They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [37]
Not so young Pisti! The colt snorted, flung up his tail in a trumpet shape – just like Honeydew – and leapt into the air so that the lad was thrown up like a shooting star and fell to the ground head first.
Both these things happened so quickly that it was like a volcano erupting and the others roared with uncontrollable laughter. Though his mount too tried some tricks of her own Balint managed to canter fairly calmly over towards Gazsi. At the same time Simon Jäger galloped at full speed after the colt, who was heading for home in a panic. It was one of Simon’s great passions to catch bolting horses at full gallop. The last time he had done it had been two years before when Balint had been hunting at Zsuk and Simon had brought up his reserve mount. Whenever he was out riding he always kept a sharp eye out for a fall and then he was off, racing after the riderless mount uphill and downhill, standing upright in his stirrups, not bent forward like jockeys in a race but with his ramrod back as straight as the Hungarian hussars of old. In a second the riderless colt and his pursuer had crossed the river and vanished into the trees beyond.
‘What a bitch!’ cried Gazsi when he had caught Honeydew and remounted. ‘Didn’t she just thr-r-row me again, the horr-r-rible mare!’ But he wasn’t angry; it was all a joke to him, and Balint, looking at the mare with her flattened ears, her mouth drawn back and, in her eyes a wicked-looking twinkle, fancied that it was the same for Honeydew.
The second trial never took place as one of the chef participants had bolted, and so Gazsi and Balint started for home. They turned into the park towards the island of trees called Nagyberek – the Big Wood, and Balint said, ‘Let’s follow the trail through the woods and maybe we’ll get close to the deer. Those fallow stags are completely reckless when in rut, far more so than the red deer. They’re restless as anything and stay out of covert for far longer.’ Then they sent the remaining lad home and the two of them turned into the thick undergrowth.
Now there was hardly a trace left of the morning mists. The sun shone brightly through the tangled mesh of hops and other wild vines, picking up the autumn yellow of the summer’s hemlock stalks and making the dark web of the bishop’s cap creepers look as if it were a grille that protected passers-by from the flames that seemed to shine from the dry grass behind. Here the filtered sunlight picked up the strange contorted bark of a centuries-old tree and the red glow of another, and everywhere there were bright patches interspersed by dark blue strips of shadow. Where there was light it was blinding, and nothing seemed solid and three-dimensional, for the crowns of the giant trees around them cast their shadow at random until even the outlines of the bushes that formed the undergrowth were blurred and insubstantial.
It was still a dream forest, though quite different from what it had been in the thick mist of early morning. Here and there berries gleamed bright red against orange-coloured leaves, the lemon yellow of the maples was mingled with the bronze of the native oaks and everywhere were clutches of tiny berries that shone like black diamonds. There were so many that they might have been floating freely in the air. Sometimes the two riders found themselves crossing small clearings, now vividly green, before plunging once more into the lush jungle-like thickets.
From time to time they reined in the horses and stopped to listen. All around them they could sense an unrest that seemed almost to vibrate. It was a feeling rather than anything they could hear. Sometimes there was a faint sound as of a dry twig being snapped underfoot, though they might have imagined it. And sometimes they heard again that deep rumbling call, though they could not tell from which direction it came. Was it in front of them – or behind – or was that too only in their imagination?
The horses too were fully alert, their nostrils flaring wide and