CHAPTER XV

KING KAZIMIR JAGIELLO

Of all the wonders that the capital city of Poland possessed Joseph knew of none that stirred his imagination more than did this royal castle of the kings upon the Wawel. Impregnable through many sieges, its great rock base had stood, brick and stone heaped high above it in a great mass of towers, turrets, and walls. At its very heart, high above the winding Vistula and the town, stood a strangely built round tower enclosed and protected by the palace wings, where men in prehistoric times worshiped the old nature gods of the Slavs; a place of rest and seclusion where on rare occasions, when townsfolk might visit the castle, Joseph had stood thinking of things that had been in the old days.

He knew well the legend of Krakus, the hero of the dark ages, who slew a dragon that had once made this hill his habitation. There was a cave, so Joseph heard, that ran from the fortress underground beneath the river, a secret exit in time of siege; here had been the dragon’s lair, until the hero overcame him, and from that day men made the Wawel a home, from which might be seen climbing into the air, spires and belfries. All this Joseph had seen; he had fed his fancies upon every object that graced the bleak, majestic rock, and yet there remained one glory that had never yet met his eyes. That glory was Poland’s King.

[Illustration: _He hurled the crystal into the air._]

But this morning after the fire, when the little company set out from the Church of Our Lady Mary toward the Wawel Hill, Joseph felt his heart leaping strangely in his breast at the thought of the adventure that was to be theirs. To see the King, to have audience before him—it made the blood sing in his ears and tingle in his finger tips.

They took the alchemist with them, on Jan Kanty’s advice, although he still seemed like a man in a dream.

“I found him wandering through the fire-swept streets early this morning,” said the scholar. “He had been running hither and thither all night long in the most dangerous parts of the city, and how he has escaped death from falling timbers and burning coals is more than I know. . . . The man has something on his mind, something that troubles him hugely, and with it all he seems to be acting like one in a spell.”

“Do you think it well to bring him with us?” asked Pan Andrew, who had doubted from the beginning that there would be any benefit from the man’s presence.

“Yes—I have a curious notion,” answered the scholar, “that he may be able to help us. We have much to explain to the King, and the man’s presence will make our story more credible. And who knows, perhaps the alchemist himself may get help—he needs some light thrown into that brain of his, and since he is harmless, it will do no damage to take him.”

Pan Kreutz’s hands and face had been washed and dried, and most of the fire grime had left him; the scholar’s robe was useless, however, and Pan Andrew hung a _kontusz_ or long coat about his shoulders.

Joseph was there with the three men; Wolf had been left behind sleeping upon the floor of the high tower room. Joseph’s mother and Elzbietka were under the protection of the day watchman who relieved Pan Andrew at dawn. It was necessary for Pan Andrew and Jan Kanty to assist the alchemist in walking at times when his feet would shuffle curiously like those of a man walking in his sleep, but he plodded along bravely, not yet realizing quite clearly what was happening about him yet confident that the two men near him were his friends and were leading him to some good place.

From Castle Street they turned at length up the long slope leading to the castle on the Wawel. Behind them lay street after street of desolation, of smoking ruins, of masses of wood still flaming; amidst these ruins men were still working valorously tearing down charred beams and hurling in tons and tons of water from the water wagons, which were now all drawn by horses. One side of Castle Street had suffered badly, the houses on the Street of the Pigeons were entirely destroyed, St. Ann’s Street had but few buildings left, while much devastation had been done along the Street of the Bakers, the Street of the Goldsmiths, and the Street of the Jews and Broad Street.

Jan Kanty’s company was challenged twice by guards on the way to the palace, but when the soldiers recognized the good father, they were at once passed along without question. It was another proof to Joseph of the esteem in which the man was held; in himself, however, there was not the least indication of pride and ostentation, he was as simple as a child in most matters affecting worldly things, and yet his name was as magic even in the court of the King. At length they all stood in the little passageway on the Wawel through which one passes to the palace, and here the guard, with spear raised in salute to the scholar, bade the company wait until he went to see if an audience might be had.

The soldier came back quickly. “The King,” he said gravely, “will grant any request that may be made by Father Jan Kanty; he only begs that the company wait a few minutes until a present audience is finished.”

They waited perhaps fifteen minutes until an important-looking functionary in a blue robe came to announce that King Kazimir Jagiello would receive Jan Kanty and his friends.

Out into a wide court they went, following the courtier in blue, up a marble staircase to the left and along a balcony. Then suddenly a door was flung back and they were in the presence of the King.

To Joseph, remembering it afterward, it all seemed like a dream, it was all so quiet and without ceremony. King Kazimir had chosen to receive them in a small antechamber in which he often met certain persons who were to be received without the usual ceremony of presentation, and Jan Kanty was one of the privileged ones that he met in such fashion.

Joseph and his father dropped upon one knee in front of the King. He was sitting in a high-backed chair without a canopy, which bore at its highest peak a royal crown; this crown was just above the monarch’s head so that at first it seemed as if it were actually upon his head and he were crowned. He wore a huge purple robe which fell clear to the tops of his soft leather sandals; it had a great collar embroidered with silks of many colors and in many patterns; a heavy gold chain held the folds of the collar together, and beneath the collar folds could be seen a rich vest embroidered with gold. The sleeves of the robe were immense and hung down far below his knees as he sat there; the robe itself was fringed with heavy fur. His head covering was a simple cap of the same color as the robe, flat, soft, and turned up a trifle at each side.

The King himself seemed the picture of comfort and informality; not so his guards. On each side of him stood a guard in plate armor, with stiff metal pieces over the arms, stomach, thighs, and legs. At the waist they wore short, straight swords ready for action at a second’s notice. These two men were as motionless as statues. About the room stood knights in different kinds of armor, some in light chain with long skirtlike coats, some in mail jackets that resembled checkerboards in pattern and extended only from shoulder to thigh, some in heavy armor and metal shoes armed with spurs.

In front of the King were two pages carrying scepters. They, too, stood motionless as he spoke.

“What is this?” he asked, as Jan Kanty came forward to kiss his hand, which ceremony the King did not allow. “Have we here some poor city dwellers driven forth by last night’s fire?”

“Yea,” answered Jan Kanty, “that is true, though we come not on business of that sort. We are here upon some matter that may be of deeper interest than one would suppose. These are Pan Andrew and his son Joseph, by family name Charnetski, dwellers of the Ukraine driven forth by violence and come here to have audience with your Majesty.”

“So,” said the King with quick interest. “Stand, if you please, and tell me the circumstances of your trouble for it greatly interests me at this present time. I have much news from the Ukraine, and not so pleasant, either. How came you by your misfortunes?”

“If your Majesty please,” began Pan Andrew, rising and taking out the crystal from beneath his coat, “I wish to deliver to your Highness the Great Tarnov Crystal.”

The sunlight touched it as he held it up, and the room and its splendid company were suddenly agleam with wavy flecks of light, red and orange and blue and yellow; there was a dazzling brilliance to it that struck each eye with almost the force of lightning. The King literally sprang forward to take the wondrous thing from Pan Andrew’s hands.

“What a marvel! What a thing of beauty!” he exclaimed, while a very murmur of astonishment ran through the circle of his attendants. “Where in the world is to be found any jewel one-half so miraculous as this?”

“I know not,” answered Pan Andrew, “but it has been in the keeping of my family for many years.”

“Then why do you deliver it up to me?” demanded the King. “It is worth a quarter at least of all the treasures in this palace.”

“That I will explain. My family has held it in trust these two hundred years and more, and we have sworn to guard it until the secret of its hiding place became known, and then, since there would be great danger following such a discovery, to deliver it into the hands of the King.”

“Then its hiding place has been discovered? But tell me first the reason for concealing such a wondrous stone.”

“That, your Majesty, is a long story, which if your Majesty so desires I will deliver shortly in writing, but I may say briefly that when Tarnov fell before the Tartars these many years ago the citizens entrusted this crystal to a member of my family. He took oath to guard it zealously, with his life if need be, lest it fall into the hands of people who might abuse its powers, for its beauty hides strange properties which are allied to magic and sorcery and the Black Arts, and it has been at times a curse, a thing of mystery and a source of evil. When Tarnov was rebuilt new dwellers came there and the crystal remained in our family.”

“How did the secret become known?”

“I had a servant, a Tartar. He was with me for many years. It was my custom to conceal the crystal in the rind of a pumpkin, and many a time this man must have seen me scraping out the inside of a pumpkin and rubbing the shell with oils and gum in order to preserve it. Because he was a simple fellow, I took no pains at any time to conceal my task. But though lacking in wit, it seems that the man was not lacking in curiosity. And his curiosity, I now believe, led him to spy upon me, and eventually he discovered the use to which I put the preserved pumpkin rind. He left me about a year ago, and it was only a few months later that my house was attacked. I am sure that he sold his information to some Tartar chieftain.”

“Could he suspect the value of the crystal?”

“That I do not know. I do know, however, that legends concerning this crystal are everywhere to be found among the Tartars and Cossacks. When they are children they are told tales of it, and all of them grow up in the hope that some day they may find it.”

“Thou thing of beauty,” said the King, gazing at the crystal, “could thou but speak and tell all that men have done to possess thee. Thou cruel, marvelous thing.”

Pan Andrew fell upon his knees before the King. “Take this crystal and guard it, your Majesty,” he exclaimed with great feeling, the tears already streaming down his face. “It has already done enough harm in the world. In my own family it has been nothing but a burden, a source of endless anxiety and suffering. My father’s fathers, years and years ago, even dug a passageway in the earth, through which one might escape with it secretly in case of an attack, and so cleverly was this passage concealed that for years no one but the master of the family has known of its existence.

“In spite of the beauty of this jewel I hate it from the very bottom of my heart and I hope that I may never look upon it again. For every ray of light that it reflects, thousands of men have fought and died for its possession, for every color that lurks within its depths miseries and sufferings have swept over whole nations. I have guarded it faithfully but no more shall I guard it. I am fulfilled of my oath.”

The King looked into the crystal fixedly, and then suddenly shuddered as if he saw something fearful there.

“I shall be before many years an old man,” went on Pan Andrew, in a pleading tone. “My home in the Ukraine exists no more. My house is burnt, my fields are laid waste, and all because I had this jewel in my possession and men envied me.”

He then went on to tell the story of the escape from the Ukraine, the pursuit, the attempted robbery of his house, the attack on the tower, and the persistency and repeated appearances of Peter of the Button Face whom he had heard of in the Ukraine as Bogdan the Terrible.

“I do not know,” he said, “who it might be that sent this man to dog my steps, but my son Joseph has told me that your guards have taken this same Peter a prisoner in the streets, and that he is a captive of your men. Let me confront him here and perhaps I may learn who it was that drove me from the Ukraine.”

While he was speaking the King gradually took his thoughts from off the crystal, and when he mentioned the name Peter, the King grew restless with excitement.

“I have the man,” he exclaimed, “and he shall be brought here. My spies in the Ukraine reported recently that a great treachery was afoot and that this man Peter or Bogdan was in Poland for the purpose of consummating it. His description was given to my guards and a reward was offered. Last night he was seen in the district where the fire was raging and my guards brought him in. I shall have him here directly.”

Two spearmen brought him in; as he walked, the chains which hung from his arms and legs clanked on the floor. He did not deign at first to glance at Pan Andrew or any of his party, but simply looked at the King and folded his arms defiantly and with spirit. Whereat the two guards forced him to his knees.

His air of indifference disappeared, however, when his eyes fell upon the Tarnov Crystal which the King had set down upon the floor before him. He glanced left and right and favored the trumpeter and the alchemist with a look of bitter hatred.

“You are accused of treason against the Commonwealth of Poland,” said the King immediately. “Have you any plea to make?”

“Who accuses me?”

“The governors of the Ukraine,” answered the King. “And moreover you are charged with other crimes, among them that of persecuting this citizen here before me—you have destroyed his home and fields, and attacked him while he was on duty in the church tower. The penalty for any one of these is death.”

Peter did not lose his self-assurance for a moment. He realized more quickly than another might that his plea of innocence would soon be broken down. He fell back then quickly upon another means of obtaining his end.

“I would buy my freedom,” he asserted.

“What have you that is worth while to me?” asked the King.

“Much. You are threatened in the Ukraine.”

The King thought for some minutes. It rather irked him to give this man his life since he had already done such damage, but on the other hand he might be able to obtain some really valuable information. The whole Ukraine was in some kind of uproar, and even his most trusted spies had not been able to get to the bottom of it. The usual method of obtaining information from prisoners in those days was torture, and in the field of battle it was employed widely, but often in cases of such desperate men as Peter torture led them to confess wildly but seldom with truth. The Cossack was ordinarily a man of his word, and Peter had enough Cossack blood in him to make him pass for a Cossack in the Ukraine and in the East.

“It pleases me to be merciful to-day,” replied the King. “There has been too much suffering at my very gates to make me wish for more. Your death would in no way pay for your crimes, and it is possible that your information might be of service to the commonwealth. I could wrest this information from you by torture, but I prefer an easier way. . . . Now, mark,” he cautioned the Cossack, “I know certain facts concerning what you have to tell, I have information from my own men in the Ukraine, and if you utter so much as one word of a falsehood to me, I will have you taken out and hanged by the neck from the tower gate. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” answered Peter, turning just a trifle pale at the threat. He was a bold man, he was a desperate man—otherwise he would not have ventured back into Krakow after having been defeated there twice—and he had no fear of death in any form, so long as he was free and able to fight. But now his knees smote together at the thought of hanging and he resolved that he would keep close to the truth. After all, the whole affair was finished for him. The crystal was in the hands of the King and he was not likely to part with it easily.

“One thing,” he said in a low tone, “one thing, your Majesty, I beg, and that is that you will let none talk of what I say. For if it were known that I had spoken the truth, my life would not be worth—that,” he snapped his fingers. “I have your promise, your Majesty.”

“You have.”

“Then hear what I have to say. I am Bogdan, known in the Ukraine as the Terrible. Two years ago in March I was summoned to Moscow by one in authority who said that a powerful lord had something to say to me. Now having an open mind always for new activities, I went, although our people have but little love for Muscovites. And there I was taken to one Ivan.”

The King interrupted. “You mean——”

“I mean Ivan himself, chief power among the Muscovites, son of that blind one. He has the ambition to unite all lands thereabouts under himself—as Emperor, men say.”

The King bit his lips and his eyes flashed. “This they have told me,” he exclaimed in an angry voice. “I only wanted the confirmation of it that you have given me. Ivan—Ivan—that one who makes friendly proffers to one’s face and strikes in treachery when the back is turned.” He strode up and down the room for a moment and then turned to the captive again. His tone was as calm as it had been in the beginning. “Proceed,” he ordered.

“In this he has partially succeeded, but his ambitions run higher, and he dreams of establishing his power over the people outside the borders, the Ruthenians and Lithuanians. Knowing them to be willingly under Polish domain, however, even the city of Kiev which fell beneath Tartar rule, he wishes instead to strike a blow at the Poles in the Ukraine. Some one advised that he loose the Tartars against the Poles, and an ambassador was even sent to find out what would induce the Khan to send his warriors to fight the Poles. The answer that he made was a curious one.”

“And that was——” asked the King.

“This was his answer. He would lead his Tartars against the Poles in the Ukraine on one condition, and that was that Ivan should deliver into his hands the Great Tarnov Crystal.”

At this the whole company started, chief among them Pan Andrew, for none of them had suspected that such great importance was even now attached to the stone.

“How did he know of the crystal?” asked the King.

“Every one in the east knows of the Great Tarnov Crystal,” answered Bogdan. “Every worker of magic, every astrologer, every chief, every prince, is desirous of possessing this treasure. For it is said that in addition to being a jewel of great value it has this quality also, that one may look into it and there read of the future—one may also find there secrets of great worth, one may see the faces of men long since in their graves. There are many legends and stories of it, too, and since the days when it disappeared from Tarnov, when the Tartars conquered Western lands, there has been search after search to find it.”

The King thought for a few seconds. “Then the Khan of the Tartars knew that he was asking Ivan for an impossibility when he demanded the crystal? Does that mean that he meant to refuse to go against the Poles?”

“Please—your Majesty—it was no such thing,” Bogdan stated emphatically. “A short time ago a servant who had left the services of this man here,” he pointed to Pan Andrew, “went to the land of the Tartars and there spread the report about, that the crystal was to be had for the taking, that it was hidden in a country house in the Ukraine. You may be sure that this reached the ears of the Khan, whose passion for curious jewels is almost a madness, and when I, going from Ivan to Tartary, learned this, then Ivan promised the Khan that he would get him the crystal if it could be gotten.”

“You were the go-between?”

Bogdan bowed.

“And Ivan sent you to get it from Pan Andrew?”

Bogdan bowed, though not quite so low.

Fire leaped into the King’s eyes. “Dog that you are,” he said. “Less than beast in all things that Christians believe; for this you must destroy a man’s house and ruin his fields, yes, and threaten his life, too, if it would serve your purpose. . . . God knows, my kingly duties lie heavily upon me. . . . All that I seek in this, my commonwealth, is peace, peace with my neighbors and happiness for my people. And yet Poland is ever insulted to the point where nothing but war is possible. It is not enough that enemies on the north and west threaten, there must be plots against our happiness on the south and east. Oh, Poland, Poland, when will the day come that thy sons and daughters may enjoy the tranquillity that God has designed for all people? . . . As to you,” he turned again to Bogdan, “what further have you to say?”

“Only that I have failed,” answered Bogdan miserably. “And only that I know that I shall go free, for there was never yet Jagiello who did not keep his word. Though had it not been for this creature here”—he pointed to the alchemist, who from the rear of the room had been watching the scene through half-shut eyes—“I should have had the crystal long ago.”

[Illustration: _The Court of the Royal Palace, Showing the Italian Balconies._]

The King did not reply. “Take him away,” he said to a guard.

A captain in armor came forward. “Deliver this Bogdan at sunrise to the guards of the Florian Gate. Tell them to see that he has safe-conduct through to the border, but that his chains are not to be struck off until he reaches the frontier. After that let happen what will, but if he so much as sets foot again upon Polish soil he shall be hanged to the nearest tree.”

When they had departed, he said to Pan Andrew:

“In this my right and duty of kingship in the Commonwealth of Poland I commend you most heartily as a man who has been of great service to his country. It is a most extraordinary and gracious thing that a family such as yours should be so faithful to its word through so many years and be willing to suffer so much for an oath once given. Therefore to you go my whole thanks.”

He took the gold chain from his throat. It was a thing of wondrous beauty, of heavy solid links cut out of the purest metal.

“Wear this,” he said placing it with his own hands over Pan Andrew’s shoulders. “This chain shall ever be to you the token of your faithfulness. I shall see to it that the state makes return to you for the property which you have lost, for in so losing it you have conferred a favor upon us all. Had the crystal been taken by these thieves and delivered to the Khan of the Tartars it is probably true that by now the Ukraine had begun to be overrun by Tartars and the armies of Ivan. In due time I shall see to it that a more formal and proper reward is given you.”

Here Jan Kanty made a sign that the interview was finished and the whole company fell upon their knees before the King.

He, too, stooped, but only to pick up the crystal which had lain upon the floor before him during the entire interview. It seemed to Joseph, glancing up at that moment, that the instant the King’s eyes were fixed upon the stone he became suddenly oblivious to everything else that was before him, and stood as one in a dream or trance gazing into the depths of the fearsomely beautiful thing.