The Warsaw Conspiracy
Page 1
Table of Contents
Praise for the Novels of James Conroyd Martin
Also by James Conroyd Martin
Acknowledgments
Pronunciation Key
Prologue
Part One
1
Part Two
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Part Three
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Part Four
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Epilogue
Historical Note
Author’s Note
Reading Group Guide Questions
Next from James Conroyd Martin
An Excerpt from The Boy Who Wanted Wings
Connect with the Author
Praise for the Novels of James Conroyd Martin
Push Not the River
“As intriguing and engrossing as its title.”
—Harvard University Quarterly
“Push Not the River contains all the sweep and romance of the classic romantic epics such as Gone with the Wind and Doctor Zhivago, with a heroine who remains strong in the face of both personal and political tragedy. An enthralling tale of courage, survival, and hope, Anna Maria’s story is at once timeless and timely.”
—India Edghill, author of Queenmaker
“James Conroyd Martin’s vivid historical novel captivates the reader with its sweeping depiction of a bygone society on the cusp of violent change. Combining politics with intrigue and romance, Push Not the River gives us a glimpse into the turbulent era of late eighteenth century Poland and its people.Aristocrats and peasants, patriots and traitors come alive in this story, and the Polish soul is beautifully illuminated through ancient myths, folkways, and wisdoms. With his juxtaposition of the personal and political, Martin weaves a compelling tale of transformation—both of a remarkable young woman and her remarkable nation.”
—Jennifer Donnelly, author of The Tea Rose
“Enthralling. Push Not the River is a wonderful epic historical saga in the grand romantic style. The plot never lets up; it gallops at breakneck speed through a vividly portrayed historical landscape.”
—Jane Feather, author of Kissed by Shadows
Against a Crimson Sky
“Entertaining…fans of historical romance will find much to enjoy in this sprawling epic.”
—Publishers Weekly
“With Napoleon Bonaparte’s ill-fated campaign to conquer Russia as a backdrop, Against a Crimson Sky manages to turn the wily emperor’s exploitation of Polish patriotism into a classic read that lovers of Push Not the River will devour. James Conroyd Martin brings back the characters that made his first novel so compelling, deftly weaving their daily lives into the panorama of war and turmoil that consumed Poland in the early nineteenth century. He portrays a world of hardship and heart in marvelously rendered ‘little pieces of happiness stolen from a tapestry of turmoil, war, and separation’.”
—Leonard Kniffel, Editor-in-chief of American Libraries
“Readers will revel in this engrossing tale of courage, family loyalty, and the Polish nation.”
—Historical Novels Review
“I was both enthralled and educated by this story of a changing family in a changing Poland. You don’t have to have read Push Not the River to get the most from this sequel, but after finishing Against a Crimson Sky you’ll want to—just as you’ll be rooting for another book from James Conroyd Martin.”
—Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of Hoopi Shoopi Donna
“Against a Crimson Sky continues the saga of Anna Berezowska and her family as Poland is caught in a deadly vise from its more powerful neighbors. The story line provides a feel for the history, but is more a historical romance spanning over two decades of two people (Jan and Anna) trying to do what they feel is right for their country yet also keep their loved ones safe. In many devious ways Zofia is the star of the tale as a Lady Macbeth plotting at the cost of others (collateral damage) to achieve her goal. . . . [A] fine sequel.”
—Harriet Klausner, Amazon’s Hall of Fame #1 Reviewer
The Warsaw Conspiracy
“With The Warsaw Conspiracy, James Conroyd Martin concludes his sweeping trilogy of Poland in the 18th and 19th centuries in grand style. Blending memorable characters from Push Not the River and Against a Crimson Sky with fascinating new arrivals, Martin’s masterful story-telling is at its best. We are instantly thrust into the action as impetuous young military cadets conspire to overthrow the Russian oppressor and regain Poland’s freedom. While the ultimate outcome may be pre-ordained, the story unfolds with all the intrigue of an espionage thriller and the gripping tension of a heartfelt love story. This one is not to be missed.”
—Douglas W. Jacobson, author of Night of Flames and The Katyn Order
“If you thought the first two installments of James Conroyd Martin’s historical trilogy were enthralling, wait until you read the third. More than a simple adventure or romance, The Warsaw Conspiracy is a heartstopping journey through post-Napoleon Poland as another generation of freedom-loving Poles resists the domination of a hostile neighbor. Martin’s uncanny insight into the Polish national psyche and his vigorous prose make this a compelling page-turner as we learn the fate of our heroines Anna and Zofia and their family. Historical facts and details of daily life combine to keep you riveted to the page.”
—Leonard Kniffel, former American Libraries Editor-in-Chief; author of Reading with the Stars: A Celebration of Books and Libraries and A Polish Son in the Motherland
“Martin’s passionate saga of Poland and its long struggle for autonomy continues in The Warsaw Conspiracy. Here he examines the dreams and heartbreak of a brave insurrection against the Russian czars and the rise of Jósef Steinicki, one of those thrilling military warriors, uniquely Polish, called hussars.”
—Karleen Koen, New York Times bestselling author of Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel and Before Versailles
THE WARSAW CONSPIRACY
JAMES CONROYD MARTIN
The Warsaw Conspiracy
Copyright © 2012 by James Conroyd Martin. All rights reserved.
http://www.JamesCMartin.com
Second Kindle Edition: May 2013
Edited by Mary Rita Perkins Mitchell
Cover and interior design by Streetlightgraphics.com
Cover art:
Seizure of the Arsenal on November 29, 1830
By Marcin Zaleski, 1831
National Museum, Warsaw
Lady Hamilton as Circe
By George Romney c.1782
Tate Galleries, UK
Title page:
Polish Eagle, drawing
By Kenneth Mitchell
Interior art:
Wycinanki (vih-chee-nahn-kee), Polish folk papercuts
By Frances Drwal
All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
While some characters are based on
real people as described in the diary that inspired Push Not the River and other characters are historical personages, this is a work of fiction.
Also by James Conroyd Martin
Push Not the River
Against a Crimson Sky
Acknowledgments
Among the many deserving of my deepest appreciation are Greg Bimm, Frances Drwal, Judith Sowiński Free, Linda Hansen, Ken Mitchell, Mary Rita Perkins Mitchell, Faye Predny, Sean Scanlon, Pam Sourelis, John Stelnicki, as well as Craig Hansen and Glendon and Tabatha Haddix of Streetlight Graphics.
For Mary Rita Perkins Mitchell
~compatriot on my journey~
With love and thanks
Pronunciation Key
Czartoryski = Char-ta-RIZ-key
Jan = Yahn
Jósef = Yu-zef
Jerzy = Ye-zhĭ
Halicz = Hah-leech
kasza = kasha
Kościuszko = Kawsh-chew-shkaw
Kraków = Krah-kooff
Michał = Mee-how
Paweł = Pah-vel
Sochaczew = Saw-hah-cheff
Stanisław = Stah-neess-wahf
szlachta = shlack-ta
Prologue
Birth is Much
But Breeding is More
—POLISH PROVERB
November 1813, Warsaw
ANNA WAS EASING HERSELF OUT of the blue brocaded high-back chair when her water broke. “Sweet Jesus,” she cried in a half-whisper, falling back into the cushions and staring down in disbelief as she watched the pale green of her gown darken.
Her pulse quickened with panic and a flushed heat ran like a river through her veins. Labor would start at any moment. What to do?
Her hands went to her unbraided hair, her fingers frenetically pulling and tugging at the long chestnut brown strands, her mind insensate to the pain. It was a habit that dated to childhood and one that she employed at moments of intense unease or pain, a habit dormant for years, until now.
She fought off fear and willed herself calm. The experience of birth was not new to her—she had already borne three children. But this was the first time she would give birth away from home, away from experienced women, away from a capable midwife.
How could this be? She had thought the half-day carriage ride from the Sochaczew estate to Warsaw to be safe, short, and smooth enough for a woman eight months pregnant. Now she became convinced her judgment was flawed. Had it been the bumps and lurches the carriage and she had weathered? There was no counting the holes and ruts left in the unmended roads as tokens of a government usurped by foreigners. Damn the Russians! Or—was she closer to full term than she had supposed? These were moot questions now and she would spare them no time. For the safety of the baby’s delivery, she took a moment to catch her breath and to pray. Early babies meant complications. Early babies often meant . . .
“Anna! What is it?”
The voice drew her back. Jan stood at the entrance to the reception room of the town house, his handsome face paling as his blue eyes moved from her face to the wet folds of her gown.
Anna swallowed hard. “It’s time, Jan. It’s time.” She managed a smile.
“Oh, my God,” he mumbled.
Anna watched her husband—a Polish lancer who had fought Prussians, Austrians, and Russians, a man who had endured capture by Cossacks, a man who had sustained sword and bullet wounds—stand mute and motionless at the sight of a woman about to birth.
At last he moved slowly toward her. “Oh, Anna,” he breathed, “what are we to do?”
Anna knew her own sense of composure was all important now. She contrived a little laugh. “Do? It’s a safe wager we won’t get back to Sochaczew. The path is set, husband.”
He sat on the edge of the chair at the bedside and took her hand in his. “You said you had time. You said the journey—”
Anna put a finger to his lips. Her laugh this time was gently mocking. “And you have never been wrong in your life, Jan Stelnicki?”
“Not in such matters,” he said.
“To be certain. Such matters are not men’s matters.” Anna took the measure of her husband’s knitted brow beneath the silvering blond hair. “Now, we must both be calm. We will weather this. . . . Where’s Zofia?”
Jan shrugged. “She went out earlier. By the look of your cousin’s attire and the scent of her French perfume, she’ll not return home any time soon.”
“Mary, Help of Christians!” Anna blurted. She took a breath then, fending off the return of her own panic. “You’ll have to find someone here in the capital, Jan. Someone who can deliver our child. The servants are scarcely more than children themselves. Zofia herself would have been worthless, but she would have known of someone.”
His eyes widened. “Find someone? Who, Anna? Where?”
“That is for you to determine, Major Stelnicki. Surely all the doctors didn’t follow Napoleon. And if they did, one or two must have survived the Moscow retreat. Go, now. Soldiers are good at foraging. Their lives depend upon it. You told me so yourself. Now go forage me a midwife at the least.” Anna’s hand moved to the contour of her belly. “This life depends upon it.”
Jan stood. “We should get you to bed first.”
“No, the girls here can tend to that much.” Anna pulled the rope that would ring the bell in the kitchen. “You must go now. Hurry! Unless you wish to play doctor yourself.”
Jan’s chiseled face bled to white, a stark contrast to the cobalt eyes and dark blue of his short, tailored coat. He bent to kiss her on the cheek and rushed from the room, nearly colliding in the doorway with the young servant girl, Jolanta.
Anna had been unable to take more than one flight of stairs, and so had been placed in Zofia’s daughter’s bedchamber on the first level. Oblivious to the luxuriousness of the huge bed, its crimson hangings and down-stuffed mattress and pillows, she lay staring at the ceiling. She was alone when the pains took on an increasing regularity, just an hour after Jan had left the town house.
Coming to Warsaw had been a gamble, one she had lost. That much was clear. She had wanted to attend the funeral of Anusia Potocka’s mother. Anusia had been a good and dear friend to her in the old days, and despite Jan’s cautions, Anna was not to be kept away. Of course, as it turned out he had been right to urge prudence. However, Anna was thankful for the small blessing that before embarking on his search for a doctor or midwife, Jan had not chided her for her stubbornness. His fears for her and for their child prevailed.
She had been foolish to attempt the journey and could only blame herself. There was nothing left to do now but pray. For someone to help. For a safe delivery. For a healthy baby.
And for a girl. She would offer up no more boys to war. She had lost one to the war machine. Dear, sweet Tadeusz, lost on the death march from Moscow. Yes, she would have a girl, a sister for Jan Michał and Barbara. It must be a girl!
The pains were sharper now and becoming more frequent. Where was Jan? Why hadn’t he returned?
Jan. Her love for him had not diminished over time despite the fact that the military had taken him away for what seemed like more years than he had spent with her.
Their marriage had not been what she had imagined, what she had expected. And yet she did not begrudge him his years with Kościuszko or his time with Napoleon. They were years spent for Poland. Always for Poland. On that they had held the same dream, one first given life by Tadeusz Kościuszko, a dream that they would keep an independent Poland. And when it was lost, how they had hoped that with Napoleon they would regain it. While his promise to restore freedom to Poland had been more implicit than explicit, the majority of the country had bought his bill of goods. What was it the little corporal called himself? A dealer in hope, that was it. Well, he had been that. He had given them hope and taken so many thousands of young men to their deaths on the steppes of Russia, moving toward Moscow, and then away—in winter.
A pain tore through her like a gutting knife, and she called out to be attended.<
br />
This would be her last child. Somehow she knew that. And it would be a girl. No more sacrificial boys, no matter how worthy the cause. The independent Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania had vanished. Might it ever be pieced back together in her lifetime? Not likely.
Looking back even further was no easy thing. By seventeen she had lost her parents and infant brother, all untimely deaths.
But she had her own family now. She had that, no little thing. What was it Aunt Stella had said about family? The words came back to her now: Before there are nations, there are families.
Anna pulled the bell rope near the bed. Where were those girls? And Jan—what in God’s name was keeping him?
The pains seemed somehow different this time. What was it? Were they coming quicker? Sharper? More intense?
Until now she had been blessed in giving birth. Not so her mother, who had had notions of filling the house with sons after Anna’s birth. Anna had always sensed that her own birth—the birth of a daughter—had been a disappointment to her mother. There was aloofness in her mother’s demeanor toward her, a coldness even, one that contrasted sharply with the sun-kissed love emanating from her father. Countess Teresa Berezowska steadfastly pursued her goal of bearing myriad sons, and there were multiple pregnancies, too, but only one that came to term. Anna closed her eyes, the thought of her infant brother bringing on the blur of tragedies that took him and her parents from her.
Anna pulled herself up against the goose down pillows. She would weather this, she told herself. She would have her family. Poland would go on, with or without its title or borders, with or without her. She would have her Jan and her children, all but one.