The Warsaw Conspiracy

by James Conroyd Martin

  Arriving in the cellar, they moved down the hall to the center intersection, a guard at a desk warily watching as they approached.

  “These good sisters,” Mother Abbess announced with authority even before they came to his station, “have come to see the Stelnicki prisoner.”

  “No visitors!”

  “Ah, but these are his sisters, and their mother has just died. They wish to tell him as much. I assure you they will be no trouble. It will take no more than a few minutes.”

  The guard harrumphed. “I’ll tell him as much.” He gave a crooked smile and coughed out a laugh. “No prisoners!”

  “Oh, Yuri,” the abbess crooned, “we can allow them that much. Imagine if your sister came bringing such news. Just imagine.”

  Yuri shrugged, victim of a religious siren.

  “Let’s just give them a few minutes alone with the prisoner. While they are visiting I will see if I can’t find a bottle of wine that has been spared yesterday’s break-in of the wine cellar by the other guards. I have my own hiding place. I’m sure I could find something.”

  She should be on the stage, Iza thought.

  In minutes they arrived at the cell door. Yuri drew his pistol, unlocked the door and motioned Iza and Barbara in. As Iza passed by, the abbess gave her a knowing nod. Iza’s hand tightened on the iron key that the abbess had retained, unbeknownst to the Russian officials, when the convent had been taken over.

  Józef stood, blinked, and stared in disbelief at his two visitors in masquerade. The door clanged shut behind them and the turnkey locked them in. “Ten minutes,” he growled.

  “How in Hades did you manage this stunt?” Józef asked. He was thin, dirty, his uniform torn and caked with dry blood.

  “You look terrible!” Barbara said.

  “Christ! Had I known two angels of the lord were coming I would have conjured up a monk’s robe.”

  “Never mind that, we’re here to get you out,” Iza said.

  Józef’s lower jaw dropped. “What?”

  “We have only those ten minutes and two are gone by now,” Iza continued. She showed him the key. “This will get us out of this door and out of the upstairs door and into the garden. From there we head to a secret door in the garden wall where Michał will be waiting on the street side. The abbess said the lock is broken so that only a latch secures it.”

  “Michał?—And then?”

  “The family is leaving for France in little more than an hour.”

  “Good God!”

  Barbara already had the cell door open and they slipped noiselessly out into the hall, Iza leading the way. They came to the deserted desk at the intersection and moved toward the staircase that would take them up to the courtyard door. If there were other guards in the cellar, it seemed, they were sleeping or throwing dice somewhere else in what had always seemed to Iza like a labyrinth of catacombs.

  In climbing the stone stairs, Barbara tripped on the front panel of her scapular but caught herself in time. At the top, Barbara unlocked the courtyard door and the three slipped out, closing the door and keeping their backs pinned to the building. As planned, Barbara tossed the key into an acacia bush closeby for the abbess to find later. Iza turned to Józef. “Barbara and I will walk nonchalantly to the far wall there. Any number of eyes may be watching from the building. You’re to wait here until until we reach into the ivy and unlatch the gate. Then come to us double time.”

  Józef smiled. “Don’t worry, it will be triple time!”

  As the two costumed nuns moved out into the garden, passing the snow-covered patches of herbs Iza used to cultivate, Iza suddenly felt something was wrong—but what? So far . . . all to the good. She put aside her fears, thinking she would never be able to thank the abbess enough for her part in the escape. The nun would probably have to answer for it, too, unless she could draw even further on her acting skills.

  They reached the ivy-covered wall and it took some time for Iza to find the exact location. Valuable minutes ticked by. Dare they motion to Józef before the door was found and opened? It was only when they heard Michał lightly tapping that they found the outline of the door in the wall—and finally the hook and eye latch. It took the work of three of them to swing the never-used door inward, breaking the branches of ivy as they did so.

  Iza turned to wave Józef forward. Her heart sickened at once.

  He had been discovered. A tall guard was wrestling with him and in moments there were two overpowering him.

  “Go on!” Józef called. “Go!”

  His face stricken, Michał stepped into the garden to assess the situation.

  “There are four of us,” Iza said impulsively. “I’ve brought a mallet.” She pulled the tool from her double sleeve. Amazed at her derring-do, Michał nonetheless put his hand on her arm to restrain her just as a third figure stepped from the doorway into the garden. Dressed rather finely and clearly not a guard, he held himself with authority as he issued orders to the two men, who— with some trouble—brought Józef down to the ground. The man stood looking now—at them.

  “God’s Bones!” Michał cursed. In case they were stopped by a Russian patrol, he had not brought sword or pistol, merely a daggar. He would use it in an eyeblink, too, but for the fact that he had two women in his care. He dared not attempt force. He knew in his gut it would end badly. “We need to leave,” he said. “Now!” He reached out to take Iza and Barbara by the arms, but Barbara resisted and pulled free.

  “Oh, my God!” Barbara cried, stepping further into the garden, her green eyes flashing horror and anger in the direction of the man standing over Józef.

  Iza stepped up to her. “You heard Michał. We’ve failed, Basia, we can’t afford arrest. Think of the others at home—the plan to leave the capital will fail!”

  It was as if Barbara were deaf. She took another step—and then ripped the white veil from her head as if to reveal her identity to the Russians.

  “For God’s sake, what are you doing?” Michał rushed forward and grabbed Barbara’s elbows now and forced her back. In moments the three were on the other side of the wall. Michał pulled closed the door, turned, and hurried them down the street.

  Barbara was hysterically crying now. “Did you see?” she yelled aloud as they ran. “Did you see?”

  “I did,” Michał answered.

  They were running as fast as the heavy robes would allow.

  “See what?” Iza asked.

  Michał turned to her and mouthed the word: Viktor. The third man had been Viktor Baklanov.

  When they turned down Piwna Street, the coach was there—a Godsend—in front of the Gronska town house, the two hired men lashing several portmanteaux to the roof. This was a welcome sight to Iza but did not lessen her trepidation. According to insiders the szlachta who had participated in the effort against the tsar had no more than two days to execute plans to leave their homeland. It was no mercy on the Russians’ part; it was more a matter of manpower and getting the wheels of bureaucracy to budge—and roll. No one truly knew the future. In the current climate even many of those who had remained neutral had chosen emigration.

  But Iza knew they did not have the luxury of any time at all. Viktor’s timely appearance could be no coincidence. There had been a spy. No doubt the Gronska town house was under night and day observation with all activities reported to Viktor. Iza felt a hammering at her heart. She knew he would use whatever resources he had—and no doubt they were many now that he sat atop Fortune’s wheel—to see their attempt to flee Poland thwarted. They might have only minutes to get away and even then would he not give chase?

  Even as they reached the carriage—Iza praying everyone else was already seated within it and that it was ready to depart—she kept glancing back, expecting at any moment to see Viktor at the head of a secret police detail riding toward them.

  The door to the coach was open. Jan and the twin boys were seated on one bench, Dimitri on his lap, Konrad leaning into him, both asleep.

&n
bsp; Iza turned to Barbara and brushed at her tears. “You must get in now and say nothing to your father about what just occurred. You must be strong this day, Basia, stronger than you have ever been. Here, put your veil back on and tell your father we are dressed as we are to make clearing the gates and border easier. Do you hear me?”

  Barbara looked at her a long moment, nodded, the harrowing knowledge that her brother’s life was in Viktor’s hands unspoken. She replaced the white veil and allowed Michał to help her up into the coach.

  One glance at Michał told Iza he was as nervous as she. Like quicksilver he had gathered weapons from the house. He stood now, pistol in hand, his eyes straying again and again to the top of the street.

  Iza turned to see Anna stepping down from the portico to the street. She went to her immediately. “Cousin Anna, you must hurry now. Where is my mother?”

  “Ah, Zofia,” Anna said with a sigh and an odd look at Iza’s appearance. “She’s still packing a trunk—I do hope there’s room for it—and she is talking with Jerzy.”

  Jerzy! She had nearly forgotten her father. Her heart lurched. She had had such little time to get to know him. And now she would be saying goodbye to him. “A trunk, you say?” Iza was incredulous. “My God, we don’t have time. Get into the coach. I’m going in to hurry her up.”

  Anna put her hand on Iza to restrain her. “No, don’t do that, Iza. I suspect Zofia and Jerzy are having a conversation many years in the making. Now, tell me why you are dressed as you are.”

  Iza could not tell Anna of the failed plot to free her son even if she had time to do so, and so provided instead the convenient story—which might prove true—about the habits possibly allowing them to more easily pass through the city gates and at Poland’s border.

  Anna walked over to the coach and Iza watched as Michał saw her safely stowed, at the same time providing some excuse for his absence earlier in the morning, his eyes always reverting to the far end of the street.

  Iza was sorely tempted to search out her mother and Jerzy. She waited. One minute. Then, two.

  “Go get your mother, Iza,” Michał ordered. “Christ’s wounds! Hurry! We can’t wait any longer!”

  Iza turned toward the portico and took a few steps. The door opened now and Zofia and Jerzy came out, descending the portico steps as if all the time in the world belonged to them. “Mother, hurry! Where in Hades is your trunk?” She turned to Michał. “Do go get my mother’s trunk, Michał.”

  A motion from Zofia stopped Michał at once. “I have something to tell you, Izabel.”

  “What is it, Mother? You don’t understand that we must leave now!”

  Zofia moved toward the coach. “Anna must hear this, too,” she pronounced.

  Anna leaned out one coach window, Barbara the other.

  “Much as I’ve always wanted to see Paris, Anna,” Zofia said, “I’m not going with you.”

  The statement drew protests all around. Only Jerzy remained silent as a monk. “Mother,” Iza said, “you can’t stay here. They will take your home and then they will take you!”

  “I am staying with Jurek,” Zofia said. Jerzy’s diminutive fell lightly from her lips, like a breeze. She reached out and drew Jerzy’s hand to her, held it there. “He’s to take me to his village, Kosumce, on the Vistula. I was safe there once and so I will be again. I’ll not leave Poland. I’ll not leave Jurek. Not again.”

  The protests died at once. It took a long moment for reality to register with Iza—the reality that her parents were in love, that they would be together after so many years of living in different worlds. And the reality that she would be leaving them both behind. “Then I—I shall stay, as well.”

  “You will not!” Zofia’s command was sharp. “Your place is with Michał. His place is with his family as they forge this . . . this new life. You must go, Izabel.”

  Iza turned to look at Michał, but he was staring at the other end of Piwna Street.

  Michał did not contradict Zofia, but he had already decided that he would not be going to France. Not now. He would stay and work out another plan to free Józef. He would not leave him, though staying behind could very well cost him his own happiness with Iza—and his life. And he would kill Viktor, no matter the cost. No matter the family relationship. Credible political gossip had it that an unnamed leader of the Third Department had been the one who had stolen through Polish lines in order to tell General Paszkiewicz of the chaos in the capital and that the time was right to strike. His gut told him that man had been Viktor. He recalled that he had gotten the best of Viktor in their duel in the parkland near Belweder Palace. How he wished now that his concern for Barbara had not held held him back from killing him then and there!

  He thought the old war joy he had felt in battle was part of the past, but it bubbled up within him now, buoyant and strong, zinging through his blood at the thought of killing his brother-in-law.

  Michał saw the two men on horseback as soon as they made the turn into Piwna Street, taking good time. Riding with Viktor Baklanov was a man in Russian uniform. Either they had a good many following behind or they had supreme confidence in their own ability. Undue confidence. Michał withdrew his pistol, keeping it pointed down at the cobblestones, and had his sword at the ready. His heart beat fast. Could he kill Viktor right there in the street—with Barbara steps away in the coach? And the twins, Viktor’s children? An ugly situation. The decision came with little thought and less indecision. He would shoot the soldier first, then take on Viktor in a duel—unless Viktor had a pistol and could prove himself a good shot. If other Russians were on their way, then all would be lost—except that Viktor Baklanov would have had his due.

  Michał stepped out into the street, raised the pistol, pointed it at Viktor even though he meant to kill the Russian soldier first. “We mean to leave, Viktor,” he called out.

  Viktor sat stiff in his saddle, proud, unperturbed. Michał could see no other way of getting the coach to roll out of Piwna Street without killing them both. He had killed a good many in his time. What were another two? He shifted his aim to the Russian soldier and prepared to fire. After today, he vowed, the killing would stop.

  Viktor said something to the soldier now, simultaneously holding an upturned hand to Michał, who held his fire another moment.

  The soldier removed the Russian helmet from his head. The action nearly prompted Michał to fire, but in an instant he realized that this soldier with the white-blond hair was no Russian soldier. The turquoise of his eyes was visible even at that distance.

  “No need for that, Michał,” Viktor said.

  “Józef!” Anna cried from the coach window.

  Taking hold of the reins of the other horse, Viktor said something and Józef slid from his horse. “He’s yours,” Viktor announced, his face hard.

  What is his game? Behind him, Michał heard Barbara say something. He turned to see her make an attempt to exit the coach, her green eyes wet. His mother put a hand on her arm and she was stayed.

  A long, long moment passed.

  “See to the boys, Basia!” Viktor called. “Raise them well!” He swung his horse around and began moving back up the street, the other horse in tow. “Do not delay!” he called.

  It was a warning. They had to escape Warsaw with all possible speed. Michał knew that Viktor was putting his own career and even his life in jeopardy by releasing an important prisoner, one who had attempted to abduct a Grand Duke of Russia. He watched Viktor urge the horses into a canter. Michał let out a long breath, the war joy going with it. He lowered his pistol now, looked from one amazed face to the next, saw his mother stepping down and embracing her youngest son. Was Viktor—this man who had perpetrated such evil—capable of sacrifice? Or was it merely a show of love, one meant to fool Barbara, perhaps even Viktor himself? On Barbara’s face, though, he saw something more than amazement. Love for Viktor? Yes, he was certain of it. The pain in her face, the tears, told all. And heartbreak.

  Józef�
�s father had jumped from the carriage and now came forward. He had not missed a moment of the drama. “What did he say to you, Józef, there on the horses?” Jan asked.

  “Very little, Father, just that he envied me my family.”

  “Rightfully so,” Jan said, “rightfully so.”

  “My mother,” Zofia said now, “used to say that before there are nations there are families.”

  Now came the goodbyes, travellers crowding into the coach, Michał hoisting himself above so as to sit with the hired men, Zofia and Jerzy standing on the portico that in short order would belong to someone else, perhaps a Russian bureaucrat. They all called out their goodbyes. Awakened, Dimitri and Konrad lent their high voices to the farewells.

  Then, suddenly, Zofia called out. “Do forgive me, Ania.” In those words Michał read transgressions against his mother from years ago, transgressions never admitted—until now.

  Not two beats went by before Anna replied: “I love you, Zofia.” All was forgiven.

  “Come back one day, Anna!” Zofia begged.

  In the morning sun, now rising crimson in the east, Michał saw something he had never seen before: Zofia’s cheeks wet with tears.

  Below, Anna answered: “How can I not come back to my beloved Poland?—How can I not? Goodbye, cousin. Live well!” And from his place atop the coach, Michał heard these words and his heart caught, for he realized his mother was choking back her own tears.

  Michał knew, as did they, that Anna and Zofia—cousins, adversaries, and friends at last—would never see one another again.

  Epilogue

  The Stream is always Purest

  At its Source

  —POLISH PROVERB

  3 May 1832

  My Dearest Zofia,

  At last, Jan has secured the secret means whereby I can get this message to Kosumce. May God guide it along the way so that it does find its path to you. How appropriate~or ironic?~that I should write it on the Third of May, our Constitution Day.