Song of the Legions

by Michael Large

  He wouldn’t last a week, I thought to myself. Basia, his mother, was torn by pride, and fear, throughout the exchange.

  “Join the legions when you are of age, boy,” I told him gently, “we will return.”

  It seemed a hollow promise, one that, even if fulfilled, was likely to augur doom. The clouds broke and we rode off in pouring rain. Of course, a day later we found the boy following us. We gave him a hiding, and sent him back to Basia. Finally we journeyed on from the plains, with their farmers and woodsmen, into the deep dark hanging groves of the forest. On we rode through a wall of towering pines and firs, like the masts of an enormous fleet of ships. On we rode over logs, roots and stumps, and pine cones scattered like empty cartridge cases after a battle. As if passing from this world into another, we rode into a realm of green.

  This was a place of spirits and shadows, a realm of wood, trees yawning like great longbows being slowly drawn. At their feet, a thousand arrows of light were scattered about the forest floor. Our horses walked on a carpet of rotting brown leaves and pine needles, soft as sable cloaks, muffling their hoof beats to a whisper.

  Above us the sky narrowed to a long trench of grey and blue, as it is glimpsed by a man peering through a prison window. Even in the heavens, there was warfare. On high, ranks of crows and ravens cawed, sounding their battle cry, until driven off by eagles and kites, which fell upon them like cavalry. These trees were as old as God, and they brooded on the secrets of ages. They closed ranks about us, and we rode in single file, meandering through lost tracks and forgotten trails, following streams and river beds frozen with snow.

  At last, we began to relax our guard, for we were no longer being pursued. None but the wolves followed us here, in this ancient wilderness. A companionable silence fell among us as we listened to the songs of the forest. Sweet scents of pine filled our noses, our lungs, our daydreams. Yet the forest was not free of perils. Here were wild and dangerous beasts – the dread bison, the ferocious brown bears, and the wild boars, with their great tusks like ivory lances. Creeping in the thick carpet of sweet pine needles were rats, snakes, and wolverine. In the night, we fancied that we saw the gleam of yellow eyes beyond the circle of our campfire. But it may simply have been the fireflies, or the spirits. All of us had heard tell of the other things that haunted the forest – fell creatures of the night. Werewolves. Vampires. Rusalka. Witches.

  After a few months Wigilia was but a memory. We saw not a living soul in that time beyond our own small party of partisans. Each day, two of us would gather food, while the others rested and tended to the horses. One strange day, Tanski and I went out to collect mushrooms. Sierawski had shot a stag, and while the others were roasting and smoking the meat, we hunted the noblest and rarest jewel of the forest – the noble boletus. The real mushroom.

  There were rows and rows of mushrooms, silver, gold, red and white. Some with scalloped edges, some as round as plates, some like upturned goblets, and yet others, funnel shaped, slim as champagne flutes. This pretty display reminded me of the cups and plates on the sideboard of that ruined house in Wola, where dear Cyprian led us against the Prussians. Alas! Was Cyprian alive or dead?

  Now, some years are fat, and some years are lean. This proved another lean year. We picked not a solitary boletus. But we found the famed orange agaric, almost as tasty as the boletus, and good both fresh and salted for our journey. As we strayed still further into the dark and uncharted beyond, we found, in abundance, a fine staff of pretty colonels!

  “Aha!” Tanski cried, “here is another Vixen – that’s the Lithuanian name – to add to my collection! A virgin, too, I’ll be bound – not a single worm or beetle has befouled her virtue!” Tanski held the luscious brown-capped mushroom aloft, like a trophy. He had a string of them in his czapka already.

  “Damn, this place is quiet!” he called out, “What a shame that it wasn’t Basia’s daughter who followed us, instead of the boy! This place needs a woman’s touch,” Tanski remarked, idly, twirling his moustaches, as we picked amongst the logs and leaves and shrubs and ferns and fallen stumps.

  “That it does,” I agreed. “I’ll bet there hasn’t been a woman in this forest for a hundred years,” I laughed, flinging a toadstool at him, “unless you count the Rusalka, of course!”

  The toadstool was an ugly plug of poison, virulent enough to kill a barracks full of men. Tanski laughed, caught it, and lobbed the black knob away into the darkness, like a grenade. I followed the graceful arc of the deadly fungus with my eye as it spun down a ravine and watched where it fell. Beyond it, a lazy black finger curled up into the air, as if it was the flash after a shell burst.

  “Smoke,” I said. At this, Tanski dropped to his knees, spilling his maidens onto the forest floor. He was ever careless with female hearts! We drew our sabres, and set off down the slope towards the smoke. At the end of the ravine, there was a lopsided hut, leaning like an evil grin. Around it were slick bottomless quicksands to swallow a horse whole, dead pools gleaming with rusty bloodstains. A steaming vapour clung about, stinking of suphur and damnation.

  “Perhaps it’s the Rusalka’s house,” I said. Tanski grinned, but despite himself his face was pale, and his sabre shook in his hand. The Rusalka, you will know, is an evil spirit that takes the form of a delightful, charming, captivating and beautiful young maiden. She dances naked in the woods, and lures unwary foolish men to their deaths. Suddenly unnerved, we touched the crosses at our throats. Overgrowing grass spilled over in the pools, like strands of long brown hair. The twisted trees hunched over the bottomless pool like witches over a cauldron. Bald of leaves and bark, they grasped with wormy fingers into the rich black soils, like a miser after gold.

  The wooden hut was clothed in a coat of green moss that crawled over every inch of the rough-hewn planks. There was no chimney, and no door. Smoke rose through a hole in the roof. A blanket hung across the threshold. Tanski rapped on the wooden wall with his sword hilt. It swayed. No answer came. Inside was a raddled old crone, a storybook witch. Her nose curled over her chin like an ancient bird’s beak. She wore a patchwork of filthy clothes. Her feet were bare and black as a beast’s, with horny toes. A long cable of thick, matted hair hung down to her waist. Her rheumy old eyes, though, were as bright as a crow’s. Childlike, she hid them behind her bony hands. She said nothing, yet she did not shrink from us.

  “If she’s the Rusalka,” I remarked, somewhat unchivalrously, “I’d say she’s seen better days.”

  Cautiously, so as not to startle this strange lady, we ventured into the hut, and, removing our czapkas, we sat down on our cloaks. The hut stank of damp, and dried herbs, and all-pervading woodsmoke. All the while, the woman – who must have been as old as God – sat and watched us, peeking over her long talons of fingernails. A battered copper kettle, sitting on the fire, began to whistle, and the pair of us nearly jumped out of our skins! At this, the old woman cackled, and began to mutter incomprehensibly to herself, to us, to the air, or, for aught we knew, to her familiar spirits. Then she scuttled away, spiderlike, and began scrabbling bunches of herbs together.

  “I have been expecting you, my brave boys,” crooned the Witch. She spoke in Old Polish, in an archaic accent, but she was quite lucid. “You are late,” she scolded us, which was damned peculiar. We shrugged. We even apologised.

  “Here, drink, and I will tell your fortunes,” she croaked. We watched as the woman began to pour us what appeared to be tea, sieving the brew through a rag.

  “You are from these parts,” Tanski whispered to me, “is this a five-nippled Witch?”

  I was, of course, not from these parts, but it was close enough. I knew the countryside and its ways better than he.

  “This woman is – or was – a Goralka, a hill woman,” I told him. “An outcast, no doubt, from those wild folk. Perhaps she has a deformity, as you say, or perhaps she bore a child outside wedlock, and was thrown out by her family. Who can say? I doubt she remembers it herself. Look at her – she’s pro
bably been here since the Swedish Wars.”

  The old woman set cups of evil-smelling liquid before us. It was reminiscent of the stagnant pool outside, with its rusty bloodstained surface and green mantle of muck. We choked down the scalding tea. It tasted of fennel and mandrake, wormwood and aniseed, and the woody tang of mushroom. A brackish, metallic taste remained in my mouth, like sucking on a bullet. After we had drunk, the crone snatched away our teacups and held out her wizened claw for payment. I had a few worthless coins in my wallet and handed them over. The old crone simpered, a corpse’s smile through a mouthful of gravestones, her lips as parched and cracked as dried worms. She stared at the coins, transfixed by their gleam, then bit into them with her few remaining teeth. Satisfied, she hid the coins within her stinking and ragged robes.

  Then, with a wild grin and a cackle, she rooted around in a corner, scattering weeds and rubble, then levered up a rotten wooden board.

  “What fresh madness is this?” Tanski snapped, “Clearly, the woman’s mind has gone. Let us be off.”

  From under the board she produced, to our immense surprise, wrapped in a filthy cloth, a silver chalice, carved all over with strange symbols. This she filled from a pitcher of water, and bid us look. She set herself on her knees, as if in prayer, and bent over this divination bowl, and stared into it.

  “In the water,” she hissed. We all stared into the cauldron. We stared hard until white spots boiled before our eyes. Still, stare as we might, we saw nothing but our own ugly mugs peering back at us, as if from the bottom of a well.

  “What is in the water?” Tanski grumbled, “your sanity?”

  “Silence!” she cried. “See what is written in the water.”

  Abruptly Tanski bent over and was violently sick.

  “To hell with this,” he muttered, storming out of the hut. I sat awhile longer with the Witch. We stared into the water. Sweat ran down my forehead in rivulets. My head spun and my sight blurred. I tasted the vile tea, and thick vomit in my belly, and choked back bitter bile. Pictures took shape in the water, or perhaps in my head. I saw our Legions marching into Vienna, into Berlin, and finally, into Moscow itself. I saw the Kremlin ablaze. I saw the three Black Eagles scatter, in full flight before the White.

  At last, I tore my gaze away, triumphant, and stared at the Witch. She met my eyes.

  “So we win, old woman?” I demanded.

  The woman said nothing. She merely gathered herself into a ball, and rocked on her heels. Then she laughed and laughed, and laughed again, laughing fit to split her corsets, as if this were the greatest joke in all creation.

  CHAPTER-THIRTY

  LWOW, FEBRUARY 1796

  Lwow, in those days, was a great bustling place. From the top of a hill, we saw the streets spread out below us like wings. With her fine brick houses of red, pink, yellow, green, and brown, she was a bird of rare plumage. Down below were the streets, the bridges, the aqueducts, and green parks full of trees. Spearing up to the heavens were a phalanx of spires. From left to right it was girt with seven great towers, the farthest left being a squat, rotund fellow, the others being variously square or round and with points, crosses, and domes. These stretched away to the right, where there was a huge windmill, spinning like the very devil. Today, this rare bird was a white raven. All was dusted with a shroud of snow. It was February. We were well into another New Year, but we faced the same old enemies.

  We stopped to let a cart pass, and it rumbled by, wheels groaning, carthorses’ hooves padding in the snow. Our own horses blew hard from their thin flanks, where their ribs were showing.

  “Who is this Godebski?” Birnbaum asked. Snow was falling now, great fat flakes of it like moths. The Austrians were negligent, but even they might notice six armed men. So Tanski, Sierawski and the others were shivering in a barn. Birnbaum and I, alone, had ridden on ahead as outriders. We were freezing on this wind-blown hill, while below us in Lwow, they sang and drank.

  Lwow, like Krakow, was now in Austrian Galicia, which was what the Hapsburgs had renamed the province. This so-called ‘Galicia’ was a creation that had swelled like a blood-bloated tick, swallowing Podolia. So this was another bitter homecoming for me! Black Austrian eagles flew from all seven of the spires that I had spied from the hill.

  This city, though, was an unruly horse. The trade route here runs through Bar and on to the wild lands beyond, as far away as China. A hundred nationalities pass through the inns and staging-houses of Lwow. Here jostle Poles, Jews, Germans, Austrians, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Cossacks, Zaporozhians, Ruthenians, Tartars, Turks, and many others besides. In this chaotic swirl, conspirators may come and go freely enough. This was another fine forest for we hunted wolves to slink through. A forest of stone.

  “Cyprian is my dear friend,” I said, “and we must be careful not to bring ruin upon him. He is a great soldier and a spy, and he will have been as careful as a fox in covering his tracks.”

  “So how will we find him?” Birnbaum asked, reasonably enough, shouting to make himself heard above the roaring gale.

  “All roads lead to Rome!” I shouted back. Then I cast behind me for the hundredth time, like a hunted animal. No one was taking the least notice of us. We were swathed in cloaks against the wild weather, but then so was everyone else. The customs house had been closed, the Austrian guards were snoring in their bunks or drinking in the taverns.

  The two of us wandered the streets for many miserable hours. In all the houses the lights were burning. Smells of food and snatches of songs raced by on the blizzard’s wings. A long fruitless afternoon had run out of the hourglass. Evening was soon pouring into it. We were dripping wet. Snow and ice rimed every inch of our clothes, with only our red raw wind-whipped faces above.

  “Hell’s teeth,” I said at last, “let’s have a drink.”

  The tavern had an enormous white eagle hanging above the door. The wooden beams were painted red and the plaster was whitewashed. As so many others in our land, the inn was named ‘Rzym’ – ‘Rome’. If it was a trap, it was a fairly obvious one, but by now we were long past caring. All roads lead to Rome!

  We stabled our horses ourselves, for the servants were nowhere to be seen. After we had seen our horses aright, we shook ourselves like dogs. Great slops of slush and snow fell at our feet and into the straw. Lastly, I slung my musket over my shoulder and we marched up to the door.

  It was barred. We thumped on it with our fists. Inside we could hear the sounds of laughter and merrymaking. Glasses and tankards were being clinked, and heavy plates of food clattering down on trestle tables. A heavenly scent of food and mead seemed to permeate through the very oak of the ironbound door. Inside they were singing. A slit in the door opened and suspicious eyes peered out.

  “No room at the inn!” jeered a voice. “Piss off!”

  “Devil take you,” I roared, shoving my gun through the slit, “what kind of welcome is that for a good Polander? There’s gold if you let us in – and lead if you don’t!”

  At this, there was a great commotion, and the sound of chairs being loudly scraped back across the floor. Then, dead silence fell. The singing ceased.

  “Sweet Jehovah,” Birnbaum hissed, “what have you done now, you crazy pistolet?”

  After a moment the bolts were drawn. “Better come in then, boys,” the voice said mockingly. The door swung open and we stepped over the threshold, hands on our swords. Inside was a typical inn – a great blaze in the hearth, with suckling pigs turning on spits above it. Gobs of fat dripped off the meat into the fire and spat and fizzed like grenades. The glorious smell of roasting flesh wafted out.

  A host of men and women were gathered in a horseshoe around the door, facing us. Each and every one, the women included, held a gun, a sword, or a knife. We heard the familiar click of hammers drawn back on flintlocks. I walked through the thicket of blades and barrels straight to the bar. The barman was a great lugubrious fellow with a huge domed head and silver whiskers, armed with a blunderbuss, and l
aughing like a horse. I recognised him at once.

  “Two vodkas, Cyprian, and be quick about it,” I snapped, and then added, “on second thoughts, bring the bottle!”

  Cyprian Godebski set the vodka before us, and sent a boy to summon our comrades, who were still huddled in a barn. They sneaked through Lwow to avoid attracting attention, not that the Austrians seemed to care in the slightest. A short while later, the four of us – Godebski, Tanski, Sierawski and I – sat down together at a table, reunited for the first time in a long, dreadful year. This was the first of two joyful reunions that day.

  “Thank the Lord!” Godebski cried, clapping us each on the back. We introduced our new comrades, including Birnbaum and his two fellow Beardlings. Then we all of us, Jew and Gentile, cast longing eyes at the roasting pigs on the hearth. Our stomachs gave a volley of rumbling.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” I said to the cook as she passed, “get some fish! These boys don’t eat white beef!”

  “Yes we damned well do,” said a ravenous Birnbaum. As it was, he was spared the sacrilege, for the girl was a fine hostess. She could turn her hand to kosher as well as any rabbi’s wife. When she came back from the kitchen it was with several fish for us to eat along with the pigs, and we would have eaten her, too, had we caught her. Instead, we watched her frying the fish three times. For a fish must swim three times – in water, in butter, and in wine. We regarded these fish with great interest. There were several of them, of different species. It made a fine allegory.