Shadow of a Hero

LEGEND

The Woman at the Avar Bridge

RESTAUR VAX CAME to the bridge over the Avar, and found it guarded by three bazouks¹ who took tolls from all who passed. This oppression had lasted many years.

‘Little priestling, you must pay the toll,’ said the Corporal of Bazouks.

‘This bridge was built by Count Axur,’² said Restaur Vax, ‘and he decreed it free for all to pass. That is the law.’

‘Count Axur is dead seven hundred years,’ said the Corporal of Bazouks. ‘Among the living, the law is our law.’

‘Not so,’ said Restaur Vax. ‘For I am going to send you to where you may beg an audience of Count Axur, and be instructed in matters of law by him.’

He held his staff before him and the Corporal of Bazouks rushed forward and smote at him with his scimitar. But Restaur Vax parried the blow and with the after-stroke drove the butt of his staff into the bazouk’s stomach, and smote him with his knee as he fell forward, and thus stunned him. The other two bazouks then rushed at Restaur Vax but he ran to meet them on the crown of the bridge, where the passage was wide enough for only one, and the first one he smote with the butt of his staff and with his knee, as before, stunning him also, and when the second turned to run, he followed him and felled him with a blow to the head. Then he picked up the three bodies and tossed them into the river, which carried them away. And he threw their weapons after them.

Then the woman who kept the inn by the bridge came to her door and said, ‘Why have you done this to me? You have slain three Turks at my door. I can run with my daughters to the hills, but the Turks will come and burn my roof in vengeance.’

Restaur Vax, knowing she spoke the truth, said in his heart, ‘Somewhere I shall find myself a sword.’ He took from his wallet the first ring that the Bishop had given him, a ring of fine silver set with opals and garnets, and gave it to the woman, saying, ‘Take your goods and your daughters and hide in the mountains. Return when the Turks have gone, and sell this ring and buy timber and hire labour, and build your roof anew.’

At that the woman blessed him and brought out bread and peaches and wine, and while he ate she said, ‘You are too fine a man to be a priest, and moreover my husband was an old man, and he died, so I am a widow.³ I have three good fields on the mountain, and a sound hut, and twenty-seven sheep. You could do worse.’

Restaur Vax looked her over. She was a handsome woman.

‘It is a fair offer,’ he said. ‘One day I may return. But first I must go to fight the Turks.’

‘If you must go, you must go,’ said the woman.

She went into the house and brought out a sword which she had kept hidden among her roof-beams.

‘This was my husband’s sword,’ she said. ‘It was his father’s, and his father’s before him. But my husband gave me only daughters, and it will be long before either of them bears a son, and longer still before he will wear it. Take it with my blessing, and fight the Turks.’

Restaur Vax tested the sword, bending it across his knee, and it sprang singing back to straightness. So he put it through his belt, beneath his priest’s gown, and thanked the woman and went on his way.

¹ Bashi-bazouks were Turkish irregulars, often indistinguishable from brigands. In Varinian bazouk denoted any Turkish soldier of low rank.

² Count Axur was the largely legendary last count of Varina, who is said to have resisted the Turkish conquest until his death in battle.

³ Like Orthodox priests, those of the Church of Varina are permitted to marry, but, presumably as an attempt to compromise with Roman Catholic doctrines of celibacy, they may only marry widows.