But meanwhile, he led him into the lodge, and they both found themselves in a spacious hall adorned with the antlers of aurochs, bison, elk, and deer, lit by dry logs blazing in a massive hearth. In the middle stood a table covered with a kilim, with bowls set out for food. Only a few courtiers were in the hall, talking with Zbyszko. Macko of Turobojów introduced them to Sir de Lorche, but since they did not know German, Macko had to keep the knight company himself. However, more courtiers kept arriving every moment—for the most part, strapping fellows, still raw but tall, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, already dressed for the forest. Those who knew Zbyszko and had heard of his adventures in Krakow greeted him like an old friend, and it was clear he stood well with them. Others looked at him with the same wonder as one looks at a man whose neck has just escaped the executioner's axe.
Voices sounded all around: “Never mind! The duchess is here, Jurandówna too. You'll see her soon, poor soul, and you'll hunt with us.” Then two Teutonic guests entered: Brother Hugo de Danveld, the starosta of Ortelsburg, that is, Szczytno—whose kinsman had once been marshal—and Zygfryd de Loewe, also from a family distinguished in the Order, the vogt of Jansbork. The first was still quite young but stout, with the face of a sly beer-guzzler and thick, moist lips; the second was tall, with stern but noble features. Zbyszko thought he had once seen Danveld at Prince Witold’s court, but that memory was scattered when Prince Janusz entered, and both Teutons and courtiers bowed to him. De Lorche, the komturs, and Zbyszko approached, and the prince greeted them kindly, but with gravity on his beardless, peasant-like face, framed by hair cut evenly above the brow and falling to his shoulders on either side.
Soon trumpets sounded outside the windows, a sign that the prince was sitting down to table. They blared once, twice, a third time, and at the third blast the large door on the right side of the room swung open, and Princess Anna appeared, with a lovely, flaxen-haired girl beside her, a lute slung over her shoulder.
When Zbyszko saw them, he stepped forward, put his hands to his lips, and knelt on both knees in a posture full of reverence and adoration.
At the sight, a murmur ran through the hall, for Zbyszko’s deed astonished the Masurians, and even scandalized some. “You know,” the older ones said, “he must have learned that custom from some overseas knight, or maybe from pagans, for even among the Germans it’s not done.” The younger ones, however, thought: “No wonder—he owes his neck to that girl.” But the duchess and Jurandówna did not recognize Zbyszko at first, because he knelt with his back to the fire and his face was in shadow. The duchess thought for a moment that one of the courtiers, having wronged the prince in some way, was begging her intercession. But Danusia, whose eyesight was sharper, stepped forward, tilted her bright head, and suddenly cried out in a thin, piercing voice:
“Zbyszko!”
Then, without thinking that the court and foreign guests were watching, she sprang like a doe toward the young knight, threw her arms around him, and began kissing his eyes, lips, cheeks, pressing herself against him and squealing with great joy until the Masurians burst into one great laugh and the duchess pulled her back by the collar.
Then she looked at the people, became terribly embarrassed, and with equal swiftness hid behind the duchess, burying herself in the folds of her skirt so that only the top of her head was visible.
Zbyszko embraced the duchess’s feet. She raised him and began to greet him, at once asking about Macko—whether he had died or was still alive, and if alive, whether he had also come to Mazovia. Zbyszko answered these questions rather distractedly, for he kept leaning to one side and the other, trying to glimpse Danuśka behind the duchess. Danuśka kept peeking out of the duchess’s skirt, then diving back into its folds. The Masurians held their sides at the spectacle, and the prince himself laughed. At last, when steaming bowls were brought in, the delighted duchess turned to Zbyszko and said:
“Serve us, dear squire, and may it be not only at table, but forever.”
Then to Danusia:
“And you, pesky fly, come out from behind my skirt at once, or you’ll tear it off completely.”
So Danusia came out from behind the skirt, flushed, flustered, lifting her eyes to Zbyszko every moment—fearful, ashamed, yet curious—and so lovely that not only Zbyszko’s heart melted, but the hearts of other men as well. The Teutonic starosta from Szczytno repeatedly pressed his hand to his thick, moist lips. De Lorche was astonished; he raised both hands and asked:
“By Saint James of Compostela, who is this maiden?”
At that, the starosta of Szczytno, who despite his stoutness was short, rose on his toes and whispered into the Lorrainer’s ear:
“The devil’s daughter.”
De Lorche looked at him, blinking, then frowned and began to speak through his nose:
“He is no true knight who barks against beauty.”
“I wear golden spurs, and I am a monk,” replied Hugo de Danveld with haughtiness.
So great was the reverence for belted knights that the Lorrainer bowed his head, but after a moment he replied:
“And I am a kinsman of the Dukes of Brabant.”
“Pax! Pax!” answered the Teuton. “Honor to the mighty dukes and friends of the Order, from whose hands you, sir, will soon receive golden spurs. I do not deny this girl’s beauty, but listen to who her father is.”
But he did not manage to answer, for at that moment Prince Janusz sat down to breakfast. Having learned earlier from the Vogt of Jansbork about Sir de Lorche’s great connections, he gave him a sign to sit beside him. Opposite, the duchess sat with Danusia, while Zbyszko stood behind their chairs, as he had once in Krakow, to serve. Danusia kept her head as low as possible over her bowl, ashamed before the people, but tilted a little to the side so that Zbyszko could see her face. He gazed greedily and with rapture at her fair, delicate head, at her rosy cheek, at her shoulders clad in tight clothing that were no longer childish, and he felt as if a river of new love were swelling inside him, flooding his whole chest. He also felt her kisses on his eyes, lips, and face. Once she had seemed to him like a sister, and he had treated her like a dear child. Now, at the memory of her fresh caresses, something happened to him that sometimes happened with Jagienka: a longing seized him, and a faintness came over him, beneath which lurked a fire like embers covered in ash. Danusia seemed to him a fully grown maiden, for indeed she had grown and blossomed. And besides, so much had been said about love in her presence, so constantly, that just as a flower bud, warmed by the sun, reddens and opens more and more, so her eyes had opened to love. The result was something in her now that had not been there before—a beauty no longer merely childish, and a strong, intoxicating allure that emanated from her like warmth from a flame or fragrance from a rose.
Zbyszko felt this, but did not fully grasp it, for he was lost in himself. He even forgot that he had to serve at table. He did not see that the courtiers were looking at him, nudging each other, pointing at him and Danusia, and laughing. He also did not notice the face of Sir de Lorche, which seemed turned to stone with amazement, nor the protruding eyes of the Teutonic starosta from Szczytno, which were fixed unceasingly on Danusia and, reflecting the firelight from the hearth, seemed as red and gleaming as a wolf’s. He came to his senses only when the trumpets sounded again, signaling that it was time for the hunt, and when Princess Anna Danuta turned to him and said:
“You will ride with us, so that you may have joy and tell the girl about love, which I too will gladly hear.”
Having said this, she left with Danusia to dress for the horse. Zbyszko rushed to the courtyard, where the horses for the prince, the guests, and the courtiers were already being held, covered with frost and snorting. The courtyard was not as crowded as before, for the beaters had already gone ahead with nets and vanished into the forest. The fires had died down; the day was bright and frosty, the snow creaked, and from the trees stirred by a light breeze, dry, sparkling frost fell. Soon the prince came out and mounted his horse, followed by a servant with a crossbow and a spear so long and heavy that few could wield it. The prince, however, wielded it easily, for like the other Piasts of Mazovia, he possessed extraordinary strength. There had even been women in that family who, when marrying foreign princes, could curl broad iron cleavers with their fingers at wedding feasts. Near the prince also stood two men, ready to help in an emergency, chosen from all the landowners of the lands of Warsaw and Ciechanow, terrifying to look at, with shoulders like forest trunks, at whom the far-traveled Sir de Lorche gazed in wonder.
Soon the duchess came out with Danusia, both wearing hoods made of white ermine skins. A true daughter of Kestutis, she could shoot a bow better than she could sew, so a decorated crossbow, only slightly lighter than the others, was carried for her too. Zbyszko knelt on the snow and extended his hand, on which the duchess rested her foot as she mounted the horse. Then he lifted Danusia up, just as he had lifted Jagienka in Bogdaniec, and they set off.
The procession stretched out like a long snake. It turned right from the lodge, shimmering and gleaming on the edge of the forest like a colorful border on the edge of dark cloth, and then began to plunge slowly into it.
They were already quite deep in the woods when the duchess turned to Zbyszko and said:
“Why aren’t you talking? Come on, speak to her.”
Zbyszko, though thus encouraged, was silent for a moment longer, for a certain shyness had overcome him. Only after the time of one or two Hail Marys did he speak:
“Danuśka!”
“What is it, Zbyszko?”
“I love you so…”
He faltered, searching for words, which came hard to him, for although he knelt like a foreign knight before the girl, although he showed her honor in every way and tried to avoid common expressions, he tried in vain to be courtly, for his soul was full, and he knew only how to speak simply.
So after a moment he said:
“I love you so much, it takes my breath away!”
She raised her blue eyes from under the ermine hood, and her face, nipped pink by the cold forest air, toward him, and replied hastily:
“And I, Zbyszko!”
Then she immediately lowered her eyelashes, for she already knew what love was.
“Hey, my treasure! Hey, my girl!” exclaimed Zbyszko. “Hey!”
And he fell silent again from happiness and emotion. But the kind and inquisitive duchess came to their aid once more:
“Tell her,” she said, “how you pined for her.”
So he began to tell “how he had pined” for her, in Bogdaniec while nursing Macko, and among the neighbors. He said nothing about Jagienka, the sly evader, but otherwise he spoke honestly, for at that moment he loved the beautiful Danusia so much that he wanted to seize her, lift her onto his horse, take her before him, and hold her to his chest.
He did not dare do that, however. Instead, when a thicket separated them from the courtiers and guests riding behind, he leaned toward her, embraced her, and buried his face in the ermine hood, bearing witness by this act to his love.
But since there are no leaves on the hazel bushes in winter, Hugo von Danveld and Sir de Lorche saw him, and the courtiers saw him too, and they began to talk among themselves:
“He kissed her right in front of the duchess! I bet the lady will soon arrange a wedding for them.”
“He’s a lively fellow, but fiery, and with Jurand’s blood!”
“Flint and steel, even if the girl seems like a little rabbit. Sparks will fly, don’t worry! He’s stuck to her like a tick to live skin.”
Thus they talked and laughed. But the Teutonic starosta from Szczytno turned his goatlike, malicious, and lustful face toward Sir de Lorche and asked:
“Would you like, sir, for some spirit to change you by magic power into that young knight over there?”
“And you, sir?” asked de Lorche.
At this, the Teuton, in whom jealousy and desire had evidently boiled over, reined his horse impatiently and exclaimed:
“By my soul!…”
But at once he regained his composure, bowed his head, and replied:
“I am a monk, who has vowed chastity.”
And he looked sharply at the Lorrainer, fearing he might see a smile on his face, for in this regard the Order had a bad reputation among the people, and among the monks, Hugo de Danveld had the worst. A few years earlier, he had been an assistant to the vogt in Sambia, and the complaints against him there became so notorious that, despite the indulgence with which such matters were viewed in Malbork, he had to be transferred to command the garrison at Szczytno. Having come to the prince’s court in the last few days with secret orders, and having seen the beautiful Jurandówna, he was seized by a desire for her, for which Danusia’s age was no obstacle, since in those days girls younger than her married. But because Danveld also knew what family the girl came from, and because the name Jurand was linked to a terrible memory in his mind, his desire grew on a foundation of wild hatred.
And de Lorche began to question him about these matters.
“You called this beautiful maiden the devil’s daughter, sir—why did you call her that?”
Danveld then began to tell the story of Zlotoryja: how during the rebuilding of the castle, the prince with his court had been captured by surprise, and how in that event Jurand’s mother had died, a loss for which Jurand had since taken terrible vengeance on all knights of the Order.
And as he spoke, hatred burst from the Teuton like a flame, for he had personal reasons as well. Two years earlier, he himself had encountered Jurand, but then, at the sight of the terrible “Boar of Spychów,” his heart had, for the first time in his life, failed him so basely that he abandoned two of his relatives, his men, and his booty, and fled like a madman all day until he reached Szczytno, where he fell ill for a long time from fear. When he recovered, the Grand Marshal of the Order subjected him to a knightly court, whose verdict acquitted him, since Danveld swore by the cross and his honor that a runaway horse had carried him from the battlefield, but it closed the path to higher offices in the Order. The Teuton now kept silent about these events before Sir de Lorche, but instead he uttered so many complaints about Jurand’s cruelty and the insolence of the entire Polish nation that it all could barely fit in the Lorrainer’s head.
“Yet we are among Masurians,” he said after a moment, “not among Poles?”
“That is a separate duchy, but the same people,” replied the starosta. “Their infamy is the same, and the same hatred toward the Order. May God grant that the German sword exterminate this entire race!”
“You speak justly, sir, for if this prince, who seems honorable, dared to build a castle against you in your lands—I have not heard of such lawlessness even among pagans.”
“He built a castle against us, but Zlotoryja lies in his lands, not in ours.”
“Then glory to Christ that He gave you victory over him. How did that war end?”
“There was no war at that time.”
“And your victory at Zlotoryja?”
“God blessed us in that as well: the prince was without an army, only with his court and women.”
At this, de Lorche looked at the Teuton with amazement.
“What? So during peacetime you attacked women and the prince, who was building a castle in his own lands?”
“For the glory of the Order and Christianity, there are no shameful deeds.”
“And that terrible knight who seeks vengeance only for his young wife, killed by you during peacetime?”
“Whoever raises his hand against a Teuton is a son of darkness.”
Sir de Lorche pondered upon hearing this, but he had no time to answer Danveld, for they had ridden out onto a wide clearing covered with snowy reeds, where the prince dismounted, and the others began to dismount as well.