20 September 1797
Anna went into labor earlier than expected, sending the house into an uproar.
Walek and Jacob had carried her up to her room, leaving her then to Emma, Lutisha, Marta, and Katarzyna. Although she had some experience at birthing, Emma deferred to Lutisha and her midwifery experience.
Anna prayed as the pain came and went, came and went, increasing all the while until she lost hold of her rosary. She prayed directly to God then for a healthy baby who would survive even if she did not. A second prayer went out that she would live to see Jan again. She pictured him in a new uniform riding home to her, coming down the poplar-lined drive, coming up the stairs. The door would open…
“Push now, Lady Anna,” Lutisha cried, the other women’s voices echoing. Emma’s voice was at her ear. “Push now, child, push!”
Anna pushed and pushed again, perspiration rolling away from her face. The vision of Jan stayed with her. The vision of his homecoming. She held to it. She would do this. She had to!
The pain endured for an eternity—and then—at last—Lutisha announced, “It is here, Lady Anna, the baby is here!”
Katarzyna’s voice came to her now, the marveling voice of a person witnessing birth for the first time. “It’s a girl, Lady Stelnicka, a little girl!”
“Not so little,” said Marta, “but beautiful just the same!”
Anna could hear its cry now, high and piercing. She fell back into her pillows and waited for the baby to be cleaned and placed in her arms. As she took the chubby-faced girl into the crook of her arm, she saw that Lutisha had already wrapped a piece of red yarn around its little wrist, a protection against the evil eye.
The next day she awoke to the sound of a horse in the drive and voices below. She was too weak to rise and go to the window. She knew not to think her vision had come true. Jan would come back to her, but it would be many months—or even a year.
Soon, she heard the closing of the door and the retreat of the rider’s horse.
Later, when Emma looked in on her, Anna asked who the rider was.
“An insistent man, I’ll tell you that. And rude, too!”
“Who?”
“The starosta from town.”
Anna’s heart leapt in her chest. “Doliński?”
“Yes, Lord Doliński. Wanted to see you. Seemed quite surprised you had just given birth.”
“I imagine he was.”
“Why it would concern him,” Emma continued, “I have no idea. What is it, Anna? You’ve turned as white as your sheet! Are you bleeding again?”
“No, no, I’m fine. It’s just a passing weakness.”
Emma insisted on checking to make certain. When she left, satisfied Anna was recovering, Anna pulled to her the child she had named Barbara Anna. “Sweet Jesus, protect us all,” she whispered.
Zofia lay naked, face down on the wide, soft mattress. She shivered slightly, not against the cold because the chamber was lighted and warmed by the flames of the fireplace. Rather, she trembled at the touch of Lord Podolski, who was tracing with his fingers the curve of her shoulder—slowly—through the valley between her shoulder blades, moving down into the small of her back, rising then over supple flesh, and then returning.
“Ryszard?”
“Yes? You wish me to stop?”
“No, do continue.—When you go to Petersburg next week—”
“Yes?”
“I wish to go.”
His hand stopped moving. “To St. Petersburg? For what?”
“To see it! The great Russian city! I’ve not been out of Poland.”
“Ah, I thought you were going to tell me it was for love of me—that you couldn’t bear to have me away for any length of time.”
“And if I had?”
The fingers began again. “I wouldn’t have believed you.”
Zofia laughed, her head coming up from the pillow. “Well, I would miss you.”
“About as much as you miss your Paweł?”
“Don’t be mean. I would miss you! But I want to see the palace. And the Hermitage. Perhaps you could arrange for me to meet the tsar, who knows?”
“And—what else?”
“What else?”
“Yes, what other reason?”
“Well… there is a Pole there whom I would like to meet—Czartoryski.”
“Adam?—Why?”
“It’s not what you might think! Don’t be jealous. The prince has the tsar’s ear. It’s about my sequestered property.”
“In Halicz?”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid you should forget such notions, Zofia. It’s the Austrians who took that province. It will not be coming back to you.”
“It’s not impossible. The tsar could bring pressure to bear on Austria. My friend Anusia Tyszkiewicz told me that years ago her father had so impressed Catherine in some little way she gave him back their estate. And they say the tsar has a fairer mind than did his mother.”
“He hated his mother.”
“You see!”
“You have enough, Zofia. You have money, the property in Praga where you can rebuild. What would you do with an estate so far in the south of Poland? You said yourself the Russians burnt the house to the ground.”
“I would rebuild!”
“For what? To live in the country! You despise the country, and you certainly don’t know how to run an estate—even if you had the inclination.”
“Well, I have Anna’s interest in mind, too!”
“Anna?”
“Yes, her husband’s estate there in Uście Zielone was taken, as well.”
“This Stelnicki fellow you told me about?”
“Yes, his estate should go to their children.”
“And should you regain it for them, they would be in your debt.”
“I suppose— ”
“Look at me, Zofia.”
Zofia obeyed, propping her head on her hand.
“Something distant comes into your eyes when you speak of this Stelnicki. What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you finished with him?”
“Yes.”
“Certain?”
“He’s Anna’s husband, Ryszard.” Zofia rolled onto her back now, her arms reaching out. “Now, my lord, will you take me to St. Petersburg?”
October 1797
Anna sat waiting outside the starosta’s office, Emma at her side. After Doliński’s call at the house, she had known she would hear from him again and had worried about it these three weeks following Barbara’s birth, but she had not expected a summons to appear. He did not keep her waiting long. The door opened and Doliński stepped out. “Lady Stelnicka,” he said, bowing slightly.
Anna stood and moved past him, into the room. Closing the door behind him, Doliński motioned for her to sit. Anna obeyed. The ticking and movements of the many clocks in the room were all too familiar, as was the sense of vulnerability she had felt when he had interviewed her nearly three years before.
“Who is your companion out there, Lady Stelnicka? A friend or in your employ?”
“She is both. Her name is Emma Szraber. Jacob’s wife.”
“Your estate manager? The Jew?”
Anna nodded. “She is governess to my children.”
Doliński thought for a moment, then asked in his graveled voice: “If that is the case, Lady Stelnicka, what is she doing here?”
Anna stiffened in her chair. “I asked her to accompany me.”
“Indeed. Not out of fear of me, I hope. Well, well. Three children now. You hardly look any worse for wear.”
Anna felt blood moving up into her face. “If that is a compliment, Lord Doliński, I thank you.”
“Indeed. You may take it as such.” He smiled solicitously. “Your husband has joined Dąbrowski, yes?”
“Yes, in Italy.”
“Who’s to say how long he will be gone, Lady Stelnicka? I hope that we can be friends. You see, you may be in need of the starosta’s protection, come one day.”
“I think not. My estate is self-contained; my people very loyal.”
“Yes, yes. Very true, I’m sure. But things here have changed—what with the Russians yielding the province to Prussia.”
“How does that change things?”
“In one way it doesn’t, Lady Anna—may I call you so? It doesn’t change in that I am still starosta. With the Russians, without the Russians. And now with the Prussians.” Doliński stood, pushing his chair out behind him and standing.
Anna watched as he walked about the room, feigning to examine one clock or another. “As hard as the Russians are, the Prussians can be harder,” he said, his tone artificially casual. “Nothing and no one under them is too secure.”
Anna kept her eyes fixed on his desk although she could hear his boot steps moving up behind her.
“I have endured and triumphed because I am clever, Lady Anna, as I am certain, are you.”
Afraid that he was about to touch her, Anna stood and faced him. He was but a step away. “Are you saying my estate is at risk?”
“No, not at all. I am merely saying that in the absence of your husband, you may find you have need of the starosta.”
“I see. Thank you, Lord Doliński. May I go now?”
“I meant to ask after your children.”
“My children? They’re fine.”
“Healthy? All healthy?”
“Yes.” His inquiry seemed more sinister than sincere.
“Good! Now I ask one thing from you—when I next invite you to come into town, I will send a carriage. There will be no need for a companion. Let the governess do what you pay her for.”
Anna’s throat closed up. Invite, indeed. She could only nod and make for the door.
Jan sat in the tent reading over a letter from Anna that had been forwarded from Milan to their camp in what was now an Austrian province—but what had been part of Southern Poland.
He had a daughter! A daughter—a little thrill ran through him as he reread the words. Barbara. He counted the months on his fingers and realized Anna must have known at the time of his departure. His emotions broke away into two pieces. On the one hand, he wished she had told him, and on the other he was touched that she let him go without adding to his reservations. He wished he could snap his fingers and find himself home in Sochaczew, if only for a little while.
And yet he was supremely happy to be where he was. And proud. He was a lancer at last! The lance was Poland’s weapon, it seemed, had been for two centuries or more. His own great-grandfather had carried a twenty-foot lance as part of the legendary Husaria, the winged cavalry that stood at Vienna in 1683, effectively protecting all of Europe from the formidable Ottoman Empire that had declared a jihad against the west. It was a supreme irony, Jan thought, that Poland—the least military power in Europe—dealt the decisive blow in saving Europe—and yet, a little more than a century later Poland was carved up by its neighbors. A bitter irony.
Well, Napoléon would indeed benefit from Polish lancers. They performed well against infantry in square, for their lances—while not twenty feet anymore—were longer than infantry bayonets. They were also excellent in small conflicts, or skirmishes. There was the legend of invincibility attached to them, too, one that threw fear into many an enemy. While lancers no longer wore the wings—impressive wooden arcs of eagle feathers attached to their shoulders or saddle—of his great-grandfather’s day, the sight of the dual color pennant—red over white—on a Polish lance still struck sheer panic into the hearts of the enemy, often enough to rout them without the delivery of a blow.
Paweł entered the tent now. Jan quickly replaced the letter in his leather pouch. He looked up at his friend, eager to tell him the news of his daughter. But Paweł’s face was dark. He seemed to be searching for words. “My God, man, what is it?”
“Disaster, Jan.—We’re to go back!”
“To Milan?”
He nodded and dropped to the side of his cot. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“France signed a treaty with Austria a few days ago at Campo Formio.”
“Damn the French! Men of straw and sons of bitches—all of them! – What does Denisko say?”
“The man’s dumbfounded, but he got the word from Dąbrowski. He says we’ll go back quietly and bide our time. The opportunity will come again.”
“But we’re here now, damn them! We’re here!”
Later, in fading October light, Jan walked the length of several fields in an attempt to work off his anger. From the time of their arrival in Milan, it had all seemed too good to be true. Too damn good! Yes, they had taken on Italian epaulettes and French cockades, but they kept their Polish cavalry uniforms and marched to a song written by a Pole, Józef Wybicki. They were given strong Turkish horses and addressed by both General Dąbrowski and the commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy, Napoléon Bonaparte. Jan was moved to discover that the motto on the Lombardy epaulettes translated to “Free men are brothers.” It made him think that leaving his family and joining the legion had been the right thing to do.
He and Paweł were currently accompanying Joachim Denisko on an expedition into Austria’s provinces in what had been Southern Poland in order to buttress an underground movement there aimed at overthrowing Austrian rule.
Jan climbed a steep hill and looked out over the River Dniestr. He was so close to his own family estate at Uście Zielone that the rose of the sunset and strong whiff of mown fields brought back memories of his happy childhood.
And now he stood not far from the home burned by Russians, the land taken by Austrians. Poland had been left with nothing in ’95 after Austria, Russia, and Prussia divided her up like boys dividing a cache of marbles. A tide of bitterness surged within him. Only his thought of Anna and a new daughter kept his heart from breaking. Some part of him was glad that he would not bear witness to what remained of the house and grounds—this time.
But the day would come. He would be patient. The day would come.
After all, treaties often didn’t outlast the drying of the ink. He wondered who had negotiated the agreement at Camp Formio. France’s Directory? Napoléon? He felt certain that if it was Napoléon, the treaty meant nothing. In the little time that Jan had observed the machinations of Napoléon Bonaparte, he concluded that the man responded to his own inner drive—not to the wishes or boundaries of other countries—or even the orders he received from France’s Directory.
He stayed a while in the fading light, the smell of autumn thick in his throat, thinking of his boyhood home, his parents—long dead now—and a life never to be retrieved. “Napoléon,” he muttered aloud, “whore’s son.”
It was dark when he got back to camp.