by Pawel Huelle
Duke Świętopełk’s sentence was cruel, but just. Every other man in the village went to the gallows. And a certain Depka – the pirate chief – was first tarred, then tied to the mast of his ship, where this grim figure was piled with brushwood. Right before the eyes of all those who lived on the shoreline (including the ones dangling on ropes by now) the burning ship cruised the water for a long time, propelled by an invisible current. And ever since, Mr Depka ended his story, anyone who meets the burning ship is doomed to die. Whether he’s ours, a German, a Swede or a Russki.
There were two days to go before Christmas. As I stood at the railway halt in total darkness by now, all alone, hearing the roar of the sea on both sides of the narrow, sandy spit, it occurred to me that this story had in fact been recorded by the chroniclers: it must have happened to the legate between 1243 and 1254, because those were the years of Innocent IV’s reign at the Holy See, and he was the pope who sent Sedenza to Eric IV, king of Denmark.
In the empty compartment it smelled of fish: in my bag lay some herrings, three fair-sized cod, and also a turbot – which we had never eaten before, not even on Christmas Eve. Whether Alojz Depka was a descendant of the pirate whom Duke Świętopełk’s sentence made into a living torch, I never did find out. I remember that as the train rolled slowly along the very seashore, getting close to Puck, that year’s first, thick flakes of snow appeared outside the window. The turbot was fabulous, and outstripped the cod by miles.
Öland
For my friends
"I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near."
Numbers, 24:17
I
THE SEA HERE is always severe. Even on sultry summer days, when the rocks are as hot as a tile stove, the bright blue surface is eternally coated in the same, forbidding chill. Bjorn was thinking about it as he drove his sheep out of the croft. There weren’t many of them – two young ewes and one old one. A year ago he had had more, but after a hailstorm, when lightning bolts had struck the plateau in quick succession, only three of them were left. Does fear destroy an animal’s sense of direction? That he did not know, but the image of the disaster endured in his memory down to the last detail: the ram – the bellwether – had run straight for the precipice and disappeared, with almost the entire flock after him. Then the stupid, black-horned ram had lain at the foot of the cliff, under a pile of other dead animals, with the waves licking at them. Bjorn had had to report it, and the entire way across the plateau he had trembled with fear. The steward was a bad man, whose lips cast nothing but curses from under his thick, flaxen moustache. So it was this time, too – when he finally grasped what had happened, he flew into a dreadful rage, seized Bjorn by the scruff of the neck, pinned him to the ground and hissed: ‘For such a big loss you will stand before the master – the master will have you hanged!’ But the squire from Ventlinge – whom Bjorn had never seen before – proved merciful. He heard out the steward, stood up from his chair, pointed to the crucifix and said: ‘He tells us to forgive’; then after a pause for thought, addressing the culprit he added: ‘For each ewe you will work out a year, and for each ram two. Then you will leave my land for ever.'
That evening, when Jansen came to the bottom of the cliff with a helper to dress the carcasses on the spot, all three of them had laughed about it. No peasant or even a tenant farmer here had a lifelong right like that: there had been twenty-five sheep and four rams, including the bellwether. Bjorn listened avidly to their stories about the master from Ventlinge. Since returning from the war on the other side of the sea, he spent long evenings alone by the fireplace, reading the Bible aloud. Sometimes he could also be heard through the closed door, calling for his comrades who were killed in battle – those from Dalarna, those from Uppaland and those from Scania. Surrounded by the enemy cavalry, they had fought like lions, but as well as their sabres the Poles had the force of Catholic incantations behind them, and it was those that caused the field by the river to be strewn in hundreds of Swedish corpses that day. Maybe that was why the master from Ventlinge, since returning to Öland from the war, never took part in the royal hunts, had hung his rapier on the wall and read the Bible aloud? At around midnight they finished the work; Jansen loaded a cart with all that could be saved, which belonged to the estate, and the rest they laid on a pile of brushwood. A great, sizzling flame lit up the cliff, and the odour of burning tallow and innards trailed along the stony beach until morning.
However, some odds and ends had been left over from that feast of the gods, and now as he gazed at the pasture, the sheep and the clouds, Bjorn could smell the long forgotten aroma of roasted meat, and with it he felt a gnawing pain in his stomach. He reached into his sack for a piece of dried fish. As he chewed it, he walked up to the precipice. The daily view of the open space where water and air merged together somewhere very far away had never consoled Bjorn, for although the hues and shapes of the clouds often changed here, as did the colour of the sea, the empty void was always the same, unencompassed, like the wind roaring in the grasses on the plateau and the waves splashing against the boulders. Only occasionally, when the visibility was good, could his eyes spy out in the distance the small outline of a ship heading for Kalmar, or south to Karlskrona, but Bjorn had no telescope and was spared the joy of identifying the flags or the sight of the full sails.
But since last year the edge of the precipice had changed out of all recognition. Where the plateau ended, as if cut off by a knife, and the cliff fell away at an almost vertical stroke, a low stone wall had arisen on the orders of the steward, the fruit of several months’ work, and now almost finished. Bjorn leaned his hands on the stones and gazed at the sea. From the southern side, on the dark-blue line of the horizon a small dot had appeared. It was too far away to tell what kind of ship it was, and anyway, what did it matter? The island was bypassed by merchants and mariners. Bjorn turned away from the stone wall and made himself comfortable upon the grass. The sun was already quite high, seagulls, larks and siskins were calling to each other shrilly, the last patches of snow had disappeared from the plateau a couple of weeks ago, and the smell of thawed earth was finally heralding some long, warm days. Bjorn thought about the master from Ventlinge: how noble he must have looked on his charger, rapier in hand, beneath the fluttering banner of the royal ensign, as he gave the order to attack. But what could be the meaning of the incantations Jansen had mentioned? Were the Catholics in a pact with the devil? And if so, why had God given them the victory? Under his drooping eyelids Bjorn could see a nameless river, with the corpses of the masters from Dalarna, the masters from Uppaland, and the masters from Scania floating along it. Their proud emblems, estates, jewels and titles – what were they now, as they lay dead in a foreign land? For a while longer Bjorn’s thoughts revolved around the tumult of battle, until at last, to the tune of the sea’s monotonous roar they lost focus, imperceptibly crossing the border into a dream.
It started with the light, quiet strokes of long oars. The boat was long too, and both ferrymen, dressed rather gaudily, rhythmically leaned forward from the prow and the stern over the calm water, in which the façades of churches, the arcs of bridges and the gates of palaces slowly shifted in mirror image. The passengers – a man of about thirty-five and a small boy – were not talking to each other. Only when the boat had sailed away from the city and its cupolas were glowing honey-gold in the distance did the man place a hand on the boy’s arm and repeat the word: ‘Serenissima!’ The boy began to cry. The boat came alongside a galleon at anchor in the bay. The boatswain’s whistle sounded, and the sails were set. The ship moved off majestically, and the city disappeared in the dawn of the rising sun as suddenly as if it had never existed.
Bjorn awoke with a vague sense of happiness and sorrow all at once. The city was beautiful and the waters in the bay were warm, but the journey – or rather that departure – carried the burden of irreversible events. Bjorn knew that dreaming was dangerous, because dreams offer impossible things, and s
o after waking it is best to set to work at once. So he did, heading for a small pyramid, where the stones he had gathered from the pasture were heaped on top of each other. He carefully chose a large, angular rock and picked it up in both hands; once he had positioned the point of gravity on his right shoulder, like an athlete he slowly carried the stone towards the precipice. The wall was almost finished now, and Bjorn reckoned with satisfaction that in two, or at most three days he would make his way to the steward to report it to him. He was sure to hear a stream of abuse, but what did it matter, if they entrusted a flock to him again? For the past year he had too often gone hungry, and for the sight of the shed with sheep’s-milk cheeses ripening on long shelves inside it, for that nourishing hope, he was ready to put up with far worse things.
As he pondered it all, he fitted the angular rock into the exact spot where the wall seemed weakest, and then with a sense of satisfaction he looked up at the sea, only to let his jaw drop in amazement at almost the very same instant. The small dot which had been visible on the horizon three-quarters of an hour ago had not moved towards Kalmar as usual, but had most evidently deviated from the common route and was approaching the island. A middle-sized three-mast ship in full sail was growing before his eyes. Now Bjorn could clearly see the crow’s nest with the tiny figure of a sailor; the bowsprit, with yet another observation basket hanging underneath it; and several guns with covers over their muzzles. Two stone’s throws away from the rocky shore the ship made an abrupt turn, furled its sails and stood at anchor parallel to the cliff, which allowed Bjorn, crouching behind his wall, to make out its name. On these waters the name ‘Doña Juanita’ sounded rather unusual, but swallowing his saliva, Bjorn did not stop to wonder about it. His gaze and attention were entirely riveted by the rapid activities amidships. A windlass creaked and the sailors lowered a sloop, in which he saw two rowers and a man dressed in a trailing black coat. There could be no doubt he was the one giving the orders here. In one hand he was holding a hat adorned with feathers, while with the other, as soon as the sloop was bobbing on the water, he made urgent gestures. Their meaning was obvious: cast off the rope, take up the oars, and follow the shortest course to the shore. This hurry seemed strange on a bright, sunny day, when neither wind nor waves could threaten a safe landing. There was a strange silence on board the ship. The sailors at the yardarms and the anchor lines were evidently waiting for the sloop to come back, but this readiness, as if enforced by iron discipline, was being conducted in stillness and total silence. No one called out to anyone else, nor did anyone abandon his post for a moment. But strangest of all was what happened a little later on the shore: the two sailors put down their oars, pushed the sloop onto a gravel bank, disembarked their master, handed him a large sack-like saddlebag, then fetched a chest with iron fittings out of the sloop and set it down in the middle of the beach.
Bjorn froze. He realised the meaning of the fact that there was no flag flying from the ship’s mast. Once, long ago, in a castle dungeon, he had heard some blood-chilling stories about robbers on the high seas. Of all the evildoers in this world they were the cruellest, showing no mercy even to their shipmates. If the ship really did belong to pirates, there could only be one explanation for their visit: there was treasure in the chest, which these people – no doubt being pursued by the royal navy – wanted to hide quickly. Bjorn’s conjecture was confirmed by the man in the hat: now he was walking along the beach, raking up sea kale on the tip of his cane, pausing now and then and looking all around, as if searching for a suitable spot for a hiding place. At the point where the cliff ended, dropping abruptly towards a plain, and the beach bordered on a pine forest, the man stopped beneath a sturdy tree and shouted something to the sailors. They grabbed hold of the chest. It must have been very heavy, because as they carried it they halted several times. Bjorn had to lean over the wall to see exactly what was happening under the tree: the sailors took a pickaxe and shovels out of the chest, closed the lid and set about digging a hole. Damp and stony, the ground did not give way easily, but the work proceeded remarkably quickly. Bjorn was also surprised by the ingenuity with which the chest was finally hidden. The lid was not covered with stones, but camouflaged with turf and some small juniper bushes planted on the spot. Like this it would be easy to get inside the chest without extracting it from the hole.
Eventually the man in the hat went back to the sloop, and the two sailors, wielding the pickaxe and the shovels, followed a few paces behind him, but none of the things that crossed Bjorn’s mind actually occurred on the stony beach at the foot of the cliff. Neither of the pirates fetched his chief a blow on the back of the head, split his skull or stuck a knife in his back, nor did the leader produce pistols from under the tails of his coat, suddenly turn around to face the sailors and fire at them point blank, mowing them down. But instead, on the stony beach at the foot of the cliff something happened that Bjorn could not understand at all. The sailors pushed out the sloop and started rowing towards the ship, on which the sails were already set, while the man in the black coat remained on the shore, taking no notice of the departing vessel, but inspecting something in his saddlebag. Once the ‘Doña Juanita’ had gathered wind, the newcomer threw his bag on his shoulder, drew a fantastic flourish in the air with his cane, glanced up at the rocks and, after finding a narrow gulley in the cliff with a path leading upwards, briskly set off ahead of him. As the path came out on the plateau in the exact spot several dozen paces from the precipice where Bjorn’s stone cottage stood, and in two or at most three minutes the stranger was bound to see it, Bjorn stepped back from the wall, ran across the pasture and hid behind the corner of the empty sheepfold, from where he could watch the newcomer without hindrance.
And the man was behaving very oddly. As soon as he was on the plateau, although he had undoubtedly caught sight of Bjorn’s cottage, he ignored this discovery, and instead of looking around the yard or calling for the farmer, he took a telescope from his bag and for some time watched the sea, following the departing sailing ship. Then he aimed the telescope inland, but what he could be looking for on the island remained an unfathomable mystery to Bjorn – all around stretched a bare plain, and even an eye equipped with a spyglass could not have seen the pinnacles of the church in Ventlinge from here, the smoke from the village or the large oak trees surrounding the squire’s estate. Finally the man folded the telescope, checked the position of the sun and only then, after a few dozen paces, did he investigate Bjorn’s yard. He peeped into the pigsty, went into the forge that hadn’t been active for years, and then finally without hesitating stepped inside the cottage, from where he quickly emerged, finding no one in. He briefly glanced towards the sheepfold, at which point Bjorn began to tremble, feeling as if the stranger’s gaze was capable of penetrating walls. Fortunately the man turned his eyes back in the direction of the plain, and eventually he headed that way, disappearing among the grasses, stones and juniper bushes of Alvaret plain. Bjorn busily noted a few more details in his memory: the newcomer was wearing tall boots, just like the royal reiters; under his coat and doublet he had a white shirt finished in lace; he wore no wig, but his long, raven-black hair was tied in a pigtail by a shiny silver hairpin, and he must have used expensive scent too, because a strong, musky odour lingered for a good few moments wherever he had paused.
Two days later, as Bjorn was coming down from the plateau towards the Ventlinge farm buildings, his mind and soul were full of anxiety. Had he done the right thing by lifting the turf and peeping inside the mysterious chest? What could the fact that it was empty mean? Had he concealed the lid well enough again? Who was the weird stranger, who had strode across the plateau with his saddlebag, telescope and cane, as if taking a stroll about the royal gardens? Why hadn’t he appeared again since then? Yet worst of all was the doubt – should he report it to the steward? The king’s and the squires’ law was clear on this point: no outsider could appear on the island without their knowledge. Anyone who saw a newcomer or a castaway was
duty-bound to report it immediately to the steward or the pastor. And now as he descended towards the Ventlinge crofts, Bjorn suddenly imagined all the immense commotion. On hearing the news, the steward would instantly run to the squire’s rooms. The master would send a messenger to the hunting estate at Ottenby, from where the royal reiters would come at a gallop with a force of thirty people. They would have what was needed: dogs, torches, muskets, rapiers and long pikes. No clump of grass, copse, cave or rock, no shepherd’s shack on the plateau or abandoned hut would then be a safe, secure shelter. How would it look? The stranger, running between two riders with his hands tied behind his back and a noose around his neck, would finally reach the spot where the chest was hidden. But what then? Here Bjorn’s imagination let him down, for what could be expected from an empty chest buried between two pine trees? The king’s men would fly into a rage and thrash the prisoner – let him admit the truth and confess his crimes. But could an empty chest be a crime? In the end they’d be sure to hang the man on one of the pine trees. Bjorn had once seen this sort of execution, which the reiters called ‘gee up, pony’. Made to stand on the saddle, the condemned man had been hopping on tiptoes like a dancer, struggling to keep his balance, while the laughing soldiers swigged hooch. Then as if by the way, the officer had made the nag jump, and that was the end of the poor wretch: he was left dangling from the pine tree like a heap of old rags.
So once he was finally standing before the steward, reporting most obediently that the wall above the precipice was finished, and that in this connection, after a year’s break he, shepherd Bjorn, was ready to take on a flock again, with the gracious consent of the steward and with the blessing of His Lordship the squire, and when he heard the bubbling stream of invective that poured over him like pigswill, he decided not to let out a single squeak about the newcomer. Then everything happened according to the old rules. As he made a record in the register, the steward ordered Jansen, the chief herdsman, to count out thirty-three sheep for Bjorn; once that had been done, Jansen gave him a dog too.
