Conrad Starguard-The Radiant Warrior

by Leo Frankowski

  Lunatic or not, I could hardly abandon the man to die in a snowstorm. I quickly repacked my equipment, even though most of it was wet, and threw the remainder of the wood onto the fire. There was no possibility of a forest fire in this storm, and our fire might attract some attention. I put on my pack and took off after the madman at a trot.

  His short, quick stride had taken him a remarkable distance before I caught up, but there was no missing his footprints in the shin-deep snow. I stopped to stamp out an arrow to indicate our direction of travel.

  "Ah, my son, and here I had assumed that you were a good Christian."

  "What? Of course I'm a good Christian, Brother. And a better Catholic, for that matter. I used to be an altar boy. Why should I not be a good Christian?"

  "Why, those pagan marks you are making."

  "Pagan? Goodness no, Brother. I'm simply showing the direction of our travel to aid rescue teams. The Hiking Society will be out, as will the Forestry Service, the police, and, likely, the Air Force. There must be dozens of people caught in this storm. Darned freakish weather for mid-September."

  "Well, if you are only leaving a sign to your friends, I suppose it's all right. And while I quite agree that this would be strange weather for September, I must point out that today is the twenty-fifth of November."

  "Brother!" We walked down the trail. I was surprised at how short the man was. He barely came up to my armpit.

  "That brings up another point. While I dislike to be continually correcting a benefactor, please allow me to mention that my title is not Brother. It happens that I am an ordained priest, and perhaps Father would be more appropriate."

  "As you like, Father." I don't think that insanity and the priesthood are mutually exclusive sets, and in any event, it would do no harm to humor him. "How did you know that I was going to Cracow?"

  "Did I say that? If I did, I should not have mentioned it, since I obtained the information in the confessional. However, before he confessed, a good Christian knight told me that he had killed you—at least I assume that he referred to you. There can't be that many giants wandering about, and you do have a slight head wound. He asked me to give you extreme unction, which I agreed to do, although that sacrament no longer seems appropriate."

  Giant? I was fairly tall—190 centimeters—but hardly a giant.

  I stopped to stamp out another arrow in the snow. "Good Christian knight! He's a bloody homicidal maniac! He wanders around trying to murder people! He makes an unprovoked assault on me and you send him on his way to say a few Ave Marias."

  "Not true. It was six dozen Ave Marias and three dozen Pater Nosters. And he certainly felt that he was provoked. Whatever decided you to be rude to a Knight of the Cross?"

  "Oh! Nine dozen prayers for an attempted murder!"

  "Please calm yourself. You appear to have suffered no great harm, and I don't imagine that the prayers will do the knight's soul any damage, either. After all, it is the intent that really matters."

  "The actuality made a considerable difference to me."

  "Certainly, my son. Now as I understand it, you were alone, on foot, and completely without armor or weapons. Without an apology, a compliment, or even a bow, you stopped a member of the Teutonic Knights and demanded information of him. You did not even offer him your name. He then answered your question, even translating it with his limited Polish, because you spoke no German at all. You then became ruder and claimed—or at least implied—that he lied. He then gave you a fair warning, and you returned this with . . . let me see. What were his exact words? . . . 'A tone of voice that I would have found objectionable had it been spoken to me by my own Holy Commander.' He then struck you. Now, my son, are these substantially the facts?"

  "They may be substantially the facts, but the telling of them is most biased, and in any event they do not in any way justify attempted murder!"

  "True. Violence is rarely justifiable, and it was for this reason that I bade the knight do penance after confession."

  Christ. I had almost been murdered, and now a man whose life I was trying to save was trying to convince me that it was my fault. Damn! What the hell was wrong with the Air Rescue? We should at least have heard a helicopter by this time. I fished around in my shirt pocket, under the sweater and poncho, and dug out my cigarettes and disposable lighter. Only one cigarette left. I was about to pitch the package, but one must not litter, not even in a snowstorm with a lunatic. I stuffed the empty pack in my pocket. I lit the cigarette, drew deeply, and put away the lighter.

  The priest's eyes grew wide, but his step never faltered. "Remarkable. You mentioned that you were a true Christian. Would you like to tell me how long it has been since your last confession?"

  "About three weeks, Father."

  "That is a long time. Would you like to confess now?"

  "What? Here?"

  "To be sure, a quiet, dark spot in church would be preferable. Such things are good, but not necessary. It is what is in the heart that counts."

  Recent events had troubled me considerably. To confess to a lunatic might be strange, but then, the whole last day or so had been pretty strange. There I was, walking along in September, through snow that was knee-deep in places, next to a mild-mannered barefoot man who showed not the slightest discomfort. The sane thing would be to stop, light a fire, pitch a tent, and wait for a rescue team. But there was such an incredible toughness about the man that I knew that I could stay with him, or leave him, but I could not possibly stop him, no matter how short he was. Confession seemed like a good idea, and—who knows?—maybe he really was a priest.

  Perhaps not all of my eventual readers, if any, will be good Catholics, so I will try to explain the sacrament of confession. The times of confession are posted in the church, and usually a priest is available several times a day. When you feel the need to go, you go, often alone. Usually there are people in front of you, and you wait quietly in a pew, because confession is a private thing. The priest is in a tiny, screened room with screened confessionals on either side. Your turn comes, and you go inside and kneel. When the priest has finished with the person opposite, you hear the soundproof screen in front of you open, and you recite a short ritual that serves to "break the ice": "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned . . ."

  And then you unburden your soul onto a very tough man who is absolutely forbidden to repeat anything that is said. You tell him what you have done, what you have thought. You answer his questions until the truth is obvious to both of you. He forgives you your sins and then tells you what your punishment, your penance, will be. This is usually to make a good act of contrition and to recite privately a certain number of prayers. But it can be whatever the priest feels is fitting. And you do it, because you need to do it, or you wouldn't have walked into the confessional in the first place.

  In the Catholic church, there are seven sacraments. Some—baptism, confirmation, and extreme unction—are performed only once in a Catholic's life. Some are performed seldom, if at all—marriage and holy orders. Two are performed frequently—confession and communion. Of the seven, confession is not only the most frequent but, given the nature of the human condition, the most important.

  So, after a bit, I said, "Yes, Father, I would like to confess. 'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was three weeks ago, and since then . . .' " I told him what had happened, and I dwelled particularly on the last thirty-six hours or so.

  It was certainly my strangest confession, wading through thigh-deep snow next to a barefoot priest, and it was undoubtedly my longest, for he asked innumerable questions about every minor point that I mentioned. The sky was noticeably darker when we finished.

  Finally he said, "This is a most remarkable story, and I am not quite sure what to make of it. I see several possibilities. Is it possible that you would lie in confession?"

  "What?" One does not lie in confession, in the same manner that one does not fornicate with one's mother.

  "I thought not. Two other
possibilities occur to me. One—perhaps the most likely—is that you have taken a blow to the head. Such things have been known to addle a man's wits, but this explanation does not account for your very remarkable equipment. The other possibility that I see is that God has seen fit to do something . . . unusual in your case. But that is not for someone as lowly as myself to say.

  "As to your sins, they are minor ones. You have been angry with your mother, but that is not uncommon for a man who is unmarried at twenty-eight; and the fact is that, nonetheless, you did obey her. You coveted a maiden, had lust for her, but then again, you were both unmarried and you took no improper action. In your disappointment, you became drunk, wrongfully, but you paid your debts and harmed none. You trespassed on your host in your drunkenness, but you caused him no harm. You insulted a knight, but you did not know the proper forms of courtesy. And you thought ill of me; indeed, you are still convinced that it is my wits that are addled . . ."

  "Father, please!"

  "No, no. Please, let me finish." He took a breath. "And perhaps, considering the strange events that have transpired, you are justified in your belief. It is not for me to say. But I think, in spite of your strange tale, in spite of your giant's stature, and in spite of your mystic equipage, you are, within, a very good man. I absolve you of your sins. I want you to make a good act of contrition, and I think that we should now kneel and pray."

  "Father, the snow will be above our waists."

  "True. And the sky grows dark, and the cold grows more. My son, God will take us when He sees fit, and He will save us as He sees fit. All that we mortals can do, one minute at a time, is to do what appears best."

  And with that, dear reader, I knelt down in snow up to my elbows and recited to myself the Apostles' Creed.

  Some time later, we were walking again.

  "Father, it's true what you said. I do believe that you are insane. But I have to say that in spite of your insanity, you are the most holy person I have ever met."

  "Thank you, my son. But it is obvious that you have never met a truly saintly man. I have met Francis of Assisi, and he blessed me and took me into his order. You grow tired. Why don't you walk behind me?"

  Saint Francis of Assisi! I had gone beyond being amazed at the man. I was wearing thermal underwear, sturdy blue jeans, two pairs of woolen socks, good hiking boots, a thick sweater, a windbreaker, and a poncho. I was cold. He was barefoot and in a monk's cassock! I was half again taller than he was, and he was suggesting that he should break snow for me to make my walking easier!

  "No, thank you, Father. I can manage. What brings you into this neck of the woods?"

  " 'This neck of the woods!' Another good turn of phrase! Well, the answer is simplicity itself. I was in Rome, and I received an appointment in Cracow. To get from A to B, one is obliged to traverse the points between."

  "Well, if you are a true Euclidean, it would seem that the route would be far to the west, through France and Germany, or at least north by the Moravian Gate," I said.

  "The way through Germany might be softer, but it is much longer. Do you know nothing of maps? Further, you should know that the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire—which is not Roman, nor an Empire, nor particularly Holy—Nay! He is not even an emperor! At best he is somewhat acknowledged as the spokesman for a ragtag collection of German city-states pushing their unwanted existence into all parts of Christendom! He has inherited the Sicilies, gained dominance over Milan and Florence, and threatened his Holy Majesty Louis IX of France! Through the unbelievable stupidity of Duke Conrad of Mazovia, his German knights have been invited—invited, mind you—into the north of Poland itself! And these so-called Knights of the Cross are now murdering whole villages of poor, heathen Prussians!"

  I had had the misfortune to hit his "hot button," and he went on like that for the better part of an hour. It seems that the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II—who was also King of the Sicilies, King of the Romans, and quite a few other things—owned most of Italy, and the Pope owned the rest. They had begun fighting, and the filthy German mercenaries in the pay of Frederick II had had the incredible effrontery to defeat the Pope's Just and Christian Warriors, who were also mercenaries, which is why there was an empty treasury and no funds to pay the way of a traveling priest. Furthermore, these Germans were insidiously, sometimes even openly, pushing their way into Poland, taking over its cities and founding monasteries that Poles were not even allowed to join!

  I had an uncle who had survived being a partisan in the 1944 Warsaw insurrection. He hated Germans, but his hatred was like a dislike for cabbages compared with the hatred of the supremely mild man who walked beside me.

  When we finally stopped to catch his breath, I said, "You are absolutely right. I completely agree with you. But tell me, please, why did you not go through the Moravian Gate?"

  "Why, it had been my intention to come through the gate and avoid climbing the Beskids altogether. I walked across Italy and begged passage—working my way—on a ship that sailed the Adriatic Sea to Fiume, in Dalmatia. I then crossed the Dinaric Alps into Croatia, a mere twenty miles on the map but four days' walk. Then it was a matter of working on a riverboat down the Sava to the Danube, finding another boat, and then up the Danube. My intent had been to go upstream to the Morava, through the gate, then down the Odra, across to the Vistula, and so to Cracow. That is to say, the sensible way. However, the boat I was on was going up the Vah, not the Morava. It was late in the season, and I was not likely to find another boat. But by the maps I remember, it was but thirty miles from the headwaters of the Vah, across the Tatras, to the River Dunajec, which would also get me to Cracow before winter. This I did, although the crossing took six days. The Tatras are really not so bad as the Alps, but they are much farther north, and I crossed them two months later in the season."

  It was now quite dark. The snow had stopped, and the cloud cover was breaking up. Any camper knows that a clear night is a cold night. Already the snow was crunching beneath my boots and his bare feet.

  "You mean you crossed the Tatras alone? Barefoot? In this weather?"

  The full moon broke through the clouds, and I could see on his face the expression I reserve for fat, motorized tourists. But what he said was, "You see, God provides us with light and therefore with hope. We will continue on."

  I had rolled up and packed my sleeping bag when I left the fire at noon, and since then the exertion of keeping up with this short man had kept me warm enough. But now it was getting cold.

  "Father, I'm going to break out my sleeping bag, that 'cloak' you saw earlier. Let me rip it in two and give you half."

  "Do not destroy your property, my son, and do not even break your stride to undo your equipage. We shall soon find shelter. I can smell it."

  I could smell nothing but snow and pine trees. "Father, how do you do it? How do you walk barefoot on crunching snow?"

  "Well, I will tell you a secret that should not be a secret. When your heart is truly pure, you really do have the strength of ten. And further, while it is best to have your heart pure with God's love, pure anything will do. Pure honor or pure greed. Pure hate or even pure evil. It is only the contradictions and inner conflicts that weaken a man.

  "But enough of this. We have forgotten something, and soon I will have to introduce you. My name is Father Ignacy Sierpinski."

  "I am most pleased to meet you, Father Ignacy. My name is Conrad." And here I faced a problem. You must understand that I am Polish. All my grandparents were Polish. And all their parents, all the way back to Noah. But in some unexplained manner, my last name is Schwartz. After Father Ignacy's hourlong tirade about Germans, I did not want to tell him that.

  "Just Conrad? Well, nothing to be ashamed of. Many people still use only one name. Tell me, where were you born?"

  "In Stargard." Stargard is a small town in northwest Poland. The name came about when there was a warehouse on a trade route. A castle was built to protect the warehouse, and a town grew up around the castle.
The castle was originally called Store Gard, and the name drifted with time.

  "Then Conrad Stargard you are. And here we are. Hello, in there! May two Christian travelers ask for shelter?"

  I did not realize that we were at a dwelling until I had almost stepped on it. Barely a meter high, it looked like a peaked mat of straw. We heard some fumbling sounds from within.

  "They build their winter huts mostly below ground hereabouts; it is good protection from the cold."

  A section of the straw opened up. "Aye, Father, be welcome, and your friend, too. But all I can offer is a place on the floor near the fire. No food, you understand."

  "My good son, we understand. You would not be a good Christian if you did not see first to the feeding of your own family. Fear not for us; we are well provisioned. As you give us entrance, you give us life itself, for otherwise we would perish in the cold.

  "I am Father Ignacy Sierpinski, and my friend is Conrad Stargard."

  We felt our way down a crude ladder into a rectangular space that was lit by a small central campfire.

  "I am Ivan Targ. My wife, Marie. My boys, Stashu and Wladyclaw. My baby, little Marie. Shoo! Shoo, you boys! Make a place for our guests."

  The boys cleared a space maybe two meters square on one side of the fire. I spread my poncho out as a ground cover and rolled out my sleeping bag over it. The ceiling was high enough for the rest of them to stand upright, but I was nearly bent over double.

  When we were seated, I whispered to the priest, "I know that we have not been offered supper. Do you think that we should offer something to them?"

  "Oh, yes. That would be most polite. In fact, I was about to do so." He turned to our host. "Ivan, we thank you again for your courtesy and aid in our need. We would be honored if you would accept a very small token of our gratitude."

  His words seemed to be a fixed ritual. He slowly opened one of his leather pouches, the one with the floppy cover, and drew from it a large, greasy sausage and a chunk of rather ripe cheese. Neither had been wrapped in aluminum foil or waxed paper. He drew his belt knife and cut each in two, returning half to his bag. The remainder of each he divided into seven equal pieces, giving one piece of sausage and one piece of cheese to each person present, himself included.