When the track passed small open meadows Balint could occasionally get glimpses of the distant mountains as they had the day before, but though now all was bathed in the same dazzling clear light, the morning colours were not at all the same. Where yesterday had been in varying shades of cobalt, today the faraway mountain ridges glowed with a lilac tint shaded by patches of pale green, and in the dawn light the snow seemed pink. They reached a place where their route was crossed by another.
‘We’ll pass by here again tomorrow when we return from Gyurkuca,’ said Zutor, and he went on, pointing to the south: ‘If your Lordship wishes we can then go on down into the valley of the Retyicel, or perhaps turn by the waterfall at the Burnt Stone and go down to Szkrind.’
The road wound slowly downhill. Coming up along the same track were three buffalo carts but this time Krisan Gyorgye did not run forward and order them out of the way as he had done when they met the woodcutters the previous day. These were men of the Kalotaszeg, people with whom no one trifled.
Balint stared at the buffaloes with interest. He had never seen these animals in the winter when, unlike other wiser beasts, they shed their ragged stringy fur to reveal sleek coats of shiny black hair. Because of this reversal of the normal process buffalo owners would provide their animals with quilted blankets made of sackcloth and so fitted that they covered the animals from neck to tail and were tied under their chests with a wide girth.
The buffaloes moved slowly, dragging behind them carts laden with cut wood for hut-building, and though their sad, long-lashed eyes had a wary look as they approached Balint’s horses, they did not waver in their solemn progress. There were three men and two boys with the carts. All were dressed in the same way as Honey Zutor in leather waistcoats and blue shirts, leggings and boots; except for the boys who wore sandals, even in the deep snow. The men did not speak as they showed their wood-cutting permits to Zutor but, after he had checked that they were in order, the Kalotaszegi lifted their hats in polite and dignified greeting and went silently on their way.
Balint had decided that as the air was so cold he would walk rather than ride. The track at this point was an easy one, a far gentler slope than any they had so far encountered. Once again the only sound to be heard was the faint crunch of the horses’ hoofs on the snow, until, as before, there came the faint sound of someone cutting wood. At first they could hear only one repeated knocking, but slowly, as they moved forward, this seemed to come from several different directions. Balint asked Zutor why this was, and if the cutters were allowed to fell trees wherever they liked.
‘Not exactly, my Lord, but once they have got their permit from the forestry office they can fell anywhere they like on this side of the mountain.’
‘Who decides how much they can fell?’
‘They can cut as much as they like, but they can only take out what it says on the permit.’
‘What a waste! What disorder!’ thought Balint. He turned again to Zutor. ‘Haven’t they heard of forest planning?’
‘Oh, yes, my Lord, but they don’t do it.’ And he went on to tell Balint how, twenty years before when he was still a boy, he had gone to the forest with one of the estate engineers and spent two months with measuring tapes, signposts, planning how the forest would be developed for years ahead. ‘That’s when I first learned to love the mountains,’ he said, ‘and afterwards, in the spring, he took me to Beles when he presented his reports. It was many years ago, just after Count Tamas died. Nobody’s worked like that for a long time!’
When dusk fell Balint’s party left the long watershed and descended to the valley of the river Szamos, where they found a clearing at which feed could be bought for the horses.
The men started to build a shelter on a slope above the river and in front of it a campfire which was already ablaze by the time the shelter was ready.
As on the previous night the food was cooked and shared out, the brandy handed round and, as the little band finished their meal and the Mariassa retired to his makeshift bed, other men joined them for the company and the news of the outside world. Though somewhat restrained in front of Balint they seemed to relax as soon as they thought he was sleeping; and once again the talk was all about the notary and the priest — the popa of Gyurkuca — both of whom they seemed to detest equally, though their real curses, as the night before, were reserved for the man they called Rusz Pantyilimon who should be ‘damned to Draku!’
In the morning they struck camp early, and by ten o’clock they came to the outlying cottages of the village of Gyurkuca, the main part of which was built on a low hill surrounded by steep cliffs that rose almost like an island in the centre of a wide bend in the river. Here a makeshift bridge had been thrown across the river. It was supported by two high pillars, one on each side with a third in the middle of the river, and in between were fixed some narrow wooden planks set three to four metres above the level of the water. At each end loose planks that bent with every step were placed to lead up to the bridge itself. These were left loose so that they could be replaced with longer ones should the river rise in the spring floods.
Three men were waiting at the foot of the bridge. In the middle stood the priest Timbus, the popa, a fat man with a little black goatee that did nothing to hide his double chins, wearing his clerical frock and a fur coat and, on his head, the wide-brimmed hat that was normally brought out only when the bishop came on a pastoral visit. On each side stood one of the town elders, both in their best clothes with sheepskin hats, their hair tied in braids over their ears. These two took off their hats and all three started bowing obsequiously when Balint was still a hundred yards away. When he approached the priest stepped forward and respectfully requested his Lordship to dismount and honour their church with a visit, saying that the community needed his help.
Balint got off his horse and as he did so the two old men came nearer, knelt before him and kissed the hem of his coat. The priest, too, made a show of deference in trying to kiss the hand that Balint held out to be shaken. This Balint naturally did not allow, knowing that these gestures were symbolic — the ritual greeting of respect traditional in the mountain country — and were not to be taken as a sign of obsequiousness. This done, he moved towards the bridge.
The first to climb up was the popa, then came Krisan, holding out his axe-handle to pull his master up the steep planks. The tall Todor Paven and Juanye Vomului stood on either side of Balint until he had reached the pillar, and then walked on with their arms outstretched so as to catch him if he fell. To do this they had somehow to get across the river bed which meant scrambling over snow-covered rocks or plunging their feet in the shallow water that ran between the ice-floes.
Balint then walked up the hill with the priest and the two old men while his travelling companions stayed below. The snow on the hillside had been cut into steps. At the top was the priest’s house, standing on stone foundations on the sloping hillside thereby giving the impression from below that it was two stories high, though from higher up it could be seen that the back of the house was sunk into the hillside. A covered veranda ran the length of the house, leading directly from the front door into the family living-room, and, leaning over the balustrade waiting for the distinguished visitor, stood the priest’s two beautiful, doe-eyed daughters. Near them Balint’s attention was drawn to a thin young man, still barely more than a youth, who was lying in the sun on a long wicker chair covered in cushions. He was wrapped to the chin in a sheepskin coat so that all that could be seen of him was an emaciated face with tell-tale red patches on his cheeks. His mouth was tightly shut and his glance was both curious and hostile as he watched Balint pass in front of him.