Modlin Fortress
Michał climbed to the very highest battlements of the fortress. He looked out into the night, struggling to hold off depression. While General Skyzynecki and the Grand Army had come and gone, he had orders to stay at the fortress mentoring the Young Guards and even the peasants armed on their arrival with merely scythes from their farms. It was important work, he knew, and he did manage to insert himself into patrols that got caught up in skirmishes with Russians. The action kept him sharp, but less than satisfied.
His wish that the Russians would coalesce here at the little village of Modlin was just that, he thought in more sober moments, a wish. The longest citadel in Poland and perhaps all of Europe, Modlin Fortress sat at the confluence of the Rivers Vistula, Bug, Narew—and even the Wrka, a tributary of the Narew. It would be a hard nut for Paszkiewicz to crack. Warsaw, on the other hand, had the advantage of the Vistula that afforded considerable protection to the east, but its boundaries to the west were expansive and vulnerable. And Warsaw was the prize. It took no gypsy to predict that the real battles would occur at the capital. Paszkiewicz was being allowed days to assemble west of the Vistula and to bring in other armies. God rot him! It was enough to drive one mad! What was the reason for this inaction by Poles? How the Russian general had been allowed passage across the Vistula was a comedy of errors worthy of the history books one day. And each day word came back that Warsaw was in a state of near rebellion. No one was happy with the way the war was being waged, not the people, the military leaders, the members of the Sejm. And reports had it that Joachim Lelewel, one of the men Michał had accompanied to try to reason with the Grand Duke months ago, was now head of the radicalized Patriotic Society and beyond reason himself. The sum of these things would all work to the advantage of Paszkiewicz. The showdown would be at Warsaw, 30 miles to the south. Michał was convinced of it. And he would not be there.
It was a bitter irony, Michał thought, his notion of having Józef transferred to the Artillery Garrison at Wielka Wola—a little village that was no more than a suburb of Warsaw—for safety. In so doing he had placed his young brother in the direct line of attack. Well, he would see the action he craved, God help him.
Michał wondered about his father. Was he still in the south, at Zamość? A recent letter from his mother expressed her concern. Jerzy had been there, too, she wrote, but she had had no word of them even though she knew of other letters that had come through from Zamość.
And—other than Józef—what of the safety of his loved ones in Warsaw? His mother, Barbara and the twins, Zofia?
Michał stared up into the night sky searching in vain now for the North Star. His mind’s eye, however, mutinied, countering with a vision of Iza’s eyes of blue, beautiful cornflower blue. “Iza,” he said aloud. “Iza.” The two words were as serious a prayer as he had ever prayed.
August 1831, Warsaw
At noon Viktor was standing tucked into the shadows of the narrow alleyway between the town houses across from the Gronska home. He had been there since before dawn, waiting to broach Barbara. At first light he had seen Anna Stelnicka leave, dressed in her hospital blues. Then Iza had left at mid-morning in similar apparel.
Iza. He remembered standing just where he was now some months ago, having followed Iza home. It had been a foolish impulse. At the Chopin concert he had happened to notice that she was refusing a ride home from Zofia’s driver and so he had followed her. He thought it curious and wondered if she was about to meet up with Michał, in whom he and the Third Department were very interested. He remembered telling himself as much that night—and that he was seeing to her safety on the nighttime streets—but the truth was, he had found her quite attractive that evening, innocent and vulnerable. It was good fortune for both of them that she moved quickly, allowing him no time to catch up to her, to yield to temptation. He had been completely faithful to Barbara since their marriage. But for a moment that night he had dared fate . . .
Now, the great bronze bell in St. Martin’s bell tower blasted the first trio of consecutive strokes, calling people to pray the noon Angeles. It was deafening, but more than that, the bell was cracked, rendering the pealing cacophonous. Viktor started to curse, but when he noticed that the front door of the Gronska town house had opened, the oath fell away. He waited. No one emerged.
Then came the next three tolls, reverberating up and down Piwna Street, causing children to hold their ears. Of course! Just as people stopped in the street in prayer, so too had the person who opened the door. She stood in shadow.
Viktor waited patiently for the final three crashes of the clapper. They came in a timely fashion, augmented by the tolls of countless other churches, near and far.
When the tolling ceased and people resumed motion once again, Viktor saw the woman step onto the portico, broom in hand. It was Elzbieta, the young maid.
Damn! Viktor cursed.
The waiting continued.
Two hours later, a young man—probably a university student—came to stop on the street and happened to glance down the little alley, taking note of Viktor. Viktor turned away immediately, shielding his face and adjusting his stance so that it would appear as if he were relieving himself. He waited, half expecting the man to challenge him in some way. His hand went to and held the sheathed knife in the breast pocket of his frock coat.
Two minutes later he turned back to the street. The man was gone. It was a dangerous chance he was taking, especially these last two days. To his amazement, in the midst of war, a recent Military Sejm had been convened and Gereralissimo Skyzynecki had failed to win a vote of confidence from his commanders and had been relieved of his duty. Agreement on a successor was not so easy. Several generals had refused the post. All hell was breaking out in the capital. The Patriotic Society had become even more radical. Without the influence of Skyzynecki and the presence of Czartoryski, who had left the city, the Patriotic Society had seen to it that alleged turncoat officers, spies, demagogues, political critics and the like were put on trial. Late, two nights earlier, prisons had been forced and thirty-four men were killed, including four generals. Order was restored just before dawn, the mob leaders were executed, and the Patriotic Society was dissolved. One particular group of three had been found halfway to the Russian camp with a letter to General Paszkiewicz, detailing the capital’s current weakness. It was an engraved invitation had they managed its delivery. The traitors were hanged at once from the nearest lamp post.
It was that gruesome little story that provided the seed of an idea to take root in Viktor’s mind.
But for now—after nearly three hours of waiting—Barbara appeared on the portico. She said something to the maid, took the three steps to the street and began to move toward Castle Square.
Viktor allowed her to move some fifteen or twenty yards before he followed her. He took care to put his hand to his hat and cover his face so that should Elzbieta look up, she would not recognize him.
It took some doing, but he caught up to Barbara in the square. She turned when he called to her, a shadow passing over her face at the sight of him. Her face hardened. “What is it?”
“I want to talk with you.”
Her mouth pursed a bit, the chin lifting. “Talk?”
“Yes, I want us to come to an arrangement, some agreement.”
The green of Barbara’s eyes seemed to darken in the way that he noticed her mother’s had when they told her of their engagement. “There will be no arrangement, as you say, Viktor.”
“You’re angry about my secrecy. I can’t blame—”
“If only that were all.”
“Listen, what I said to you in the winter about the danger to you and your family will come to pass. And I suspect it will be more extreme than anything I imagined then—before this insurrection took such an ugly turn.”
“Ugly, yes. But perhaps it’s you that’s in danger now. If I were to call out now, here in the square, your life would be forfeit. Are you aware of what has been going on?”
“The hangings? I know. Listen to me, Basia, General Paszkiewicz is just outside the city, biding his time. When he makes his move, the capital will fall. Your Poland will fall. And it will not go easy on you Poles. It won’t be like last time or the time before that. This is Nicholas in charge, not Aleksander. Nobles from Czartoryski on down will be dispossessed. Your parents, everyone you know. Participants and sympathizers will be hanged or sent to work camps. Your father knows first hand of such places.”
“Thanks to you!”
Viktor cursed himself for bringing up her father. Her eyes had begun to brim with tears, but when he alluded to her father’s incarceration, she stiffened, steeling herself. “I ask you to forgive me for any harm I caused your father. Had I known—”
“Had you known he would be your father-in-law, you would have spared him. Of course! But what about the next Pole over whom you held such power? Not so lucky for him, yes?”
Viktor’s voice dropped to a whisper. “We meant so much to one another, Basia.”
“You were masquerading, Viktor. I was a fool.”
Viktor drew in a long breath. “What about the boys?”
“What about them?”
“Would you see them sent to the hinterlands to grow up in a work camp? Could you bear to be separated from them?”
“I would kill myself and them first!”
“A modern Medea?” He scoffed. But, for the moment at least, he read the determination in her eyes and he believed her. “Basia, it need not come to that. I can make it up to you for what I’ve done. I will have a position here once again. A position of importance. I will see that you and the Stelnicki and Gronska families are protected. I can do that.”
Barbara paused for what seemed a long time. Would she listen to common sense? Did she wish that she, her children, and family members survive what was coming?
Barbara drew herself up now and spoke clearly and deliberately. “I refuse any help from you, Viktor. Do you hear me? And I won’t yield one more minute to you.” She turned her back to him.
“I can take the boys, Barbara,” he said before she could put her feet in motion.
Barbara spun around. He had gotten her attention. “You would do that?”
Viktor answered her with silence. He saw her eyes flash green hatred, then be taken by something behind him.
“There are three soldiers about thirty paces behind you.” She spoke softly but with resolve. “Don’t turn around, Viktor. They are walking this way. If I were to call those patriots over right now, you would have no life, whether Warsaw falls or we hold out against a despot. I imagine a lamp post would be your home well before nightfall.”
“You’re not serious. Basia, I—”
A finger to her lips silenced him. “You have not more twenty seconds to move quickly away from me. If you are still standing here when they go to pass us, I will stop them.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“How badly do you wish to find out?”
From behind, Viktor could hear the boots moving toward them. He knew he had fewer than ten seconds.
He tipped the wide-brimmed hat to her and moved off toward Podwale Street, exiting the square just as the three o’clock Angeles began clanging from any number of churches, reverberating throughout the square loud as the bells on doomsday. Others stopped to pray. He did not.
The Rozniecki mansion was silent as a monastery upon his return. He suspected Bartosz was still making his rounds of marketing.
Viktor went directly to the kitchen, propelled by a vortex of emotions: shock, damaged pride, deep, deep anger—and only later would he admit, heartbreak.
He had a task here and tried to focus on that, only that.
From the cabinet below he carefully lifted the clear glass container of a grayish substance. He noted a mark on its side meant to designate the volume after its last use. Should he remove some, Bartosz would know it. Drawing down a clean, clear glass, he spooned out and into the glass what he gauged a half cup of the substance. Setting that aside, he drew down from the shelf the cannister of flour. He spooned out the same amount of flour into the clear glass container, taking care to thoroughly mix the gray and white substances and leave the mixture at the previous marking—in the event that Bartosz was as suspicious as he. He returned the cannister and the glass container to their respective places.
He was left now with his glass of the gray substance, no one the wiser. He proceeded to the door leading down to the cellar cold room. He quickly found the large pot of bigos that Bartosz had made the day before. Lifting the lid he dropped the dustlike gray substance into the thick stew, found a long spoon, stirred the concoction of broth, herbs, veal, pork, sausage, onions, tomatoes, sauerkraut—and now, arsenic.
The arsenic was an accessible item. Bartosz had not disclosed to him where he had gotten the belladonna, nor where he might have stored any left over, and naturally, Viktor could not now raise suspicions by asking about it. Arsenic would have to do. Would it have the same quick-acting effects?
Before he left the cold room, he cut for himself a large piece of cheese. Stopping in the kitchen long enough to saw off a hunk of bread, he hurried to his room. Thoughts of Barbara were not far away, but for now he had much to think about.
By the time Bartosz arrived an hour later, Viktor had decided to bait him before proceeding with his plan, telling him that he would need different clothes, nondescript and dark clothing of Polish tailoring—and that he planned to find his way to the Paszkiewicz camp at Raszyn, a town southwest of the capital. In the telling Viktor watched the servant with eagle’s eyes. Of course, without being explicitly told, Bartosz would know that Viktor was attempting that which had gotten three Russian sympathizers hanged just the day before: providing the Russians with the word that the chaos in the city, combined with the fact that most of the Polish forces had crossed from Warsaw to Praga in order to deal with a small Russian force there. Now was the most advantageous time for Paszkiewicz to make his move on Warsaw at Wielka Wola.
“There’s a grave danger to that, sir,” Bartosz said. The man did understand.
It was the first time Viktor could remember his having called him sir. There was something in that. And there was something in a very minor muscle tic beneath his right eye. Together these little things betrayed him. Viktor had been an interrogator too long not to take notice of such things. Oh, Bartosz might lack enough of a conscience to work for a traitor like Rozniecki and wink at things that went on in front of him, but in the end he was too much a Pole and not to be trusted.
“There’s a danger in merely breathing, Bartosz. Now I am looking forward to that national dish of yours—what is it called?”
“Bigos.”
“Ah, yes. I think we shall both feast on it tonight. We have wine, yes?”
“The bigos is to simmer three days, sir. It needs one more day.”
Viktor held his composure. “Nonsense, man. It will be delicious.”
“But—”
“I insist, Bartosz.”
The servant nodded, recognizing an order.
The plate of bigos set to the side, Viktor sat working at his bread and cheese, relishing little of it. He glanced over at the boots, breeches, and greatcoat—all black—that Bartosz had provided. There was, too, a lump of coal that would darken his face and hands.
When he was dressed he left the hidden room and went, slowly, to the kitchen. The poison had had time to work. The swinging door was open. Inside he did not find a dead or even prostrate Bartosz.
The servant sat at his small table fully alert, expectant even. The plate of bigos had been moved to the side. Viktor’s attention was drawn to the glass that sat directly in front of him. The sides of the glass were coated with a filmy residue. Holy Christ! He knew at once that that was the glass he had used earlier for the poison. He had been found out.
Viktor’s stomach pitched. He had meant to wash out the glass and return it to its place, but he had stupidly left it in the cold room. Viktor swallowed hard. What now?
Bartosz read his mind. “Oh, I did eat some,” he said, “before I discovered the glass.” The attempt to smile ended in a grimace, and came home to Viktor now that the poison was working after all. “Ah, Viktor, arsenic is a slow-working poison, nothing like the belladonna. Why, some folks even survive it.” A hardness came into Bartosz’ dark eyes now. “Poisonings—by you Ruski,” he said, alluding to the suspicions around Count Orloff, “a cowardly way to kill your enemy, no?”
Viktor had no time to process the damning accusation because in the next moment he saw something move slightly behind the glass: a small pistol.
Bartosz raised the gun, aimed it at Viktor.
But he hesitated as if to say something.
His mistake! Viktor pulled his own pistol—already primed—from the greatcoat. He aimed for the chest and fired.
The impact at the shoulder forced Bartosz’s upper body back against the chair, the hand that held the gun flagging. Bartosz tried to steady his arm, took aim and fired. The bullet whisked above Viktor’s head.
Viktor cursed himself for his own aim. In an instant, he withdrew his second pistol, fired and the bullet this time flew true, straight to the heart.
16 August 1831, Wielka Wola
It was not yet dawn. Józef had fed his horse and worked now at brushing him down but his mind was still on the letter he had had from Michał who—reading between the lines—sounded restless at the Modlin Fortress. Like everyone he was concerned about the amassing Russian army. He was worried, too, about their father. Neither he nor his mother had word from him in many weeks—or from Jerzy, for that matter. Józef knew that mail from outposts could be a dicey thing; after all, he received Michał’s letter only because General Sowiński’s aide-de-camp had made a trip to Modlin Fortress and, hearing about the courier’s presence there, Michał had prevailed upon him to carry the letter back.
Michał, of course, wanted to know how he was getting on. The resentment and anger Józef had harbored against his brother had dissipated as he became more and more comfortable with his current duties, and the time came when he was at peace with the overtures Michał had made to secure for him a safer post. The general, meanwhile, had taken Józef under his wing, going so far as calling him son on occasion. And he was told by officer and cadet alike that the time for the decisive action was coming. Besides, Piotr Wysocki and many of Józef’s fellow cadets at Siedlce had been reassigned here to help bolster Warsaw defenses. He chuckled to himself, thinking that perhaps he would see action and not Jan Michał.
“How’s that young Arabian stallion doing, Józef?”
Polish Arabian, Józef thought, turning to see General Sowiński closing the stable door behind him. While he had made it a habit to stop by in the mid-afternoons, after Józef was finished with his usual duties maintaining weapons of every imaginable type, he had never been seen up and about this early. Józef saluted. “Tadek’s a bit edgy this morning, General.”
“As are we all, my boy. As are we all.”
Józef thought little of the comment.
The general harrumphed. “Your letter, no bad news from your brother, I hope.”
“No, sir.”
“Good!” The general smiled.
“I’ll write him back tomorrow. Sooner, if you think you may have someone going to Modlin.”
“Not likely, Józef. Not likely. Too dangerous. We have the Modlin and Zamość fortresses in our control, but the rest of the nation is a hunting ground for the Ruski.”
Józef thought now how his family had a stake at both fortresses: Michał at Modlin; his father and Jerzy at Zamość.
For the moment their conversation reverted to the horse and small talk, but Józef became convinced the general had a purpose in coming in at such an early hour. A serious purpose.
When Józef went to place the saddle on Tadek, the general’s hand stopped him. “No riding today, Józef. Not today.”
Their relationship had developed to the stage whereby Józef felt he could dare to question a statement such as this. “But, sir, I take him out only around the perimeter of the garrison. Since the Russians are parked out on the plains, I wouldn’t dare go further.”
“You won’t dare leave the garrison, Józef.”
“What is it, sir? What’s happened?”
General Sowiński’s eyes shone like blue fire. “Two guards were murdered last night and a third injured. Someone—and I pray it was no Pole—got past us despite our precautions and made his way to the Paszkiewicz camp. God damn him to hell! By now they know just how weak we stand, so outnumbered and what with the majority of our forces elsewhere. And with citizens in an uproar and a Military Sejm changing the leadership, no less! God’s bones! The Paszkiewicz forces have taken our supply depot at Łowicz in their march from the west. Our ammunition and our provisions are nearly depleted and in the meantime the Ruski move toward us from every quarter.”
“Are things so bad, sir?”
“We have but one chance.”
“Sir?”
“To funnel pell mell all our resources here to the capital and take a stand for our freedom! And when they come down upon us, my Józef, Wielka Wola will be the key position.”
If only there were time, Józef thought, time for Polish forces to coalesce. He looked for hope in the general’s face, watching the general’s long, flaring whiskers that would draw back like curtains at his characteristic smile. But there was no such movement now.