“What it means is that Christ’s whole life, his very existence, was God’s loving gift to us. That he came amongst us—as one of us—is what gives our lives value. If Christ offered his life for our sins, then it was because it was his desire to do so, not because he was required to do so. Can one member of the Trinity require an act by another? Although all of us die for our sins, Christ had to die because he was human and for one other reason: to show us that if we believe in him, we, too, shall rise from the dead and enjoy eternal life. Had Christ not come amongst us, there would only be death, a final end to a life without real meaning. That Christ rose from the dead into eternal life is what he promised for each of us, and what the Almighty wanted for each of us from the beginning—a return to a heavenly Garden of Eden. That is the foundation stone of our faith.”
Irina took a deep breath. “This is much to think about.”
“Yes, my child, but it is indisputable that Christ died for each of us, and I think you already understand that suffering is not necessary to prove one’s love.”
For a moment, she lowered head, covering her eyes with her hand. Quickly, she looked back at him. “Yes, Father, on this, we agree.” They bumped along the road in silence. “May I ask another question? And we call the Mass the supper of the lamb?”
Madrosh nodded. “You have seen the priest at Mass raise the Host countless times. The bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ. It is our way of remembering his sacrifice every time we gather in his name.”
“And we must believe that the change really happens?”
“The Holy Roman Church believes so, yes.”
“That is difficult to consider. Taking the body and blood….”
“Many of Christ’s listeners had stronger reactions than that, according to the Gospel of John. When Christ talks about it, he says he is the bread of life, the living bread come down from heaven, and the bread he gives is his flesh for the whole world.”
“Could the gospel be wrong?”
Madrosh shrugged. “I don’t believe so. No doubt, Christ saw that some were repulsed by the notion that he would give his flesh to them to eat, and yet he had opportunities to take back those words or soften their interpretation, but he did not. Christ went on, saying, ‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. Whoever does so remains in me and I in him.’ At the Last Supper, Christ used nearly identical words. Yes, Irina, Christ meant what he said.”
She nodded, still uncertain, but followed with another question. “Has the Mass always been said exactly the way we hear it?”
Madrosh nodded, thinking about his words. “We know two important tenets of our faith from the writings of Justin the Martyr going back to within a hundred and fifty years of Christ’s time. Even then, when people gathered together to celebrate the Eucharist, there were already the beginnings of the Mass as we have come to know it. There were readings from the prophets of the Old Testament, from the letters of the Apostles, and prayers of thanksgiving. Interestingly, the Mass as a New Testament sacrifice is similar to the ancient Jewish rituals of prayer and sacrifice. It was where the word ‘Amen’ appears for the first time.”
“I don’t mean to distract you, Father, but what does it mean?”
“It is a Hebrew word—a Jewish word—meaning that the person speaking gives his assent to what has been said. Of course, Justin did not write in Hebrew, he wrote in Greek.”
“What was the second thing?”
“Justin described in some detail the whole idea of transubstantiation—the changing of the bread and water into the body and blood of Christ. Other writers of that same era described the liturgy and the Eucharist in very similar ways.”
“And?”
“You are a curious person, indeed, My Lady Irina. Christians have been attending Mass and saying the Lord’s Prayer for over a thousand years now.”
Irina took in the enormity of time a thousand years represented. “I don’t wish to be disrespectful, Madrosh, but you have told me only what people have done and what they have believed. You have not proven God’s existence.”
“Curious and persistent, I see,” he said with a wry smile. “We have a long journey ahead of us, my dear Lady,” he chuckled, “and I won’t lose my audience! There are many things to teach you. You are correct, though; the most important of all is God’s very existence, and that knowledge will satisfy your soul, indeed!”
“I should tell you, Madrosh, you speak beautiful words, but I remain unconvinced the God you describe would permit the evils I have seen.”
…
On their second morning heading east toward Poznan, Wojciech Murawski and the young soldier partnered to him awoke to the unexpected. The night before, they had tied their prisoners securely and settled down in the shelter of low pine branches, walled in only by the darkness of the forest.
“Wojciech!” Tomasz commanded. When the startled soldier opened his eyes, Tomasz waited until terror appeared in their morning gleam, then drove the short sword of the other soldier deep into Murawski’s heart. For Murawski, it was a moment of white-hot pain, then eternity.
Tomasz looked over at Big Franciszek, who was holding his hand over the mouth of the dead man’s luckless companion, his eyes wide in terror. He never uttered a sound as Franciszek slit his throat.
“Wash away the blood. Take their clothes,” ordered Tomasz. “We wear the bishop’s colors now, and Poznan will never see us.”
…
The duke’s procession crawled through thick woods and monotonous fields, the sun being its only compass. Although he had learned of a magnetic direction device, none was available to him, and their objective seemed simple enough, the duke thought. Let the sun rise behind the them in the morning, signal them midday by its position overhead, and then lead them toward the horizon as nightfall came again.
The seemingly endless scapes clinging to the flat countryside were punctuated by the occasional village where foodstuffs for horses and for people could be bought or bargained. What Irina noticed most of all was not a shortage of food or goods, but of people. In the Germanic provinces, they learned that earlier attacks of plague had nearly annihilated the population, as thoroughly as if the Mongols had done it themselves.
For the duke, the prices to be paid for bare necessities or services were an unwelcome surprise. Irina knew she’d be asked to make a larger contribution toward her passage, but a new life in a new world for her and her child was worth the price, she had ultimately concluded.
Days passed, then weeks. Frequent and cool spring rains kept their clothes and goods damp, a state only in part relieved by the warmth of a good fire. There was plenty of time for thought and talk, and Irina took many opportunities to test her new friend, the priest. I have trusted Madrosh with everything, and he gives me his learning, but asks for nothing? What kind of man is that?
Always curious to know what was around her, where and how people fit in the grand scheme of her world, Irina was never at a loss for questions. It was a pleasure, then, to reach into Madrosh’s mental cupboard for the answers. One afternoon, as the sun dappled them through the bright-green new leaves of the tall, white birches, she indulged her curiosity still again. She wanted to know, for example, where Duke Zygmunt’s rank placed him in the royal pecking order.
Irina was not sure she understood how complicated things were for the powerful, but Madrosh explained that even though Poles had achieved a great place in the world under Casimir the Great, he had arranged for his kingdom to pass to his sister, Elizabeth, the Dowager Queen of Hungary, and Louis, her son, the King of Hungary. As such, Louis I became the King of Poland, and like all other Polish nobles, Duke Zygmunt was notoriously passive in support of the Hungarian ruler. As a result, the poor and the landless, always possessed of an uncertain future, were “mere gamepieces in sordid feudal squabbles,” as Madros
h put it.
Their conversation led to the possibility of war.
“For the love of heaven, Madrosh, why would King Louis want to have another war?”
“It’s very simple, Irina. To make war, kings require goods, resources, and, above all, men who will fight for them. The plague has slaughtered the men of fighting age and the women to bear children in Hungary as well as our beloved Poland. If there are not enough men, a king levies taxes on his nobles to hire mercenaries. And without large numbers of the lowest classes to do the farming, raise the animals, and perform all mean tasks as part of trade and transportation, and without the merchants and moneymen to manage affairs, a kingdom is an empty place. For some, it’s about money, but for others, it’s always about land and people.”
Days later, still hungry for knowledge and understanding, Irina sat astride a well-tamed horse, which seemed to provide a better ride on rougher ground as she began to grow with child. As they clopped along, Madrosh hummed softly, a hymn, she thought.
“Father,” she began, “before we resume our talk of God, tell me about the Jews. I heard Janus Joselewicz say they were protected by the King and his law. Yet they are so reviled by many of our people. Why is this so?”
Madrosh did not answer right away. “It’s a complicated history, my dear. Our great king, Boleslaus the Pious, may have unwittingly created the seeds for that hatred when he proclaimed the Statute of Kalisz just over a hundred years ago.”
“And this was a bad thing?”
“Bringing in the Jews was not a bad thing. In fact,” Madrosh continued, “Jewish culture added much to our own and within a few generations, Poland began to regain its position of power within the Holy Roman Empire.
“Why did it not go well, then?”
Again, Madrosh hesitated. “You see, My Lady, for centuries, there had not been any Jews in our land of which to speak.” Madrosh lowered his head. “So many in our religion referred to Jews as killers of Christ for so long, it had become an ingrained belief, I am ashamed to say.”
“So, Boleslaw attempted to undo all those centuries of ignorance and hate.”
“I could not have said it better, Irina. You understand more quickly than you realize.”
“With the Statute in place, why do these horrible injustices still occur?”
“Laws are one thing. Unless they are enforced—everywhere—they are just pretty words on parchment. And the Statute doesn’t cover everything. I suspect the Jews are accused of bringing the plague, of drinking the blood of Christians, of poisoning our wells, because the accusers know that to prove any of it is not true would be impossible to do.”
“Madrosh, do you believe any of it is true?”
“None of it is true, my child.”
“Then why?”
“People always need someone to blame for their calamities, do they not? They can’t blame God because they’re afraid of God. It’s much easier to blame people who can’t easily defend themselves. And in this case, the Church helped to make the Jews seem like evil itself. Even some words in the gospel strengthen that view. When a group is thus identified, it becomes easy to hate them. And so it matters little whether they are guilty. It’s enough for a mob to believe in someone’s guilt, true or not, so they quell the blood rising in their chests. Until the next time, that is.”
“I see. That doesn’t say much about a difference between men and animals. So why has the church not righted this great wrong?”
“It tried, but the effort was far from adequate, it is fair to say.” He chuckled derisively.“It is nothing to laugh about, but surely, it is an irony of history that when Christianity was a new religion, some thirty years after Christ’s death, the city of Rome caught fire and burned for six days and nights. It was nearly destroyed, and the Emperor Nero blamed the Christians, a small, politically powerless group at the time. He literally fed them to the lions. The church, above all others, should understand what the Jews have endured.”
Madrosh sighed. “An enlightened leader of a group—even when the group is the church of God, Irina—may proclaim one thing, but its followers may practice another. The difference between what’s said from pulpit and what’s said over a bowl of soup can be vast. It’s an old story.”
“Is that really why people do what they do—because they believe in myths?”
“It is very sad to say, my dear Irina, that many people, I believe, merely use the myths to hide the real reasons for what they do to the Jews.”
Irina raised her brows inquiringly.
Madrosh said, “Mind you, My Lady, I do not ordinarily discuss such views—with anyone—and certainly not with the duke or his minions.”
“With the bishop?”
“Nor with the bishop,” Madrosh averred with emphasis. “In my humble opinion, it is little more than jealous greed. Remember that one of the believed talents of the Jews has to do with money, with the art of finance. Many are very skilled in business and many, certainly not all, amass great fortunes and property. Moreover, they lend their monies to princes—of this world and of the Church—and it must gall the borrowers to have to be respectful to those they have been taught to despise.
“So, you can see, can’t you, that to have a pretext for stripping the Jews of their wealth—while at the same time shedding themselves of a debt—would have a certain appeal to it. Would it not?”
“Yes. It would—to some! The duke’s tax comes to mind. But it is not the churchmen or the nobles who light such deadly bonfires. It’s the people themselves, people who have not borrowed money, who have nothing to gain from such behavior.”
“You’ve hit upon the cruel beauty of the scheme, My Lady, and it’s been played over and over in times before us. No doubt, it will be played so many times over in the centuries to come. It is this way, Irina, and hear me well. At high levels in the church and at court, popes and princes can say one thing, perhaps even believe what they say, but they profit well when their middlings stir up the poor in the cities and the peasants in the countryside to do their evil work for them. Once this work has begun, it is not easy to put an end to it—at least, not a happy one. The ignorant will believe much that is told to them by their lords, and if it helps to satisfy an ancient bloodlust, all the better!”
I can see that long conversations with Madrosh may be tiring, but he is like the cow that gives so much milk, and I am thirsty!
…
Zuzanna cried mightily. Her sobbing so filled the kitchen air, it nearly drowned out all the usual noises accompanying the cooking of large meals needed at the convent. At some point in Zuzanna’s one-person chorus of childhood misery, Sister Rose’s concentration was broken, and she became concerned. Zuzanna had been such a happy and grateful child for the weeks she’d been with them; this display demanded Sister Rose’s attention.
“My dearest child,” she said with utmost kindness. “Why are you crying so? What is troubling you?”
“Why did my family leave me?” It was the first time she had talked about it.
“Did they, Zuzanna? Tell me what happened to you.”
“We were up on a hill and I went to listen to all the laughing. Then they were gone.”
“Did you look for them?”
“Yes. I called out again and again, but no one came.”
“Do you live in Srodka?” asked Sister Rose. She knew the questions had been asked before, but with all the commotion involving the living and the dying, spending time with this lost soul was not the first thing on anyone’s mind. Zuzanna spoke little or not at all, and the sisters began to think she was left deliberately—not all that unusual if the extra mouth in a family was female. Or perhaps plague had claimed her parents.
“No. We live on a farm a long walk from here.”
“Why were you and your family in Srodka?”
“We were looking for my sister.”
“Does she live in Poznan?”
“I don’t know. She left our family and we were sad. Her name is Irina. Irina Kwasniewska.”
The kettle boiled over, spitting water and sizzling as it hit hot coals. Sister Rose at first ignored Zuzanna’s words, busy as she was with the demands for soup and bread. Then it struck her. “Little sister, indeed!” Yet how can I make sense of this?
…
Tomasz and Franciszek, now garbed as soldiers in the bishop’s service, turned back toward St. Stephen’s. They were several days behind the duke’s company, Tomasz knew, but he and Franciszek would make faster time, though he needed to think things through before explaining his plan to Franciszek, ever the doubter.
“Tomasz, why are we going back to trouble? Why not go back to Poznan? The bishop may not be coming back for many weeks, and the duke, not for many months, if ever. We could go on as before and no one would know.”
Tomasz had to acknowledge the logic of these statements, surprising all the more for coming from Franciszek, a man who rarely thought more than one meal ahead. Yet hate and love always triumph over reason, Tomasz had often heard the duke say. While Tomasz knew nothing of love, he was quite adept at hating those who had more than he. If they were Jews, all the better.
“You might be right, Franciszek, and if you want to go to Poznan, you go! As for me, I will head away from the plague and will settle things with the man who demanded my loyalty, but denied me the same.”
“But he’s the duke, and who are we?”
“WE,” shouted Tomasz, “are the people who did his bidding, Franciszek, and he was duty-bound to take care of us. What’s more is that I now know who that bitch is!”
Startled, Franciszek did not understand. “What—who are you talking about?”
“I’ve been thinking about what that servant girl—Velka—said to me. The woman, the Lady Kwasniewska,” he sneered. “She is no more a lady than you, Franciszek. I’m sure I remember her now—she was a serving girl at the Joselewiczes’, and I think she was there the night we burned them. She must have been—otherwise, how could the servant know to repeat what I said.” As he spoke, his voice became hard and his stare, fixed.
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