Before noon, the armies, having approached the vicinity of the villages of Logdan and Tannenberg, halted at the edge of the forest. The spot seemed good for a rest and safe from any surprise attack, since on the left it was washed by an arm of Lake Dąbrowski, and on the right by Lake Lubień, while before the armies opened a mile-wide expanse of open field. In the middle of that expanse, rising gently westward, the meadows of Grunwald greened, and a little further off the thatched roofs and dreary fallow fields of Tannenberg showed gray. An enemy descending toward the forests and heights could easily be spotted, but no one expected him to arrive sooner than the next day. The armies had stopped here only for a halt, yet since Zyndram of Maszkowice, even on the march, observed battle order with an eye to war, they drew up so that at any moment they might be ready for action.
By the commander’s order, couriers on light, swift horses were sent far ahead, toward Grunwald and Tannenberg and beyond, to reconnoiter the area. Meanwhile, for the king, who longed for worship, a chapel tent was set up on the high shore of Lake Lubień so that he might hear the customary Masses.
Jagiello, Witold, the Masovian princes, and the war council went to the tent. Before it gathered the foremost knights, partly to commend themselves to God before the dreadful day, partly to gaze upon the king. And they saw him walk in a gray camp gown, his face grave, marked clearly by heavy care. The years had changed his appearance little and had not covered his face with wrinkles nor whitened his hair, which he still tucked behind his ears with the same quick gesture as when Zbyszko had first seen him in Krakow. But he walked as if bowed under the burden of the terrible responsibility weighing on his shoulders, as if sunk in great sorrow.
In the army it was said that the king wept continually over the Christian blood about to be shed, and so it truly was. Jagiello shuddered at war, especially with men who bore the cross on their cloaks and banners, and with all his soul he desired peace. In vain did the Polish lords, and even the Hungarian mediators Scibor and Gara, set before him the pride and arrogance of the Krzyżacy, which filled Master Ulrych, ready to challenge the whole world to battle. In vain did his own envoy Piotr Korzbog swear by the Lord’s Cross and by his heraldic fish that the Order would hear nothing of peace, and that only the Komtur of Gniew, Count von Wende, who urged peace, was mocked and insulted by the others. He still hoped the enemy would recognize the justice of his demands, would spare human blood, and by a fair agreement end the dreadful feud.
So now he went to pray for this in the chapel, for his simple, kind soul was tormented by immense anxiety. Jagiello had once visited the Teutonic lands with fire and sword, but he had done so as a pagan Lithuanian prince. Now, as King of Poland and a Christian, seeing burning villages, ruins, blood, and tears, he was seized by fear of God’s wrath, especially since this was only the beginning of the war. If only it could stop there! But today or tomorrow the nations would clash and the earth would soften with blood. The enemy was unjust, yet they wore crosses on their cloaks and were defended by such great and holy relics that the mind recoiled in terror before them. Throughout the army men thought of them with fear; it was not the spearheads, not the swords, not the axes, but those sacred remains that the Poles dreaded most. “How shall we lift our hand against the Master,” said the knights, who knew no fear, “when on his armor he bears a reliquary with the bones of saints and the wood of the Savior’s Cross!”
Witold indeed burned for war, pushed for it, and hurried toward battle, but the king’s pious heart simply trembled at the thought of those heavenly powers with which the Order shielded its iniquity.
Just then Father Bartosz of Kłobuck had finished one Mass, and Jarosz, provost of Kalisz, was soon to come out with another, and the king had stepped out before the tent to stretch his knees tired from kneeling, when, on a lathered horse, the nobleman Hanko Ostojczyk burst in like a storm and shouted before leaping from the saddle:
“Germans, gracious lord, are coming!”
At these words the knights started, the king changed color, was silent for the blink of an eye, then exclaimed:
“Praised be Jesus Christ! Where did you see them and how many banners?”
“I saw one banner near Grunwald,” answered Hanko in a breathless voice, “but from beyond the hill a dust cloud rose, as if more were coming.”
“Praised be Jesus Christ!” repeated the king.
At that, Witold — whose face had flushed with blood at Hanko’s first word and whose eyes began to burn like coals — turned to the courtiers and cried:
“Call off the second Mass, and my horse!”
But the king laid a hand on his shoulder and said:
“You go, brother, and I will stay and hear the second Mass.”
So Witold and Zyndram of Maszkowice leaped onto their horses, but just as they turned toward the camps, a second courier, the nobleman Piotr Oksza of Włostów, flew in and from afar already began to shout:
“Germans! Germans! I saw two banners!”
“To horse!” cried voices among the courtiers and knights.
And before Piotr had finished speaking, the clatter of hooves sounded again and a third courier arrived, then a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth: all had seen German banners approaching in ever greater number. There was no doubt now: all the Krzyżacy forces were blocking the royal forces’ path.
The knights scattered in the blink of an eye to their own banners. Only a handful of courtiers, priests, and servants remained with the king by the chapel tent. But at that moment a bell rang, signaling that the provost of Kalisz was coming out for the second Mass. So Jagiello stretched out his arms, joined his hands piously, and, raising his eyes to heaven, walked slowly to the tent.
But when, after the Mass ended, he came out before the tent again, he could see with his own eyes that the couriers had told the truth, for on the far edge of the vast plain, rising more and more steeply, something blackened as if a forest had suddenly grown on the empty fields, and above that forest a rainbow of banners played and shimmered in the sun. Further still, beyond Grunwald and Tannenberg, a huge cloud of dust rose toward the sky. The king took in the whole threatening horizon, then, turning to Father Vice-Chancellor Mikołaj, asked:
“What saint do we honor today?”
“The Feast of the Dispersion of the Apostles,” answered the Father Vice-Chancellor.
And the king sighed:
“So the day of the Apostles will be the last day of life for many thousands of Christians who will clash today on this field.”
And he pointed with his hand to the wide, empty plain, where only in the middle, halfway to Tannenberg, stood a few ancient oaks.
Meanwhile, his horse was brought to him, and in the distance appeared sixty lances, which Zyndram of Maszkowice had sent as a guard for the king’s person.
The royal guard was led by Aleksander, the younger son of the Prince of Plock, brother of that Ziemowit who, endowed with special “shrewdness” for war, sat on the military council. The second place was held by the monarch’s Lithuanian nephew, Zygmunt Korybut, a youth of great hopes and great destinies but of a restless spirit. Among the knights the most famous were: Jaśko Mążyk of Dąbrowa, a true giant, almost equal in stature to Paszko of Biskupice, and in strength yielding little to Zawisza Czarny himself; Żóława, a Czech baron, small and thin but of immense skill, famous at the Czech and Hungarian courts for duels in which he had stretched out a dozen or so Austrian knights; and another Czech, Sokół, an archer; and Bieniasz Wierusz of Greater Poland; and Piotr Medyolański; and the Lithuanian boyar Sienko of Pohost, whose father Piotr commanded a Smolensk banner; and the king’s relative, Prince Fieduszko; and Prince Jamont; and besides, Polish knights themselves, “chosen from thousands,” who had all sworn to defend the king to the last drop of blood and to shield him from every martial mishap. Immediately by the king’s person stood Father Vice-Chancellor Mikołaj and the secretary Zbyszko of Olesnica, a learned youth skilled in the art of reading and writing, but at the same time strong as a wild boar. Three squires watched over the lord’s armor: Czajka of Nowy Dwór, Mikołaj of Morawica, and Daniłko Rusin, who held the king’s bow and quiver. The retinue was completed by a dozen or so courtiers who were to fly with orders to the troops on swift ponies.
The squires arrayed the lord in a splendid, gleaming armor, then led up to him a dapple-gray steed, also “chosen from thousands,” who snorted through his nostrils from under the steel headstall as a good omen and, filling the air with his neigh, crouched slightly, like a bird about to take flight. The king, when he felt the horse under him and a lance in his hand, changed suddenly. The sorrow vanished from his face, his small, black eyes began to flash, and blushes appeared on his cheeks. But it was only a moment, for when the Father Vice-Chancellor began to bless him with the cross, he grew serious again and bowed his head, covered with a silvery helmet, in humility.
Meanwhile, the German army, descending slowly from the elevated plain, passed Grunwald, passed Tannenberg, and halted in full battle array in the middle of the field. From below, from the Polish camp, the dreadful mass of horses and knights encased in iron armor was perfectly visible. Keener eyes could even distinguish, as far as the wind tugging at the banners allowed, the various devices embroidered on them: crosses, eagles, griffins, swords, helmets, lambs, aurochs’ heads, and bears’ heads.
Old Maćko and Zbyszko, who had previously fought the Krzyżacy and knew their troops and heraldry, pointed out to their Sieradzans the two banners of the Master, in which served the very flower and choice of knighthood, and the great banner of the entire Order, led by Fryderyk von Wallenrod, and the mighty one of Saint George, with a red cross on a white field, and many other monastic banners. Only the devices of various foreign guests were unknown to them, of whom thousands had flocked from all parts of the world: from Austria, from Bavaria, from Swabia, from Switzerland, from Burgundy famous for its knighthood, from wealthy Flanders, from sunny France, about whose knights Macko had once said that even when lying on the ground they still spoke valiant words, from overseas England, homeland of excellent archers, and even from distant Spain, where amid constant fights with the Saracens, valor and honor flourished above all other lands.
And in that tough nobility from around Sieradz, Koniecpol, Krześnia, Bogdaniec, Rogowo, and Brzozowa, as well as from other Polish lands, the blood began to seethe in their veins at the thought that in a moment they would have to grapple with the Germans and all that splendid knighthood. The faces of the older men became grave and stern, for they knew how heavy and cruel the work would be. But the hearts of the young began to yelp, just as hunting dogs yelp when held on a leash and spying a wild beast from afar. So some, gripping their lances, sword hilts, and axe helves more firmly in their fists, sat back on their haunches as if to spring; others began to breathe quickly, as if their armor had suddenly become too tight. But the more experienced warriors calmed them, saying: “It won’t bypass you, and there will be enough for everyone. God grant there won’t be too much.”
But the Krzyżacy, looking down from the heights at the wooded lowland, saw only a dozen or so Polish banners at the edge of the forest and were not at all sure whether this was the entire royal army. True, on the left, near the lake, there were also gray clusters of warriors, and something like spear tips of sulits — light javelins used by the Lithuanians — glistened in the bushes. But this could only be a sizable Polish reconnaissance. Only fugitives from the destroyed Gilgenburg, a dozen or so of whom were brought before the Master, testified that all the Polish-Lithuanian forces stood opposite.
But in vain they spoke of their power. Master Ulrych did not want to believe them, for from the beginning of this war he believed only what suited him and augured inevitable victory. He did not send out scouts and couriers, understanding that a general battle must come anyway, and that battle could end only in a terrible defeat for the enemy. Confident in a strength such as no Master had ever led into the field, he also despised his opponent, and when the Komtur of Gniew, who had reconnoitered on his own, pointed out that Jagiello’s forces were more numerous, he replied:
“What armies! We’ll have to strain a bit against the Poles, and the rest, even if they’re many, are poor folk, better suited to a spoon than to arms.”
And, advancing with great forces toward battle, he now blazed with great joy when he suddenly found himself before the enemy, and when the sight of the great banner of the entire Kingdom, whose red was spotted against the dark background of the forest, no longer allowed any doubt that the main army lay before him.
But the Krzyżacy could not attack the Poles standing under and in the forest, for the knights were terrible only in the open field and neither liked nor knew how to fight in the thickets.
So a short council was held at the Master’s side on how to lure the enemy out of the brush.
“By Saint George!” exclaimed the Master. “We’ve ridden two miles without resting, and the heat plagues us, and our bodies sweat under our armor. Shall we wait here until the enemy is pleased to emerge into the field?”