The Boy Who Wanted Wings Read online

  “I know. Not a good sign, but she chattered on and on, took me around the castle keep as if she was a tour guide, and there were moments when I thought she saw me as an equal, as if I was light like you and had those round blue eyes.”

  “Back to my handsomeness.” Idzi checked himself. “Just moments?”

  “Yes.” Aleksy wanted to tell him how she spoke of him as her captive or slave, but the words just fell away. It was too humiliating.

  “Tell me again, how were things left when she rode off?”

  “She said that I could have the more spirited horse—Flash—come Sunday and that she would take Miracle.”

  “Implying that she would meet you there again?”

  “Yes—no!—I don’t know. It’s been driving me crazy.”

  “Crazy in love, like I said.”

  “Love doesn’t come so fast—does it?”

  “In the legends it does.”

  “What should I do?”

  “You go on Sunday, but—”

  “But what?”

  “You don’t give up your soldiering idea. You take your lance and let Szymon teach you what he may. It’s your dream.”

  “And one just as unlikely to fulfill.”

  “You know that there are ways.”

  “Ways?”

  “Well, in difficult times, I’ve heard, times such as the Swede invasions of a few years ago, men without noble status and even some with questionable parentage were accepted as pacholicy for soldiers. Should your friends, the Halicki brothers, be inducted into the Kwarciani, they will require three such retainers each.”

  “Me, a pacholik? You mean—like a squire? To one of them? Not on your life!”

  Idzi ignored Aleksy’s protestation. “In those dark days, some of those common retainers performed commendable service to the Commonwealth and were made fully fledged soldiers. Some were even ennobled. And now they say dark days are coming for the entire continent.”

  “Poland seems to always be facing dark days. Oh, I would beg to be a retainer, Idzi, but I would not beg the Halicki brothers.”

  “Is that unchangeable?”

  Aleksy laughed. “It is.”

  On Sunday Aleksy arrived at the Halicki dwór with lance in hand. Unlike the saddles on the Halicki Polish-Arabians, the old and worn saddle on old Kastor had nothing to anchor the butt of the lance so that maintaining the lance’s balance had been difficult, making the ride in the dark slow and awkward. He dismounted. Secreting himself behind the same belt of bushes as the week before, he waited, noticing that the corner third-level window was again aglow with amber candlelight. He managed just a quick glance before the three-beat gait of a horse’s canter drew his attention toward the stable. Gustáf was leaving. Aleksy stroked Kastor’s forehead to keep him quiet. At the very moment the groom’s horse moved past him, breaking into a gallop that would speed Gustáf to Horodenka, some instinct—some sense of being watched—deflected Aleksy’s notice. He looked upward, squinted. There was a motion at the attic window. The arched valance was fluttering.

  Below it, a pale face in the flickering light seemed to float there.

  He blinked and it was gone, swift as a specter. If it were a ghost, it was that of a young girl. The Sunday before he had guessed that room to be a servant’s quarters, but today he wondered if it might not be Krystyna’s—Lady Krystyna’s. His heart caught.

  Aleksy stared to see if the figure would return to the eye-shaped window. After several minutes, he cursed himself for being foolish and made short work of getting himself to the stable, where Szymon awaited him.

  “You weren’t here when I came back last Sunday,” Aleksy said as he led Kastor to a stall.

  “I had other things to do. Good God, I expected you knew how to stable the horse.”

  “I wanted to ask you—”

  “What?”

  Aleksy approached Szymon. “Last Sunday—did you say anything to Lady Krystyna about me before she left with Flash?”

  “Lady Krystyna, is it now? Mighty familiar with the szlachta, hey? She told me she saw you.”

  “Szymon—”

  “It was a surprise to me. She came in wanting me to saddle Miracle for her. She had been riding him every day since the count and countess left. I wouldn’t agree to it at first, saying how it would get me in trouble when the count gets back. And she says she’d get me in trouble for sure if I didn’t saddle him up right then.”

  “And you did.”

  “No choice. She looks like a fine piece of marzipan, that one, all sweet and pretty. But she’s got a mind of her own and seems to enjoy seeing someone make a fuss or making a fuss herself. And to top it, I had to give her a few pointers, but just that first day. After that, it was like she grew unto the saddle.”

  “And so last Sunday with Miracle gone, she insisted on riding Flash?”

  “That she did.”

  “Did you tell her about me and my practice with Miracle?”

  The old man shrugged. “She asked me where Miracle was. What could I say? The horse was out for repair? No, I told her I had a boy take it out for exercise.”

  “Did you tell her my destination? That I was headed for Castle Hill?”

  “Let me see, now—I don’t rightly remember. Might have, but I don’t recall. Are we going to jawbone all morning, Alek, or are we going to teach you how to run a lance?”

  They left the stable, Aleksy atop Flash, Szymon walking alongside carrying the lance. Another time, Aleksy would have been solely focused on the enjoyment of this pivotal point in his life, but for the moment he could do nothing but wonder whether the girl in yellow had sought him out the week before. Had she remembered him from the day she nearly fell from the carriage?

  They advanced to the rear corral. Aleksy saw that Szymon had set up a wooden apparatus that held a small ring suspended on a string. It was a game and yet it was practice for one’s marksmanship. He had seen it done many times watching from Mount Halicz. He thrilled now to have his chance at it.

  “Here’s your lance. Now, place the butt into the tok.”

  Aleksy obeyed.

  “Good. Now, the most important thing for a lancer,” Szymon said, his weathered face and gray streaked beard upturned to Aleksy, “is leverage as you attempt to balance both your mount and the lance. It can be a difficult dance.”

  It was a predictable thing for him to say, as predictable as it was true. Aleksy had to combine what he had learned last week—keeping the horse on a defined track and managing the turns—with mastering the lance, the speed, and the aim. It took a good dozen attempts before he tore the ring from the post. That done once, he was able to achieve it every third or fourth try.

  At midmorning Aleksy’s thoughts strayed to Krystyna. Would she be riding Miracle today? Had it been her intention to go once again to the castle? Dared he think that it had been her purpose for him to meet her there? And if that had been her sincere intention, might she not have changed her mind over the course of a week’s time?

  “Now, my boy,” Szymon announced, interrupting Aleksy’s thoughts, “we need to practice with you pulling up the lance at a moment’s notice. When you’re a hussar on the practice field you’ll be divided into two groups facing one another. The approach will begin with the butt of the lowered lance secured in the tok and the point aimed at the very spleen of the soldier coming at you. On the track next to you, he’ll be coming at you full tilt, mind you. I’ve seen the king himself oversee this formation, and from a distance it looks as if the fight is real as rain. And at the same precise moment—the very last moment—you must pull up on your lance in unison with the soldier on the approaching lane so that no fellow lancer is wounded.”

  “Szymon, what happens—in real battle, I mean—when you make contact?”

  “Whe
n you spear someone? With luck that’s the end of him. Why, in the thick of battle I’ve seen a big brute of a man skewer two devils on his lance.”

  Aleksy blinked in wonder.

  “But, remember, double or nothing, after the initial charge, it’s the end of your lance. Time to drop it. It’s no good in up-close combat. And it’s a rare lance that gets used twice. You have to hope your company has a good supply for the next day, the next battle. In the meantime, whether you’ve got someone on the point or not, you drop the lance and it’s time for the sabre.”

  “I don’t have a sabre.”

  “And you’re not yet a hussar, are you? All in God’s time.”

  All in God’s time, Aleksy thought.

  Practice at this event went on for more than an hour, Aleksy responding better and better to Szymon’s croaking cry of “Pull up! Pull up!”

  The phrase that would keep coming back to him, however, was when you’re a hussar… This was the coin of encouragement, a coin that now held company in the purse with the coin invested by Idzi. If these two envisioned him as a hussar, could he do less?

  As they returned to the stable, Aleksy was struck with the deflating thought that Szymon would think Flash too tired—and perhaps he was—to be taken on an outing to Castle Hill. His heart beat fast upon entering the stable, his head turning toward Miracle’s stall. It was empty.

  “I see she’s taken Miracle,” Szymon said. “Bring Flash here for a bit of a drink. Could use one myself—ale my preferred choice.”

  Aleksy’s fear that he would not be allowed to ride Flash accelerated. His heart quickened. That Lady Krystyna had taken Miracle raised the stakes. He looked over to a stall where Kastor stood. He would take the plow horse and he would suffer the humiliation with a smile. Hell, he thought, I’ll walk to the castle if necessary. She was there. She had to be there.

  Szymon turned to him now, his face dark. “About you taking Flash out, Alek—”

  Aleksy drew in a big breath and held it, prepared for disappointment. He would not argue with Szymon. He already owed him too much.

  “I want you to make sure you bring a waterskin this time. Last Sunday Lady Krystyna railed at me good for sending you off without one.”

  From a distance, the decaying castle atop the hill appeared like a black and gray chalk painting. It was eerily silent, too, as he drew closer. Was there anything to the widespread notion that it was haunted? Then, from beneath, came the reverberating sound of Flash’s hoofbeats carefully treading the rotting drawbridge and in moments they were passing through the gateway of the structure and entering the bailey. Here Aleksy allowed the horse to prance majestically in large circles while he took in the revolving facades, eyes darting about, searching. It seemed deserted.

  He dismounted, listened. Nothing. He felt foolish for thinking she would be here, for thinking she had intended a meeting. Maybe it was her little joke on him, one she would share with her brothers. He took hold of the reins and led the horse toward the dilapidated stable. Flash suddenly tossed up his head and neighed. He had caught wind of something. From inside the stable now came another neighing in return greeting. Miracle—he was sure it was Miracle.

  Aleksy felt a rush of blood come into his face. She has come. She is here. He led Flash into the stable. His hands worked nervously at the knot that would tether Flash in the stall next to Miracle.

  In moments he was outside and in the bailey again, listening. All was silent as a cloister. Where was she? Why hadn’t she let her presence be known? It occurred to him then that she might have fallen, that her boot had become lodged in broken boards or the crevice of a stone step—or a half dozen other possibilities. He looked to the keep and moved toward it thinking that he could be her rescuer, as in the stories—not her slave. He would be well rewarded by a thankful and generous father. He would be asked his heart’s wish—and that would be to have the hand of the rescued maiden.

  All of these thoughts vanished at once upon entering the keep. What nonsense, he would think later.

  Her riding habit today was slate gray. She sat on the low flat stone that she had called her throne the week before, looking up at him from under her plumed hat as if—what? As if she had expected him? As if he had kept her waiting? As if his presence had disappointed?

  “What is your name, boy?”

  Has she forgotten? “Aleksy,” he answered, nearly certain that she did recall but pretended otherwise.

  “And did Flash ride well? Did he give good service?”

  “He did.”

  “This morning, from my window, I noticed that you brought a lance.”

  Aleksy immediately thought of that third floor half-coin shaped window. He nodded. It had not been a servant’s room. It had been hers.

  “And can you use it?”

  “I am learning.”

  “In secret, it seems. You waited for the groom to leave, didn’t you?”

  Aleksy’s stomach churned. This seemed more an interrogation than a conversation. What would she do with the information? He affected a smile.

  “Isn’t it the case, boy, that you don’t want my parents or my brothers to find out about any of this? Isn’t that true?”

  Aleksy stiffened. “It is true.”

  She smiled as if she had cleverly cajoled a murderer into confessing his crime.

  Well, he could play at this, too. “And you, Lady Krystyna, would you have them learn about any of this?”

  His arrow flew true. The smile vanished and for the first time he saw that her face colored, if only slightly.

  The moment passed quickly. She drew herself up, her eyes flashing a petulant retort. “You think not? Why, it would amuse me greatly.” She was suddenly standing and moving out into the bailey, expecting him to follow, chattering on about how things at the castle had fallen into even greater disrepair since her girlhood days. He did follow, and they came out into the sunlight. “There is one tower with a stairway that is still passable. I’ll show you.”

  He followed her into the tower at the right front of the keep. “It doesn’t look safe,” Aleksy cautioned, noting the cracked and crumbling condition of the open spiral stone staircase with its winding narrow steps. But she was already climbing it, much too quickly, he thought.

  “I’ve already been up here this morning,” she called back, her honeyed voice echoing down into the well-like void. “You needn’t worry. Now, hurry along.”

  She was staring out at the panorama when he caught up to her. The battlements were in relatively good condition. “It’s so beautiful looking out from up here,” she said. “You can see for miles.”

  Aleksy wondered if she had been up here watching for his arrival.

  “You brought your bow, as well.”

  “What?”

  She turned away from the scenic overview and faced him, her heart-shaped face all seriousness. “Your bow and quiver? I did see them, too, I think, here at the castle. ”

  “Yes, I left them in the stable. Why?”

  “Well, isn’t this where the archers took their aim? From these very openings, I imagine when they were under siege in those days that they killed many a Tatar.” She seemed to realize what she had said the moment the word Tatar finished her thought. But she made no comment, no apology. She turned again to look out.

  Had the word been an arrow, he would be lying at her feet. He tried to assess her expression from her profile. Had she meant to insult? To inflict hurt? Her visage was one of innocence, not malice—why, she hadn’t even colored in the least. How to figure her?

  “I should like to learn how to use a bow,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I should like to go to war. There’s talk of nothing else back in Warsaw. I should like to protect my homeland as much as the next person, man or woman.”


  “I could teach you.”

  When her eyes focused on him, he saw in them green laughter and he became certain—for the moment, at least—that she had been manipulating him for her own amusement.

  “What an interesting offer,” she said.

  “You had only to ask…. But women don’t go to war.”

  Her perfect forehead furrowed and her tone soured. “Well, then we shall forget it.” She pivoted away from him and stared into the distance through the crenelle.

  Aleksy regretted not playing along. At first mention of her interest, he had imagined showing her how to hold the bow, place the arrow, draw, take aim, and loose. How could he do so without placing his arms around her, without touching her?

  He surfaced from the little fantasy to see her moving down the stairs without so much as a by-your-leave. Had he lost his opportunity—or had she been teasing all along?

  He quickly followed, coming to the ground level with a little jolt. She had turned, waiting for him, and stood now but a foot away, her eyes on his. She lifted a hand to his face and her fingertips lightly brushed back a lock of his hair. “Why are your eyes shaped as they are?” she asked.

  The touch of her thrilled him, but then the sense of her question came home to him. Was this meant as another arrow? he wondered. In any case, it had the sting of one. He had never been asked such a question. And yet her face pleaded innocence. “I was told once,” he said, “that my lineage goes back to the Golden Horde.”

  “The Mongols?”

  He nodded. “Far to the northeast. They say that the eyes are shaped to protect against the sun and snow.” When she didn’t react, he added, “It is very bright there.”

  Aleksy could not tell whether Krystyna was processing this information and allowing it to pass without comment, or whether she gave his words any thought at all.

  “And you said you can teach me the art of the bow?”

  “Yes. I could show you now.” Aleksy started for the exit into the bailey but she placed her hand on his arm, detaining him.