Velka stared for a long moment, her tears drying with the hard reality before her. “We must go then,” she agreed, her eyes wide with fright.
The two gathered new belongings, remaking themselves as young women of prosperity, a mistress and her servant. They hurried downstairs, where Irina scanned the undercroft looking for a tool of some kind.
“Come,” she said to the curious Velka when she found a hay rake.
“What are you going to do?
“I’ll show you, and if I hesitate or start to cry, I give you permission to slap me hard. We have only a few minutes before the murderers return. Come.”
…
As the sun rose over the castle courtyard’s lake of mud, Tomasz shook himself into consciousness. His small room wasn’t much, but it was better than the rude barn in which he’d been born. It was far better than the rat-infested piles of straw his men called home. At age twenty-two, he’d come a long way, and far he would go! He smiled to himself. Taking in the morning air, he coughed and spat, but a feeling of deep satisfaction enveloped him, along with the desire to relieve himself, then fill his belly with whatever the vermin had not already infested.
He smiled, taking pleasure in the knowledge so many in the town had joined him and his crew in burning and looting the Jews’ properties. It must have been the right thing to do, he reasoned. He supposed some had assumed that if the duke’s castellan was leading the rampage, he must be acting under the duke’s authority. He chortled to himself, spilling ale down the front of his tunic. “Let them think what they will!”
Fully awake, he mentally recounted the houses and people they had plundered and burned. He knew there was no truth in the lies spread about the Jews, but they were an easy target, and the plague was a perfect excuse to filch their goods.
But something wasn’t right, he concluded. As he rumbled around in the courtyard, he couldn’t put his finger on what troubled him. Something was out of place. Something did not fit.
Surveying the activity around him, Tomasz splashed through one puddle after another, scolding underlings already hard at work. He supposed the storm had been more severe than he had thought, but then, he’d been drunk and slept through it all. It was a good thing he had given orders to prepare for the duke’s journey. Now all the bustle centered around low fires built to steam and dry the goods still unpacked. He began to think of ways to deflect blame should the duke be displeased about the delay in their departure.
One of the many workers—common peasants required to work for the duke—ran up and gave him his reprieve. “Sire Tomasz, we will be heading out tomorrow morning as it will take us another day to dry and pack the wagons once more.”
“Thanks be to God,” Tomasz exclaimed loudly, then farted.
A few hours later, after he’d downed his first mug of cold ale, the feeling of something amiss came back to him. What was wrong had not to do with the burning of the Jews—for that, he would make his confession and be forgiven. Everyone who had participated in the night’s events would do the same, and if there was any guilt at all, he grinned, it would be washed away with a priest’s absolution.
No, what bothered him had to do with the goods and treasure—there wasn’t enough of it. He’d made a mistake. Pillaging the craftsmen first had been profitable, indeed, but they could have waited. For Poznan’s jewelers and silversmiths, it would have been harder to hide their wares. His mistake had given Joselewicz time to hide his valuables. As a merchant who lent money to his duke and others in high station, he must have had more—much more. Good thing he left the ox, Franciszek, there to keep watch. Too much to drink and too much to guard made the marauders careless and allowed the old Jew to somehow deceive them.
He should have gone there first, just after the hungry messenger from Gniezno filled his mouth and emptied his knowledge in the castle’s kitchen. It would have been the perfect surprise for old Joselewicz! Over his shoulder, he could hear the sound of Big Franciszek’s voice.
“Franciszek, you oaf!” Tomasz’s own voice cut through the clamor of the morning. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”
Stopped in mid-breath, Big Franciszek tried focusing his eyes toward the sound of the voice he knew so well. It was a demand he did not expect. “Why, Sire, I’m here to get my breakfast,” he answered factually but submissively, though Tomasz had never been knighted.
“I can see that, idiot! Who is back at the Joselewicz house?”
“No one, Sire,” he responded, groveling. “I pulled the gate closed as far as it would go, and after I’ve eaten, I intend to go back there to await your orders.” He nodded his head in such a way as to suggest his was a most sensible approach.
The scowl on Tomasz’s face remained unchanged when he barked, “You were not to leave there, fool! Someone could get in and steal what we missed.”
At this, Big Franciszek showed his complete confusion. “But Sire,” he reasoned, “didn’t we get everything last night? What could be left?”
“We could not have gotten everything. There must be more. Get back there now,” he commanded. “I’ll be along shortly.” When the underling made no immediate move, Tomasz screamed, “Now, you fool! Run!”
…
Irina and Velka crept down to the courtyard, at which point Irina paused, making sure she knew to which pile of ashes she must go. She moved toward the one on her right. With the wooden rake in hand, she reached into the middle and began to pull back and forth through the blackened rubble. Bits of clothing, bone, and ash moved in a sopping mush. There were three skulls.
Velka took a step backward, almost tripping. “Moj Boze, Irina! What are you doing?”
“I think I have it.” That the blackened skulls belonged to people she cared for she put completely out of her mind, detaching them from anything in her memory. In the other circle were the remains of her Berek. Those she would let rest. I love you, my dear one, but I will not follow you. This is now about our survival—and nothing else.
“Did you say something?” Velka demanded in a hoarse whisper.
Irina pulled toward her a blackened, shapeless mass the size of a very large apple.
“Why do you want that mess?” Velka protested.
“You’ll see. You’ll see,” she whispered.
Irina had not told Velka the whereabouts of the last hiding place Eva had revealed to her, a place where Panie Eva had confided there was a somewhat larger bag of coins. She kept this treasure at the end of a leather thong tied to her waist and left to nest below her ample mid-section. Because Eva was a large woman who wore billowy skirting, the bag could hang there, near the other treasure Janus said she possessed—where no one would ever notice it. Eva had chuckled as she said “the other treasure.” Eva’s simple bravery amazed her.
The melded mass, cooled by the drenching rains, weighed more than it appeared. Using a rag, Irina rubbed a small part of the lump in her hands, and the unmistakable gleam of gold and silver met the morning sun. Then she placed it in a velvet pouch she could fasten to her wrist. She saw Velka purse her lips as her eyes grew large. Before she could react, Irina commanded, “Say nothing. We must go now. They will be coming back soon.”
As they hurried back inside, Irina heard a whimper. They listened. Then, another. She turned, looking in every direction seeking someone alive. There was no one. Then another cry. Irina walked through to the far end of the undercroft, and there lay Yip, whose tail wagged furiously when he saw her. She knelt and stroked the dog’s head and back. He tried to raise himself and finally did so, with great difficulty.
When Irina tried to hug him, he recoiled in pain. “Yip, I am so sorry. I saw the man who kicked you, and someday he will pay. Lie down, boy, and let yourself heal.” Yip was having none of it. “Well, alright, you can come, but you’re too big to carry.” She kissed his head and rose.
“Come, Velka, let us wash. Then we must hurry.
”
“Wash?”
“Yes,” Irina commanded in an urgent whisper. “We will not carry the streaks of filth on our hands and faces that servants wear.”
“Even our betters do not wash, Irina! Why shall we?”
Irina faced her companion directly and spoke sternly. “We wash, Velka, to leave behind the dirt and ash of what happened here, and because I insist on it.”
…
By dawn, the village of St. Michael was awash in mud and downed branches. Roof thatch from the two-stall shed that Ignacz, Maria, and the children called their family home had gone into the wind, which left their few belongings open to the night’s downpour.
Not that any of them had much more than was on their backs, Ignacz knew well, but what they had was precious to them. To him, more precious was each member of his family, even a daughter with child. What had happened the day before was something he regretted more than anything. He did not like the Jews, but he loved his Irina. He made up his mind, and though he’d not said a word about it, he was impatient to act.
Maria was busy salvaging their meager goods and preparing something hot and edible for them to start the day, when Ignacz came in the rough opening serving as a doorway and made his announcement. “As soon as we eat and tend to the animals, we will leave for Poznan.”
Maria was dumbfounded. “Leave for Poznan? For what reason, Ignacz? There is so much to do here after the storm.”
“All of it can wait. We will leave the older boys to repair the roof and watch out for the animals, but the rest of us will find our daughter.”
Maria scoffed. “You, my husband, are a greater fool than our Irina.”
“Not a fool, Maria, but a father. Yes, what she did was wrong, but we cannot abandon her. She is young and alone.”
“If she is right, all the Jews will be looking out for her.”
“We’ll see if that is true.” He looked around at the wide-eyed little ones. “Be quick now. If we get to Srodka by mid-afternoon, everyone gets a scone!”
Maria exhaled her new reality. She must obey her husband. “We can trade a few things for goods not to be found in St. Michael,” Maria finally agreed. She looked up from the firepit and into the heavens above her. “I hope we will not regret it.”
After giving instructions to Edouard and Peter, Ignacz and Maria gathered their four smaller children and headed down the rutted track that served as a road. They sang songs, said prayers, and talked as the sun rose.
Reaching the junction of the path from St. Michael and the main road from Gniezno, they felt lucky to join up with a small caravan, also bound for Poznan. The family walked with the traveling merchants and listened with awe to the stories of a man who traveled with mules, horses, and carts, all of them laden with goods from Gniezno and points east.
“I have traveled all over,” Pan Jerzy Andrezski told the children, who listened with eager ears to the tallest man they had ever seen. “And I can tell you stories that would make your hair curl.” He proceeded to go on about hunting cougars on the steppes of Russia, and warned them to watch out for Poland’s wolves. “They love to eat little children,” he laughed. The time went quickly, and shortly after mid-day, they reached the crest of the hill overlooking Srodka and the Poznan valley beyond.
The Fareway’s aromas invited all to sample the delicious roasted meats and warm cakes to satisfy their mid-day hunger, and the entire party stopped to rest. After chatting with the caravan’s drivers for a bit, the Kwasniewskis found the chattering crowd spoke of little else but the Jew burnings the night before and the ferocious storm that signaled an end to the violence. Many said the plague was only a rumor and, in any event, would never come to them because the Jews were gone or dead.
The nasty talk seemed harsh and cruel, and hearing the words of self-satisfied hatred from others gave Ignacz pause to wonder if he hadn’t spoken similar words to someone he loved. Yet he didn’t want any of these people to know his daughter worked for Jews. A hundred things went through his mind, and he rued the day he let Eva Joselewicz take Irina away. Looking skyward, he noticed the sun had just begun its daily march toward the west. Their respite at an end, he climbed to his feet and gazed over the crowd and down the Fareway’s long descent to the bridge crossing the Warta. Despite the talk he had heard, Poznan looked as it always did. It must not have been as bad as what they were saying.
On the crowded Fareway, Maria tried to keep her brood together but had trouble counting heads as they pushed through the throng. Partway down the hill, she called out to Ignacz. “Zuzanna is not with us.”
“She does that often,” Ignacz said with both love and annoyance. “Let’s stop and look for her.”
“Yes, husband,” she said. She wanted to say more but felt suddenly dizzy and faint and, despite the warmth of the day, chilled.
Ignacz himself also began perspiring profusely, and gasped to Maria, “My head. It’s like someone drove a hot iron into it. Did we eat some bad food?’
“I don’t know, Ignacz. Did you hear me say I cannot see Zuzanna?”
“Yes, I heard you,” he replied, irritation mingling with distraction.
“One of our children is missing,” Maria repeated, “and I cannot find her. We have to stop.”
“Yes,” he said, struggling to focus, in spite of the creeping nausea commanding his attention. “You take Marta and Josef. Stephan, you come with me,” he directed, grasping the hand of the four-year-old. “When the church bell chimes the next quarter hour, we meet at the bottom of the hill. Call her name as you go. She will hear us.”
…
Little Zuzanna did not hear anyone call her name. The quarter hour before, she had become attracted to the stall selling sweet scones. She had stopped to look, drawn closer by the smells of sugar, butter, and flour combined to form the crumbles atop the little cakes being sold.
Without a word, she had sat down on a stump next to the stall. Nearby, a man was playing some sort of musical instrument and singing a song she did not understand. She was enthralled by the music and the happy noises of the crowd. Others joined in with him, sang a few words, and laughed heartily. Zuzanna spoke to no one and no one spoke to her, lost as she was in the sweet sounds and smells around her.
Chapter III
1378
Irina had been fortunate, and knew it. Silently grateful for the examples of appropriate dress and manners Panie Eva had set for her, Irina had been able to make quick decisions about what clothes she and Velka would wear and how they should appear to others.
For herself, she wore colors of wealth and nobility she could never have dared as a servant. Laws and customs required class to be readily discerned by anyone, and such thresholds were never crossed. Panie Eva had had no velvets amongst her garments, and certainly she would never have worn scarlet in any material—or purple silk, for that matter, since it was reserved for the highest royalty. Instead, Irina’s choice became a dark-blue cotehardie over a dyed tan linen kirtle, and on her feet were well-made leather pattens over white hose. For persons of her stature, of course, cordwainers used tawed, not tanned, leather, which made her footgear stylish but not well suited for rough surfaces.
For Velka’s role, Irina chose drab browns and greens for her tunic and skirting, along with a simple hooded cape. As a servant, Velka would not have been permitted hose to wear within her black felt boots. Irina scrutinized Velka’s appearance carefully, and she made her “servant” do the same for her.
Thus transformed, Irina Kwasniewska and Velka hastily left the Joselewicz compound. A few steps up ulica Zydowska, the rustle of her gown spoke to her good fortune in having served in Panie Eva’s household. Alone in an unforgiving world with no mother to help her sort things out, she called upon her memories of Panie Eva at social events to dictate what behaviors were appropriate for men and women when the Joselewiczes entertained well-heeled merchants. It was
all she had.
Yip insisted on accompanying them and struggled to walk alongside, the pain undeterring to the brave little sheepdog, especially when a few moments later, Big Franciszek hove into view. Bumbling toward them, with worry crowding his face, the sheepdog bared his teeth, took an aggressive step, and commenced a long, low growl.
Velka whispered fiercely to Yip, and Irina put her arm on Velka’s to steady them both as Franciszek came closer. The giant of a man looked neither happy nor fed as he hastened along Jewish Street, and in passing, he took no notice of them.
Irina breathed in relief, and turned her mental energies to what she would say if anyone challenged them. Who are we? Why are we here? Do we have escorts? No guard for women alone? Why is a well-dressed lady traveling on foot with her servant? Irina knew she had to have answers and began to puzzle them out.
The meandering, narrow, gritty streets of Poznan, still puddled from the rains, required the young women to use their wits in choosing every turn. Although both of them worked in the city, they, like most servants, had little reason to wander far from where they slept and ate, and so did not know the streets well. She thought they were headed back toward the island and the castle, but within a few minutes, she had no idea where they were. In vain, she tried to find the twin spires of the cathedral. They kept walking, so as not to appear lost in a city of strangers. On constant patrol, Yip kept the curious at bay.
In the early morning light, people were already at their day’s labors while smoky fires cooked porridges or steeped hot coals the smithy would use to shoe horses and shape metals. The bakers, the tanners, the weavers, and the coopers were all at work. The smells of food, raw materials, the unbathed, and by-products of a city without sewers filled their nostrils. Irina caught bits of words as they walked, but she heard little of the previous night’s rampages. It was as if they had never occurred. Plague and murder had not yet claimed the morning talk, it seemed.
Within an hour, they passed the shop of Laskowski the cobbler for the second time and Irina knew they had a problem. As they walked by, she saw the man look up from the leather last he was shaping, and when their eyes met, she realized he knew he’d seen the two of them earlier.
Irina Page 7
