Let the attention you have given these events return once more to the battle, to that moment when Mikoláš and his men attacked a detachment of the captain’s forces. You will recall that Count Kristian and Lazar were both taken prisoner at the same time. Well, what became of them? Esteemed gentlemen, both old men trotted away alongside the horses, each with a rope around his neck. The brigands took no notice of the rope growing taut as they hurried toward their destination. God help these miserable old codgers! No one took any pity on them. And yet! Mikoláš looked back and saw them covered in mud and snow (for they had fallen like children still learning to walk). He ordered their bonds cut.
"Tell me your name," he demanded of Count Kristian.
The count answered, investing his voice with all his hopes. At that moment the brigand thought back to the night he endured in fetters. A chain of prisoners appeared before him, young Kristian and Marketa Lazarová. He felt as happy as a fisherman whose net is full. He was happy that the tables had turned, that between his stallions he had men in tow who were expected. He was returning like a man bearing gifts. He was happy, and he turned Lazar’s head to him, repeating Marketa’s name. Lazar was close to tears. "Give them horses," the stunned bandit said at last, "give them horses, to cheer them up, give them something to eat, give them everything their hearts desire!"
Oh, you mad fool, what have you got in your sack? Nothing but a gnawed bone! Magnanimity makes you feel rich, and a sense of justice broadens your brow. You simpleton, your display exasperates the reader who knows the hearts of men.
I hear tell of certain sea creatures that color the water around them in such a way that after a moment’s time it is blue, or pink, or brown. Coloring the sea! Coloring time! What do you mean? Does not the spirit tinge the deeds of man? Where does one find truth in all its purity?
The confidence with which I began my tale is waning, and I truly no longer know whether I should nod my approval of the brigands’ merriment, as Lazar was weeping. Someone dying in a fight does not leave you misty-eyed, the sweet tears that mistresses shed for their virginity move you not at all — yet the lamentations of old men? Is this not also your cause? Haven’t your own hopes been dashed just like those of Lazar?
A poet whom I now invoke once again said that many of us resemble a band of straw that retains the form and shape of a circle, as if it were still encircling a sheaf no longer there.
I know not how the matter will suit the taste of a defeatist, nor how to ingratiate myself with those kitchen philosophers, but I am sticking by Mikoláš; I’m sticking by this truculent fellow, that I may feel the marvelous pulse beating beneath his skin. More’s the pity, a hundred times over, for all the other wretches, yet this tale has taken a liking to Mikoláš, cruel brute though he be.
When the brigands were near the camp, they dismounted their horses and walked up the steep slope. Kozlík’s guard had already spotted them. The clamoring of the rebels was already audible. The count listened, and discerning the joyfulness in these voices, felt his hope return. He picked up the pace a little and caught up with Lazar, who unlike his fellow father was tentative. The brigands’ din oppressed the poor man; he was truly fearful that things would end badly for Marketa. Dear gentlemen, I have not the least inkling how a thief can be horrified by thievery and a murderer by murder. Although Lazar was a thief – Lord knows how many ducats he had filched and how many girls he had lain with in his youth – with all his heart he now called upon Jesus Christ and invoked the king’s laws. Whatever kind of man you take him to be, you have already heard him speak. Now it is Count Kristian’s turn. Let him rise and say his piece to both his son and the brigands.
"My son," he said, mastering his pain, "I find you in a sinister place as a creature of hell. I find you unharmed and without bonds. Do my eyes and ears deceive me? Is that you? Some trollop rests on your shoulder and was just kissing you."
The young count replied in such way that we easily recognize in his answer the innocence of youthful love and carnal knowledge. "Dear Papa, you are mistaken!" said Kristian, "this is none other than Alexandra! She is my wife." How lightly we contract a marriage when we are all of nineteen.
Would you like to hear what the old gentleman had to say to that? Naturally, he scolded, he disowned his son good and proper. I see his shoulders tremble, convulsed with rage and the fatuity of old men. What would you expect, since the world needs neither his prudence nor his anger. Alexandra happened to be with child. Do not confuse the things of life with the pandemonium of sin, do not terrorize the lovers! Look, Kristian does not know what to say, he is ashamed, and Alexandra is silent, silent and waiting to see what will happen next. She suppresses her pride and hears the rapid step of rage drawing closer and closer. Should her young paramour make the least little miscalculation and the old man raise his arm the least little bit, Alexandra’s cudgel will fall upon their heads. Believe me, the blow would crush them, for Alexandra is a bandit girl and deft with the weapons of her kind.
It is a delight to see her try to grasp the meaning of this foreign tongue, a delight to see the blood rush to her face, a delight to see her arm, shoulder, and wrist. She is ready.
At that moment Kozlík and Lazar had just finished their discussion, and now Kozlík wanted to interrogate Count Kristian, summoning the bishop’s lackey as well.
"Tell him in your language that I want the count to answer why he is in the company of the captain’s troops."
Hoping to hear the count give a valid excuse, Alexandra suspended her vengeance. Everyone listened, and the three Germans talked in turn among themselves. And now the manservant spoke:
"My lord, Count Kristian comes with a royal letter. The king has decreed that the captains and the towns and the people of the villages and everyone who is obliged to obey him place themselves at the count’s service. He is looking for his son. He has been looking for him for a long time and then found him right here in your midst. He will not make any answer to you until you release him."
"The king," said Kozlík once again, "is the master of us all, but war is the master of kings. War is the judge of my quarrel. Have you seen the bailiff looking for me with a summons, or soldiers? Do not be prouder than is fitting for a captive. I will first smash the regiment and then parley with the king’s envoys outside of Boleslav. I might be defeated and killed, not one of us knows what fate has in store. The victor’s justice shall prevail, so tear up your letter and release it to the wind. There’s a war on, I say, and I have no scribe."
Alexandra let the cudgel slip from her hand, letting it lie where it fell. She was confident that her kinsman Kozlík would not give in and would keep his daughter from misfortune and disgrace.
Through his servant the count asked once more what the lord intended to do with the emperor’s subject, and Kozlík answered him through the same intermediary:
"The king rules the country as far as the border. In this forest, which is mine, you may well hear his trumpets, but what is the emperor to me? Nothing! I will not obey!"
Count Kristian was a highly temperamental man and, more than other men, notoriously arrogant. He flew into a rage, and his rage hurled him at Kozlík as hunger hurls us at stores of grain. He spoke in a muddle, and it is truly unseemly for us to listen to what he said.
Yet now came the moment for Alexandra’s beloved. Pricked by the spur of his father’s ire, he wished to say something, but the manservant was reluctant to repeat his request. So what did he do? He kissed his mistress on the mouth, picked up a sword, and stood by Kozlík’s side. He was one with the brigands.
They bound the old count’s arms. He stood near his son, who was passing his weapon from right hand to left and searching for a quiet word of conciliation to offer. Lazar and Marketa Lazarová were in view. See the lugubrious scene, see the sinful daughter and the father who curses her.
Our spirit is so easily duped. I recognize the growing friendship between the two old men, but is it not an illusion that they have been wronged? Did they really deserve any better? Ah, what do we know, yet there is no question that one was a hypocrite and the other a tiresome pedant.
Shortly after these discussions, and not long after Lazar had left, Kozlík’s sentries saw the troops approaching. At once the brigands forgot about the prisoners, and with shouting and much alacrity they made ready for battle. Their hearts burned with zeal. They could see cavalry, the royal infantry forming ranks at the foot of the hill, and heard the sound of the herald’s horn.
The rebels clutched their weapons more tightly, longbow to breast, sword to cheek. A fury’s breath clouded the knights’ visors, and I could have written with my finger on their armor. Listen, an archer plucks the bowstring, it sounds like a midge from your dreams, like the pending tumble of dice revolving round their own axes in the casinos. Go for it already, fling yourselves at one another.
Now the tale returns to what has been told before.
All that happens now has already happened.
The noble Pivo approached the hill and unsheathed his sword, the sword of the king. The heart of old Count Kristian expanded. Look at that fine infantry with him. Their bellies exhale in cadence with their chests, like the bellies of millers and those of other worthy guilds. Their pockets are lined well, and sweat bands their collars. They are as dashing as the innkeeper from St. Apollinaris. Such are the military folk of whom the count has grown fond. Such are the folk who bear hope in their craw, just as birds bear grain.
Oh, you potbellies, you fat sacks of cries and snores, how adorable you are! What guardians of the law!
Count Kristian could not restrain a smile when he saw the foot of the hill covered with the work of such good fellows as these, and again he wished that the Lord God would grant them victory and inspire in them a strength that nothing could best. Now that’s a capital jest! The brigands captured me and within the hour they themselves will be taken captive by the captain’s men. Firmly does God wield His mighty scepter, and well does He rule over His counts! I see Pivo attacking. I see that the urchin who bound my hands has been killed. (Recall, gentlemen, that it was Simon.) I see his jumbled innards steaming. I see a triple tumbling of men and the whistling of the soldiers’ swords pummeling their heads. I see a skinny tyke crashing down the hill into the middle of the troops. The child stands erect like a contemptible insect and waves a dagger. Trample her with your horse. Finish off this house of witches and crested lunatics!
At this moment the head of nine-year-old Drahomíra falls.
Count Kristian momentarily sank into silence, and when he turned around he saw his son, drawing a bow but releasing no arrows. It is my lot to tell of things that hardly seem believable. Yet let us respect the truth. The archer was weeping. As tears streamed down his face, Alexandra turned away, and maybe more out of fear than disdain. He seemed to her afflicted by a delirium of sorrow that leaps from one person to the next. Just a short time before, she had seen Marketa Lazarová gazing with a sweet smile upon the blood-drenched snow. Alexandra crossed herself and, taking up a sword in both hands, ran headlong into the melee of soldiers. She killed a goodly number during the battle.
"Good God," said the old count, "you want that hellcat for a wife? If I had my hands free, I would drive a spear down her throat."
Saying nothing, Kristian opened his fist and released the arrows. One alone pierced the snow, the rest rolled over the ground. Kristian trampled them with his foot and truly they were no longer of any use.
Now his father spoke to him as one grown man to another. He sang him the praises of the Saxon land and the castles of Saxony. Word upon word revealed to him his father’s love and the maidens who live in silence.
"You wretched boy," he said, "take possession of your birthright and do not let me die in terror."
Well, your son heeded you and did your bidding. The battle raged with renewed vigor, and so the counts had a moment’s respite. Count Kristian’s bonds were cut, but the old man wanted the rope twined around his wrists to remain intact. What if he were to attract the brigands’ attention? The thing was done, but its architect was running away and did not wish to come back. The young count seized a bow and arrow that death, lying in wait for one of the royal soldiers, had set aside for him. Now he loosed his shot. See the trickle of blood, see the wonderstruck eye and the body fall. The following day, in an infinitely distressing examination of his deeds, Kristian would recall this moment and cry out in anguish. Wish him some solace, as he is rather miserable for one so young.
The battle was drawing to a close. Lady Kateřina saw that the time had come to remove the most indispensable items from the trove, and she quickly did so. The women bound up their infants in their mantles and in netting. They straddled the horses, and Kozlík showed them the way to take. The steepest slope of the hill was beyond the field of battle. Look, the trail of salvation, guarded by two rows of men. Two rows! They are no more than six men in all. Alexandra obeyed, and Marketa obeyed, yet Kristian took no action. His father had grabbed a sword and now made no pretense of being fettered. He held his dear son back, shouting and waving the brigand’s weapon, while Alexandra urged her beloved to make haste, and the doddering old man lifted his arm to slay her. The girl was quicker, and she struck the count with her cudgel right in the chest. Count Kristian fell, and the lovers fled.
Dear God, what a woeful business to count up the dead! They terrified Alexandra’s little stallion, which vaulted ahead distressed. Three brothers lay facing the sky, ah, a likeness thrice repeated, three cleft chins, three magnificent noses easily recognized. Who would not feel sorry for them? Kristian! The headstrong count who was regaining consciousness.
One of the last to go down the hill was Mikoláš, whose horse, falling on its backside, left a dizzying trail of hoofprints. A hellish escarpment, but at its foot was a place more terrifying still. At the bottom loomed a blackened pool of fresh blood, and beside it the dead body of a child with limbs in disarray. Mikoláš rode past, God be with her!
And so it happened that young Count Kristian leapt to the ground before Alexandra’s horse reached the edge.
Alas, it was too late for Alexandra to stop, for at that moment she felt the whoosh of space and the frost as it raced along her spine to her brain. She felt the vertigo of the fall, the impact and the slide, from which she came out of as if from a swoon.
What ardor and verve in this flight, what determination! After a few leaps, when the horse was once again on level ground, Alexandra realized that Kristian had turned back.
Do you suppose a mighty emotion would consume the strength of the girl’s heart, do you fear she might be out of breath? No – she rode onward. Though filled with grief, she was a daughter of Kozlík, and she felt nothing but rage, and thoughts of revenge inflamed her imagination already so grotesque. Ah, Kristian’s scathed likeness will be expunged from this heart.
The amazon beat her stumbling horse; she beat her horse and goaded it to run even faster. How much happier was she than her beloved! Who would comfort him, who would give him a word of encouragement? Once more I sense that bowed head of his deep in thought, but I would not hesitate to disperse his clustered doubts, along with the brigands I would not hesitate to give him a couple of kicks in his pensive ass. Betray his mistress! You very well deserve it, my good count!
Yet leave him be to sit on the stones and suck on his fingers.