She could think only of Aleksy. What had become of him in the days since their very brief reunion? Had the army reached Vienna? Had the fighting begun? Would he survive it? The pace of her heart leaped, bounded. He must, she prayed. And there was danger for him in the persons of her own brothers, too, especially in Roman. What might he do to Aleksy? He would attempt retribution if he thought he could do so with impunity. She cursed herself for her untimely appearance at Tarnowskie, forgetting for the moment that it was an accidental discovery. She had gone under the guise of a camp-follower because she wanted to be near Aleksy, just to be near him. She had hoped for what would seem a serendipitous meeting, away from her brothers, away from everyone—not the catastrophic one that played out in front of townspeople and a royal audience.
She heard footsteps coming now to the door, stopping. When the knock came, Krystyna stood at once and brushed at a crease in the satin gown. “Entrez-vous,” she called.
She had no idea whether to expect a soldier, servant, one of the queen’s ladies, or the queen herself. She thought the last possibility unlikely.
The door opened in, allowing entrance to a woman in a ruffled rose gown.
“Ah, you are ready, mademoiselle?”
“I am,” Krystyna said, facing up to the queen’s one servant she detested. Nonetheless, she smiled, praying she would do her French schooling justice.
Madame Heloise clucked her tongue. “I see you are wearing white.”
Krystyna’s spine tightened at the implied insult. “Your vision is excellent,” she said. “It is what the queen’s dresser sent me.”
“Ah, then if you are ready—”
“I see that you are not.”
“Not, mademoiselle?”
“Wearing white.” Krystyna paused for effect, then added, “That shade of red is very beautiful. Daring—but you have the years to carry it off well.”
Confusion fell like a mask onto the woman’s face. She didn’t know whether she had been complimented or insulted.
Krystyna didn’t wait for the revelation. She made for the door and brushed past the guards.
Madame Heloise dogged her steps. As they walked a long, lighted hallway lined with portraits of royal predecessors, Krystyna could not help but ask for a hint of what the evening held in store. “Are there many guests this evening?”
“Many? No. When the king is away, the table consists mainly of Queen Maria Casimire and her ladies.” Her head turned toward Krystyna, an odd sparkle in her eyes. “You were hoping for some gentlemen company, perhaps?”
Another barb. “No!” The word flew out of her mouth like spittle. Clearly, Madame Heloise had at last felt the bite in Krystyna’s earlier retort and so now wished to turn the tables.
“Ah, well, that’s to the good, then. In the carriage you talked of your interest in a Tatar, didn’t you? Here we have no such young men. Tatars—isn’t their culture primitive and barbaric?”
Krystyna stifled her anger. She would not be netted like an easily-caught woodcock. She maintained her silence as they came to a staircase, descended, and moved toward a dining hall that glittered in the light of hundreds of flickering tapers. She could well imagine herself the maligned subject of gossip among the queen’s ladies. Since their arrival in Kraków, she had had two private conversations with the queen, during which she had implored the monarch to shield her from her parents. She could only wonder now if the queen had discussed her with her many ladies. She might have told them everything; indeed, she might be very free with how she shares important information and gossip because, after all, the queen had once been a lady-in-waiting to a Polish queen of bygone days, and what did such ladies have to amuse themselves? Certainly not needlepoint.
Ah! What did it matter if they all knew of the bride that ran away to be a camp-follower of a mere peasant—and a Tatar at that? Krystyna’s mind sought a different path, one well-worn these past few days: What are her plans for me?
They entered the great hall to find the queen already seated at the far end. All the many other chairs that populated the long varnished table were vacant. Only one other place had been set with bone china, polished silver, and gleaming crystal goblets.
“Come along, then,” the queen said, waving her forward. “Come along with you.”
Krystyna turned to see that Heloise was taking in the scene—the empty chairs, the two place settings—and was perhaps more surprised than was Krystyna. The other ladies must have been sent away. The woman’s mask of confusion appeared once again, but by the time they arrived at the queen’s side, a false, bitter smile had replaced it. Heloise had taken stock that no place had been set for her.
“Sit there at my side, Krystyna, so we may have our little tête-à-tête.” The queen glanced up at Heloise and smiled neatly. “You are dismissed, dear.”
Upon sitting, Krystyna looked up as Heloise’s head turned slightly, her dark eyes holding Krystyna’s for a moment, the beautiful rose-red gown reminding Krystyna that the woman had dressed for a supper from which she had just been excluded. The contempt in the woman’s gaze brought home to Krystyna the fact that she had made a lasting enemy.
“I do hope you will like the wine, Krystyna,” the queen said, even while Heloise was in earshot. “Indeed, everything laid before you today is a favorite of mine: the pâté, the onion soup, the Black grouse in blackcurrant and beetroot sauce, mustard-glazed salmon, potatoes mashed with cheese and garlic—oh, and whatever fresh fruits are still in season this September. While the ingredients are Polish, of course, the cooking is French. It’s my heritage. The king’s tastes are a bit more prosaic. ‘Prosaic and Polish,’ I tell him. He laughs, as you can imagine.”
Krystyna could not imagine the king, whom she had met so briefly in Tarnowskie and under such strained circumstances, laughing at much of anything.
The queen nodded toward the wake left by Heloise. “Gossip needs no carriage,” she said, now lifting the delicate goblet of white wine to Krystyna.
Krystyna was at once buoyed by the queen’s intimation of privacy. She lifted her own goblet, sipped and said, “Très bien.” The queen had something important to say to her. Krystyna’s heart raced with hope. Was it possible she would take her side?
“Good! I’m glad you like it. You know, when he’s on campaign, I treat myself to French cuisine and drink. It’s not that I spent much time in France, mind you. Why, I came to Poland at the age of five to be raised as lady-in-waiting to another French-born Queen of Poland, Maria Louise Gonzaga. Five years old! Can you imagine?”
Krystyna could not.
“So very few Poles know that before I married Jan, I was Maria Casimire Louise de La Grange d’Arquien. And why should they? A tongue twister, yes? Some prefer the Polish, calling me Maryja Kazimiera, but most have learned well that he calls me his Marysieńka. I rather like it.” She sighed now, a bit dramatically, Krystyna thought. “Well, here I am, a Frenchwoman sent back from the road to war so that I can handle the matters of the country while the king is off on yet another campaign. Ironic, no? You do know, Lady Krystyna, the stakes they are playing for at Vienna? The stakes for all Europe?”
“I do. Please tell me, Your Majesty, has there been any word?”
The queen shook her head. “Nothing recent.” She sighed again. “I pray we hear something soon.” The queen was lifted into a loquacious mood so that as the supper with its parade of dishes commenced, Krystyna barely had time to finish one when another appeared, her hopes in a state of ebb and flow, while the queen managed to talk of matters of state and finish her portions in good time.
Krystyna guessed that the queen’s chatter was a guise for her worry about her husband and the future of the Commonwealth. By the time dessert was to be served, Krystyna’s stomach had tightened in discomfort, not from the fine food, nor the dour possibilities for Christian Europe should t
he Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa triumph. The source of her discomfort was the fact that the queen had yet to address her predicament.
A single bowl of green grapes was set before them to share. A second server brought small individual bowls of bilberries in thick cream. “We started with wine made from the grape, didn’t we?” the queen asked. “And now, how apropos that we finish with the grape. You know that the season for fine fruit has come to an end when the assortment has been reduced to grapes and bilberries.”
“At least one has the choice of two,” Krystyna said.
“As in suitors, yes?”
Krystyna felt blood rush to her face. “I… I made my choice.” The subject was broached at last. Her gaze went to the queen’s visage. The smile was indecipherable.
“You did, it seems. I, of course, made a poor choice in my first marriage. One must take great care in choosing.”
“I followed my heart.”
“Ah, Krystyna, you must weigh the positives versus the drawbacks. The young Tatar is good-looking. Fetching in a romantic sort of way—that dark allure that he projects. I saw that. Opposites do attract, it seems.—And you say the Lord Fabian Nardolski is handsome, as well?”
Krystyna nodded. Her head was spinning. That the queen somehow knew the full name of her jilted fiancé put her on high alert. How did she know?
“And both of your options are young, is that not so?”
“Yes,” Krystyna said, her voice tentative.
“An even score, as they say. The king is more than a decade older than I, but so was my first husband, who left me widowed. Ah, you are so young, Krystyna, you must gird yourself against the heartache you are to sustain.”
Krystyna found and held the gaze of the queen. “What is it you are telling me?”
“I am telling you that you must always be ready to have your heart broken. I was widowed so young. Do you know I had three children—all girls—by my first husband? None of them survived.”
“I’m so sorry, Your Majesty.”
The queen waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, I’ve lost several of Jan’s children, also. One learns, one faces defeat. How one faces defeat determines character, Krystyna. Fifteen pregnancies, all in all—or is it sixteen? While I’m forty-two and the risks of childbirth may be behind me, I must still stand like a pillar. You know, my son Jakub fights side by side with his father.” Her eyes began to mist. “Sixteen years old he is and he rides with the king at great risk. My God, such risk. I could lose both husband and son. It is the Polish Way, I know.” The queen’s eyes had filled, and yet she stared unblinking, disallowing a single tear to fall. “And so much is asked of us women, too.”
Krystyna worked at finishing her bilberries and cream, allowing for a few minutes to pass.
“You haven’t taken any grapes,” the queen said. “They’re quite delicious.” “I made my choice,” Krystyna said pointedly.
The queen peered up over her half raised spoon and seemed to fend off a smile.
“Your Majesty,” Krystyna pressed, “I want to ask you—”
“Ah, we have strayed from the topic, haven’t we?”
Strayed? Krystyna thought not. She was certain that the queen was very deliberate in the way she directed the conversation. Despite the wine, she was as precise with her words as Aleksy was with his arrows.
“Your Majesty, after we arrived, you implied that you would help me.”
“It was no implication, child. I mean to help you.”
“How?”
The queen released a long sigh. Was she at last at a loss for words? Her hands reached diagonally across the table and drew Krystyna’s to her. “My dear, I’ve heard Poles say that love is like a head wound. It strikes hard and violently, it makes you dizzy and in the absence of it, you think you will die. But you recover.”
A servant entered to collect the dessert dishes, interrupting the conversation. The queen seemed to look past Krystyna. The moment hung fire for what seemed an awkward eternity.
Krystyna cleared her throat once they were alone, drew strength, and asked, “Have you heard from my mother?” She felt an immediate quiver in the queen’s grasp. “You have, haven’t you?”
“I have, Krystyna.”
“You’re going to give me over to her, aren’t you?” Krystyna was already trying to formulate a plan of escape.
“I don’t have to do that, child.”
Krystyna withdrew her hands. “I am not a child!”
“No, of course not.”
“When is she coming?”
“Tomorrow.”
Krystyna gasped. “Sweet Jezus,” she whispered. When she looked next at the queen, she saw in her pained expression that there was something more. “What is it?” Krystyna demanded—too boldly, she knew, as if from a friend and not from the queen.
Queen Maria Casimire straightened in her chair, drew back her hands and allowed them to fall in her lap. “You’re to be married tomorrow, Krystyna.”
Krystyna closed her eyes and it took some moments to process the thought and as the words echoed in her head, the room began to spin around her. “How… how is that possible?”
“Your mother has made the arrangements.”
Krystyna opened her eyes. “To… Fabian?”
The queen nodded.
“Sweet Jezus! He wouldn’t want me now.” Krystyna felt the floor dropping away. “The Nardolski family wouldn’t want me, surely!”
“It seems he does—and therefore, they do.”
“But—why? And why tomorrow?”
Gaze intent, the queen leaned forward slightly, as if to impart a secret. “Because you made quite an impression on him—and because there is some sense of urgency.”
“Urgency?”
“Your mother writes that Lord Fabian visited you in your bedchamber one night before you disappeared.” The queen was scrutinizing Krystyna’s reaction. “Is that true?”
Krystyna’s shoulders drew back against the velvet cushioning of the chair. She felt blood rush to her face. “So far as that statement goes, yes. It is true.”
“Ah, then—”
“But nothing happened.”
The queen smiled solicitously.
“I tell you, Your Majesty, nothing happened! My God, is he so besotted with me—and his family so eager to have an heir?”
“I imagine he loves you.”
“And I love another.”
“Just as my son Jakub—so close to you in age—marches with his father, we have our roles to play.”
Forgetting herself, Krystyna abruptly stood, the back of her legs forcing the chair to scrape against the marble floor. The crystal chandeliers blurred as the room began to spin again. She drew in a deep breath. “Did he not choose to march with his father?”
The queen rose, the quintessence of equanimity. “He did—and in so choosing he bowed to the expectations of his class and family. He chose duty and honor.” The queen’s expression flickered for a moment as if she was regretting that choice, those expectations of a boy just sixteen. Then the royal gaze fastened again on her subject. “You are upset at this news, I know. Please remember, Krystyna, what I said about steeling yourself against the heartbreak that comes to us all.”
The queen went on in this vein for a few minutes and while she did so, Krystyna, holding to the back of a chair, latched on to a thought that would certainly make marriage on the morrow impossible. The dining hall came into focus. “Your Majesty, Lord Fabian was to march in the effort against the Turks. He is with General Lubomirski and they have likely joined up with the royal forces by now. So—how can he possibly be here tomorrow? How? And if he does show, will you allow me to marry someone who has shirked his patriotic duty? Someone who has deserted the warfront? Will you hand me over to a coward?�
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As she spoke, confidence grew where there was only despair. Here was a stand she could take. Here was hope.
The queen’s expression softened in the most cloying way, as if she were trying to explain the unexplainable to a simpleton. “Lord Fabian is doing his duty, Krystyna, as is his father and your father. You are correct. He is marching with General Lubomirski. Tomorrow you will do your duty. Your mother and the Nardolski family will arrive with a proxy.”
“A… a proxy?”
“Yes, dear, tomorrow you are to be married to Lord Fabian by proxy—a young cousin of your Fabian. Awfully young, though, he’s just ten.”
Twenty-eight
For the Polish forces, the route through the thickly green and majestic Wienerwald soon gave way to the unimagined difficulty of ascending the series of mountains known as the Kahlenberg. The day dragged on painfully with the climb, the efforts of everyone expended in moving their cumbersome cavalcade along—wagons, cannon, horses, bag and baggage, upward, ever upward, through impossible terrain, navigating through pine, beeches, oaks and hornbeams, as well as streams, briar, and stony ground. The rolling heights were steeper than anyone thought possible and dragging artillery carriages and wagons proved to be back-breaking work. It took at least two dozen men on two ropes to successfully manage the climb towing a single cannon carriage, with other artillery men turning the wheels by hand, spoke by spoke.
The evening’s dusk found Sobieski and his forces settling in at last near the top of the Kahlenberg ridge. The reverberating sound of the enemy cannon could be heard clearly here. Aleksy and Ludwik joined Idzi on a small, treeless overlook. “I can’t see a damn thing,” Idzi was complaining. “And I’ll throw the first person off this cliff who says it’s my height. We’re on a mountain, for Chrystus’s sake. I shouldn’t have to stand on someone’s shoulders.”
The Boy Who Wanted Wings Page 25