tenderness. At times he is sorry for some poor wretch to whom he has either given a gift or has ignored. Come to his aid, holy angels, I see in his barbarous face a faint sign of love, a tiny sign of grace, a mark, a freckle, a small network of crow’s feet deepened by his smiles over a bird’s nest or a puppy dog that wobbles along at its mother’s side.
Kozlík’s arm was outstretched, a gleaming blade at its end. He would have killed Lazar, but Marketa fell on his hand, just as we fall on the bridle of a horse. She did not weep, she did not sob. She was determined to die before her father. She did not supplicate, and yet she was beautiful.
Behold how the pride of the brigand’s heart is consumed and dissipates. Kozlík pauses, Kozlík dithers, as peasants do before sitting down to eat wedding cake.
Yet look at Marketa. Beneath a flood of magnificent hair writhes her sorrowful brain, a brain pecked by fear as by the beak of a bird. Fear, fear and desperation. Marketa wants to die.
Ladies and gentlemen, readers, God invests us with such a lust for life that we trust Him even in our hour of death. We surrender to the body, that divine sculpture, and act upon what our magnificent heart whispers to us. Marketa rips her garments and exposes her wound, well now, behold her breasts. See how beautiful they are! Her shoulder is like a gentle bend in the river. See the regal bearing of her head – beauty has alighted on it like an eagle!
Marketa, how worldly you are, a shred of veil is all that remains of your intention to become the bride of Christ. Weep. Kozlík is overcome, and all the men are overcome. Weep, you’ve acted like a harlot, your father looking on.
A harlot! The accursed reputation ever returns. What sculpture is more beautiful than that of sculpted limbs? Do you know of a mirror more perfect than that of wonder? Marketa, you’ve acted as young girls do. Alas, your father has become distressed, for he reckons not your seventeen years and so ardently wants to speak with you as with a child.
After a very short silence, Mikoláš stepped up to his father and said to him: "Father, you did give me Marketa Lazarová, give me Lazar as well. I did not bring him here to deliver him up to death, and I don’t want to quarrel with him."
Kozlík turned away, concealing a smile, although he did not refrain from striking the old man across the shoulder.
"You are free to go," said Mikoláš, "Marketa is my wife, and as soon as this campaign is over, I will fetch a priest to give her that reputation before both God and man. I pulled you from your horse and brought you here so that Marketa would not gripe. But why don’t you speak, why are you angry?"
Lazar was silent and did not look at his daughter.
"Go back to the captain’s troops, go anywhere you like. Take your horse and go."
Mikoláš finished speaking, and the old man burst into tears:
"I wish you were dead, dear daughter." He wept, and his weeping was like a dense cloud, a mist enshrouding him, a mist preventing him from seeing that Mikoláš was trying to summon up a kind word, that he was digging at the ground with his spur, that his sword passed from one hand to the other as if on fire.
What did Marketa do? She was ashamed of course. How she wished for an instrument of torture to cure her, how she wished for her pain to bear witness to her filial love. What would she do? She started to run after her father. At that moment the sky opened and sheets of rain came pouring down, a lowering cloud whipped by the wind galloped past. Mikoláš’s momentary indecision and blithe unease vanished, as did Kozlík’s display of tenderness. He was bellowing once again at the top of his lungs. It’s foolish to gawp at a prisoner who’s defying you, we truly bungled the interrogation, Mikoláš and I both. Kozlík turned his head to look at the retreating Lazar, ugh, he would’ve gladly set the dogs on him and sent an arrow between his shoulder blades. Lazar hurried on his way, with Marketa running alongside him.
"Stop, you! Stop!" Mikoláš called to them, and now he was blocking the way. He was speaking, but what was he spluttering so breathlessly? He was becoming angry, yet Marketa did not intend to leave with Lazar, she was not trying to escape, oh, don’t treat her so savagely. How could this lovely girl displease you so suddenly? Like a man possessed, the brigand tore at her hair. What a ridiculous spectacle! Let us make sure our tale has more gravitas! Not a word more! What do we care for a love that resorts to the fist, what do we care for the chicanery of thugs who torment their mistresses and then kiss them later as if out of their minds?
What’s that, this tale of bygone days is not to your liking? Don’t you take even a smidgen of pleasure in hearing about frosts so bitter, about men so impetuous and ladies so comely? Compared to the delightful complexities of modern literature, don’t you find this tale as smooth as a threshing floor? Don’t you find it somewhat touching, even just a little bit, even with a delay, which cannot be helped given your degree of perspicacity? Do you really believe that all great loves were perfect?
As for me, I have no trouble imagining a frolicking sage, a disconsolate angel, and a lover who canes his queen to teach her a lesson without for a moment loving her any less. All this occurs either in reality or as a fabrication that we have grown so accustomed to it has now taken root within us.
All things are subject to change, and many a color contains hues that are absolutely contrary. Yet let us be broad-minded – so slam your book and listen to more of how this tale unfolds.