The Boy Who Wanted Wings

by James Conroyd Martin

  During the two weeks and two days’ journey by carriage, her mother had spoken only of the advantages of this marriage. The Nardolskis were so wealthy and influential that it would advance the status of the Halicki family. “You will have only the best,” she had said. “Your children will have only the best. Indeed, they will marry into the families of magnates and perhaps even kings.”

  “But if the Sultan has his way with Europe, Mother,” Krystyna countered, “I’ll be just one of many wives—or a slave. Come to think of it, one fate is like the other.”

  Her mother’s face radiated shock and her thin form went rigid in the rocking coach, and if at that moment its wheels had not happened to negotiate a series of jolting pits in the road, Krystyna was certain she would have reached across and slapped her. As for the Nardolski name and influence raising the Halicki clan status, Krystyna had been cut short of reminding her that the root of her intended’s family name meant downward. Did her mother understand the concept of irony?

  “You will behave tonight, Krystyna,” the countess was warning now. “No statements meant to stir things. This city is already astir.” She passed Krystyna and went to the window. “Good heavens, what a sight out there! You’re not to go out unattended. Is that understood? Promise me.”

  “Are you afraid I’ll be wrapped up in a Turkish rug, sold, and sent east?”

  “Krystyna!”

  “What is he like—now, I wonder?”

  “Fabian? His parents boast of his good looks.”

  “They would.”

  “You saw the painting they have of him downstairs. Quite lovely!”

  “I wonder who paid the artist.”

  Her mother glared at her.

  “And his character?” Krystyna persisted, “Flawless, I suppose. A perfect knight, like Zawisza the Black?”

  Her mother gave out with a deep sigh. “Perhaps, my darling, but without the black hair and black armor. I’m going downstairs. When you come down, I want to see the Krystyna smile your father treasures.”

  Krystyna forged a grin that did not qualify.

  Her mother’s mouth tightened as if with purse strings. She turned and made her exit, the slight train of the green silk day dress lapping at the arabesque design of the carpet.

  Krystyna threw herself on the sofa, the crimson upholstery a blood-like foil to the billowing white cotton gown. Years ago she had accepted the fact that her marriage had been decided, but it had always been something she would experience later in her life. That the marriage had been moved up because of the national peril had thrown her off kilter. She felt herself teetering at the edge of a vortex that would swallow her whole. She had thought she had another year, either to decide this was what she wanted or to scheme against the arranged marriage. In the latter case, she would have found a way, but the speed with which things were happening made the marriage appear an incontrovertible reality. Now, even the cell at the convent school seemed preferable to what lay before her. There, restless as she had been behind the high convent walls, she knew that a life with unknown bends and turns awaited her. But she hadn’t known it was toward this fate she was being jettisoned. It was customary for the daughters of the magnates and the szlachta to be educated in the convent schools so that when they returned home they would lead dignified lives into a dry and wizened old age. Krystyna grew dizzy thinking how the years would whip by like the winds off the steppes. And she would be tied to a man who was not her choice.

  Agnieszka, her best friend at school, had chosen not to go home where her parents meant to marry her off, electing instead to stay at the convent and take the vows of a Carmelite nun. Krystyna shivered. No, that had never been an option for her.

  What does he look like? she wondered. It had been so very long since they had met. She had been—what?—ten years old. Six years ago he was affable enough, but his physique was soft and fleshy, his round face riddled with pimples. And what of his character? Oh, he had sworn to fight for the Commonwealth, but wasn’t that expected of a young noble who might one day serve as a legislator in the Diet? According to his parents, that was his ambition.

  Dear Mother of God, I have a mere handful of days left to myself. Just days.

  Aleksy picked his way down a steep, stony slope toward the River Vistula. He found her draped in black, old but agile enough to be sitting cross-legged under the weeping willow, as Ludwik had described. Her eyes, blacker than his, seemed to pierce him.

  “Come for your future, soldier?” The gypsy drew in on her pipe.

  As Aleksy moved closer, the searching eyes squinted. “Ah, are you a soldier? You’re not, I see.”

  “No, I’m not. I am a pacholik—a retainer. But it’s my wish… to be a soldier.” The herbs the woman was smoking tickled his nose.

  “And that’s why you’ve come to me. To see about your wish?”

  “Will it come to pass? I want to know.”

  “Two złotys.”

  “But you charged my friend just one. The big fellow in the light blue żupan.”

  “Big boy, blond hair, dirty brown boots—very muddy?”

  “Yes.” Aleksy nodded, laughing.

  “He had no specific wish, as you do. Two złotys.” The gypsy tapped the pipe’s bowl against the tree to empty its contents, then placed it to her side.

  Aleksy had to undo the loops from the buttons on his żupan in order to withdraw the coins from a secure inside pocket. He tossed them onto a cloth she had laid out.

  “Sit down.” Almost by sleight of hand the coins and cloth disappeared in the moments it took for him to sit on the hard ground.

  As he sat, tucking his legs into a cross-legged position, the leather lacing with the gold cross Lord Halicki had supplied slipped from the opening in his żupan and swung like a pendulum to and fro across his chest.

  The gypsy’s widening eyes followed it. “Ah, the cross—and not the crescent.”

  “No, I’m not Muslim. I’m Christian!” Wrong on her very first observation, he thought. Not a good omen.

  “I see. Give me your hand.”

  Aleksy did so, feeling more and more foolish. She took it in both of hers, leaning close, head down, so that he found himself staring at the dirty gray kerchief on her head.

  “You see how all the fingers are of different sizes? So much the better for their usage. The thumb is the strongest, but I see your index finger and its taller companion are heavily calloused.”

  “I’m an archer.”

  “Ah, I see. Now, here is your Life Line, moving from between your thumb and index finger in an arch across the middle of the palm to the base of the thumb. You will fight. I see many weapons, many deaths.”

  “Will I be a lancer?” The question, only half-serious, flew out of his mouth. She could not know anything, not anything real.

  She ignored his question. “Just above the Life Line is the Head Line, you see.” Her finger moved horizontally across his palm. “You have a strong love of adventure and enthusiasm for life. The Health Line, here, moving from the little finger to the base of the palm is nearly invisible and that can be to the good. Now—the Heart Line. It is here,” she said, running her finger from beneath the index and middle fingers to the edge of the palm beneath the little finger. She looked up, grunted, changed her hold, ran the fingers of one hand over his as if erasing what she had seen, and grunted again. The black eyes came up once more and she said, “You are not truthful.”

  “What?” He pulled his hand away.

  The gypsy pointed her finger at him. “You have two wishes.”

  “What? What do you see?”

  “A heart—yours—easily won. And a second wish, just as close to your heart as the first, perhaps closer.”

  Aleksy sat paralyzed. He had come only because Ludwik had badgered him to do so. What prescie
nt powers could this withering old prune truly have? His skin prickled. “What do you see?”

  She put out her hand, palm up. “I see two more złotys. Two wishes, four złotys.”

  This was the moment for him to leave. Her method was as crooked as her spine. The initial two złotys were as good as thrown into the Vistula. Was he to throw another two in after them? Moments passed as he considered. When next he looked, the cloth was placed again on the ground.

  “You want to know,” she said, the tilt of her head drawing up the loose skin of her neck in a posture of supreme confidence. She’d been at this game for many years.

  He did want to know. He withdrew another two coins, dropped them onto the cloth, and watched her skillfully seize them.

  “Your hand.”

  He obeyed. He would cuff Ludwik for getting him into this situation. This time she did no tracing of his lines; instead, she held his hand, closed her eyes and seemed to go into a trance.

  Two full minutes must have passed. “The other wish?” he pressed.

  She looked up, eyes bright, and smiled, revealing three or four widely-spaced, moss-colored teeth. “A woman, a very young woman.”

  Aleksy was not impressed. A wish regarding a woman might fit most every one of the nearly twenty thousand men already assembled at Kraków. He knew, too, his expression gave away his disbelief.

  “She is not Tatar,” she said.

  “No.”

  “A complication. There are others, too.”

  “Women or complications?” he asked, his tone mocking.

  She gave a wry smile. “Complications.”

  “Yes, there are complications.”

  “I’m talking about people, people… working against you. There are lies.”

  “Lies?”

  “Yes. She is very beautiful. Hair of gold. She is Polish.”

  Aleksy felt knots forming at the pit of his stomach. How could she know this? And then he thought of Ludwik. He must have given her this information. Was this a big joke being played on him? But, then again, what lies had he ever mentioned to Ludwik? What did she mean?

  The woman looked into Aleksy’s eyes as if she could read his mind, and she drew back as if stunned, her sentence flying out like an arrow to its mark: “The woman—she is high-born.”

  Aleksy went numb. He had not dared to reveal that significant detail to Ludwik. To tell him of his love for the sister of the Halicki brothers would invite scorn and ridicule. He would think him a ridiculous person. And there was the matter of trust: What if he was to speak of it—knowingly or not—to the brothers?

  Aleksy’s thoughts came back to the gypsy. What powers did this woman have? A shiver ran through him. He swallowed hard. “What of these wishes?” He hardly recognized his own voice, it quavered so.

  “You want to know the outcomes, yes? I cannot always see my way to the outcomes.”

  Aleksy stared at her, waiting, suspecting she would ask for more coins.

  Her face folded into an expression of what appeared to be empathy, her voice seemingly sincere. “There is another line on the palm, one that not everyone possesses—the Soartă.”

  “Soartă?”

  “It’s Romanian for Fate—the Fate Line.”

  “Do I have one?”

  “You do. It runs from the wrist to below the middle finger. It passes through the others in its path.”

  Aleksy stared at his palm.

  “You see that it also crosses through several other shorter lines,” she continued. “These are obstacles. Your path has many bends. The danger is not always on the battlefield. But I cannot see what is written.”

  Idzi’s words about the future came back to him now. “You mean the unchangeable? Is that what you mean by written?”

  “The unchangeable? That is a mystery for the scholars, my Tatar friend.” A laugh seemed to gurgle up her throat. “And truth to speak, I’ve had a score of scholars come to me for guidance. For myself, I can only hope that there is no such thing as the unchangeable.”

  Krystyna sat nervously running the tip of her index finger in half-circles over the base of her crystal wine goblet. This was to be the celebratory supper at which the betrothed parties were to meet for the first time in six years. The tension was palpable. Her mother, gowned in aqua and uncharacteristically quiet, sat on her right. Fabian’s parents sat at either end of the long table of polished oak. Countess Irena Nardolska had been a beauty once, as evidenced by her delicate features and still shapely form. Into her mid-forties now, she wore an abundance of jewelry, her black satin gown a foil to diamond bracelets, pins, and a two-tiered necklace. Her perfectly coiffed hair was a bold shade of red that Krystyna had never seen before. She found herself absently wondering if it was a wig. Robed in a scarlet kontusz, Count Ryszard Nardolski was a tall man with a long face, moderately pitted, that accented his height. His dark hair and moustache had started to silver. His hooded eyes now and then would surreptitiously sweep to the tall clock in the corner of the dining hall. Across from Krystyna and her mother sat an empty chair. The young Count Fabian Nardolski had yet to arrive.

  Krystyna’s memory of him was crisp in her mind. Six years before he and his parents had visited Halicz. He had been pleasant enough as she showed him around their estate, exploring everything from the root cellar to the schoolroom on the uppermost level that she had so recently transformed into her sanctuary. Was he still plump and clumsy? Was his round face still pimpled? At the time Krystyna had no idea that while they were playing at some children’s card game at the top of the house, their parents were below in the reception room plotting their nuptials. And now she sat waiting to see what had become of that unattractive, gawky boy. Time was running out on the little freedom she had gained since her expulsion from convent school.

  Krystyna had observed a water clock once and she imagined herself now as a condemned criminal watching the steady fall of the drops, listening to the relentless, nearly noiseless, plops, knowing that when the water was done, life would be over.

  It seemed that while the wine had not run out, polite conversation had, and an uncomfortable lull ensued. Already on two occasions Krystyna had noticed a maid peek out from the door to the kitchens in an effort to see if the courses could commence and twice she had been turned back by a subtly severe look flashed by Countess Nardolska. On these occasions Krystyna noted that the woman had a tic in the form of a twitching beneath the right eye.

  Krystyna’s mother now dared to venture into the void, addressing her host and hostess. “Your town house is superb, I must say. Why, Krystyna’s suite is unparalleled!”

  Countess Nardolska cleared her throat. “It is not much in comparison to our estate at Opole. Isn’t that right, Ryszard?”

  The count grunted in the affirmative.

  “I daresay,” the countess continued, turning to Krystyna, “that your rooms at our castle at Opole will please you beyond measure.”

  Krystyna was reminded of a proverb: “He who buys a cage will then want a bird.” She rendered the facsimile of a smile. “Will we”—she couldn’t bring herself to say Fabian and I— “not have our own estate?”

  The table went quiet. Krystyna felt a sharp pinch to her thigh. Such was her mother’s method when Krystyna spoke out of turn at table, but it had been years since it was employed. Refusing to acknowledge the reprimand in any way, she kept her vision fastened to Countess Nardolska’s sharp gray-green eyes, thus keeping the question in play and putting the woman’s tic into motion.

  “There will be time for that,” the countess said. Krystyna knew that her future mother-in-law thought her bold and presumptuous. It was her clipped tone that did the pinching. Nevertheless, Krystyna rather enjoyed the minor clash. She smiled and did not push further. However, she knew instinctively that it would be a battle with this woman for yea
rs on end. The countess would live well into her old age, and Krystyna would be as a prisoner in the Nardolski household, watching the years drip, one by one, dropping like tears in the water clock.

  A little commotion arose in the kitchens and then a young man dressed in a teal blue żupan emerged through the swinging door, wine glass in hand, his handsome face alight with the impropriety of his entrance. Lord Ryszard Nardolski stood, his face registering indignation at the tardiness and execution of the arrival, but beneath the disapprobation, Krystyna recognized relief that his son had finally arrived at his own betrothal supper.

  Bringing the heels of his boots together, Lord Fabian Nardolski provided a brief apology for his tardiness and bowed toward his mother and father, turning from one to the other with enough grace to avoid spillage of the red wine, but sans reason for his lapse in manners. Lady Nardolska forced a smile and reintroduced her son to Krystyna and her mother.

  “Welcome to our humble town house, Lady Halicka and Lady Krystyna!” As he took his seat across from them, he went on for a while, reminiscing about his visit to the Halicki estate six years previous. More than the particulars of what he was saying, Krystyna would later recall the motion of his mouth and the glittering white teeth.

  Krystyna’s mother had gone into fits of anger when one of her three were late to the table, but one glance at her smile now told her that Fabian’s charms had worked magic on her.

  So this then was Fabian Nardolski, her intended. She found herself staring. He was not unattractive. He was not fat. His skin was flawless, his eyes the blue-green of the sea, his smile contagious. He was looking at her now, smiling, seemingly impressed—and somehow, she sensed, exhibiting a kind of possessiveness of her.

  Disappointment enveloped her, followed quickly by surprise. She had prepared herself to be—what? Put off? Perhaps even repulsed? Like a lawyer, she had prepared a case against the marriage, a case that she would lay out to her parents with heartfelt tears. She would refuse to marry an overweight and ugly brute of a man. Now—what argument did she have? That he was tardy? That he, like most men—soldiers especially—drank?