The Boy Who Wanted Wings Read online

  Aleksy loosed. The shaft’s steel head—purchased in Halicz—was so sharp and propelled with such force that the arrow completely disappeared into the bale. They heard it strike the wall behind the target.

  “You killed Lord Haystack!” Krystyna trilled.

  Aleksy laughed. “A blunter tip is more appropriate for practice lest you really kill a person, but I hadn’t planned on practice today. I hadn’t planned—”

  “My turn,” Krystyna said.

  Aleksy nodded, handed her the bow, and stepped behind her. He offered her an arrow. His heart beat erratically at the thought that a moment he had dreamt of was about to be realized. Correctly finding placement for the three fingers of her gloved hand, she nocked the arrow. He prepared to place his arms around her to instruct her in the proper hold and stance. And she would likely need his strength for the draw. He well knew that it took years for the novice archer to draw the cord of such a yew bow back to the ear.

  Holding the arrow point down, as he had done, Krystyna started to lift it, evidently thought of a question, and swiveled about to face Aleksy.

  He laughed and gently pushed the arrow back down and away. “Did you suddenly think to kill me?”

  “No, I want to know why you cannot meet me in the forest on Sunday next.”

  “I won’t be here. I’m going away on Saturday.”

  “Away?… Away where?”

  “You should take aim now, Lady Krystyna.”

  “No! Tell me where. You will come back?”

  “Someday, perhaps.”

  “I won’t shoot until you tell me!”

  “I’m going to join the King’s Army—if they’ll take me.”

  “You aren’t serious.”

  Aleksy bristled. “I am.”

  “What do you have to commend yourself?”

  “I have what you are holding in your hand. I thought I would have to fashion another one, but now—I’m grateful to you for returning it.”

  “Had I known, I wouldn’t have done so! Why, you don’t even have a decent horse. Did you plan to steal one of my brothers’ Turks?”

  “I don’t steal!”

  “You’re offended—I’m sorry.”

  “My legs are sturdy enough.”

  “They say there’s a war in the near future!”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’ll likely be killed!”

  “We all have our fates to fulfill.”

  Krystyna stared at him for several moments, as if assessing his sincerity. She then drew herself up and threw down the bow and nocked arrow. “I think you are a fool, Aleksy—a fool, do you hear?”

  “I thought I heard you say on two Sundays ago that you wanted to be a soldier. Didn’t you mean it?”

  “No—well, maybe—at the time.”

  “For you it was a whimsical wish. It wasn’t real.—But I do mean it. I have nothing to hold me here.”

  “You want to prove yourself in the eyes of Poles, is that it? People like my brothers?—As if you are a Pole yourself?”

  “I am a Pole!”

  “Is there no mirror in your little cottage?” She paused allowing the comment to do its damage. “Can’t you at least see your reflection when you bend over a basin of water?—You do wash, don’t you?”

  Aleksy suddenly wanted to strike her across the face. The urge surprised him and he drew himself up. “Nonetheless, I will be gone come Saturday.”

  He was not alone in his impulse, for she stepped forward and drew her hand back as if to slap him, but seeming to accede to a second thought, she sighed and let her arm drop to her side. “You’re a fool, Aleksy Gazdecki, and we’re well rid of you.” With both hands to his midsection, she shoved him aside.

  He stood stiff as a stone statue as she made for Daffodil’s stall, reeling from the pain to his ribs—but so much more from the sting of her words. He was stunned by how quickly things had gone awry. That was the way with her, it seemed.

  He did not, would not, call her back. She hated him.

  The mare was moderately small so she mounted it herself and was soon directing it out of the stable, with not a look back in his direction.

  The fantasy, tender as a spring shoot—yes, he had dared to imagine it in the nighttime hours—that she would allow him to care for her, had been crushed like the bud of a flower under her boot. She was right: to think for a moment that ancestry, complexion, and title did not matter was to be a fool. The greatest fool in Halicz.

  Luba was up and rubbing her gray and white shagginess against him. Mindlessly, he reached down to pet her. He could pray now only for forgetfulness—and finding a place in the army. Saturday could not come fast enough.

  He noticed now the brown glove clenched in Luba’s mouth.

  Ten

  “Aleksy!” His father’s gruffest voice awoke him on Friday, long before the sun had come up. “Aleksy, get up!”

  He had had trouble sleeping and longed for another hour of sleep, but his father had never awakened him in such a manner before. Something was wrong. He twisted on his cot and bolted upright, a searing pain at once reminding him of the tender condition of his ribs. More slowly, he swiveled and placed his feet on the floor. “What is it, Borys?” he asked, rubbing his eyes, taking great care with the bruised one.

  “It’s Count Halicki,” his father said, “that’s what it is.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. We’ve been called up to Poplar House. No doubt it’s about what you did last Sunday. We’ll be lucky if we’re not evicted.”

  “Evicted?” The word was spoken only to himself. His father had already stormed out of the cottage.

  He dressed quickly and went into the kitchen. He was startled to find his mother sitting in a chair, weeping.

  He knelt down in front of her and took her hand. “If this is my doing, Mother, I will make it right.”

  His mother was slow to bring her eyes to him, but as she did, the blue had softened. She seemed to focus on his bruised face, her hand moving to gently brush against his cheek. “What God brings, God brings.”

  Aleksy took her callused hand, kissed it, stood and made his exit.

  Outside, Borys had hitched Kastor to the wagon. Aleksy climbed aboard and they moved off.

  Neither father nor son spoke for the duration of the ride. Aleksy tried to imagine what was about to transpire, regretting he had not left the village the day before. He knew that, years ago, his father had served with Count Halicki in the wars against the Russian and Cossack armies, as well as against the incursion of Tatar tribes on the Wild Fields southeast of the Commonwealth, on the steppes extending from the River Dniester as far east as the River Don in Russia. His father rarely spoke of those war years, but it seemed he held the count in good esteem, and the count must have been of similar mind, for he had been generous to his father in the years since. Could what happened at the castle ruins have placed their relationship in jeopardy? Had the Halicki sons taken the situation with him and Lady Krystyna and from it fabricated a story that impugned the honor of their sister—at the hands of a local Tatar? It was a hanging offense and often the evidence against peasants was slight.

  Krystyna had said she had convinced them not to bring charges against him. But what if they changed their minds? What if Roman sought revenge for losing the bow he had so coveted?

  Or—what if Krystyna herself was lashing out at him? He had not for a moment forgotten how she had become consumed with anger when he told her he was going away. What if she had accused him of things that didn’t happen? What then? She was an enigma, indeed. So very changeable, like a weather vane.

  At the Halicki stable Szymon took hold of Kastor’s reins as Aleksy and his father alighted from the wagon. No one spoke. Szymon cast a dark, knowing look at Aleksy. Was it
one of sympathy? Empathy? Or was it fear that he himself was to be implicated for having supplied the horses on the previous Sundays?

  They entered through the rear of the manor house, where several house servants gawked at them, and were shown to the count’s library. Count Halicki sat behind a great oak desk in his żupan, the long red robe resplendent with gold buttons down the front. A wide Turkish sash of russet and gold cinched his considerable girth.

  “Welcome, Borys,” Count Halicki said, coming to his feet with some difficulty. His smile seemed genuine. His hair was thinning but his black moustache was expertly manicured. “And this is the boy—Aleksy. My, nearly grown!”

  “It is, Lord Halicki.”

  “How tall he is since I last saw him playing about the stable!”

  Aleksy bowed, and when he stood erect, he saw that his facial bruises and lacerations had not escaped notice. And yet the count turned to speak to his father. Aleksy let go an inner sigh that he made no mention of his appearance. He had not prepared a response should he be asked about his injuries. He felt blood rushing to his face. What could he say if the count pursued the issue?

  “Ah, Borys,” the count was saying, “we have been through too much for you to maintain such formality, yes? Ridden stirrup to stirrup through many a campaign!—It’s Konrad to you, my friend.”

  Aleksy relaxed a bit. Lord Halicki’s affability was encouraging. His mind wandered as the count continued to engage his father in conversation. Where was Krystyna? Did she know of this meeting?

  At that moment he heard footsteps behind him. Was this perhaps Krystyna?

  But the count’s little announcement smothered that thought at birth. “And here is one of my sons—Marek.”

  Aleksy’s heart dropped within his chest as he turned to see the younger brother enter. Marek smiled as the introductions were concluded, a smile Aleksy could not decipher. The count directed Borys and Aleksy to take the upholstered chairs in front of the desk while Marek repaired to a couch at some distance behind them. He would be silent for most of the meeting, but Aleksy could not for a moment forget his presence.

  Count Halicki cleared his throat and launched into a review of the state of affairs in the Commonwealth and the dangers posed to Europe by the Ottoman Empire, beginning more than a century before with the Ottoman’s unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1529. He moved on to recent history: how he and Borys aided Sobieski in defeating their western push just ten years before in a great battle at Chocim; how just a year ago Sultan Mehmed IV was advised by Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa to consider the peace treaty with Habsburg Emperor Leopold I nonbinding; how the Ottoman army, culled from every corner of the Islam world, had amassed at Adrianople and then moved on to Belgrade. The spies and intelligencers were convinced the sights of the Ottomans were set on Vienna—and on all of Christian Europe. Both Muslims and Christians viewed the seat of the Holy Roman Empire as the gateway to Western Europe.

  Aleksy listened to the monologue with great interest because the Commonwealth was evidently in great peril, but also because a war might bring his main chance—to become a soldier. The possibility was there. All the while, too, relief poured like a spring waterfall into him. For the first time that morning he felt as if he could breathe freely without a sword at his throat. He had not been brought to the Halicki manor house to be accused, tried, and sentenced.

  Throughout the speech, the count’s searching dark blue eyes came back to Aleksy now and then, pausing as if reflecting on something other than the content of the moment. It was the strangest sensation, one that he was to puzzle over as the days passed. For now, he could only wonder why he had been summoned.

  The count came to what seemed the end of his history lesson. “Borys, I should like nothing better than a campaign such as we forged against the Turks—when was it? 1669?”

  “It was 1668, Konrad, and we weren’t finished until ’73.”

  “Ah yes, well, I am forty-five now, damn it, but I’m awaiting my orders.”

  “I would have a go again, my lord,” his father said, “if you would allow me.”

  “I know you would, but you are needed here. At least for now.” He turned his gaze to Aleksy. “Has your father told you how he saved my life?” The count didn’t wait for a response, his gaze returning to Aleksy’s father. “Borys, you are what makes that little village tick. You’ve done your duty and acquitted yourself proudly.” His eyes darted to the back of the room where Marek sat. “My sons, however, are chomping at the bit to fight for the Commonwealth. They were hoping to be inducted into the Kwarciani, but the danger at Vienna’s gates is much more serious than defending stray marauders wandering in from the Wild Fields. The Turks called the Christian city of Constantinople the ‘Golden Apple,’ and they took it more than two centuries ago. Today they call Vienna the ‘New Golden Apple’ but I’ll go to hell and back before they take Vienna and start transforming cathedrals into mosques.”

  “Praise God!” Aleksy’s father said.

  The count nodded and continued: “Now, I met with Sobieski at a wedding I attended not long ago in Warsaw. Our standing army is just eleven thousand, but he has issued a General Ban, calling on us nobles to take up our military duty. While I await my orders, my sons will continue the Halicki service as hussars. They are to be towarzysze—companions—for a company assembling in Kraków next week. They say Sobieski is on his way and that his main forces will coalesce there.”

  “God go with them! My compliments to you and to your sons,” Borys said, turning to nod in Marek’s direction.

  Aleksy sat immobile, as if a serpent had stung him and left him paralyzed. Marek is to have my dream, my chance, he thought with no small amount of resentment. And Roman, too? Dog’s blood!

  “Personally,” the count was saying, “I think they are too green to get involved in something like this. Thus far it’s been mostly parading around in their feathers like knights of old.”

  His father spoke: “Weren’t we all green before the Turks, when it was the Russians and Cossacks—and before that, the Swedes?”

  The count laughed. “Indeed, indeed. One wave after another and yet we endure. Poland endures. You’re saying they have to start somewhere.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good man! And that brings me to my reason for asking you both here today.” His attention shifted momentarily to Aleksy, who sat thinking he would forego the impossible dream of becoming a hussar. Why he would be most needed, if only as an infantryman, should he show up at a post as planned—or better, at Kraków, where the King’s Army was gathering. That it seemed possible filled him with a light-headed elation.

  “I’ve hired drivers for the two wagons of equipment, but these are old men whose fighting days are in the past.—Now,” the count continued, “while the usual custom calls for each towarzysz to have two or three pacholicy, along with horses, I find that I am able to afford one pacholik for each of my sons.—And for Marek I have selected as retainer your Aleksy.”

  Retainer! Aleksy thought he would go wild at the thought. He wanted to strike out at someone, something. Retainer! A lowly servant to Marek! Suddenly he was surprised by his own voice: “But I can fight, Lord Halicki!” His voice echoed loudly in the room. “No one is better with a bow than I, it’s true! And I’ve fashioned my own lance—it’s a beauty, too.” He sensed his father’s head turn at this news, but he pressed on with his case. “I’ve dreamt of nothing but soldiering. I can be more than a retainer! I can fight!”

  The count smiled slyly. “Evidently,” he said.

  Aleksy remembered his bruised face and burned with embarrassment.

  “And he evidently can ride, too, Father!” The irony-drenched line came not from Marek but from the doorway. Borys turned to look but Aleksy didn’t have to do so. It was Roman’s voice.

  “Ah, Romek,” the count said, winking at Borys. “A l
ate sleeper. No luxuries like that when you’re on the march, are there, Borys?”

  His father stood and nudged Aleksy to do the same. Roman seemed quite pleased with himself. The needling sarcasm in his comment about Aleksy’s riding made no impression on Lord Halicki; if he had been informed about the outings with the Polish-Arabians, the transgressions seemed not to be an issue. What did the count know? Were there to be no accusations against him concerning Krystyna?—Or was knowledge of his meeting with her going to be used as an implicit bribe to make him accede to any demand, such as bind him like a thrall to Marek? It had been a meeting with the young countess, or rather three innocent meetings, and nothing more, nothing licentious. Well, there was the kiss, but could that be called anything more than a flirtation? And then there was the incident in the barn. He and Krystyna seemed to be at odds most of the time. She was an impossible girl.

  “Now, my boy,” the count said to Aleksy, much like a tutor to a restless child, “not everyone can be a soldier. There are invaluable jobs to be done in a camp that greatly contribute to a company’s success. Your father can support me in that. He was a true and loyal retainer—as you will be. And there were times when he was called upon to fight side by side with me.”

  “But—”

  The count’s raised forefinger and stern expression shushed him at once. His father had surreptitiously gripped his elbow in warning, as well. There would be no more arguing his case. And yet—there was still some satisfaction to be had here. Was a retainer not a soldier of sorts? And Marek had a more poised temperament than did Roman. Might he and Marek actually get along and work well together?