The Countess (9 page)

Tamás Nádasdy would not live to see my marriage to his son. Indeed, when I arrived at Sárvár my husband-to-be had been ten years without his father, and his mother, like so many other widowed noblewomen, had sent her son to live at the court of the king, in Bécs, to finish his education. She had asked for me to come to Sárvár so that I might be her pet in her loneliness, though I knew none of that at the time. On the drive to Sárvár I had only time to resent Orsolya’s sudden decision to fetch me to her, her son’s need for a bride of Báthory blood, my own mother selling me off like a prize mare without any thought of what I wanted in a husband. Was Ferenc a handsome boy, I wondered, or a copy of his froggy-faced cousin, who was by then asking a number of questions about my religious upbringing, how often I prayed, and how. I suppose Megyery was trying to make
certain I was a good Protestant and not some papist saboteur in disguise, or else he meant to turn me from my mother’s cherished John Calvin to the teachings of Luther. I answered his questions but grew tired of his prodding, and after a few days of questions I did not engage in conversation beyond what I must answer to be polite, instead sitting and pretending to listen as he told me again and again of the goodness of the mistress of Sárvár, her simple beauty, her elegant taste.

When we came in sight of the estate at last, it was near dark, and the driver and the horses were exhausted from making the last push across the countryside so that we would not have to stop for the night. We were more than five days late arriving as it was, and Megyery had been growing increasingly anxious and irritable in the last week, lashing the driver or the captain of the guard with his sharp tongue whenever the weather or the roads or the need to change the horses held up our journey. I began to feel sorry for them. It seemed I was not the only person who had to endure the temper of the countess’s stern and ambitious cousin.

It had rained most of the way to Sárvár, so of course on the day we arrived it was hot and dry, and the carriage and everything inside it was covered with a thick layer of light-brown dust that clung to my hair, my eyelashes, to every droplet of sweat on my skin and every thread on my dress. A mile outside of town, with the Nádasdy house in sight at last—a white star situated in a sunny bend in the river—Megyery made the driver stop and had Anna Darvulia take me out into the woods near the river, far from the eyes of the laughing soldiers, where she and a few ladies stripped me to my chemise and beat my clothes with their hands or dashed them against the trunks, raising clouds of dust thick as flies. Then they unbound my hair and shook it out, brushing the dust from me and rebinding the tresses again so tight that my eyes watered. Darvulia clothed me in the dress Megyery had chosen for me, a gown of dark-brown velvet like the softest mink and embroidered with elaborate white scrolls and rosettes, as well as a stiff lace ruff for around my neck. A wedding gown, because I was arriving
as a bride. That night would be the first time my future husband would look upon me, and apparently he must not be disappointed.

Darvulia undressed in front of me and cleaned the dust off herself as well, bending over at the waist and shaking out her tangled black hair. Naked, she seemed far younger than I had taken her for at first. Like an ancient fairy under a bad spell, she threw off the appearance of age and poverty and exposed the delicate line of her back, the firm clear skin along her thighs. I asked her why she was changing her clothing. It seemed like a lot of bother to try to look like dewy maidens fresh from the bath after so many weeks on the road. She answered only, “My mistress does not like her guests to arrive covered in road dirt. She finds it disrespectful.” I had fewer and fewer hopes of Orsolya Kanizsay all the time.

Darvulia dressed herself quickly, making herself again appear older and coarser than she really was, and then she urged me ahead of her on the path back toward the carriage. I sweated and oozed underneath the fabric—it was a winter dress, after all, and we were in high summer. But Megyery had insisted. Underneath the wide white ruff, which blocked my view of the uneven forest floor, it was all I could do to keep on my feet as I picked my way through the branches and undergrowth.

When we returned, the driver had curried the horses and wiped the walls of the carriage, opening the thick canvas curtains and beating the dust out of the velvet cushions so that they were red again instead of dun. We got in and started the last part of our grueling journey looking as fresh as if we’d been on the road no time at all.

The manor was built in the middle of an island, with a long wooden bridge connecting it to the town on the other side. As we came closer the smell of the murky black water in the moat assaulted my nose. Inside was the house itself, surrounding an inner courtyard of well-kept grass and a single bushy yew tree, dark green and pruned to within an inch of its life. The clatter of the horses’ hooves when we turned from the dirt road to the wooden bridge startled the team, and when I poked my head out of the window to look, Megyery
pulled again at my shoulder and turned me around. “The countess will not like it if you gape so,” he said.

Our entourage pulled into the courtyard with a great deal of noise and ceremony, servants running out to greet us and shouting that we had arrived at last. Megyery stood and left the carriage, hissing that I was to remain seated until Countess Nádasdy herself came out to receive me. After so many days inside the carriage with only Megyery and Darvulia for company, I was actually glad to have arrived. I longed to stretch my legs, to run up and down the open expanse of the courtyard, to breathe a bit of fresh air, but I stayed where I was in my heavy lace-and-velvet finery, determined not to disgrace the Báthory name in this most important final moment of my journey.

The sun was going down, and the shadows in the courtyard lengthened and then dissolved as the sun dropped behind the roof of the house and tinged the sky with pink streaks and orange rosettes of cloud. All along the inner courtyard servants stopped to watch the carriage, to wait. They were shadowy figures in the growing dusk, dark and huddled as nuns in a cloister, and I could see a few young girls with their heads together, whispering and giggling in my direction. A sudden heat flooded the back of my throat, though there was nothing to be done—I would be the lady of this house someday, perhaps, but for now I was nothing more than a stranger, with no authority over even the lowest of servants. I had to endure their laughter for the moment.

Then silence settled over the courtyard, interrupted only by the satisfied rustlings of the doves in the dovecote as they settled down for the night, the twittering call and answer of a pair of swallows in the eaves. Soon Orsolya came out to greet me. She was dressed, as before, in widow’s black, her silvered hair plainly done, even severe, pulling back at the sides of her face until her eyes had narrowed to little slits, and as before she was heavily made up with cosmetics, white and red. In place of the large jewel I had remembered from our first meeting she wore a small gold crucifix on a delicate chain, and
she crossed her hands in front of her, just so, which gave her walk a prim, mincing kind of gait. She was nothing like my own mother had been before her widowhood, so vibrant and easygoing, an educated woman secure in herself and in her place in society. My mother-in-law, I could see clearly, was a pinched and unhappy woman, vain of a beauty that had left her long ago. Immediately my cheerful mood vanished.

Orsolya was followed by a young man with a fine jaw and a half-bored, half-amused look playing around the corners of his eyes, a young man whose expression echoed the very one I felt lurking beneath the stiff smile and calm demeanor I had arranged for the meeting of my future husband and his family. He was about sixteen or seventeen, my brother István’s age, taller than his mother by a full head and shoulders, dressed in a kind of plain costume of a velvet waistcoat, white shirt, and dark leather breeches with lighter patches at the knees where some dirt had recently, and hastily, been brushed away. He also wore a sword at his waist that he tipped away from him as he walked to avoid tangling it in his legs, and I could not help but notice he had the bearing of a soldier, a young man used to the horse and the practice field. He was mannerly and polite, at least, standing back a little to let his mother go first, as a dutiful son ought. He looked up at the servants standing on the ramparts and motioned with his hand that they should keep their voices down. The girls hushed when he bade them, quieting their voices so rapidly that the only word I could think of was
reverent
. A reverent silence. Oh, he was much admired by the girls of Sárvár, my future husband—I could tell already.

Finally they stood before the carriage to await me—my future mother-in-law, my husband-to-be. Megyery bowed deeply and announced that, as promised, he had brought Count Nádasdy’s bride home from Ecsed. It all felt a bit formal and overdone as I waited for them to summon me, an eleven-year-old girl with a sore backside and bitten-down nails.

Megyery opened the carriage door. I took a moment to position
myself, since the leaving of carriages can make even the most graceful women look like beheaded chickens flapping in a barnyard. I would have to stoop to keep from banging my forehead on the roof of the carriage and hold up my elaborate dress, all while holding on to the side of the carriage to avoid tumbling out and landing at my new husband’s feet. It was a feat I had performed many times back home at Ecsed, but never with so much finery fastened to my body, nor in so much heat. The heavy gown Darvulia had placed on me made me so hot that I nearly swooned, the world going gray for a moment as I ducked my head to leave the carriage. I was about to fall forward onto the dirt and grass below when the boy rushed forward to catch me around the waist, Megyery and the countess exclaiming and huddling around us. We stood there for a moment until I got my feet under me, the boy embarrassed at the attention of the ladies, me embarrassed and angered at my clumsiness, at being dressed up in such a ridiculous fashion. On the inner walls I could hear the servants giggling again behind their hands.

“Are you all right?” the young man asked, and I pulled myself from his grip and stood up straight.

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You are quite welcome,” he said, bowing to me a little more deeply than I would have thought for a son of a palatine. I wondered what he meant by it, if it was some kind of comment on his part. A joke, perhaps.

Orsolya walked forward to receive me properly, pulling me in for a stiff and awkward embrace. “Welcome to Sárvár, and to the house of Nádasdy, my dear,” she said. I cringed at her use of “my dear”—it had been what my father had called my mother when he was still alive, and I could not hear it without hearing the sad echo of his voice—but Orsolya seemed not to notice. “This,” she said, inclining her head toward the young man who had kept me from tumbling into the dirt, “is our cousin, András Kanizsay.”

It took me a moment to realize what she had said, that the young man at her side was not, in fact, my future husband, but merely
another cousin attached to the household. A soldier or a servant, perhaps, but not the man whom I was expected to marry. “You are not Ferenc Nádasdy?” I asked.

Orsolya looked dismayed. “No, of course not,” she said. “Ferenc is still in Bécs, at his studies. He won’t be home until his vacation, in the winter. Megyery should have told you as much on your journey.” She looked to the steward, who frowned at me and blushed a deeper red.

It was the first of many times in my life I would have to mask my surprise, but I felt I did the job tolerably, arranging my face in a stiff and formal version of a smile and introducing myself with as much dignity as I had left. “I’m so glad to meet you,” I said, turning all of my attention to my mother-in-law. “Thank you for welcoming me into your home, and into your family.”

To the other side of me, I could see Imre Megyery scowling, still smarting over the countess’s reproach, perhaps. He did tell me Ferenc was studying in Bécs, of course—I hadn’t been paying attention. Then I turned to András. “And you as well, cousin,” I said, trying on the word for warmth. “Thank you again for your help.”

He touched his hand to his brow, and that amused expression crept again into his eyes. I was immediately sorry that I had been so warm to him, since clearly he was beneath my attention, only a servant in the house, and one inclined to tease. To him I was nothing more than a child, and a spoiled and clumsy one at that. “Welcome to Sárvár, cousin,” he said.

The sun was going down. Orsolya hooked her arm through mine as if we were sisters and led me into the house, that same mincing gait she had used earlier nearly making me stumble to maintain my pace. “You must be exhausted after such a long journey,” she said. “We have your room prepared, and some supper. Do you care for venison? It is very fresh and will be good for growing girls who wish to be mothers.” To me this declaration was embarrassing, to say the least, but Orsolya didn’t seem to notice, and once more I had to gain control of my countenance.

The house was smaller than the one in Ecsed and felt more unprotected without the sweep of the marsh around it, but inside the rooms were large and airy, the floors freshly scrubbed and gleaming. The furniture was polished wood, carved and ornate, with warm rugs on the walls and gilded candelabra on every table. In one room we passed a large portrait of a young boy of eight or nine, dressed all in black, tunic and breeches and cape thrown over one shoulder. He had a long, straight nose over a red mouth pursed and sensual, a serious, almost brooding expression in his black eyes. Orsolya stopped when she saw me looking at it. “That is Ferenc,” she said. “Do you like it? I had it painted after his father’s death. I sometimes thinks he looks a little sad.”

“Perhaps a little,” I said. It was hard for me to connect the unhappy child in the picture with a husband, a man who would love me as my father had loved my mother.

I turned to look outside, but in the darkness outside I could see little but the dim shape of the carriage that had borne me across Hungary, the occasional candle of a servant girl making her way across the courtyard. My mother-in-law’s arm pulled insistently on my own, her voice prattling in my ear about the supper, my room. What kind of linens did I prefer, and did I have a favorite kind of sweet that I wanted, and what did I think of the countryside around Sárvár, wasn’t it beautiful? She asked question after question while I wished, longed to be left to myself, to have a moment’s peace in which to reflect on everything I had seen and heard already.