Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  “You must be Wladek.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the boy, neither sounding nor showing surprise that the Baron knew his name.

  “It is you about whom I have come to see your father,” said the Baron.

  Wladek remained before the Baron, staring up at him. The trapper signified to his own children by a wave of his arm that they should leave him alone with his master, so two of them curtsied, four bowed and all six retreated silently into the loft. Wladek remained, and no one suggested he should do otherwise.

  “Koskiewicz,” began the Baron, still standing, as no one had invited him to sit. The trapper had not offered him a chair for two reasons: first, because he was too shy, and second, because he assumed the Baron was there to issue a reprimand. “I have come to ask a favor.”

  “Anything, sir, anything,” said the father, wondering what he could give the Baron that he did not already have hundred-fold.

  The Baron continued. “My son, Leon, is now six and is being taught privately at the castle by two tutors, one from our native Poland and the other from Germany. They tell me he is a clever boy but lacks competition: he has only himself to beat. Mr. Kotowski at the village school tells me that Wladek is the only boy capable of providing the competition that Leon so badly needs. I wonder therefore if you would allow your son to leave the village school and join Leon and his tutors at the castle.”

  Wladek continued to stand before the Baron, gazing, while before him there opened a wondrous vision of food and drink, books and teachers wiser by far than Mr. Kotowski. He glanced toward his mother. She, too, was gazing at the Baron, her face filled with wonder and sorrow. His father turned to his mother and the instant of silent communication between them seemed an eternity to the child.

  The trapper gruffly addressed the Baron’s feet. “We would be honored, sir.”

  The Baron looked interrogatively at Helena Koskiewicz.

  “The Blessed Virgin forbids that I should ever stand in my child’s way,” she said softly, “though she alone knows how much it will cost me.”

  “But Madam Koskiewicz, your son can return home regularly to see you.”

  “Yes, sir. I expect he will do so, at first.” She was about to add some plea but decided against it.

  The Baron smiled. “Good. It’s settled then. Please bring the boy to the castle tomorrow morning by seven o’clock. During the school term Wladek will live with us, and when Christmas comes he can return to you.”

  Wladek burst into tears.

  “Quiet, boy,” said the trapper.

  “I will not go,” Wladek said firmly, really wanting to go.

  “Quiet, boy,” said the trapper, this time a little louder.

  “Why not?” asked the Baron, with compassion in his voice.

  “I will never leave Florcia—never.”

  “Florcia?” queried the Baron.

  “My eldest daughter, sir,” interjected the trapper. “Don’t concern yourself with her, sir. The boy will do as he is told.”

  No one spoke. The Baron considered for a moment. Wladek continued to cry controlled tears.

  “How old is the girl?” asked the Baron.

  “Fourteen,” replied the trapper.

  “Could she work in the kitchens?” asked the Baron, relieved to observe that Helena Koskiewicz was not going to burst into tears as well.

  “Oh yes, Baron,” she replied. “Florcia can cook and she can sew and she can …”

  “Good, good, then she can come as well. I shall expect to see them both tomorrow morning at seven.”

  The Baron walked to the door and looked back and smiled at Wladek, who returned the smile. Wladek had won his first bargain, and accepted his mother’s tight embrace while he stared at the closed door and heard her whisper, “Ah, Matka’s littlest one, what will become of you now?”

  Wladek couldn’t wait to find out.

  Helena Koskiewicz packed for Wladek and Florentyna during the night, not that it would have taken long to pack the entire family’s possessions. In the morning the remainder of the family stood in front of the door to watch them both depart for the castle, each holding a paper parcel under one arm. Florentyna, tall and graceful, kept looking back, crying and waving; but Wladek, short and ungainly, never once looked back. Florentyna held firmly to Wladek’s hand for the entire journey to the Baron’s castle. Their roles were now reversed; from that day on she was to depend on him.

  They were clearly expected by the magnificent man in the embroidered suit of green livery who was summoned by their timid knock on the great oak door. Both children had gazed in admiration at the gray uniforms of the soldiers in the town who guarded the nearby Russian-Polish border, but they had never seen anything so resplendent as this liveried servant, towering above them and evidently of overwhelming importance. There was a thick carpet in the hall, and Wladek stared at the green-and-red pattern, amazed by its beauty, wondering if he should take his shoes off and surprised, when he walked across it, that his footsteps made no sound. The dazzling being conducted them to their bedrooms in the west wing. Separate bedrooms—would they ever get to sleep? At least there was a connecting door, so they need never be too far apart, and in fact for many nights they slept together in one bed.

  When they had both unpacked, Florentyna was taken to the kitchen, and Wladek to a playroom in the south wing of the castle to meet the Baron’s son. Leon was a tall, good-looking boy who was so immediately charming and welcoming that Wladek abandoned his prepared pugnacious posture with surprise and relief. Leon had been a lonely child, with no one to play with except his niania, the devoted Lithuanian woman who had breast-fed him and attended to his every need since the premature death of his mother. The stocky boy who had come out of the forest promised companionship. At least in one matter they both knew they had been deemed equals.

  Leon immediately offered to show Wladek around the castle, and the tour took the rest of the morning. Wladek remained astounded by its size, the richness of the furniture and fabrics and those carpets in every room. To Leon he admitted only to being agreeably impressed: after all, he had won his place in the castle on merit. The main part of the building was early Gothic, explained the Baron’s son, as if Wladek were sure to know what Gothic meant. Wladek nodded. Next Leon took his new friend down into the immense cellars, with line upon line of wine bottles covered in dust and cobwebs. Wladek’s favorite room was the vast dining hall, with its massive pillared vaulting and flagged floor. There were animals’ heads all around the walls. Leon told him they were bison, bear, elk, boar and wolverine. At the end of the room, resplendent, was the Baron’s coat of arms below a stag’s antlers. The Rosnovski family motto read: “Fortune favors the brave.” After a lunch, which Wladek ate so little of because he couldn’t master a knife and fork, he met his two tutors, who did not give him the same warm welcome, and in the evening he climbed up onto the longest bed he had ever seen and told Florentyna about his adventures. Her excited eyes never once left his face, nor did she even close her mouth, agape with wonder, especially when she heard about the knife and fork.

  The tutoring started at seven sharp, before breakfast, and continued throughout the day with only short breaks for meals. Initially, Leon was clearly ahead of Wladek, but Wladek wrestled determinedly with his books so that as the weeks passed, the gap began to narrow, while friendship and rivalry between the two boys developed simultaneously. The German and Polish tutors found it hard to treat their two pupils, the son of a baron and the son of a trapper, as equals, although they reluctantly conceded to the Baron when he inquired that Mr. Kotowski had made the right academic choice. The tutors’ attitude toward Wladek never worried him, because he was always treated as an equal by Leon.

  The Baron let it be known that he was pleased with the progress the two boys were making and from time to time he would reward Wladek with clothes and toys. Wladek’s initial distant and detached admiration for the Baron developed into respect, and when the time came for the boy to return to the lit