Irina

by Philip Warren

  Trumpets sounded. For a few moments, Irina and others in her circumstance stood as King Charles entered, greeting favorites on his march to the throne. Once seated, His Majesty surveyed the assembled mass of princes of the earth, all the while gently massaging the ever-painful lump that dominated all feeling in his left arm. He had lived with the discomfort for some twenty years, Madrosh had told her.

  Having a reigning pope in France had its advantages, Charles was heard to say, though most discourse from the throne could be heard only by those within earshot. Though Charles’s voice was but one, all knew his decision, once made, would bind all French subjects. After a short while, the king rose to leave. Men and women bowed until he’d left their assemblage. For herself, Irina was glad to be dismissed so that she might rest before the next day’s event.

  For the public ceremonies, Charles the King deferred to Charles the Emperor in hosting the continent’s royalty choosing to attend. Those not formally in the procession, including Irina, Jan, and Father Madrosh, positioned themselves along the route for the best view of royalty on display.

  The grand parade was the most spectacular event Irina had ever witnessed, imagined, or dreamt about. The emperor, along with kings, queens, and other high royalty, departed le Louvre early on a Sunday morning for Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral, rode up l ‘Escolle S. Germain, crossed le Pont Neuf, and paused at le Palais de la Cité. The gilded carriages were driven by men so richly dressed they would be taken for kings in other settings. The bright-white steeds pranced with red ostrich plumes fluffing the air above their heads, their bridles guided by other men equally well dressed and powdered. Onlookers could see glittering jewels through carriage windows, and for open conveyances, there were men on the running boards shielding passengers from the sun with highly decorated umbrellas.

  From their vantage point high on the steps of Sainte-Chapelle, Irina missed nothing. Then Duke Zygmunt fell in line behind King Wenceslas. The Duke, along with hundreds of men like him, honored their host by walking behind the carriages of their enthroned sponsors. Madrosh explained that had King Louis of Hungary and Poland chosen to attend, the duke’s place in line would have been different. “It’s a good thing King Louis chose to stay home,” he had said.

  As Irina took in the splendor of the event, she could not help but make silent note of several points for further discussion with her mentor. Among them was the great disparity of wealth between those in the parade and the thousands of ordinary Parisians gazing at the spectacle along the way. She also wondered if there were any Jews whatsoever in Paris—she had seen not a sign of them anywhere. It was one subject she could not wait to bring up.

  “Madrosh! There are two very black men walking behind that carriage there,” she said, pointing at the same time.

  “Are you asking me a question, My Lady, or providing me information?”

  “I’ve never seen a black man before, Madrosh,” she answered in mock reproach. “Are they like Augustine of Hippo?”

  Madrosh chuckled. “Not quite, my dear. They belong to the King of Naples who rides in the coach just ahead of them.”

  “Belong?”

  “Yes, Irina, ‘belong,’” said Jan, speaking for the first time. “You see, they are slaves.”

  “Slave is a word I do not understand, husband,” Irina said. Out of habit, she turned to her other companion. “Madrosh, what does this mean?”

  “Slavery has long existed all throughout Europe,” he sighed, “just not so much in your lifetime, and even less so in Poland at present. Yet you know from our own history that when the Mongol hordes from the east came so many years ago, those they did not slaughter, they enslaved to work their farms, tend their animals, and serve their households. Before the Mongols, and for thousands of years before Christ, slavery was commonplace. It was never thought wrong to own the body of another. Holy Scripture itself refers to slavery without condemning it.” He paused, but neither of his listeners made comment.

  “The Mongols are gone now,” Madrosh continued, “but slavery remains, though it has changed somewhat. Now most Christian men believe it a sin to own men of their own kind. But to own men, women, and children of another religion or color is another matter altogether.” Casting his glance downward toward his young companion, his tone gave away his own view of the matter.

  “I’m not sure I understand exactly what you mean.’”

  “Those black men there,” he pointed, “are Africans, of the black race—like St. Augustine, in fact. By Europeans, they are considered inferior. They were captured on another continent not very far from here, enslaved, and made to become Christian. In Africa, slavery was not based on race, but on the strongest overlording the weakest, one tribe over another, so it is also true that black men own other black men.”

  Irina found herself shocked that men owned other men like simple possessions. Despite the rough and cruel times in which she had lived in rural Poland, where men and women might be poor, and have to serve or soldier for their duke, they considered themselves free by God’s grace and under no other. “Why does this have to be, Madrosh?”

  “No matter what the circumstances or who enslaves whom, it has always been about simple greed: taking a man’s freedom or his labor or his skill and paying nothing for it. In that way, one man prospers over another man’s sweat. I must point out, dear child, that what happened to the Jews in Poznan and elsewhere was just a more brutal way to steal another man’s property and, indeed, his life!”

  “Then these men are…?”

  “They are in service to the king, or their owner, and will remain so, until they die. They have no freedom to leave, marry, or labor where they choose. The king provides them a place to sleep and gives them food. He does not need to give them anything else.” Jan nodded in assent, an acknowledgement of the ways of noblesse oblige.

  “I have to say, Madrosh, the Africans look well-fed and well-treated. Slavery may not be so bad for them. Could that not be so?”

  Madrosh shot her a look of patient rebuke. “As I have said many times in our talks together, appearances are often deceiving. In fact, if these two men are well-fed and well-treated, they are a rarity. Most often, slaves are chained to their work and fed as little as possible. There is nothing at all appealing about their lives. They are no better off than oxen yoked to a plow!”

  By this time, Madrosh and his young companions had fallen into the long train of the pageant, near its end. Irina held tightly to Jan as she walked, her time of delivery near. She laughed and observed that their lowly status had earned them the best and most complete view of all, except that they and all others on foot had to dodge the horse droppings. They had not missed a single gilt-appliqué, bejeweled headpiece or facial expression of sublime superiority. All in a long line, they moved slowly toward the twin towers of the great cathedral dedicated to the Blessed Mother.

  After some silence, Irina stretched up to Madrosh’s ear and whispered, “What about the Jews? Where are they?”

  Madrosh glanced around in quiet alarm, and with his cloak as a protection, brought Irina closer. “This is a topic we should discuss at another time, when no other ears may hear us.”

  Irina and Jan both nodded. Looking more closely at the Parisian spectators along the way, she could see not all were washed or prosperous. “And what about them?” she asked, turning to her friend and priest.

  “Them?” He nodded thoughtfully. “Their chains are not so visible,” he muttered in a low voice, “and someday, they will throw them off!”

  …

  Irina thought the end of November to be her time of delivery and was pleased she and Jan would have several more weeks before another event commanded their attention. And so, on a brilliantly sunny, but cold day in late October, they took a carriage ride into the countryside near the village of Giverny.

  Their short drive was Jan’s suggestion, as he had come to loathe the mach
inations of palace life, yearning to discover more ordinary pleasures. Toward that end, they stopped at a glade just off the road for a respite and picnic lunch. It was too chilly to sit on a blanket, so they remained in the covered carriage as they supped and the horses grazed on field forage. After a repast of cold chicken and sliced apples, Jan moved to step out of the carriage.

  “Are you leaving your bride already?”

  “Ah, you are so charming I could never leave your side, but I must stand for a bit, and besides, there’s an interesting shop over there. Can you hear them working on something?”

  “Of course, but if you don’t mind, I will remain right here.”

  He bent to kiss her and said, “I am too curious not to find out what goes on there. Certainly,” he laughed, “it is not palace politics.” Jan left the glade and was gone for some minutes. When he returned, he carried with him the boyish excitement Irina had come to love. “You must come, my dear. Wait till you see!”

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, be patient, and you will find the whole business most fascinating.”

  On they walked to the shop with a worn-down sign out front. “Antoine Chevalle Woodworks.” That was all it said. Once inside, they saw a cavernous building heated by roaring fires under steam devices the size of two men. “What are those?”

  “They capture the steam to bend and shape wood for furniture and building frames,” Jan said.

  A man not much taller than Jan, but stocky, bearded, and bald, walked up, his body mostly covered by a worn leather apron. “How can I help my visitors from the city?” His tone was not entirely welcoming.

  “Tell us about your work here if you will, Monsieur Chevalle,” she said.

  “Your speech tells me you are not Parisians, I am glad to hear. From where do you come?”

  Irina blushed as she thought the peasant’s behavior outrageous until she remembered her own background. She chuckled and immediately responded in her French tinged with Polish, “We are from Poland in the east. And soon, we may be seeking lodging out of the city. We will need furnishings, Monsieur, and so my husband seeks to find out how good you are!”

  “I am a master at what I do, Madame, and what I do is make furniture for people of means.”

  “To be honest, Monsieur Chevalle, your business does not look prosperous,” Jan said, reminding the man of their respective positions in the social scheme of things.

  “It is prosperous enough, Monsieur.” Still grumpy, he added, “You may look around, if you wish.”

  They were intrigued by Chevalle’s work, the artistry of veneering that, he said, had been in use for thousands of years. It was not in fashion now, Chevalle explained, and thus practitioners were destined to a craftsman’s genteel poverty. French acquisitors were demanding solid, hardwood furniture, finely wrought, and no other, it seemed.

  What caught their most immediate attention was not the beautiful work that materialized from Chevalle’s clever hands. It was the trio of black men, barely clothed, who performed the hardiest labors for the shop.

  “Who are these men, Monsieur Chevalle?” Irina spoke impulsively.

  “Eh, you who are from the city ought to know,” was the riposte.

  “Why do you say that, shopkeeper?”

  “It is Parisian wealth that buys slaves from Africa.”

  “What has that to do with you?”

  “This shop was owned by a nobleman. I was indentured to him myself. It was he who purchased the slaves to help with this poor business. When the owner died, he left it all to me. What am I to do with them?”

  “Free them!”

  “Madame! I earn little to eat as it is. These brutes are the only way I can make things go.”

  “And so, Chevalle, is it thus that a master would enslave you, so you would enslave others?”

  “Is it not always so, Madame?”

  “Eh, shopkeeper,” she said, “you who are not from Paris must know. Perhaps we will stop again. Perhaps not.”

  On the ride back to Paris, Irina thought about what she had seen. The images in her mind were not beautiful wood pieces, however. What troubled her was the reality of good and evil before her eyes in the grand procession to Notre Dame, and in the lowly shop of Antoine Chevalle. She thought, too, about the shackles of her own sex. Although Madrosh showed her respect, she never forgot she was a woman with certain duties expected of her. It wasn’t her sex that bothered him, Madrosh had said often enough. The rules of their society were like iron, and neither of them had the strength to bend the metal. Perhaps someone should try. Someone like me?

  …

  “Today there will be a conclave of great interest,” Madrosh intoned as they walked along, once again near the towering walls of Sainte-Chapelle. He paused and let his eyes rise ever so deliberately to the very peaks of the majestic structure in front of them.

  Irina and Jan, his usual daily walking companions, could not help but ask the obvious question, taking the words from each other’s lips and speaking as one. After a playful laugh, Irina spoke the words, teasing the old man ever so gently. “And what will the royal ones meet about, wise Madrosh?”

  The smile he gave in return quickly turned to stone, “They will be meeting to discuss the matter of two popes. The outcome I fear will be an unwise one that in the end, will have an effect on all Christendom.”

  “I do not understand, Madrosh,” said Irina, puzzled. “Why do we still have two popes? Can they not decide who is the right one?”

  “As always, my dear one, you manage to ask the only question that needs to be asked. And the answer is, of course they can decide the matter, but will they have the courage to decide rightly is yet another question. My thinking is this will not be their last meeting, I’m afraid.”

  Suddenly, he clasped her arm just above the elbow and steered her, slowly, up the steps of the beautiful church. Irina’s movements were halting, but steady. “You want this child to arrive sooner rather than later, eh, Father Madrosh?”

  “It will wait a bit longer, My Lady.” He chuckled. “We did not chance to see this the other day, and today’s sun will light the world inside. Come, Jan.”

  They crossed the threshold of Sainte-Chapelle and passed through the darkened vestibule before stepping into the nave itself. “How clever was Cormont!” Madrosh whispered. “He leads us from the outer world, lets our eyes adjust to the shadows, then thrills us when we step into his paradise of glass and color.”

  At that moment, it was as if the trio lost their voices in the glorious beauty around them. Stretching to the very end of the church, behind the altar, were column after column, not of stone, but of the most beautiful stained glass either had ever seen. It appeared as if there were no walls at all except for the stunning windows of amazing color that seemed to dance on the floor and make the entire room shimmer in glistening light.

  Irina broke their silent reverence with a whispered question. “Is it true what they say about this place?”

  “Yes, it is true. This chapel—a cathedral in any other place—was built to house relics of Christ’s crown of thorns and what remained of the true cross. I was told the windows behind the altar tell the story of the relics, how they were found and how they came to be in this special place.”

  For several minutes, Madrosh stared at the scene before him. At last, he continued in hushed, reverent tones, “You recall our conversation the other day? It seems to me this chapel is an allegory about our civilization. Here, on the inside, amidst the great beauty of design and purpose, we enjoy what seems like perfection. These thin walls of stone and glass, strong and fragile at the same time, are all that separate us from the ugliness of the world beyond this fortress of faith.

  “Inside, we delude ourselves into thinking we have come far from the days before Moses. Outside, we are reminded just how very few steps we have taken these thousands of years.
We have not come far at all, my young ones,” he said, looking at each of them in turn. “I sometimes think that beneath a very thin coating of civility lies the ugly inner layer of jealousy and greed marking the false gestures one man offers another.”

  Irina, unlike Jan, spoke to Madrosh with familiarity. “You are showing yourself to be as cynical as your pupil, Madrosh, and I must say that most peasants would nod their agreement to your words. Their daily lives cannot have changed much since the time of the Bible.”

  “It depends upon one’s point of view, nie? Outside this jewel box it is not nearly so pleasant. Is it?”

  Jan hung back to study the stories in glass. The other two made their way to the long kneeler facing the great altar and genuflected there in deep respect and silent prayer. The amber and rose lights cascaded upon them, warming their devotion.

  After a long moment, Irina spoke once again, this time with urgency. “At the moment, Madrosh, my attention is directed entirely toward the baby within me who now wants to be born!”

  Startled yet not surprised, Madrosh called to the new husband, and led his companions to the main doors, where Madame Kalmus waited with servants and a litter, as Madrosh had fortuitously directed.

  Irina grasped the old man’s hand and exclaimed, “God has already answered so many of my prayers!”

  With her other hand, she reached for Jan Brezchwa, her eyes imploring him to be for her now the man she so desperately needed. This, while she cried familiar tears for Berek, the man whose child she would soon deliver.

  …

  On the western edge of Poznan, just before the road steeped downward into the river valley, Jerzy Andrezski rode ahead of the two horses yoked to the heavily laden, four-wheeled cart. Its driver was a young monk dispatched by Father Kaminski to assist Jerzy in delivering the goods, as it were. Or perhaps, thought Jerzy, he was sent to keep an eye on business! In any event, Paulus Ossowski was an enthusiastic young man who had shown himself to be careful and protective of the load he carried.

  Before they’d left St. Stephen’s, Brother Paulus had listened closely to the tutorial offered by the elderly Brother Heidolphus. Carefully, he demonstrated how the glass must be stacked and packed in the cart, with straw between each layer and all around. Though the thirty rounds of glass, many clear and others colored in stunning hues, shifted themselves many times over the course of the journey, they were totally intact upon entering Poznan, or so Brother Paulus assured Jerzy Andrezski.