He sounded it a second and a third time and waited. There was no living soul upon the walls, nor could a voice be heard within the gates. After a while though, a heavy flap, visible behind a grate built in stone near the castle gate, was raised with a crash, and in the opening appeared the bearded head of a German servant.
“Wer da?” inquired a harsh voice.
“Jurand of Spychow!” replied the knight.
Immediately the flap was closed again and deep silence followed.
Time passed. No movement was heard behind the gate, only the cawing of birds reached his ear from the direction of the gallows.
Jurand stood yet a long time before he raised the horn and sounded it again. But silence again was the sole response.
Now he understood that he was kept before the gate by Teuton pride, which knew no bounds before the defeated, in order to humiliate him like a beggar. He also guessed that he would have to wait thus until evening, or even longer. Consequently his blood began to boil in the first moments; he was suddenly seized with the desire to dismount, pick up one of the rocks which lay near the moat, and cast it at the grate. He and every other Mazovian or Polish knight would have done so, under other circumstances, and let them come then from behind the gate and fight him. But recollecting for what purpose he had come, he bethought himself and desisted.
“Have I not sacrificed myself for my child?” he said in his soul.
And he waited.
Meanwhile something black appeared in the loopholes of the wall. There appeared heads covered with fur, dark hoods and even iron bars, from behind which curious eyes gazed at the knight. More came every moment, because the terrible Jurand, waiting solitarily before the Teuton gate, was an unusual sight for the garrison. Whoever had seen him hitherto, had seen death, but now he could be looked at in safety. The heads constantly multiplied till at last all the loopholes near the gate were occupied by servants. Jurand thought that also the superiors must be looking at him through the grates of the windows in the adjacent tower, and he turned his eyes in that direction, but there the windows were cut in deep walls, and it was impossible to see through them. But in the apertures, the group of people who at first looked at him silently, began to talk. One after another repeated his name, here and there laughter was heard, gruff voices shouted as if at a wolf, louder and more insolently, and when, apparently, nobody among them interfered, they finally began to throw snow at the standing knight. He moved his horse as if involuntarily and then for a moment the throwing of snow ceased, voices quieted down, and even some heads disappeared behind the walls. Surely, Jurand’s name must have been very menacing! Soon, however, even the most cowardly bethought themselves that a moat and a wall separated them from that terrible Mazovian, therefore the rough soldiery again commenced to throw not only small lumps of snow, but also ice, and even shards and stones, which rebounded with a clang from the armor which covered the horse.
“I have sacrificed myself for the child,” repeated Jurand to himself.
And he waited. Noontime arrived, the walls were deserted, because the retainers were called to dinner. A few, those that had to be on guard, ate their meal on the wall, and, after having eaten, entertained themselves with throwing the picked bones at the hungry knight. They also began to tease and question each other who would dare to descend and strike him with the fist in the neck, or with the handle of the lance. Others, returning from their meal, called to him that if he disliked waiting he could hang himself, because there was a vacant hook on the gallows with a ready rope. And amidst such mockery, cries, bursts of laughter and cursing, the afternoon hours passed. The short wintry day gradually drew toward evening, and the drawbridge was still up and the gate remained closed.
But toward evening a wind arose, dispersed the mist, cleared the sky and revealed the sunset glow.
The snow became dark-blue, and then violet. There was no frost, but the night promised to be fair. The walls were again deserted by all but the guard; the rooks and crows departed from the gallows to the forests. Finally the sky darkened and complete silence followed.
“They will not open the gate before nightfall,” thought Jurand.
And for a moment he thought to return to the city, but he soon gave up that idea. “They want me to stand here,” he said to himself. “If I return, they will certainly not let me go home, but surround and capture me, and then they will say that they owe me nothing, because they took me by force, and if I should ride over them, even then I must return….”
The great endurance of the Polish knights for cold, hunger and hardships, so admired by foreign chroniclers, frequently enabled them to perform deeds which the less hardy people from the west could not undertake. Jurand possessed that endurance to a still greater degree than others; therefore, although hunger had long since began to gripe him, and the evening frost penetrated his fur, which was covered with iron plates, he determined to wait, even if he had to die before this gate.
But suddenly, before it became entirely dark, he heard behind him the sound of footsteps in the snow.
He looked back: there were coming toward him, from the direction of the city, six men, armed with lances and halberds; in their midst walked a seventh man supporting himself on a weapon.
“They will perhaps open the gate for them and then I shall ride in with them,” thought Jurand. “They will not try to take me by force, nor kill me, because there are too few; should they attack me, however, it will prove that they do not mean to keep their promise, and then — woe to them!”
Thus thinking, he raised the steel axe hanging at his saddle, so heavy, that its weight was too great for the two hands of an ordinary man, and moved toward them.
But they did not think of attacking him. On the contrary, the servants planted their lances and halberds in the snow, and as the night was not entirely dark yet, Jurand saw that the handles somewhat trembled in their hands.
The seventh, who appeared to be the superior, put out his left arm quickly, and turning his hand upward, said:
“Are you the knight Jurand of Spychow?”
“Yes.”
“Do you wish to hear my message?”
“I listen.”
“The powerful and religious Count von Danveld ordered me to tell you, lord, that until you dismount, the gate will not be opened for you.”
Jurand remained motionless for a while, then he dismounted, the horse being instantly taken away by one of the archers.
“The arms must be surrendered to us,” again said the man with the weapon.
The lord of Spychow hesitated. Perhaps they would attack him unarmed, and kill him like a beast; or capture and cast him under ground? But after a moment he thought that if it were to be so, they would have sent more men. But should they throw themselves on him, they would not destroy his armor at once, and then he could wrench a weapon from the nearest and kill them all before assistance could arrive. They knew him well.
“And even if they should wish to shed my blood,” he said to himself, “I came for no other purpose than that.”
Thus thinking, he threw down first the axe, then the sword, and finally the misericordia, and waited. They took everything, and then the man who had addressed him previously, withdrawing several steps, stopped and began to speak in an insolent, loud voice:
“For all the wrongs you have done to the Order, you must, by the count’s orders, put on this sack cloth which I leave here, tie around your neck the scabbard of your sword with a rope, and wait humbly at the gate until the count’s grace orders it to be opened for you.”
And the next moment Jurand remained alone in the darkness and silence. In the snow before him the penitential robe and rope showed black while he stood long, feeling something in his soul dissolving, breaking, agonizing, dying, and that shortly he would be a knight no more, Jurand of Spychow no more, but a beggar, a slave without a name, without fame, without respect.
Therefore, a long time passed before he approached the penitential robe, and sa
id:
“How can I do otherwise? Christ, Thou knowest they will kill the innocent child, if I do not do all they order. And Thou also knowest that I would not do that for the sake of my own life! Disgrace is a distasteful thing!… distasteful! — but Thou also wast disgraced of old. Well then, in the name of the Father and of the Son….”
He then bent down, put on the robe in which were cut the openings for the head and hands, then he tied around his neck the scabbard of his sword, and dragged himself to the gate.
He did not find it open; but now it was immaterial to him whether they opened it sooner or later. The castle sank into nocturnal silence, only the guards called now and then to each other on the bastions. In the tower near the gate there was light in one window high up; the others were dark.
The night hours flew one after another, on the sky appeared the crescent moon and threw light upon the gloomy walls of the castle. It became so quiet that Jurand was able to hear his own heart-beats. But he stiffened and became entirely petrified, as if his soul were taken from him, and took no account of anything. One thought remained with him, that he had ceased to be a knight, Jurand of Spychow, but what he was he did not know…. Sometimes it also seemed to him that in the middle of the night death was coming to him across the snow from those hanged men that he had seen in the morning….
Suddenly he quivered and awoke entirely.
“O gracious Christ! what is that?”
From the high window in the adjacent tower, the sounds of a lute, hardly heard at first, reached his ear. Jurand, while on the way to Szczytno, was sure that Danusia was not in the castle, and yet this sound of the lute at night aroused his heart in an instant. It seemed to him that he knew those sounds, and that nobody else was playing but she — his child! his darling…. He therefore fell upon his knees, clasped his hands to pray, and listened shivering, as in a fever.
Just then a half-childish and as if ardently longing voice began to sing:
“Had I the dear little wings Of a gosling, I would fly To Jasiek at Szlonsk.”
Jurand wished to reply, to utter the dear name, but his words were imprisoned in his throat, as if an iron band squeezed them. A sudden wave of pain, tears, longing, suffering, collected in his breast; he therefore cast himself down with his face in the snow and began in ecstasy to call upon heaven in his soul, as if in thankful prayer:
“O Jesus! I hear my child once again! O Jesus!” …
And weeping began to tear his gigantic body. Above, the longing voice continued to sing amid the undisturbed silence of the night:
“Would that I might sit In the little Szlonsk garden To gaze upon little Jasiek The poor orphan!”
In the morning a stout, bearded German retainer began to prod the ribs of the knight lying at the gate.
“Upon your feet, dog!… The gate is open, and the count orders you to appear before him.”
Jurand awoke, as if from sleep. He did not catch the man by the throat, he did not crush him in his iron hands, he had a quiet and almost humble face; he arose, and, without saying a word, followed the soldier through the gate.
He had hardly crossed, when a clang of chains was heard, and the bridge began to be drawn up again, while in the gateway itself fell a heavy iron grating.
PART FIFTH.
CHAPTER I.
Jurand, finding himself in the castleyard, did not know at first where to go, because the servant, who had led him through the gate, had left him and gone toward the stables. It is true, the soldiers stood near the palisades, either singly or in groups, but their faces were so insolent, and their looks so derisive, that the knight could easily guess that they would not show him the way, and even if they were to make a reply to his question, it would be a brutal or an indignant one.
Some laughed, pointing at him with their fingers, others commenced to throw snow at him, like yesterday. But he, noticing a door larger than the others, over which was cut out in stone Christ on a cross, turned to it, thinking that if the count and the elders were in another part of the castle or in other rooms, somebody must set him right.
And so it happened. The instant Jurand approached that particular door, both halves of it opened suddenly, and there stood before it a youth with a head shaven like the clericals, but dressed in a worldly dress, who inquired:
“Are you Sir Jurand of Spychow?”
“I am.”
“The pious count ordered me to guide you. Follow me.”
And he commenced to lead him through a great vaulted vestibule toward a staircase. At the stairs though he halted, and casting a glance at Jurand, again inquired:
“But have you no weapon with you? I was ordered to search you.”
Jurand threw up his arms, so that his guide might be able to view his whole figure, and replied:
“Yesterday I gave up everything.”
Then the guide lowered his voice and said almost in a whisper:
“Be careful then not to break out into anger, because you are under might and superior force.”
“But also under God’s will,” returned Jurand.
Then he looked more carefully at his guide, and observing in his face something in the nature of mercy and sympathy, said:
“Honesty looks through your eyes, young man! Will you answer sincerely to what I question?”
“Make haste, sir,” said the guide.
“Will they return the child to me?”
And the youth raised his brows wonderingly.
“Is your child here?”
“My daughter.”
“That lady in the tower near the gate?”
“Yes. They promised to send her away if I surrendered to them.”
The guide waved his hand to signify that he knew nothing, but his face expressed trouble and doubt.
Then Jurand further asked:
“Is it true, that Shomberg and Markward are watching her?”
“Those brethren are not in the castle. Take her away though, sir, ere the nobleman Danveld regains his health.”
Hearing that, Jurand shivered, but there was no time to ask any more questions, because they had arrived at the hall on the upper floor in which Jurand was to face the chief Shchycienski. The youth, after having opened the door, retreated toward the stairs.
The knight of Spychow entered and found himself in a roomy apartment, very dark, because the lead-framed, oval-shaped panes transmitted very little light; furthermore the day was wintry and cloudy. There was, it is true, a fire burning in a large chimney at the other end of the apartment, but the green logs produced little flame. Only after a time, when Jurand’s eyes became used to the darkness, he distinguished a table behind which were knights sitting, and behind them a whole group of armed warriors and servants also armed, among whom the castle fool held a tame bear by a chain.
Jurand had frequently met Danveld some time before, and afterward had seen him twice at the court of the prince of Mazowsze, as delegate, but several years had passed since that time; yet, notwithstanding the darkness, he recognized him instantly, because of his obesity, his face, and finally because he sat in the centre behind the table in an armchair, his hand being circled by wooden splints and resting upon the arm of the chair. To his right sat the old Zygfried von Löve of Insburk, an inexorable foe of the Polish race in general, and particularly of Jurand of Spychow; to his left were the younger brethren, Godfried and Rotgier. Danveld had invited them purposely, to witness his triumph over a threatening foe, and at the same time to enjoy the fruits of the treason which they had plotted together, and in the accomplishment of which they had assisted. They sat now comfortably dressed in soft dark cloth, with light swords at their sides. They were joyous and self-confident, and looking upon Jurand with that pride and extreme contempt which they always bore in their hearts toward the weaker and vanquished.
The silence lasted a long while, because they wished to satiate themselves with the sight of the man whom they had previously dreaded, and who stood before them now with his head bowed u
pon his breast, and dressed like a penitent in sackcloth, and with a rope around his neck, upon which was suspended the scabbard of his sword.
They also apparently wanted as great a number of people as possible to witness his humiliation, for through a side door, leading into other rooms, whoever pleased entered, and the hall was nearly half filled with armed men. They all looked with extreme eagerness at Jurand, conversing loudly and making remarks about him.
But he gained confidence, at the sight of them, because he thought to himself:
“If Danveld did not wish to keep his promise, he would not have ordered so many witnesses.”
Meanwhile Danveld raised his hand, and stopped the conversation; he then made a sign to one of the warriors, who approached Jurand, and catching the rope which encircled his neck, dragged him a few steps nearer the table.
And Danveld looked triumphantly at those present and said:
“Look, how the power of religion defeats anger and pride.”
“May God always grant it so!” answered those present.
Then again followed a moment of silence, after which Danveld turned to the prisoner:
“You were biting the faith like a mad dog, therefore God has caused you to stand before us, with a rope around your neck, looking for charity and mercy.”
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 523