They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [26]
Just before he reached the village of Also-Bukkos he noticed a man on a horse just turning onto the main road from a track that led from a nearby valley. It was Gazsi Kadacsay whose own property was not far away. Balint was astonished to see him for Gazsi had never been known to miss a day’s hunting and the season at Zsuk had already begun. He braked and called out:
‘Servus, Gazsi – greetings! What are you doing at home at this time? Surely the hunt can’t do without you?’
Gazsi cantered up to the car, and when he spoke it was with unusual seriousness, quite different from his habitual joking manner.
‘That’s just a lot of nonsense, my fr-r-riend. They can do very well without me.’
Then he went on hurriedly as if wanting to change the subject.
‘Are you on your way to Denestornya? If you are going to be there a little while I’ll r-r-ride over to see you. There’s something I’d like to talk over with you.’
‘Come whenever you like, my mother is always pleased to see you … and me too, I want your advice on which horses to take to Zsuk this year.’
‘Hor-r-rses! Of course, always hor-r-rses!’ Gazsi spoke bitterly, and smiled in a strange manner bending his head sideways so that his long nose once more resembled the beak of some disconsolate bird of prey. ‘But I can’t come right away as I must go to my sister’s at Szilagy for some family business. Can I come in four or five days? It won’t be too far ahead?’
‘Of course not, I’ll expect you.’
They exchanged a few more words and then Kadacsay, calling out ‘Servus!’‚ turned his old saddle-horse away and moved slowly off.
Balint drove on wondering at the change in his old friend and fancying that maybe he had some money troubles which would explain why he had seemed so gloomy. A few moments later he had forgotten all about it for he himself was so filled with joy and happiness that the possible troubles of other people could not touch him.
Roza Abady sat on a little bench in the great horseshoe-shaped court in front of the stables at Denestornya. Five colts had been selected as the best of that year’s products and it was now, in autumn, that she always decided which should be paired off to go into harness and which would be reserved for riding. All the horses would soon go into winter quarters but whereas the saddle horses would wait until the spring before their training began, Countess Abady believed in starting to teach the future carriage horses as early as possible when they would be at their most responsive. She knew that no harm would come to them if their first lessons were sufficiently light and steady and no weight was put on their backs. On the other hand it was important to build up the tendons and leg muscles by carefully controlled road work.
At her right stood Simon Jäger, the chief stable lad. He was a short man of about fifty who stood very straight as if he were sitting a horse, his bowed legs slightly apart. He had served in the hussars some thirty years before and he still wore a short pointed waxed moustache. His cheeks were smooth and red and, though he came of peasant stock, his feet were unusually small. He was the owner of his own land, an estate of some twenty acres, but he still took pride in working for Countess Roza at Denestornya – ‘at Court’ as the local people would say among themselves – not only because it gave him much prestige in the village but also because he loved doing it. His father and grandfather had done the same before him, and his great-grandfather had been Head Keeper to that Abady who had been Governor of Transylvania. And that is how he had acquired his name, as Jäger was the German word for a sporting estate’s professional keeper. And so it had been passed from father to son at a time when many peasant families did not use surnames.
On the left of the countess was Gergely Szakacs (whose name meant ‘cook’) who had been chief stable lad before Simon,