Viktor emerged from the trees to see the gates of the Belweder Palace open and unguarded. In striking Michał from behind, Sergei had finally done something right. Viktor had left him at the edge of the park with orders to stay hidden. The less he knew about his real intentions regarding the Grand Duke, the better. On the front portico a scuffle was taking place between cadets and a man he could not identify. It was fully dark now. Did they already have the Grand Duke? Catching the briefest glimpse of their quarry’s face in the light shed from a torch held by a cadet, he thought not. They had taken the wrong man.
Viktor could not afford to be seen by one of Konstantin’s guards or even by a servant. They were likely to recognize him, and his appearance and intent here had to be known to no one. He dashed toward the right side of the building and cautiously made his way toward the rear, pistol drawn. As he came to the corner of the building, he halted and slowly inched his head around the corner.
A cadet had just left the rear of the palace and was moving in his direction, pushing back shrubbery as he went. Blond hair and serious expression. A boy. For the briefest moment he thought it was Józef, but just as he saw that it was not Józef, he realized that he knew the cadet. It was Józef’s roommate, the one who had admitted him to their room and then gone to fetch Józef. The boy would no doubt remember him. Not good.
Viktor drew back and waited.
By the time Jerzy Lesiak came upon the Russian barracks, more than a hundred Polish cadets were already seeking forcible access to the several gates. He watched as the cadets stormed the gates, plying them with shoulders and weapons while calling out “Poland forever!” From inside came the sounds of horses balking and baying amidst the tumult of Russian cries. The cadets fired a few rounds, pressed forward, calling out their hurrahs, and the gates gave way. The structure was surrounded by a wide moat so that the bridges at each gate—now besieged by dozens of Poles—provided only the most difficult egress for the panicking Russian cavalry, cuirassers, uhlans, and hussars. Inside confusion and disorder reigned as each Russian seemed intent on only his own safety.
Jerzy watched as scores of Russians fled across the bridges, dozens brought down by ball and bayonet, others falling into the wide and deep moat, and many more seeking refuge in nearby houses and stables. Jerzy had stood transfixed as the sight unfolded, astounded that the insurrection was truly happening, but now he caught himself, as if waking suddenly, and his first thought was that he wished he had a weapon himself. Then he remembered his promise to Jan Michał.
Jerzy took himself down from the knoll that had been his vantage point and moved quickly toward the meleé. He had one gate in sight. What was he to do, call out Józef Stelnicki’s name? He attempted to do so once, but his voice was hopelessly lost amidst the cacophonous cries and clamor. How was he to recognize Józef? He had never met him. It seemed an impossible task.
He caught one cadet by the sleeve. The boy turned toward him, pistol in hand. “I’m searching for a cadet,” Jerzy said quickly, allaying the soldier’s concern. “Józef Stelnicki, do you know him? Have you seen him?”
The cadet shrugged, shook his head and moved away. The same scenario played out with four more cadets. Finally, a husky fellow recognized the name. “Yes,” he said. “Josef is on my floor at the academy.”
“Do you know where he is? Is he here?”
“No, he’s not. He was one of the ones chosen to go to Belweder Palace. Lucky bastard!”
“To take the Grand Duke?”
The cadet considered Jerzy skeptically, as if considering whether he should provide information. “Yes, sir. And God willing, they did.” He gave a little nod and turned away.
Jerzy took stock of the chaotic scene playing about him. There were Russian bodies aplenty—forty or fifty—but he spied not a single cadet laid out. The cadets, fully successful in routing hundreds of surprised and unprepared Russians and in a position to take many of them prisoners, were instead abandoning the barracks and moving down into the city, where Jerzy guessed the student revolutionaries were calling the citizens to action.
It took all he could do to smother his desire to follow the cadets and to focus instead on Józef and the Belweder Palace. Turning about, he started running. Had Michał located his brother?
Józef stood in the main hallway at the rear of the palace. From there he could see that the front doors remained secure. There was a great deal of activity and shots fired in the front of the building, but as yet cadets had not entered. Only he and Marcin had gained entrance, but Marcin had left his pistol with Józef and gone out the back and along the side of the palace to reconnoiter just what was happening at the front. And so Józef stood alone, Marcin’s pistol primed and at the ready, his heart hammering to think he was in the home of the Grand Duke with his abduction his mission. Where is Marcin? he worried. He should be back by now. What could be keeping him? And just what is taking place on the front portico and grounds? Had Marcin been drawn into it?
At last he heard footsteps coming in through the garden doors he and Marcin had forced. “It’s about time, Marcin, I—”
But as he turned to upbraid his friend, he saw that the person entering was not a cadet. Nor was he in Russian uniform.
“Viktor!”
Viktor showed no surprise. He remained perfectly calm. “Józef, I know what you’re here for. Has the Grand Duke shown himself?”
Józef shook his head. Words would not come. What in God’s name was Viktor doing here—and seemingly unsurprised and untroubled to find his brother-in-law at the heart of the break-in of the Grand Duke Konstantin’s palace.
“Your fellows have the wrong man out there on the portico.”
Józef collected himself. “Viktor—we’re not here to do any harm to Konstantin. That’s the truth.”
“But you should, Józef. You must!”
“What?”
“Listen to me, Józef. You want an independent Poland, yes?”
Józef’s head swam with conflicting thoughts. He nodded.
“Then if you want a true break with Russia, one that lasts, you must make certain Konstantin doesn’t leave here alive.”
“You mean for me to kill him?”
“Exactly.”
“Why should you—”
“Wish a final break? I’ve lived here years now. I’ve married into your family. I want what’s best for your sister. For you. For everyone.”
“We’re merely to abduct the Grand Duke. That’s all.”
“To what good end? Listen to me, Józef. Did you kill the Duke’s sentinel out there on the flagstones?”
Józef felt a heat coming into his face. “Yes,” he said, shunting aside a threatening sense of shame but taking no pride in the killing, either.
“You can’t stop there, Józef. Not now. The best thing you can do for your country is kill the duke. One day Adam Mickiewicz will write a poem about you. You’ll be a hero. Isn’t that what you want?”
“I want a free Poland!”
“Exactly.”
Józef heard a door open a great distance down the hall. Quick as lightning Viktor drew Józef into an alcove, out of sight. Viktor stood behind him, gripping him tightly at the shoulders. “That” he hissed, “is the door to chapel of the duke’s wife.” They listened silently as the footfalls moved away from the fracas at the front portico—and toward them. Viktor peeked down the hall, then drew back at once. “And that is the Grand Duke himself,” Viktor whispered, his breath hot on Józef’s neck. “This is your moment, Józef. You won’t have another. He will bleed as freely as that guard did. Kill him. Do as I say. Kill him for your country, your precious Commonwealth. Do it now!”
By the time Józef drew in a deep, deep breath, Viktor’s words ringing in his ears, he realized that his brother-in-law no longer stood behind him. Like a specter he had vanished. But the words reverberated in Józef’s head. Kill him.
The footsteps were very close now, coming quickly and in time to the thump of Józef’s hea
rt.
15
MICHAŁ AWOKE IN A TUMBLE of November leaves. He was alone. He thought his head had been split open. He reached back to the source of pain at the back of his head. It came away with a smudge of blood. It could have been worse, he thought. He sat up. How much time had passed? Minutes? An hour? He had no idea. He stood, intent on getting to the Belweder Palace and to Józef. Dizziness overcame him and he fell to the ground. Slowly, he pulled himself up into a sitting position. He waited for his head to clear. He saw his sword glinting in the leaves, reached for it and employed it to help himself up. Upright at last and with the dizziness receding, he started limping along the path that would take him to the palace of the Grand Duke, praying all the while he would get there in time.
Józef stepped out of the alcove and into the path of the man Viktor had assured him to be Grand Duke Konstantin. Although the man’s face was already washed white, Józef, pistol in hand, clearly startled him and he stopped at once. He was unarmed. Józef had never seen the Grand Duke and so he quickly took in this hatless, harried man. The uniform with its gold epaulettes and many medals was disheveled as if he had dressed hurriedly. His face was rather flat and plain as paper but for the graying muttonchop whiskers. The age did match that of the duke’s—about fifty.
Still, Józef had to make certain. “Your Imperial Highness,” he stammered. The half-statement, half-question, seemed to have come from someone else. Addressing him in this fashion sounded ludicrous to his own ears.
“And you, my young soldier, my young Pole, are you here to protect me—or to do mischief?” The Grand Duke’s Polish was so perfect it almost made Józef second guess himself as to the man’s identity. “I can assure you, that I have long been only a friend to your country. I suggest to you that you help me to safety . . .”
Józef’s would-be captive continued for several minutes in Polish underscoring for Józef his love for Poland, its culture, its history, mentioning, too, his Polish wife. His manner of speech was calm and deliberate, as if bedlam were not unfolding in front of the palace, as if there were no pistol pointed at his heart. The moment felt surreal, as if they were newly introduced at a reception.
As the Grand Duke droned on, Józef could think only of Viktor’s words. Kill him, he had said. It was not unlike an order. Time seemed to slow but his thoughts raced faster than words. Was it possible that Viktor had Poland’s best interest in mind, as he said? He was right in thinking an assassination would preclude a full break with Russia. There was logic in that. It had to be considered. Kill him. Even the slow-to-act older generations of Poles would have to respond. They would be drawn into the war effort, like it or not. Józef had asked for a special task in the great effort to break the chains, and God or the fates had delivered him to this place and this time. When he had chosen the military over the music, he could not have imagined himself coming to the very vortex of history in which he now stood. But he was here, gun in hand, the personification of Russia three paces away, a perfect target. He could say to himself that he had no intention of wishing himself the hero Viktor had conjured, but was the claim sincere? Didn’t every fellow cadet he knew imagine himself his country’s champion?
The duke was studying Józef. “If you’re not here to kill me, soldier,” he said, “let me pass. And if you are, you have one shot. Do your worst.”
This is your moment, Viktor had said. Józef’s finger tightened on the trigger. Viktor, Józef thought. Viktor! His brother-in-law could not know that the secret about his position in the Third Department was a secret no longer—at least not to either of his Polish brothers-in-law. So why would the head of the Russian secret police be urging a Pole to assassinate the Russian Grand Duke? Why? No answer was forthcoming. It was a mystery. But somehow such an outcome would have to work to the Russian advantage. Or Viktor’s. What am I to do? It was Lieutenant Wysocki’s words from early morning that came back to him now: We Poles are not in the habit of killing princes and we are not going to begin today.
The Grand Duke had fallen silent. Józef made his decision. “I will not hurt you, Imperial Highness, but you are to come with me. We are to take you into safe custody.”
“Custody, my young cadet? What custody could be safe?”
Józef kept the gun pointed at him, motioning for the duke to move. “I can assure you—” Józef stopped in mid-sentence. It was the expression on the man’s face that gave him pause. Color had come back into the duke’s face during the span of his little discourse, but it was the slightest rise of his bushy right eyebrow and the hint of a curling smile that caught Józef’s attention.
And then—too late—Józef realized the man’s faded blue eyes had fastened on something other than the gun. Other than Józef.
Something behind Józef.
“Close that window at once, Izabel!” Zofia ordered upon coming into Iza’s first floor sitting room at the front of the house. “And the shutters, as well. Are you out of your mind?”
“Mother, there’s a crowd coming this way, moving toward the Castle Square.”
“A mob is more like it. Do as I say. You’re liable to be shot.”
“No, come look, Mother. They’re students and cadets and a great many citizens, too. Even women. Is it possible we are truly evicting our oppressors?”
“Not likely,” Zofia answered, moving toward the casement windows, her intention to close them written on her face. “Don’t think a friendly bullet couldn’t find your pretty face up here.”
Iza turned to plead her case when she realized Anna had entered close upon Zofia’s heels.
“Wait, Zofia,” Anna said, “I want a look, too.”
“It’s dangerous, Anna,” Zofia said. “To what purpose?”
Anna didn’t answer as she stepped to the double casement window, but Iza—and surely her mother—read the concern in Anna’s face for her youngest son Józef. Her emerald green eyes moved like searchlights over the crowd. Might he be one of those faces down there? Iza could not read others’ hearts, but for herself, she worried also, for Jerzy, the man who claimed to be her father—and for Jan Michał. Where were they in all of this? Certainly not standing immobile at a window. If only I were a man . . .
Zofia conceded the argument with a great sigh, and in moments the three were aligned in the window much like patrons in an opera box. Neighbors, too, could be seen at their windows across the narrow street, many cheering their countrymen on. Night had fallen but a number of the crowd carried torches that sent light and shadows playing against the buildings.
“No doubt they’re coming to take the Praga Bridge from the Russians,” Anna said. “It’s essential they hold that point of entry from Russian reinforcements from the East.”
“Or from Russians escaping,” Zofia added.
The crowd was moving closer, a great chorus of hurrahs echoing off the town houses and the stone façade of St. Martin’s Church. It was near the front of the Gronska town house that the masses stopped. An eerie silence ensued.
“Look!” Iza said, her line of vision now directed in the opposite direction, toward the River Vistula and the Castle Square. She drew in a deep breath as Zofia and Anna took in the sight.
What had quelled the crowd were two companies of light cavalry, armed to their visors, their horses breast to breast the width of the street and head to haunches as far as could be seen. They no doubt thickened the surface of the Castle Square like blades of grass.
“They’re Polish soldiers.” The male voice came from behind the women at the casement. The three turned to see Jan sidling up to Anna now, his face gaunt but glinting with a new energy. “In Russian service, of course.”
“I thought you were sleeping, Jan,” Anna said.
“Sleep through an insurrection? Not likely.”
“Look!” Iza’s tone was sharp. She pointed toward the Castle Square. “Two generals from the Polish companies are riding forward to address the crowd.”
“They don’t look pleased,” Zofia said. “I thi
nk they’re going to try to disperse the crowd.”
A murmur ran through the multitude, front to back, as one told the next what was happening. Iza could sense palpable tension. Violence was in the air, thick as the fog from the river.
“Do you recognize them, Jan?” Anna asked. “Are they men you campaigned with?”
“I do. One is Trembicki and the other Potocki. Good men both in days gone by, but I fear they carry water for Konstantin now.”
“Stanisław Potocki?” Anna asked, her hand going to her heart.
“The same,” her husband said.
“Oh, sweet Madonna, you’re right.” Anna said.
Iza recalled now that the general and his wife Anusia were dear friends of Anna.
“Their moment of truth has come not on the battlefield,” Jan was saying, “but on this very street, Anna.”
The two generals drew reins now, some yards from the vanguard of the crowd. “Citizens, students, and soldiers,” General Trembicki called. “This insurrection is hereby put down. You are ordered back to your homes, your dormitories, and your barracks. You are to disperse at once if you are to save life and limb and avoid certain arrest.”
A discordant muttering grew in volume and ran like the current of a rumbling earthquake through the crowd. Someone in their midst shouted back, “The prisons have been opened. We have freed our own. All unjustly imprisoned!”
“No doubt,” Jan whispered to his smaller audience. Iza recognized the poignancy of his remark, and it came as no small surprise that it seemed free of bitterness for his lost years.
“We’ll not take their places!” a cadet yelled.
Trembicki stiffened in his saddle. “You are fools to persist in this. Hear me! It is madness. Madness! Those responsible will have to submit to the mercy of the Grand Duke.” As Trembicki continued in his reproaches, the crowd grew more and more unsettled and hostile. Demurring voices of men and women alike were prompted to call out reminders of past grievances against Russia and the duke in particular. And those impatient souls at the rear seemed to be pushing the multitude forward.
The Warsaw Conspiracy Page 21