CHAPTER VII
THE PRINCESS
After the battle of Nagy-Szöllös John Kemény's faithful followers fled to Hungary and transferred their allegiance from the fallen one to his son Simon Kemény. But his sinking fortunes had few friends, and while the faction of the younger Kemény grew daily less, Apafi's gained from day to day. By his triumph he won over the best and most distinguished of the town, the judges, nobility, commanders of the fortresses, in short everybody hurried to do him homage. The State in a body recognized him as Prince. Only a few places where Kemény had left German garrisons, still resisted, among these Klausenburg. Kutschuk Pasha brought Apafi with a strong force under the walls of this town. He had a tent pitched for him in sight of the old town in Hidele. At that time it was a place of thatched huts, and there the new Prince received deputations. By early dawn Apafi was fairly besieged by the hosts of visitors and place-seekers. At first the newly-chosen Prince, carried away by the novelty of his agreeable position, was able to fulfil the wishes of everybody and refused hardly a request. As soon as Nalaczy and Daczo learned that he had his boots on, they were with him and announced great crowds of people outside the tent eager for entrance. Apafi made haste to dress that no one need wait. He could hardly expect to satisfy everybody. Among the throng was Ladislaus Csaki; he came to offer the Prince as page the same son who had filled Kemény's glass a few weeks before. Apafi could hardly express his pleasure at this offer. Then came Gabriel Haller who bowed countless times and in the name of his two companions made an elaborate speech to Apafi. Apafi could scarcely conceal his childish pleasure in being called Excellency, a title used in Transylvania only for great princes. He invited Gabriel Haller at once to dine with him. At the back of the tent a raised seat had been placed, which the modest Prince positively would not accept until his brother Stephen had forcibly set him there. He received everybody standing and accompanied each one to the door when he went. Then they came singly to present themselves, make requests of the Prince, or swear allegiance.
At the Prince's side stood Nalaczy, Daroczy, Stephen Apafi and John Cserei, who repeatedly urged the Prince to sit down. The oaths of allegiance were received, the commanders of the citadels laid their keys in the Prince's hand and then followed visits.
First came Martin Pok, the jailer at Fogara, with the humble request that he should be made captain of this stronghold instead of the foreign incumbent who had fled with Simon Kemény. Apafi promised to remember him. John Szasz came next, supreme judge in Hermanstadt, to make complaint that his fellow citizens had persecuted him and beg the Prince for help. Apafi took him under his protection. Then followed Moses Zagoni who begged that the Prince would most graciously set him free from certain taxes imposed by Kemény and still in arrears. He too went away comforted by Apafi.
Last of all came before the Prince, a Szekler of the mountains, in short peasant coat and jacket of fur, who, he said, came sent from Olahfalu to bring Apafi the oath of allegiance in the name of his people, and to make his strange requests: first, that Olahfalu should be permitted to be only two miles distant from Klausenburg (the actual distance between the two places was more than twenty); secondly, that there should be a law enacted that if a man had not a horse he should go on foot.
The Prince received these strange requests with laughter. They seemed to put him in extremely good spirits and the young student, Clement, sought to take advantage of this. He was a crooked-nosed, high-cheeked youth, wrapped to the chin in a foxskin, who knelt before Apafi and handed him a roll of parchment that with the aid of his friends Apafi took and unrolled. Within, he found a green leaved tree showing the complete genealogy of his family. In this document he was connected with the Bethlens and Bathorys, taken back to King Aba and on the way connected with Huba, one of the seven leaders of the Magyars. But the good man did not rest even here; the lineage extended even to Csaba, youngest son of Attila. On the mother's side it went still further to the daughter of the Emperor Porphyrogeneta, and on the father's side to Nimrod the first king on earth. This flattery seemed to annoy Apafi somewhat, but he had not sufficient decision to order the flatterer out of the tent. He rolled up the genealogy, put it behind him and undertook to satisfy the impertinent poet with a few ducats. But that did not disturb the Prince's good-humor in the very least. It seemed as if he must express especial thanks to each man for approaching him, and show him the obligation that he felt; and after he had received and listened to the various suppliants, as if this were all too little, he turned to Nalaczy and Daczo with the question, "Is there nothing that I can do for you? What reward shall I make you for the fidelity with which you have stood by me from the first?"
Nalaczy and Daczo had for some time been puzzling their minds as to what request they might make that should not be too small.
"I leave the reward of my trifling services to the generosity of your Excellency," said Nalaczy, thinking that without doubt the Szeklers would now receive a new captain instead of Beldi.
"The little that I have done for your Excellency does not now deserve mention," said Daczo, but it occurred to him that the position of Captain of the train bands at Klausenburg, left vacant by Banfy's flight, would be an appropriate one.
Apafi was well-disposed toward them and perhaps might have made these excellent but useless people his privy counsellors, but to their great misfortune, at that very moment there was a tumult at the entrance to the tent. When the guard drew back the curtain Kutschuk Pasha entered. The Prince sprang from his seat and would have hurried to him, but his brother Stephen pulled his coat and whispered in his ear:—