II.
When Zbyszko heard the terrible news, he didn't even ask the prince's permission. He ran to the stables and ordered the horses saddled. Czech, who as a well-born squire had been in the hall with him, barely had time to fetch a warm fox-fur coat from the chamber. But he didn't try to stop his young master—he was sharp by nature and knew that holding him back would do no good, and any delay could prove fatal. He mounted a second horse, grabbed a few torches from the gatekeeper, and soon they rode out alongside the prince's men, whom the old castellan had mustered in a hurry.
Beyond the gate, impenetrable darkness swallowed them, but the gale seemed to have lessened. They might have lost their way just outside town if not for the man who had first brought word of the disaster. He led them faster and more surely, aided by a dog that already knew the road. Out in the open, the wind lashed their faces again, mainly because they were galloping. The road was deep with snow, in places so drifted that they had to slow down, as the horses sank up to their bellies. The prince's men lit torches and lanterns, riding through smoke and flame as the wind blew so hard it seemed ready to tear the fire from the resinous brands and scatter it across the fields and forests. The road was long. They passed the settlements closest to Ciechanow, then Niedzborz, and turned toward Radzanowo. Beyond Niedzborz, the storm began to quiet down. The gusts weakened and no longer carried whole clouds of snow. The sky brightened. Snow fell for a while longer, then stopped. Here and there, a star glimmered through breaks in the clouds. The horses started snorting; the riders breathed easier. More and more stars appeared, and frost set in. After saying several prayers, it grew completely still.
Sir de Lorche, riding beside Zbyszko, tried to comfort him. He said that Jurand, in the moment of danger, must have thought first of saving his daughter, and even if they dug out all the dead, they would surely find her alive—perhaps sleeping under the furs. But Zbyszko barely understood him and had no time to listen anyway, because soon the guide riding ahead turned off the road.
The young knight spurred forward and asked, "Why are we turning off?"
"Because they weren't buried on the road, but over there. Do you see that alder grove, sir?"
He pointed to a dark patch of thickets in the distance, visible now on the white snowfield, since the clouds had uncovered the moon's disk and the night had grown clear.
"They must have left the road."
"They did. They drove around in circles near the river. In a blizzard and snowfall, that's easy to do. They went round and round until the horses gave out."
"How did you find them?"
"The dog led us."
"Aren't there any huts nearby?"
"There are, but on the other side of the river. The Wkra is right there."
"Forward!" Zbyszko shouted.
But ordering was easier than doing. Even though a sharp frost was setting in, the snow on the meadow was still loose, freshly drifted, and deep. The horses sank above their knees, so they had to move slowly. Suddenly, a dog's barking reached them, and straight ahead a thick, knobby willow trunk loomed, its crown of leafless twigs glinting in the moonlight.
"They're farther on," the guide said, "near the alder grove. But there's something here too."
"There's a drift under the willow. Give me light!"
Several of the prince's men dismounted and held up torches. Immediately one shouted, "A man under the snow! I see his head, right here!"
"And a horse!" another called.
"Dig him out!"
Shovels plunged into the snow and tossed it to both sides.
Soon they saw a human figure sitting under the tree, head bowed to its chest, a cap pulled deep over its face. One hand held the reins of a horse lying nearby, its nostrils buried in the snow. The man must have left the party, perhaps to reach human habitation faster and bring help, and when his horse fell, he took shelter under the willow on the leeward side—and froze there.
"Light!" Zbyszko ordered.
A servant moved the torch close to the dead man's face, but at first the features were hard to make out. Only when another servant lifted the bowed head did a single cry burst from every throat:
"The lord of Spychow!"
Zbyszko ordered two men to pick him up and try to revive him in the nearest hut, while he himself, without wasting a moment, rode with the remaining servants and the guide to rescue the rest of the party. On the way, he thought he would find Danusia there—his wife—maybe dead, and he drove his horse mercilessly, the animal struggling through snow up to its chest. Fortunately, it wasn't far—no more than a few furlongs. Voices called out from the darkness: "Come!"—the men who had stayed with the buried ones. Zbyszko reached them and leaped off his horse.
"Shovels!"
Two sleds had already been dug out by those left on guard. The horses and people in them were frozen beyond help. Where the other sleds were could be told by the snow mounds, though not all were completely covered. By some, horses could be seen, bellies resting on the drifts, straining as if to run, frozen in their final effort. In front of one pair stood a man with a spear in his hand, sunk to his waist in snow, motionless as a post. Farther on, servants had died beside their horses, holding them by the muzzles. Death had caught them as they tried to pull the horses from the snowdrifts. One sled at the very end of the convoy was not buried at all. The driver sat hunched at the front, hands to his ears, and in the back lay two men. Long streaks of snow blown across their chests connected with the drift beside them and covered them like a blanket, and they seemed to sleep quietly and peacefully. But the others had died fighting the blizzard to the last, for they had frozen in postures of strain. Several sleds were overturned; some had broken shafts. Shovels uncovered horses' backs, arched like bows, or heads with teeth clenched in snow—men in the sleds and beside them—but nowhere did they find any women.
Zbyszko worked with a shovel until sweat poured down his forehead. He held torches to the faces of the dead, his heart pounding, hoping to see the beloved face among them—all in vain. The flames only lit the grim, mustachioed faces of Spychow's toughs. Neither Danusia nor any other woman was anywhere.
"What is this?" the young knight asked himself in astonishment.
He called to the men working nearby, asking if they had found anything. But they had only uncovered men. Finally, the work was done. The servants harnessed their own horses to the sleds, climbed onto the seats, and set off with the corpses toward Niedzborz, hoping that in the warm manor they might still revive some of the dead. Zbyszko stayed behind with Czech and two men. It occurred to him that perhaps the sled with Danusia had separated from the party; maybe Jurand, if—as was likely—her sled was harnessed to the best horses, had ordered it to go ahead, or maybe he had left her at some hut along the way. Zbyszko didn't know what to do. In any case, he wanted to search the nearby drifts and the alder grove, then turn back and look along the road.
But they found nothing in the drifts. In the alder grove, they only saw wolves' eyes gleaming several times, but no trace of people or horses. The meadow between the alder groves and the road shone in the moonlight, and on its white, mournful surface, a few darker spots could be seen in the distance—but those were also wolves, which quickly fled as the men approached.
"Your Grace," Czech finally said, "we're riding and searching in vain. The young lady from Spychow wasn't in the party."
"To the road!" Zbyszko replied.
"Won't find her there either. I looked carefully to see if any of the sleds had baskets with women's clothing. There was nothing. The young lady stayed in Spychow."
The accuracy of this observation struck Zbyszko, so he answered, "God grant it's as you say."
And Głowacz thought even harder. "If she were somewhere in a sled, the old master wouldn't have left her, or if he did, he'd have taken her on his horse. We'd have found her next to him."
"Let's go back there one more time," Zbyszko said, his voice anxious.
It occurred to him that maybe it had happened just as Głowacz said. What if they hadn't searched carefully enough? What if Jurand had taken Danusia on his horse in front of him, and then, when the horse fell, she had gone to her father, trying to find help for him? In that case, she might be somewhere under the snow nearby.
But Głowacz, as if reading his thoughts, repeated, "In that case, there would have been clothing on the sled. She wouldn't have traveled to court wearing only what she had on."
Despite this sound reasoning, they rode back to the willow. But they found nothing under it or for a furlong around. The prince's men had already taken Jurand to Niedzborz, and the area was completely empty. Głowacz noted that the dog that had run with the guide and found Jurand would have found the young lady too. Then Zbyszko breathed easier, for he was almost certain that Danusia had stayed home. He could even understand why: Danusia must have confessed everything to her father, and Jurand, not agreeing to the marriage, had deliberately left her behind while he came to plead his case before the prince and seek his intercession with the bishop. At this thought, Zbyszko couldn't suppress a feeling of relief, even joy, for he realized that with Jurand's death, all obstacles had vanished. "Jurand didn't want it, but the Lord Jesus wanted it," the young knight told himself, "and God's will is always stronger." Now he only had to ride to Spychow and take Danusia as his own, and then just perform the wedding—which would be easier to do right on the border than in distant Bogdaniec. "God's will! God's will!" he repeated in his soul. But suddenly he felt ashamed of this quick joy, and turning to Czech, he said:
"I do grieve for him, I truly do."
"The people said the Germans feared him like death," the squire replied.
After a moment, he asked, "Do we go back to the castle now?"
"Through Niedzborz," Zbyszko answered.
So they stopped at Niedzborz and rode up to the manor, where the old lord, Zelech, received them. They didn't find Jurand there, but Zelech gave them good news.
"They rubbed him with snow, almost to the bone," he said, "and poured wine down his throat, then steamed him in the bathhouse. He started breathing again."
"He's alive?" Zbyszko cried joyfully, forgetting his own affairs at the news.
"He's alive, but whether he'll survive, God knows. The soul is reluctant to come back halfway."
"Why did they take him away?"
"Orders from the prince. They covered him with all the featherbeds in the house and carried him off."
"Did he say anything about his daughter?"
"He barely started breathing; he hasn't regained speech."
"And the others?"
"The others are with God behind the stove. They won't be at the shepherds' mass, except maybe the one the Lord Jesus himself holds in heaven."
"None survived?"
"None. Come into the room instead of talking in the entryway. If you want to see them, they're lying by the fire in the servants' hall. Come in."
But they were in a hurry and didn't want to go in, even though old Zelech tried to pull them in—he liked to catch people for a chat. They still had a long stretch of road from Niedzborz to Ciechanow, and Zbyszko burned like fire to see Jurand as soon as possible and learn something from him.
So they rode as fast as they could along the drifted road. When they arrived, it was past midnight, and the shepherds' mass was just ending in the castle chapel. Zbyszko heard the bellowing of oxen and the bleating of goats, which the faithful imitated according to old custom in memory of the Lord being born in a stable. After mass, the duchess came to Zbyszko, her face anxious and full of fear, and began questioning him:
"And Danusia?"
"She's not there. Has Jurand spoken? I heard he's alive."
"Merciful Jesus! This is God's punishment, and woe to us! Jurand hasn't spoken; he lies there like a log."
"Don't be afraid, Your Grace. Danusia stayed in Spychow."
"How do you know?"
"Because there was no trace of women's clothing on any sled. He certainly wouldn't have brought her in just a fur coat."
"That's true, as God is dear to me!"
Her eyes immediately sparkled with joy, and after a moment she exclaimed:
"Oh, little Jesus, born today, it must not be your anger but your blessing upon us!"
Still, she was puzzled by Jurand's arrival without the girl, so she pressed further:
"Why would he leave her behind?"
Zbyszko explained his conjectures. They seemed reasonable to her, and she wasn't overly worried by them.
"Now Jurand will owe us his life," she said, "and to be honest, he'll owe you too, because you also went to dig him out. He'd have to have a stone in his chest to keep resisting after this! And there's God's warning in it for him, not to fight against the holy sacrament. As soon as he comes to, I'll tell him that."
"We need him to come to first. It's still not clear why he didn't bring Danusia. What if she's sick?"
"Don't say such things! I'm already upset that she's not here. If she were sick, he wouldn't have left her!"
"True," Zbyszko said.
They went to Jurand. The room was hot as a bathhouse and brightly lit, with huge pine logs burning in the fireplace. Father Wyszoniek watched over the sick man, who lay on a bed under bearskins, his face pale, hair matted with sweat, eyes closed. His mouth was open, and he was breathing heavily, with such force that the skins covering him rose and fell with each breath.
"How is he?"
"I poured a pitcher of mulled wine down his throat," Father Wyszoniek replied. "He's sweating now."
"Is he asleep or not?"
"He may not be asleep, because he's heaving terribly."
"Have you tried talking to him?"
"I tried. He doesn't answer. I think he won't speak before dawn."
"We'll wait for dawn," the duchess said.
Father Wyszoniek urged her to rest, but she wouldn't listen. She always strove to equal the late Queen Jadwiga in Christian virtues—especially in tending the sick—and to redeem her father's soul through her merits. So she never missed a chance to show greater zeal than others in this land, Christian for centuries, and thereby erase the memory that she herself had been born in paganism.
Besides, she burned with curiosity to hear from Jurand's own lips about Danusia, since she wasn't entirely at ease about her. So she sat down by his bed, began saying her rosary, and then started to doze. Zbyszko, who still wasn't fully recovered and was exhausted from the night ride, soon followed her example, and within an hour they both fell fast asleep. They might have slept until broad daylight if the sound of a bell from the castle chapel hadn't woken them at dawn.
But that sound also woke Jurand. He opened his eyes, suddenly sat up in bed, and looked around, blinking.
"Praised be Jesus Christ! How are you feeling?" the duchess said.
But he clearly hadn't regained his wits yet, because he stared at her as if he didn't recognize her, and after a moment shouted:
"Come on! Come on! Dig out the drift!"
"In God's name, you're in Ciechanow!" the lady said again.
Jurand frowned like a man struggling to gather his thoughts and replied:
"In Ciechanow? The child is waiting... and the prince and princess... Danusia! Danusia!"
And suddenly, closing his eyes, he fell back onto the pillow. Zbyszko and the duchess were afraid he had died, but at that very moment, his chest began to heave with deep breaths, like a man overtaken by a sound sleep.
Father Wyszoniek put his finger to his lips and gestured for them not to wake him, then whispered:
"He may sleep the whole day like this."
"Yes, but what did he say?" the duchess asked.
"He said the child is waiting in Ciechanow," Zbyszko answered.
"Because he's not in his right mind," the priest explained.