THE LEAGUE
In accordance with a good old custom every festivity must close with a
banquet, so this noisy Diet was closed with a still noisier revel at
which Michael Apafi again presided, and this time with justice, for
according to the old chronicles a skin of wine was not enough for him
at a sitting.
Wine gives a peculiar fire not only to love but also to hatred. If
ladies are at table we must look out for our hearts; but when men are
together then our heads are in danger.
After the feasting, in true Transylvanian fashion the drinking was
continued standing. The entertainment took on a livelier cast and the
Prince turned to each one of the lords as they stood, holding out a
full beaker to them and challenging them to drink.
"Drink! to my health! to the welfare of the country--or to whatever
else you please!" The men were all in good spirits, quarreling with
each other good-naturedly and becoming reconciled again. One man only
who never drank, Michael Teleki, remained sober.
Beware of those who remain sober when everybody gets drunk! Teleki
went round among the lords who were drinking together on a wager and
joking, and had for some time been moving stealthily about Banfy, when
Banfy noticed him and turned toward him jestingly.
"How sad you are!" he said, with a pitying laugh; "just like a man who
has lost a palatinate."
This remark came very aptly for Teleki. With a smile out of which
gleamed a deadly dagger, he replied:
"No thanks to you! If Paul Beldi had not been present you would have
been alone with your vote. But it has happened once more, in the
presence of so influential a man as Paul Beldi we must all bow. His
words are for all the country like the amen in the prayer."
Teleki bowed with a show of deep respect as he thrust this poisoned
steel into the great lord's heart, for there was nothing could so
touch him as to have somebody considered greater than himself,
especially when it was a man who deserved it. Teleki now turned to
Beldi, drew him into the recess of a window and gently demanded speech
with him.
"I have always regarded you as a very noble-hearted man; to-day I
learned, although to my own disadvantage, to recognize you as doubly
so. The Diet knows only that you sacrificed your love for your
daughter when you voted for peace. I know besides that you sacrificed
at the same time your hatred for Banfy."
"I--I never hated Banfy!"
"I know why you have concealed this hatred. You think that your
reasons for it are not known to anybody. Oh my friend, we who are men
know well that one may pardon a dagger thrust but never a kiss!"
Beldi drew himself up and knew not how to answer this man who had
thrust the most painful sting of jealousy into his heart, broken off
the point and now left him with a smile.
At this moment Banfy came up behind him. In Banfy burned the desire to
make Beldi feel his arrogance and he sought an opportunity of coming
to blows with him. Beldi did not notice him at first and when the
Prince, by chance, reached that part of the hall at that moment and
with friendly words offered him the jewel-studded beaker in his hand,
Beldi thought that the invitation was to him alone and never once
suspecting that anybody else was reaching for the beaker, he took it
from the hand of the Prince and drained it off to his health at the
very moment that Banfy reached out his hand for it. Banfy grew purple
with rage and turning haughtily to Beldi, he said in an insulting
tone:
"Not so fast, Szekler, you might at least, since I am the general of
the country, show me sufficient respect not to take the glass from my
very lips. I would have you understand that if you continue in such
insolence we may easily come to blows."
Had Beldi been in any other state of mind he would have excused
himself for his mistake with his wonted moderation, but now the desire
had been roused within him to measure his strength. He looked at Banfy
calmly from head to foot and said with suppressed anger:
"I would have you understand, Dionysius, that I am a heavy Szekler. If
by chance I should happen to fall on you I should crush you so that
you would not again on this earth sound your horn."
"What foolishness is this?" said the Prince, coming between them. "I
am surprised at my lords. Drink now! Inter pocula non sunt seria
tractanda!"
And the Prince compelled the two great lords to approach each other
and placed the hand of the one in that of the other. Then he let the
matter rest and went on, thinking that it was only a quarrel over the
cups.
But Teleki observed that after this scene both lords left the hall,
and soon learned that they had gone away from Karlsburg suddenly, so
giving free play to the further plans of the minister. Teleki and his
faithful men remained alone with the intoxicated Prince.
"Drink, my lords, be merry!" said Apafi. "Let not a man of you leave
me! Who has gone already?"
"Beldi!" shouted several.
"Very well, the poor fellow has not seen his wife for a long time; let
him go to her. And who else?"
"Banfy!"
"Hm! He too! Why did he go?"
"He went home to reign," said Ladislaus Szekeli, scornfully; he was
one of Teleki's creatures.
"He cannot stay in a place where he feels that any one is his
superior," Nalaczy added.
"Just to please his Excellency I am sure I shall not lay down the
Prince's crown."
"That he does not need at all," Teleki rejoined. "He knows how to rule
in Transylvania without a crown. What he commands the country must
comply with, and what the country commands he pushes aside with
disdain."
"I should like to see him!" muttered Apafi, angrily.
"And yet 'tis so. We wish war, he does not, and we must yield. We wish
peace and it occurs to him to carry on war at his own expense with our
ally. The throne is ours, the country his."
"Do not say that, my lord Michael Teleki."
"Do you too speak for me, Nalaczy. What answer did he make in the
affair of Zolyomi?"
"He sent word," Nalaczy made haste to take up the conversation,--"that
if the country demanded back from him the Gyalu property for Zolyomi
he would like in exchange the Szamosujvar estate."
"What!" cried the Prince. "The estate which the country set apart for
my revenue? my own princely income?"
"So he said; and otherwise he will not consent even if Zolyomi should
set the Turk against us this very day."
"I will soon settle that with him. Not another word, my lords."
"The affront to the Prince," Teleki joined in, "your Highness may
overlook as long as it pleases you, but Banfy's conduct toward the
people, toward the nobility,--that we cannot let pass in any such way.
He has recently taken a violent course against the noble lady
Szent-Pali;--the ancestral house of the poor widow offended the house
of my great lord because it interfered with the view from his palace;
at once he ordered the poor woman's house to be appraised and pulled
down. The authorities gave her a letter of protection but my lord tore
this in two and ordered the work of destruction to go on and the home
of the poor widow's ancestors to be razed to the ground. The country
might build it up again if it chose, he said. Such a deed in ordinary
times my lord, costs the doer his head."
Apafi was silent. The flame of anger leaped into his eyes.
"But that was not all," continued Teleki; "the insult of the
individual vanishes when the fate of the country is at stake. This
great lord who knows so well how to talk about the blessings of
peace--let us see how he exerts himself for its maintenance. He takes
the sword out of our hand, closes our lips that we may not raise any
protestations because Kecskemet has been burned to ashes and its
inhabitants massacred; and then he himself assembles an army and
incites the Turks to war against the country while we are unable to
make such royal gifts as might have some effect against his schemes.
Three letters have come to us, one from the Pasha of Nagy Varad,
another from the General of the forces at Ofen and the third from the
Sultan himself, in all of which satisfaction is demanded of us for the
defeat which the Pasha of Nagy Varad suffered at the hands of Banfy,
or else an indemnity of a hundred and fifty thousand piastres. Since
it is useless to talk of satisfaction with Banfy will it please your
Highness to consider where we can raise the money demanded?"
"Nowhere!" said Apafi, furiously, breaking his glass against the
table. "I will show that I am in a position to gain satisfaction from
any man even one so mighty as Banfy."
"Then I could wish that your Highness would acquaint us with the
manner of this satisfaction, for we know that Banfy will not appear if
summoned. If we should compel him by force he has shown that he alone
is stronger than the whole country. He orders the countries to
assemble, the frontier troops to march, and we might have the same
experience that my lord Ladislaus Csaki had when Banfy seized the
official sent for his arrest and held us up to ridicule."
"What would you counsel, since you know how to give counsel in such
affairs?" Apafi asked, with annoyance.
"I know of only one remedy that will heal the evil thoroughly."
"Prescribe it. What are the means?"
"The jus ligatum."
In spite of his drunkenness Apafi shrank from this suggestion; he
threw himself into an armchair and gazed fixedly at Teleki.
"Are you not ashamed?" he mumbled in the broken sentences of the
drunken--"to propose a secret league against a free nobleman?--in
violation of the fundamental law of our country to bind yourself in
secret against him?"
"The shame does not fall on me," replied Teleki, quietly and steadily,
"it rests rather in the fact that the country has not sufficient power
to bring a rebel to justice; that in our fatherland there is a man who
can openly defy the law and deride the decisions of the Prince. When
in such a case there is no alternative except the jus ligatum, the
shame for such a state of affairs does not fall upon me but on the
Prince!"
Apafi sprang from his seat in anger and paced the room with long
strides. The lords watched him in deep silence. At length he stopped
beside Teleki and leaning on the back of his chair asked:
"How do you think the league can be brought about?" Nalaczy and
Szekeli smiled at each other; evidently the idea had impressed the
Prince. Teleki motioned to Szekeli to bring writing materials and a
roll of parchment and arranging these before him replied:
"We will draw up at once the counts of the indictment that can be
brought against Banfy; your Highness shall sign them and in secret we
will win over the nobles of the country to agree to Banfy's arrest and
to stand by the league before any legal steps are taken."
At this many of the lords present began to chew their beards
thoughtfully. Teleki noticed the movement and said pertinently:
"As I observe that nobody here has the courage to give his signature
first, I have a man all ready who alone is in a position so far as
power is concerned to oppose Banfy and when once this man has signed
all the rest will follow."
"Who is that?" asked Apafi.
"Paul Beldi," was the answer.
The Prince shook his head.
"He will not do it. He is far too honorable a man." These words spoken
in the bravery of his intoxication threw Teleki completely out of his
composure.
"Are we then planning a dishonorable action?" he demanded of the
Prince, vehemently.
"What I meant to say was that he would not voluntarily begin action
against anybody, for he is a peace-loving man."
"But I know his weak spot which you have only to touch with your
little finger to rouse him to blows and make a lion out of a lamb. I
will bring him to the point."
At this moment the door opened and to the astonishment of all the
Princess entered. This time her appearance was no chance. It was easy
to see by the excitement in her face that she knew well what had
happened. The lords grew confused and Apafi himself was so dismayed,
in spite of the irascibility incident to his drunkenness, that he
whispered to Teleki,
"Put that paper aside."
Teleki alone remained composed and instead of putting it aside spread
it out the more.
"What are my lords doing?" asked Madame Apafi; she was pale and her
bosom heaved.
"We are taking counsel," answered Teleki, firmly.
"You are taking counsel?" asked Anna, approaching nearer to the
table.
"At the same time we would put to your Grace the question, who gave
you the right to disturb us when we are making decisions about the
most important affairs of the country?" continued Teleki, in a hard
tone of voice.
"You are making decisions about the most important affairs of the
country," replied Madame Apafi, slowly repeating Teleki's words, while
she looked at him sharply; then suddenly she broke out in a resonant
voice,--"and that over your wine cups! You consult about the fate of
the country while the man at its head is intoxicated, so that you may
bring all to confusion."
Teleki sprang from his seat and turned to the Prince.
"May it please your Majesty to dismiss us? Evidently a domestic scene
is in progress."
"Anna," cried Apafi, red with shame and the glow of the wine, "leave
this hall this instant. It is our order and from this day on for a
week do not appear again before our eyes."
"Very well, Apafi. I have nothing more to say to you for you are not
in your senses. But to you, my Lord High Counsellor, who are always
sober, I have a word to say:--I raised you from the dust; I helped you
to your present position; in gratitude for this you have forced
yourself between my heart and the Prince's so that whenever I would
approach my husband I find you in my path. You have taken the sceptre
out of the Prince's hand and in its stead you have forced into his
hand the headsman's sword, so that he begins to rule by that. Now let
me tell you that if I am not allowed to get to the Prince's heart yet
I will stand in the way of the headsman's sword. Whenever it is to
fall I shall be found between the blow and the victim; and you two
choice menials,--barons--you Szekeli and you Nalaczy who cannot
yourselves tell now how you so suddenly became great lords, remember
that the wheel goes down as often as up and that the judgment which
to-day you pass against others by to-morrow may be carried out against
yourselves. And the rest of you intriguing lords, who get courage for
your timid hearts out of the wine cups, remember, and shudder at the
thought, that in the bumpers in your hands not wine, but the blood of
the innocent, foams. Shame on you all, that you give your Prince wine
that you may demand of him blood! And now, your Highness, add two
weeks more to my term of exile."
With these words the Princess quickly left the hall. The lords were
silent and dared not look at each other. Teleki rose, closed the door,
dipped his quill and said:
"Let us continue from where we left off."