King Stakh's Wild Hunt (7 page)

He gathered his forces in the meantime, and with great diplomacy clouded the heads of the representatives of the State Power. According to the manuscript his forces already consisted of eight thousand horsemen who were hiding partly in the virgin forest, and partly in his castle.

In the late autumn of 1602 all was finally ready. In the surrounding churches the peasants took the oath of allegiance to King Stakh, and with an unexpected stroke he seized the strongest castle in the district. They were only awaiting Yarash Shtamet with his followers, and since the army was strong, and the King decisive and resolute, a bright new page might have been written in the history of Belarus.

Roman Yanovsky, a powerful magnate, the owner of Marsh Firs, was the only one who was not enthusiastic about King Stakh. The King suspected that Roman had entered into reprehensible relations with the Lithuanian hetman who was a sort of a defense minister in Great Duchy of Lithuania and the Belarusian state during the Middle Ages, and even with the Roman Catholic Church. He warned Yanovsky that that would end badly for him. Yanovsky assured him of his respect and devotion and King Stakh believed him. He mixed his blood and Roman’s in a goblet, and then both parties drank it. Stakh presented Roman with a silver dish.

It is unknown what had compelled Roman to decide on the following move. We know, however, that he was a friend of the lawful King. He invited King Stakh to go hunting with him, and the King came to him with his hunters, a group of twenty men. Shtamet was to appear at the castle the following day and there was plenty of time. The King decided to make a short delay as the object of their hunt was a very tempting animal – the marsh lynx which reminded one in size and colour of a tiger, and which at that time was already rare in our virgin forests, and afterwards entirely disappeared.

What Roman had planned was black treachery. Wouldn’t God have blessed King Stakh’s reign if he had seized the throne of his ancestors, even though he was a muzhyk king, even though he had rebelled against the lording sovereigns?

King Stakh arrived at Marsh Firs, and in his honour the castle was decorated with lights and feasting began. And he drank and made merry with the landowner, Roman, and the other landowners, and of these gentlemen there were, perhaps, a hundred and thirty. And at night they rode off on the hunt, since the nights were bright, and on such nights the marsh lynx leaves its bushy haunts and walks about the plain from Marsh Firs to the Kurhany and Pniuchi groves and catches not only cattle but also solitary wayfarers.

And that is why everybody hates the marsh lynx and kills it. The wolf would pass by, and the forest lynx would more often turn away, while the marsh lynx would not – he was a man-eater.

And so all the guests left, and Roman left to hunt the marsh lynx together with the King’s hunt and his faithful old friend, his beater Alachno Varona, and with Dubatowk of the petty Polish gentry. And the night turned out to be one in which the moon barely shone and hardly anything was visible, and although it was autumn, blue marsh lights were skipping about in the swamps.

And people extinguished the lights in their dwellings, and, perhaps, even God moved by his indescribable wisdom, extinguished the lights in some human souls, too. And Roman and King Stakh lagged behind their beaters.

They had hardly taken a look around, when a marsh lynx sprang out from the bushes, knocked down Roman’s horse, and tore out a piece of the horse’s stomach together with his intestines, for such was this animal’s habit. And Roman fell, and he felt mortal terror, for the animal, that was wider and longer than the man, looked at him with fiery eyes.

At this moment Stakh jumped down from his daredevil horse straight onto the animal’s back, grabbed it by the ear, tore its snout from Roman, who was lying on the ground, and with his short sword slashed at its throat. The lynx shook Stakh off with its paw and pounced hard on him, but at this moment Roman jumped down and broke the skull of the man-eater with his fighting calk. And so the three of them lay there, and Roman helped the King to stand up, and said:

“We are quits, my friend. You saved my life, and I your heart.”

When the other hunters met them, they all decided to spend the night in the forest and drink again and make merry, for their souls and their hearts had not yet had enough food and drink after the struggle with the lynx, and they asked for more wine. They made a camp-fire in the forest and began to drink. It was so dark when the moon disappeared, that on making a step from the fire you could not see the fingers on your hand. They took the barrel of wine that Roman had brought and they drank and celebrated. Nobody knew that the wine was poisoned, except Roman, Varona and Dubatowk, who had beforehand accustomed themselves to this poison.

Everybody drank, only King Stakh drank little.

Just a moment, Roman. What are you doing, Roman? This man wanted to give up his life for his country. Do you then wish to exchange God’s plans for your own? You regret your supremacy, but have you thought that the will of your people is being trampled on, that their language and faith and their souls are being trampled on? You are not thinking of this, your heart is filled with envy and pride.

And they continued drinking until King Stakh’s hunters could hardly keep their eyes open. But the King kept on talking, saying how happy he would make everybody when he took his seat on the throne of his forefathers.

And then the Polish landowner, Roman, took his lunge, holding it by the handle with both hands, come up to King Stakh from behind, threw the lunge over his head, and lowered the lunge with its sharp end onto the back of King Stakh’s head. The drowsy King lifted his head, looked into Roman’s eyes, and his face running with blood was like a terrible wail to God for vengeance.

“But what have you done? We are brothers, aren’t we?” And attempting to rise, he shouted:

“Why have you sold your people, apostate? You have deprived many people of their happiness now.”

Roman struck him with his sword a second time and Stakh fell, but he had not yet lost the gift of speech:

“Now beware, you traitor! My curse on you and your evil kin! May the bread in your mouth turn to stone, may your women remain childless, and may their husbands choke in their own blood!”

And then, his voice weakening, he said cruelly:

“You’ve betrayed your land, my former brother! But we shall not die. We’ll yet come to you and to your children, and to their heirs, my hunters and I. Unto the twelfth generation will we take revenge ruthlessly, nor shall you hide from us. You hear? Unto the twelfth generation! And each generation shall tremble with greater pain and more terribly than I now at your feet.”

And he dropped his head. And his hunters dumb until now, at last came to, and snatched up their knives. And they fought twenty against three, and the battle was a fearful one. But the three conquered the twenty and killed them.

And afterwards they strapped the corpses and the wounded, who were pitifully groaning, to their saddles and drove off the horses, and the horses hastened off in a straight line to the Giant’s Gap.

But nobody had noticed that there was a spark of life yet in King Stakh’s body. The horses flew on into the night, and a faint moon lit up their long manes, and somewhere ahead of them blue lights skipped about among the mounds.

And from this wild herd came King Stakh’s voice:

“To the devil with my soul, if God doesn’t help. Wait, Roman! Our horsemen are coming at a gallop to you! Tremble, Roman, and shiver, our eternal enemy. We shall come! We shall avenge!”

And nobody knew that these words were true words; that King Stakh had become a weapon in the hands of the devil for revenge and punishment. No murder whatever deserves such vengeance as fratricide.

Their days were numbered... The beater, Varona, was the first to see the ghosts of Stakh and his followers within two weeks. The Wild Hunt raced on heedlessly; onward it flew across the most terrible quagmire, across the forest, across the rivers.

No tinkling of bits, no ringing of swords. Silent were the horsemen on their horses. Ahead of the phantom King Stakh’s Wild Hunt were the swamp lights skipping across the quagmire.

Varona went mad. And Dubatowk perished afterwards. The Lithuanian hetman dispersed peasant armies who were left without a leader; Yarash Shtamet was killed in battle. But Roman Yanovsky was alive and laughed.

Once after hunting, Yanovsky was returning home alone through the heather wasteland, the moon hardly lighting the way for him. Suddenly from somewhere behind him the marsh lights came skipping, the sound of bugles reached him, and the stamping of hoofs was heard but faintly. A moment later, vague apparitions of horsemen outlined themselves against the moonlight. The horses’ manes waved with the wind, an unleashed cheetah ran ahead of the phantom Wild Hunt. Noiseless was their flight across the heather and the quagmire. Silent were the horsemen, while the hunting sounds came flying from somewhere on the other side. Ahead of all, dimly lit by the moon’s silver, galloped the enormous King Stakh. Brightly burned the eyes of their horses, the riders and the cheetah.

Roman raced on, and they silently and quickly flew after him; the horses sometimes pawed the ground in their flight, and the wild heather sang, and the moon looked down at the chase with indifference.

Roman shouted three times: “The Wild Hunt!” So loud was his voice that he was heard by people even in distant huts. And then the Wild Hunt caught up with him, and his heart failed him. That is how Roman perished.

From that time on many people saw King Stackh’s Wild Hunt in the peat-bogs, and although this Wild Hunt penalized not everybody, there were few people whose hearts did not fail them when they saw the dark shadows of the horsemen in the swamps.

In this way Roman’s son and the son of his son perished, after whose death I am writing about this for the sake of science and to frighten his descendants who, perhaps, by doing good deeds could deprive the ancient curse of its power over them.

People, beware of the quagmire, beware of the swamps at night, when the blue lights gather and begin dancing in the worst places. There you will see twenty horsemen, their chief racing ahead of all of them, the brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes. No clanging of swords, no neighing of horses.

From somewhere, and only rarely, can be heard the song of a huntsman’s bugle. Manes are flying, marsh lights are twinkling under the horses’ hoofs.

Across the heather, across the fatal quagmire rides the Wild Hunt, it will ride as long as the world lasts. It is our land, a land we do not love, a terrible land. May God forgive us.

...I tore myself away from the papers and shook my head, desiring to rid myself of the wild images. Bierman looked at me biding his time.

“Well, I beg your pardon, but what does the gentleman think of this?”

“What an awful, a beautiful and fantastic legend!” I exclaimed. “It just begs for the brush of a great artist. There is nothing one’s imagination cannot invent!”

“Oh! If this were, I beg your pardon, but a legend... You must know I am a free-thinker, an atheist, as is every person who lives in the spirit of our highly-educated age. But I believe in King Stakh’s Wild Hunt. And, indeed, it would be strange not to believe in it. It is due to the Wild Hunt that Roman’s descendants have perished and the Yanovsky family has almost become extinct.”

“Listen,” I said, “I have already said this to one person, and now I shall say it to you. I can be carried away by an old legend, but what can make me believe it? Roman’s descendants were killed by The Hunt two hundred years ago. In those days the Mahilow Chronicle seriously claimed that before the war bloody imprints left by the palms of hands appeared on the Mahilow stone walls which a man cannot climb.”

“Yes, I remember that,” the book lover answered. “And a number of other examples might be given, but they ...m-m... are somewhat frivolous. Our ancestors were such crude people.”

“So you see,” I said reproachfully. “And you believe in this Hunt.”

The doll-like man, it seemed to me, hesitated somewhat.

“Well, and what would you say, Honourable Sir, were I to declare that I had seen it?”

“A fable,” I cut him off harshly, “and aren’t you ashamed of yourself to frighten a woman with such reports?”

“They are not fables,” Bierman turned pink, “This is serious. Not everyone can be a hero, and I, honestly speaking, am afraid. Now I do not even eat at the same table with the mistress, because King Stakh’s anger falls also on such as she. You remember, don’t you? In the manuscripts?”

“And how did you see the Wild Hunt?”

“As it is described here in the book. I was at Dubatowk’s, a neighbour of the Yanovskys, and was returning home from his house. By the way, a descendant of that very Dubatowk. I was walking along the heather wasteland just past the enormous pile of boulders. And the night was rather bright. I didn’t hear them appear! They rushed past me directly across the quagmire. Oh! It was frightening!”

A turbid look of confusion flashed in his eyes. And I thought that in this house, and probably, in the entire plain there was something wrong with the brains of the people.

“Isn’t there at least one normal person here? Or all of them are insane?” I thought.

“Most important was that they tore along noiselessly. The horses, you must know, of such an ancient breed, they are nowhere to be found today for love or money – they are extinct now. Genuine Palessie’s “drygants” with their tendons cut at the tails. The manes waved with the wind, their cloaks were clasped at the right shoulder so that they did not interfere with the hand holding the sword.”

“Those caped cloaks were worn only over a coat of mail,” I told him disrespectfully. “But what coat of mail could there be when on the hunt?”

“That I know,” simply and very frankly did this doll-like man agree with me, fixing his big fawning eyes on me, eyes as tender as a deer’s.

“Believe me, if I had wished to lie, I could have invented something much better.”

“Then I beg your pardon.”