The two cadets grabbed their weapons and rushed out the door.
“Not a good omen, this,” Marcin muttered as they clattered down the stairway. “Holy Christ.”
A gentleman downstairs to see you, milord,” the maid said, quite out of breath from climbing the four flights.
“Thank you, Wanda,” Michał replied. Anna, Zofia and Izabel hadn’t taken notice of the exchange, so intent were they on peering out the upper story’s window in an attempt to see the glow of what must be a great fire down near the river.
Michał excused himself and raced down the stairs. Jerzy awaited him in the front hall, his face grim. “I’ve seen it, Jerzy. It’s that big warehouse by the river on Szulec Street, isn’t it? I was just going to lend a hand. You too?”
“No, Michał it’s not just a fire.” He took in a breath, as if he were about to deliver a reposte in a duel. “It’s the signal from the cadets. God help us, but their little revolution has started. And one of their first actions concerns the Grand Duke.”
“God’s wounds!” Michał felt blood draining from his face. “What do you know?” Michał’s concern that his homeland was on the brink of a new tragedy, a new bloodletting, was immediately superseded by his concern for his young brother.
“The students are already pouring into the streets.” Jerzy seemed to read in his face his first concern. “As for the cadets we know there are plans for a contingent to attempt to take the garrison.”
“And another the Belweder, I would wager?”
Jerzy nodded. “Yes,”
“There’s not much the two of us can do against a mob. Except perhaps protect Józef. I must find him. Good god, he’s just a boy, and it will kill my mother if anything happens to him. Will you help, Jerzy?”
“Of course, what do you want me to do?”
Michał was already ushering him to the front door. “Go to the garrison to search him out. I’ll go to Belweder.”
“Michał, I’ve not met your brother. I don’t even know what he looks like.”
“Nothing like me. I’ve got Tatar blood running through me. He’s much lighter. You met my father when you came yesterday to see Iza. Imagine him at seventeen—handsome and blond but eyes not so much blue as blue-green.”
They were moving down the stairs now—pausing just long enough for Michał to grab hold of his sword and its carriage—and out into the smoke-filled street. “Michał, he sounds like every other cadet, and I can’t go checking all their eyes.”
Michał stopped and turned to Jerzy, gripping him at the upper arms. “Do what you can, Jerzy! Ask around if you have the opportunity. Call out his name! And—God forbid—if any cadets have—fallen—check for an identification tag.” Michał looked hard into this new friend’s eyes. “Please, Jerzy, do this for me.” He then released him and began sprinting the great distance toward Łazienki Park and Belweder Palace. Instinctively he had put himself in his brother’s place, at his brother’s age. Had Józef been allowed any choice in the matter, he would choose the palace mission. What better glory?
Jerzy, older by some years, did not keep up and eventually turned off in direction of the garrison.
Just a boy, he had told Jerzy. Just a boy. Seventeen, the same age Tadeusz had been when they followed Napoleon as if he were the Pied Piper. Little Tadek had not come back. This would not end that way. It could not. And for the first time in years—those years of being lost in the mundane everyday goings-on of an estate, years of shutting out hopes for a better day in Poland—he prayed. For Józef. For their homeland.
Belweder Palace was all but unguarded when Józef and the company of cadets came upon it. Grand Duke Konstantin, so sure of himself in his adopted Polish identity, had cut his staff of soldiers to three within the palace grounds, two of whom were posted at the twin guardhouses on either side of the front gates. It was to be an easy operation, Wysocki had bragged, easy enough that he and Zaliwski would be elsewhere, overseeing the more difficult task of overtaking the Russian garrison and seizing the arsenal. The cadet in charge of the Belweder operation was Ludwik Nabielak.
Upon their arrival at the palace, two cadets casually engaged the two Russian sentinels in conversation while the others soundlessly moved in and took hold of them, leaving them bound, gagged, and folded up like grasshoppers, each within his own narrow guard house. The cadets then moved onto the grounds and to their prearranged stations. It was then that they realized that two of the four-man detail of cadets assigned to the garden entrance were missing, somehow lost in the confusion of the premature ignition of the signal fire. “That leaves only you, Marcin and Józef, to take that post,” a pale twenty-one-year-old Ludwik Nabielak said. “Is that all right? Can you handle it?”
Before Józef could react, Marcin blurted, “Holy Christ, yes!” Józef nodded. Later he would wish they had argued with their novice leader for a reapportionment that would give them at least one more cadet. Instead, he and Marcin were soon slithering along the side of the palace, ducking low when passing windows of chambers that were aglow with candlelight. They came to the rear of the building and stood, shrouded in shrubbery.
“What to do now?” Marcin asked in a whisper.
Michał looked at his watch. All teams were synchronized to force entry in precisely five minutes. “We look for the guard. You heard Wysocki. There’s only one back here. And there are two of us, yes?”
Eyes wide, Marcin nodded. His expression mirrored Józef’s own fear. Hugging the wall, Marcin peered around the corner.
“Is he there?” Józef asked.
“I—no, I don’t think so.”
“This may be easier than we thought. Let’s go.”
The two turned the corner, pushing through the shrubs and keeping to the wall. When they came to the flagstone patio near the garden door, they paused behind tall evergreens. They watched and listened.
Józef checked his watch. Three minutes. He had been the one to urge Marcin on, but he felt his own heart hammering in his chest now. The enormity of what they were about to do came over him and he froze for a moment. They were about to abduct a prince of Russia, brother to the tsar. His mouth went dry. What consequences might there be? How he had longed to be a part of history—well, he was that now! But what would be the cost? Cold drops of perspiration were collecting at the nape of his neck. He checked the time again, holding his watch with both hands so that Marcin wouldn’t see that he was trembling.
“What time now?” Marcin whispered.
“Two minutes.”
“Still no sign of the rear guard. Let’s go.”
Stepping out from their hiding place, the two cadets drew their pistols and stepped onto the flagstones. They moved to the French doors and took stock. The doors had many panes of glass so that if they did not give at first, they would break the glass and release the bolts from inside. They holstered their pistols and waited for the concerted attack to begin.
Another glance at the watch. “One minute,” Józef said. They stood stiff and tense peering into a darkened hallway. It was in this pose that they were approached from behind.
“Were you thinking of robbery, soldiers, or something worse?”
The words—thick with a Russian accent—ran like an electrical current through Józef. He whipped around, as did Marcin.
“Don’t draw your toy pistols, soldier-boys!”
Józef and Marcin made no move to do so. Józef cursed himself for not having had the instinct to draw at first word. The guard, it seemed, had come out of the manicured maze behind the gardens. He must have been catching a smoke or relieving himself. The white trim of his red uniform glowed in the night. He stood a few feet back from the cadets, his rifle pointed at Józef, but it would take little adjustment to change its site to Marcin.
14
MICHAŁ RACED ALONG A DARK forested path of the parkland, quickly approaching Belweder Palace. He had been running for at least a mile and had the distinct sense that there was movement elsewhere in the forest. A de
er, he thought. He ignored it. Barring a stumble on some root or branch, he would make it to the clearing near the palace in good time. Time enough, he hoped, to prevent Józef from doing something stupid. Time enough to keep him safe from harm. He was well winded when out of nowhere a shadowy figure loomed up in front of him, stiff and silent as one of the ancient trees. There was no time to veer off. He would have to chance the confrontation.
An internal sigh of relief came when he realized the man was wearing neither a Polish nor Russian uniform. Michał stopped abruptly ten paces away.
The fellow blocking the path spoke. “Ah, Michał Stelnicki,” he said.
Before the glow of the moon, flickering hauntingly through the uplifted bare branches, could cast enough light for Michał to recognize the face, the voice came home to him. And a familiar bile rose up within him.
Viktor!
Viktor affected a smile. “What is your destination, Michał?”
Michał caught his breath, his spine stiffening. It came home to him with a jolt that his every move was being monitored by the secret police. “Do you ask in your capacity as a bureaucrat of Novosiltsev—or in your capacity in the Third Department?”
While Viktor relayed no surprise at Michał’s appearance in the woods, the fact that Michał was already aware of his occupation in the secret police prompted a sickly pallor visible despite the mottled moonlight.
Viktor ignored the question. “We have the same destination, it seems, only to different ends. You’re here for Józef, of course. The question is, are you here in collusion with the cadets’ plans? Or are you here to dissuade him from partaking in the insurgency?”
Michał thought the truth served him best here. “I’m here to dissuade the cadets from any insurgency.”
Viktor scoffed. “Too late for that, my brother. You know as well as I that it’s well underway. There’s no going back. Is Józef part of the Belweder team? Part of the assassination squad?”
“Assassination?”
Viktor sneered. “You heard me.”
“The Grand Duke? They wouldn’t assassinate a prince! Take him prisoner, perhaps, but not kill him.”
“They want war, Michał.”
“It’s not what I want!”
“And Czartoryski?”
“Neither does he want war!” Michał rejoined. “You’re wrong in thinking he does.”
“Your eyes tell me you don’t entirely think so. In any case the cadets want war.” Viktor thrust two fingers into his mouth and let go a whistle.
A signal? To whom? Michał was not about to stay to find out. He started to move forward on the path, expecting Viktor to stand aside. “I’ll find out for myself.”
In an instant Viktor did the unexpected—he drew his sword.
Michał stopped, still a few paces away. The weapon glinted menacingly in the diffused light. “You intend to keep me from my brother?”
“I do.”
“But if I can do something to prevent harm to the Grand Duke— ? You don’t believe that’s my intention? I assure you, Viktor, that it is.”
“I suspect you are speaking the truth. I do.”
Michał’s stance relaxed and he took a step.
Viktor’s sword came up. “Nonetheless, you aren’t going to the palace.”
Michał stared for a blank moment. If Viktor did believe there was even the slightest chance for the Grand Duke to be spared abduction or harm, why would he hold him back? Why?
Of course! The likely answer came quickly. With the Grand Duke dead, his brother Nicholas’ fist would come down heavily on Poland. The seeds of insurrection would be crushed and the power of the Third Department—Viktor’s power—would become limitless. No sooner had the answer come to Michał than Viktor moved into the en garde stance, right leg in front, knees slightly bent.
Michał drew his sword from its scabbard and assumed combat stance opposite. His actions were immediate, inbred from his years in the military so that his mind took a moment to catch up. Was this truly happening? Was he about to duel his sister’s husband?
He noted Viktor’s expression but in the pale, flickering light could not quite decipher it. It seemed a serious smile. This man was not out for play. Viktor might well smile, Michał thought, if he had any indication of how long it had been since he had used his weapon. Michał could not remember the last time.
Viktor advanced. In lieu of the customary word or sound meant to telegraph an imminent attack, Viktor growled, “Poland—Russia’s vassal!” as if it were a mean-spirited toast. With that, he effected a wide sweep of his sword over Michał’s head.
The action communicated to Michał that his brother-in-law was a show-fighter, one puffed up with his own prowess. In his younger days Michał had dealt with swaggering swains, including fearsome Cossacks, and he had won out over the showiest. But that was years ago and in the bloom of youth. Now, with the hilt in his right hand, his knuckles at 3 o’clock to the blade, he felt the old comfort and a semblance of the old stirring of the blood. The question was, would the strength, the quickness, and the stamina return? Would they sustain him?
These thoughts shot through him like comets with no time to dwell on them, for Viktor lunged at Michał, who stepped back and to the side, a dodge that provided Viktor a moment of preparation for the next attack.
Viktor advanced, his sword coming against Michał’s in a beat and then a sequence of beats, sounds foreign to the forest. Michał managed to parry with each strike, searching all the while for an opening to make a proper riposte.
Viktor’s attacks continued, lunges and downward chopping cuts against Michał’s sword. Michał dodged the lunges and met the downward cuts with the rigid flat of his blade. He felt himself tiring at the worst possible moment—just as he sensed Viktor’s confidence, expertise, and energy on the rise.
Did this man intend him harm? Did this man wish to wound him—or worse?
“Like dogs, Poles will bow to Russia!” Viktor said between clenched teeth, his sword striking at Michał’s foible, the top third and weakest part of the sword.
The words struck deep into Michał’s spleen. A roiling in his blood set him moving, tapping some previously unplumbed reserve of energy. Thoughts of Viktor as Barbara’s husband dissipated. Michał thought of Viktor only as Russia incarnate, eternally eager to keep Poland in chains. He sprang into action, and instead of rigid blocking with the flat of his blade or taking the strike with the edge his own sword—both so detrimental to the well-being of his sword—he took to counter-attacking. Energy flowed up from his middle and into the arm that wielded the weapon.
Michał’s parries now were followed by bold ripostes. The old methods of parrying were revived, methods learned so long ago. Michał cut off Viktor’s attacks with an occasional horizontal sideways blow, as well as with downward cuts, raising his sword from a low position and crossing Viktor’s.
Viktor held his ground, but at the corners of his mouth the veneer of sanctimony began to crack.
The beats continued, Michał sharing offensive moves with Viktor as they moved in circular fashion on the forest floor, the swords clanging upon impact and zinging upon caress, providing a contrast to the rustling and crunch of fall leaves underfoot.
When their swords separated, Viktor seized the opportunity to step back, the lame leg dragging a bit as he pivoted to his left, and to pitch forward, executing in a wide swipe a reverse upper cut. Michał drew back his head, suffering only the whining whirr of the blade. Viktor’s penchant for show undid him now, for he allowed Michał time and opportunity to bring up his sword at 6 o’clock with such force that Viktor’s sword was flung to the ground.
Michał held the point of his sword beneath his brother-in-law’s chin. “Don’t move a muscle, Viktor. You meant to kill me, yes? Why should I spare you?”
“No—no, truly Michał. I just couldn’t allow you to interfere.”
“And why is that?” Michał shouted. He was so intent upon vindicating his theory as to why th
e Third Department would allow a Polish insurgency against Grand Duke Konstantin that he didn’t hear the stir and soft crunch of footsteps in the leaves nearby. At his back.
“We are not alone,” Józef said, defiantly addressing the Russian guard, “as you shall soon see. We’re not here to rob but to take back what’s been robbed of us.”
“Our country,” Marcin interjected.
“Ha!” the Russian laughed. Without taking his eyes, or the aim of his rifle, off Józef, he spit at their feet.
“There are two of us, fellow soldier,” Józef said. “You may very well kill one with your rifle, but before you can advance with the bayonet the other will kill you.”
“Clever Pole, what would you advise? Release you?” He laughed again, but he was clearly thinking his next move.
“I’d advise you to flee,” Marcin said.
“Fool!” the Russian guffawed and spat again. “Carefully take and drop your pistols! Now!”
At that moment a great commotion of shouts and shots arose at the front of the palace. The time had come.
The Russian’s eyes grew large and his focus went from Józef to the mullioned door. Perhaps he was seeing some activity through the front windows at the far end of the hall, Józef thought later, but for now the diversion afforded the cadets their opportunity. Józef drew his pistol and fired. The ball entered the Russian’s chest jettisoning him back three feet. His rifle slipped away, clattering on to the flagstones. He stayed upright—unsteadily so—staring in dumb shock.
Marcin had his pistol at the ready, but it was clear to all three it would not be necessary. The Russian’s feet went out from under him and he sank to the flagstones in a contorted position, his face and eyes visible in the moonlight. Józef witnessed for the first time life leaving one’s body. With the swaggering and soldierly attitude gone, the Russian looked to be no older than he. Beneath the bravado he was merely a boy.
The Warsaw Conspiracy Page 20