In the end everyone went to sleep, and long before dawn the men from Pejkoja had disappeared back into the forest from which they came.
Abady broke camp at first light, and long before the bells of the little wooden church at Retyicel had rung their noonday peal Balint’s party had arrived at the foot of the mountain on whose lower slopes the village had been built. They rode slowly through the village until they reached the last house. This was the fortress-like building that Balint had seen from the other side of the valley on his previous visit. It stood completely isolated, well away from the others. Balint’s little caravan stopped outside a massive oak door which led into a courtyard in front of the main building. Balint waited behind the others while the gornyiks, led by Krisan Gyorgye, hurried up to the front door and started knocking fiercely. From inside could be heard the furious barking of the three guard-dogs and they set up such a clamour that even Krisan had to bellow at the top of his voice for anyone to hear. Krisan stayed at the door, hammering hard against its great oak beams and shouting as if his lungs would burst. Inside the house and compound nothing stirred except the dogs. It was as if they alone inhabited the house. Nothing moved. The veranda of the house, which was visible from the road, was deserted and there was no sign of life behind the iron grills that covered all the windows.
‘Perhaps this Rusz isn’t at home!’ said Balint to Krisan. At this moment, above the cruel line of broken glass which protected the top of the great stone outer wall, there appeared the head of a young boy.
‘What do you want?’ he asked timidly.
‘The Mariassa wants to see Domnu Rusz. Open the doors for his Lordship or I’ll break them down,’ shouted Krisan Gyorgye and he swung his great axe above his head and let out a stream of curses.
The boy’s head disappeared and in a few seconds one of the doors was opened. Balint rode in while the dogs were kept at bay by the gornyiks’ long staves and by having stones thrown at them. As soon as Balint reached the foot of the steps that led up to the entrance of the house a tall, narrow-shouldered man appeared on the veranda. Abady looked him over carefully. The man’s face was completely hairless and covered in wrinkles like that of an old woman. He had tiny eyes and his hair was longer than was then usual. He wore a grey suit of city clothes with the tails of his shirt hanging loose from under his jacket which gave him a surprisingly broad-hipped look. At the sight of Abady he started bowing obsequiously and wringing his hands. So this is the wicked and terrible monster feared by everyone, thought Balint. So this is Rusz Pantyilimon!
‘Why are you here? What do you want of me?’ asked Rusz in a frightened voice.
‘Rusz Pantyilimon!’ said Balint sternly; ‘I wish to speak with you!’
He dismounted and, going up the steps was nervously shown by Rusz into a living-room which opened off one end of the veranda. Rusz kept turning as they went, looking back suspiciously at the grim faces of the mountain men that formed Balint’s band of gornyiks. Honey sat down on the top step and the others remained below. When Rusz saw this he realized that all was well as long as Honey stayed where he was. Then he followed Balint nervously indoors.
The men in the forecourt were still discussing the Pejkoja affair just as they had been the previous night and all through that morning’s trek. Once again there was no general agreement. Zsukuczo and the two younger gornyiks believed that, although no one stood a chance against Rusz as long as he was supported by the notary and the popa, they still hoped for a miracle if the Mariassa should intervene. Krisan Gyorgye, himself a violent man, held that la noptye was the only practicable solution; while Juanye Vomului remained silent. He, as a well-to-do and respectable man, had been unwise enough the previous evening to suggest that those who incurred debts ought to be man enough to settle them. This had caused such an uproar that he had shut his mouth and hardly opened it since.
The room that Balint was ushered into was small and airless. Balint sat down at once on a bench, above which hung a holy icon, and took out his notes. Speaking deliberately and dispassionately he went through the history of the affair as it had been reported to him by the village people. He then told Rusz of their offer ‘which,’ he said firmly, ‘I find fair and reasonable!’
Pantyilimon had listened to what Balint had to say standing in front of him and shifting his weight restlessly from one long spindly leg to the other. At the same time he moved his head like a horse with the habit of’weaving’. It was not clear whether this was the result of panic, fright or excitement, or whether it was an habitual nervous tic. When Balint had finished, he hesitated a few seconds before replying and, when he did so, seemed to have difficulty in getting out the words: ‘Can’t be done, please, can’t be done!’
‘Can’t? Very well then, we must think of something else!’ said Balint, forcing as much menace as he could into his tone. ‘I shall hire a lawyer and fight you myself. I shall make the case my own. According to the law you have no right, no right at all, to the sum you are claiming. You are limited to receiving back the original loan plus eight per cent annual interest, not a penny more. I shall instruct my lawyers to insist that your behaviour to these people constitutes a criminal offence which, you may like to know, carries a penalty of two years’ imprisonment!’
‘Can’t be done, please, can’t be done!’ was all that Rusz managed to get out as he stood squirming in front of Balint.
‘Yes, it can be done! What you are doing is no less than a felony, extorting between three and four hundred per cent! How could you?’
‘Please! It isn’t all true and it isn’t only me. Please! I have to pay dear to get money. It’s very expensive!’
‘And from whom do you get it, may I ask?’
The former teacher was still weaving about, but now there was a hint of a smile buried in his wrinkled face. He did not answer the question but went on: ‘Expensive money, very expensive, and much losses, very much … his Lordship not know how it is on mountain. Land register book is never in order, many men there only in grandfather’s name still. People here like that; one day here, one day not here. They go away and I see no more, never. Money not paid, man gone. Cannot do anything. I pay, I lose much money. I have to … much loss, always loss … ‘And he went on in his broken Hungarian repeating the same feeble arguments and reiterating that it wasn’t his money, and that as he only had a tiny profit from the whole affair there was nothing he could do.
‘Well, then, go to your principals! Let them relent!’ interrupted Balint.
‘Can’t be done, please, can’t be done!’
‘All right then, but I warn you of two things. The first is both for you and for your charming associates: I shall prosecute this case as if it were my own. The second is for you alone. Since I have come to the mountains I have found out how desperate these people are and how much they hate you. It is my duty to warn you of this. From now on you hold your fate in your own hands!’
Pantyilimon shrugged his shoulders: ‘I know, please, bad people, bad people. Bad … bad …’
Balint left the room while the money-lender stood aside bowing and wringing his hands. He descended the steps rapidly, jumped on to his horse and road swiftly away followed by Honey and the gornyiks. The huge oak entrance gates swung to behind them and the dogs could still be heard barking as they rode swiftly down the hill, through the village and back to their road.