The Boy Who Wanted Wings

by James Conroyd Martin

  “Would you like to be a soldier, boy?” He smiled meanly. “A hussar?”

  Aleksy’s mouth tightened. Of course, he wanted to shout, but the impossibility held him silent. He managed a slow nod of the head.

  Laughter came from both sides. “Where’s your lance, then?” the elder brother asked. “Maybe it’s at home being polished by your squire?”

  “I do… ” Aleksy thought better of his intended retort.

  “You do what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s a fine stallion, too,” mocked the one in blue.

  Aleksy turned, focusing for a moment on him. Matching his light brown locks was a wishful wisp of a moustache that he was twisting. His nose had been broken.

  “Damned if it isn’t,” said the other. More laughter.

  “He’s a plow horse,” Aleksy said, turning to face forward.

  “And you are a plow boy, I would guess. Where is your plow, boy?—And what is this?” The soldier in red prodded the rabbit with his boot, still in its stirrup.

  “A rabbit.”

  “Why, if we hadn’t left our lances in camp we could have had some good fun playing running at the rabbit instead of running at the ring.” He winked at his brother and they shared a guffaw. He then continued the interrogation. “And where did you shoot the little beast? Why, it looks quite fresh!”

  “There.” Aleksy motioned behind him. “On Mount Halicz.”

  “Indeed? And do you have hunting rights for those grounds?”

  The unexpected challenge stung. “No, milord.”

  “Then you are in violation of the owner’s rights.”

  Aleksy was nearly certain that, like him, the brothers hadn’t a clue whether Mount Halicz even had an owner. And so he dared to question, “Who is the owner that I may plead my case?”

  The soldier’s face pinkened. He stammered for a moment, then asked, “How did you kill it? It looks cleanly done.”

  Aleksy’s left hand lifted to touch the tip of the horned tip bow that protruded from the bow case slung on his right shoulder.

  “Let me see it!”

  At the order, an alarm went off inside him. Aleksy thought of spurring Kastor into movement but knew that was useless. They could run him down in twenty seconds flat. Heart pacing, he drew in a silent breath, removed the bow from the case, and gave it over to the soldier in red, who examined it closely.

  “I’m surprised at the workmanship,” he said, turning it over in his hands. “It’s good. It’s a bit longer than what I’ve used.”

  “Five feet, eight inches. The perfect length, I’m told.” Aleksy waited for the next question.

  “Who made it?”

  “I did.”

  “You?” He harrumphed. “A plow boy?”

  Aleksy’s expression and the slightest nod was his response. He was nearly certain that the soldier meant to take it. Would he allow him to do so—without a fight? Where would that lead—challenging members of the szlachta? Especially these two. His spine tightened. Come what may, he would not stand by and see the bow he had labored over for months taken. Yew was the best wood, Szymon had told him, and for the length of yew needed, the stable master had troubled himself to send all the way to Henryków, in Southwestern Poland where the oldest yew trees grew.

  “Let’s have a string,” the soldier ordered.

  With misgivings, Aleksy withdrew the hemp cord from a little pocket in the bow case and surrendered it.

  The soldier fastened the noose to the nocked horn at the lower part of the bow. He placed that end of the weapon on the toe of his boot and attempted to bend it now so that he could stretch the eye of the cord up to the nocked horn of the slightly longer top part. He surprised himself when he couldn’t do it. He tried again.

  Bows made of yew could be a challenge to the strongest of men and trying it while mounted made for a serious challenge. Aleksy had seen strong and sturdy men struggle with such bows.

  With each new try, the soldier’s once pink face reddened until it nearly matched his crimson żupan.

  Aleksy held out his hand to retrieve his property.

  The soldier shot him an angry look and tried again—to no avail. “I can’t manage it atop this horse,” he admitted.

  “It’s difficult,” Aleksy said.

  “You can string it?”

  Taken aback by the foolish question, Aleksy nodded, resisting the boast that he could string it right there and then—atop his horse. Over the past ten years he had created ever stronger, more resilient bows, all the while strengthening his arms and adding muscle and volume to his back and shoulders.

  “Give him the bow,” the brother said. “We don’t have time for this.”

  The soldier hesitated, the knuckles on the hand that held it going white. Clearly, he coveted it. Frustrated, he took either end of the bow and attempted to bend it in the opposite direction. It was evident now that he wanted to break it.

  Aleksy’s heart pounded. In his mind he could hear the snap that would come with the breaking of the beloved bow. “Give it back,” Aleksy shouted. “Now!”

  The soldier’s face was contorted with exertion.

  The yew held.

  At last he slapped it into Aleksy’s hand. “What are you? A Turk?”

  So this is what it all came to, Aleksy thought as he placed the bow and cord in the bow case. “Tatar.” He felt his spine stiffen.

  “Ah, Tatar. You’re dark like a Turk. And you have the eyes of a Mongol. What are you doing around here—spying on our maneuvers?”

  “Not spying, milord. I live close by.”

  “In whose household?” The question was voiced as a challenge.

  “That of Borys Gazdecki.”

  “So!—You’re the one he took home from the battlefield a few years ago?”

  “Seventeen—seventeen years ago.”

  “People said he did it because his second son died.”

  “We should go now,” the brother cautioned. “I remember him. He was underfoot in the stable often enough before we left for our training.”

  The soldier in red nodded but kept his eyes on Aleksy. “Then, you’re the changeling all grown up, are you? If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of our way.” He spat in the direction of Kastor.

  “Come on, Roman,” the other urged.

  The two gave spur now and were soon in full gallop, stones and clumps of mud flying back like buckshot. Aleksy glanced at the spittle that had struck his boot but the insult did not register.

  Roman, he was thinking. Roman, he was called. He had seen the face of that one before. And he had heard his name the other day at the roadside, spoken by the girl in the coach, the girl in yellow. These were her brothers. Worse, they were the sons of the lord who owned their tiny village, the nobleman who owned the dwór—manor house—called Poplar House, and who all but owned the Gazdecki family themselves.

  Three

  “Damn!” Roman spat. “There’s not one longbow here that rivals that dark devil’s bow. The nocked horn at the ends doesn’t compare in workmanship. And none of the bows have the same spring to them. A cholera on him!”

  They stood in a small room off the manor house kitchen called the weapons room. Marek was returning to its place on the wall one of the bows he and his brother had been inspecting. “What does it matter? We’ve got fine pistols. The finest! And you know that to aim with a bow from atop a horse is impossible.”

  “Evidently not so for our new friend with the rabbit.” Roman was examining a bow his father had once carried.

  “Forget it. Concentrate on our chances of being called up to join the Kwarciani.”

  “Did you see the wound on that rabbit? A perfect shot through the throat! I should have just taken it.”
>
  “The rabbit?”

  “Don’t be an ass, Marek—the bow! What could he do to stop me? His family is one of ours.”

  Marek was chuckling at his little joke. “Let him have his damn bow. To hell with him—think about your lance. It’s perfection! What chance does he have of ever lifting or owning a seventeen-foot lance?”

  “For once you have a point. Still—”

  “Yes, one with seventeen feet behind it.” Marek laughed. “Come on, we’ll be late to supper and the old man will bark at us. You know that we’ve got to get back to camp afterwards. More maneuvers tomorrow, remember?”

  “We’re no more than two minutes late,” Marek said.

  It was their mother who chastised her boys for holding up the supper.

  “Oh, Zena,” Konrad said, playfully intoning the diminutive for Zenobia, “you should have seen our boys out there today. They were magnificent!”

  Two maids commenced with the first of the courses, mushroom soup.

  Roman had no appetite. He gave only the appearance of following his father’s proud detailing of the day’s maneuvers at Mount Halicz, omitting the less than splendid errors made by his elder son. And to make him more disconsolate, the incident with the bow still rankled. Sitting at his side, Marek joined in on occasion. Across from the brothers, gowned in cornflower blue, sat Krystyna sipping at her soup, her eyes going from Marek to her father and back again as the descriptions unfolded.

  “Have you nothing to add, Roman?” his mother asked.

  “No.”

  His mother rested her spoon. “Nothing?”

  “It went well, Mother. Perhaps we’ll be selected for the Kwarciani, perhaps not.”

  “That’s a devil-may-care attitude,” his mother said.

  “I expect there isn’t much drama to maneuvers,” Krystyna said, drawing all eyes to her. “No risk and therefore no excitement. Isn’t that so, Romek? I should like to see a joust. I should like to see a real battle!”

  “Krystyna, that’s enough!” His mother pursed her lips as if tasting something sour. “I told you I have no patience with you. A battle, indeed! War is not a mazurka in a music room. You’d faint dead away.”

  “Not I,” Krystyna said, spoon raised and green eyes riveted on her mother as she made what seemed a deliberate slurping noise.

  “Well, I have a good feeling about our chances, Roman,” Marek said.

  “Good feelings don’t fetch water, lord brother,” Roman said, his annoyance with his sibling overshadowing for the moment his nagging disdain for the Tatar. “Now, if Papa had said but a word or two—” He silenced himself, wishing he could retract the half-statement.

  His mother’s gray-eyed gaze locked on to his father’s across the length of the table. She had caught the meaning. “Why Konrad, do you mean to say you didn’t identify your own sons to the Old Guard. Why, you know them all!” Using her fingers, the bone-thin woman plucked from her teeth an inedible bit from her mushroom soup, grimaced, and pushed the bowl to the side.

  Lord Konrad Halicki’s round, fleshy face darkened and his eyes, all blue fire, went from his wife to his son. “You dare bring this up at table, Roman. We’ve been through this time and again. It’s your skill that is to get you a place with the Kwarciani. And Marek’s. If it’s meant to be.” He leaned against the back of his chair, his hands interlocking against the orange brocade żupan that restrained his large belly. “Without proving yourselves, you don’t deserve a place on the border. It’s too dangerous!”

  Conversation ceased for several minutes as the maids came into the dining hall with the main course, a shoulder of venison spit-roasted in the Hungarian style and dill-speckled boiled potatoes.

  His mother resumed the conversation once the maids had passed through the swinging door to the kitchen. “Ah, well, I’d just as soon have you both close to home, not out wandering the Wild Fields.”

  Roman was about to protest and Marek, seeing his intent, dutifully chose to change the subject. “We saw that Tatar today—the one from the Gazdecki family.”

  His father seemed irritated. “He’s not from the Gazdecki family, Marek. His name is Aleksy Gazdecki. He is one of their family.”

  “Still, it’s odd that he should have a Polish name,” Marek said. “He’s Tatar, Papa.”

  Roman’s father spoke with a stern formality. “His adoptive parents are Polish and his adoptive country is Poland. This is what matters.”

  “What was it that made Borys Gazdecki adopt him, Papa?” Marek asked. “After all, he’s from the savage Wild Fields, isn’t he?”

  The count’s gaze went with lightning speed down the table to his wife. Roman turned, too, and realized that she had stopped eating and had paled. Her hands were in her lap. She seemed to be deliberately avoiding her husband’s glance. He had the impression that at any moment she might jump up and run from the room. An odd current of electricity ran the length of the table. Was it his imagination, or was there some secret his parents shared about the Tatar boy?

  “He hardly seems a savage,” Krystyna said.

  The table went quiet. Krystyna drew a piece of venison into her mouth and slowly set down her fork, aware she had turned the conversation upon herself and relishing having done so.

  “What?” The countess had come to attention as if from a trance.

  “When did you see Aleksy?” the count demanded of his daughter.

  Roman bit down on his lower lip, an old habit. It dawned on him now that the Tatar was one of the two boys in the field that he and Krystyna had seen from the coach. She had made the connection at once. His stomach tightened out of fear that the near mishap in the carriage was about to come to light. He was certain that the fact that he had saved his sister from falling into the ditch would be eclipsed by the precarious danger he had somehow allowed to occur.

  Krystyna took several beats to finish chewing before she spoke. “Oh, I do think I remember him as a boy hereabouts before I went away to convent school. He shadowed Szymon in and around the stable and barn.” The green eyes suddenly went to Roman.

  Roman gave her an almost imperceptible shake of the head, imploring her to be silent on the subject. Only he stood to lose. Her lips formed an enigmatic smile. Her eyes fluttered. Had the silly fool failed to read his cautionary signal? What more would she say?

  Her reply mollified his father, but his mother spoke now. “Ah, you have a good memory,” she said, a tremble in her voice. “That was years ago.” She reached for her wine goblet.

  “And he’s grown to be an interesting young man,” Krystyna said, eyes on Roman.

  She was going to tell after all, Roman realized, steeling himself to deal with his father’s anger. He silently cursed. She was taking delight in this little game.

  The eyelids flickered again. “Of course, I’m merely assuming.”

  Damn her teasing!

  “He’s become a good farmer and helpmate to Borys,” the count said.

  “But not,” her mother advised, her eyes colorless stones above the rim of her goblet, “someone you’re at all likely to have any sort of exchange with. He is a peasant, after all. Stay clear of him, do you hear?” She drank, leaving unsaid the fact that he is a Tatar.

  “But if he is a good farmer, Mother, as Papa says, isn’t he in part responsible for the rye that made this good bread? Isn’t that a sort of exchange?” She held up a piece of black bread and bit into it.

  Krystyna’s questions shut down the conversation completely. Roman could only marvel at Krystyna’s nerve. How had the Carmelite sisters put up with her?

  Roman and Marek left for camp well after dark, leaving their wings behind in the weapons room, for maneuvers the next day were to be informal. Marek wanted to gallop and issued a challenge. Although Roman agreed to race, urging his Turk into a canter, he lost in
terest before achieving a gallop and found himself lagging behind, lost in thought about his chances of being chosen for the Kwarciani. He had made light of it at supper, but in truth he was serious as the gallows about his chances of being inducted. Unlike his brother, he had little optimism. The maneuvers had not gone so perfectly for him. He knew that at the turn-around at the end of the track his horse had stepped outside the path markings. It was just for the briefest moment and only a few steps—chances are the judges wouldn’t have seen the error—but the misstep had so unnerved him that he attempted to direct the stallion with his left hand on the reins, and in so doing he lost his concentration, allowing for the lance in his right hand to shake and falter. He steadied it almost immediately, but he had violated the first rule of carrying a lance: never direct a horse with anything other than your knees at its flanks. He knew that was a blunder that could not have gone unseen.

  Chances were better his younger brother would be selected. His performance had been perfection. Damn him for his good luck if he is chosen.

  His thoughts lighted upon the Tatar and his incredible bow. How he would like that bow for himself. It would assuage a part of the humiliation he would feel if he is not chosen. He cursed himself again for not taking it. Would the boy sell it to him? Perhaps, if the devil were offered enough. Even as he called him a devil in his thoughts, there was no denying that he was indeed a handsome rogue, what with his swarthy complexion and almond-shaped black eyes. He wondered if his looks had had an effect on Krystyna. He scuttled that thought almost immediately. If her eyes had gone to anyone, surely it was to the Polish brother, the truly Polish one—and yet he could not recall the brother’s face.

  Roman reached the forest now and drew up. He listened for Marek’s horse. Nothing. Little expecting they would be separated, they had not discussed whether they would take the shorter route through the birch forest or the longer but more clearly delineated path around it. Without giving it much thought, he goaded his horse forward with the pressure of his knees. It took just fifteen minutes to regret his decision, for the forest became black as pitch and while his horse could sense the path if they moved slowly, there was no glimmer of the moon or even a star shimmering through the high tree-top openings. Like ghostly fingers, low-hanging branches brushed against his plumed cap.