The barge appeared to be halfway across the Oder when northern gusts swept across the water and jerked the craft against its only guideline. Repeatedly, the barge bucked and swayed in the wind and whitecaps.
Of the three horses aboard, Jan Brezchwa held and steadied the one leading Irina’s cart, but the two horses and their riders in the front of the barge could not hold their charges in place as they danced and whinnied in fear and rebellion. When the horse on the right was hit with a broad splash of water, it shifted its position and weight toward its mate, which clopped perilously close to the barge’s low gunwale. The horses slipped on the wet planks and, in fright, shifted away from the waves and the wind. As they did so, the left side of the vessel began to tip. The ferrymen struggled to keep the barge level and on course as it strained against the heavy rope.
Later, Irina had trouble remembering exactly what happened, but she knew their cart slid to the left gunwale with such force as to snap a wheel from its axle. The sudden tilt of the cart flung Irina into the river as she clutched her blue woolen blanket. For some reason, she couldn’t let loose of it. The horse and its cart followed.
In the frigid spring waters, Irina flailed and began to lose buoyancy as her heavy clothes, drenched through, dragged her below the surface. She bumped against something hard, and it seemed as if all time stopped. Will I see Berek again?
Onward, she felt herself drifting in the dark, swirling waters, and in moments, she began to lose a sense of having arms and legs, of having a body at all. I could die to see Berek, but what about our child?
She felt something grab hold of her arm, and suddenly, she was pushed to the surface and onto the floating carcass of the cart. Gulping air over and over, Irina made herself open her eyes. The fading torchlight some distance away was the only illumination, but she saw little as the distance between the cart and barge began to grow.
The cart’s wooden side groaned as someone held her in place. One of the soldiers had acted quickly, she thought. Soon, they were far away from the only light to guide them as the torches winked out. Without a prow, the cart was like a rudderless ship whose resting place would be unknown.
…
Tomasz and his compatriot fumbled their way slowly west, gaining on their prey day by day. Despite several wrong starts, dense forests, and frequent spring rains, they managed to follow a blurred trail until realizing they were actually following another group of travelers. Undeterred, Tomasz pushed on, driven to have his revenge.
Although Franciszek made it clear he wished only to be in some quiet barn near Poznan drinking his ale, taking advantage of women and having plenty to eat, he slogged by Tomasz’s side because he had no other good choice.
Tomasz had not one but two reasons for hunting down the sojourners, wherever they were. The duke himself, Tomasz could not forgive. Yet he could serve him, and even with some degree of loyalty, if the duke would only see he’d been taken in by the woman and her so-called servant. He knew he needed the blessing of the duke just to remain alive.
As it was, he was an escaped prisoner. He could tell a good lie about what happened to Wojciech and the other one, he reasoned. After all, they were the bishop’s men, and as for the lying priest, he would deal with him later. Whatever it took, he had to get back in the good graces of his duke.
The surest way to do that was to expose the woman pretending to be a lady for what she truly was: a servant to Jews! He spat as he envisioned a scene in which he would triumph in the eyes of his master. As he thought about it, his eyes gleamed in a fixed stare.
At one point, Tomasz noticed a stillness in the air that was unnerving. The ground was still damp from an earlier rainstorm that had pelted them for miles, and the leaves, though sodden, began to stir on the forest floor. Looking up, he saw only leaves blinking in the wind, and clouds thick and threatening. Without sun or shadow, there was nothing to guide him. It had rained so hard, in fact, they weren’t sure which track to take when it diverged in the forest. Taking the southern or left leg of the road, they began to realize they’d made still another wrong decision.
After two more days wandering in the Silesian Forest, they emerged to find themselves on a rise overlooking a river less than a day’s ride away. Tomasz immediately understood their good fortune and thanked God for having brought them to this point. They would spend the night here, he reasoned, and enjoy some cooked meat and a good, dry rest.
“Do you know where we are?” Franciszek challenged him.
“Yes,” he responded with a smirk showing the odd, misshapen tooth. “I’ve never been here, but I know where we are. What’s more important, I know where they are!” With that, he raised his arm and pointed. “There. To the north. There we will find our quarry, and there we will find the duke’s favor.”
What had been a calm, May evening suddenly turned to every traveler’s bane. As the sky darkened and rolled with black clouds, Tomasz could see that the entire Oder River valley would be engaged in a battle with the weather. They retreated into the trees. Within minutes, only a few yards around him were visible as they struggled to erect a simple shelter of pine boughs layered over a bent sapling. They supped on a not very tasty hen stolen from a defenseless villager earlier in the day while the flagon of ale Franciszek purloined from a tavern served to quench their thirst and distract them from the storm that howled around them. Their horses bucked against their tiedowns, trying to break their bonds.
“Tomorrow,” Tomasz said, loud enough so that Franciszek could hear him over the pounding rain, “we find our way back to grace.”
…
At last, the massive cart crashed to a halt on a cluster of giant boulders strewn along the shore.
Irina held on to the craft as it banged back and forth, snagged by the rocks. She had no notion how long she remained there, shielded from the weather only by her protector’s cloak. Neither she nor her savior stirred, exhausted and shocked by the cold water and the pelting rain. Her companion seemed deathly still.
In the fog of semi-consciousness, she could discern the muffled shouts of men running, frantic, somewhere near them. The rain slowed, but the wind still buffeted them as Irina clung for life. She could see the blink of torches, and she breathed easier when she realized they were the duke’s men, not brigands. For a moment, she thought her imagination had gone awry when she heard the growly voice of Father Martinus Madrosh. Wasn’t he already across the river?
Irina raised her arm and voice but was not heard immediately as her cries were carried southward in the wind. “Here!” someone shouted. Other voices joined in. Men scampered across rocks while others held torches to light their way. Two rescuers grabbed hold of her and managed to pass her from one pair of hands to others. They secured her in dry, woolen blankets.
“How are you, My Lady?” It wasn’t the voice of Madrosh. It was the soft, kind voice of a man she believed a killer. Duke Zygmunt took a corner of the blanket and tucked it more tightly around her.
“It seems I have survived,” she said with a wan smile.
“I am so sorry, My Lady. My judgment failed you.”
“I thought you and your party had crossed the bridge.”
“The bridge, such as it is, threatened to collapse under us. We came back. I wish you had been able to do the same without,” he spread his arms in the torchlight, “all this.”
“Madrosh?”
“I am here, Lady Irina.”
“My Velka? Is she alright?”
“One of the ferrymen—and Yip—caught her as your cart rolled into the water. She seems fine. I’m afraid we’re to stay on this side of the Oder until light. Let’s get you safe and warm in front of a fire.”
As they approached the rest of the company, Velka and the nuns surrounded her, effectively pushing the men aside. They asked her the questions males did not know to ask and to which they shouldn’t hear the answers—about her pregnancy,
about injury to herself, about miscarriage. Yet chilled from her brief visit to a watery grave, Irina first felt her abdomen, then checked herself for bleeding, before assuring her nurses she was well. Though still soaked with river water, the blue woolen square remained with her, bunched around her mid-section like protective armor.
“I thank you all,” she said, shivering in her woolen cocoon. She closed her eyes, uttering thanks to heaven—Did I just thank God?—then called out to the priest. “Madrosh—the man who saved me?”
The old priest stepped closer and smiled. “Why, it was Squire Brezchwa, my dear.”
…
Jerzy Andrezski had never been a religious man. He’d lived as a travelling merchant, taking life as he found it, never worrying about the day beyond the next. He’d seen too much slaughter and pillage, too many crimes too vile to remember, too many people whose tomorrows never came. He’d come to Poznan thinking the God people worshipped was an uncaring bystander, a faceless, heartless, and selfish God who caused nothing but fear. He saw no reason to attend church, but the question of an Almighty was always in his mind.
That was then. That he’d survived was a small miracle, he felt certain, and then, never before had he witnessed the utter self-sacrifice for total strangers that had been shown to hundreds of the dying by the Dominican Sisters. Sister Elisabeth had labored to ensure the poor and the pitied as well as the haughty and highborn approached death with tender hands caring for them. To him, those simple facts moved him to believe there must, indeed, be an Almighty God.
That Sister Elisabeth, too, had died of plague gave him no opportunity to render proper thanks for saving his life. He had pledged to serve her when they first met, but fate did not allow him that opportunity. When he had stumbled away from the caravan, and found himself sick unto death at the church door, he knew that all of his worldly goods would melt into the pouches of those moving on, carrying his wealth along with death itself. But now he had a new chance to build a life pleasing to God.
On the day he felt well enough to leave the confines of the convent, Sister Luke came to bid a plague’s survivor a warm farewell. When her words to him conveyed a certain finality, he said, “I’m staying here in Poznan, Sister. In some way, I’ll establish myself in a business, I’ll be successful, and I will assist the convent and its work in every way possible.”
The nun returned his gaze with interest and curiosity. The two had spoken but a few times. “I do not know what to make of you, Jerzy Andrezski. You are so confident of your abilities, but given what has happened around us, what sort of business do you think might be a success?”
“I do not know, Sister. But the answer will come. I am convinced God led me to this place and let an angel quench my thirst. I can’t prove that, but here I am, alive, when by all measures, I should be dead and in the pits with all those others.”
She smiled. “While you’re thinking about it, Pan Andrezski,” she said, addressing him more formally, “you may have noticed that with all the dead, many of their goods have been left here. You can help us by clearing them out. Perhaps you might sell some items to help you on your feet.”
“Djenkuje, Sister Luke. I will sell these things, but take little.”
As he collected the goods from a shed near the kitchen, he spied Sister Rose and the little girl working in their usual place, and remembered seeing her on the Fareway. He learned from the elderly nun it had been Zuzanna who’d given him water when he was ill, making him wonder how she had come to be at the convent. Too busy to seek an answer, he left, but vowed to take care of his little angel.
…
Arriving from the south and moving quietly along the Oder, King Louis’s expeditionary force hugged the wood line and approached the shore only to water their horses or to cross back and forth at fording places to take advantage of the terrain. Nearing Glogau, they crossed back again to the eastern shore, climbed the gentle slope forming one rim of the river valley, and slid into the woods.
They continued in that fashion for many miles through a largely uninhabited forest, and the men breathed easily as they rode with little danger of attack. There had been no fighting in this part of Germanic lands for decades, and the Hungarians suspected their sometime enemy had become lax.
It would have been pointless, Sir Bela Kinizsi knew, to attack Glogau or any of its surrounding villages, as such a move would gain the Hungarians nothing of value, and the entire valley would be alerted to their presence. The available maps suggested a much better target. It was lightly defended, yet controlled a critical part of the river. Were they to capture and defend it, why, it would be like cutting a snake in two—Glogau and Breslau. The belly and the tail would wither and die, easy pickings for the larger force to come later.
It was better, he perceived, to control the Oder from that point northward to Frankfort and beyond. All this he explained to one of his officers. “That will be the key we shall turn in the Teutonic lock,” he said, confident of his strategy.
As their horses moved through the woods growing thick with bright-green foliage, it occurred to Sir Bela that careless though the Germans might appear, it was better to be prepared. To his field captain, Janos Tomori, he gave orders to send scouts, carefully and stealthily. “I doubt you’ll find anything, Timori, but we are within two days of our target—Krosno Castle—and we don’t want any surprises, do we.” It was not a question.
…
The following morning, a Sunday, Father Madrosh offered a Mass of thanksgiving on the eastern bank of the Oder as the sun cleared the trees and bathed them all in welcome warmth. Given the previous night’s ferocity, he expressed gratitude to the Almighty for their party’s ongoing safety, and asked all to pray for the eternal rest of the one soldier drowned when thrown from the barge in the squall.
Madrosh then reminded his listeners of John 4 and the Samaritan woman at the well. “Within a few hours, we will cross into another land whose inhabitants are not always loved by Poles or our Hungarian rulers. Just as Christ spoke to the Samaritan woman—ordinarily despised by Galileans—we keep our hearts open to all those of different tongues we will soon meet. It is not enough just to tolerate them. Christ meant us to love all our neighbors as ourselves.”
Because they had fasted before receiving Holy Communion, all were ready for a hearty breakfast of eggs, bread, cheese, and a bit of ale. As they ate, they pondered the waters of the Oder, calm and clear, but knew how quickly river waters could change. The shoreline hummed with soldiers and men securing the bridge, though the damage was less than expected.
After the duke’s physician had examined her the night before and declared her unharmed by her near-drowning, Irina slept fitfully next to Velka in one of the tents hastily erected for the duke and numerous other nobles. Their clothing dried and they themselves refreshed by a Mass spent with Almighty God, Irina sought out her confessor and mentor.
“My Lady, Duke Zygmunt wishes you to cross the bridge on horseback rather than walk with all the others. He does not wish you to be over-exerted as we enter Krosno Castle.”
“I am so grateful, Madrosh. I am truly exhausted and would rather stay here in rude surroundings than give risk to my child.”
“Just so, My Lady. Squire Brezchwa will guide your horse. He, too, is concerned for your safety.” The warm breeze quickened, snapping the white and red pennants atop the soldiers’ lances.
“That is kind of him,” she said, a small smile shaping her lips. “I am curious, Madrosh. You’ve told me a little about the squire, but there is much I do not know. Why is Duke Sokorski so fond of him? And the duke’s wife, what of her? Perhaps these are questions to which I should not know the answers?”
“Oh, not at all, My Lady.” He paused to collect his next words. “First things first. Duke Sokorski was married very young to a beautiful girl named Elena. As might be expected, not long after their wedding, it was announced Elena was with
child. The duke’s parents were yet living, and there was much celebration in Poznan.”
“What happened?”
“I have not told you this before because of your own present condition.” He looked away briefly. “Pardon me, My Lady. I knew them well—I helped celebrate their wedding Mass with a bishop now long dead. A few months into her maternity, plague struck, and though the Sokorskis fled the city, they could not flee the plague. Elena, the duke’s parents, and, yes, Squire Brezchwa’s entire family all were wiped away within a week—as if they never existed.”
“Merciful God! That must have been truly devastating for them.”
“And then, too, the Jews were blamed. Wrongly, of course, but such charges paint a man’s memories horrible colors.”
After a minute of silence, Madrosh went on, “As you might imagine, Duke Sokorski has never been the same man. He has refused to marry again, but he knew his duty to the Brezchwa family. At once, he took in the boy and has raised him as his own. There will never be a son for the duke but Jan Brezchwa.”
“Thank you, Madrosh,” Irina murmured in a quiet, thoughtful voice. “In a small number of words, you have told me much about the squire and the man who raised him.” The two of them waited for the signal to cross, watching silently as the duke’s men heaved and perspired in the morning sun.
“You mentioned Krosno. What is there to know about it?”
“Certainly,” Madrosh answered from his reverie, “Krosno Castle is not the largest fortress on the Oder, but it is substantial, nonetheless, and it controls vital lands along both shores. It is an outpost for the Duchy of Glogau, but little else. You can see, Irina, that its two towers are at opposite ends of a long, rectangular, high-walled affair, and it sits imposingly on the river’s edge.”
“And the narrow bridge helps to defend it.”
Irina Page 16