III.
The next day, Jurand did not avoid Zbyszko at all, nor did he prevent him from rendering Danuśka the various services a knight should. On the contrary, Zbyszko, though deeply troubled at heart, noticed that the grim lord of Spychów looked at him kindly and with something like regret that he had to give such a harsh answer. The young yeoman tried several times to approach him and start a conversation. After leaving Krakow, during the journey, opportunities came easily, since both accompanied the duchess on horseback. Jurand, usually silent, conversed readily enough, but whenever Zbyszko tried to learn something about the mysterious obstacles separating him from Danuśka, the conversation broke off abruptly, Jurand’s face darkened, and he began to look at Zbyszko uneasily, as if afraid of betraying something.
Zbyszko thought the duchess knew more, so watching for a convenient moment, he tried to extract some information from her, but she too could tell him little.
“It is indeed a secret,” she said. “Jurand himself told me about it, but at the same time asked me not to question him, because he not only doesn’t want to say, but cannot. He’s probably bound by some oath, as happens among people. God grant that in time it all comes to light.”
“It would be for me without Danuśka like a dog on a rope, or a bear in a pit,” replied Zbyszko. “No joy, no pleasure. Nothing but worry and sighing. I’d have gone to Tawani already with Prince Witold, let the Tatars kill me there. But first I must take my uncle home, and then pull those peacock feathers off the Germans’ heads, as I swore. Maybe they’ll kill me in the process — which I’d prefer to watching someone else take Danuśka.”
The duchess raised her kind blue eyes to him and asked with some surprise: “And would you allow that?”
“Me? As long as there’s breath in my nostrils, that won’t happen! Unless my hand withers and can no longer hold an axe!”
“Well, you see.”
“Bah! But how am I to take her against her father’s will?”
To that the duchess, as if to herself: “Good Lord! As if that doesn’t happen sometimes…” Then to Zbyszko: “Is God’s will not stronger than a father’s? And what did Jurand say? ‘If it’s God’s will,’ he said, ‘he will have her.’”
“He said the same to me!” exclaimed Zbyszko. “‘If it’s God’s will,’ he said, ‘you will have her.’”
“You see?”
“So, with your grace, merciful lady, that’s my only comfort.”
“You have my grace, and Danuśka will keep her word. Just yesterday I asked her: Danuśka, will you keep your word to Zbyszko? And she said: ‘I will be Zbyszko’s, or no one’s.’ She’s still a green berry, but when she says something, she keeps it, because she’s no gadabout. Her mother was the same.”
“God grant it!” said Zbyszko.
“Just remember that you too keep your word — for many a man is fickle: he promises to love faithfully, and then he’s off after another, you couldn’t hold him with a rope!”
“May Lord Jesus punish me first!” exclaimed Zbyszko with fervor.
“Well, remember that. And when you take your uncle home, come to our court. There will be an opportunity there for you to receive your spurs, and then we’ll see as God wills. Danuśka will grow in the meantime. She loves you terribly now — I can’t say otherwise — but not yet as grown girls love. Perhaps Jurand’s heart will incline toward you, for as I judge, he would be glad. You’ll go to Spychow as well, and together with Jurand against the Germans; maybe you’ll do him some service and win him over completely.”
“That’s exactly what I thought to do, merciful duchess, but with your permission it will be easier.”
This conversation greatly raised Zbyszko’s spirits. However, at the first stop, old Macko fell so ill that they had to stay and wait until he regained at least some strength to continue the journey. The good Princess Anna Danuta left him all the medicines and antidotes she had with her, but she had to travel on, so both yeomen of Bogdaniec had to part with the Mazovian court.
Zbyszko threw himself at the feet first of the duchess, then of Danuśka, swore once again his faithful knightly service, promised to come soon to Ciechanow or Warsaw, and finally lifted her in his strong arms and, raising her up, began to repeat in a moved voice:
“Remember me, my dearest little flower, remember, my golden little fish!”
And Danuśka, putting her arms around him just like a younger sister embraces a dear brother, pressed her upturned nose to his cheek and cried large pea-sized tears, repeating:
“I don’t want to go to Ciechanow without Zbyszko, I don’t want to go to Ciechanow!”
Jurand saw this, but did not burst into anger. On the contrary, he himself bid the young man a very kind farewell, and when he was already on his horse, he turned once more to him and said:
“Stay with God and bear me no grudge.”
Zbyszko bowed to his stirrups, and the other squeezed his hand firmly and said:
“God bless you in everything!.. You understand?..”
And he rode off.
Zbyszko, however, understood how much goodwill lay in his last words, and returning to the cart where Macko lay, he said:
“You know? He would want to, but something prevents him. You were in Spychow and have a sharp mind, so try to figure out what it is.”
But Macko was too ill. The fever he had since morning increased toward evening to such an extent that he began to lose consciousness, so instead of answering Zbyszko, he looked at him as if in surprise, then asked:
“And where are they ringing here?”
Zbyszko was frightened, for it occurred to him that since the sick man heard bells, it meant death was approaching. He also thought that the old man might die without a priest, without confession, and thereby end up, if not in hell, then at least in purgatory for long ages, so he decided to drive him further to get as quickly as possible to some parish where Macko could receive the last sacraments.
For that purpose they set out for the whole night. Zbyszko sat on the hay cart where the sick man lay and watched over him until daylight. From time to time he gave him wine, which the merchant Amylej had provided for their journey, and which the thirsty Macko drank greedily, for it brought him visible relief. After the second quart he even regained consciousness, and after the third he fell so deeply asleep that Zbyszko bent over him from time to time to make sure he was not dead.
And at the thought of it, deep sorrow seized him. Until his imprisonment in Krakow, he had not even realized how much he loved this “uncle,” who had been father and mother to him in life. But now he knew it well, and at the same time felt that after his death he would be terribly alone in the world — without relatives, except for that abbot who held Bogdaniec as pledge, without friends and without help. At the same time it occurred to him that if Macko died, it would also be because of the Germans, through whom he himself had nearly lost his head, through whom all his fathers and Danusia’s mother and many, many innocent people he knew or had heard of from acquaintances had perished — and he began to be overcome with wonder. “Is there,” he said to himself, “not a man in this whole kingdom who has not suffered wrong from them and does not desire vengeance?” Here he remembered the Germans he had fought under Vilnius, and thought that surely even the Tatars did not wage war more cruelly than them, and that there was probably no other such nation in the world.
Dawn interrupted his reflections. The day was dawning bright but cool. Macko was evidently better, for he breathed more evenly and calmly. He woke only when the sun had already warmed up, opened his eyes and said:
“I feel relieved. And where are we?”
“We’re approaching Olkusz. You know? Where they mine silver and pay tribute to the treasury.”
“If only we had what’s in the ground! Then we could build up Bogdaniec!”
“You’re clearly better,” replied Zbyszko, laughing. “Hey! It would be enough even for a stone castle! But we’ll stop at the parish church, because they’ll give us hospitality there, and you’ll be able to confess. Everything is in God’s hands, but still it’s better to have a clear conscience.”
“I’m a sinful man, I’ll gladly repent,” replied Macko. “I dreamed last night that devils were pulling my boots off my feet… And they were chattering in German with each other… God is gracious that I feel better. And did you sleep a bit?”
“How could I sleep when I was watching over you?”
“Then lie down a bit. When we arrive, I’ll wake you.”
“I’m in no mood for sleeping!”
“And what prevents you?”
Zbyszko looked at his uncle with a child’s eyes.
“What else if not love? I’ve got such stitches in my side from sighing that I can’t bear it, but I’ll sit on my horse a bit, that will relieve me.”
And getting down from the cart, he mounted the horse, which the Turk given by Zawisza handed him deftly. Macko meanwhile was holding his side from pain, but was evidently thinking of something else, not his own illness, for he shook his head, clicked his tongue, and finally said:
“Well, I wonder, I wonder and can’t stop wondering, where you got such a hunger for love, because neither your parent was like that, nor I.”
But Zbyszko, instead of answering, suddenly straightened in the saddle, put his hands on his hips, threw his head back, and roared with all the strength of his chest:
I wept through the night, I wept in the dawn, Where have you gone, my dear girl, so forlorn? Nothing will help, though I weep my eyes out, For you, my girl, I will never see again. Hey!
And that “Hey!” rolled through the forest, bounced off the roadside tree trunks, finally sounded in a distant echo and died away in the thickets.
And Macko felt again the side where the German iron had lodged, and said groaning a little: “In the old days people were wiser — do you understand?”
After a moment, however, he became thoughtful, as if recalling some old times, and added: “Though some were stupid even in the old days.”
But meanwhile they emerged from the forest, beyond which they saw the huts of the miners, and further on the crenellated walls of Olkusz, built by King Casimir, and the tower of the parish church, built by Władysław Łokietek.