Song of the Legions

by Michael Large

  I clung to the wheel of the caisson, and tried to stand, but my leg would have none of it. Thus I was obliged to watch the rest of the fight sitting on my backside. Godebski was grappling with the boy, and they rolled in the dirt, snarling like dogs. First one, then the other, took the upper hand. They fought furiously, raining blows on each other, biting and kicking, strangling, and gouging.

  Behind them, the top of the roof lifted off one last time, as if the house were a man, doffing his cap. Then the great oak beams collapsed back in upon themselves in an agony of anguished groans and cries. At last the fire must have reached the library, for the books began to burn.

  As I sat there, lightheaded, blood flowing from my leg, my mind drifted back to the Library in the Blue Palace, in Warsaw. I spent many happy hours there, for I am an avid reader. This library in that lovely manor house was not as grand as Warsaw’s great library, but it contained many hundreds of books. It must have been a lovely little library, once. Now, as it burned, the books were taking flight, like the souls of the departed. With a great rustle of leaves, they burned, and fluttered, borne aloft on the scalding hot air. Ash and burning fragments rained down on me, blinding my sight.

  When it was all over, the last man standing, sword in hand, came stalking towards me, silhouetted against the flames. I struggled in vain to hoist myself to my feet. The spectre emerged from the smoke.

  It was Cyprian Godebski.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CALVARY, EASTER 1795

  It was a Biblical Easter day. The room overlooked Herod’s Palace. It belonged to a sweet and devout lady, Magdalena. In my hand, I held a letter from Judas.

  “I can overlook what has gone before, but this is my final word. Here is an officer’s commission in my regiment. Swear your sword to the Tsars, as your forefathers did. Serve with honour.

  Felix Potocki”

  Honour indeed! I scoffed. Kalwaria (or Calvary) Zebrydowski lies south of Krakow, between the Vistula and the Tatras mountains. It is a strange, melancholy place of pilgrimage, laid out as a replica of the Holy City of Jerusalem, built over a century before I was born. There are forty chapels, of which Herod’s Palace was but one, set on the surrounding hills.

  I had risen very early, and with great care, so as not to disturb my fellow sleeper. The girl was sleeping like an angel. Her golden hair curled in a halo around her head and threads of it spilled over her pillow. One tiny foot protruded from under the blanket. She slept so soundly that it seemed a great shame to tip a bucket of freezing water over her head, but I did it anyway. For it was Easter Monday, and that was the custom, and ever shall be.

  “Smigus dyngus[4]!” I called out.

  I laughed heartily as I lit the fire with Felix’s letter, barely listening to the wailing and shrieking from Magda as she flew about the room in a rage, crying “Damn you, Blumer!” all bared teeth and claws and wildcat hissing. I laughed on, like a wheezing donkey, for she was a fine sight with her yellow hair plastered to her head, water dripping from her nose and chin, and her eyes ablaze with rage.

  “Stop laughing. You’ll burst your stitches,” Magda sneered, as she pulled off her sopping nightgown, and fussed with her petticoats. At first I had observed her stealthily at this, in the mirror, but over the last few months I had grown bolder and watched her openly and with great affection.

  “Here,” she said, “tie me up at the back.”

  I did as I was bid and drew in her ribbons and stays. From Magda’s window one could see Herod’s Palace, one of the stations of the cross of Calvary. Early morning light lit the red tiled roof, and the low spires. The walls were white, with the round windows, the doors and the colonnades framed in gold. I had been given sanctuary and dwelt here in Calvary since November, as my wound healed. Christmas brought no cheer from the outside world. No French army rode to our rescue. Our leaders were in exile, in the gulag, or dead. All save for Dabrowski, of whom we had heard nothing, and upon whose broad shoulders we now placed all our slender hopes.

  “What’s for breakfast, woman?” I demanded, rubbing my empty grumbling belly, for I was famished. “What about the eggs in that basket?”

  “No! The eggs have not been blessed yet. We must go to Church first,” said Magda firmly, and that was that. Then, more tenderly, she asked, “Will you need your walking stick?”

  “I can manage well enough, thank you,” I retorted, reaching for my sword belt. Magda began to protest but thought better of it. For I was a wanted man and even in this holy sanctuary I had to go everywhere armed.

  “Did you read your letter?” she asked coldly. She picked up her basket of pisanki that we were off to Church to have blessed. She had steamed open the seal before I had read it, for she was an inquisitive creature.

  “I did.” I nodded to the grate, where the letter curled into ash, “and there’s his answer.”

  “Good!” Magda smiled, kissed me, slipped her arm through mine, and we set off.

  “It was a lot of money he was offering you, Ignatius,” she said covetously as we walked, for women will always want to have it both ways. She quite forgot that she was not supposed to have read the letter.

  “The wages of sin is death, my dear Magda,” I replied. “Not all the salt in Wieliczka could tempt me to the flag of that treacherous son of a bitch.”

  “Not even for a general’s hat?” she asked, wickedly.

  “Not even that,” I said, straightening my czapka. “Besides,” I said, annoyed, “the stingy bastard only offered me a lieutenancy!”

  Magda, God bless her dear sweet heart, was a lady, for she had hidden me, but she was also a woman, and the place where she hid me was in her bedchamber. She was a patriot, and she saw it as her duty to heal me, and care for me, and tender to my wants. Accordingly she performed her duties and offices ardently, passionately, and nightly. That she took great pleasure in her duty was a happy accident of fate. She told me her husband had died in the wars and I took her word for it, as she was a lady, she thus could not lie, as far I as was concerned.

  At the crest of the hill we met a knot of pilgrims by the roadside. Then there was a hush, as the procession approached. It was the passion play. We watched it performed as it had been these hundred years past. Leading the procession was a man dressed as The Christ, and carrying an immense cross of wood. Flanking him were men garbed as Roman soldiers, in red tunics and gold plumed helmets, with short swords, knouts, and lances.

  We watched in silence, spellbound, as the familiar mystery played out, from cock crow to hanging tree. Torments and pain – the scourge, the whips, the crown of thorns. Wounds in His hands, wounds in His feet, the centurion’s lance in His side. Mary weeps at the foot of the Cross. Then it is finished. The sky turns black. Mankind cries out in fear. We – Romans, soldiers, priests, the people of Judea – we all murdered Him. He died to wash away the sins of the world. We wept for a lost lord and a lost land.

  Poland was gone, submerged by a deluge, obliterated from the map. Yet, like a great rock beneath an angry ocean, it survived, indestructible. Storks still nested in cartwheels on roofs. Old babcias still swept the Church steps. We still sang our songs, though we sang them in whispers.

  Now the lead player struggled from the cross where he was merely tied, rather than nailed there with hammer blows. The other players took their bows, their armour counterfeit, their swords wooden, and all of us marched to Church, actors and spectators together.

  We took Communion in silence with the others in the old baroque Church, the cold air redolent with the rich scents of incense. A priest blessed the Easter Eggs. In my youth the eggs were painted in every colour of the rainbow – pinks, blues, greens, yellows and browns, but mostly reds and whites. That day every egg was painted red and white, and crowned with eagles. Before the altar there was a sea of blood and heaven. At last, when the prayers had ended, the priest sent us on our way.

  We took our last breakfast in Magda’s little wooden house, eating the eggs that the priest had blessed, to
gether with cold meats, bread, and salt, and little flat cakes covered with a paste of nuts and almonds, called mazurki, that she had baked. Magda saw that I walked without my stick and it was not lost on her that I had knelt at the altar rail unaided.

  “My leg is healed,” I said. We both knew what it meant.

  “But you still have a limp,” Magda said weakly, and began to cry, for it was no good, and at last she heard the thunder in the earth as the horsemen approached. Last night, while Magda had baked her cakes, I had gathered my few clothes and books, and cleaned my weapons. Outside, at the foot of the hill were two horsemen, and three horses.

  “Madame sent us,” Tanski explained.

  “Where is Godebski?” I asked him.

  “We meet him there,” Tanski replied, tipping his czapka to Magda.

  “Where is there?”

  Tanski shrugged.

  “How’s your leg?” Sierawski asked, scratching his nose.

  “There was a hole in it that big – big enough to put a tynf through!” I laughed, holding up a finger and thumb.

  “That boy looks like a beggar, not a soldier,” Magda snorted, pointing at Sierawski.

  “By God, so he does,” I said, for men scarcely take notice of such matters. My own appearance was good enough, for I had been well fed, and rested, and exercised. My uniform was old, but it was mended and cleaned.

  Tanski was turned out immaculately, as always. He was dressed according to regulations in every particular, down to the last button on his tunic, and even carrying a lance, from which a pristine swallow-tailed pennant proudly flew the red and white. It was as if he had ridden straight out of the parade ground of the Poniatowski Palace on The Third of May.

  Our friend Sierawski, by contrast, was in rags. If Tanski had ridden here from parade, the engineer had ridden here straight from his trench at Wola. He possessed no weapons save a sabre, which was scabbarded in the cut-off sleeve of a coat. This was secured to his waist by a cord, for he had not even the belt of his ragged pants to his name. His leather boots were worn down at heel, and caked with mud, the spurs lost. An ancient woollen cap, bleached by sun and snow, sat limply upon his head. This he had set at what he considered a rakish angle, and we hooted at him and derided his woeful appearance.

  In a short space of time Magda had turned Sierawski from scarecrow to officer. Her husband’s clothes had been too small for me, but they fitted Sierawski, for he was a little beanpole of a man, too. For a finish, Magda produced an ancient gun for him, wrapped in an oilskin – a fowling piece, for hunting birds.

  “That blunderbuss will do you good service if we make war on chickens!” I laughed. “Where the Devil have you two been, anyway?”

  “We’ll tell you on the way, Blumer,” Tanski said tersely, for he seemed even more brusque and angry than ever. At the time I thought nothing of it, for it was a dark time. We Poles were at war with the whole world – and, as it turned out, with each other.

  “Make haste. We were followed,” Tanski snapped.

  “Damn, I’d hoped for a few days’ start,” I cursed softly, so as not to startle the horse, for I was tightening the girth at the time. As ever, the crafty animal was blowing his guts out to stop me tightening it. A few moments ago I’d been tightening Magda’s corsets, and I grinned at the thought. “Rzewuski’s men?” I said, still grinning.

  “The very same, comrade. What’s so funny?”

  “No matter, comrade.”

  I kissed Magda goodbye. Then I put my foot cautiously in the stirrup and gripped the pommel of the saddle. My leg buckled and would not take my weight, so I hauled myself up with the brute force of my arms. “Good as new,” I lied, slapping my leg, and trying not to wince. Then I doffed my cap to Magda and bowed to her, full length, from the saddle. She clasped her hands around my neck and kissed me for the last time. “Fare thee well, sweet Magdalena,” I said.

  “Here,” she said, “It is all I have.” She pressed a small purse of money into my hand. As we rode away, I heard her sing a sad, bitter song –

  “War, sweet war,

  What a mistress you must be,

  For you are pursued,

  By so many beautiful boys!”

  Then we were gone. I never saw her again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE EAGLES’ NEST TRAIL

  We rode across the boundary stones into what was now called Austrian Galicia. This was the Hapsburgs’ slice of the cake. God knows how the pious Marie-Therese explained this brigandry to her confessor. The Austrians shared our religion, unlike the Prussians and Russians. Consequently, unlike them, they rarely molested our worship or violated our holy places.

  We rode north, for Krakow. Sierawski rode on my right, Tanski on my left. Sierawski’s eyes and cheeks were hollow from a long winter of hunger. Tanski’s jaw was set grimly, his eyes blank and shining with hatred. It was fortunate for Tanski that he was born and lived in days when we were at war with all the world. For his natural humour was such that nothing suited him better. Both rode in silence.

  “What happened to you two? You look as if you’ve been paroled from Hell, comrades!”

  Sierawski said nothing. Tanski spat into the grass. We rode on, through twisting forgotten paths and quiet woods to avoid the Austrian patrols. This was not especially difficult. Of all our enemies, the Austrians were the most negligent by far. Night was falling as we forded the Vistula and slipped around Krakow. It cost us all the money in Magda’s purse, which was all the money we had, to bribe the sentries. At first, Sierawski’s spirits grew at the sight of his beloved city. Even in the darkness we could see the dreaming spires, the twinkling lights of the houses, the dark hump of the Wawel Castle, like a sleeping dragon.

  An Austrian flag flew there above our slumbering kings. In the taverns, coarse folk laughed and drank, their noisome din carrying to us across the water. We rode on. Behind us the red sun sank into the Vistula and drowned there, like Queen Wanda, who killed herself rather than marry a German prince. A whole night passed in this way. Sierawski, who knew this country, led us on, on a road he called the Eagles’ Nest Trail. As Krakow dwindled behind us, so did Sierawski’s spirits.

  The Eagles’ Nest Trail runs from a valley at the south, like a bottleneck, all the way north to the great monastery at Czestochowa. Krakow forms the cork of this upturned bottle, and a verdant valley the neck. This bottleneck is the Pradnik valley, a land studded with outcrops of limestone, like opals adorning a woman’s green gown. For all its natural beauty, this is bandit country. Perched on rocky outcrops are the ruined castles that give this trail its name – Eagles’ Nest. Once these were the strongholds of lords and kings, but since the Swedish Wars they had long since been ruined and were now fallen into the hands of bandits.

  Vultures, not eagles, nested here.

  This land brought the Swedish Wars to mind, and our great general from those old days, Czarniecki, of whom I had read. Finding himself outmatched by invaders, his small army waged a war of ambush, of hit and run, in places such as these. In the morning we stopped to rest the horses. Sierawski took a long pull of vodka with his breakfast as the sun rose, for his city was vanished and invisible behind us.

  “Enough of that,” I snapped, “we have a long ride ahead.”

  Sierawski ignored me and continued to drink.

  “Tanski,” I said, my nerves now somewhat frayed, “we must water the horses. We have no remounts so we must take good care of them.”

  “Damn your eyes, Blumer, and water your own stinking nag,” Tanski said, dropping from his horse like a sack of hay thrown from a loft. There he sprawled in the grass and lay as if shot. His horse began to crop the wet grass, still wearing its saddle and tack. I hobbled my horse and undid the bridle of Tanski’s grey mare, cursing, for it had fouled the bit with a chewed cud of grass.

  “You lazy swine,” I chided him, “your beautiful horse could have choked.”

  At this, Tanski stood up. “I’ve had it with you ordering me about. You aren�
��t even a cavalry lieutenant, Warrant Officer Blumer! You water the horses! I’m in charge here!”

  “You couldn’t take charge of a shithouse! What has become of you, comrade?” I asked him, aghast.

  “I’ll tell you what has become of me,” he snarled, “I’ve watched my mother and father die, and my home burn. My uncle hid me in a grain cellar full of rats. Every day the Cossacks came, killing, raping and looting with impunity,” he shouted. “while you – you’ve been drinking and living it up with a strumpet! In a bloody convent!”