“Are men any better?” Cybula asked.
“Men are more honest.”
“People say that you don’t want to marry. Is that true?” Cybula asked, and immediately regretted his words.
Nosek did not answer at once. Then he said, “I have become used to living without women. In the years when we were a fighting band, months would go by when we never saw them. Our woyaks would kill the old and ugly women, and the young ones would be so terrified, they could only scream and void. Some of them fought the men until they were covered with blood. There’s no pleasure in lying with a female who spits on you, curses you, and tries to gouge out your eyes.”
“Is it better to lie with a man?” Cybula asked.
“When two men do this, they are friends, not enemies,” Nosek answered.
Night fell; the stars came out. Nosek said, “We have ridden so far, and yet we see the very same stars.”
“You recognize the stars?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“By their position, how they stand together. It’s always the same.”
“What are they?” Cybula asked.
“Some sort of fires, I think. But they must be very large and not as small as they seem. I once saw these very same stars near the Vistula and in many other places. They move away, but they come back every year. Some in summer, some in winter.” Both men fell silent. It was hard to know whether Nosek was sleeping or awake. Cybula was already beginning to dream, when something bit him. He sat up with a start. Was it a snake? He was well aware that one could die from a snake’s bite. Even some mushrooms and berries had poison which killed if you ate them. Every minute, man put his life in danger. Cybula thought he heard a rustle, footsteps among the trees. Was it a wolf? A bear? He kept grabbing the handle of his sword, but of what use was a sword against a bear or a wolf? Cybula longed to talk more to Nosek, but he did not dare awaken him. Nosek, apparently, was not as attached to life as he was, or as gloomy as he, Cybula. Nosek did not burrow into the worries which gnawed at Cybula day and night.
(2)
They were lost. They could not find the stream which led to Miasto. They had ridden for hours and there was no one to ask. When they did chance on someone—a barefoot wanderer with a stick and a pack on his back—the fellow had never heard of Miasto. He did not quite understand the language in which they spoke to him. Now clouds gathered on the edge of the sky and darkened it. A cold wind blew. The horse carrying the supplies began to limp. Cybula looked for a cave to hide from the coming rain, but there were no caves in the valley. He blurted out, “The gods don’t want us to reach Miasto.”
“What does it have to do with the gods?” Nosek asked.
It started to rain, and the sprinkle quickly turned into a torrent. The two men and their horses rode deeper into the forest in search of cover. There was thunder and lightning. Wet animals rushed past them, frightened by the flooding waters. Cybula was too tired to pick up his bow and shoot at them. His mother had told him that thunder was caused by gods who quarreled and rolled stones at one another. But why should gods quarrel? And what was lightning? If it was fire, then why didn’t rain put it out? Cybula was asking himself the same questions he had asked as a child. From time to time a deer sped by, or a hare, a fox. It was odd: animals had only one way out—to run. But at least they did not commit the follies that men did: they did not go off in search of some town, did not try to sell someone else’s booty, did not set up kings, did not become kniezes. The horses, which were tied to two trees, also wanted to flee; they tugged at their straps trying to break free. Their large dark eyes—all pupil—looked at the two men with fear and wonder, but the men could ride no farther. Night was beginning to fall. Nosek said wryly, “If we die here, Krol Rudy will think we ran off with his gold.” And wet and miserable as his face was, he still managed to smile.
Both men sat quietly, their backs against the trees. Nosek arose, walked toward the horses, and from a bag tied to one of the saddles took out a chunk of meat and tore it in two. The horses could have easily bent their heads and eaten their fill, but they showed no hunger. Although Cybula was a hunter, accustomed to kill animals or lure them to traps, he also felt pity for them. He knew that their suffering was the same as man’s—the same helplessness, the same fear of ceasing to be and becoming carcasses. At that moment Cybula’s lot was the same as theirs, perhaps even worse than theirs. The horses were not restless, but he, Cybula, was in a hurry; if he was meant to die, let it happen soon. He longed to speak to Nosek, but Nosek kept stubbornly silent and behaved as if he clearly knew what not to do.
Cybula felt that he would not sleep a wink, but soon he was fast asleep. He was walking in a green meadow where horses, oxen, cows and calves grazed. A stream gurgled nearby. He was searching for a field, but whenever he thought he found it, the field kept moving away. He saw some people harvesting, but instead of tying the wheat in small bundles, they let it dry in the sun, heaping wheat on top of wheat, until it rose high above the treetops—a mountain of wheat! Cybula opened his eyes. The rain had stopped. He was wet and cold, but something of the warmth of the dream remained in his body. He looked around and saw Nosek busying himself with the horses. Cybula arose with better spirits, eager to resume the journey. He could sense that the day would grow warmer. He threw off his wet zupan and strolled over to Nosek naked.
“Shiva had a thorn in her hoof,” Nosek said. “No wonder she limped.”
“Did you pull it out?”
“Yes. She tried to bite me, but I managed to get it out.”
They dressed, mounted their horses, and soon after sunrise rode out of the forest.
(3)
Slowly the days became weeks; the full moon became a half-moon and the half-moon turned into a new moon. The trail they had followed now merged with a wider roadway, and soon they saw other riders, wagons, and carts. They had reached a region settled by people who spoke the Polish language in their own strange way, and no day passed without Cybula learning new words and expressions. He kept discovering things he had never seen before, passing fields, orchards, fish ponds, wells, stone mills to grind wheat and corn, stables for horses, pigsties, windmills, bridges to cross streams and even rivers. He saw huts with thatched roofs, and a few with wooden shingles. Soon he saw a high wall with large towers looming in the distance, and as he gaped and they approached, Nosek explained:
“This wall was built by the rulers of Miasto of stone and brick, and they have posted guards in the watchtowers to warn them of approaching enemies. The krols and kniezes are always fighting, invading each other’s gospodas, looting, and capturing slaves. Every settlement like Miasto has to be protected, and strangers like us will be stopped at the gate. If they allow us to enter, we shall have to pay a toll.”
Outside the walls, the fields stretched out, already harvested. Cattle, horses, and sheep grazed on the grassy plains. Even the smells were new to Cybula, a mixture of smoke, garbage, something rancid, and something good like fresh baked bread. Nosek explained that not everyone in Miasto was allowed to own an oven and that the baking was distributed among a number of town dwellers.
At the gate, Nosek told the guards their journey’s aim and paid the toll. Nosek spoke Polish, but he used words that Cybula could barely understand. Soon they were walking their horses down a street with houses on both sides. There were stores among the houses where bins of merchandise were displayed such as Cybula had never seen before. The ground was still muddy from yesterday’s rain and puddles dotted the street. The street teemed with people. Wagons, pulled by horses or oxen hitched to wooden yokes, passed by. Cybula had entered into a new world. Even the people seemed new to him: they were all busy, yet they did not seem to know one another. Nosek said, “I think this is their market day.”
As they walked along, doors opened and women emptied out slop pails, peels of onions, radishes, cucumbers, other vegetables and fruit. A man came out of one door hobbling on crutches. A blind man sat on a step hum
ming to himself. Outside a house Cybula saw a large block of wood, and a man wearing a bloodied apron chopping meat and bones with an ax. He was selling chunks of a slaughtered ox or pig. An unpleasant odor arose from the meat and Nosek explained, “Here people have no time to hunt. They buy their meat from a butcher.”
“Why does the meat smell?”
“It takes time for an animal to be slaughtered and skinned and brought to the butcher. The butcher does not always sell the meat in one day, and what remains the next day or on days after that must still be sold.”
Dogs gathered among the women, sniffing the air. When a sliver of meat or bone dropped to the ground, they pounced on it, grabbing and tearing it from each other’s mouth. The butcher picked up a heavy stick and began to chase after the dogs, hitting those he could reach. Cybula noticed that the meat was weighed on a scale, and when a woman received her portion, she handed some coins to the butcher. Nosek told him that this was money, copper groschens.
Until now Cybula had believed he knew human nature, understood people’s needs and conduct. But the people he saw here were different. They were pressed together in heaps as if the town were an anthill. He and Nosek could steer their horses through the crowds only with difficulty. Pedestrians and wagons were coming from all directions. A man balanced two buckets of water on a wooden yoke braced over his shoulders, shouting, “Let the water man through!” The houses were built one next to the other and had rooms for workers to practice their crafts. One made shoes, another sewed clothes, a third cut hides. Nosek and his two horses were already far ahead; the street was not wide enough for the men to walk side by side. Here in town the air was hot, heavy, and stifling. Through four-cornered holes in the walls—windows—and through open doors Cybula could glimpse half-naked women and naked children. One woman was nursing a child at her huge breast, another cooked by a fire which blazed not in an oven but on top of it. Here and there a room had a wooden floor, but in most rooms the ground was muddy and filthy. How could people live like this, Cybula wondered. The huts in the Lesnik camp were larger, roomier, and not as cluttered as these with beds, cribs, tables, benches, barrels of clean water, and vats with foul water and scum. Children came out to the street to answer nature’s calls.
They left the narrow street and entered a large open square which Nosek called “the market.” Here there was a well and the houses were higher than before, stories piled one upon the other. In open stalls and on the ground merchants spread out and exhibited their wares: earthen jugs, pots, sheepskins, fur hats, fringed shawls, kerchiefs, tubs of honey, baskets of mushrooms, beans, peas, turnips, radishes, cucumbers. Nosek explained that those who came to the market to shop were not kniezes’ slaves but kmiecies, small landowners. They paid tithes to the noblemen, and they were free. Often they had parobeks, servants who worked in the fields or helped with the housework. Nosek stopped a passerby to ask where an inn might be found, explaining to Cybula that one did not spend the night out of doors but stayed in a guesthouse. The guesthouse pointed out to them was a wooden structure of two stories, so tall that Cybula was certain that it was about ready to collapse. Two people came out to greet the new guests, and Nosek—estimating their stay at six to seven days—asked for the price. While one of the innkeepers was conferring with Nosek, the other led the horses away after the leather bags which held Krol Rudy’s valuables were removed by Cybula. After a great deal of talk, a bargain was struck and a price agreed on. They would receive a private room with a door they could lock and a window overlooking the market. They would also take two meals a day at the inn. From a small pouch hanging around his neck Nosek removed a coin and made a down payment. As a child Cybula had learned how to figure out words whose meanings were hidden, but he was utterly bewildered now. It occurred to him that had Nosek not been an honest man, he could have sold Cybula as a slave. He felt completely helpless.
For the first time in his life, Cybula climbed up stairs. They were dark and Nosek had to guide him as if he were blind. He hurried ahead and opened a door, and Cybula entered a room with whitewashed walls, a wooden floor, and a window through which he could see the market below. It seemed as if he were up in the sky, near the clouds. People and horses below appeared small. In the room he saw a bed—a sack stuffed with hay on the floor—and a pillow whose torn pillowcase revealed more hay. There was a pitcher of water near the wall, and an earthen vessel near the bed. Nosek told Cybula to use it whenever he needed to relieve himself. Cybula’s head was reeling. He felt the room swaying and the walls spinning. Nosek conducted himself like a man accustomed to travel. He took a swig from the water pitcher, sat himself down on a bench, and untied Krol Rudy’s bags. He took out handfuls of coins, gold chains, brooches, bracelets, rings. For each item he had a name.
During his years of looting and killing, Krol Rudy had amassed a fortune, but had never made any use of it. Nosek had been the only kniez who never looted or raped. He wandered about with these Poles because he could not find a place to settle. He learned a great deal during those years. Among the woyaks, who kept changing with the years, he always found someone like himself whom he could befriend. He had no craving whatever for jewelry. He knew that the other kniezes had their own hidden bags of loot.
As Nosek counted the coins, examining each item separately, he wondered exactly what he could get for this treasure. Was there a set price for everything? He knew what he and Krol Rudy wanted to acquire—healthy horses, several mares, a stallion to mate with them, a carriage, swords, spears, knives, daggers, royal garments, perhaps a crown. Krol Rudy had also quietly instructed Nosek to bring him a young slave girl. Lying with Laska did not satisfy him lately. He craved a young wench who would submit to all his desires, dance for him, drink with him, tell him stories about demons and witches. Nosek had promised not to reveal this to Cybula. Nosek also had to buy plenty of seed for the camp, not only wheat and corn, but barley, oats, millet, beans. But could he actually purchase these things? Nosek was not as clever in trade as Cybula believed him to be, but he knew there were always swindlers and thieves. So the day was spent counting and reckoning. Nosek also explained that in distant cities there were men who could keep accounts and inscribe words with quills on parchment, or with chalk on boards.
In the evening the innkeeper came to announce that a meal had been prepared for the guests. In their room he lit the wick of a small clay lamp filled with seed oil. He carried a candle in a candlestick to light their way down. Cybula had never seen a candlestick, though in camp they sometimes used wax candles with wicks braided from sheep wool. The innkeeper now led Cybula and Nosek into a large chamber where they saw a long table with benches along both sides. Guests were already seated at the table and maids served them food in large wooden bowls. The guests were all men. How could it be otherwise? Women did not travel, because they did not ride horses. When Cybula and Nosek appeared in their long zupans, there was a moment’s hush, then the din returned.
The guests made room at the table for the new arrivals. Everyone asked who they were and where they came from. Nosek responded to all their questions, while Cybula listened in silence. When they heard that the two came from a tribe of former Lesniks who had recently become Poles, they were astonished. They asked Nosek where this camp was located, and he could only point out the direction with his finger and add that it was beyond the mountains. They all spoke at once. When the maids came in carrying dishes of meat, the guests pinched them, even strained to grab hold of a breast, and the wenches laughed.
When the guests wanted to know why the two men undertook their long journey, Nosek told them that he had goods to sell and wanted to buy horses, weapons, a carriage, seeds. A new Polish kingdom had been created at the foot of the mountains. The talk soon shifted to trade. Every man was eager to grab a bargain, raise his worth, enlarge his fortune, become powerful and rich.
(4)
Cybula had promised Yagoda that his journey would last no more than four months, but the moon changed five times and the
two emissaries were still in Miasto. Snow now covered the town and an epidemic was spreading. Children died by the score. Nosek, after he bought five horses, was paying for their feed while the carriage he had ordered was being readied. It was no trifle to make an axle, wheels, seats, a trestle. Wheelmakers and smiths toiled from sunrise to sunset, but still their work was not finished. Since few guests stayed at the inn in winter, Cybula and Nosek were often alone. The cook prepared their meals and the maids waited only on them. The innkeeper gave them two quilts stuffed with down.
Cybula was growing accustomed to living in town, and it often struck him as unbelievable that he had once been a hunter and cave dweller. Still, he missed Yagoda. He often awoke during the night, lay still for a long time, and thought about her. Did she still love him? Had she found someone new? In his thoughts he spoke to Yagoda, told her how much he longed for her, and promised to return to her, bearing gifts, with renewed love, as soon as his tasks were accomplished. He swore that never again would he leave her. But could she hear his promises? Sometimes he suspected that she no longer loved him, that she lay in the arms of another. At such moments so much sorrow overcame him that he thought of putting an end to his life. A number of times he told Nosek that he could wait no longer and he was ready to return alone to the camp. But Nosek dissuaded him: Cybula would freeze to death on the unknown way, he would be devoured by wolves.
One of the maids, Gloska, began to pursue Cybula. When Nosek was away at the smith’s or the wheelmaker’s, Gloska stealthily came to Cybula, took him to an upstairs room, and gave herself to him. Sometimes she submitted to him behind the stove, standing up. The other maids also teased him. And as if that was not enough, Nosek purchased a concubine named Kosoka. He pretended to want her for himself, but Cybula was well aware that Nosek felt no lust for women. He finally admitted he had bought her for Krol Rudy.
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