The Widow Queen

by Elzbieta Cherezinska

  He lifted his head slowly. First, he saw the high hobnailed boots. The chain mail that reached Mieszko’s knees, and the sword hanging at his side. The studded sheath for his knife. The gloved hand resting on his belt. A royal red cloak lined with white dormouse fur. His father’s dark beard, with a single white stripe, and a mustache stiff from the cold. Narrowed eyes. And a fighter’s undecorated helm on his head.

  “Son,” Mieszko said in a voice that gave no hint at his intentions for the evening.

  Twenty armed men stood behind him. Not twelve. Twenty.

  “Father,” Bolesław replied, struggling to keep his voice from breaking. “I’m here, as you commanded.”

  His father’s men walked onto the dock, placed the torches in their holders, then stood still. Bolesław realized he and his friends were surrounded. He looked into his father’s eyes.

  “Start the fire,” Mieszko ordered.

  Bolesław thought of the monk’s reading for Duchess Oda, how Abraham commanded Isaac to carry the logs to the top of Mount Moriah and build the sacrificial pyre with his own hands. He regretted the thought as Mieszko smiled sternly and said, “No, wait. Let my son and his companions do it.”

  Bolesław moved forward. He held his father’s gaze as he passed him, until the last moment. He didn’t turn around but he heard Bjornar, Jaksa, and Zarad’s footsteps behind him. They walked to the boat shed, where logs waited in a neatly arranged stack. He looked at the naked tree trunks of the sparse wood behind the shed. He could … no, he couldn’t. Escape was not an option. I am the firstborn son, a prince, and not a coward who runs into the night.

  As he bent to pick up the wood, Bolesław slipped a hand into his boot. The knife was exactly where he’d placed it. His father was stronger, but not faster. His mates indicated they’d seen him. Zarad touched his own boot with a finger as well.

  I’m not alone, Bolesław thought. At least for a moment more, I’m not alone.

  They arranged the logs for the fire, all four of them crouching down to start it. Bjornar took the flint from Bolesław’s shaking fingers so nimbly that Mieszko couldn’t have noticed. He started the fire, and flames climbed up the dry wood.

  “Son,” Mieszko called. “Come here.”

  Bolesław went, forcing his back straight so that his father wouldn’t notice how weak his knees were.

  “Tonight is the last of the long nights,” Mieszko said.

  “It’s Christmas tomorrow,” Bolesław replied, not knowing whether there would be a tomorrow.

  “Are you ready?” Mieszko asked.

  “For what?” Bolesław replied, more aggressively than he’d intended.

  His father laughed and took off his gloves.

  “To face the cold!” He raised his hands to the fastenings of his cloak and dropped it to the ground. “What are you waiting for? Undress, young prince!”

  The cold? Bolesław thought fervently, taking off his own gloves and cloak. Not fire?

  His father threw the rest of his clothes off with ease, as if undressing in front of the army on a freezing winter night was a perfectly ordinary thing to do. Bolesław pulled off his shoes with cold fingers. He caught Zarad’s eye. It was too late now. The hidden knife lay on the snow along with his boot. Bolesław slipped off his trousers, tossed them aside, then stood and stared straight ahead. In front of him, Mieszko was entirely naked. His thick hair fell to his shoulders. A golden cross gleamed on a chain around his neck, resting on his muscular chest, and he held an axe in one hand. The moon had sunk lower in the sky and now hung behind his father’s back like a silver shield. Mieszko’s skin steamed in the cold night air.

  “Come with me, son.” The duke touched Bolesław’s bare shoulder, and it was as if he’d been burned. His father stepped out onto the ice. “Where do the shallows end?”

  “There.” Bolesław pointed automatically, used to following orders. He heard his voice in his own head and thought he sounded hoarse. There was only one thought at the forefront of his mind: Father has an axe, and I have nothing.

  “Here,” Mieszko stopped at the point where the water should have reached a grown man’s shoulders, and handed the axe over. “Break the ice.”

  Does he want to drown me? Bolesław wondered, sinking the axe into the frozen lake. Why did he undress too? Why did he bring eyewitnesses? The entire squad is watching …

  “Be careful,” Mieszko said. “Listen as it breaks, so that it doesn’t pull us under.”

  At that moment, a dry creak reached their ears, and bubbles of water appeared in the crack on the ice’s surface.

  “Cut out a hole,” Mieszko commanded.

  Bolesław swung the axe once, twice. He threw away chunks of ice. The water shone, reflecting the moon’s silver shield.

  “Carefully!” his father said. “Don’t disturb the ice around the hole, or we won’t have a way back.”

  “Way back?” Bolesław raised his head and looked at Mieszko.

  “The duke and his firstborn,” Mieszko replied, laughing. “The dynasty’s future can’t lose its footing on unstable ice. Give me the axe, that’s enough.”

  Bolesław straightened and handed over the weapon.

  “You’re taller than me,” Mieszko said, eyeing him, and for a moment Bolesław thought he heard pride in his voice. “We’re going in!”

  Father placed the axe on the ice and jumped into the water. He disappeared beneath the surface for less than a breath, and snorted as he emerged, shouting:

  “What are you waiting for?!”

  Bolesław crouched down, leaned on the edge of the ice, and slipped into the water with his eyes closed. The cold stabbed through him, robbing him of breath. The water covered his head. Then he felt his father’s hands grasp him under the arms and pull him back to the surface. Bolesław broke through the water, catching his breath with difficulty.

  “Can you stand?” his father asked.

  “No!” He coughed, the icy water in his mouth and nose. “Can you?”

  “I’m not as tall as you!” Father splashed water into his face, as if this was nothing but a game. “We have to keep moving, otherwise we’ll freeze.” Mieszko’s eyes were bright as frost settled on his dark mustache.

  “It’s bloody cold, but let me tell you, when my father gave me my first squad, it was even colder.” Mieszko’s lips were blue. He leaned back his head and shouted into the night: “The trees were cracking open!”

  “Squad?” Bolesław sputtered, his teeth chattering.

  “Yes! It’s Koliada tomorrow. I have a present for you, and I wanted to see whether you were ready to receive it. Get out, that’s enough! And? Have you frozen yet?”

  “No,” Bolesław answered, pulling himself onto the ice. The surface creaked under his weight. “Shit, it’s breaking!”

  “No,” Mieszko replied, pulling himself up from the water as well. “It’s only…”

  Mieszko didn’t have a chance to finish. The section of ice he was climbing onto broke away and he was plunged back into the water. Bolesław grabbed the axe lying on the ice, and when his father emerged again, Mieszko was able to grasp the axe’s handle and stay above the surface as he gasped for air. In that moment, they looked in each other’s eyes, father and son, the edge of an axe between them, ready to dole out life or death. The silver-blue moonlight shone on on their blue lips.

  “I’m getting you out!” Bolesław said, and carefully, but with all his strength, pulled the axe. Soon Mieszko was kneeling on the ice beside him. Bolesław offered him a hand. His father stood up and reached for the axe with his other arm.

  “No, don’t let go,” he ordered Bolesław. “Grab onto the handle and pull up, on three.”

  They picked it up together, and the squad gathered on the bank responded with a cheerful shout, beating their weapons on their shields.

  “And now we walk.”

  They turned toward the bank and took a step, then another. They heard the ice creak under their feet.

  “Stand up straight. We
must walk confidently,” Mieszko said quietly, without turning his head, “as if the ice isn’t breaking underneath us. Remember, son, you can be a duke, or even a king, but if your soldiers don’t admire you, you will never be a leader. Every one of my father’s gods was a tyrant. Perun, Trzygłów, black Weles, bright Swaróg—every one of them. My men are baptized. They believe in Christ, like I do. But their Slavic souls want to worship strength, and if you want to lead them, that is what you must give them.”

  “Is that not blasphemy?” Bolesław choked, placing step after step on solid water.

  “No. It’s a ruler’s reality.”

  “Father, we might not have come out of that hole alive. Did we risk our lives to impress our people?”

  “Yes,” Mieszko replied. “And thanks to that they won’t hesitate to give their own for us.”

  2

  POLAND

  Świętosława was hiding behind the boat shed, watching as her father and brother’s men stood around a fire and the two of them bathed in an ice hole.

  Damn it! she swore silently. The squad hadn’t been marching out to meet a guest. East, west. The question of her marriage would remain unanswered for another night, it seemed. She had no intention of moving from her hiding spot, though. She had come out into the cold night to see something meant to be hidden from her, and she had no intention of missing that opportunity, even if the scene before her was not the one she had been expecting.

  The men were chanting now, “Duke Mieszko! Duke Mieszko!” Two silhouettes emerged from the frozen lake, the figures obscured by the wall of soldiers surrounding them.

  What were they doing here? Why had they undressed on such a cold night and jumped into the water? Was this some sort of royal ritual? Was it not a sin? Her heart beat quickly. She had already forgotten that moments before it had beat like this because she’d thought she’d learn who her husband would be.

  Her father and brother had stepped onto the bank confidently, the warriors chanting both their names. They formed a circle around the fire, and made such a racket banging on their shields that she was sure they were trying to wake up all the saints in heaven. Was it heaven? The thought crossed her mind, because what she was seeing did not look very holy. It was more like …

  “What are you doing here?” She heard a voice colder than the winter air behind her. Duchess Oda. “This is not meant for your eyes, Princess!”

  Świętosława turned around slowly.

  “It’s not meant for yours either, if we are both hiding in the bushes.”

  Świętosława saw three armed guards behind Oda. The duchess pursed her lips and snorted. “Will you step out from behind that boat shed yourself or should I have you escorted?”

  “You may command Juta or other servants, but you do not command me.” An angry flush colored Świętosława’s cheeks. Everything she had wanted to say since the duchess had arrived at the Piast court, almost three years earlier, finally spilled out. “You’re a marchioness, my lady. You have no royal blood in your veins. Father married you because he needed you, and when you stop being useful he’ll send you back to the abbey he took you from. My father had only one beloved wife, and that was my mother, Dobrawa. Do you know how many wives he had before her? Seven! And he sent them all away when Dobrawa came to Gniezno. He might have another seven after you, and he can send them away just like he did the first ones. Remember that, Oda von Haldensleben. The truth may not be pleasant, but it’s easier to live with it than without it.”

  By now, Świętosława was shouting, but Oda’s face remained as still as an ice sculpture.

  “You aren’t controlling yourself, Mieszko’s daughter,” she said, when Świętosława finally fell silent. She still avoids saying my name, Świętosława thought, wanting to feel smug despite being the one caught in the bushes. Her fat German tongue trips on it. “My S-vento-schwava,” she could hear her mother whispering, “you were born a half devil, so we had to give you a blessed name,” she would always say, smiling.

  Oda’s angry voice pulled her back to the present. “You don’t control the words you say. A sign that you aren’t ready for your father to send you out into the world.” She turned to the guards accompanying her and added carelessly: “Help the lady out of the bushes.”

  Then, not sparing Świętosława another glance, the duchess made her way to the fire burning on the dock.

  “Don’t touch me!” Świętosława snarled at the armed man reaching a hand toward her.

  He pulled back as if scalded, and she hissed at him again as she stepped out from behind the boat shed. A blush was now flooding the soldier’s cheeks.

  Good. Shame on you, she thought vengefully. You should be serving me, not her.

  A twig caught the hem of her dress and Świętosława briefly faltered. She pulled and heard the rip of wool. Oda was at the fire now. Her father’s men stepped aside for her and bowed.

  I cannot run like a child, Świętosława reminded herself, and only lengthened her step, pretending not to have noticed the tearing fabric.

  Mieszko and Bolesław were dressed. Only the curls of their wet hair suggested they had been in the freezing water minutes before. She caught her brother’s surprised gaze.

  “My wife and daughter,” Mieszko said. It wasn’t a greeting.

  “Forgive us, my lord.” Oda bowed slightly to him. “We should not be here…”

  “True,” Mieszko replied, his voice hard.

  “… but you left your daughter in my care, and your word is my command. I couldn’t leave her alone, and since she decided to take an evening stroll and slipped out of the palatium…”

  Świętosława cursed the duchess vehemently in her thoughts.

  “What are you doing here, Świętosława?” Mieszko asked, casting an eye over her dress.

  “I was spying on you,” she said loudly, meeting her father’s gaze directly.

  “And what did you see?”

  “Your men’s backs are so broad that I could only see them.” She raised a hand and, pointing at each man in turn, counted: “Czcibór, Bogowit, Siemir, Czabor, Świelub…” the ones whose names she called bowed their heads to her. “… Czedrog, Derwan, Dalebor…”

  Dalebor sent her a bright smile. Świętosława continued naming them in a single breath:

  “… Gardomir, Kalmir, Jaromił, Tasław, Miłosz, Warcisław, Lutom, Mścibor, Ostrowod, Radomir, Unimir…”

  She pointed then at the last one of the surrounding men, shook her head, and said with a hint of accusation in her voice:

  “This one I don’t know.”

  The one she’d picked out was very young to be part of Father’s squad. He looked askance at her.

  “That’s Wilkomir,” Mieszko said.

  “Oh, right,” she sighed, pretending to be surprised.

  Wilkomir looked at her wildly. A few of the warriors laughed, Mieszko among them. Świętosława felt more sure of herself. She stuck out three fingers, pointing to her left at the same time.

  “Bjornar, Jaksa, and Zarad are over there, too. And, of course, the two men of my life.” She bowed with a wide smile. “My father and brother…”

  “That’s enough, daughter. You saw everyone, but you’re mistaken when you say these are my men. From this night forth, they are your brother’s.”

  So that’s what this was about! she thought, but when she spoke she sounded as innocent as a child.

  “All of them? Father, have you given them all to Bolesław?”

  “It’s time for you to return to the house, child,” her father interrupted. “And for you, my lady.” He bowed to Oda. “Thank you for keeping an eye on our…” He stopped, searching for the best words. “… most treasured daughter. I expect you will both retire to rest now.”

  “As you wish, my prince,” Oda replied obediently, and grabbed Świętosława’s elbow.

  Once they were out of the men’s view, past the first line of trees which rose in the direction of the East Bridge, Oda let her go.

 
“As I’d thought. You still aren’t ready. But if you want to see what your father is capable of, come on the night of the hunt.”

  “Where to?” Świętosława asked.

  Oda didn’t reply, only shrugged lightly.

  * * *

  Bolesław wanted to be alone. He wanted to ride, or to run through the woods and yell, The world is mine! He felt as if he were being struck by lightning, electrified, energized, time and time again. Instead of burning on the sacrificial pyre, he had a squad of his own from his father. A squad! The old aurochs had picked out his heir and announced it to the herd. The memory of the freezing water, instead of being cold, burned and warmed him like the sweetest mead, which was poured from jugs into goblets, cups, and horns that were passed between the benches at the feast the following night.

  It was time for Koliada, for celebrating the birth of God’s Son, and he felt as if he himself were that son. As if he’d been reborn the previous night. Once again the firstborn, and the only one that mattered. Mieszko, in his eyes, was the war-god father, and the golden cross on his chest swung in Bolesław’s memories as it had that night, half paganly, blasphemously. But that didn’t matter. The memory of the freezing water was almost holy itself, so he hadn’t mentioned comparing his father to God in his confession.

  Everything tasted stronger, deeper, clearer, as if his previously dormant senses had been awakened. His heart beat faster day and night, his blood coursed more swiftly through his veins.

  On the second day of the winter celebrations, there was a hunt. The court gathered in the yard in front of the palatium, and the duke’s priest blessed them all before they left. Oda, with young Mieszko at her breast, now seemed to him as gentle and caring as a mother.

  “Take care of yourselves.” She made the sign of the cross over them. “Fruitful hunting!”

  The child in her arms no longer bothered Bolesław. He could even accept him, adorable and clumsy as he was, like a small, helpless pup.