The Boy Who Wanted Wings Read online

  Roman was thinking of turning around at the very moment he heard the noise. His horse heard the baying of a wolf pack, too, and halted at once. The animal let out a fearful snort, and a shiver ran through horse and rider. Even at some distance, the howling of wolves curdled his blood; it always had. Being torn apart by wolves made for an unspeakably gruesome death and one not uncommon, no matter the season. He had seen the grisly remains of a three-person hunting party once and the sight remained seared in his memory.

  Roman’s decision came quickly. He attempted to turn and retrace their steps, but the horse stubbornly stayed in place. He abandoned the use of his knees, instead employing both reins and spurs, none too gently. The horse turned, turned again in confusion or fright or pain, and turned yet again. Roman lost his bearings.

  The shrieks of the wolves heightened to a deafeningly clamorous pitch. They had found their prey. An elk? A deer? And then the incomprehensible occurred to Roman—Marek? Had he gone on ahead? Roman’s stomach roiled. He thought he would be sick. Chrystus Jezus, let it be that Marek took the route around the forest. Why had his brother allowed such a distance to come between them? But he knew at once that it was he who had allowed it. What to do?

  He listened to the sickening, echoing sounds that came from—where? Behind him? The horse whinnied, its worry borne out by its ears that were flattened back and little convulsive tremors in the hard muscle beneath its mane. “Steady, Flash,” Roman murmured. The stallion snorted, slowly pumping its front legs, as if in readiness for his command.

  Getting his bearings, Roman was about to spur the horse away from the sounds of the wolf pack when he heard noises—the breaking of twigs and the rush of something or someone through brush and low-hanging tree limbs. More wolves? Holy Chrystus!

  He felt as if his heart would come through his chest. What seemed an eternity passed. The sounds grew louder, the terror more intense.

  Finally, moments after he recognized the padding of horses’ hooves on the soft forest floor, he heard his own name called out. “Roman!”

  And then Marek was there, drawing close, their mounts snout to snout, his brother’s face barely visible in the dark. “It’s you, Mareczek—thank God!”

  “Were you so frightened?” Marek asked. “Ha! You must have been! You never use my diminutive anymore.”

  Before Roman could reply, the wolves’ cries rose to a shrill crescendo, drawing Marek up short. “God’s bones!” he hissed.

  “Better His than ours—let’s get the devil out of here!”

  Marek paused for a moment, mesmerized and listening. “They’re feasting.”

  “And no doubt battling each other for the best pieces. Let’s go!” Roman said, certain that his younger brother was gripped by the same fear—that it was no animal being torn to pieces.

  “God’s bones!” Marek repeated, shivering at the sounds. “I couldn’t wish that on the worst Turk in Constantinople. Well, perhaps on the Sultan.”

  “Oh, I could think of a Tatar I would wish it upon. If I believed in wishes.”

  Four

  “What do you think of it, Idzi?”

  Aleksy bent to retrieve from the straw-strewn surface of the barn the lance he had created. He turned the unwieldly weapon over in his hands, admiring it anew. Years before, he had made friends with Lord Halicki’s old stable master, Szymon, under whose tutelage he had become an expert in woodcraft, fashioning his own yew bows and ash arrows. Szymon had pronounced him an excellent bowyer and one magical day the year previous had allowed him to examine an old lance once used by the count. Aleksy took the measurements of the lance and carefully replicated it from a seventeen-foot length of fir-wood cut in halves and hollowed out as far as the rounded handguard at the lower end, thus reducing its weight. The shorter section managed by the lancer was left solid wood for leverage. The town blacksmith that provided Aleksy’s steel arrow points forged the lance point.

  “It’s a beauty, Aleksy. How did you manage to fasten the two pieces together after you hollowed out the wood?”

  “Just by chance. One day Borys made an off-hand comment about a Mongolian formula using a tar made from birch bark. I tried it and it worked just fine, as you can see.”

  “Why is it you call your father by his Christian name?”

  “He’s always had me call him Borys. I guess it’s odd to most folks.”

  “You don’t call your mother Jadwiga, do you?”

  “God help me if I did.”

  “So what now?” Idzi asked. “About the lance.”

  Aleksy interpreted the question as, You’ve created this thing—now, what’s the likelihood of its doing you any good? He ignored it, posing one of his own. “Can you lift it?”

  “Who the hell do you think moved it to this side of the barn so that the cow or Kastor wouldn’t trample it? Just because it’s four times longer than I am tall doesn’t mean I’m a weakling, my friend.”

  “Indeed,” Aleksy said as he gently returned the lance to its place of safety. “Why then, you could be of value to the army.” He stood up, unable to contain a mischievous smile, and turned to Idzi. “You could run at the horsed enemy with the lance and he wouldn’t see you coming until you jabbed him in the toe from below.”

  “Or—if he’s on foot—his codpiece,” Idzi said, his smile wide. “You’re a bastard, you are.”

  The two fell to laughing now as they sat cross-legged in the straw, the lantern between them, the muted thrum of rain on the thatched roof. Aleksy felt as if he could make a bit of fun out of Idzi’s dwarfism, such was their friendship. And Idzi took it in stride and could return in kind with Tatar jibes. The barn was his home, along with the family horse, cow, and a variety of farm animals. He had come to the family seven years before, at the age of ten. He showed up one day, an orphan looking for work and he stayed on to take care of the barn, hen house, pigsty and the like, worming his way into the hearts of everyone, especially Aleksy’s, with the exclusion of Aleksy’s mother, who insisted on calling him by his full Christian name, Egidiusz. She said she held nothing against the lad who refused to grow, but she never invited him into the house unless it was to deliver eggs, a slaughtered chicken, or on some other errand. Idzi had been nearly as tall as Aleksy when he had come to the farm, but now he was no taller than the height of Aleksy’s waist. He had a large head offset by a mass of sandy hair, a keen mind, and unapologetic sky-blue eyes. Aleksy thought him a handsome little man, one who minded his manners in front of Borys and Jadwiga, and yet when Aleksy asked his parents if his friend could partake of a Sunday supper the previous winter, Borys went silent in deference to Jadwiga’s glowering expression and adamant refusal. Aleksy wondered sometimes why he had been adopted and accepted into their home as son and brother to Damian while Idzi—of Polish blood—was relegated to servant status with lodging in the barn.

  For food, Idzi fended for himself, but Aleksy often brought him leftovers in the night—a bit of meatless stew and bread this night—when they would converse while whittling out of linden wood the figures of animals or people. Although Aleksy loved his brother Damian, he found a deeper connection to Idzi.

  “Aleksy…” Idzi said tentatively, his eyes on his own sculpture of a dog meant to be Luba, who lay sprawled on her side close by, a fluffy mound of white and gray.

  Aleksy grunted.

  “You’ve carved enough soldiers to make your own army should you somehow bring them to life.”

  “And to life-size.”

  “Which means taller than me, I’ll wager. You’re working on an animal now, yes? Is it a goat?”

  “Hah! It’s not a goat, fool. Soldiers have to ride, yes?”

  “A horse, then. And when do you plan to ride?”

  Aleksy looked up and even in the lantern light could see the sharpness of Idzi’s gaze. He shrugged and felt his face heating.
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br />   “You know what I mean, Aleksy. You now have your lance. When do you make your move? Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve had soldiering on your mind. So, when?”

  “I don’t know. It was easy to think about, easy to talk about, but not so easy to do.”

  “Why?”

  “You know very well. Who will take me? Yes, I have a lance and I’m a damn good archer, too! But I have no horse, for God’s sake. And I’ve never even ridden a good horse, a really good one. A Polish-Arabian, a “Turk,” like the mounts I saw the Halicki brothers with, damn them.”

  “Still, someone should give you a try.”

  “Why should they? I hear that a Turk costs over one hundred and twenty złotys.” Aleksy fell silent for several minutes. “I should get back to the cottage. Can’t afford to be tired in the field.”

  “Unless you find a nice shady spot.”

  “Shady spots don’t get the weeds pulled or baby plants set upright after tonight’s rain.”

  “Aleksy, is there something else?” Idzi’s eyes were on him again. “To keep you here?”

  “Like what?”

  “Damian says you were taken by that girl—the one in the carriage.”

  Aleksy’s mouth fell open. “Damian said what?”

  Idzi just stared, searching, a dormant smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  “Curse my brother! His mouth runs like a springtime mountain brook.” Why should Damian meddle so? First with his parents and now with Idzi. He sighed. “Damn! She’s a noble’s daughter, Idzi! Do you take me for an idiot? I’m not to even talk to her. And yet—why should it make such a difference?”

  “I don’t know, but it does and it’s something you can’t change, like my size. The girl’s high-born and you’re not. They say, ‘Those born for the cap should not crave the crown’.”

  The answer was not to Aleksy’s liking. He said nothing.

  “So if nothing’s holding you here,” Idzi said, “why don’t you go—take a stab at soldiering?”

  “Maybe I will. Are you so anxious to see me off and away?”

  “It’s just that you’ve spoken of nothing else. I thought it was in your blood. And now the lance is finished and it is a beauty. Why, I’d go with you myself if I thought—well, I’m not an idiot, either. Just a dwarf.”

  Aleksy found no suitable reply. And maybe I am just a dreamer, he thought. Standing, he tossed his sculpture into the corner and gave the facsimile of a sleepy stretch. “I’ll see you tomorrow. You should sleep, too. That rooster will have you up before you know it.”

  Idzi laughed. “The cock is the village clock, no?”

  “Heard you had a little clash with the Masters Halicki,” Szymon said within moments of opening the tall doors of the huge Halicki stable so that Aleksy could enter with his horse and dog. His milky blue eyes twinkled above a wildly full and grizzled beard.

  After Sunday Mass at the little village church, Aleksy often visited Count Halicki’s stable master at Poplar House. Their initial relationship had been struck years before when Borys had business at the manor house and Aleksy had trailed along and been amused by Szymon in the stable. Their friendship was truly sealed when he learned that Szymon had been held captive for five years by Tatars not friendly to the Commonwealth. Here was a man—Polish to the bone—who could tell him something about the Tatar people to the east, Aleksy’s people, something more that the cryptic Borys had told him. Aleksy learned that his ancestors originated in the extreme climate of Mongolia’s Gobi Desert. After centuries of migrations and subjugations, the Tatars came to form a piece of what was called the Golden Horde, one that controlled the Eurasian Steppe. From that tapestry came the Budzhak Tatars and a particular tribe Borys had told him about—that of his parents—who tended cattle and roamed the land south of Halicz, on the plain that followed the River Dniester toward the Black Sea.

  Szymon’s statement about the Halicki brothers brought Aleksy up short. “The one had a mind to steal my bow.—Who told you?”

  “That sounds more like Roman, I can tell you. Puffs like a toad. The trick is to treat him like a tadpole. He was a regular little miscreant as a child.”

  “He hasn’t changed.”

  Szymon laughed. “Ah, Alek,” he said, using the diminutive, “they seldom do. Once a slyboots, always a slyboots. His brother Marek told me about seeing you. I guess they were surprised to see you almost all grown.”

  “Almost?” Aleksy feigned an affront. “Evidently not surprised in a good way.”

  “What would you have done had he taken it?”

  “I would have taken it back and probably broken it over his head.” Later, in bed that night, Aleksy would wonder whether his own statement wasn’t a bit of bluster.

  “Ah, then it’s best ended as it did. Don’t be so impulsive, my boy. Had he absconded with it, we could have pleaded your case to the count.”

  “And what would his father do?”

  “Hopefully the right thing, Alek.”

  Aleksy made a grunting sound. “Maybe.”

  “I’ve thought of a few new expressions for you today. Put Kastor over in the stall and come sit.”

  Aleksy did as he was told, then passed the count’s horses, lingering for several moments at the stalls of the Halicki brothers’ Polish-Arabians, stroking their fine manes.

  “Some beauties, huh?” Szymon said.

  “I’ve never seen the like.”

  “The boys were well rewarded for their successful military training. Their father spent some money on that horseflesh, I can tell you. They had better appreciate them. Now, hurry, boy!” Something in his throaty tone made Aleksy think Szymon harbored a bit of jealousy for the advantages of the brothers’ births, as well as for their youth.

  The two sat at a small rough-hewn table. Luba settled into a mound of hay. “How did you get away—when you were a captive?” Aleksy asked.

  “Lord Halicki missed my expertise as a retainer in our fighting years, I guess,” Szymon said, laughing. “He paid the ransom.”

  “Ransom?”

  “Yes, my boy. It goes that way often enough. If an enemy thinks you might have value, they’ll seek a reward for your return. The bartering took years, but here I am. Now, do you wish to learn or not?”

  Aleksy’s interest in his own personal history had led to Szymon’s teaching him Tatar customs and phrases. The phrases, in turn, had led to Aleksy’s learning how to write the phrases. Szymon, having studied to become a priest years before, had an education more advanced than the average stable master. He had not blinked two years earlier when Aleksy told him he could neither read nor write. What peasant could? “Well, I shall teach you what I know,” he said, “not that it’s so much, mind you, but it will do. And I will teach you the Tataric and the Polish.”

  And in that way the tutorials had begun. Aleksy dared not tell his family he was learning to read and write. He could imagine no positive reaction and suspected Damian would be jealous. He had, however, trusted Idzi with the secret.

  Two hours passed with Szymon’s quizzing Aleksy on phrases he had already learned. After acquitting himself well in speaking the phrases in Polish and then Tataric, Aleksy used a stick to spell out the phrases in the dirt floor of the stable. Szymon could teach only the written Polish. He had not mastered the written Tataric.

  Today Szymon taught several new sayings. The one he saved for last played tricks with Aleksy’s mind: “At home with their friends, all men are soldiers.”

  Aleksy thought about its meaning as he repeated it back in Polish, then in Tataric. Then came the Polish writing in the dirt, all the while his mind working. Was that phrase alluding to bravado? Is my dream nothing more than bravado?

  Evidently Szymon’s mind was working in the same direction. “Have you thought more about your joining
the colors, my boy?”

  Aleksy cursed his own tongue. Why had he told people about his foolishness? Why? Now they had expectations of him. First Idzi—and now Szymon. He was filled with shame. “Soldiering? I have no horse.”

  “Not all soldiers have horses.”

  “A foot soldier? Never!”

  “The infantry is nothing to be ashamed of. And, who knows, maybe the King’s Army will supply you with a mount once you show them your fine bow and fine lance. I had some doing in that, you know, making of you a fine bowyer and allowing you to copy Count Halicki’s lance.”

  Luba’s head came up from the straw at that moment and she began to growl. Aleksy and Szymon turned toward the door that led to the path up to the house. There stood Szymon’s apprentice, Gusztáf, eyeing them peculiarly. Szymon stood and took two steps forward so as to make the soldier saying in the dirt illegible. To keep the lessons secret, they were conducted only on Sundays because Gusztáf went home to the village of Horodenka for the day.

  “You’re back early,” Szymon said.

  Gusztáf nodded, his eyes shifting from Szymon to Aleksy and back again.

  For a few awkward moments nothing more than the shuffling of a horse in its stall could be heard.

  “Gusztáf,” Szymon said, managing a false smile, “will you be a good boy and take the bucket there and fetch some water?”

  Blond, with hazel eyes above a sharp nose, Gusztáf was a year younger than Aleksy and not one to hide his emotion of the moment. Today it was suspicion. He resentfully picked up the bucket and made his exit.