Poland: A Novel Part 8

In the waiting period before Pawel returned with the money, Kazimir the Pole and Siegfried the German had many opportunities to discuss the battle, and it was the latter's freely expressed opinion that the Order's loss at Tannenberg was a loss not only to the Germans but especially to the Poles: 'Your country, Gorka, does not know how to govern itself. Allied with mine, it could form one of the strengths of Europe. We would provide the fighting men, the governors, the scholars; you, the backbone, the wheat, the timber.

'You will never catch up with us, I think. Always you will require the guidance we can provide, and although this time we lost in our effort at civilizing your areas, history will demand that we try again, for under the leaders.h.i.+p of Grand Masters like Hermann von Salza and Ulrich von Jungingen we will forge ahead to new accomplishments, while under a king like Jagiello, who is not even a Pole, you can accomplish very little, and what you do, most insecurely.'

When Kazimir pointed out that in the recent battle Ulrich von Jungingen appeared to have made several mistakes and Jagiello almost none, Von Eschl asked which side, the victors or the vanquished, stood in better condition right now, and when Kazimir tried to say that Poland did, the German laughed. So Kazimir asked: 'Who will be your Grand Master now? Who will lead you to the greatness you foresee?' and Von Eschl gave a surprising reply: 'I know that if my family will not pay the ransom you demand, the Order will, because there was talk that I was to be the next Grand Master. And if I am, and if you continue to have the ear of your king, let us work together as partners, Gorka. Germany and Poland are natural allies. We complement each other in all respects: our leaders.h.i.+p in so many areas; your strength in numbers and foodstuffs.

'Also, we have no natural barrier separating us-no great river, no mountains, no impa.s.sable swamps. Germany blends naturally into Poland. The division line could be anywhere we set it between us, but I see no reason for a division line at all. Let us be one country, one unit. [And always in these conversations he introduced the phrase which infuriated Kazimir; Von Eschl was powerless to avoid it because he believed it so wholeheartedly.] You see the situation, Gorka. You will always require German guidance.'

From these talks, conducted with such frankness, Kazimir deduced that as long as Poland and Germany existed, each would fear the other: Germany would always suspect that indefensible Poland would be a pathway whereby Russian power, when it coalesced, would attempt to invade the German states; and Poland would always fear that its western border would be invaded by Germans whenever they saw an opportunity to use Poland as a buffer against the east.

Von Eschl proved a model prisoner, obedient to every rule his captor laid down, but as soon as the money arrived and he departed, Kazimir hurried to Krakow to report to the king: 'The man terrified me. The defeat at Tannenberg taught him nothing. Already he's plotting a return invasion, whenever he feels the Order has recovered its strength.'

Jagiello said that such recovery could not take place in fifty years, for all the German leaders were dead: 'I saw them on the battlefield. You saw them.'

'Sire, I saw the new leaders in my castle. Believe me, our permanent enemy will be the German states. Always we will be attacked from the west.'

In the meantime, Kazimir occupied himself by applying the ransom funds that Pawel delivered-a vast sum in those days-to the purchase of huge estates to the north and east, some of them hundreds of miles from the Vistula, and after he had acquired them, people began to speak of him as a magnate, one of the seventy or eighty men of immense power who really controlled Poland. Indeed, before long he was beginning to think of himself and his fellow magnates as Poland.

Pawel did not fare as well, but obedient to the principle that what was good for the master would also probably be good for the servant, he did gain three advantages from the battle in which he had played a heroic part: he had been formally knighted by the king himself and thus promoted from the rank of dubious to acknowledged gentry; he received a second village as a gift of thanks from Kazimir; and he came home with his own plus two captured horses, which, added to the one he had left behind, meant that he was now a respected member of the gentry with four horses.

Janko gained nothing from the battle, although in his own mercurial way he was as brave as either of his lords; it was not to be taken lightly when a man on foot armed with only an ashen stave studded with flint nodules attacked a knight on horseback, and by breaking the horse's leg, caused the knight to tumble so that his skull could be crushed. Such a feat required a special kind of courage, but because Janko was a peasant, supposed to do such things, it went unnoticed.

In fact, the Battle of Grunwald served Janko poorly, for it made him freedom-loving and outspoken and daring, and several times on the long ride home his master Pawel observed to himself: This Janko is going to be difficult to handle. And when the two reached Bukowo, Janko did strut about and talk of his role in the great battle and of how he had spent that waiting day with the Tatars, who were a good lot no matter what the legends of the village said: 'I wouldn't mind serving with those Tatars. They know how to have fun.'

Infected by the powerful excitement that stay-at-home men often find in wars that introduce them to strange lands, Janko began to experiment with freedom-stealing a chicken now and then, appropriating to his own kitchen fire branches fallen in the forest, and ultimately killing one of Pawel's rabbits.

Some spy informed on him, not only about the rabbit but also about the chicken and the branches and several other offenses which might or might not have happened, and Pawel took advantage of this as an excuse to rid himself of a man he had grown to dislike. Ordering Janko brought before him in the little castle, he found him guilty of numerous crimes, and within twenty minutes of pa.s.sing judgment, Janko was dragged to the public square, where a rope was suspended from a limb and he was hanged.

IV.

From the North

The excitement of Castle Gorka was so intense the Magnate Cyprjan ordered not one but two hogs to be slaughtered, but when the carca.s.ses were hung and he had inspected them he realized that he had more meat than the banquet would need, and in a fit of generosity inspired by the good fortune his daughter was having, he sent for his henchman Lukasz of the little castle at Bukowo. When that petty knight appeared, Cyprjan actually embraced him, which surprised Lukasz exceedingly, for magnates did not customarily embrace their minor gentry.

'Lukasz, I am so pleased this day that I've ordered the butcher to cut away the forequarters of the two hogs for you and Da.n.u.sia. Make a feast of it in my daughter's honor.' When Lukasz bowed, obviously delighted with this unexpected gift of meat, for in his meager quarters this was not often seen, the magnate clapped him on the shoulder, an unheard-of gesture of approval, and said: 'Of course, we shall expect you and Da.n.u.sia at the banquet,' and at this vote of confidence Lukasz bowed once more, caught his lord's hand and kissed it.

Then, in a further burst of generosity, Cyprjan said: 'And I want you to give the haslet, all of it, to this fellow they call Jan of the Beech Trees. He was most helpful during our last hunt.'

So the butcher made two packages, one of the lean but tasty forequarters for Lukasz, another of haslet for the peasant Jan, and the lord of Bukowo, as petty a one as lived in all of Poland, rode home with his meat and a sense that he had been honored.

The rich major quarters of the hogs were delivered to the castle kitchens, where an extraordinary woman took charge of them. Twenty years before, Cyprjan had ridden south to the little town of Dukla, where the great Mniszech clan centered, and there he had paid court to Zofia Mniszech, whose famous aunt Maryna had become Czarina of Russia, twice. Zofia had inherited many of the characteristics of her notorious predecessor: headstrong, beautiful in an artless way, daring and extremely capable. At first she had not liked Cyprjan, for he was much too quiet when compared to the robust Mniszech men, those giant brutes whose faces were covered with hair and whose hearts were filled with larceny, but after having rejected him twice, she listened when her uncles told her: This Cyprjan has so many estates across Poland that he can be a leading magnate, if he wishes, and you're not likely to find a better catch.'

'But he is so rigid,' she protested. 'So proper. He might as well be a Frenchman.'

'It will be your job to make him unbend.'

'How many estates does he actually have?' shrewd Zofia asked, and she listened attentively as her uncles ticked them off: 'He has the very old castle at Gorka, which he honors as his headquarters, and the new castle near Lublin. He has a huge estate with no castle near Przemysl, but his real holdings are east of Lwow, where he has four or five immense estates worked by Ukrainians. Then, as you know, for you've seen them, he has the two small but very nice farms near Warsaw and the two over toward Russia. He is a man of substance, Zofia, and you won't do better.'

'Still,' as she told her aunt Eulalia, the one who had left her own husband, the Hungarian Bela, 'I have dreamed of a man more in the mold of Lubomirski.'

'He's taken,' Aunt Eulalia said with a sigh, 'and what's left for you is Cyprjan.'

Reluctantly the headstrong girl had accepted her suitor, and the marriage at Dukla had been a tumultuous affair, nine days of riot, after which Zofia had said farewell to her vigorous family and traveled north to visit her husband's many estates before determining where she would make her permanent home. She had liked the wildness of the Ukrainian fields and the color of their little villages, but she could see that life there would be bleak, for there were no castles and Polish neighbors might sometimes be no nearer than a score of miles.

'I will always want to come here for a season,' she a.s.sured her young husband, 'but let's live somewhere else.'

They tried the castle near Lublin, but it was too new and smelled of stonemasonry. 'I like Lublin and would always be happy coming here for vacations, but the castle is not inviting. Let's see the farms west of Warsaw.'

She found these much to her liking, especially since the great Radziwill family of Lithuania had established a chain of summer homes in that area, and they would be pleasing to visit. But as with the Lwow holdings, the lands contained no residences of note, and she was perplexed as to where she would prefer to live until they traveled south along the Vistula to Castle Gorka, and once she saw its towers nestling beside the river, she fell in love with it. Whenever her family or distinguished visitors from Krakow asked why she had selected this spot above the others, she surprised them with her answer: 'Because this fellow Lukasz who lives in the little castle up there is such a remarkable man,' and on the spur of the moment she would bundle all her guests into a cart and they would trundle off to see a man whose fame had spread well beyond his little village.

Most visitors, when they first regarded his modest castle from a distance and saw the crumbling tower that had been a.s.saulted by so many raiders, approved of its picturesqueness, saying: This looks like the Poland my mother spoke of,' or 'I've always wanted to own a castle just like this,' but when they drew closer and saw that the walls, too, were in disrepair, they often modified their judgment: 'This place is falling down!'

But once they crossed the filled-in moat and entered the castle grounds, a small area enclosed by walls and marked by trees, they were apt to gasp, for shuffling forward to greet them was a large female bear, who terrified everyone until she drew closer, leaned forward, and planted a s...o...b..ry kiss on each visitor's cheek. She would now draw back as if judging the merit of the stranger, then hug him in the most friendly manner and kiss him again.

As soon as the bear decided to let the visitor pa.s.s, an otter, long and sinewy, would slither up to give his approval, and then a sly fox would sneak along the path, smelling every footfall, and when at last he sidled up to the stranger and rubbed legs, two huge dogs would come thumping out to jump upon chests and lick faces, at which a pair of tame storks would cackle their delight, and this would bring Lukasz and his wife, Da.n.u.sia, to the door.

'Welcome to The Ark,' Lukasz would shout, and at the sound of his rea.s.suring voice the bear would move behind the visitors and nudge them forward, past the otter and the fox and the giant dogs.

No one who ever visited The Ark of Lukasz and Da.n.u.sia ever forgot it. Some spoke only of the bear; others, of the otter and the fox playing together; and some, of the tame storks who stalked majestically among the beasts, often nestling their heads on a human shoulder as if to share important secrets.

Zofia Mniszech loved the animals and she would sometimes spend an entire afternoon wrestling with the bear or chasing the sly otter or trying to trap the fox, who eluded her with devilish cunning, waiting until the very last moment before darting away, then coming running back at her with a leaping kiss. She liked it best when she stood at the entranceway and called to the menagerie: 'We're going fis.h.i.+ng!' Then she and Lukasz would walk in front, with the bear right behind, while the otter and the fox, knowing what lay ahead, jumped and frolicked. The storks marched behind, solemn and almost disapproving, and the two dogs ran to wherever they felt they were needed.

In this way they would descend to the river, where Zofia would take the otter in her arms, and caress it and whisper: 'I want some fish for supper.' She would then place him on the bank and watch as he dived into the water, disappearing for a moment, then surfacing with some large fish, which he would deposit gracefully and with obvious pride at her feet.

'One more!' she would cry, and off he would go, but this time she would say: 'Well done, otter!' and he and the fox would dash back to the walled enclosure which was their home.

Once when the king came to Castle Gorka, and heard that Zofia was absent visiting the menagerie, he cried: 'I've always wanted to see that!' so Cyprjan drove him up to Bukowo. When the king entered the courtyard quietly he found the bear lying in a curled-up position, with the otter inside one paw, the fox inside the other; the two dogs were stretched out, their heads pillowed on the bear's flanks, and tired Zofia lay with her head nestled on the bear's neck. And all were sound asleep. The two storks, each standing on one leg, kept guard.

For some moments the king studied the pastoral scene, and then the otter wakened and alerted the others, until one by one the animals came to inspect the newcomer, and when the bear approved, he got behind the king and nudged him forcefully right at Zofia, who was so sleepy she could not recognize who the stranger was.

'I am Jan Kazimir,' the king said, and when Zofia rose and curtseyed, the otter, who had grown to love her, stood on his hind legs and kissed her left hand at the instant the king kissed her right.

Later the king asked Lukasz how he was able to tame his animals: 'A bear and an otter and a fox? They're never seen together in nature.'

'I find them when they're young,' Lukasz said, 'when they've been deserted, with no mother. I give them my love and they give me theirs.' As he said this the bear nestled close to him, and the king could not tell whether she thought Lukasz was her son or her father, but it was clear that she loved him, and then he looked to where Zofia rested, and on her lap he saw the otter and the fox.

It was this Zofia who accepted the hog meat when it reached the kitchen: many chatelaines never saw their kitchens, but Zofia enjoyed not only the hurly-burly of an active cooking place but also the creative things that could be done there, and now she was ready to ensure that the pork would be properly presented to the guests.

She had six cooks, two of whom doubled as waiters, and her instructions were specific: 'I want the large cuts to be properly roasted, the heavy skin cut into diamond shapes and studded with caraway, the excess fat to be trimmed away but saved for larding. I want the roast to be seasoned with marjoram and a touch of mace, and as it stands over a slow fire, basted every fifteen minutes with a goose feather dipped one time in b.u.t.ter, the next in beer, the last two times with melted sugar. It must be brought to the table in as large pieces as possible, so that all can see the glazing. And I want to supervise the carving myself, because the knife must cut across the grain, so that the chewing is made easy for those with poor teeth.'

It was not difficult to prepare a good roast if instructions were followed, but it required a touch of patient genius to handle the lesser cuts of pork, and since these often proved to be the tastiest, Zofia wanted her cooks to follow the ancient recipes developed by the Mniszechs: 'I want the meat to be cut flat, and not lumpy. It is to be well pounded until tender and uniform. Rub it well with garlic and oil, spread it with a generous mixture of onions, sauerkraut and diced apple. Roll it handsomely and tie it with a cord. You know how to watch it while it bakes, basting it with beer and b.u.t.ter.

'I want it served with the best Krakow kasha you have ever made. Soak the kasha in light vinegar, then roast it until each grain is brown and separate and very dry. Then prepare a sauce of eggs and beer and scalded raisins and blanched almonds cut fine, and I want it seasoned as before with pepper and nutmeg and marjoram. Do not stint on the raisins and almonds, for I want each grain of kasha to have its own accompaniment. And you are to serve this great bowl of kasha with eight Easter eggs, brightly colored, around the edges.'

Each item of her menus for the three-day visit was supervised in this careful way, and it was proper that she take such pains, because this visitor to Gorka was more important to the welfare of the castle than even the king had been. Chancellor Ossolinski, from the vast estates which stood just across the Vistula, was attached to one of the most powerful and richest magnate families in Poland, and he was bringing his nineteen-year-old son Roman to see if a marriage with sixteen-year-old Barbara was feasible. Cyprjan certainly did not need the wealth of the Ossolinskis, but in the unsettled time that loomed and might continue for the duration of Barbara's life, the Gorka people could profit from the strength and wisdom of the Ossolinskis, which would come to them if the marriage occurred.

Barbara, of course, was offended by all this: 'I'm being paraded like a cow at an auction, with everyone looking at me to see if I will give milk.'

'You hush such talk!' her father cried. 'Girls have to get married, and there's no other way.'

'Is he presentable? Has he a chin? Or three ears?'

'Barbara,' her father said with considerable insight, 'don't you suppose he's asking the same about you? "Do her eyes bulge? Has she a hump?" ' He broke into laughter and dispatched a servant to fetch his wife from the kitchen, and when Zofia came in, protesting that she was needed elsewhere, her husband cut her short: 'Where you're needed is right here with us. Barbara's worrying about what your Ossolinski will be like. Three heads maybe. And I wanted her to know that all young people have these apprehensions. Tell her what you had heard about me before I reached Dukla to ask for your hand.'

'Oh, that!' She chuckled and sat close to her husband as she said: 'All they told me was that this Cyprjan was rich, and of a proper age. That's all I knew. And I began to speculate on what must be wrong with him for him to come so far-all the way to Dukla, when he could have any girl he wanted in Krakow or Warsaw. And all they would tell me was "If he's from Gorka, he can't be too bad." And I wondered for days about what too bad might cover.'

She drew back, studied her now-distinguished husband, and said: 'When I met him I saw what they meant. The Mniszech men were big and bold and hairy and very brave and they drank a lot and they showed their love for women by kissing their wives and pinching the wives of other men, and here comes this stick of wood ... Barbara, we were married six months before I saw him laugh, and I thought: Oh my G.o.d, what are they asking me to marry? And what were you thinking all that time, Master Cyprjan?'

He looked at this fiery woman whom he had not understood then, or now, and he confessed: 'I was filled with fear, Barbara. I had heard about the Mniszechs ... uncles to the Czar of Russia ... brawlers on the frontier ... difficult men at the king's court. And I tell you, I could not imagine what a Mniszech girl would be like. Halfway to Dukla, I wanted to turn around and run home.'

'Why were you going?' Barbara asked.

'Because my very wise father had said: "Son, we need stronger blood in this d.a.m.ned family." And look what we got!'

He pointed not to his wife, who was a magnificent woman, but to his daughter, who was a dream of unfolding beauty: long blond hair in braids, dark eyebrows, bright and knowing eyes, an excellent figure, dainty feet, and a kind of rhythm in all she did. At sixteen she was more than eligible to take charge of any Polish castle, except for one fault: she still had a modest opinion of herself and sometimes doubted her ability to move with the magnates or their families.

'I shall be terrified when he appears,' she told her parents.

'And so shall we,' Zofia confessed. 'It's as important for us, Barbara, as it is for you.'

In the last two days before the arrival of the barges that would bring the Ossolinskis across the Vistula, Cyprjan summoned everyone from three of his surrounding villages to the castle to tidy up the grounds and sweep the entranceways, trim the trees and clean the stables. He warned Lukasz of Bukowo that the chancellor might want to see the bear and the otter, at which Lukasz said with his normal cunning: 'In that case I'd better take my villagers back home to straighten up,' and off he went with everyone from Bukowo to work on his menagerie, everyone, that is, except Jan of the Beech Trees, who was kept behind to work on the grounds. When all was polished and the last pruned branches cleared away, Jan went to Cyprjan and said: 'My wife and I thank you for the haslet.' He dropped to one knee and kissed Cyprjan's hand, at which the magnate bade him rise. 'You're an excellent workman, Jan, and I wanted to show my appreciation. Tomorrow, will you brush your clothing and stand here to tend the horses I shall be lending the chancellor?'

'I would be proud to do that,' Jan said, and when the barges arrived he was one of forty servants standing by to welcome the visitors.

Young Barbara was not visible when the Ossolinskis, father and son, entered the castle, for she was in an upper room being dressed by an elderly retainer of the Mniszechs who had come north from Dukla, and this old woman was not awed by the visitors, not at all: 'Remember when you go down that you're not from Gorka. You're a Mniszech and the blood of great ones flows in your veins. Your great-aunt was Czarina of Russia ... twice. Your uncle was hetman. And you ...' She threw her hands to her face, then dabbed at her eyes to stop the tears. 'Dear G.o.d, was there ever a maiden more lovely than you?'

And Barbara Mniszech of Gorka was exquisite as she prepared to meet the young man who might prove to be her future husband. She was just a little taller than the average girl her age but much more attractive. She had a grace of movement that was winsome and a hesitant smile which captivated. The old woman had dressed her in a long filmy gown that gathered beneath the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, put three small flowers in her hair, and tied a delicate gold ribbon about her left wrist. She looked severely unadorned, which the old woman intended as a means of emphasizing her beauty, but Barbara was of no help, for her face was ashen pale with fright.

Twice the old woman pinched her cheeks, to no avail, then slapped her sharply. 'Barbara! You must not dream! You are the fairest child in Poland, and if Ossolinski doesn't want you, the King of France himself will come riding here one day and shout: "Where is this Barbara Mniszech they told me about?" '

But when the girl was ready to descend, with her mother and father waiting at the foot of the stairs to present her to the chancellor and his son, the old woman did not like the three flowers in her hair, and with a rude hand she swept them away: 'That's for peasant girls. You're a queen.' And from a small chest in an inner room belonging to Zofia, she obtained something that would exactly suit this girl, and her complexion, and her coloring.

It was a golden chain from which were suspended six amber beads of significant size, not perfectly matched but each complementing the other like six individual flowers in a garden, similar but magnificently individual. When the old woman locked the chain behind Barbara's neck and bounced the six pieces of amber up and down so that they fell naturally about her throat, lending a sunlight quality to her appearance, she cried with pleasure: 'Barbara, they were made for you! Go forth, Queen of the Sunrise, and may the world greet you with kisses!'

Wearing the amber necklace, the girl left the dressing room and stepped easily to the head of the stairs, and when she looked down she saw with relief that Roman Ossolinski did not have two heads and three ears, and he, looking up, gasped. But it was her mother, Zofia, who was most affected. My G.o.d, she said to herself, those beads never looked that good on me! And the chancellor thought: That girl would grace any castle in Poland-and before Barbara had reached the foot of the stairs he had dispatched one of his servants to fetch the diagrams he had brought with him across the river.

As the two powerful magnates stepped forward to greet Barbara, they formed an image of Poland, for their exact likenesses could not have been found in any other country. They were both tall and robust, with heavy bodies enclosed in fine cloth from Turkey or France or Russia, marked especially by long, sweeping coats encrusted with the richest embroidery. They wore boots into the tops of which were tucked white linen trousers, swords which they handled with much ritual and gracefulness, and the invariable mark of their caste: a very long, extremely wide sash which they doubled and wore about their capacious bellies. This sash, a mark of rank, was excessively ornamented, Cyprjan's having been woven in three bold colors, red, green, gold, and studded with silver bolts which made it and him glisten.

But the memorable aspect of the two men came from the extraordinary appearance of their hair: Ossolinski had a copious beard which engulfed his broad face; Cyprjan, no beard but enormous, flowing mustaches which gave him both a n.o.ble and a sinister look. Each man had directed his barber to dress his hair in the fas.h.i.+on then popular with the Polish magnates: from cheekbone to almost the top of the head, everything was clean-shaven-temples, sides of the head, most of the crown-except that straight through the middle, from forehead over the top and down to the nape in back, a stretch of thick hair about an inch and a half wide was left.

Once when Barbara was a little girl she saw in a picture book from Germany a drawing of an American Indian whose hair had been cut this way-completely bald except for that running ridge-and she had cried: 'Look! They have Papa in the book!' and when her elders came to see, they also exclaimed at the similarity. This strange hair style, coupled with the huge beard of Ossolinski or the wild mustaches of Cyprjan, imparted a sense of exciting barbarism to any a.s.sembly of magnates. They were not Frenchmen, nor Spaniards, nor Austrians. They were Poles and proud of it.

At dinner three pleasant things happened. Ossolinski recognized Lukasz's name when introductions were made, and cried with some excitement: 'Can I see your otter and your bear?' and Cyprjan was pleased when Lukasz said with a gracefulness not expected: 'Sire, they told me when I left that they await your coming!' And the chancellor cried: 'Tomorrow at nine! Have them groomed!'

At the seating, Ossolinski halted proceedings to stand and admire the service which Zofia had acquired some years earlier from Paris. It stood on a pedestal in the center of the table, about twice the size of a large melon, and it was constructed of white silver and a very light gold, an intricate sculpture representing the arrival of a Chinese emperor at a pavilion in the middle of a lake. Springs tightly wound in advance moved swans over the golden water and caused drooping willows to drift in the wind, and all was of such an appropriate delicacy that diners had to be captivated by it.

'I have never seen a better service,' Ossolinski averred, and then turned to his son and asked: 'Have you, Roman?' but the young man was paying attention only to Barbara, whose cheeks now showed a color livelier than that of the amber beads.

Zofia interrupted to announce: 'You must choose, roast of pork done in the French style, or roll of pork done Polish style with roasted kasha.'

'I will take some of each,' Ossolinski said, and at the conclusion of the copious meal, which ended with Hungarian wine and German-style cookies, the chancellor said: 'Now may we leave the wonderful service in the center of the table and clear away the rest, because I want to ask Panna Barbara some questions.' The girl blushed, not because she was afraid of questioning, for after the good Hungarian wine she was afraid of nothing, but because this was the first time in her life she had been addressed as Panna and it marked a growing up.

When the table was cleared, the chancellor looked directly at Barbara and asked: 'Are you interested in building things? In sending life forward?'

'I expect to have children,' she said with no embarra.s.sment.

'All women have children,' he replied with no embarra.s.sment. 'But I mean additional construction? The heavy work of life?' And with that he unfurled two rolls of paper on which architects had done much planning, and to his startled audience he disclosed the wild plans which preoccupied him: 'I am going to build nothing less than the grandest castle in Europe. See! It will have one glorious tower representing the unity of G.o.d. It will have these four huge towers, each one-you will forgive me for saying, Cyprjan-larger than your castle here. They represent the four seasons of the year.

'We have inside seven major edifices-living area, guests, warehouses-representing the days of the week. We have twelve corridors for the months of the year and fifty-two separate rooms for the weeks. If you cared to count, you'd find three hundred and sixty-five windows plus this little one here for Leap Year.

'See the mighty bulwarks we plan around the entire, the moat, and the two drawbridges. These steps going down, down, down lead to the subterranean well, which a.s.sures us of water during the sieges we can expect, and the interior is large enough to hold three normal villages, with s.p.a.ce for the occupants of ten villages plus a good-sized town.

'That is what I propose to build, starting next month, Panna Barbara, and would you like to engage yourself in such a task?'

Pointing at the plans, she said in a low voice, as if apologizing for what she considered her brazenness: 'But, Sire, you have no church or chapel inside the walls?' He burst into laughter, shouting: 'Cyprjan, by G.o.d, your filly's an architect!' And he pointed to a large structure which he had overlooked in his catalogue: 'A church bigger than any in this region until you reach Krakow.'

He then disclosed the second drawing, snowing how the great castle would fit into its countryside, and this had been done as if the castle already existed, so that she could see how the four towers and one spire and the moat and the trees fitted together, and it was a staggering concept, for the artist had sketched beside the walls four men and two cows, and they seemed like specks against that ma.s.sive structure.

'Can you build it?' Cyprjan asked, and Ossolinski almost shouted: 'It's my life's work,' and Barbara asked: 'What's it to be called?' and Ossolinski replied: 'Krzyztopor, the Battle Axe of the Cross.'

That sounds ominous,' Barbara said, and he boasted: 'We build it to confuse the pagans. It stands there as Christ's axe against all infidels, outside and in.' In the silence that followed, for in these years no man knew when the infidels would strike again, the chancellor looked at Barbara and asked quietly: 'Would you be interested in helping me to build this great castle?' and she replied: 'I would.'

When Castle Gorka went to sleep that night it was understood that Barbara Mniszech had agreed to marry Roman Ossolinski, even though neither had spoken a serious word to the other. Early next morning everyone was awakened by the chancellor's merry shout: 'We go to see the tame otter!' and immediately after breakfast they all went over to Bukowo, where Zofia called out as they neared the little castle: 'Lukasz, dress your bear, for we are here.'

When the gate opened, the Ossolinskis were amazed by the bear that trundled over to greet them, but they were astonished to find the otter and the fox playing with the big dogs, biting at their heels, then scampering away when the dogs pretended to snap at them.

They stayed with the animals so long that Lukasz invited them all to stay for lunch. His wife, Da.n.u.sia, had begun to make meat pierogi from the forequarters of the hogs that Cyprjan had given her, and everyone crowded into the kitchen to watch the final preparation of this admirable dish.

'We find ourselves with meat only rarely,' Da.n.u.sia confessed, 'so when we get some I chop it fine.' She showed them how with great deftness she sliced the cooked pork, mixing it with spices and shreds of cabbage.

She liked, she explained, to make four different kinds of pierogi at once, 'so as to conserve what meat we have,' and she displayed the three other fillings: stewed cabbage, roasted kasha with plenty of onion, and the favorite of everyone, extremely acid sauerkraut with mushrooms.

When the four fillings were lined up, she rolled out her dough while Zofia helped, for the Mniszech woman loved such impromptu experiments in the kitchen; it was she who put the salted water on to boil and looked for the two cutters that were so important in the making of this delicacy. She could not find them, and the clutter she made irritated Da.n.u.sia, who shouted: 'Everybody out of here! I'm busy!' But no one left, for Chancellor Ossolinski said: 'I want my son to see how this is done.'

With the dough flat upon the board and not too thick, Da.n.u.sia produced from a hidden corner what might be called the jewels of her kitchen, the two pierogi cutters. One was a small circle about four fingers in diameter, and with this she cut out rounds of thin dough, one after another, and as soon as they stood clear upon the board, Zofia and Barbara spooned little mounds of filling in the middle of each round, and then Da.n.u.sia applied her second instrument, a semicircle of iron whose edge had been curiously cut. It had a heavy wooden handle, and as soon as one of the rounds of dough was properly filled, she deftly folded it in half, pressing the half-moon edges together and crimping them with the tool, so that they formed beautiful puffed-up semicircles of delicious food.

Now the miracle happened. The pierogi at this point were a brownish color of no great appeal, but once they were thrown into the boiling water, the dough was transformed into a lovely translucent covering that revealed the contents inside. 'Better yet!' Lukasz cried as he heated fat in a skillet. 'When some of them are fried, they're doubly delicious.'