The Boy Who Wanted Wings

by James Conroyd Martin

  “Just found it there among the muck, milord.”

  “You were then going to hide it? For whom? From whom? Don’t lie to me!”

  Szymon did not respond.

  “Ah, then if I break it in half it should be of no matter to anyone, yes?” Roman moved one hand up to the narrow end of the lance and lifted his right knee.

  “Milord!”

  “You know as well as I that it’s the Tatar’s!”

  “I told him I’d stow it away.”

  “For what? He didn’t make it himself?”

  “He did. I gave him no help.”

  “To what end? He’ll never be a lancer. The stupid fool! I would break it, but I’d rather put it through some Tatar cousin of his in the Sultan’s horde. Put it in the wagon with our others.”

  “But, milord—”

  “Do as I say—hey, wait a moment! You’re the one who put it into my father’s head to go light on the Tatar! You’re the reason why he was taken from me as retainer.”

  “Your father has his own good sense.”

  “And you are a busybody, always have been!” Enflamed to think a stable master had stymied his plans for the Tatar, Roman lifted the lance to strike Szymon. He brought the shaft of the weapon down on the stable master’s shoulder, dropping him to the ground. That he didn’t cry out galled him. He lifted it again, bringing the lance up and back into a wide arc.

  But he could not bring it down. A strong hand had taken hold of it, and then the lance and a powerful force behind it were propelling him forward in a twisting motion, forward and downward. He released the lance and was sent sprawling into a muck-filled stall.

  He stared up at Aleksy Gazdecki, unable to make out the Tatar’s expression.

  “You would fight the stable master for my lance? Does it make you proud? Take it, Roman! Take it. Use it with my compliments against the enemy of the Commonwealth.” Aleksy bent to help Szymon to his feet.

  Aleksy was leaving the stable by the time Roman pulled himself up. “We leave in twenty minutes, Tatar!” he shouted, his rage impotent.

  Aleksy pivoted, his eyes moving up from Roman’s soiled yellow leather boots to his face. “I’ll be there in front.”

  Roman looked down at his żupan, trousers, and boots. Even the ends of his sash had been dirtied. He himself had but twenty minutes to get clean of the filth.

  At the kitchen door of the manor house, Aleksy glanced behind him, fearful that Roman had followed him. He hadn’t. He ventured a guess that he was probably at the well trying to clean off the muck. He smiled to himself. Whatever the payment might be for tossing him into the filth would likely be worth it. He opened the door and listened. All of the sounds came from the front of the house, where things were being carried out to the horses and wagons that would comprise the cavalcade to Kraków.

  Aleksy slipped into the kitchen and quickly found the servants’ back stairway. He took the stairs two at a time, passing the first level, and arriving at the top floor. He took his bearings, ascertained the corner room from which he had seen the glow of candlelight on two occasions, and stepped lightly in that direction.

  He rapped quietly at the door. Nothing. His heart sank. The danger was all for nothing. Then he thought he heard something, maybe the creak of a floorboard or wooden chair. He rapped again. Soft footsteps now. Advancing. Coming closer. The door slowly opened inward.

  “Aleksy?” Krystyna stood, rooted to the floor as if she were seeing a long dead ancestor. She wore the yellow dress and it seemed that his memory of it—of her—had not done justice to the incandescence he now imbibed. There was something different about her, too, but her reaction left no time to search it out. “Hail Maryja!” she was crying, again and again.

  “And Józef, too,” Aleksy said, smiling at her reaction. “May I talk to you?”

  “Who—who showed you up here?”

  “I showed myself.”

  The green eyes went wide. Krystyna stepped out into the hallway looked down the length of it, as if for a spy. Satisfied, she pulled him into the room. “What are you doing here? My God, if my parents find out you’ll be killed outright and I’ll be flayed alive.”

  “So I’d be the lucky one?”

  “I’m not joking. It’s not funny, so wipe that smirk off your face!”

  Her anger seemed real enough, Aleksy conjectured, but he was almost certain that the danger of the situation somehow pleased her beyond measure. “I overheard your father say that you were not coming down for the farewells.” Aleksy paused, his heart beating fast. “I… I wanted to see you.”

  Krystyna’s brow lifted, furrowing slightly. “Why?”

  “I… I don’t know—well, to give you this.” From the inside pocket of his żupan, Aleksy withdrew the brown riding glove he had retrieved from Luba.

  Krystyna stared for several moments, then gave one of her little laughs as she took it from him and tossed it onto the child’s desk nearby. “That wasn’t necessary.”

  “I know, but it gave me an excuse if I was stopped on the stairs.” He paused, allowing for her to laugh again as he chose the words that would draw closer to the truth. “Actually, I wanted to ask why you were angry that I was about to leave for the army.”

  Krystyna cut short her mirth and turned her head away, as if to look out the window. “I don’t know what came over me. It was wrong. I was wrong.”

  Aleksy realized at once what was different about her. Her unbraided blond hair had been loosed so that it fell down her back in shimmering waves of red-gold. A simple pink ribbon held it back from her face. Her hair would be unbound like this on her wedding night, he thought, and the breath went out of him. He reached out, wanting to gently turn her around to face him, but his hands fell away. “It seemed to matter to you—that I was about to leave.”

  “And now you are.” Krystyna turned back to him, her face devoid of emotion. “You see, Aleksy, you were my little divertissement at the ruins.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I was entertaining myself.” Her chin tipped upward. “That’s all.”

  Aleksy’s eyes narrowed as he tried to read her face. Did her visage match her words?

  “And now you are to leave to fight for the Commonwealth,” she said, all lightness, “along with my brothers. Farewell.”

  “Did you have something to do with that?”

  “What do you mean by that?” Pinkness appeared in her cheeks.

  “Did you tell Roman that I was about to leave so that he might get the idea to have me as a retainer? You did, didn’t you?”

  “Why, that would have been a spiteful thing for someone to do.”

  “Yes, but—from my view, to the good.”

  “Good?” She seemed to take offense. “What do you mean?”

  “Had I gone off on my own, it’s doubtful I would have been inducted.” He grinned. “Now, I will be certain of having a way to serve. If not as a hussar or a common soldier, then as a retainer.”

  “I did tell—but not to get you killed in the bargain.” Her petulant tone tempered the concern the words implied.

  “A small blessing,” he said.

  Either she did not process his reply or she failed to sense his irony. Her mind took another path. “You must watch out for Roman. You must have noticed Marek’s crooked nose. That was Roman’s doing. He doesn’t play fair—never has. I did do you one good turn.”

  “What?”

  “I had my father make you Marek’s retainer instead of Roman’s.”

  “I see. A second blessing.” Aleksy performed a mock bow. “Thank you.”

  “I’ve grown up with both of them. Roman makes his own rules.”

  “I understand.” He also understood that she was concerned for him despite the mask she wore. “I�
��ll survive,” he said. “And I’ll come back.”

  Krystyna turned aside. “You’d best leave now.”

  “I said I would come back.”

  “To teach me the bow? I won’t be here, Aleksy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You must leave now.” Without a glance at him, Krystyna moved to the door and pulled it open. “They’ll be looking for you.”

  “Krystyna!” The call resounded from the front stairwell and struck them both silent. They listened and it came again.

  “It’s Mother. Sounds like she’s already come up from the ground floor. She hates making the climb. If I go to the head of the stairwell, I’ll call down and keep her from coming up. Now, go!”

  “I won’t—until you tell me—”

  “What? Until I tell you what?”

  “That it matters to you—my going.”

  “Krystyna!” The call from her mother was louder, closer.

  “Jezus Maryja!” Krystyna hissed. “She’s coming up! There’s the back stairwell, that way. Go now or we’re both of us cooked.” She looked up at him, her eyes dilating as she focused.

  He saw that she was taken aback by what he had only just realized himself: that tears were forming in the tails of his eyes. He little cared if they were to spill. It was likely that he would never see her again and that thought overcame his pride. “Does it matter?”

  “I see my father has given you a cross to wear so you won’t be taken for a Turk who wears the crescent.” Before he could respond, she reached up, untied the pink ribbon holding back her hair, and held it out to him. “Perhaps you’ll carry this, too.”

  “I will,” he heard himself say, knowing he had his answer.

  “Now, you really must go!” She had her hands on his żupan now and was about to push him toward the servants’ stairwell when she stopped, the emerald eyes suddenly true, the mask torn away. She pulled him toward her, leaning into him, face upward. She kissed him. His arms went around her, tentatively at first, then tightly. The kiss seemed to draw into a full minute, neither of them caring if Lady Zenobia Halicka reached the top level landing or fell backwards to her death.

  The next thing, the thing he would remember on a host of solitary nights, was the sight of Krystyna and the glow of her yellow gown racing away, down the hallway toward the main staircase, away from him.

  Krystyna stood at the semi-circle window cut into the roof of the manor house, looking not out, but inward. Her life had changed in an instant. And in just weeks—or days—the remainder of her life was to be set in stone: wife, mother, grandmother and then a headstone on her grave. She had only just been emancipated from convent school, imagining that there were to be months of freedom—parties, masked balls, flirtations, and her favored kuligs. How she would miss those wild sleighing outings. None of that was to be now, it seemed. In no time at all she would bear the name of Nardolska and if that family were to have their way, in the blink of an eye she would be bearing the next son in their noble line. She grew dizzy with despair at the mere thought. Her youth would be spent.

  Oh, she could not blame King Sobieski and his war. She had learned in convent school the seriousness of the threat from the East, how the Sultan—and those who came before him—had vowed to remake all of Europe in the image of Allah, decimating any vestiges of Christianity in the process. Thoughts of those who would die—Christians, Poles, friends, family—tempered her personal sense of loss.

  The sounds of a great commotion below caught her attention. She glanced down from her window to see that the train of horsemen and wagons had already formed and was beginning to move out, down the drive and toward the road. Her eyes honed in on faces now. Ludwik’s and Aleksy’s families were there to see them off, the little dwarf among them. A half dozen servants attended the fledgling soldiers. These men would come back soon—all but the two that would drive the wagons along the march—but the futures of Aleksy, Ludwik, Roman, and Marek were more uncertain.

  Her eyes raked the parade of riders. She was instinctively searching out—not her brothers—but Aleksy.

  Aleksy! How could someone so different matter to her? He was as different from her as fire from ice. What was it about him that made her kiss him? Was it the depth of those dark, dark almond-shaped eyes that told her so much? He loved her. This she knew.

  But the kiss—the enormity of that impulse struck her. Had someone witnessed it, she would be ostracized. She felt her face flush with heat at the thought. And yet some little pleasure brewed within her that she struggled to contain.

  Krystyna knelt on the window seat, her nose to the glass. The perimeters of the panes had yet to be sealed with wax against the winter winds so that she could inhale the sweet summer scents.

  Her eyes caught Aleksy now. When the steppe pony that he was riding left the poplar-lined manor house drive—at some little distance from her vantage point—turning into the road, Krystyna saw him tilt his face up and toward her window. He gave a slight wave now, slight but unmistakable.

  Krystyna shrank back, away from the window. She put her fingertips to her lips and she suddenly heard Mother Abbess’ voice: “You are a reckless girl, Krystyna Halicka!”

  Had she been reckless? As her meetings with Aleksy flashed through her mind, her sense of time blurred.

  When she looked again the little cavalcade was gone, as were the well-wishers. Why hadn’t she waved? She was about to turn away when a motion below drew her eye. The rushing movement of an animal—a dog. The animal loped along the drive, slowed, sniffing the ground, came to the road and halted. It was Luba, Aleksy’s sheepdog. It was there that Aleksy’s scent went cold. His loyal dog sat now, as if confused, looking one way then the other, her gray patches like unmoving clouds in a white sky.

  Krystyna turned, raced out of her room and, grasping the folds of her gown, bolted down the stairs.

  Thirteen

  “Did you come freely?” Aleksy asked. He had seen Ludwik on occasion, but he was from another of the Halicki villages so that they were not well acquainted. He was close to twenty, Aleksy guessed, with blue eyes, shaggy blond hair and a stocky physique just short of corpulent. They had been riding side by side on the road to Kraków for more than an hour without speaking, and he was determined to break the ice with this fellow who, like himself, was to be attached to the Halicki brothers for who knew how long. After all, they were to be comrades.

  “To serve Roman?” Ludwik grimaced, started to say something, thought better of it, then gave a slight shake of his head, allowing his hair on either side to fall forward and nearly cover his eyes. He spoke in a confidential tone. “No more freely than in my village where we work three days a week for the Lord Halicki and make sure that he gets his share of wheat and fowl and the tithes from the pigs, sheep, bees’ honey and the rest.”

  “And beef from the slaughter every third year?”

  “Yes.”

  “Same in our village,” Aleksy said. “He’s a consistent landlord, you must admit.”

  “So you did not come freely, either?”

  “No, but I will make something of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want to be a lancer,” Aleksy said. “I want to wear the wings.”

  Ludwik turned to him as if he had just started speaking Swedish. “And… and you think as a retainer…” Ludwik laughed loudly. “Marek might allow you to clean his lance, or hand it to him—but carry a lance into battle? You are a dreamer!”

  “I want to fight!”

  “Oh, they might let you die, you can wager on that. Unprepared and unsuspecting retainers fall to the enemy all the time, so I’m told. The stable master at home calls such deaths unintended damage.”

  “I have my bow and my arm is not complete without it.”

  Ludwik laughed again. “A bow?—not very good
in hand-to-hand combat.”

  “I’ll buy a sabre in Kraków,” Aleksy said, though he had far too few coins for that.

  Ludwik scoffed. “Our lords might not sleep so well on the night you go to your pallet with a sabre as a bedmate.”

  Aleksy laughed now.

  “And,” Ludwik added, “won’t you be afraid that you’ll be thought one of the enemy?”

  So there it was: his race. With their situation so similar, their differences had slipped his mind. He felt the muscles in his neck tense, his face flush. Was a friendship out of bounds?

  “Well?” Ludwik persisted. “You’re Tatar, yes?”

  Aleksy’s spine tautened. “Yes, and you may not know that the Lipka are Sobieski’s best lancers. They are Tatars.”

  Ludwik shrugged. “I didn’t know.”

  Aleksy noticed that up ahead Roman observed them talking and was now detaching himself from several other riders and approaching the wagon behind which Aleksy and Ludwik rode. He was placed on guard. “Are we not allowed to converse?” he whispered between clenched teeth.

  There was no time for Ludwik to respond.

  Roman seemed as if he was about to hector them for something, but then his gaze fell on Aleksy’s horse. “Who gave you this steppe pony?” he demanded.

  “Gusztáf,” Aleksy said.

  “Gusztáf, my lord!” Roman bellowed.

  “Gusztáf, milord.”

  At Kraków, Roman and Marek had had the sides of their heads shaved in warrior fashion so that the angry red rush of blood to his head was made all the more apparent. He turned and shouted for the groom, who rode at the tail end of the caravan.

  Gusztáf’s face was bone white by the time he drew his steppe pony up close.

  Roman was so angry he could hardly speak. “Is this the steppe pony I picked out for the Tatar here?”

  “No, milord.”

  “And why isn’t it?”

  “I was told the other wasn’t healthy, that it would not survive the trip.”