“A mystery?” The amber flecks in her green eyes sparkled with amusement.
Michał’s eyes went to his sister Barbara, younger by five years, and her husband as they assisted seating their two-year-old twin boys. He allowed no time for his fierce emotions regarding his sister’s marriage to surface. Instead, he smiled at his mother. “Later, when everyone’s gone home.”
Before she could respond, he shooed her into the dining hall and pushed closed the mullioned French doors. Behind the glass now, in colorful finery, the diners seemed to him like tropical fish.
Michał hurried to the front portico, hospitality symbol for every Polish manor house, thinking that perhaps he and the prince should converse outside, but he rejected the idea as unworthy of a host welcoming a man of such stature, a statesman and one of Poland’s wealthiest magnates. Later, when he had learned the full details of the prince’s visit and witnessed the curiosity the visitant aroused among the guests, he would regret the decision.
Prince Adam Czartoryski gave him a smile—sincere yet serious—as he climbed the three steps to the portico’s platform. Introductions were formal. The prince was a generation older and had known Michał’s stepfather Jan, but this was Michał’s first meeting with him. All the more reason for the mystery of the occasion. Why had he come?
Michał ushered him into the house, hurrying him past the dining hall, hoping that those seated at table would not happen to glance through the glassed doors and wonder at the guest. They moved into the reception room and, once they were inside the commodious chamber, Michał made quick work of pulling closed the oak doors. Here they would have privacy.
“Please be seated, your grace,” Michał said, already setting up two crystal glasses. “Vodka?”
“Yes, thank you.” The prince would not offend his host with a refusal. He remained standing. “I came at a bad time, I see. You’re entertaining, it seems. A celebration of the Third of May Constitution, no doubt.”
Michał grimaced. “It was to have been, but that was before we knew my brother-in-law was coming. So now, for the sake of appearances we are celebrating my birthday.”
The prince gave a quizzical look. He had an unusually long face, distinctive features, and small, piercing eyes, more gray than blue. Michał took him for sixty, but a handsome man, just the same.
“My sister Barbara married a Russian, you see.” Michał passed a glass to the prince, then held his gaze in a meaningful way, brown on blue. “A civil servant in Warsaw, no less.”
“Ah, I see. Discretion is the best policy. . . . And you were born on the third of May? Truly?”
“Yes, 1792, a year after the Constitution.”
“Those were heady times.”
“And all but gone, Constitution and independence—before I was even three.” Michał took up his own glass. “Regrettable. A national tragedy.”
The prince let out a poignant sigh. “Ah, it does seem as if the Russian interlopers have been with us always.”
But not always at our tables, Michał thought.
The prince raised his glass. “To the Constitution!” The glasses were properly emptied. Michał and the prince seated themselves across from one another. Each took turns at small talk about the weather and the spring planting. When it was played out, a silence ensued.
At last, the prince gave the slightest shake of his head. “I’ve been caught up in politics all of my life, my boy. I still am and it’s politics that brings me to Sochaczew. I’ve come to enlist your aid.”
“My aid?” Michał was thunderstruck. The thought that such a great man had come to see him was more than a mystery. It was a wonder, as was the thought that he could be of some help to the prince. “I just cannot imagine what you could want with me, your grace. I haven’t been involved in the military, if one even calls that politics, since Waterloo.”
“You were there—with his Polish lancers, I know. That Napoleon had chosen Polish lancers for his Imperial Guard speaks volumes. And as doomed as his grand plan was, his Polish Lancers did us proud. I congratulate you.”
“No need. I was one of the few to survive. And I’ve given all that up. I don’t think militarily anymore. I manage my mother’s estate here. I avoid politics. I even avoid going to the capital as much as possible.”
“Out of sight, out of mind?”
Michał forced a smile.
“Lady Stelnicka, your mother, how is she?”
“She puts on a strong front. She misses Father terribly.” A shudder ran through Michał as he recalled his father’s arrest in ’26 for his membership in the Patriotic Society. How they had tried him and others of the club for being sympathizers with the 1825 Decembrists’ plot in Russia against the new tsar, Nicholas, who was so much more the severe autocrat than his predecessor, Tsar Aleksander. How ignominiously his father had been bound and taken from his home and beloved Poland. “It’s as if Russia swallowed him whole.”
“Has there been no word, Michał?”
“None,” Michał said, shaking his head. “If he’s alive, he is most likely in some godforsaken camp in Siberia.”
“What about you, are you . . . content here? After having led a soldier’s life for so long? You had gone to Moscow with the little Corsican, too, yes? And lived to tell about that!”
“I did,” Michał said. He found himself blinking back tears that sprang spontaneously. “But my brother Tadeusz did not.”
“I’m sorry for that, Michał. . . . Forgive me, I am a clumsy conversationalist today to remind you of so much sadness. Perhaps I shouldn’t keep you in the dark any longer about my . . . visit. And . . . what shall I call it?—a mission, pehaps.”
“Mission?”
The prince nodded. “First, a few facts. But before that, I think we should have another vodka. What say you?” He managed a laugh. “The road to Sochaczew is dry and dusty.”
And, Michał thought, the road to the prince’s purpose is circuitous. “Of course, your grace.” Michał went to the table by the window and returned with the decanter. “Good Polish stuff!”
The prince stood to make the toast. “Sto Lat!”
“Ah!” Michał intoned at the birthday toast that called for a century of living. “I appreciate the sentiment, your grace, but I can’t say I wish to live a hundred years.”
“At least not under Russian rule, yes? Your Polish blood is true, young Michał. Well, then, to what shall we toast?” The prince paused only a moment. “I have it. To a brighter tomorrow, free of foreigners’ rule!”
“Now that I’ll drink to!”
The two drank down the vodka at once, in the Polish fashion.
As the prince settled back into the high-winged chair, his expression went dark. “Times have become very dangerous in Warsaw. Dangerous for Poland. While we have been given more freedom than we might have expected under Russian rule—we’ve kept the Sejm and a Polish military—there are always those who yearn for the days of the Constitution and independence, those who wish to throw off Tsar Nicholas’ yoke altogether. I can empathize with such feelings but having seen what I’ve seen, I’ve become a cautious man. Things carelessly done can create havoc.”
Michał sat now. “Like interminable winter marches to Moscow?”
“Exactly. Although the Prussians, Austrians, and Russians have claimed so much of our former nation, we still have this shrunken entity called the Congress Kingdom of Poland, this by the so-called good graces of the Congress of Vienna. It is a ghost of its former self, and insult to injury is suffering a Russian tsar as our king. Ah, but despite these things, Poland remains. It endures. Why, even beyond the new boundaries our people retain our language, our faith, and our heritage.”
“That’s all very well,” Michał said, leaning forward, “but what freedom do we really have? You mentioned the Sejm and the military. You know as well as I that the men making laws in the Sejm are answerable to the Grand Duke Konstantin who is, himself, Commander of the Polish Army.”
“You’re right,
of course,” the prince said, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
“And forgive me, your grace, but isn’t it true that old General Zajączek, having been raised to Prince and named Viceroy of Warsaw, has become but a tool of Konstantin? In fact, would I be mischaracterizing things if I were to say that true patriots in all branches of government have been supplanted by Poles who are nothing more than Russian sycophants?”
The prince’s gray-blue eyes seemed to simmer. “You would not.”
“You asked if I’m content here. I was a soldier, bred to the bone, as you correctly implied. I stayed with Napoleon through to the end. He said his Polish Imperial Guard was the best in the world. When I came back from Waterloo, I continued on in my service in Warsaw. But under Konstantin, the army—Polish or no—became a blood brother to the government in its movement to rid our country of any sense of nationalism and make us thralls of Russia. The liberty of the press was denied. Freemasonry was forbidden. Under Tsar Aleksander things had been somewhat tolerable, but when Nicholas succeeded him and the Grand Duke Konstantin—his brother, and Grand Tyrant, I say—arrived in Warsaw, I asked to be dismissed. I found it preferable to the degradation and depression so many other soldiers endured. They say half of the officers and generals asked for dismissal. Many others, among both officers and enlisted men, committed suicide. So, you see, my contentment here matters little. Family is here. The old ways are here. I’m needed.”
The prince sighed. A little nod seemed to validate Michał’s speech. “Allow me to present my case, Jan Michał.” That he employed Michał’s full Christian name presaged a serious turn in the prince’s mood. “It’s our own military that concerns me. You see, there are two young officers at the Officer Cadets School whose careers are stalled. They have become bored with a sedentary military life and—”
“Wait a moment, your grace. Does your visit have something to do with my brother Józef? He’s a cadet there. Of course, you must know that.”
The prince’s eyes held Michał’s. “I do know that.” He smiled tightly. “Please allow me to go on.”
Michał nodded. The mystery was unfolding too slowly—and he was beginning to like none of it.
“The two firebrands I’m speaking of are burning with romantic dreams of personal heroism and patriotic notions of national independence.”
“Typical, yes? The relentless Polish dream of glory?”
“True, Michał, and all too often a false dream. I can tell you that these two have wrongfully fired up the young cadets with their zeal.”
“Like my brother?”
The prince nodded. “Most likely. And it is a dangerous zeal.”
“I don’t think we should allow that dream of independence to die. With all due respect, Lord Czartoryski, are you not aligned with Russia?”
“Touché. If I were you I would be questioning my motives, as well. It is true that as a young man I was a great friend to Tsar Nicholas’ brother. But Tsar Aleksander was a cut of a different cloth. A much finer cloth.”
“You were in his cabinet.”
“Ah, yes. Oh, Aleksander had great plans for Poland in the early days. He was very liberal in his thinking. He agreed with me that an independent Poland, one serving as a barrier to Prussian aggression, was to Russia’s advantage.”
“What happened?”
“Aleksander vacillated. He couldn’t come to decisive action regarding our independence. And then events took over, Napoleon being one of them.”
Michał stared into his empty glass. “And now we’re left with Tsar Nicholas as King of our shrunken kingdom and his brother Konstantin ensconced in Warsaw as Imperial Commissioner and Commander of the Army.”
“Indeed. And although the Grand Duke Konstantin claims to be more Pole than Russian because he has married Lady Joanna Grudzińska and calls himself Polish, you can be sure he is true to Mother Russia. He has a volatile temperament and if given the opportunity, he would walk over his mother’s grave to pluck a candy from a child’s hand.”
“As would Tsar Nicholas—”
“Ah, there is much to fear with him—and in the arm of the secret police here in Warsaw.”
“The Third Department?” Michał asked.
“Yes, overseen by the Imperial Commissioner, General Nikolai Novosiltsev. He and I were two of Aleksander’s three most trusted advisers in the old days. And Nikolai was a friend to me. But the years have corrupted him and turned his thoughts dark against Poland.”
Michał nodded. “They’re known to torture prisoners.”
“Hah! If that were only all.”
“And he has wind of the cadets’ dissension?”
“I’m certain he does.”
“Who are the two you spoke of? The firebrands, as you call them.”
“A second lieutenant named Wysocki and a Colonel Zaliwski. They are putting together a plot, Michał. No doubt a very dangerous plot. They’re too young to know the hardships that came with the dismemberment of the Republic in ‘95, too young to know that the battlefield affords little lasting glory, as you and I know. It affords more blood, bashing of brains, missing limbs, and death than anything. They don’t understand how hard we’ve worked to carve out this Congress Kingdom of Poland, albeit under the aegis of Russia and the eye of Nicholas’ brother. Men such as Wysocki and Zaliwski could lose it all for us.”
“Is it so serious?” Michał asked. “Can two dreamers really do anything? Perhaps they’ve read too much nationalistic poetry, my lord, too many verses from Adam Mickiewicz.”
“It’s not to be made light of, Michał.” The prince leaned forward. “The cadets alone may or may not do any real damage, but their instigation of some big event could muster the voices and arms of the many who have suffered decades of a poorly masked tyranny.”
“What plot, my lord?”
“That’s just the thing, Michał. We don’t know.”
“And—I?” Michał asked although he was certain he had already divined the direction of the prince’s thoughts.
“Józef is your brother. If he is one of the insurgents—or if he merely knows one of the insurgents—he can provide us with needed information.”
“So I’m to be a spy then—on my young brother?”
“There is much at stake here, Michał.”
Michał attempted a smile. “I’m sorry you have come all this way, your grace. Certainly there are others in Warsaw who can infiltrate the Cadets Academy.”
“None that can be trusted.” The prince’s eyes narrowed. “None I can count on.”
“Why me?”
“I know your family by the sacrifices you’ve made. I knew—I know—your father.” He paused, as if he had just played his best card, then continued: “My friends at the capital and I am watched day and night by the Russian secret police. It took no little doing for my driver to shake off a Russian detail following us today. We had to exit the back door of an inn to make our escape. In short, Michał, the fact that you are removed from the activities in Warsaw means that you would not arouse suspicion.”
“Still, your grace, I do have my duties here. And I have no wish to interfere in Józef’’s life.”
“In his interest, Michał.”
“Shhh! Did you hear that?” Michał whispered.
The prince shrugged. “It escaped me. I heard nothing.”
With a finger to his mouth, Michał motioned. “Outside the door,” he mouthed. “The floorboards.”
The prince rose and stood silently while Michał made for the door, pulling it open at once. Nothing. The hallway was empty.
He stepped out, turning just in time to see the dining hall doors being pulled closed.
Someone had been in the hall. The question was, had he—or she—heard anything of his conversation with the prince?
Michał stepped back into the reception room. “Nothing,” he said, shrugging, attempting to ignore a knotting of uneasiness in his stomach.
“I should go. I’ve overstayed my welcome.” The prin
ce retrieved his hat from the table. “It’s probably just a matter of time before the Russian detail ferrets me out even though we took well-travelled roads so as not to leave tracks leading to your door. . . . Michał, I do hope you don’t doubt my motives because of my past associations with Russia. I am thinking only of Poland.”
“”I do not doubt that, your grace.” Michał spoke the truth.
“Ah, well, I’ve made my case, but it was not my intention in coming here to pressure you in any way. You needn’t decide now.” The prince smiled. “I’m certain your judgment is equal to your hearing. Contact me in the capital should you wish to help. Discreetly, of course. I am closely watched.”
Michał nodded. His mind was in a ferment.
“You know my residence?”
“Yes,” Michał replied, suppressing a laugh. Everyone knew the very impressive Czartoryski mansion.
“I’m sure you’re of good use here, Jan Michał, but you may have a higher calling.” The prince shook Michał’s hand, the earnest gray-blue eyes piercing Michał. “A fine man, your father. How proud Jan must be of you, Michał. I’ll shake a few trees. I’ll see what I can find out about his whereabouts.”
“Would you, your grace? My mother and I would be so grateful.”
“No promises, my boy.”
“No, no, of course not. Now if you don’t mind, your grace, please allow me to show you out through the rear of the house.” Michał forced a little laugh. “Forgive me, but discretion starts at home.”
Michał had played the hospitable role expected at the home of the szlachta, the minor nobility, but he was greatly relieved to see the roiling dust from the black carriage of a magnate moving down the estate’s avenue, heading for the main road that would take the prince and his “mission” back to Warsaw. Good riddance, he thought. Prince or no, statesman or no, what nerve had he to arrive on short notice with such a request? Aside from not wishing to interfere in young Józef’s life at the Cadets Academy, Michał had no intention of getting caught up in the old dreams, the old fire of independence, the old disappointments. He had lost too many years in the efforts, in the pains. He turned to go back into the house. Gone were the days of the enemies at the gates—the Swedes, Austrians, Turks, Prussians, Cossacks, Russians. No, the enemy was within now. The man who dared call himself King of Poland was the Russian tsar. Poland, it seemed, would always serve the wishes and whims of others. What was there that he could do about it? He resented the prince’s visit and the tacit sense of patriotism and responsibility it was meant to incite. Hadn’t he done enough for his nation, a nation that, in truth, was no more than a ghost of its former self?
The Warsaw Conspiracy Page 3