Macko thought for a while, then after a long silence said:
“Ha! There’s no help for it. Cunning won’t help against death. But if I went there and found out even just that they’ve done away with that other one, Spychów would still go to Zbyszko, and he could come back here and take another girl…”
Macko breathed here as if a weight had been lifted from his heart, and Głowacz asked in a timid, quiet voice:
“The young lady from Zgorzelice?”
“Why, yes!” replied Macko. “All the more so because she’s an orphan, and Cztan of Rogowo and Wilk of Brzozowa are pressing her harder and harder.”
But Czech jumped to his feet. “The young lady an orphan? Sir Zych?…”
“You don’t know anything?”
“Good Lord! What happened?”
“Ah, right—how could you know, when you rode straight here and we’ve been talking only about Zbyszko. She’s an orphan! Zych of Zgorzelice never really stayed home unless he had guests. Otherwise he’d get bored in Zgorzelice right away. So the abbot wrote to him that he was going to visit Prince Przemko of Oświęcim and wanted Zych to come along. That was right up Zych’s alley, since he knew the prince and had often caroused with him. So Zych came to me and said: ‘I’m going to Oświęcim and then to Glewic; you keep an eye on Zgorzelice.’ Well, something struck me right away, and I said: ‘Don’t go! Guard your land and Jagienka, because I know Cztan and Wilk are plotting something bad.’ And you need to know that the abbot, out of spite toward Zbyszko, had wanted to give the girl to Wilk or Cztan, but later, after getting to know them better, he once beat them both with a club and threw them out of Zgorzelice. And that was good, but not entirely good, because they became fiercely vengeful.
“Things are a bit quiet now, since they’ve wounded each other and are laid up, but before that there wasn’t a single peaceful moment. The defense and protection all fell on me. And now Zbyszko wants me to go again… What will happen with Jagienka, I don’t know, but let me finish about Zych. He didn’t listen to me—he went. So they feasted and made merry! From Glewic they rode to old Nosak, Prince Przemko’s father, who rules in Cieszyn. Then Jaśko, Prince of Racibórz, out of hatred for Prince Przemko, set brigands on them led by a Czech named Chrzan. And Prince Przemko fell, and with him Zych of Zgorzelice, struck by an arrow in the windpipe. The abbot they stunned with an iron flail, so that to this day his head shakes, he’s unaware of the world, and has likely lost his speech forever. Well, old Prince Nosak bought Chrzan from the lord of Zampach and tortured him so cruelly that the oldest people have never heard of such torment—but neither did the torment lessen his grief for his son, nor did it revive Zych, nor wipe Jagienka’s tears. That’s their fun… Six weeks ago they brought Zych here and buried him.”
“Such a fine lord!” said Czech with regret. “I was no small fry even back then near Bolesławiec, and he didn’t even spend one prayer’s time with me before he took me captive. But that was such a captivity that I wouldn’t have swapped it for freedom… A good, noble lord! May God grant him eternal light. Ah, such sorrow, such sorrow! But the greatest sorrow is for the poor young lady.”
“And she’s truly a poor thing. Some girls don’t love their mothers as she loved her father. And to make matters worse, it’s unsafe for her to stay in Zgorzelice. After the funeral—before the snow had even covered Zych’s grave—Cztan and Wilk attacked the Zgorzelice manor. Luckily my men found out beforehand, so I rushed over with the farmhands to help, and God granted that we gave them a sound thrashing. Then after the fight, the girl grabbed me by the knees: ‘I can’t be Zbyszko’s,’ she says, ‘I won’t be anyone’s—just save me from those monsters, because I’d rather die than be theirs…’ I tell you, you wouldn’t recognize Zgorzelice now, because I’ve turned it into a proper fortress. They attacked twice more after that, but by God, they couldn’t manage it. For now there’s peace, because as I told you, they’ve wounded each other so badly that neither can move hand or foot.”
Głowacz didn’t reply, but as he listened about Cztan and Wilk, he began to grind his teeth like someone opening and closing a creaky door, then started rubbing his powerful thighs with his hands, which clearly itched. Finally one word only came out of him with difficulty:
“Damned…”
But at that moment voices sounded in the hallway, the door opened abruptly, and Jagienka ran into the room, together with her eldest brother, fourteen-year-old Jaśko, who looked so much like her they could have been twins.
She had learned from the Zgorzelice peasants, who had seen a company on the road, that some men led by Czech Hlawa were riding toward Bogdaniec, and she was as frightened as Macko. When they also told her that Zbyszko was not among them, she was almost certain that something terrible had happened, so she flew to Bogdaniec without stopping to learn the truth.
“What happened? Good Lord!” she began to call out from the threshold.
“What was supposed to happen?” replied Macko. “Zbyszko is alive and well.”
Czech sprang toward the lady and, kneeling on one knee, began to kiss the hem of her dress, but she hardly noticed, because when she heard the old knight’s answer, she turned her head from the fire into the shadows, and only after a moment, as if remembering that she ought to greet them, said:
“May Jesus Christ be praised.”
“Forever and ever,” answered Macko.
Then, noticing Czech at her knees, she bent toward him:
“I’m glad to see you, Hlawa, from the bottom of my heart, but why did you leave your master?”
“He sent me, gracious young lady.”
“What did he order?”
“He ordered me to ride to Bogdaniec.”
“To Bogdaniec? And what else?”
“He sent for advice, and with a bow, with greetings…”
“To Bogdaniec, and that’s all? Very well! And where is he?”
“He rode among the Teutonic Knights to Malbork.”
Unease showed again on Jagienka’s face.
“Doesn’t he value his life? Why?”
“To seek what he will not find, gracious young lady.”
“Indeed, he will not find it!” Macko put in. “You can’t drive a nail without a hammer, nor a human will without God’s will.”
“What are you saying?” asked Jagienka.
But Macko answered her question with another:
“Did Zbyszko ever talk to you about Jurandówna? Because from what I heard, he did.”
Jagienka did not answer at first, and only after a while, suppressing a sigh, said:
“Oh, he talked. What did he have to lose by talking?”
“Then it’s good, because it makes it easier for me to speak,” replied the old man.
And he began to tell her what he had heard from Czech, though he was surprised that sometimes the story came out haltingly and with difficulty. But since he was indeed a crafty man, and it mattered to him that on no account should he “rile up” Jagienka, he insisted heavily on what he himself also believed—that Zbyszko had never really been Danushka’s husband, and that she had perished forever.
Czech occasionally backed him up, nodding his head or repeating, “By God, indeed!” or “That’s how it is, not otherwise!” The girl listened with lashes lowered onto her cheeks, asking no more questions, and so quiet that her silence worried Macko.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked when he finished.
But she said nothing, only two tears glistened under her lowered lashes and rolled down her cheeks.
After a moment she approached Macko, kissed his hand, and said:
“May He be praised.”
“Forever and ever,” replied the old man. “Are you in such a hurry to get home? Stay with us.”
But she didn’t want to stay, explaining that she hadn’t ordered supper at home, and Macko, though he knew that the old noblewoman Sieciechowa was at Zgorzelice and could replace her, did not press her too hard, understanding that sorrow does not like to show people its tears, and that a man is like a fish which, feeling the barb of a spear, hides as deep at the bottom as it can.
So he only stroked the girl’s head, and then walked her and Czech out into the yard. But Czech led his horse out of the stable, mounted, and rode after the young lady.
Macko, returning, sighed and, shaking his head, began to mutter:
“Zbyszko is a fool, that he is! That girl’s scent still lingers in the room!”
And the old man felt sorry for himself. He thought that if Zbyszko had taken her right after coming back, there might already be joy and delight by now. And now what? “Just mention him, and a tear drops from her eye, and the boy roams the world and will go banging his head against Malbork’s walls until he breaks it, while the house is empty, only armor grinning from the walls. No profit from farming, no use for all his bustling, no use for Spychów and Bogdaniec, since there’ll be no one to leave them to.”
Great anger began to stir in Macko’s soul.
“Wait, you wanderer,” he said aloud, “I won’t ride after you, so do what you want!”
But at that very moment a fierce longing for Zbyszko seized him, as if on purpose. “Ah, I won’t ride,” he thought, “but will I be able to stay home? God’s punishment! Because not to see that rascal once in my life—that just can’t be! He’s split another scoundrel in two and taken his spoils… Another man would go gray before earning a belt, but the prince has already girded him… And rightly so, because there are plenty of brave lads among the gentry, but a second one like him probably doesn’t exist.”
And having grown quite tender, he first began to look at the armor, swords, and axes blackening in the smoke, as if considering what to take with him and what to leave behind, then he left the room, both because he couldn’t bear staying inside and to order the carts greased and give the horses double feed.
In the yard, which was already getting dark, he remembered Jagienka, who had mounted her horse there a short while ago, and suddenly he grew worried again.
“If I have to go, I have to go,” he said to himself, “but who will defend the girl from Cztan and Wilk? May lightning strike them!…”
Meanwhile Jagienka rode with little Jaśko along the forest road toward Zgorzelice, and Czech followed them in silence, his heart full of love and sorrow. He had seen the girl’s tears earlier, and now he watched her dark figure, barely visible in the forest gloom, and guessed at her sadness and pain.
It also seemed to him that at any moment the grasping hands of Wilk or Cztan would reach out for her from the thickets and undergrowth—and at that thought a wild lust for a fight seized him. The lust became so irresistible at times that he felt like grabbing an axe or sword and slashing at the pines along the road. He felt that if he could swing hard enough, it would relieve him. Finally he would have liked at least to gallop his horse, but ahead of him they were riding slowly, step by step, hardly exchanging a word, because even little Jaśko, though usually talkative, after several attempts saw that his sister didn’t want to talk, so he sank into silence too.
But when they were close to Zgorzelice, sorrow in Czech’s heart outweighed his anger at Cztan and Wilk. “I wouldn’t begrudge my blood,” he told himself, “if only I could comfort you—but what, unfortunately, can I do? What can I say? I’ll say that he sent you his greetings, and may God grant that be enough comfort for you.”
Having thought this, he drew his horse up to Jagienka’s.
“Gracious young lady…”
“So you’re coming with us?” asked the girl, rousing herself as if from a dream. “What do you want to say?”
“Because I forgot what my lord told me to tell you. At his departure in Spychów he called me and said: ‘Kneel to the young lady of Zgorzelice, for whether in good fortune or bad, I will never forget her, and for what she has done for my uncle and me, may God reward her and keep her in health.’”
“May God reward him for the kind words,” replied Jagienka.
Then she added in such a strange voice that Czech’s heart melted completely:
“And you too, Hlawa.”
The conversation stopped for a while, but the squire was pleased with himself and with what he had told the young lady, for he said to himself in his soul: “At least she won’t think I repaid her with ingratitude.” He immediately started searching his honest head for something else to tell her, and after a moment began again:
“Young lady…”
“Yes?”
“That is… I only wanted to say—as I told the old gentleman from Bogdaniec—that that other one is gone forever, and he’ll never find her, even if the Grand Master himself helped him.”
“She’s his wife,” replied Jagienka.
But Czech shook his head:
“Some wife she is…”
Jagienka didn’t answer that, but at home after supper, when Jaśko and the younger brothers had gone to sleep, she ordered a jug of mead brought in and, turning to Czech, asked:
“Or would you rather sleep? I wanted to talk a little.”
Czech, though tired from the journey, was ready to talk until morning, so they began to talk—or rather, he again told in detail all the adventures of Zbyszko, Jurand, Danushka, and his own.