Madrosh nodded, waiting for more.
“If I tell you some things about myself, will you still be here after the telling? Are you a truly a priest, bound by the confessional?”
“I am. And yes. What you should know is that the Almighty God I believe in loves you now and will love you always.” What Madrosh saw on her face was not so much fear but desperation.
“I’m not saying I believe our faith anymore, Father, but I will take you up on your promise.” She hesitated, then began, slowly.
“Consider this a confession, then.” She took a moment to breathe deeply. “I have been living falsely for some days now.”
She proceeded to tell Madrosh about the real Kwasniewski family, her maternity, and what had happened to the Joselewiczes. She explained how she and Velka came by their clothes and monies. She left nothing out. It took only a quarter hour to tell her tale, and when she was finished, she bowed her head, then added, hot tears in her eyes, “but Father Madrosh, I cannot say I am repentant for what I did. So perhaps this is not a good confession. And perhaps you’ll want to spend your time elsewhere.”
Madrosh reached out his hand and placed it on her head. “I bless you, my child, and declare you innocent before God.”
She looked up at him, tears flowing freely. “Innocent, Father?”
“Madrosh,” he corrected her with a smile. “I doubt there is anything to forgive, dear Irina. Had Berek lived, it remains to be seen how your marriage would have been legitimated, but it would have occurred, it is possible to conclude. Saying that, and there being no other likely true claimants to the Joselewicz family goods, it would be hard to say you took anything that did not morally belong to you.” He could see in her demeanor a lightness, an ebullience he had not yet seen.
“How you carry yourself now is your concern, in the eyes of God,” he continued. “As long as you are willing to learn and comport yourself in ways that are to be expected of someone of your new class, no one will treat you any differently.” It was subtle, but clear. Madrosh was making an offer.
Irina nodded. “Then I may continue as I am?”
Madrosh nodded in return. “Living falsely is only a sin, perhaps, when it is a matter before God.” He paused. “You are not free, however, to impose God’s judgment upon others—including Tomasz the Terrible.”
“I did not impose judgment, Madrosh. I merely sought justice. Duke Zygmunt passed sentence.” She said these words with a trace of smugness in her voice, yet no remaining satisfaction in her soul.
“Shrewdly put, My Lady, but heed well that God may not abide much cleverness of that sort.”
I had no idea that the answer to a simple question put to this man would take me partway to eternity! Ah, well, who else can I speak to? Who else will take my questions, my candor? A long journey is ahead, and I may as well take whatever this old man has to give!
“And, Madrosh,” she challenged, after a moment, with respectful curiosity, “are my confession and absolution different than those of Tomasz, who kills, confesses, and kills again?”
“In the truest sense, Irina, there is no difference. If a priest absolves Tomasz of his sins, he is so absolved.” As she was about to object, Madrosh continued. “People like Tomasz never fully understand the sacrament of confession. When a priest forgives the sins of another, he is doing exactly what Christ himself said could be done by a duly ordained priest of God. If you are repentant, the priest lifts from you the burden of guilt. What no priest can know, however, is what’s truly in your heart. And neither can a priest take away the accountability for the sin—that remains between God and the sinner.”
“Now I am a bit confused. A man can be forgiven yet not be forgiven?”
“Forgiveness of the sin is but one part of the transaction. Repentance, another. It is the third part that is conveniently forgotten. It is this way, Irina. Suppose a boy steals a pastry from a baker. The baker may run out and catch him, and if the boy is repentant, he will forgive the lad, but depending upon the baker, there must be an accounting for the pastry. The boy or his father must pay for it. In the sacrament of confession, of course, no one can pay for you. But there comes a time for everyone, even unto eternity, when the price of sin must be paid. How the Almighty exacts the price is between Him and the sinner.” Madrosh paused, then added, quietly, “It is never death we must fear, Irina, but God’s eternal judgment.”
“So, Christ did not pay for our sins with his crucifixion?”
“Hah! You think you have trapped me, but the answer to that we will save for another conversation.”
For several moments, Irina sat silent.
Madrosh could see she had begun to grasp a difficult concept. “Do you not think, then,” he concluded, “that rather than controlling our every action, God wants to see what we do with the life He has given us?”
…
Through the Polish woods they trooped, and as they did so, Wojciech Murawski considered what lay ahead for them. Though he and his partner were on horseback, they couldn’t travel faster than the tethered men in front of them could walk. Tomasz Wodowicz and Franciszek Montowski were not easy charges, as both captors and captives knew they were marching to what would likely be the end of their worlds.
Murawski prodded their prisoners to step off at a brisk pace. Encountering no trouble, they would be back in Poznan in something over two days. They needn’t be in a hurry, of course. The longer they stayed away from Poznan, the longer they might live.
As they tramped along, Murawski began to wonder if heading to Poznan was the smart thing to do. No one would check on them. He wondered about letting them go, so that they could all find safety. After all, they stole only from Jews, and seemed good enough fellows around the monks’ table.
While Murawski warmed to the idea of disobedience, guilt edged his thinking. He shrugged and glanced at his partner, who he guessed had begun thinking the same. Perhaps, he thought, this could work out for all of them.
…
Mother Superior and the Sisters in her care made many forays into the city to collect those discarded to disease, especially children left to fend alone. Each time, they noticed more empty houses, more abandoned shops. There was no funeral Mass for them, no blessing by a priest, if, indeed, one could find a priest alive to ease the dead on to eternity. Nearly everyone went to the same final resting place: a burning pyre in a great pit.
By the hundreds, Poznan’s citizens left their world in ignominy, in squalor and filth beyond what daily life had ever forced them to endure. The population had been decimated in previous attacks of the plague, Sister Elisabeth knew, and the numberless missing would not soon be replaced.
Several of the sisters contracted the plague and, despite the loving care from their own, all were dead in a day or a week. Defying authority, each was buried with prayer in the churchyard.
One who had not perished was the man who seemed to know he would live to serve them. Amazingly, a man who had come to them some six days before not only remained alive, but had regained his vigor in each of the last two. Jerzy Andrezski, in fact, was delirious at the thought he might actually live another week, another month.
Why he was spared, he didn’t understand; many asked if he possessed a magic potion. In one of his more lucid moments, he shared an observation with Mother Superior: the first ones to die of plague seemed to be children and those of smaller build—most women but many men as well. Given the thin existence most common people experienced, few had food enough to achieve a body mass worth notice. Even fewer grew to be a head taller than their peers, as Andrezski had.
“And so, Mother Superior, perhaps it is my size,” he laughed, enjoying his good fortune. “In my own life as a wandering merchant, I ate well, unlike most of the poor souls who have spent their last hours here. In fact, I have seen only one other as tall as I am in all of Poznan. Like me, he’s a giant but with yellow hair
, and I saw him running from the castle the morning I arrived. I’ll bet you, Mother Superior, he, too, has survived.”
“That would be Franciszek, one of the duke’s men.” She shook her head. “But not one of God’s more pleasant creatures, I am afraid.”
“Whatever the reason, I am most grateful.”
“Perhaps Almighty God thought to spare you.”
“Now that I think about it, I suppose it was His angel.”
“His angel?” the nun asked, her tone suggesting Andrezski had wandered back into delirium.
“Each day,” he said, “she came on a light beam. Sister, a miracle! The angel just smiled and held the cup to my lips. This is truly a place of God.”
“I should surely hope so,” she smiled, and walked away, shaking her head in wonder. Jerzy Andrezski and but a handful of others had entered the precincts of her convent carrying the plague and would live to leave. “Could it have been a miracle?” she whispered aloud, then blessed herself with a sign of the cross.
Chapter V
1378
In the third week of May, Duke Zygmunt’s assemblage rose for a sunrise Mass offered by Abbot Kaminski. Said for the blessings of God upon those who risked all to journey so far from their homeland, it was also intentioned for those who remained behind. As Father Kaminski raised the Host heavenward and spoke the Latin—Hoc est enim corpus meum—the sun broke through the misted morning, and as it sliced through the trees, all basked in the glow of what they felt, surely, was God’s presence. There were murmurs of awe. It was, perhaps, an auspicious moment, but of the divine, Irina was not so certain.
After the priest’s blessing, everyone situated themselves in or on whatever mode of travel they were assigned, then proceeded west and north, deeper into the woods. Irina took a deep breath and felt grateful to be forever rid of Tomasz the Terrible. Should I be grateful to a God about whose powers I am doubtful? Happy chatter soon engaged them all. They knew they faced danger, but whatever they encountered, most considered it the adventure of their lives.
In talk here and there around the monastery, Irina heard the duke hoped to reach Paris well before the snows. Everyone knew the importance of that goal. Winters had become brutally cold and long, the worst anyone of age could remember, and no one wanted to be travelling once the season of deep snows and ice came. The length of their journey was part of every conversation, and no one knew just how far was far. True, there had been lore about the great travels of the Crusaders three hundred years earlier, but mostly, neither soldier nor serving man ever ventured far from the place where they lay their heads at night.
Too, there were other uncertainties. No one knew what to expect from strange peoples speaking strange tongues—welcomes or weapons. Irina strove not to let her imagination wander to fear. Of course, there were robbers and wolves, but that was true no matter where one ventured. Seasoned travelers knew their journey would last months, some days traversing but a few miles if they were lucky. There was no high expectation that all would survive such an undertaking, yet for all their unspoken fears, returning to Poznan held little appeal for most. Irina shuddered whenever someone expressed such a wish.
“Velka,” she said as they rumbled along, “I am surprised that you, of all the people here, would wish to return to…what?”
“There, My Lady, I knew what I knew. Yes, it was a cruel, dirty, God-forsaken place, but surprises were few.” Velka closed her words with a look straight into her mistress’s eyes.
Irina returned her gaze, and after a moment, spoke about what she had only confessed to Madrosh. “I owe you much, Velka, and about one thing in particular, I owed you more than a fleeting glance some days back.” Again, she paused. “Yes, Berek and I found each other in ways I never expected…or experienced.” She gave her young companion a wry, embarrassed smile. “On that night, I was coming back to tell him, and then his family.”
“But you couldn’t.” Velka lowered her eyes, remembering.
Irina nodded. “I was at the gate when Tomasz ordered the burnings—in the same words I gave you to tell him. Berek saw me, and when our eyes met, he knew—I know that he knew—what I was there to tell him.” She put her hands to her eyes. “That was when I saw him last.” There was nothing more to say, but Irina was glad Velka knew, even if it was a “servant” teasing it out of her “mistress.” It was clear, too, that she and Velka had settled into their roles, each comfortable with themselves as the young women they were becoming.
Later on that first morning, as Irina noticed what the night’s frost had done to wither new growth on the forest floor, Madrosh rode up to the cart in which she and Velka bumped along. He had a young man following like a devoted puppy.
“Squire Jan Brezchwa,” he said, tugging at the horse’s reins, “on this journey, you will be personal protector for Lady Irina Kwasniewska just as you are to me.”
“Yes, Father,” Brezchwa responded with a bow of his head to Madrosh and a smile cast in the direction of his new charge. “I will not forget, My Lady.”
Irina blushed but merely nodded in return. Where have I seen this face before?
As they rode on, Irina turned from the young squire’s distraction, and said in a low voice to Madrosh, still alongside their cart, “Why, Father Madrosh, do you address me as ‘Lady Kwasniewska’ given my confession the other day?” she asked, leaning over to him. “Are you trying to embarrass me?”
“On the contrary, My Lady,” he said, and bowed with a conspiratorial smile. “The title continues to legitimize you in this company where you are a stranger. If I may say so, the little fact that I give you such courtesy tells so many others that you are under my protection. And now,” he added with a chuckle before he rode off, “you are under the protection of that young man, about the same age as you—Jan Brezchwa.”
…
Within a day of leaving St. Stephen’s, Duke Zygmunt’s party reached the western edge of Wielko Polska, and there was much for him to consider as they crossed the frontier into Germanic lands. The borders of the various territories were irregular, unmarked, and subject to frequent change. From this point on, everyone they encountered could be friend or foe, and with language always a barrier, much time would be spent discerning the difference.
Many hours in the saddle allowed the duke to think through the politics of the matter without the incessant bother of problems within the walls of Poznan Castle. From the lips of his father, the fear of foreign rulers went back to the tenth century, when Poznan was first invaded by the Duke of Bohemia, and old memories died hard. Often enough, the Germans were no friend to the Poles, but at present, there was peace between them. Otherwise, the Germans would join the others in carving up his homeland, and Zygmunt had come to believe it would always be so. The words of popes might be forgettable, but not the swords of conquerors.
Not many years before his own birth, his city had withstood an attack from King John, whose son became Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and, more recently, King of Bohemia. At one point, the king was the de facto ruler of Brandenburg, after Otto, successor to Louis II and son-in-law of Kazimierz Wielki himself, failed to protect his kingdom. A few years later, Wenceslas, son of the Emperor, was made Margrave of Brandenburg. It was confusing, to be sure, but it was Duke Zygmunt’s duty to make sense of it.
If Poznan’s plague meant near-certain death, now making a bad political choice would portend a similar end, the duke knew. And so, as he’d said to Madrosh, it made perfect sense for their party to head toward the seat of the most capable military power on their way to Paris.
…
The days were long, the travel hard for Duke Zygmunt’s party. Whether in the covered cart or on horseback, Irina stayed close to Madrosh and wasted no time in satisfying her hunger for what knowledge the old priest could impart.
“So Madrosh, about God,” she queried, as if they’d just been discussing the matter. “You
’ve explained to me there is one Supreme Being, who is a Trinity of beings—the words we say when we make the sign of the cross. You’ve told me that God’s Son came here to offer his life, redeeming us from all our sins, for all those who have ever lived, and all those yet to live. Is this true?”
“Yes, my child. You must remember each of us dies for our sins. If we were perfect, we would never have to die, but because we turned away from God’s command in the Garden of Eden—where the church teaches we were made in his image—we are sinners in this life.”
“You are confusing me, Madrosh!”
“There are some in the faith, Anselm of Canterbury for one, who say that Christ died as atonement for our sins—payment of a sort. Yet others wonder about a God who would put his own son through such a horrible death just for the sake of satisfaction. Others argue that some in the church used this atonement idea to make men feel guilty for their sins, and urge them on the Crusades to rid themselves of guilt. Another problem with that notion is that some might conclude they may sin again and again with no accounting ever due.”
“But not everyone believes as Anselm?”
“No, my child. Others, including a Frenchman, Peter Abelard, expressed the idea that the essence of our faith is about Christ’s life on earth, and the resurrection into eternal life—not how he died. They believe that God sent his son to be human, to teach us how to be better children of God. Because Christ became human, death was the natural end, and perhaps his crucifixion had more to do with the causes he championed rather than the need to die a horrible death for us.”
“And what is it that you believe, Father Madrosh?”
He looked at her and smiled. “I kneel with St. Augustine, who had doubts about the idea of atonement, when he asked if it was truly necessary to believe that God was so angry with us, he sent his son to be crucified. Was it to appease the Almighty or to keep Him from punishing us?”
“What does it all mean, then?”
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