Michał awoke in a tumble of November leaves. He was alone. He thought his head had been split open. He reached back to the source of pain at the back of his head. It came away with a smudge of blood. It could have been worse, he thought. He sat up. How much time had passed? Minutes? An hour? He had no idea. He stood, intent on getting to the Belweder Palace and to Józef. Dizziness overcame him and he fell to the ground. Slowly, he pulled himself up into a sitting position. He waited for his head to clear. He saw his sword glinting in the leaves, reached for it and employed it to help himself up. Upright at last and with the dizziness receding, he started limping along the path that would take him to the palace of the Grand Duke, praying all the while he would get there in time.
Józef stepped out of the alcove and into the path of the man Viktor had assured him to be Grand Duke Konstantin. Although the man’s face was already washed white, Józef, pistol in hand, clearly startled him and he stopped at once. He was unarmed. Józef had never seen the Grand Duke and so he quickly took in this hatless, harried man. The uniform with its gold epaulettes and many medals was disheveled as if he had dressed hurriedly. His face was rather flat and plain as paper but for the graying muttonchop whiskers. The age did match that of the duke’s—about fifty.
Still, Józef had to make certain. “Your Imperial Highness,” he stammered. The half-statement, half-question, seemed to have come from someone else. Addressing him in this fashion sounded ludicrous to his own ears.
“And you, my young soldier, my young Pole, are you here to protect me—or to do mischief?” The Grand Duke’s Polish was so perfect it almost made Józef second guess himself as to the man’s identity. “I can assure you, that I have long been only a friend to your country. I suggest to you that you help me to safety . . .”
Józef’s would-be captive continued for several minutes in Polish underscoring for Józef his love for Poland, its culture, its history, mentioning, too, his Polish wife. His manner of speech was calm and deliberate, as if bedlam were not unfolding in front of the palace, as if there were no pistol pointed at his heart. The moment felt surreal, as if they were newly introduced at a reception.
As the Grand Duke droned on, Józef could think only of Viktor’s words. Kill him, he had said. It was not unlike an order. Time seemed to slow but his thoughts raced faster than words. Was it possible that Viktor had Poland’s best interest in mind, as he said? He was right in thinking an assassination would preclude a full break with Russia. There was logic in that. It had to be considered. Kill him. Even the slow-to-act older generations of Poles would have to respond. They would be drawn into the war effort, like it or not. Józef had asked for a special task in the great effort to break the chains, and God or the fates had delivered him to this place and this time. When he had chosen the military over the music, he could not have imagined himself coming to the very vortex of history in which he now stood. But he was here, gun in hand, the personification of Russia three paces away, a perfect target. He could say to himself that he had no intention of wishing himself the hero Viktor had conjured, but was the claim sincere? Didn’t every fellow cadet he knew imagine himself his country’s champion?
The duke was studying Józef. “If you’re not here to kill me, soldier,” he said, “let me pass. And if you are, you have one shot. Do your worst.”
This is your moment, Viktor had said. Józef’s finger tightened on the trigger. Viktor, Józef thought. Viktor! His brother-in-law could not know that the secret about his position in the Third Department was a secret no longer—at least not to either of his Polish brothers-in-law. So why would the head of the Russian secret police be urging a Pole to assassinate the Russian Grand Duke? Why? No answer was forthcoming. It was a mystery. But somehow such an outcome would have to work to the Russian advantage. Or Viktor’s. What am I to do? It was Lieutenant Wysocki’s words from early morning that came back to him now: We Poles are not in the habit of killing princes and we are not going to begin today.
The Grand Duke had fallen silent. Józef made his decision. “I will not hurt you, Imperial Highness, but you are to come with me. We are to take you into safe custody.”
“Custody, my young cadet? What custody could be safe?”
Józef kept the gun pointed at him, motioning for the duke to move. “I can assure you—” Józef stopped in mid-sentence. It was the expression on the man’s face that gave him pause. Color had come back into the duke’s face during the span of his little discourse, but it was the slightest rise of his bushy right eyebrow and the hint of a curling smile that caught Józef’s attention.
And then—too late—Józef realized the man’s faded blue eyes had fastened on something other than the gun. Other than Józef.
Something behind Józef.
“Close that window at once, Izabel!” Zofia ordered upon coming into Iza’s first floor sitting room at the front of the house. “And the shutters, as well. Are you out of your mind?”
“Mother, there’s a crowd coming this way, moving toward the Castle Square.”
“A mob is more like it. Do as I say. You’re liable to be shot.”
“No, come look, Mother. They’re students and cadets and a great many citizens, too. Even women. Is it possible we are truly evicting our oppressors?”
“Not likely,” Zofia answered, moving toward the casement windows, her intention to close them written on her face. “Don’t think a friendly bullet couldn’t find your pretty face up here.”
Iza turned to plead her case when she realized Anna had entered close upon Zofia’s heels.
“Wait, Zofia,” Anna said, “I want a look, too.”
“It’s dangerous, Anna,” Zofia said. “To what purpose?”
Anna didn’t answer as she stepped to the double casement window, but Iza—and surely her mother—read the concern in Anna’s face for her youngest son Józef. Her emerald green eyes moved like searchlights over the crowd. Might he be one of those faces down there? Iza could not read others’ hearts, but for herself, she worried also, for Jerzy, the man who claimed to be her father—and for Jan Michał. Where were they in all of this? Certainly not standing immobile at a window. If only I were a man . . .
Zofia conceded the argument with a great sigh, and in moments the three were aligned in the window much like patrons in an opera box. Neighbors, too, could be seen at their windows across the narrow street, many cheering their countrymen on. Night had fallen but a number of the crowd carried torches that sent light and shadows playing against the buildings.
“No doubt they’re coming to take the Praga Bridge from the Russians,” Anna said. “It’s essential they hold that point of entry from Russian reinforcements from the East.”
“Or from Russians escaping,” Zofia added.
The crowd was moving closer, a great chorus of hurrahs echoing off the town houses and the stone façade of St. Martin’s Church. It was near the front of the Gronska town house that the masses stopped. An eerie silence ensued.
“Look!” Iza said, her line of vision now directed in the opposite direction, toward the River Vistula and the Castle Square. She drew in a deep breath as Zofia and Anna took in the sight.
What had quelled the crowd were two companies of light cavalry, armed to their visors, their horses breast to breast the width of the street and head to haunches as far as could be seen. They no doubt thickened the surface of the Castle Square like blades of grass.
“They’re Polish soldiers.” The male voice came from behind the women at the casement. The three turned to see Jan sidling up to Anna now, his face gaunt but glinting with a new energy. “In Russian service, of course.”
“I thought you were sleeping, Jan,” Anna said.
“Sleep through an insurrection? Not likely.”
“Look!” Iza’s tone was sharp. She pointed toward the Castle Square. “Two generals from the Polish companies are riding forward to address the crowd.”
“They don’t look pleased,” Zofia said. “I think they’re going to try to disperse the crowd.”
A murmur ran through the multitude, front to back, as one told the next what was happening. Iza could sense palpable tension. Violence was in the air, thick as the fog from the river.
“Do you recognize them, Jan?” Anna asked. “Are they men you campaigned with?”
“I do. One is Trembicki and the other Potocki. Good men both in days gone by, but I fear they carry water for Konstantin now.”
“Stanisław Potocki?” Anna asked, her hand going to her heart.
“The same,” her husband said.
“Oh, sweet Madonna, you’re right.” Anna said.
Iza recalled now that the general and his wife Anusia were dear friends of Anna.
“Their moment of truth has come not on the battlefield,” Jan was saying, “but on this very street, Anna.”
The two generals drew reins now, some yards from the vanguard of the crowd. “Citizens, students, and soldiers,” General Trembicki called. “This insurrection is hereby put down. You are ordered back to your homes, your dormitories, and your barracks. You are to disperse at once if you are to save life and limb and avoid certain arrest.”
A discordant muttering grew in volume and ran like the current of a rumbling earthquake through the crowd. Someone in their midst shouted back, “The prisons have been opened. We have freed our own. All unjustly imprisoned!”
“No doubt,” Jan whispered to his smaller audience. Iza recognized the poignancy of his remark, and it came as no small surprise that it seemed free of bitterness for his lost years.
“We’ll not take their places!” a cadet yelled.
Trembicki stiffened in his saddle. “You are fools to persist in this. Hear me! It is madness. Madness! Those responsible will have to submit to the mercy of the Grand Duke.” As Trembicki continued in his reproaches, the crowd grew more and more unsettled and hostile. Demurring voices of men and women alike were prompted to call out reminders of past grievances against Russia and the duke in particular. And those impatient souls at the rear seemed to be pushing the multitude forward.
The speech had not gone well for Trembicki. General Potocki saw fit to speak now. “Halt, now, my good citizens!” he called. “You know me, General Stanisław Potocki. You know that in the past I have fought for independence for our great nation. I have gone gray in the service of our country. Like you, I would like nothing better than to return to the years of our Constitution.” As the general detailed his years in service of his country, the crowd stopped their forward movement and gave him their attention.
“But, listen to me, patriots! Listen! It cannot be done in this ragtag fashion. Your venture is doomed. Your chances of success in this are non-existent. The day for freedom will come, but it is not today.” These were not words to assuage the crowd and the people set to pushing restlessly forward again. More than a few shouted their disapproval of the general’s prediction. Soon the catcalls were going up all around the generals. One man spat upon the ground very near to General Potocki.
Two cadets came to the fore of the crowd. “We know you, General Potocki,” one of them said. “Your heart is with us if you listen to it. Say the word and you shall be Commander of the Army! Allow us to join the companies of the men behind you and we shall take the bridge to Praga.”
Trembicki scoffed and cursed. Potocki was more sensitive in his reaction but negative nonetheless. Other cadets moved forward and urged Potocki to take command.
“Do it, Stanisław,” Jan said through clenched teeth. “Take the chance and weigh not the odds.”
Potocki was silent for some seconds, as if considering. The crowd paused, too, as the question hung fire.
“I cannot consider such an offer,” he said then. “My duty as a soldier of honor is placed with the Grand Duke.”
As these cadets implored Potocki to demonstrate his patriotism, other cadets and citizens became impatient and began calling to the light cavalry behind the generals. “Join us, Patriots,” they called. “Will you arrest and kill your brothers? Throw off the Russian bear! Let the white eagle soar once again!”
Such calls grew in intensity. Several cadets bragged of witnessing successes that night against the Russians at different city locations. The generals loudly discounted such boasts but, Iza thought, if they were true, Poland might yet succeed and evict the Russians. She could no longer hear the exchange between the generals and the spokesmen for the cadets. Her attention and that of everyone at the casement window turned to the two companies of light cavalry who seemed to be responding to the cadets with war whoops of enthusiasm. They had made their decision, it seemed, a decision that went against their generals. The soldiers beckoned the people forward, toward Castle Square. The crowd, quickly becoming giddy at the offer, responded with full strides forward.
“Is it a trick?” Zofia asked. “Are they being led to their arrest—or worse?”
“I pray not,” Anna said.
“I don’t think so,” Jan offered. “Look at the faces of the generals. They have lost control of their men. They know it. And I suspect they’ve been warned by those young cadets down there of what their own refusal to join the revolutionaries will mean to them.”
The four at the window fell silent as they watched the crowd press forward. Men and women were so close to the officers’ horses that the generals could not maneuver a turnabout and return to their men. Neither could they proceed forward down Piwna Street. The multitude had become a mob.
And then the inevitable occurred. Unruly citizens reached up and pulled Trembicki and Potocki from their horses. Anna gasped, but no one said a word as Zofia shooed everyone back from the window. She had only just closed the shutters when there came the sounds of several shots. Now her arms reached out to either side and she pulled tight the casement windows, latching them securely.
Michał arrived breathless at Belweder Palace. He moved past the open gates and the two narrow guardhouses that stood empty. He paused for a moment. There was no motion to be seen, no sounds to be heard. All was dark but for the pale moonlight that lent a ghostly illumination to the whiteness of the building.
His heart sank. He was too late. What had happened here? He saw a form lying prone and face down on the portico. He hurried toward it and was relieved to see the body belonged to a Russian officer. Kneeling down he turned the body over and recognized the bloodied man at once.
It was General Gendre, a Russian general notorious in reputation. He had been dismissed by the late Tsar Aleksander for graft and other impositions, but Grand Duke Konstantin had taken in the outcast, making him Master of Horse, then general, and finally aid-de-camp to the Duke. All Warsaw—nobles, merchants, nearly everyone—knew him and his wife to be the boldest of swindlers. Just desserts, Michał could not help but think, wondering if the cadets knew whom they were killing. Had they mistaken him for the Grand Duke himself? There was a resemblance. Was it murder they had in mind for Konstantin? The outright murder of a Russian prince would tarnish Poland’s honor—and bring upon it unrelenting revenge from his brother, the Tsar.
Michał noticed now that the wounds in the body were many. More than a dozen. Clearly, he realized, the cadets knew their man, knew his reputation and had made a Julius Caesar of him, bayonet blades substituting for daggers.
This was the first violent death he had observed since Waterloo and it made him shudder for a moment. For him this was the true start of revolution. Where would it lead? Where would it end? He stood and went to the broken front doors. Where was Józef? No one was in evidence anywhere, but he would not leave without investigating. Perhaps a servant remained who might provide information.
Michał walked the long hall, checking the rooms to the right and left. His heels on marble echoed eerily in the empty palace. At the rear, he noticed that the doors to the garden stood open and that one of the glass panes had been broken to facilitate entry. Nothing else looked askew. He decided to walk the entire perimeter of the building before leaving the site, choosing first the left side. It revealed no hint of the attack. He found himself in front again and moved quickly past the body of Gendre and around to the right side of the palace.
He had taken no more than twenty steps when he stopped, his heart accelerating. Another body lay on the ground. He knew by the uniform at once it was that of a cadet. He slowly moved toward it. The boy lay face down. He had received a lethal blow to the head. His czapek lay to the side so that his bloodied blond hair was visible. Blond hair. Was this his brother? Is this Józef? Tears formed at once in his eyes. His heart tightening, his entire body trembling, he knelt next to the boy, breathed a prayer that it was not his brother, and turned the body over.
Relief flooded through him. It was not Józef. “Thank God,” Michał said aloud, “Thank God.”
But as he stared at the boy’s regular Polish features, obscured at first by the death mask of pain, he did recognize the cadet. It was Józef’s roommate. He fought to recall the name. Marek, was it? No, not that. Marceli? No—Marcin, yes, that was it.
His heart went out to Marcin, but his next thought was for his brother. If Marcin had been in on the conspiracy to confront the Grand Duke, he was certain his gut had been right all along: Józef had been here at the palace.
He said the briefest of prayers for Marcin even as he stood, determining to return to the garden entrance and move through the building a final time before abandoning the site. On his third step into the dark interior, the toe of his boot struck something, sending it skittering several feet ahead. He halted at once and got down on his knees, his hands sweeping the floor as he crawled along. He found the small item and he ran his fingers over it, much like a blind man would inspect a foreign object.
Michał clutched it in his hand as he stood and hurried toward the front of the palace where the moonlight would allow him to view it. But he already knew what the little treasure was.
On the front portico he opened his hand, exposing his find to the dim light.
Opening the drawstrings and withdrawing the treasure from the blue velvet pouch, he found himself staring at the little portrait on ivory of a startlingly beautiful girl. Emilia Chopin. The little masterpiece was no doubt Józef’s most prized possession.
But where was Józef?