'Maybe two years, maybe ten. But until it is completed, you will not discuss this. I want your vow of silence!'
'What, exactly, do you want me to do?'
'You will get on your knees, and you will repeat after me ...'
I did as he asked and made a lengthy, legalistic vow. Father Ignacy had apparently been thinking about it for some time. I am keeping that vow, but there was nothing in it that forbade me from writing a private diary, in a language that no one in the thirteenth century could possibly read.
Just before I-fell asleep, I said, 'Father Ignacy? What if the Church decides that I am not an instrument of God? What if it decides that I am an instrument of the Devil?'
'In that unlikely event, my son, I would expect you, as a good Christian, to obey the dictates of the Church.'
Getting to sleep that night was not easy.
Chapter Five
The next morning, we began pulling the boat as soon as it was possible to see. The path along the banks of the Vistula was not good. It went up and over countless ridges, down and into hundreds of muddy rivulets. Every few hours we had to get into the boat and row it upstream past a creek or swamp that we couldn't wade through.
Still, pulling was easier than rowing, so we slogged along with ropes over our shoulders.
Thinking about it, I didn't see how mules could possibly have done the job that we did.
'Well, in the summer the water's higher and most of the swamps are covered,' Tadaos explained.
'But can't you do something about improving this trail? A few thousand man-hours of work, some small wooden bridges, would cut our labor in half.'
'There's been some talk about a boatman's guild to get the landlords to do something in return for the tolls we have to pay, but nothing has come of it. Guilds can work in a city, where people are close to each other; but on the river, we're too spread out. Some men work short hauls, between two points. Some work long ones. Some, like me, pick up and deliver wherever they can get a contract or I make a good bargain. How could a guild work over the entire Vistula River, with all of its tributaries? I've been on this river for eight years, and I don't know half of the men who own boats.'
'But can't the government do something?'
'Damn it! I've told you that there is no government!'
I was quiet for a while. 'What's all this about tolls? I haven't seen you pay any tolls.'
'You were asleep when they caught us at Wojnicz, back on the Dunajec. I would have tried to slip by at night, like we did at Sacz, but this time of year there's so little traffic that they usually don't keep a guard boat out, and I was worried that if we wasted time, the river might freeze.'
'Brzesko's around the next bend, and we've got to walk by it. They'll catch us, sure.'
Brzesko had tall masonry walls topped with two mailclad crossbowmen. It also had a pompous official, who haggled with our boatman for a quarter hour before they settled on a toll of twentyone pence.
I'd never seen a functioning castle before. I wanted to explore, but Tadaos wouldn't stand for it.
'It's bad enough paying their tolls; we don't have to support their inn as well,' he said as we proceeded. 'Damned bastards on the wall with their crossbows. If there were only one of them, I could have gotten three arrows into him before he got the silly thing cocked.'
'You'd kill a man for twenty-one pence?' Father Ignacy asked.
'No, Father. Just talking, and anyway, I have to come by here eight or ten times a year. If I killed them, I'd be caught for sure. Still and all, you've got to admit that it's a pleasant thought.'
Soon it was my turn to ride on the boat, and I could relax and think.
Languages all change, but they change at vastly different rates, and I think that English must be the most changeable of all.
When I was first learning English, I was shocked to discover that an intelligent, educated, English-speaking person of the twentieth century was unable to read Chaucer in the original without taking special college courses. Think about it! A language changed to unintellegibility in six hundred years. No, less than that, because two hundred years later Shakespeare wrote his plays, and they are intelligible to the educated American.
On the other hand, any decently educated twentiethcentury Spaniard can enjoy The Poem of the Cid without difficulty, and it was written in 1140.
The Slavic languages are among the world's most stable. The east and west Slavs-the Russians and the Poles-split off from each other around the middle of the first millennium. Yet, despite the fifteen hundred years of separate development, it is possible-by speaking slowly and listening carefully-for a Pole and a Russian to communicate.
So, despite my trouble, things could have had been much worse. Had I been dumped into thirteenth-century England, I would not have been able to make myself understood. As it was, people thought that I had a funny accent, but I could get by.
That night I was talking to Roman Makowski, the poet.
'What do you plan to do once we get to Cracow?' I asked.
'Plan? I have no plans other than to do what I have always donefollow the muse.'
'But how is that going to keep you alive? Winter is coming on.'
'Something will turn up. Who knows? Perhaps the keeper of a prosperous brothel will want seductive scenes painted on his walls for the encouragement of his patrons, and I shall be paid some of my fees in trade. The muse takes care of her own.'
'The muse has not done well by you thus far.'
'This must be admitted. Are you offering some suggestions?'
'One. Father Ignacy is in need of copyists, and you are qualified for this work. If you were to impress him with your character and ask him politely, you might be offered a job.'
'Father Ignacy is already impressed with my character, though not favorably. I might better ask a job of the Devil; at least there would be a chance of acceptance. Furthermore, the prospect of working all winter in a monastery is frightening. Consider-a whole season of sobriety! Months without touching a woman! An eternity of waking, up every three hours to pray! No, the Devil would make a better offer.'
'Get serious, kid. A month from now you could be dead of cold or starvation! You'd best not ignore the only iron you have in the fire!'
'The only iron in the fire! What an excellent phrase! May I borrow it?'
'Yes, and stop changing the subject. Are you going to follow my suggestion?'
'Sir Conrad, what exactly do you think I should do?'
'To start with you should ask him to confess you, and after that you might try praying a little.'
'Oh, very well. It certainly can't hurt, and it might help. That artistic whoremaster could still turn up!'
I shook my head. 'Go to sleep, kid.'
We got to Cracow so late the next day that we walked the last kilometer by torchlight.
As we tied up to the dock, Tadaos said, 'Well, lads, we made it. You can sleep on the boat tonight-at no charge-or there's a passable inn up that street on your left.'
'Thank you for the invitation, but I'll never sleep on a grain sack again,' I said.
'I share Sir Conrad's feelings,' Father Ignacy said. 'But first there's the question of our remuneration.'
'But of course. I'd almost forgotten.' The boatman counted out fifteen pence each to the priest and me and six pence to the poet. I guess he hadn't bargained as well.
Father Ignacy and I started off. I called back, 'Tadaos, aren't you coming?'
'And leave my grain for the thieves? I shall sleep well enough here. You go, and come back in the spring if you need work!'
'I just might do that.' The poet was staring at us wistftilly. 'Come on, kid. I'll buy you a beer.' He followed us like a puppy dog.
