The trumpeter of Krakow

by Eric P. Kelly

Down in the Ukraine that winter when men went about from habitation to habitation on the little horses that had noses so pointed that they could poke them through the snow and eat the dry grass of the steppe beneath, it was known that a great change had come over a certain Bogdan, called the Terrible along the Dnieper and Volga, and Peter of the Button Face among the Polish colonists. It was not that he had lost so much hair that certain ones called him behind his back Bogdan of the Singed Locks, that made him sad and contemplative instead of boisterous and ready as he had once been—it was the effect of some failure that brought on despondency and kept him a recluse for several months. When he did return at length to men’s sight and began to appear in the taverns, his hair had grown to its accustomed length and a huge scar that fire had made was nearly healed over. It was hinted, too, that he had made a journey clear up to the land of the Muscovites and had had conference with Ivan, called the Great, but this he did not speak about, and men dared not question him.

Spring came with the month of March in the year 1462, with peace over all the Dnieper lands, save where here and there tribes were on the march, or the Tartars were threatening raids. With spring set out Bogdan the Terrible, and with him traveled as fine a crowd of cutthroats and cattle stealers as ever the Ukraine knew. They rode to Rovno, the town of the Level Plain, and then struck out for Chelm on the border just beyond the River Bug. They established headquarters in the Lublin Woods for a time, for the purpose of pillaging, and then hearing that soldiers had been sent after them, they vanished into the swamp lands to the north and were not heard of again in those parts.

It seems that Peter had opposed this pillaging from the first, because he had other work in hand, but they were tribesmen and wild, fond of robbery and theft and eager for gain.

At Tarnov, having them well in hand again, he organized them into a caravan of Armenian rug merchants and marched them—carts, horses and merchants—to Krakow, the great market of the eastern part of Europe. In Krakow they camped with their wares in the square on the east side of the Cloth Hall.

Now the saddest man in Krakow at this time was Pan Andrew Charnetski—sad because he had lost, through no fault of his own, a treasure which he had intended to present to the King of Poland, and evidently a treasure of great worth since certain men seemed to envy him its possession. Jan Kanty sought to comfort him, and his wife and son and Elzbietka did much to divert his thoughts from the seriousness of the loss, but on the long nights when he was alone in the tower, moods of depression would often engulf him.

Joseph, knowing this, took to visiting him in the night vigils when it was possible, before holy days and vacations when there was no collegium on the following morning; often he would come with his father at the tenth hour of the night and remain until morning. Sometimes he would take the duties of the watchman while his father slept and sound the Heynals at each hour and inspect the city regularly from each of the tower windows in order to sound the alarm whenever a red tongue of flame leaped into the sky. Joseph had progressed each day in playing the trumpet and could now sound the Heynal as well as his father.

He was in the tower with Pan Andrew on this same night that Peter and his caravan of merchants were encamped in their carts in the market place below the church. The moon was at its full and the shadows of the church towers fell far across the street and market. Down in front of the church doors a watchman with lantern and halberd paced to and fro calling out, as was his custom, the hours as they were sounded from the tower.

He had already called out the first hour when Peter of the Button Face, watching from a cart across the square, decided to make his first move.

“Michael,” he called in a loud whisper, “Michael.” And at that a man in a suit of leather with hat to match and thick sandals slid out of the next cart. He had already divested himself of the round turban and blankets that he wore as an Armenian merchant, and his body seemed to move in a constant succession of quiverings and glidings—in fact he had always been known in the Ukraine as the Snake—and he stood for a moment by his chief’s wagon to receive a whispered command in one ear.