Yesterday we offered to our readers the first chapter of The Right Hand of the Grand Master, a magnum opus of Konstantine Gamsakhurdia who is considered to be one of the most influential Georgian novelists of the 20th century.
The historical fiction novel is set in the 12th century Georgia. The novel explores the semi-legendary story of building of the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral (Cathedral of the Living Pillar) which was to be built by a dedicated architect, Konstantine Arsakidze, as per orders of the King Giorgi I.
Continued from previous issue
II
That night there was a terrible cloud-burst, and from midnight it poured incessantly. The first cold of autumn set in. A wound received by Giorgi in the battle of Shirimni opened again. Yet he did not wish to violate the tradition of his ancestors and in spite of the sleepless night and the throbbing pain in his leg he called at dawn for a horse.
The keeper of the King’s armoury brought a bridle and put the bit into the mouth of a goldcoloured stallion. A groom rushed up and fastened the cheekpieces. The keeper saddled the horse and when the King had mounted, humbly handed him a whip.
The King’s messenger and the keeper of the armoury took the lead.
Giorgi gave his horse a stinging lash. The three eristavis, the master of the horse and the head of the huntsmen and the falconers followed behind.
The King’s reserve rang with the blasts of bugles. The huntsmen and the beaters banged kettle-drums, filling the forest with a strange uproar.
The game had lured the hounds a long way off into the woods and their baying came from a very far distance.
Giorgi and his attendants wanted to move to another hunting-ground, but across the gully was a rocky precipice, while further on impassable swamps and tangled clematis blocked the way.
Though it was necessary to proceed on foot, riding had made the smarting wound in Giorgi’s leg still worse, and he hesitated to dismount.
Mamamzeh suggested the following plan.
To the right, on the other side of the mountain opposite, there was a glen. The hounds would undoubtedly drive the quarry into it. On the west it was flanked by craggy steeps. When a beast is pursued by hounds it always chooses the easiest way of escape, avoiding crags. It was advisable, therefore, to meet the game at the entrance to the glen, where the hunters could not miss it.
Mamamzeh’s advice was accepted. The swamp was bypassed, the maple forest traversed on horseback.
They approached the neck of the gorge. The baying of the hounds grew louder, the hubbub and clamour raised by the beaters increased. An oak spinney had not yet been passed by the horsemen when suddenly a rustling was heard in the undergrowth, and a wolf rushed out. Then came another darting along the gorge, and again there came a sound like horse’s hoofs. A fiery eye gleamed through the tangle of clematis. Giorgi drew his bow and the first broad-headed arrow found its target. Something barked like a dog, gave a groan and fell with a heavy thud behind some hawthorn bushes hard by.
Eristavi Mamamzeh flung himself from his horse into the tangle of bushes and teasels, and crawled about for a long time amidst the intertwined clematis. Then Giorgi saw him emerging from the briars with a huge wolf on his back. In his long leather coat covered with burs he resembled some wild man of the woods.
He flashed his fine white teeth at Giorgi and exclaimed: “This one is yours and a thousand more to come, O King of Kings!” With these words he threw the dead beast at the feet of Giorgi’s horse. The beaters resumed their drumming and the great bugle of the chief of the huntsmen resounded quite near.
A deer was bounding along, crushing the maple twigs underfoot, breaking through the undergrowth, swift as a gust of wind. The greyhounds seemed to be close at its heels.
The horsemen saw it turn to the right, having sensed the presence of man. It made for those very swamps which Wad been bypassed by the King and his retinue before they came to the neck of the gorge. Yet the noblemen were not disposed to pursue the deer themselves, being unable to follow it on horseback. Giorgi was about to dismount when Mamamzeh seized his horse by the bridle.
“Walking will injure your wounded leg. Stay on your horse, O King,” urged Mamamzeh, invoking the soul of his father, Bagrat Kuropalat.
The King sat quietly in his deerskin saddle, looking into Mamamzeh’s greenish-grey eyes.
So much sincerity and parental solicitude was in his entreaty that Giorgi could not help being astonished. The Mamamzeh of former times came to his mind, the comrade-in-arms in the battles of Shirimni, Oltisi and Niali, the most devoted vassal of Bagrat Kuropalat and the playmate of his own youth. He recollected how he and Mamamzeh had fared when they were ambushed at the castle of Phanaskert.
A doubt now stole into Giorgi’s heart. Perhaps the spies had been lying and Mamamzeh was guiltless in the .uprising led by Kolonkelidze and Chiaberi?
Giorgi did not dismount, and he made up his mind to have a talk with Mamamzeh there and then, in private, as man to man, as between father and son,; to learn from him the motives for Chiaberi’s treason. The King hoped to discern from the expression on Mamamzeh’s face, from the intonation in his voice what part he might have had in the matter. Was it not possible that Mamamzeh had come to the King on New Year’s Day in order to expose his own son? The King dismissed the other eristavis, ordered the chief of the huntsmen to follow the deer towards the
swamps, to look for its tracks in the maple wood; as for himself, he announced that Mamamzeh and he would stay alone at the mouth of the glen.
Both turned their horses thereto. The King rode at a walking pace and was at a loss as to how to start the conversation. The words that swarmed tumultuously into his mind were either sweet as homey or bitter as the venom of am adder. Now and again he stole a glance at the man riding by his side.
And again he recalled the plain of Niali, the battle fought at Basiani, the episodes during the siege of the fortress of Phanaskert, and again he became tongue-tied.
Well, Mamamzeh was his guest. It was in Mamamzeh’s arms that Bagrat Kuropalat had breathed his last. Had not Mamamzeh and Zviad carried the dead body of Bagrat to Bedia for burial? Was it credible that the same hands that had laid in state his father’s corpse in the castle of Phanaskert were now whetting the sword against Giorgi?
All this seethed in Giorgi’s breast. It was beyond his power to find suitable words to express his anxiety.
At that instant the blast of the great bugle was heard again, and the approaching din of the beaters frightened Giorgi’s horse. The rider, roused from deep meditation, managed to pull on the reins just in time to stop his rearing stallion on the verge of a precipice.
The two hunters halted at the mouth of the glen and strained their ears.
Some beast was pressing his way through the dark wood, his heavy paws crushing the dry twigs with a loud crackling.
Giorgi spurred his horse into the depths of the glen, drew his bow and drove a large arrow, tipped with an eagle’s feather, into the chest of a brown bear. The infuriated beast let out a roar, but loath to grapple with a horseman, ran to the rocky precipice, stopped for a moment at the brink, let out another roar and the next minute threw himself down.
Childish carelessness got the better of the King, and he started .after the bear on horseback. At the edge of the crag he jumped from the horse and again bent his bow. This time he missed the bear, which had disappeared in the briars.
The King looked ruefully into the chasm, realizing that his bad leg would prevent him from pursuing the fugitive.
At that moment down leapt Mamamzeh from his horse, with the same agility as in the battle of Shirimni, tucked in the skirt of his long leather coat, sat down on it and with boyish eagerness slid down the steep slope.
Giorgi stood on the brink of the crag and stared at Mamamzeh’s back shooting down the precipitous path until the tall rushes swallowed it up and a deep silence again enveloped the wood.
Giorgi blew his hunting-horn, summoning the beaters and huntsmen. They and the falconers had to go a long way round the crags. Finally the hounds found the bloody tracks of the bear in the reeds and lost them again farther on amidst some rhododendrons.
They sought high and low, in gullies and ravines, through rushes and briars, but in, vain. Both the bear and Mamamzeh seemed to have been engulfed by the abyss.
“The biggest game has stolen away,” whispered Giorgi to Zviad when they were left alone.
“I dared not detain him in the castle contrary to your wishes,” said Zviad, “even yesterday his intentions were clear to me. His purpose was to spy on us, to find out how prepared we were for war. He was sure that nobody would lay hands on the King’s guest and that on the second day of the new year, after the audience, the noblemen would be invited to a hunt, during which’ it would be easy to make his escape.”
Giorgi felt that Zviad was right but made mo answer. He bitterly regretted that he had been too trusting.
The sun was sinking towards the West. Giorgi had already killed three stags, seven wolves, five jackals and three roes and yet the victorious hunter was downcast.
There was now only one expedient left: to let loose Kursha, his favourite bloodhound.
Kursha was big with young but nothing could make her stay at home when she heard the baying of the pack. When the hunting party had been about to leave she had set up such a piteous howling that Giorgi felt sorry for her and let her accompany them on the leash.
The chief of the huntsmen himself brought Kursha to the place under am ash-tree that had been struck by lightning, where all trace of the bear petered out. Subsequently not even drops of blood could be seen on the ground. Kunsha turned to the left, sniffed about for a long time, circled round the place two or three times and then started off on the scent. The chief of the huntsmen had assigned three falconers and seven archers to her.
They traversed the King’s reserve and found that the beast had broken through the inclosure. They passed through a thicket of reeds and entered an impenetrable oak forest; then Kursha stopped as they came upon the bear lying dead under an oak.
By the side of the bear, on the brackens lay Mamamzeh, the old man’s hand still clasping his sword. His beard, white like wool, was spattered with drops of blood. The ferns and grasses all around were trampled down and smeared with gore.
Giorgi was greatly disquieted by this event. He told Spasalar Zviad confidentially that he would have preferred Mamamzeh to have escaped, as nobody would be able to persuade Chiaberi that all this had happened to his father while hunting.
After rubbing Mamamzeh’s temples for a long time they brought him round, and twelve huntsmen had to exert all their strength to move the giant’s body to the palace.
Giorgi called for Parsman. Not satisfied with this measure he demanded that Turmanidze be brought from the castle of Phanaskert.
Mamamzeh’s first question when he opened his eyes was:
“Where am I?”
On being told that he was in the King’s palace, he heaved a sigh, then rubbed his eyes and said:
“I wanted to present the King with the bear’s skin. That’s why I risked my life.”
Then he related how the wounded beast had drawn him very far away. In the tangle of bindweed most of his arrows had gone wide of mark. When the last arrow had hit the bear in the belly, the monstrous beast had reared itself up and rushed at Mamamzeh. He had thrown aside his bow and closed with the bear in a hand-to-hand grapple.
(Translated by Vakhtang Eristavi)
(continued in the next issue)
