The Knights of the Cross, or, Krzyzacy: Historical RomanceSienkiewicz, Henryk
History
The Knights of the Cross, or, Krzyzacy: Historical Romance
Sienkiewicz, Henryk
Poland -- History -- Jagellons, 1386-1572 -- Fiction; Teutonic Knights -- History -- Fiction
They both began to sigh, and the old nobleman spoke with emotion:
"You mustn't break down with sorrow. Your bones will not search for one
another at the day of judgment. I have ordered an honest coffin of oak
planks for you. Even the canons of the church of Panna Marya could not
have any better. You will not perish like a peasant. I will not permit
them to decapitate you on the same cloth on which they behead burghers. I
have made an agreement with Amylej, that he furnish a new cloth, so
handsome that it would be good enough to cover king's fur. I will not be
miserly with prayers, either; don't be afraid!"
Zbyszko's heart rejoiced, and bending toward his uncle's hand, he
repeated:
"God will reward you!"
Sometimes, however, notwithstanding all this consolation he was seized
with a feeling of dreadful loneliness; therefore, another time when Macko
came to see him, as soon as he had welcomed him, he asked him, looking
through the grate in the wall:
"How is it outside?"
"Beautiful weather, like gold, and the sun warms so that all the world is
pleased."
Hearing this, Zbyszko put both his hands on his neck, and raising his
head, said:
"Hej, Mighty God! To have a horse and to ride on fields, on large ones!
It is dreadful for a young man to perish! It is dreadful!"
"People perish on horseback!" answered Macko.
"Bah! But how many they kill before!"
And he began to ask about the knights whom he had seen at the king's
court; about Zawisza, Farurej, Powala of Taczew, about Lis of Targowisko
and about all the others; what they were doing; how they amused
themselves; in what honest exercises they passed the time? And he
listened with avidity to Macko who told him that in the morning, the
knights dressed in their armor, jumped over horses, broke ropes, tried
one another's skill with swords and with axes having sharp ends made of
lead; finally, he told how they feasted and what songs they sang. Zbyszko
longed with heart and soul to be with them, and when he learned that
Zawisza, immediately after the christening, intended to go somewhere
beyond Hungary, against the Turks, he could not refrain from exclaiming:
"If they would only let me go! It would be better to perish among the
pagans!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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