Song of the Legions (3 page)

Such a day! It was dawn, on The Third of May, the Feast of Our Lady, in the Year of Our Lord, Seventeen Ninety-One. Old Poland was on her last legs – again. Surrounded by enemies without, and honeycombed with traitors within. We few boys had rallied to her tattered flag. We were the King’s cavalry, waiting for orders.

We were in the courtyard of the Poniatowski Palace in Warsaw. It reeked of horses and leather. The air sang with hoof beats ringing on flagstones. Sunlight shone on the red walls and roofs of the city, picking out the white spires and domes on the horizon. Our grand old city was red and white, just as Canaletto painted it, the same colours as our flag.

The front rank of riders lowered their lances. Red and white swallow-tailed pennants fluttered in the breeze, and lines of steel spearpoints glittered in the morning sun. We cut a great dash. I sat on my old brown stallion, wearing my crisp new cavalry uniform of blue jacket and red trousers, with shiny silver epaulettes and buttons, and a red fur-lined czapka, our square sided cavalry cap, on my head. My comrades and I were newly enlisted that very day, having graduated as officer cadets together, and we were as happy as priests in a nunnery. As much as we loved the cavalry, we had less respect for its commander-in-chief, His Majesty the King. A herald announced His arrival.

“Stanislaus-August Poniatowski, by the Grace of God and the Will of the People, Elected King of the Republic of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Mazowia, Samogita, Kiev, Wolyn, Podolia, Podlasie, Livonia, Smolensk, Sever and Czernihov...” Et cetera!

This was Stanislaus-August, not a Pole but a Saxon – that is, almost as bad as a German, if anything can be. Amongst his subjects he was called ‘the Bullock,’ so named for his emblem, a red calf, on his coat of arms. Lamentably, he is known to history as the Last King of Poland. Poor, foolish Poniatowski! An empty, windy creature, redolent of macassar, with a soft stomach and a head full of French books and nonsense.

The Bullock was the cast-off lover of Catherine, Tsarina of Russia, Satan’s illegitimate daughter, herself. She had forced us to elect him as our king – at gunpoint – as a payment for services rendered, after terminating their carnal affair. That tells you how much our throne was worth in those grim days!

The Tsarina considered him her puppet. And so did we, until that day. On that day, the greatest of his life – and ours – he was in high spirits. Our Saxon King and his nephew, the General, passed down the line, talking amiably to the cadets whose names, and whose parents, they knew. These were well-heeled boys from rich clans and noble families – Dabrowskis, Czartoryskis, Sulkowskis, Jablonowskis, Tarnowskis, Zamoyskis, or any number of other illustrious families, whose names invariably ended in
ski
.

Our General, the King's nephew, was Prince Joseph Poniatowski. He was known by his nickname, Pepi. Pepi was a tall, slim cavalier, a charmer, with a magnificent set of moustaches and a killing gleam in his eyes. We all adored Pepi. Many thought that the wrong Poniatowski sat on our throne. By birth and by blood, Pepi was a mixture of Austrian, Saxon and Czech. Even his nickname, ‘Pepi’, came from the Czech abbreviation of his Christian name, Jozef. Pepi had served the Austrians in the Turkish Wars, with great distinction, and been showered with honours by the Hapsburgs. But when his uncle came to our throne, he had joined him. Since then, by some strange alchemy, Pepi had become a truer Pole than any of us.

When the pair of them reached me, the King eyed me suspiciously through his monocle, noticing my red hair, and my pale skin. “What is your name, soldier?” He demanded.

“Ignatius Alexander Blumer, Majesty,” I replied, and saluted. The King's eyes widened.

“ ‘
Blumer
’? ” he exclaimed, appalled, for I was clearly not one of his bluebloods. “Is that an
Irish
name?”

“It is a POLISH name, Majesty!” I retorted, angrily.

The King glanced sideways at Pepi. “What an impudent fellow! I don't like the cut of his saddle.”

“On the contrary, uncle,” Pepi grinned, and winked at me, “young Blumer
owski
here is perfect for what we need.”

Perfect for what? I wondered!
I had not been chosen for the cavalry for my name. I was chosen because I was six feet and two inches tall in my stockinged feet, broad as an ox, with a neck like a bull. I was armed from head to foot with sabre, pistols, and my English musket. In short, I was a fearsome sight! I was indeed perfect – perfect for dirty work.

There was a silence, broken only by the snorts of the horses. The King was going to speak. We craned our necks to listen. Stanislaus-August was nervous. He reddened to his boots, fiddled with his cuffs, coughed, and then began to talk. His speech was, as always, on his pet subject, the Constitution that he had written – or at least put his name to, no doubt having had some lackeys do the actual scribbling. This Constitution would reform our archaic laws, he told us. It would give the King the power he needed, and give the Citizens the rights they wanted. Above all, it would strengthen the army.

When the King had finished, Pepi spoke. “As you all know, the final vote is due to be held on the fifth of May,” Pepi said, “but with something this important, why wait?”

We all laughed. Our swords were going to do the voting. The King made a sour face, for he had no stomach for the rough side of this business. Pepi drew his sabre, with a rasp of steel and a flash of silver in the sunlight, and he cried – “For the Motherland!” – and we cheered him to the echo.

Pepi caracoled his horse, and spurred it out of the courtyard. It was a fine Polish charger, pure white, caparisoned in silver and gold. We followed him, on our own, lesser, steeds, hard on his heels, hooves clattering. As we swept out through the gates, we passed by one of Felix Potocki’s many palaces. It stood opposite the King’s Palace, less than a pistol shot away across the street. The Pilawa cross – the double cross, Felix’s emblem – hung above the wrought iron gate. It reminded me of home, the home I had not seen in four years.

Pepi, ever the gentleman, tipped his czapka to Felix’s guards as they gawped at us through the iron railings. I was right behind him.

“Is Felix there?” the King asked his nephew.

“No,” Pepi replied. “Our Lord Brother Felix is in Moscow, with the Empress.”

The King laughed, delighted. “What a shame! He’ll miss the vote!”

“The Bullock is right – anyone can get in the cavalry nowadays!” taunted the next man, a tall, dark haired, slim lad, who spoke with a drawling Warsavian accent. “It’s full of country hicks from the provinces!” he teased me, loudly. This was my comrade Kasimir Tanski.

This lancer rode a dappled grey horse, a mare, with a glossy grey coat like pearl satin. She danced lightly on her feet. My own stallion had taken a distinct shine to her. He, by contrast, was a huge, clumsy brute, with shaggy fur more like buffalo hide than horse hair. Nevertheless, my stallion let out a great amorous bellow, bared his awful yellow teeth, and lurched towards the mare. She, alarmed, bared her own white teeth and sank them into his neck.

Kicking and bucking wildly, the two horses clashed. It was all I could do to keep my foolish beast in hand, and I dug the rowels of my spurs mercilessly into his flanks. He let out another great bellow, and the mare released her grip and pranced away sideways, spitting and hissing like a wildcat.

“Damn this crazy mare!” Tanski exclaimed. “A thousand apologies, comrade!”

Everyone in the army called each other ‘comrade’, whilst the nobles, in those days, referred to each other as ‘My Lord Brother’. By our ancient laws, every nobleman was equal – ‘My Lord Brother’ – but the greatest of the gentry were the grand magnates. When I say the greatest, naturally I mean the
richest
. The greatest of these magnates was of course Felix Potocki, warlord of Podolia. As my Irish kin were foreign nobles, (and therefore not real gentry) I was an anomaly. So ‘comrade’ suited me well enough.

Tanski could not help but smile as he regarded my horse’s grotesque appearance, the shaggy brown and orange hair, huge red eyes like a bear’s, a mangy mane streaked with silver, and horrible stained and rotten teeth. The beautiful mare stared at him with contempt.

“This romance is over before it began, Blumer.”

“Nonsense! Your mare is merely playing hard to get.”

Tanski laughed. We disentangled our horses and rejoined the line as the regiment trotted down the street. We had been in Warsaw now these four years in Poniatowski’s cadets, studying drill and tactics – when our punishing schedule of drinking, gambling and wenching allowed it. All four of those long years, the Sejm
(which was what we called our Parliament)
had been in session. Four long years of angry debates about the Constitution.

The whole nation was in a fever for this Constitution. Crowds marched through Warsaw on a daily basis, with black banners, demanding this or that, whipped up into a patriotic fervour. In the taverns and coffee houses they spoke of the rights of man, religious toleration, kindness to Jews, the education of peasants and women, and other nonsense.

Along with my fellow cadets I had spent days and months on the back of my horse, arse aching, on guard duty, policing these crowds of whingeing peasants. Our constipated Sejm had sat all this time, like a hen trying to lay a goose egg.
Who should have a vote? What privileges should the townsfolk have? How much tax should the workers’ guilds pay? How much land should the peasants be given? All questions of great import, no doubt, but they bored me to tears. I cared not a grosz for the small print, but I wanted the Constitution. With no money or connections, I needed a war to make my name.

“When the Empress gets wind of this,” I said to my horse, “there’ll be war all right.”

What a pretty picture we made that fine day, like a neat rank of toy soldiers marching across a child’s nursery floor. Our standard fluttered joyfully in the breeze behind the King, the crowned white eagle on a red field below a white sky. Above us, three black crows wheeled lazily over the city. An ill omen. Poland’s enemies – Russia, Prussia, and Austria – all have black eagles on their coats of arms. Three black eagles circling the white.

Remember the herald who announced the Bullock’s arrival? Who called out that long list of the places of which His Majesty was King – Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Mazowia, Samogita, Kiev, Wolyn, Podolia, Podlasie, Livonia, Smolensk, Sever and Czernihov? Well, all those lands and provinces were gone. Lost, or as good as lost. The herald may as well have proclaimed that the Bullock ruled the Moon with Pan Twardowski as his Prime Minister.

Lithuania was still with us, more or less, but hanging by a thread. Prussia, once our vassal state of Teutonic mercenaries, created by us to fight our enemies, had become a monster, and run amok, like the evil golem in the story told by the Jews. Of Podolia, my homeland, you know already.

As for the rest – Ruthenia, Samogita, Kiev, Wolyn, Livonia, Smolensk, Sever and Czernihov – they had long since been taken by the icy hand of Mother Russia, in the grisly and murderous business that the Tsarina called ‘gathering in the lands’. We still had Mazowia, the great cities of Warsaw, Krakow, and Vilnius, and a few others. But for how long? The Bullock held them only by the grace and favour of the Empress of the North.

We rode past the churches, the coffee houses, the taverns, and the theatre house, and the green and red and white and brown stone houses of the old town. A great swirl of excitement rose up around us like a storm on the steppes.

“Strike up a tune,” came Pepi’s order. “Play something merry – play ‘the mazurka’!”

Our drummers and trumpeters struck up the mazurka, and the song rang out – the Song of the Legions. This mazurka had no words and no author. It sprang from the heavens like a friendly spirit in that golden spring of the Third of May. A fife player in a regiment of loyal Cossacks and a Jew harpist by the roadside joined in.

It spread like forest fire and soon the air was alive with it. By now the street was thronged with citizens and peasants, staggering from the alehouses and churches. All of the citizens had realised, by some magic, exactly what was afoot. They began to gather together. Slowly at first, then faster. As we advanced the trickle of people became a deluge. Faces pressed to every window. Men, women, children, young and old, gentile and Jew. Men waved their hats and women their scarves. They cheered, sang, and rejoiced. Every inch of pavement was thronged with people. We pushed slowly through the press.

We slowed our horses to a walk. Rose petals and cherry blossoms seemed to fill the air. Girls pressed flowers and laurels upon us. Bells rang. Doves fluttered to the heavens. By now the street was so full that people were clambering onto the green roofs of the red and white houses, waving flags and banners. No Roman Emperor ever had so splendid a triumph as the Bullock received from our Warsaw folk – but in this excess of delirious joy, we all quite forgot that the barbarian hordes of our enemies had not yet actually been conquered.

As we were swept along in this sea of joy, there was even a priest, to bless our voyage! A bishop, no less, intoning prayers, making the sign of the cross and spraying the Bullock, Pepi, and the rest of us cavalrymen with holy water as we rode by.

“One of these damned priests is on our side, anyway!” Tanski sneered. “Mostly they hate the Constitution. At Mass last week, my priest called it a pact with the Devil
.”

“I have heard the same slanders,” I agreed, “my priest says there are Jacobins hiding under every bed in Warsaw, ready to set up guillotines on every street corner, close the churches, sell our women to the Jews, and so on. Lies and nonsense!
”

Tanski considered himself an authority on the dark rumours that were swirling through the taverns and coffee houses, and was greatly given to talk of plots and conspiracies.

“I’ll tell you where this treachery comes from – from Felix Potocki. He’s a Freemason, of course,” Tanski tapped his nose. “Upon my soul, Felix put the priests up to this knavery.”

Moments later we rode by the friendly bishop, who had been administering unctions and blessings to the Bullock by the dozen, kissing his hand and drenching him in holy water. We gaped at each other in amazement.

“Hell’s teeth!” we both exclaimed, “that’s the same priest!” Right under our noses, this crafty priest was fawning over the Bullock as if he were God’s anointed, and not the Devil’s disciple, as he had been saying only yesterday.

Abruptly, the column stopped, for it was but a short road to the Wawel Castle. This red brick fortress, as picturesque as a storybook castle, was brimful inside with politicians – the
karmazym
, the crimson ones. This was what we called the rich nobles and magnates, on account of their expensive crimson clothing, especially their boots. These politicians sat there all day long, squatting on their fat backsides, farting out great clouds of hot air.

We rode into the square to find that it was ringed with soldiers. There, at the head of his troops, surrounded by engineers and cannon, was the great man himself, General Kosciuszko – known to all as the Commander – as great a son of liberty as ever lived.

Pepi and the Commander saluted each other.

“Would you be so kind as to lend us one of your engineers, my dear General?” Pepi drawled. “One never knows – the Sejm could be packed with gunpowder!”

The Commander grinned. “Private Sierawski!” he bellowed, and from the ranks of engineers, there was summoned a gangling boy of barely sixteen. He had a mop of unruly hair beneath his czapka, and long, finely tapered violinist’s fingers on his clumsy hands.

“He’s a crafty little sod,” the Commander said, “he’ll serve you well.”

By this means we made the acquaintance of Jan Sierawski, from Krakow, as he never tired of telling us, engineer
extraordinaire
, by his own account. Sierawski took his place beside us. Puffed up as he was, he would be well matched with the preening bullfrogs of the Sejm who sat inside the Wawel Castle.

At the castle gate, the King doffed his three-cornered cap to the crowd, to a storm of applause. By now some persons amongst the mob had become greatly agitated. So much so that our men were obliged to link arms and drive them back, for fear that they might storm the Sejm. Thus, by a strange irony, we protected our adversaries from our friends.

Then the King stepped down from his horse and a groom took the reins. Stanislaus-August had a kind, nervous, intelligent face. A gold-handled sword hung at his hip. He wore a white powdered wig and a glorious orange robe emblazoned with eagles against the spring cold. Over his left shoulder hung a blue silk sash. At his neck was a golden clasp picked out in precious stones, bearing his coat of arms, a red bullock.
For all our misgivings about him, the King cut a fine figure before the castle.

Crowds were still gathering, swelling the procession that had followed us from the Poniatowski Palace to bursting. A river of people, like a second Vistula running through the streets. The Constitution meant freedom. Freedom from foreign enemies, and from the tyranny of the nobility at home. We had to have this Constitution, one way or another, come what may, whatever the politicians said.

This King of ours was an intellectual, who lived in a world of books and fine ideals. He had fine words to sway the doubters in the Sejm into voting for his Constitution. His nephew Pepi was more practical. He had surrounded the Sejm with soldiers. For good measure, he was bringing a few of us along with him inside the senate house – including Tanski, Sierawski and myself – as his hand-picked jockeys. Under Pepi’s orders we drew our swords and stormed into the castle.