CHAPTER VII.

THE JUS LIGATUM.[55]

[Footnote 55: _Jus ligatum._ The right of conspiring secretly against an offender unreachable by the ordinary law.]

'Tis a good old custom which requires that every ceremony should end with a feast, and so the boisterous Diet was succeeded by a still more boisterous banquet, whereat Michael Apafi also presided; and here he was in his proper place, for the chronicles tell us that a skin of wine at a sitting was a mere nothing to his Highness.

Wine inflames hate as well as love. When ladies are at table, we must look to our hearts; but when only men sit down together, our heads are often in danger.

After dinner, according to Transylvanian custom, the guests stood up to drink. Conversation flows more easily thus, and the Prince, going the round of his guests, presented to them an overflowing beaker with his own hand, challenging them one by one to drain it--"Come, a toast--my health, the welfare of the realm, and whatever else you like!"

The gentlemen were in high good-humour, and kept falling out with each other and making it up again from sheer lightness of heart. Only one man was quite sober--Michael Teleki, who never drank at all.

Beware of the man who keeps sober while every one else is in his cups.

Teleki went about among the wrangling roysterers, and lingered for a long time round Banfi's chair. When the magnate caught sight of him, creeping about like a cat, he turned sharply round upon him.

"Why, how sad you look!" he cried, with a mocking laugh; "just like a man whose coveted palatinate falls into the dust before his eyes."

That was all Teleki wanted.

With a smile, beneath which there lurked a deadly sting, he replied--

"That is no merit of yours. If Paul Beldi had not been present, you would have been left all alone with your vote. But I must confess that we all bow before such a distinguished man as Paul Beldi. The whole nation cries Amen! to whatever he says."

Teleki then bowed low, with a semblance of deep respect, well aware that he had sent a venomous shaft into the proud magnate's heart, for nothing wounded Banfi so much as to see some one honoured above himself, especially some one who really deserved it.

Teleki next turned to Beldi, drew him into a window-niche, and thus began in his suavest manner--

"I had always held your Excellency for a very magnanimous man, but to-day I learnt to recognize you as doubly such, though it was to my own detriment. The Diet only knows that in voting for peace you sacrificed your fatherly affection; but _I_ know that at the same time you sacrificed your hatred of Banfi."

"I?--I have never hated Banfi."

"I know why you conceal your hatred. You fancy that no one knows your secret reasons for it. My friend, we men know well that a sword-thrust may be forgiven, but a _kiss_ never."

Beldi started. He knew not what reply to make to this man, who, after planting the sting of jealousy in his heart, quitted him with a smiling countenance, leaving the wound to rankle.

At that moment Banfi appeared behind Beldi's back with his haughtiest air. He was burning to make Beldi feel his haughtiness, and was thinking how he could best pick a quarrel with him.

Beldi at first did not perceive him, and when the Prince, chancing to stray into that part of the room, holding a costly pocal set with turquoises, which he affably extended, saying familiarly--"Drink, my cousin!" Beldi, fancying that the invitation was meant for him, and never suspecting that any one was behind him, took the cup out of the Prince's hand, and drained it to his Highness's health, at the very moment when Banfi also held out his hand towards it.

Banfi, purple with rage, turned furiously upon Beldi, and said in his most insulting tone--

"Not so fast, Szekler. You might, I think, have a little more respect for the Marshal of the Diet, and not snatch away the cup from beneath my very nose. Let me tell you, sir, that if you persist in such courses, you and I shall fall out!"

Beldi was anything but a quarrelsome man. Had he been in another frame of mind, he would simply have apologized for his mistake. But now he too was in a pugnacious mood, so, calmly measuring Banfi from head to foot, he replied with suppressed rage--

"Yes, Denis, I am a Szekler, as you say, and a tough one too; and if it came to a bout between us, and I fell uppermost, I'd give you such a squeeze that you'd never raise your head again in this world."

"Come, come! What's all this nonsense about?" cried the Prince, intervening. "I'm surprised at you, gentlemen! _Inter pocula non sunt seria tractanda._" And, with that, Apafi compelled the two magnates to shake hands with each other, and then passed on, thinking that the whole affair was a mere drunken brawl, and that he had put it right.

But it did not escape Teleki that, immediately after this scene, both the magnates quitted the room, and he learnt soon afterwards that they had suddenly left Fehervár, thus leaving the field clear for him.

Teleki and his satellites remained alone with the half-besotted Prince.

"Drink, gentlemen! drink! be merry!" cried Apafi. "Don't drop off one by one! Who last went out there?"

"Beldi!" cried several voices.

"Ah, I understand! The poor fellow has not seen his wife for a long time. Let him go. And who else has gone?"

"Banfi!"

"What? Banfi too? What's the meaning of that?"

"He has gone to lord it at home?" sneered Szekely, one of Teleki's creatures.

"He can't endure to be anywhere where there is a greater than he," put in Nalaczi.

"I certainly shall not resign the princely diadem to please his Excellency!" cried Apafi.

"That is not necessary!" insinuated Teleki. "He knows how to rule in Transylvania without an _athname_. When he commands the country must obey, and what the country commands he contemptuously rejects."

"I should like to see him do it!" murmured Apafi angrily.

"But is it not so? We want war, he doesn't, and we must give way. We want peace, and he is immediately up and waging war against our allies on his own account. The throne is ours, the realm is his!"

"Don't say that, Master Michael Teleki!"

"I appeal to you, Nalaczi! What answer did he give in the Zolyomi affair?"

"He said that if the country wished him to surrender the Gyulai property to Zolyomi, it must give him in exchange the domain of Szamos-Ujvar."

"What!" cried the Prince, "the property which the Estates gave to me for my maintenance! My princely domains! The man must be mad!"

"So he said, adding that he would not surrender the property even if Zolyomi saddled us with the Turks in consequence."

"Well, now we've had enough of him. Not a word more about it, gentlemen."

"The insult to the Turks your Highness might overlook," persisted Teleki, "but we really cannot look through our fingers any longer at the way in which he treats the gentry. The latest victim of his tyranny is Lady Saint Pauli. The poor widow's ancestral dwelling was an eyesore to the great lord, because it spoiled the prospect from his palace windows; so he had the house appraised at his own valuation, and turned the poor lady out of doors. The magistrate gave her a letter of indemnity, but my Lord-Marshal tore the letter to pieces, and pulled down the poor widow's sole possession, her ancestral dwelling-place. The Diet, he said, might build it up again if it felt so disposed. Such an act, sir, in ordinary times has been known to cost the doer thereof his head!"

Apafi was silent, but his bloodshot eyes began to glow savagely.

"But that is not all," continued Teleki; "outrages on individuals are of small account when the security of the whole realm is at stake. This great lord can speak very prettily about the blessings of peace, let us see now how he labours to uphold it. He takes the sword out of our hands and closes our mouths, while he himself collects an army and goads the Turk against us, well knowing that we have no money wherewith to buy the gifts necessary to counteract his vagaries. Now, three letters have reached us simultaneously--one from the Pasha of Grosswardein, another from the Pasha of Buda, and a third from the Sultan himself--demanding instant satisfaction, or an indemnity of three hundred purses of gold, for the defeat which the Pasha of Grosswardein has suffered at Banfi's hands. As, however, we cannot expect Banfi to pay the indemnity, will it please your Highness to consider from whence such a large sum of money is to be procured?"

"From nowhither!" cried Apafi furiously, smashing his glass to pieces on the table. "I'll show the world that I'm able to exact satisfaction from whomsoever I will, let him be even as mighty again as Denis Banfi."

"Then I wish your Highness would tell us how, for we know that Banfi will not appear to our summons, and we cannot compel him, for he has shown himself stronger than the whole realm. If we attempted to use force he would call out the banderia and the garrison troops, and then it might fare with us as it fared with Ladislaus Csaky--he would arrest the officers sent to arrest him, and expose us to universal derision."

"As our first counsellor, it is your province to give us good counsel in such cases," cried Apafi wrathfully.

"I only know of one remedy capable of curing the realm thoroughly of this disease."

"Then prescribe it. In what does your remedy consist?"

"In the _jus ligatum_."

Apafi, despite his semi-besotted state, instinctively shrunk back from such an expedient, and throwing himself into his arm-chair, looked blankly at Teleki.

"Are you not ashamed of yourself," he murmured in broken sentences, as tipsy people usually do, "to propose a secret conspiracy against a free nobleman? To privily conspire against him is contrary to the law of the land."

"It is not my fault if the expedient is shameful," returned Teleki calmly and steadfastly; "but it is shameful that the law should not possess sufficient power to bring a rebel to book, and that one of our own subjects should be able to openly defy justice and laugh at the decrees of the Prince. If in such a state of things the _jus ligatum_ is our only means of defence, the shame falls not upon me but upon the Prince."

Apafi rose angrily from his seat and paced to and fro. The lords remained perfectly silent.

At last the Prince stopped short in front of Teleki, and, leaning on the back of his arm-chair, asked him--

"And how then do you propose to bring about this league?"

Nalaczi and Szekely exchanged a smile. It was plain that the idea had caught the Prince's fancy. Teleki beckoned to Szekely to fetch him writing materials and a strip of parchment.

"We will quickly draw up the necessary articles of impeachment; your Highness will subscribe them, and we'll secretly persuade the great men of the land to consent to Banfi's arrest and join the league before any legal steps have been taken."

At these words many of the gentlemen present began to bite their moustaches and move uneasily in their chairs.

Teleki observed the movement, and added emphatically--

"I perceive that no one here has the courage to put down his name first on the list. Nevertheless I have already found a man, who in dignity and power is every whit Banfi's equal, and when once he has subscribed the list, the other signatures will follow as a matter of course."

"And who may that be?" asked Apafi.

"Paul Beldi!"

The Prince shook his head.

"He won't do it. He is much too honourable a man for that."

Wine-inspired as this sentence was, it completely ruffled Teleki's equanimity. Turning vehemently upon the Prince he cried--

"Then you mean to imply that _we_ are acting dishonourably?"

"I meant to say that Beldi is never very willing to pick a quarrel with anybody. He is a peace-abiding man."

"But I know his sore point, and if you but touch it with the tip of your finger, he'll answer with his clenched fist, and the lamb will become a lion. I'll get him to----"

At that moment the door opened, and, to every one's astonishment, the Princess entered the room.

Nevertheless, her appearance at this time was no freak of chance. You could see by her agitation that she was well aware of what was going on. The lords were confused, and Apafi, despite his tipsy wrath, became so frightened when he beheld the pale face of his consort that he whispered to Teleki--

"For heaven's sake put that document out of sight."

Only Teleki kept his countenance, and instead of hiding the parchment, ostentatiously spread it out before him.

"What are you doing?" asked the Princess. She was very pale, and her bosom heaved tempestuously.

"We are holding a council," replied Teleki grimly.

"A council?" repeated Anna, approaching nearer and nearer to the table.

"Yes; and we venture to ask your Highness by what right you intrude here, while we are deliberating over the most momentous affairs of state?" continued Teleki in a hard, dry tone.

"Deliberating over the most momentous affairs of state, eh?" repeated the lady, measuring Teleki with a searching look. Then with a loud, vibrating voice she exclaimed--"What mean these wine-cups then? You are holding a council of state when the head of the state is drunk, that you may sow discord and confusion."

Teleki sprang from his seat and turned towards the Prince--

"May it please your Highness to dismiss us. We perceive that a domestic scene is about to begin."

"Anna!" cried Apafi, scarlet with shame and wine, "leave the room this instant. We command it--and for a week to come do not presume to appear in our presence."

"Be it so, Apafi. I have nothing more to say to you, for you are not yourself; but to you, Mr. Chief-Counsellor, to you who are always sober, I have a word to say. I raised you from the dust; I helped you into the place where now you stand; you requite me by thrusting yourself between me and the Prince's heart, for I find you in my way every time I approach my husband. You have taken the sceptre out of the Prince's hand, and have substituted for it the headsman's sword; but let me tell you that if I cannot reach the Prince's heart, I can, at least, step in the way of the sword, and as often as it descends, you will find me between the stroke and the victim!--And ye! Nalaczi and Szekely, ennobled lackeys as you are, who cannot explain to yourselves how you became great lords, reflect that the wheel of Fortune debases as often as it exalts, and that as you treat others to-day so may others treat you to-morrow. And I say to you all, ye noble cavaliers, who seek your courage in your cups, bethink you and tremble at the thought, that not wine but innocent blood is foaming in the beakers that you hold in your hands! Shame, shame upon you all! who give wine to the Prince in order to ask blood of him. And now your Highness may add a couple of weeks to my term of banishment."

With these words, the Princess rapidly left the room. The lords were dumb, and dared not look at each other. But Teleki got up, closed the door, dipped his pen in the inkhorn, and said--

"And now we will go on where we left off."