The Boy Who Wanted Wings

by James Conroyd Martin

  Aleksy became the procurer of fish and game for the gypsy and for a number of others—mostly women with children and old men—who lived in shabby tents and lean-to’s in the fields trampled and ruined by the king’s coalescing army just months earlier. The gypsy provided him with a net and other fishing gear, and he had his bow. It was primarily small game he hunted, for he had to carry it back to the makeshift settlement by himself, but he came to enjoy once again losing himself in the hunt. He considered himself blessed in that the concentration it took to use the bow effectively blocked out all other thoughts and anxiety. Days passed and no word came from the castle situated in the fortress towering above, no message from Krystyna.

  The gypsy herself had been a blessing. Among a huge pile of belongings left behind by the soldiers was a serviceable tent that she gave over for his use. Aleksy had slept in the open that first night and in the morning busied himself with successfully erecting what would be his shelter for more days and nights than he had imagined.

  It was on that first morning when he arose from his blanket on the hard earth and turned to see the woman climbing down from her wooden wagon that he realized—when he went to address her—that he didn’t know her name. She had simply been “the gypsy” to him in his mind and when speaking to others of her. It struck him now how some people back in Halicz had called him “the Tatar.” They had this in common. Did she find it hurtful to be identified merely by her appearance, her heritage, in the way so many had identified him?

  “I don’t know your name,” he admitted to her. Had he told her his name when they first met? He couldn’t remember. In any event, he felt oddly shamefaced in having to ask her.

  She smiled, as if to say, so few ask me my name. “Some call me “Gypsy.” It is a name, but it is not my name.” She shrugged and he saw a history of sadness in the gesture.

  “And yours?” he asked.

  “I am Nadya.”

  “Nadya,” Aleksy repeated. “I am Aleksy.”

  “I know. If you get the fire lit, Aleksy, I’ll heat up some chicory for us.”

  Aleksy nodded. Had he told her his name at some point? He must have done so.

  “My mother told me it’s a Ruski name,” she called out as she retreated to the wagon.

  “It’s a lovely name,” Aleksy pronounced.

  The old woman turned and gifted him with a grin. “Hope,” she said. “Nadya means hope.”

  An insistent knocking brought Krystyna from her dreams. She sat up at the side of the bed and called, “Entrez-vous.”

  Krystyna was relieved to see that it was not Heloise or one of the queen’s French ladies-in-waiting; rather it was the chambermaid Berta, a middle-aged, plump Pole who tended the fire in the tiled fireplace. “Oh, Lady Krystyna, you better be getting dressed. The queen sent me to bring you to her.”

  “Really? How early is it? Why, the sun’s not even come up yet.”

  “It is early. No later than four, I would hazard. Why, the queen’s ladies are still abed.”

  “What did the queen say to you?”

  “Nothing, other than to get you moving.” Berta started to cross the room to the fireplace. “But there was some kind of hubbub in the courtyard not long before, someone arriving, I spect. Maybe news from Hungary.”

  “Or Rome.” Krystyna flew out of bed. “Berta, help me dress at once.”

  The woman’s eyelids flew back, accentuating the roundness of her face. “Oh, Madame, I’m not the one. You need a proper lady’s maid.”

  “Never mind that. Just get me out of this nightdress and into that blue day dress.”

  The queen’s expression was opaque as Krystyna entered her anteroom. She was sitting at a small desk cluttered with papers but stood now and beckoned Krystyna with a motion and a little smile.

  Krystyna stepped forward and was directed to sit. By the time the queen seated herself opposite, the smile had broken.

  “I am afraid, Krystyna, that we have been hasty in our evaluation.”

  “Evaluation?”

  The queen nodded. “Of Pope Innocent XI.”

  Krystyna’s heart began to race.

  “You see,” the queen continued, “in the seven years of his pontificate, he’s been like a hermit in that he embraces a simple and austere lifestyle. He rejected the luxurious apartment of his predecessors for the most basic apartment in the Vatican, and he wears cassocks until they are threadbare and falling apart. In his fastidiousness to restore piety to the Vatican he resists even a scent of nepotism. Why, he even informed a nephew—a cleric—that he is to expect no promotion within the Church.”

  “He would not sign an annulment?” Krystyna heard herself ask. The words were hers, but she felt oddly removed from them.

  “He would not.”

  Krystyna paused to let the news sink in. “But—why? This isn’t nepotism.”

  “Oh, he told us why at great length. The papers are on my desk. Sweet Maryja, his explanation is as long as a papal encyclical.”

  Beads that had been forming in Krystyna’s eyes began to spill now.

  “Oh, he went on and on about the sanctity of marriage, how the vows are not to be broken in any circumstance, even if the union has not been consummated. I’m certain his scribe must have had a sore hand by the end of it. And at its conclusion, I’m sad to say, Krystyna, he did refuse and you are still seen in the eyes of the church as married to Fabian Nardolski.”

  Krystyna choked back a sob and sat back against the chair. “So the king’s winning the war against the Turks made no impression—none?”

  “Well, he was impressed and grateful as you would expect, as we all expected, the king especially. He went on for a page or two about that…. However, he chose to see the thanks he would ‘rain down’ on Poland and on my husband as a separate issue from the favor of an annulment of a sacred bond because of what he called ‘a minor countess’s wishes’.”

  “Then the marriage is to stand?” The words escaped her lips even though the question had already been answered.

  “I’m afraid so, dearest. I pray it’s for the best.” She reached out and took Krystyna’s hands in hers. “You and… the Tatar boy would have faced other obstacles.”

  Krystyna pulled free and stood, the room revolving about her. The queen’s mouth continued in speech, but Krystyna had gone deaf. Later, sitting in her room as dusk fell, having sent away all nourishment, she would not recall leaving the queen’s presence. Had she even curtsied?

  What did it matter? What does anything matter now, she thought, except for getting the news to Aleksy? Until Fabian came to claim her, she was no more than a captive in the castle. And she was not about to allow Madame Heloise to take the message, knowing the woman would gloat over her undoing.

  And then she remembered Berta.

  By the time Berta arrived the next morning to sweep out the ashes and place fresh wood in the grate, Krystyna had spent a day and a night searching for options and then writing and rewriting the note to Aleksy, destroying two because the paper was stained with tears. The beeswax candles that kept the night at bay had guttered by the time she finished.

  Berta had seen the gypsy’s wagon down by the river and agreed to take the message. When Krystyna attempted to give her two złotys for the errand, the woman declined and Krystyna had to drop the coins into her apron pocket and scoot her out the door.

  Aleksy was at the river fishing with a net a short distance down from the gypsy wagon when Nadya came to tell him a woman had come to see him.

  A great rush of optimism took hold of him. “What does she look like?”

  “A bit on the fat side, graying hair, round face.”

  His hopes did not fade. He was not expecting Krystyna herself to come tell him the pope’s document had arrived. He waded ashore, dropped the net and hurried
barefoot up the grassy slope.

  He found her sitting on Nadya’s stool just outside the wagon. The woman pulled herself up with surprising agility.

  “You’ve come from Krysia—er, Lady Krystyna? Yes?”

  The woman was eyeing him—from his hatless head to his worn clothes to his bare feet—with no little surprise. She was speechless.

  “You’ve brought me news?” he persisted. “Are you not from the queen’s service?”

  “I am,” she nodded, collecting herself. “Forgive me, you are Aleksy Gazdecki?”

  “I am.”

  “I am Berta, milord. I’ve brought you this letter.”

  Aleksy took the proferred paper and broke the seal.

  “My task is done,” Berta said.

  “No,” Aleksy countered, “stay until I read it.”

  The woman nodded but remained standing. Aleksy read the letter, felt his heart drop a little with each line, allowed his hand to lose grasp of it, picked it up, read it again.

  Nadya had come up from the river while he was reading and stood behind him. “It’s not what you hoped, young Aleksy?”

  “It’s not,” he said, turning toward her and drawing in a large breath. “The pope has denied the king his request. The marriage is a good one. I have no hope. None.”

  He looked to Berta now. “Did Krystyna give you any spoken message?”

  The woman shook her head, her eyes widened by Aleksy’s reaction.

  “What else does she write, Aleksy?” Nadya asked.

  “She says,” he blurted, “that we should run away, that she will slip out of the cathedral on Sunday next after the nine o’clock Mass.”

  “And then what?” Nadya asked.

  Aleksy shrugged. “She’s not thinking clearly. There’s no place we could go. Her family and the man she married by proxy will not let this go. We can’t just disappear into the forest.”

  “Indeed,” Berta said.

  Both Aleksy and Nadya turned to the servant woman, who looked aghast at what she was hearing. It was obvious she had no idea of the letter’s contents. “I should go,” Berta said.

  “Stay,” Nadya said in a gravelly, authoritative voice.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” Berta said, growing more uncomfortable by the moment.

  “It’s not that,” Nadya said. “What was the woman’s state, her emotions, when she sent you out on this errand?”

  “She had been crying and looked tired, she did. Like her ladyship hadn’t slept.”

  “She doesn’t know anything,” Aleksy said. “There’s no point in questioning her.”

  Nadya ignored him, addressing Berta. “Did she hand you this message herself—from her hand to yours? Speak up!”

  “Um—yes, that she did.”

  “Give me your hand.”

  “What?”

  “Give me your hand.”

  The woman reluctantly obeyed.

  “Nadya,” Aleksy pressed, “what do you think you are doing?”

  “Shush, Aleksy, now hand me the letter. In my other hand.”

  Aleksy obeyed.

  Nadya stood there, eyes tightly shut, holding onto the servant with one hand, the letter in the other. Aleksy looked to Berta’s face and had no doubt that her blank, incredulous expression was mirroring his own.

  What seemed like two or three minutes went by. Dusk was descending fast.

  Nadya’s eyes opened slowly, like twin curtains.

  “What did you hope to discover?” he asked, convinced the effort had been in vain.

  “I did not know, young Aleksy. Certainly not what I learned. Her love for you is true.”

  “I knew that. You needn’t have gone into a trance to learn that.”

  Nadya glanced furtively at Berta, then drew Aleksy several steps away, out of earshot of the servant. “That’s not what I learned,” she whispered.

  “Then—what?”

  Nadya’s eyes came up and held Aleksy’s. “The young woman is not married.”

  “What? I told you it was a proxy marriage,” Aleksy said in a low hissing voice. “You don’t understand. Our church allows it. She was married to Lord Fabian Nardolski by proxy.”

  Nadya shook her head. “Not a proxy wedding. It was sham marriage. Deception was involved. Terrible deception at the ceremony. Wicked!”

  Aleksy stared at the gypsy for several heartbeats. “Are you saying she is not married?”

  Nadya nodded. “She is not.”

  He would question her powers later, but for now there was something in her conviction and aura that made him believe her.

  He pivoted and went to Berta. “I know you don’t have time to wait for a written message, but please bring my words to Lady Krystyna. Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You promise?”

  “I do.”

  “Then tell Lady Krystyna I will meet her at the cathedral as she asked. It is only to talk. During Communion time she is to find me in the crypt of St. Leonard.”

  The woman’s eyes bulged. “The crypt?” she mumbled, trembling slightly.

  “Yes. The entrance is on the left side of the nave not far from the entrance. And she is not to do anything. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, in the crypt at Communion time.”

  “And she is not to follow through on any plans she might have.”

  “Yes, only to talk, milord.”

  Aleksy waited in the shadows of a pillar near the entrance. The cathedral was packed to capacity. It had been filled with thankful, prayerful citizens, elbow to elbow, he was told, for every ceremony since word of the victory at Vienna had come back to Kraków. It was nearly nine o’clock; he had taken up his station well before so that he could observe the crowd arrive. Krystyna had yet to appear.

  The past two days had gone by slowly, Aleksy’s thoughts in ferment. He had time to play out in his mind the scene with Berta and Nadya. Doubts were abundant. He had heard of the magical powers of gypsy women, and Nadya’s deductions at their first meeting had been eerily true. But was this notion that Krystyna’s marriage was not a marriage true? How were they to find out?

  He saw Father Franciszek coming down the main aisle now and froze, bile rising from his midsection. He had not seen him since the day Lord Halicki showed up in the rectory instead of the priest, a day of heartbreak and humiliation.

  Aleksy moved behind the column so that he would not be seen as the prelate passed. When Father Franciszek did not make his way past, Aleksy peeked around to see that he had entered one of the nearby side chapels where he was preparing to say Mass. Preparations were being made at the main altar, as well, so he suspected that someone of higher rank, a bishop or cardinal, would celebrate there.

  He turned back now to watch the flow of the crowd through the main entrance, worrying that the distraction with the priest might have caused him to miss seeing Krystyna. Ten minutes passed and the number of arriving worshippers dwindled. Suddenly, he caught sight of her entering amidst a crush of ladies-in-waiting and the queen herself. He was certain she glimpsed him as they processed up the aisle, but one of the women whispered to her, drawing her attention away. He prayed that the servant had gotten the message right about the crypt.

  A few minutes later, the celebrant, along with a half of a dozen clergy and attendants, came from the sacristy and slowly processed toward the front altar. Aleksy recalled Marek’s pointing the cleric out in the square once in what seemed a lifetime ago: it was the Bishop of Kraków, Jan Małachowski. Aleksy judged him to be sixty although his hair had not whitened yet. He had an unassuming sort of face, but his gait and bearing reflected his noble background. Marek had said his nephew was Governor of Poznań.

  The Mass began and Aleksy managed to find a spot in the shadow of a
nother pillar, well out of Father Franciszek’s sightline. Soon the strong fragrance of incense—cedar-based, he thought—wafted throughout the cathedral, chafing his nose and throat. The bishop seemed to be in no hurry. The Mass dragged on, the bishop moving so slowly, as if its end would be his end.

  Holy Communion time came. Aleksy drew in breath, his breath a prayer, one that would bring Krystyna to their rendezvous in the crypt of St. Leonard. He moved quickly to the cellar entrance and descended the stone steps.

  It was musty and dark, but a few candles had been lighted near the St. Leonard tomb. Not the best meeting place, he thought, laughing to himself as he remembered how Berta had gone wide-eyed at the notion.

  Time seemed to expand. Had Krystyna not been able to leave the others? What if she could not meet him? When would they have a chance again? He was certain he would not be welcome at the castle.

  It was then that he heard her soft slippers moving down the steps.

  Krystyna was in his arms then and they kissed. They held each other tightly, clinging as if they might never do so again. Then Aleksy held her at arms’ length. “Even in this weak light, Krysia, you are so beautiful.”

  “Perhaps it is because of the weak light,” she said, tossing off the little laugh he had so missed. “I don’t have much time, Alek. I’m sure to be missed.—Now, why didn’t you want me to make preparations—”

  “Listen to me, Krystyna. I’ve learned that your marriage may not be valid.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ear.” She paused but a moment. “No, I’m afraid it is valid. Even the pope—”