Against a Crimson Sky

by James Conroyd Martin

  “Papa!”

  Jan looked up ahead at Michał, whose horror-stricken face registered the sight of the wound.

  “Papa!” Michał called, reaching out to Jan. “Give me the reins!”

  “No!” Jan called. “I’m fine! Forward, Michał. Go forward. I’ll make it before you!”

  As a competition, however, progress was painfully slow, hampered not only by the strong current but also by the bodies of horses and soldiers being washed away. For once Jan wished for a horse larger than his Polish Arabian. What seemed half an hour passed.

  One man tried to save himself by fastening onto Jan’s horse’s neck. By this time Jan could offer the man no aid. He knew by his own failing strength that he had lost a great deal of blood. He had no choice but to force the man to release his grip. The man fell back into the river and disappeared.

  They were at the middle—and deepest—part of the river now. He put his head to the side of the horse’s neck, hugging her mane much as he had done as a child, whispering for it to go on.

  He felt another sting at his right shoulder. For a moment his eyes focused on the water rushing past him, crimson with blood. He had no doubt that the allies had dismounted by now and were picking off their targets like fat fish in a pool.

  His horse had been hit, too. He felt it falter beneath him, falter and lose its footing. He knew enough to get his boots out of the stirrups so as not to be swept under and away. In what seemed like moments, the horse was gone and he found himself attempting to stay afloat, attempting to avoid objects and bodies that relentlessly rushed at him through the churning current.

  In time his diminishing strength fell away altogether. He prayed now, not for his own life, for he was accepting of his death, but he prayed for his son Jan Michał. That he would live and make it back to his mother at Sochaczew.

  Anna, he thought, my beautiful Anna Maria! Forgive me.

  On the previous day, the eighteenth, Paweł had stood with Dąbrowski to the north of Leipzig. Their orders were to hold the suburb of Halle. It was every bit as important as the bridge over the River Elster, for it provided a narrow passage through which the Grande Armée had to pass in its retreat from Leipzig. Despite Dąbrowski’s reputation, the task was a risky one because his division had been reduced to a handful of cavalry, a mere sixteen hundred infantry and six cannon.

  At 9:00 a.m. Prussians attacked, and an hour later the Russians joined in the attack. Paweł was speaking to Dąbrowski about maneuvers when Gourgaud, one of Napoléon’s aides, rode up to inquire about the defense of the gate. Dąbrowski brusquely told him that each Pole would sacrifice his life before giving over the Halle Gate—and cantered off.

  Gourgard shot Paweł a questioning glance. Paweł shrugged. “I think that Dąbrowski got his back up over your inquiry. Polish pride, you see.”

  “Ah—what are the chances then, Paweł?”

  “We have the little French company manning the gate,” Paweł said, “but without further reinforcements—it’s two to one, and I doubt we can hold it.”

  Gourgard’s lips thinned and, thanking Paweł, the aide cantered off.

  Within an hour, two divisions were sent in, and with their considerable support, the Polish forces held until night fell and the battle ended.

  It wasn’t until late into the evening of the nineteenth that Paweł learned of the tragic events that took place at the bridge over the River Elster. Napoléon’s engineers had rigged the bridge to explode once the rearguard had passed over it. He placed responsibility for the premature ignition order to a colonel who, in turn, passed on the task to a corporal. As the fighting between the allies and the French rearguard moved nearer and nearer the bridge, the chaos caused the corporal to panic—and he ordered the fuses lighted.

  Along with important wagons full of supplies and the wounded, some twelve thousand men had not made it across. Resisting capture, many of those men drowned—or were shot.

  With tears in his eyes, Dąbrowski told Paweł the worst—that Prince Jósef Poniatowski was among the dead. A strange weakness came over Paweł at the news.

  “He was attempting to cross the Elster,” Dąbrowski said. “The enemy fire on those attempting to evade capture was unrelenting. One of his men said that before entering the water he refused to surrender and called out something about duty and honor and that he had already stared Death in the eye.” Dąbrowski paused, drawing in his breath. “And then, midstream, he was hit by a hail of bullets. He slipped from his horse and the strong Elster current took him.”

  “May God take his soul,” Paweł said.

  “They say a Hungarian gypsy once told him that he was to beware of magpies.”

  A little chill ran along Paweł’s spine. Elster was the German word for magpie. He had no time to dwell on Poniatowski’s bad fortune. Something else pulled mightily at his heart. Paweł felt certain that Jan and Michał would have attempted the crossing. He hurried now to search among the survivors for the two, praying as he went.

  39

  Zofia sat motionless—but for her darting eyes—at the window of the covered carriage. She had spent the better part of the morning driving along the rough road that ran parallel to the eastern bank of the River Vistula. Her driver had obediently responded each time she called for him to slow or stop in order to take a better look at a little peasant hamlet or particular hut or cottage. In the three hours of tedious travel, she had seen nothing familiar. The overcast sky opened now and began to spit down little showers of rain.

  “Stop!” Zofia called, her body going tense, her eyes narrowing.

  The carriage ground to a halt. There, a hundred paces away, sat the dwelling she had been searching for. What set it apart from a thousand other peasant huts? The single poplar that stood to the side like a sentry? She wasn’t quite sure, but she could not be more certain that this was the cottage in which she convalesced after having been snatched from the Vistula.

  Time lengthened as she stared, thinking back nineteen years to those months she had spent there. Images of the old man and his daughter came to her with surprising vividness. And the face of Jerzy, too, but that had always stayed vivid in her mind. Somehow he had always been with her. Was it because Izabel resembled him so? Yes, there was that. Their daughter had become a link to that past. But there was an invisible link, too, one of strong and convoluted emotions.

  Zofia saw that some children had taken notice of the stalled carriage. Here the carriage of a noble was not an everyday sight. They whispered among themselves, their eyes wide with wonder. They moved a few paces closer.

  What had drawn her to this place after so many years? Jerzy had. Zofia recalled how young and innocent he was. It had been so easy to seduce him. He had given her his heart without a thought. And she had taken it, wishing for the moment she were a peasant girl that could make a life with him—but knowing that was impossible.

  So many men had passed through her life. Why was it she had not forgotten this one? This Jerzy? He had no title, no money, no power. She remembered how he had come to see her, years later in Warsaw, after he had joined the infantry, and they spent a torrid afternoon together. He had become a handsome man, but he was still the innocent boy underneath. Their difference in age meant nothing by then. But other differences remained.

  She smiled to herself, thinking how he was the only person she had ever allowed to call her by the diminutive Zosia. The afternoon had been only that, an afternoon, and she saw him off to war, avoiding the slightest suggestion that they would ever meet again, giving him no encouragement. But—ever since Anna had told her she thought she had tended him in the hospital, Zofia could not shake her head clear of him. She had to know if he was that soldier laid up in the hospital. If he had returned home to pick up his life. If . . .

  The children were calling out to her driver now, asking him what he was about and who was inside the carriage. “Scat!” he shouted at them. “Move off, urchins!”

  At that moment the door to the cottage open
ed and a woman appeared. It was not the woman Zofia remembered, Jerzy’s mother. This one was younger, about thirty, pretty, and even in colorless sack-like broadcloth, Zofia could see she was shapely. She looked at the carriage with some interest. At once Zofia moved her face away from the window.

  No doubt cupping her hands to her mouth, the woman called out: “Zosia!”

  The strangest thrill ran through Zofia like a little bolt of lightning. How was it this woman could be calling her by her diminutive? She grew dizzy at the notion.

  “Zosia!” the woman called again, more demanding this time.

  And then a tiny voice squeaked out an answer: “Coming, Mama!”

  Zofia looked out again to see the little mystery unraveled. A little girl had detached herself from her friends and ran toward the woman. The woman’s daughter’s name was Zosia.

  The exchange between the driver and the children had gone silent during this little episode, but it now resumed. Zofia could see the mother questioning her daughter, the woman’s eyes moving to the carriage now and again. The drizzle turned to a light rain.

  Zofia couldn’t think what to do. Should she order the driver to move on? Dare she get out of the carriage and approach the woman?

  A man emerged from the other side of the house now and started to approach the mother and child. Zofia’s heart caught.

  The little girl called out something to the man and went running into his arms. He lifted her high into the air as if she weighed no more that a sheaf of wheat. The hat he had been wearing in the fields fell off his head.

  Jerzy.

  Zofia had known it was he the moment she had seen his long and confident stride. The woman said something to him now, and the girl pointed to the vehicle. Jerzy shaded his eyes against the rain and looked to the carriage.

  Zofia fell back against the seat, her heart racing. When she dared look again, she saw that in one motion he was setting down the child and retrieving his hat. The rain was steadily increasing now, and a clap of thunder sent the children back to their homes.

  Jerzy said something to the woman, evidently telling her to take the child inside. As the woman took charge of the little girl, Jerzy looked again at the strange sight of the carriage—and then he started moving toward it, his face glistening in the rain.

  Some nameless emotion erupted within Zofia. She shifted to the other side of the carriage, lifted the shade, and called to the driver. “Move on! Do you hear me? Move on now!”

  The horses were immediately set in motion and the carriage began to bounce along the pitted road. Zofia did not look back and prayed he did not suspect the identity of the occupant of the coach. But she could imagine his beautiful face there in the road, blue eyes staring after the mysterious vehicle—much like the rain-spattered face of an icon in one of the roadside shrines.

  After a little while, Zofia gave orders for the carriage to swing around and make the return trip to Warsaw. When they once again passed the little hut, Zofia dared lift the shade to look. Nothing stirred. Pools were forming all about. The heavy rain had driven animal and man alike to shelter. Set against the thunder and lightning, the dwelling appeared a pitiful thing, but the smoke from its chimney somehow tempered the effect. No doubt, inside the three—Jerzy, his wife and daughter—sat about the little hearth. In a little while they would have a modest meal.

  Jerzy has found his life, Zofia thought. Dog’s blood! There was nothing for her here.

  Zofia lay awake that night for many hours, her mind turning like a mill’s water wheel in a storm-swept stream. The trip to the country had been silly and impulsive. She wondered why she had done it, but she had no regrets. Regrets were foreign to her.

  She was forty now. What was it Napoléon had said about being forty? It was something cryptic, she knew. And then she remembered. He had said, “Forty is forty, after all.” Where had the years gone? They had gone as quickly as the bubbles in French champagne. She felt no older than she had at sixteen back in Halicz—but she knew differently. She was not immune to age.

  Her dream of marrying a magnate had not materialized. The Radziwills, Czartoryskis, Poniatowskis and a half dozen others had given her notice—but no nuptials. Even her plan for Izabel had been scuttled. She let the thoughts pass. She could live another forty years. How was she to live them? Would she live them alone?

  There were few constants in her life. There were Izabel and Anna. Izabel would soon find her own path. And Anna had her family—and a new baby on the way.

  There was Paweł. Dear Paweł. How had he put up with her as long as he had? Zofia laughed to herself. How had he become so smitten with her? The man was a saint.

  Perhaps it was his years away soldiering, always soldiering, that kept her endeared to him—and he to her. Absence had made his heart grow fonder.

  He would come back. She never doubted that he would. Napoléon would lose his grand dream one day soon in a grand catastrophe. Paweł would then come back, and they would settle into a life together. She was surprised by the pleasure the thought conjured up.

  Paweł would come back. She would make him happy. He had long ago stopped asking her to marry him. She tried to imagine his face when she would ask him.

  She would live as Charlotte suggested—without regrets, without fears. She imagined herself finding happiness.

  40

  Anna ran her hands over her belly, round as a pumpkin. Within a month the baby would be here. She had that at least to look forward to.

  It was the second of November, All Souls Day. She could not help but remember the holy day in 1794—so many years before. Her aunt had died that day, just before the Russians descended on Praga. Even now—so many years later—a chill pulsed within her veins when she recalled the thousands of innocents who had died in the massacre. And when it was over, the last partition had been put in place, and Poland ceased to exist. Later, the Duchy of Warsaw appeased a few, but greater hopes were placed on the shoulders of Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte.

  After the retreat from Russia, however, hopes had thinned. And now, with news of the death of Prince Poniatowski, the Polish spirit seemed altogether crushed. Like so many of her fellow Poles, Anna had come to love the Prince who valued his word and honor over power and position. Had he switched sides, Aleksandr might have made him King of Poland. So many others had switched—and prospered. Prince Józef Poniatowski might have saved his uncle from the epithet, the last King of Poland. But in the end, his sense of honor won out.

  It was the Polish way.

  Anna’s thoughts returned now to concern for her husband and son. What of them?

  Had they tried to make the crossing of the River Elster? Had they survived it? Or had they stayed behind to become captives of the allies? Anna knew in her heart they had attempted the crossing rather than allow the Russians to take them.

  Did they make it across? Why had no word come?

  Anna had lost one member of her family. Her dearest Tadek. She prayed no more would be taken. No more. Let my husband and Michał live, she whispered.

  An hour later, Barbara called to her from her bedchamber. “Mama, come here! Come quickly.” She sounded as if she was in distress.

  It took some doing for Anna to get up out of the chair, much less move quickly, but in very little time she was in her old bedchamber.

  Barbara sat in the windowseat, her back stiff, her eyes wide with—what? Fright?

  “What is it?” Anna demanded. “What is it, Basia?”

  Barbara’s mouth fell slack. “A wagon in the distance—turning into our drive!”

  Anna moved to the window. For another moment the two silently watched it wend its way down the poplar-lined lane. Anna’s temple pulsed as she relived the day her father’s body had been brought home in the same fashion.

  “It’s a single driver, Mama.”

  “I see.” Anna felt her heart start to hammer in her chest. “Is it a soldier? Can you make him out? Your eyes are better than mine.”

  “I can’t te
ll. It looks like he’s wearing rags,” Barbara said. “What kind of a wagon is that?”

  “It’s a caisson, Basia.”

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a military wagon. It’s used for transporting weapons—or the dead.”

  They stared without speaking for another minute—until they both were able to recognize the driver. And then—as the caisson drew near the drive in front of the manor house, they both saw the body of a soldier in the wagon.

  Anna drew herself up and took her daughter’s hand. Barbara’s face was stricken with pain and fear. “Let’s go down, Basia. You will help me on the stairs.”

  They moved out to the staircase, and as they descended it was Anna who seemed to be lending assistance to the trembling Barbara.

  The wagon was drawing near just as the two went out onto the portico.

  “Mama!” Jan Michał called, pulling the caisson to a halt. He jumped from the driver’s perch, his eyes immediately flushing with tears.

  He was in Anna’s arms then, and Barbara’s arms encircled the two of them.

  The moment lengthened. It seemed as if all of them had lost the power of speech. Anna pulled away then and moved to the wagon.

  “He’ll be fine, Mama.”

  Anna turned back, facing her son, uncomprehending.

  “He went into a deep sleep half an hour ago.” Jan Michał explained. “He had tried so hard to stay awake.”

  Disbelieving, Anna peered into the wagon.

  Jan lay, still and white as a corpse. She reached in to place her hand on his. It was warm.

  “Jan,” she said. “Jan!”

  Jan Stelnicki’s eyes opened wide at the sound. His head rolled toward her, his eyes taking in her hand, then her face. While his body had been bloodied and bruised, his eyes were as blue as the sky had been the summer day they had met in the meadow.