The Knights of the Cross, or, Krzyzacy

"Sing, Danusia, sing!" the young court girls shouted.

She seized the lute, raised her head like a bird which begins to sing, and having closed her eyes, she began with a silvery voice:

"If I only could get
The wings like a birdie,
I would fly quickly
To my dearest Jasiek!"

The rybalts accompanied her, one on the gensliks, the other on a big lute; the princess, who loved the lay songs better than anything else in the world, began to move her head back and forth, and the young girl sang further with a thin, sweet childish voice, like a bird singing in the forest:

"I would then be seated
On the high enclosure:
Look, my dear Jasiulku,
Look on me, poor orphan."

And then the rybalts played. The young Zbyszko of Bogdaniec, who being accustomed from childhood to war and its dreadful sights, had never in his life heard anything like it; he touched a Mazur[17] standing beside him and asked:

"Who is she?"

"She is a girl from the princess' court. We do not lack rybalts who cheer up the court, but she is the sweetest little rybalt of them all, and to the songs of no one else will the princess listen so gladly."

"I don't wonder. I thought she was an angel from heaven and I can't look at her enough. What do they call her?"

"Have you not heard? Danusia. Her father is Jurand of Spychow, a comes[18] mighty and gallant."

"Hej! Such a girl human eyes never saw before!"

"Everybody loves her for her singing and her beauty."

"And who is her knight?"

"She is only a child yet!"

Further conversation was stopped by Danusia's singing. Zbyszko looked at her fair hair, her uplifted head, her half-closed eyes, and at her whole figure lighted by the glare of the wax candles and by the glare of the moonbeams entering through the windows; and he wondered more and more. It seemed to him now, that he had seen her before; but he could not remember whether it was in a dream, or somewhere in Krakow on the pane of a church window.

And again he touched the courtier and asked in a low voice:

"Then she is from your court?"

"Her mother came from Litwa with the princess, Anna Danuta, who married her to Count Jurand of Spychow. She was pretty and belonged to a powerful family; the princess liked her better than any of the other young girls and she loved the princess. That is the reason she gave the same name to her daughter – Anna Danuta. But five years ago, when near Zlotorja, the Germans attacked the court, – she died from fear. Then the princess took the girl, and she has taken care of her since. Her father often comes to the court; he is glad that the princess is bringing his child up healthy and in happiness. But every time he looks at her, he cries, remembering his wife; then he returns to avenge on the Germans his awful wrong. He loved his wife more dearly than any one in the whole Mazowsze till now has loved; but he has killed in revenge a great many Germans."

In a moment Zbyszko's eyes were shining and the veins on his forehead swelled.

"Then the Germans killed her mother?" he asked.

"Killed and not killed. She died from fear. Five years ago there was peace; nobody was thinking about war and everybody felt safe. The prince went without any soldiers, only with the court, as usual during peace, to build a tower in Zlotorja. Those traitors, the Germans, fell upon them without any declaration of war, without any reason. They seized the prince himself, and remembering neither God's anger, nor that from the prince's ancestor, they had received great benefits, they bound him to a horse and slaughtered his people. The prince was a prisoner a long time, and only when King Wladyslaw threatened them with war, did they release him. During this attack Danusia's mother died."

"And you, sir, were you there? What do they call you? I have forgotten!"

"My name is Mikolaj of Dlugolas and they call me Obuch.[19] I was there. I saw a German with peacock feathers on his helmet, bind her to his saddle; and then she died from fear. They cut me with a halberd from which I have a scar."

Having said this he showed a deep scar on his head coming from beneath his hair to his eyebrows.

There was a moment of silence. Zbyszko was again looking at Danusia. Then he asked:

"And you said, sir, that she has no knight?"

But he did not receive any answer, because at that moment the singing stopped. One of the rybalts, a fat and heavy man, suddenly rose, and the bench tilted to one side. Danusia tottered and stretched out her little hands, but before she could fall or jump, Zbyszko rushed up like a wild-cat and seized her in his arms.

The princess, who at first screamed from fear, laughed immediately and began to shout:

"Here is Danusia's knight! Come, little knight and give us back our dear little girl!"

"He grasped her boldly," some among the courtiers were heard to say.

Zbyszko walked toward the princess, holding Danusia to his breast, who having encircled his neck with one arm, held the lute with the other, being afraid it would be broken. Her face was smiling and pleased, although a little bit frightened.

In the meanwhile the youth came near the princess, put Danusia before her, kneeled, raised his head and said with remarkable boldness for his age:

"Let it be then according to your word, my gracious lady! It is time for this gentle young girl to have her knight, and it is time for me to have my lady, whose beauty and virtues I shall extol. With your permission, I wish to make a vow and I will remain faithful to her under all circumstances until death."

The princess was surprised, not on account of Zbyszko's words, but because everything had happened so suddenly. It is true that the custom of making vows was not Polish; but Mazowsze, being situated on the German frontier, and often being visited by the knights from remote countries, was more familiar with that custom than the other provinces, and imitated it very often. The princess had also heard about it in her father's court, where all eastern customs were considered as the law and the example for the noble warriors. Therefore she did not see in Zbyszko's action anything which could offend either herself or Danusia. She was even glad that her dear girl had attracted the heart and the eyes of a knight.

Therefore she turned her joyful face toward the girl.

"Danusia! Danusia! Do you wish to have your own knight?"

The fair-haired Danusia after jumping three times in her red shoes, seized the princess by the neck and began to scream with joy, as though they were promising her some pleasure permitted to the older people only.

"I wish, I wish – !"

The princess' eyes were filled with tears from laughing and the whole court laughed with her; then the lady said to Zbyszko:

"Well, make your vow! Make your vow! What will you promise her?"

But Zbyszko, who preserved his seriousness undisturbed amidst the laughter, said with dignity, while still kneeling:

"I promise that as soon as I reach Krakow, I will hang my spear on the door of the inn, and on it I will put a card, which a student in writing will write for me. On the card I will proclaim that Panna Danuta Jurandowna is the prettiest and most virtuous girl among all living in this or any other kingdom. Anyone who wishes to contradict this declaration, I will fight until one of us dies or is taken into captivity."

"Very well! I see you know the knightly custom. And what more?"

"I have learned from Pan Mikolaj of Dlugolas that the death of Panna Jurandowna's mother was caused by the brutality of a German who wore the crest of a peacock. Therefore I vow to gird my naked sides with a hempen rope, and even though it eat me to the bone, I will wear it until I tear three such tufts of feathers from the heads of German warriors whom I kill."

Here the princess became serious.

"Don't make any joke of your vows!"

And Zbyszko added: