‘What is it you do?’ he said.
‘That is my business,’ said Restaur Vax.
‘Well, I will help you,’ said the man, and with his bare hands he lifted the stone aside as if it had been thin timber. Below it in a pit lay a clay pot.
‘So you dug for treasure,’ said the stranger. ‘Well, since we have found it together, we will now share it.’
‘It is my inheritance,’ said Restaur Vax.
‘What need has a priest of an inheritance?’ said the stranger.
‘Great need,’ said Restaur Vax, ‘if I am to fight the Turks.’
‘First you will have to fight me for my share of the treasure,’ said the stranger.
‘Not so,’ said Restaur Vax. ‘For you are going to come with me and fight the Turks. What use is it to me to break your bones?’
The stranger laughed and said, ‘You are a better priest than most I have met. Very well, we will not fight each other, but we will have a contest. If I am to trust you as a comrade against the Turks, then you must show me you can use a gun. We will shoot in turn, once with each of my pistols and once with my musket. If I win, I shall take my half of the treasure and go, and if you win I shall come with you to fight the Turks.’
Restaur Vax saw the man’s thought. How should a priest shoot better than a bandit? But his father had kept a gun in among his rafters, and had taught him its use, so he agreed to the contest.
The first target was two peaches set upon a rock. With his shot the stranger knocked the peach off the rock, but with his, Restaur Vax shot the stone out of the peach, leaving the fruit where it was.
‘That was a lucky shot,’ said the stranger.
They reloaded and exchanged pistols.
The second target was two pigeons that chanced to fly past. With his shot the stranger knocked three tail-feathers away, but the bird flew on. With his, Restaur Vax shot the bird through the head, and it dropped like a stone.
‘That was a lucky shot,’ said the stranger.
Now, as they were choosing a target for the musket, the son of the Pasha of Potok came along the road with some of his household on the way to their hunting-ground. Hearing shots where by their law none should carry weapons, they turned aside and saw two Varinians, one of them loading a musket. The Pasha’s son sent five bazouks to arrest them, but the stranger raised his musket and shot the leading bazouk in the shoulder and he fell down, and the others took cover and fired back, and Restaur Vax and the stranger sheltered behind a broken wall while the stranger reloaded.
Now the Pasha of Potok’s son rode up to find the cause of the delay, and Restaur Vax saw him and knew him. He took the musket from the stranger, saying, ‘Now it is my turn.’
When he stood up the Turks all fired at him but he did not flinch. He took steady aim and shot the Pasha of Potok’s son through the heart, so that he dropped from his horse, dead. And all the Turks ran away, rather than face such shooting.
‘That was more than a lucky shot,’ said the stranger. ‘You have won our contest, and I will fight the Turks at your side. There is no help for it, since we have killed the Pasha of Potok’s son, and now there will be a price of many gold pieces on our heads. My name is Lash.3 Some call me the Golden, for I am of the old blood.’
Now he was a famous bandit, who had killed many men.
‘My name is Restaur Vax,’ said Restaur Vax.
‘You may keep my musket,’ said Lash the Golden, ‘for you have won it fairly, and you cannot fight the Turks without a gun.’
‘A gift for a gift,’ said Restaur Vax, and gave him the two rings which the Bishop had given for the purchase of a gun. One was of silver, set with a ruby, and one was of pure gold.
So they vowed everlasting brotherhood, and gathered up Restaur Vax’s inheritance, and left.
1 This incident is described by Vax himself in Homecoming (Collected Works of Restaur Vax, Rome 1868).
2 It is popularly believed that Varina derives its name from the Varingian Guard, the famous regiment of Norsemen who served the Emperors in Byzantium. The occasional appearance of blond hair among the normally dark Varinians is regarded as evidence of this. A colony of veterans is supposed to have been established on the Danube some time around the ninth century AD, though there is no documentary or archaeological evidence of this being so.
3 Alexo Lash (1785?–1826), Chief Lieutenant to Restaur Vax in the struggle for independence. A flamboyant figure, to whom legends concerning earlier folk-heroes naturally attached themselves. Throughout the whole period of Turkish domination there were always both groups and individuals who refused to accept it, and fought and raided from inaccessible refuges among the mountains.
WINTER 1989
‘HI, AUNTIE,’ SAID Nigel.
‘Good morning, Nephew,’ said Letta. ‘I trust you are behaving yourself and getting good marks for your schoolwork.’
It was their standard greeting. A car had come for Grandad and she’d driven up with him, but she’d got the driver to stop at the top of the road and walked down by herself, so as not to be seen arriving with the great man. It was a bright November morning. The road was a wide avenue of plane trees, with a big park and some sort of palace on the left and huge solemn houses on the right. Most of the houses seemed to be embassies or something now, with flags and coats of arms over the porches. Some of them had a policeman on guard. She found the Romanian Embassy half-way down the hill with about thirty people standing around while Grandad shook hands with them. There were barriers on the pavement to keep the small crowd in order. Nigel had seen her coming and had walked a little way up to meet her.
‘What’s up?’ she said.
‘Mum’s taken over, of course.’
‘Already?’
‘She called the man you said, and the man knew our name and asked if she’d got anything to do with Grandad and she said yes. And she told him she knew about protests and he was keen to have her along. Dad says it’s because she isn’t bothered by policemen, and anyone who’s had to live in Varina can’t help being.’
‘At least the cocoa will be hot. Where is she?’
‘Over there, by the gate.’
Letta turned and saw her sister-in-law, with Mr Jaunis and another man, arguing about something with the policeman who guarded the Embassy. Mollie was a bit older than Steff. She was a square, cheerful woman who loved taking on problems, stray dogs, charity appeals, protests about pedestrian crossings, Nigel’s school friends when they had troubles they didn’t want to talk to their parents about. She was easy to like, but your first thought about having her to help you was, ‘Um?’ because she gave an impression of having just too much energy, like an Old English sheep-dog pup which is full of goodwill but liable to knock tables over and trample the flower beds. In fact she was terrifically organized, and she always took trouble to know her stuff. She’d once done an interview on local radio with some kind of junior government minister about a school closure, and he’d tried to get away with waffling at her, and she’d wiped the floor with him and left him without a waffle to his name. Nigel had sent Letta a tape with a note saying, ‘Boadicea rides again.’
Letta had been pretty certain Mollie wouldn’t mind coming to the vigil for a bit, though she was English, and the family talked English at home. (Nigel could only just about get along in Field.) Steff wasn’t like Momma. He thought and talked about Varina, though he’d left there before he was six. Anyway, Mollie, being Mollie, would have known all about Ceauşescu anyway and how disgusting he was and what he was up to. Still, Letta hadn’t expected her to be quite so in the thick of things yet.