The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s

Jovann and the old black priest were at his side, smiling with anxiety. ‘My lord king,’ said the priest, ‘you have taken grievous harm, and must stay with us until you have strength for the rest of the journey.’

His mouth was stiff, but he said, ‘Priest, yesterday we fought a battle all daylight long against the scimitared muslim, until the River Babuna flowed with their blood and ours. Courage does not trifle with numbers, that I know, but we had only one blade to every six of theirs, and so in the end every one of my soldiers fell. My cousins at Andrej must be told to make ready to fight, and there are only my general Jovann and I surviving to tell them. Bind me up and let me go on.’

Then Jovann and the priest conferred together, first with Jovann’s moustache at the priest’s furry ear, and then with the priest’s beard at Jovann’s ear. Then Jovann came to his king and knelt by the bed, taking his hand and saying, ‘My lord, though we did not slay the vile muslim, at least we stayed him; he also has his wounds to bind. So the urgency is only in you, and not in the situation. It is the heat of noonday now. Rest, take some soup and rest, and we will go on later. I must have care of you and not forget that you are of the house of Nemanija and your wound bleeds authority.’

So he learnt to be persuaded, and they brought him a thin soup and a trout culled from the nearby lake, and a pot of wine, and then they left him to rest.

He could eat no more than a mouthful of the fish. Though he was not conscious of his wound, he was sick inside with worry, wounded to think that the consuming Turk ate his lands away and was never defeated; his people were brave and terrible in battle; why then did God not allow them to flourish? It was as if a vast tide of time flowed continually against them.

Listlessly, he stared through the opened window by his bed. This room in the priests’ quarters closely overlooked the lake, so that the waters seemed to flow even to the sill. All that punctuated the expanse of his view was a reed bed near at hand; the further shore was an uncertain line of blue, there merely to emphasise the water. He stared at it a long time until, growing tired of its excessive vacancy, he turned his gaze instead to the view within the room.

Although the cell itself was simple, it contained a number of objects, cloaks and instruments and even a field hoe. These had been hastily concealed, at least to some extent, from the royal view by a screen, interposed between the foot of the bed and the miscellany. Slowly his stare fixed itself on this screen.

It was carved of wood, elaborately, in a manner that he recognised as that of the masters of Debar, for some of their work graced his own stronghold. Intertwined among leaves and vines were large birds swallowing fruit, and boys lying piping, and hogs rolling in flowers, and turrets, and lizards that curled like Turkish scimitars. These little religious foundations, scattered like jewels throughout his kingdom, hid many such treasures, but at this time he took no delight in them.

For a long while, he lay between lake and screen, thinking he must move and speed on to his kinsmen. Many times he thought he had already climbed from his bed before Jovann arrived at the door, staring anxiously at his face and asking, ‘Are you strong enough, my lord, to take the road again?’

‘Fetch me my sword,’ he said.

So they set forth again, and this time, the path leading upland, they went by a more complicated way. The horses were fresh from their rest but nervous, and started violently at the jays that flashed across their track. Their nervousness conveyed itself to him, and he sweated inside his shirt until its heavy embroidery knocked cold against his ribs. He started against his will to speak of what was in his mind, of things that he knew a king had better keep hidden from even the most faithful of his generals.

‘I fear an evil enchantment upon me,’ he said through his teeth. ‘When the wolves howled as my child-wife died at Bitola of the fever, I thought they cried my name, and now I know they did. There is a mark on me, and the mark is disaster.’

‘Then it is on me as well, and all who love you,’ said Jovann. ‘You are our common wealth, and as surely as the pig-fearing muslim shall slay you, he shall slay all Serbia.’

Then he regretted he had spoken, for it was not in Jovann’s position to answer in such a way, but still the words shuddered from his lips. ‘As our fine clothes cannot hide our nakedness from God, so the trees that make my kingdom fair cannot hide his curse from me. For you know what the legends say, that we south Slavs rode from the East in great numbers when barbaric enemies drove us from the lands of our ancestors. Though our people have for many centuries broken the earth here, and I lie under it numerously, yet it is still not our homeland; and I am afeared, Jovann, afeared lest this land fall all to the dark-visaged muslim and the distant pashas.’

‘Your royal brethren will take arms with us against them, and turn them back so roughly that they never again dare cross the Vardar,’ said Jovann stoutly. But under the thick trees his face seemed to have a green shade that was not of nature; and even as he spoke, he reined his horse and stared anxiously ahead.

On the path where they must ascend, a magpie crouched with a lizard in its gullet. With wings outspread, it beat at the dust and the horses rattled their reins with dislike of the sight. Jovann sucked in a sharp hissing breath, and slid from the saddle, drawing his sword as he moved forward. The black bird flopped dead at his feet the lizard still protruding from its beak. He made to strike it, but the king cried to him to stay.

‘I never knew a magpie to choke to death before, nor to take a lizard,’ he said. ‘Better not to touch them. We will ride about them.’

So they pricked their horses through the mantle of trees, forcing them along the mountain, and rode with some difficulty until they achieved the plain once more. Here grew the red poppies in their multitudes, millions and millions of them, the hue of dried blood in the distance, of fresh blood underfoot. In the king’s head, there was only this colour, as he tried to understand the meaning of the lizard and the magpie.

With a heavy hand, he pointed across the plain, ‘Jakupica Planina lies there, with snow still on its ridge. When we have forded the Topolka, we can camp by the foot of the hills. By tomorrow night, we will rest ourselves by the stoves of Sveti Andrej and lay our story in sympathetic hands. But first I shall call at a small monastery I know of, Sveti Pantelimon by name, where lives a strange and wise seer who shall explain to me what ails me and my kingdom.’

So they slowly drew near the river in the afternoon heat, and came on a shepherd sitting by a flock of sheep, some white and many black, with half-grown lambs among them. The shepherd was a youth who greeted the king without an excess of respect.

‘My humble home lies there,’ he said, when Jovann spoke sharply to him, and he stretched a finger towards a distant hut perched on a rock. ‘And there waits your enemy the grinning musulman!’ And the finger raised to crags over which a falcon circled. The king and his general looked there, and made out smoke ascending.

‘It is impossible they should be here so soon, my lord. Plainly the boy lies,’ Jovann said in a small voice.

‘There is, alas, more than one force of the enemy on my fertile lands,’ he said and, turning to the boy, asked, ‘If you know the stinking muslim is there, why do you not fight? Why do you not join my arms? Have you nothing, even your life, that is precious to you, and that you must defend?’

But the boy was not perturbed, answering straightly, ‘King Vukasan, because you are a king and therefore rich, the laughing musulman wants all from you, and will take all. But I have nothing, being poor, that he could want. Think you these are my sheep? Then my master would laugh to know. Think you my life is my own? Then you have a different creed from mine. No, your enemies in the hill will pass me by and leave me as I am.’

Jovann drew his sword, and the boy retreated a step, but the king said, ‘Leave him, for only baseness comes from the base, and he is right to hold that even the thieving muslim can wish nothing from him. Meanwhile, we have one more reason to press swiftly on towards Sveti Andrej.’

But when they had crossed the broad and shallow stream of the Topolka, they came on wide shingle beds, on which the hooves of the horses could obtain small purchase. The heat rose up from these shingle beds, dazzling their eyes, and nothing grew save an occasional poppy and frail yellow flowers with five wide-spread petals to each blossom. And the shingle crunched and seemed to wish to draw them back to the river. So they were tired when they gained the bank, and the weight of the sun grew heavy on their shoulders. When they reached the first foothill, Jovann, taking as little regard for majesty as the shepherd boy had done, flung himself off his horse and declared he could go no further. They climbed down beneath a tree where a slight breeze stirred, so that the shadows of its branches crawled like vines on the stoney ground. They pulled ripening figs from the tree and ate, and the horses cropped at scanty grass. Heavy blood was in their foreheads; they fell asleep as they sprawled.

He stirred, and the foliage above his head was patterned with fruit like the wooden screen from Debar, and there were greedy birds there, screaming and devouring the fruit. The sun was low over the hills, and he sat up guiltily, crying, ‘Jovann, Jovann, we must go on! Why are we waiting here, my general?’

His companion sat up, rubbing his head and saying grumpily, ‘As I will die for you, my lord, when the time comes, so when the time comes must I sleep.’

But they got to their feet then, and the king forced them to go on, though Jovann would have eaten the cold fish, wrapped in leaves, that he had brought with him for their evening fare. Looking back over the plain of poppies, they heard the clank of a sheep bell as the sheep were ushered towards protection for the night, and they saw the lights of the Turk burning on the forehead of the mountain. These sights and sounds were soon hidden from them as they rounded the shoulders of the new hills and as night brought down its gentle wing upon them.

Wrapped safe in shadow, the king let his mind wander from the ride, until he imagined he had no wound and his child-wife Simonida was alive again; then said he gently to her, ‘My daughter, you see how the boundaries of our kingdom widen, and how the soldiers and merchants grow as rich as was my grandfather, great Orusah himself. The Bulgars now pay us tribute as far as Bess-Arabia, and the Byzantines are so poor and weak that their cities fall to us every month.’

And he imagined that she smiled and answered, ‘My sweet lord Vukasan, it is good as you say, but let us establish a state that will make the name Serbia sweet even to those it conquers. Let there be not only executions, but laws; not only swords and armies but books and universities, and peace where we can instil peace.’

Then did the king smile and stroke her hair, saying, ‘You know that way shall be my way, even as it would be your way or the way of my father and grandfather. We will bring wise men to speak to the people from distant Hilander, on the Mount called Athos, and there shall be artists and masons summoned from Thessaloniki, who work less rudely than our native craftsmen. And we shall start new arts and works with men from Ragusa and Venezia, and even beyond, from the courts of Europe, and the Pope in Rome shall heed us …’

‘You dream too largely, my sweet lord. It is not good to do so.’ She had often said it.

‘Dreams cannot be too large. Do you know what I dream, my daughter? I dream that one day I may ride into Constantinople and have myself crowned king of Byzantium – Emperor! – while you shall wear no dress but jewels.’

‘Then how your subjects will stare at me!’ she said with a laugh, but the sound came faint and unnatural, more like the clink of a horse’s bridle; and he could not see her for shade, so that Jovann said at his elbow, ‘Steady, my lord, as you go, for the way is rocky here.’

And he answered heavily and confusedly, saying, ‘You are not the companion she was, though I grant you are bolder. What a change has come these last few years! Perhaps you were right in holding I dreamed too largely, for now my dreams are no more and you are gone from me, sweet child of my bed, and all I hear of is the rattle of swords, and for the designing of your jewellery I have exchanged battle plans against the fuming muslim. Ho, then, and hup, or we’ll die before we get to the gates of Constantin’s town!’

The horse plunged under his sharp-digging stirrup, and he returned to his senses, more tired from the mental journey than the actual one.

‘Did I speak to myself then, Jovann?’

‘It is my lord’s privilege,’ said the general.

‘Did I speak aloud, tell me?’

‘My lord, no, on my oath.’ But he knew the man lied to hide his sovereign’s weakness, and bit his lip to keep silence until he had the pleasure of feeling the blood run in the hairs of his beard.

They followed a vague track, not speaking. At last they heard the noise of a bullock-cart creaking and bumping along, and emerged onto the dusty road that would take them to Sveti Andrej. Now that the trees stood further apart, and their eyes were adjusted to the night journey, they could see the shape of the bullock-cart ahead. He was well awake now, and motioned to Jovann to follow. They rode up to the cart and hailed the driver.

Deciding they now had no cause to go further, the two bullocks dragging the cart stopped and cropped grass in the middle of the road. With an oath, Jovann jumped to the ground, his sword again ready in his hand. The driver of the cart sprawled face up to the stars with his throat cut. Rags lay under his outspread arm which they examined after a little, and found them to be a peasant woman’s clothes.

‘This they dare do, so near to home, to kill one of my peasants for the sake of his wife, so near to home, so near to home!’

In a storm of anger and weakness, he felt the tears scald from his eyes, and sat on the bank to weep. Jovann joined him, and put an arm about his shoulders, until he stopped for shame. At that, Jovann thrust a jug into his hands.

‘The man’s rakija, lord. We might as well profit from it, since he no longer can. Drink it, for we have not many hours’ travel left, and then we will eat the fish and pluck some of the cherries that are growing above our heads.’

He was secretly angry that Jovann could speak of these trivial matters when the urgency of the situation was so great. But a sort of fear gripped him; he was unnerved by the way the bullock-cart had arrived so punctually to deliver its message of death, and he needed to feel the heat of the rakija as it plunged down his throat. They drank in turns, quaffing out of the jug.

After a while, the bullocks took the cart off down the road again, creaking and bumping every inch of the way. The two men began to laugh. The king sang a fragment of song:

‘How happy are they who dwell in Prilep

Where the birds nest under every eave