Three Arched Bridge

60

THE BLOODSHED occurred one day before Christmas, at four in the afternoon. Everything took place in a very short time, the bat of an eyelid, but it was an event of the kind that is able to divide time in two. Since that day in the month of St. Ndreu, people do not talk about time in general, they talk about time before and time after.

Until shortly before four o’clock (on that cloudy day, it seemed to have been four o’clock since morning), until just before the fatal moment, there was no ominous sign anywhere. Everything looked empty, when suddenly, God knows how, the chill fog spawned seven horsemen. They were approaching at speed with a curious kind of gallop, not in a straight line but describing wide arcs, as if an invisible gale were driving their horses first in one direction and then in another. When they drew near enough to distinguish their helmets and breastplates, they were seen to be Turkish horsemen.

When our sentries on the right bank saw that the horsemen were coming to the bridge, they blocked the entrance with crossed spears. The horsemen continued their rush toward the bridge in their unusual gallop, describing arcs. Our sentries made signs for them to halt. They were required to stop, even if they had crossed the border with permission and all the more so if they had come without permission, which had often happened recently. But the horsemen did not obey.

To those who witnessed the skirmish from the distance of the riverbank, it resembled a dumb show. Two of the Turkish horsemen were able to rush through our guards and head for the middle of the bridge. A third was brought down from his mount, and a skirmish began around him. One of our guards ran after the horsemen who were racing ahead. Those left behind, Albanians and Turks, crossed spears. Another horseman succeeded in struggling free of the confusion and went on the heels of our guard, who was pursuing the first two horsemen. Meanwhile, our sentries on the left side of the bridge were rushing to the help of their comrades. They met the first two Turkish horsemen in the center of the bridge. An Albanian sentry pursuing the horsemen joined the fight, as did the third Turkish rider, who had pursued our guard.

Yet all this happened, as I said, in total silence, or seemed to, because the raging of the river smothered every sound. Only once (ah, my flesh creeps even now when I think of it), did a voice emerge from the dumb tumult. It was no voice, it was a broken kra, a horrible cry from some nonhuman throat. And then that play of shadows again, with somebody running from the middle of the bridge to the right bank, and returning to rescue someone who had fallen. There was a clash of spears, and at last the repulse of the horsemen, and their retreat into the fog out of which they had come, with one riderless horse following them, neighing.

That was all. The horizon swallowed the horsemen just as it had given them birth, and you could have thought they were only a mirage, but… there was evidence left at the bridge. Blood stained the bridge at its very midpoint.

The count himself soon came to the scene of the incident. He walked slowly across the bridge, while the guards, their breastplates scarred with spear scratches, told him what had happened. They paused by the pool of blood. It must have been the blood of the Turkish soldier, whose body the horsemen had succeeded in recovering. As the blood froze, the stones of the gravel made its final gleam more visible.

“Turkish blood,” our liege lord said in a hoarse, broken voice.

Nobody could tear his eyes away. We had seen their Asiatic costume. We had heard their music. Now we were seeing their blood … the only thing they had in common with us.

This day was bound to come. It had long been traveling in the caravan of time. We had expected it, but perhaps not so suddenly, with those seven horsemen emerging from the mist and being swallowed by the mist again, followed by a loose horse.