The canon from the parish church heard Macko’s confession and hosted them for the night, so they didn’t leave until the next morning. Past Olkusz, they turned toward Silesia, whose border they were to follow all the way to Greater Poland. The road ran mostly through wilderness, where at sunset the roars of aurochs and bison often sounded like underground thunder, and at night wolf eyes glimmered from among the hazel thickets. But greater danger than from beasts threatened travelers and merchants on this road from German or Germanized knights from Silesia, whose little castles rose here and there along the border. True, as a result of the war with Opolczyk, Naderspaw—whom the Silesian nephews had helped against King Władysław Łokietek—Polish hands had destroyed most of those castles, but still one had to be on guard and especially after sunset not let go of one’s weapon.
They traveled in peace, however, so that the road was already beginning to bore Zbyszko, and only a day’s ride from Bogdaniec, one night they heard snorting and hoofbeats behind them.
“Someone’s riding after us,” said Zbyszko.
Macko, who was awake, looked at the stars and answered like an experienced man: “Dawn isn’t far. Robbers wouldn’t attack near the end of night—come daybreak they need to be home.”
Zbyszko stopped the wagon anyway, lined up the men across the road facing the newcomers, and rode ahead to wait.
After a while he saw a dozen horsemen in the gloom. One rode at the head a few paces before the others, but clearly had no intention of hiding, for he was singing loudly. Zbyszko couldn’t make out the words, but a cheerful “Hey! Hey!” reached his ears as the stranger ended each stanza.
“Our people!” he said to himself.
A moment later he called out: “Halt!”
“And you sit down!” came a joking voice.
“Who are you?”
“Who are you lot?”
“Why are you riding us down?”
“Why are you blocking the road?”
“Answer, or we’ll cock the crossbows.”
“And ours are cocked—shoot!”
“Talk like a man, or you’ll be in trouble.”
In answer a merry song reached Zbyszko:
“One trouble with another trouble
At the crossroads goes to dance…
Hey! Hey! Hey!
What good is the dance to them?
A good dance, even if trouble…
Hey! Hey! Hey!”
Zbyszko was startled by such an answer, but meantime the song stopped and the same voice asked: “And how’s old Macko? Still kicking?”
Macko raised himself on the wagon and said: “By God, these are our people!”
Zbyszko rode forward: “Who’s asking about Macko?”
“A neighbor, Zych ze Zgorzelic. I’ve been riding after you for a week now, asking about you along the road.”
“Whoa! Uncle! Zych ze Zgorzelic is here!” cried Zbyszko.
And they began to greet each other joyfully, for Zych was indeed their neighbor, and moreover a good man, universally liked for his great cheerfulness.
“Well, how are you?” he asked, shaking Macko’s hand. “Still ‘hey’ or not ‘hey’ anymore?”
“Ah, no more ‘hey’!” replied Macko. “But I’m glad to see you. Good Lord, I feel as if I’m already in Bogdaniec!”
“What’s wrong with you? I heard the Germans shot you?”
“They shot me, the scoundrels! The iron stayed between my ribs…”
“Good Lord! And so? Did you try drinking bear fat?”
“You see!” said Zbyszko. “Everyone recommends bear fat. Just let us get to Bogdaniec! I’ll go right away at night with an ax to the beehives.”
“Maybe Jagienka will have some, and if not, I’ll send to ask.”
“What Jagienka? Wasn’t yours Małgochna?” asked Macko.
“Oh, what Małgochna! Come Michaelmas, it’ll be three autumns since Małgochna’s been pushing up daisies. She was a headstrong woman—Lord rest her soul!—but Jagienka takes after her, only young…”
Over the hollows a hill shines bright,
Like mother, like daughter, day and night…
Hey! Hey!
…I told Małgochna: Don’t climb that pine when you’re fifty years old. Not true! She climbed. Then a branch broke and boom! I tell you, she punched a hole in the ground, but then within three days she breathed her last.”
“Lord rest her!” said Macko. “I remember, I remember… When she’d put her hands on her hips and start fussing, the farmhands would hide in the hay. But she was good at managing the farm! And she fell from a pine?… Just look at people!..”
“Fell like a cone in winter… Oh, there was grief. You know? After the funeral I got so drunk with sorrow they couldn’t rouse me for three days. They thought I’d kicked the bucket too. And as for how much I cried afterward, you couldn’t carry it away in a bucket! But Jagienka’s also good at running the farm. Everything’s on her shoulders now.”
“I barely remember her. She was no bigger than an ax handle when I left. She could walk under a horse without bumping her head on its belly. Well, that was a long time ago—she must have grown.”
“She turned fifteen on Saint Agnes’s Day, but I haven’t seen her for almost a year now.”
“And what have you been up to? Where are you coming from?”
“From war. As if I’d stay home with a girl like Jagienka?”
Macko, though ill, pricked up his ears at the mention of war and asked: “Were you perhaps with Prince Witold at the Worskla?”
“I was,” replied Zych ze Zgorzelic cheerfully. “Well, God didn’t grant him luck—we suffered a terrible defeat from Edyga. First, they shot our horses. A Tatar doesn’t charge head-on like a Christian knight; he just shoots from a distance with his bow. You rush at him, he dodges and shoots again. Do what you will with him! You see, in our army the knights boasted without measure and said: ‘We won’t even lower our lances, we won’t draw our swords, we’ll just trample those vermin under our hooves.’ That’s how they boasted, until the arrows started buzzing—it got dark—and after the battle, what? Hardly one in ten survived. Would you believe it? More than half the army, seventy Lithuanian and Ruthenian princes, remained on the field, and as for boyars and various courtiers—or as they call them, otroki—you wouldn’t have counted them even in two weeks.”
“I heard,” Macko interrupted. “And a lot of our auxiliary knights also fell.”
“Well, even nine Teutonic Knights, because they too had to serve Prince Witold’s might. And plenty of our men as well—because, as you know, where another man looks back, our man doesn’t. The Grand Duke trusted our knights most of all, and wouldn’t have any other guard near him in battle but Poles. Heh heh! They lay down thick around him, but he was unharmed. Lord Spytko of Melsztyn fell, and Sword-Bearer Bernat, and Cup-Bearer Mikołaj, and Prokop, and Przecław, and Dobrogost, and Jaśko of Lazewice, and Pilik Mazur, and Warsz of Michów, and Voivode Socha, and Jaśko of Dąbrowa, and Pietrko of Miłosław, and Szczepiecki, and Oderski, and Tomko Łagoda. Who could count them all! And some I saw so stuck with arrows that after death they looked like hedgehogs—it was funny to see!”
Here he truly laughed, as if telling the merriest thing, and suddenly began to sing:
“Oh, you’ve learned what a Tatar is,
When he’s rubbed your hide well!”
“And then what?” asked Zbyszko.
“Then the Grand Duke fled, but he soon regained his spirit, as he always does. The harder you press him, the better he springs back, like a hazel bush. So we hurried to the ford at Tawan to defend the crossing. A handful of new knights also came from Poland. And it went well. The next day Edyga arrived with a swarm of Tatars, but he accomplished nothing. Hey, what a party! Whenever he tried to cross the ford, we slapped him in the face. He couldn’t manage it. We even killed and captured quite a few. I caught five myself, whom I’m taking to Zgorzelice. You’ll see their dog mugs in daylight.”
“In Krakow they said there might be war with the Kingdom too.”
“Is Edyga stupid? He knew well what our knighthood is like, and also that the mightiest knights stayed home because the Queen wasn’t pleased that Witold started wars on his own. Oh, he’s crafty, old Edyga! He realized at once at Tawan that the prince was growing in strength, and he went away, far, far beyond the ninth land!”
“And you came back?”
“I came back. There was nothing left to do there. And in Krakow I heard about you—that you’d left just before me.”
“So that’s why you knew it was us?”
“I knew it was you, because I asked about you everywhere at the halts.”
He turned to Zbyszko:
“Hey, my God, last time I saw you, you were little, and now, even in the dark I can tell you’re a man like a bull. And you were ready to shoot from a crossbow right away. Evidently you’ve been to war.”
“War raised me from childhood. Let my uncle say if I lack experience.”
“He doesn’t need to. I saw Lord Powała of Taczew in Krakow, who told me about you. But they say that Mazur won’t give you his daughter—I wouldn’t be so stubborn, because I like you. You’ll forget about that one once you see my Jagienka. She’s a turnip!”
“That’s not true! I won’t forget, even if I saw ten like your Jagienka.”
“She’ll get Moczydoły, where there’s a mill. And when I left, there were ten good mares with foals in the meadows. More than one man will bow to me for Jagienka, don’t worry!”
Zbyszko wanted to answer, “But not me!” but Zych ze Zgorzelic started singing again:
“I’ll bow to you at your knees,
If you give me Jagienka, please.
Curse you!”
“You always have cheerfulness and singing on your mind,” remarked Macko.
“Well, what else do the blessed souls do in heaven?”
“They sing.”
“There, you see! And the damned weep. I’d rather go to the singers than the weepers. Saint Peter will say: ‘We have to let him into heaven, because otherwise the rascal will sing in hell too, and that’s not fitting.’ Look, it’s dawning.”
And indeed day was breaking. Soon they rode out onto a wide clearing, where it was already quite light. On a pond that occupied most of the clearing, some people were fishing, but at the sight of armed men, they dropped the net, jumped out of the water, grabbed poles and pikes as quickly as they could, and stood in a threatening posture, ready for a fight.
“They took us for robbers,” said Zych, laughing. “Hey, fishermen! Who do you belong to?”
They stood silent for a while, looking distrustfully, but at last the elder among them, recognizing the knights, replied:
“To the reverend abbot of Tulcza.”
“Our kinsman,” said Macko. “He holds Bogdaniec as security. Those must be his forests, but I think he bought them not long ago.”
“Bought them, indeed,” replied Zych. “He fought over them with the Wolf of Brzozowa, and apparently won. They were even supposed to fight on horseback with lances and long swords a year ago over this whole region, but I don’t know how it ended, because I’d left.”
“Well, we’re his kin,” said Macko. “He won’t quarrel with us, and maybe he’ll even release some of the pledge.”
“Maybe. With him, if you approach him in good will, he’ll even add his own. He’s a knightly abbot, not unfamiliar with covering his head with a helmet. And pious too, and he holds services very beautifully. You must remember… When he roars at Mass, the swallows fly out of their nests under the ceiling. And so God’s glory increases.”
“Why wouldn’t I remember! He used to blow out the candles on the altar with his breath from ten paces away. Did he ever stop in at Bogdaniec?”
“He did. He settled five new peasants with wives on the clearings. And he also visited us in Zgorzelice, because, as you know, he baptized Jagienka. He’s always been very fond of her and calls her his little daughter.”
“God grant he’ll let me keep those peasants,” said Macko.
“Oh, five peasants are nothing for such a rich man! Anyway, if Jagienka asks him, he’ll leave them.”
Here the conversation paused for a moment, for from above the dark forest and the rosy dawn the bright sun rose and lit up the area. The knights greeted it with the customary “Praised be!” and then, crossing themselves, began their morning prayers.
Zych finished first and, after striking his chest several times, said to his companions:
“Now I’ll get a good look at you. Hey, you’ve both changed… Macko, you need to get your health back first… Jagienka will take care of you, because there’s no woman in your house to light a candle… Well, I can see that bit of iron is still between your ribs. Not too good.”
He turned to Zbyszko:
“Let’s see you too… Oh, mighty God! I remember you as a little one, climbing onto the foals’ backs by their tails, and now, devil take it, what a young knight!.. Your face is like a young lord’s, but broad-shouldered… A man like that could take on a bear!”