Song of the Legions (12 page)

“Ah, excellent!” said Felix, turning to greet them, his eyes addled with opium and vodka, “there you are, Severyn!”

“My Lord,” said Severyn Rzewuski, for it was he and none other. Rzewuski bowed to his master Felix, and swept off his hat. There was still a lump on his forehead the size of a quail's egg, that I had put there. He saw the murder in my eyes, for he had a murder of his own in mind – mine!

“Good day, young master Blumer, we meet again. All roads lead to Rome, as the proverb goes," he said. Then Rzewuski grinned evilly, and rested his hands on his pistols. The man next to him, dressed in Russian uniform, did the same. Four pistols between them. Armed with only my sword, I had no choice but to stay my hand. We stood and glared at each other. It was a stalemate. The air was thick with hate. In the grip of the opium, Felix was quite oblivious to the animosity between us.

“I see you already know each other?” Felix said cheerfully. “Excellent! For young Blumer will be joining our army. The Russian Army.” Felix drew a packet from his armoire. It was bound in red ribbon and a wax seal bearing a double-headed eagle. He tossed it onto the card table, which was an elaborately inlaid and gilt-bronze mounted affair. The packet sat on it like a wager.

“This is for you, Blumer. A commission in the Russian Army. A captaincy, and in my regiment of cavalry, no less. I am going to St Petersburg shortly, to petition Her Majesty the Tsarina on various matters, for she has been tardy of late in fulfilling her promises to us. An oversight no doubt.”

His face clouded over, and I guessed that all was not well between him and his dread patron, the Empress.

“Come with me to Russia,” Felix said. “There are many opportunities for advancement in St Petersburg.”

Rzewuski glared at me, his piggy eyes glowing like coals, full of hell and jealousy. Like a dog, he could not abide any rival for his master’s affection. I guessed that this young man with him was his protégé, and that I was stealing his thunder. By God! I had walked into a fine crossfire, enfiladed from all sides!

I stared at the paper, which I dared not even touch. In front of me was the dotted line. I had only to sign, like Pan Twardowski, and the world was mine. I should be lying if I said that I was not tempted. I looked down. On my finger I saw the ring with the cross of rubies – my mother’s ring. I shook my head. Felix’s jaw fell in amazement.

“The Devil take your Targowica commission,” I said. “I am a Pole, and I’ll be damned if I’ll be a Russian lackey.”

“Fool!” Felix Potocki snorted with contempt. “You have tried my patience once too often. My Lord Rzewuski! Take this young upstart away out of my sight, at once!”

“As you command, my Lord Felix,” Rzewuski grinned.

At midnight I was arrested and cast into the abyss of despair. A dozen armed men dressed in flowing black robes seized me and dragged me from my bed. We had been in Tulczyn for about one month, confined to barracks.

A black silk hood was thrust over my head and my hands bound behind my back. My tunic was torn open. The point of a dagger was held to my chest. A noose was looped around my neck. A gun’s muzzle was prodded into the small of my back. Through my hood I heard the hammers of pistols cocked. Not one word was spoken throughout.

Then I was led, like a sacrificial lamb, into the courtyard of Tulczyn palace – the Abyss of Despair, as the Jews styled it. I assumed I was to meet the same fate as those who had perished there at the hands of rebel Cossacks, in the massacres of so many years ago. How awful to be hung like a dog, not shot like a gentleman! For the first time, fear gripped my soul. The wind was howling in the courtyard. I wondered at the strangeness of the hour, for it was customary to hold executions at dawn. Through my black silk mask I could dimly perceive the luminous glow of the moon. On either side I heard the heavy tread of armed men in hobnailed boots. Under my bare foot the slabs were cold as gravestones.

Dark rumours had spread across the land that the Targowicans were holding secret military trials. At the behest of their Russian masters, they were purging the army of patriots. There were dungeons at Tulczyn that never saw the light of day. There were gibbets and scaffolds. There were walls against which men were stood up and shot to rags.

Ahead of me, I heard shouts. Three resounding knocks sounded on a wooden door, and echoed in the cavernous chambers beyond. Three ominous knocks within sounded in answering echo. I heard the sound of another door yawning open and stumbled as I was led down stone steps.

“Welcome, brother,” said a sardonic voice, which I imagined to be the gaoler, torturer, or executioner.

“What the Devil is the meaning of this? Unhand me, you bastards!” I shouted through the hood. “Give me a proper trial before I hang!” I had begun to panic, and was quite unmanned, and thoroughly terrified.

“Quiet, fool!” someone hissed under his breath. “Calm yourself! This is no execution! You have been proposed by Felix as a member of his Lodge.”

I breathed a great sigh of relief, in spite of myself. I was glad of the hood, for my face had turned as red as a beetroot with embarrassed shame. For I was quite convinced that my time had come. This, I presumed, was Felix Potocki’s idea of a jest. Now, if a man has not had quite his fill of foolery in life, then he can always become a Freemason. Through the hoodwink and cable-tow I perceived that I was in a great chamber filled with men. They were observing a silence, but now and then I heard coughs, whispers, the shuffling of feet, and the clink of scabbards and medals.

A stentorian voice demanded, “If you wish to enter, give me the password of the masters!” Abruptly, rough hands pulled the hood away. I screwed up my eyes against the light. A human shape stepped out from behind a pillar. We stood in the great hall of the temple, at the western end of the room. It was lit with oil lamps and candles. There were red columns around the walls of the hall. Three huge doors faced towards the north, the west, and the east. The Masons conducted me to the centre of the lodge, where, after first invoking the aid of the Deity, I was made to kneel and attend prayer, while the brethren stood, and repeated various incantations.

“Vouchsafe thine aid, Almighty Father of the Universe...” it began, and I was suffered to listen to the master, the chaplain, the deacons, the wizards and warlocks, and so forth, droning on in this vein for many hours. Often their memories would fail, and they would be obliged to begin a particular passage again from scratch, or, worse, to consult their great tomes, and thence bicker about the proper procedure like pettifogging clerks.

All around me were the brethren of Felix Potocki's Grand Lodge of Podolia. The Temple was hidden and set aside from the profane world, buried within the vault of a huge underground chamber with oak-panelled walls. Great banners, bearing occult designs, hung from the walls – the circle and the square, the sun and the moon, the star in flames, and the All-Seeing Eye.

The scene was illuminated by the eerie glow of guttering candles. A towering gilded throne was flanked by pillars of lignum and surmounted by a golden canopy. The Worshipful Grand Master, Felix Potocki, sat upon this throne, at the eastern end of the temple, under a great canopy, as if he were the Pope! Beneath his regalia he wore the black uniform of a Russian General. He was flanked by the turncoat priest Bishop Massalski, and my old enemy Hetman Rzewuski. The latter had at his side the same tall, blond man, with piercing blue eyes. From his insignia of rank and fine attire he was a nobleman and a Freemason of a high degree.

This man, I had come to learn, was Szymon Korczak, a serviceable villain, and Rzewuski’s assassin. With hardly a thought, Felix had tossed him the captaincy that I had refused. It was well known that this blackguard Szymon Korczak had ordered the killing of the two girls, the redhead and the raven, for he boasted of it, openly, in the officers’ mess. I had sworn that I would kill him for it.

The other brothers, according to their degrees, were arrayed along the stone columns, to the north and south. They were adorned with aprons, medals, and jewels. Swords and pistols hung from their gilded crossbelts.

Hours passed in that infernal vault. Cold and draughty hours indeed, for they had neglected to furnish me with my trousers, and I was obliged to stand in my nightshirt, wearing but a single boot on my left foot. The marble floor was as cold as the dark side of the moon. With a lambskin apron around my waist, a chisel in one hand, and a set of compasses in the other, I stood in the centre of the Lodge, feeling entirely ridiculous.

Potocki’s brethren made the appropriate symbols and gestures before the Sacred Altar, and thus I was initiated into the Freemasons. I can tell you nothing of the ceremony itself, for at the conclusion of it, I swore not to reveal the Freemason’s secrets under no less a penalty than that of having my throat cut across, my tongue torn out by the root, with my body buried in the sands of the sea at low-water mark, so help me God.

Suffice it to say, it was a great deal of foolery and flummery, and uncomfortable in the extreme. There I stood, half-naked and trussed up like a Paris whore, while those lecherous old buffoons and traitors leered at me. The Bishop, in particular, was giving me the glad eye. I shivered, aye, and not only with the cold. It was better than being hanged or shot. But only just.

They taught me a secret handshake, a certain friendly or brotherly grip, whereby one Mason may know another in the dark as in the light. “May it protect you, Brother,” one of them said, and the ritual was, at long last, concluded.

This foolishness ended, the Master called the Craft from labour to refreshment. ‘Refreshment’ signified but one thing – vodka. To a man, the Lodge drank, heartily. The brethren gathered around, clapping me on the back, and shaking my hand.

“Here, boy, drink this!” cried Bishop Massalski, producing a great foaming tankard of mead, in which something living was thrashing, “This will sort the apprentices from the craftsmen!” He leered at me with hungry eyes. I stared back.

“Bishop Massalski,” I said coldly, “I have not seen you since the Third of May last year.
Sto lat
!” The priest stared at me with horror. He recognised me, at last, for I had been incognito beneath the hood.

“By God!” he hissed, “if I had known it was you, you young scoundrel, I should have blackballed you!”

I stared at him with contempt. “Blackballed me? You don't have any balls, you turncoat bastard.”

The tankard contained a live frog, swimming in beer. A sea of expectant faces surrounded me. Without hesitation, I drank the beer in one gulp, feeling the frog's slimy legs kicking against my face. Raising the tankard to universal acclaim, I seized the front of Massalski's vestments, and tipped the frog down it. A great drunken cheer rose up as the priest ran crazily around the room, with the poor frog hopping and squirming inside his clothes. As the crowd parted to make way for the Bishop, who was jumping and cursing like the devil, I perceived the closing formalities of the day, as they closed the Lodge.

“Worshipful Master,” called out a Mason, “Present the flag of our country at the Altar.”

With that, they draped the Russian flag across the Altar. Some of the Brethren cheered – some were silent – some cried out, in anguish.

“In the Name of God Almighty!” I shouted, “This is not the flag of our nation! This is the yellow shield of Judas! This is the black beast of the Anti-Christ herself! But what more could I expect from a nest of Targowica vipers?”

Rzewuski roared with anger. “Beware your conduct, Brother! You violate the sanctity of the Lodge! Szymon – silence him!”

There was an uproar. The brethren were bitterly divided, for and against. Words were exchanged, and then blows. Tankards were thrown and fists flew. Amidst the chaos, the tall, blond man, with piercing blue eyes, came striding towards me across the Mosaic floor like an angry God. Sweeping off his hat, he bowed graciously in greeting. Without further ado, Szymon drew his sabre and made to run me through. I turned the blade aside with my chisel, wielding it like a poniard, for my blood was up, and I was glad of any excuse to kill one of these Targowica traitors. Roaring like a bull, I ran in to meet him, stabbing at him with the chisel like a dagger.

“Brothers!” came a vain shout, “the Lodge is holy ground! Put down your weapons!”

But we were not to be denied. Like dogs off the leash, we howled for vengeance, leaping at each other’s throats, scattering the candles across the floor. My adversary executed an advance-lunge at my heart. I deflected this with a beat-parry, but Szymon Korczak was too canny for this, and our blades were too ill-matched – with a simple whip-over he disarmed me, the chisel spinning away into the darkness.

My adversary grinned. Flames were running up the banners and the wooden panels of the walls. Masons ran to and fro, screaming for water. Above the Altar hung the ceremonial sword. Unsportingly, Szymon had interposed himself between me and it.

Slowly and deliberately, Szymon prepared his coup de grace. He could not resist using the classic cavalryman’s cut, the slow, deliberate,
par le moulinet
. It was his way of saying that he was cutting me down like a peasant.

This act of vanity gave me my chance. I ducked, and rolled under the flashing sabre, past Szymon and towards the Altar. Then I sprang up onto the Altar and wrenched the sword from the wall. My opponent, enraged, turned and ran in a mad charge, sweeping his blade at my ankles, to cut off my legs!

Leaping over the wild swing, I landed on the floor, my nightshirt flapping wildly, my bare backside gleaming in the light. I scrambled to my feet barely in time to receive My Lord Brother Szymon Korczak at full tilt, whereupon I dealt him a good cut to the body. My heart sang for joy. Oh, the cruel beauty which runs through all our souls, as it runs through the world! Squealing like a stuck pig, Szymon turned back and fell sprawling across the Altar. His blood spilled across the white altar cloth and his sabre clattered onto the floor. I made no move to finish him off. That would have been ungentlemanly.

By now, the Brethren and their servants had quelled the fires with buckets of water and snow. A thick, damp, acrid stink enveloped the chamber. A dozen Masons drew their sabres and levelled them at me, crying that I had killed him.

“Tis but a flesh wound, brothers,” I said, sadly, and with great regret. “Fear not, Szymon Korczak will live to draw another treacherous breath.”

From up high on his throne, Felix began to laugh, and then to cackle. We were all trapped in the hell of this little satan.