Владимир Короткевич - King Stach's Wild Hunt

“Hands... Hands...” Why hands? I am just about to remember... No, it's again escaped my memory... Well then, I must search for the drygants and this entire masquerade. And the quicker the better!

That evening Ryhor came dirty from head to foot, perspiring and tired out. He sat sullenly on a stump in front of the castle.

“Their hiding-place is in the forest,” he growled at last. “Today I tracked down a second path from the south, in addition to the path where I had watched them. Only it is up to the elbow in the quagmire. I got into the very thick of the virgin forest, but came across an impassable swamp. And I didn't find a path to cross it. I almost drowned twice... Climbed to the top of the tallest fir-tree and saw a large glade on the other side, and in it amongst bushes and trees the roof of a large structure. And smoke. Once a horse began to neigh on that side.”

“We will have to go there,” I said.

“No. No foolishness. My people will be there. And excuse me, sir, but if we catch this lousy bunch, we'll deal with them as with horse-thieves.”

He grinned, and the grin that I saw on his face from under his long hair, was not a pleasant one.

“Mužyks can suffer long, mužyks can forgive, our mužyks are holy people. But here I myself shall demand that with these... we should deal as with horse-thieves: to nail their hands and feet to the ground with aspen pegs, and then the same kind of peg, only a bigger one to stick into the anus up into the innards. And of their huts I won't leave one live coal, we will turn everything into ashes, this rotten riffraff should never be able to set foot here again.” He thought a moment and added: “And you beware. Perhaps some day something smelling of a landlord may creep into your soul. Then the same with you... sir.”

“You're a fool, Ryhor,” I uttered coldly. “Śvieciłovič also belonged to the gentry, and throughout all his short life he defended you, blockheads, defended you from greedy landowners and the conceited judges. You heard, didn't you, their lamentations, how they wailed over him? And I can lose my life in the same way... for you. Better if you'd kept quiet if God hasn't given you any sense.”

Ryhor grinned wryly, then took out from somewhere an envelope so crumpled as if it had been pulled out from a wolf's jaws.

“All right, don't take offence. Here's a letter. It lay at Śvieciłovič's three days, addressed to his house... The postman said that today he brought a second one to Marsh Firs for you. So long! I'll come tomorrow.”

Without leaving the place, I tore open the envelope. The letter was from the province from a well-known expert in local genealogy to whom I had written. And in it was the answer to one of the most important questions:

“My Highly Respected Mr. Biełarecki: I am sending you information about the person you are interested in. Nowhere in my genealogical lists, as well as in the books of old genealogical deeds did I find anything on the antiquity of the Bierman-Hacevič family. But in one old deed I came across a report not devoid of interest. It has come to light that in 1750 in the case of a certain Nemirich there is information about a Bierman-Hacevič who was sentenced to exile for dishonourable behaviour — banishment beyond borders of the former Polish Kingdom and he was deprived of his rights to aristocratic rank. This man was the step-brother of Jaraš Janoŭski nicknamed Schizmatic. You must know that with the change of power old sentences lost their force, and Bierman, if he is an heir of that Bierman, can pretend to the name of Janoŭski if the main branch of this family vanishes. Accept my assurance...” and so on and so forth.

I stood stunned, and although it was growing dark and the letters were running before my eyes, I kept on reading and re-reading the letter.

“Devilish doings! Now all's clear. This Bierman is a scoundrel and a refined criminal — and he is Janoŭskaja's heir.”

And suddenly it struck me:

“The hand... the hand?.. Aha! Looking at me through the window the Little Man רis hand was like Bierman's! The fingers as long as Bierman's, not the fingers of a human being.”

And I rushed off to the castle. On the way I looked into my room. But no letter there. The housekeeper said there had been a letter, it had to be there. She guiltily fawned upon me: after that night in the archive she had become very flattering and ingratiating.

“No, sir, I don't know where the letter is. No, there was no post-mark on it... Most probably it was sent from the Janoŭski region or perhaps from a small district town. No, nobody was here, save perhaps Mr. Bierman who came in here thinking that you, sir, were at home...”

I didn't listen to her any more. I glanced at the table where papers were lying about scattered, among which someone had evidently been rummaging, and ran to the library. Nobody there, only books piled high on the table. They had evidently been left in a hurry for something else more important. Then I went to Bierman's room. And here marks of haste, the door wasn't even locked. A faint light from my match threw a circle of light on the table, and I noticed a glove on it and an envelope torn slantingly, an envelope just like the one that Śvieciłovič had received that awful evening:

“Mr. Biełarecki, My Most Respected Brother: I know little about the Wild Hunt, nevertheless I can tell you something of interest about it. And in addition, I can throw some light on a secret, and on the mystery of several dark events in your house. It may simply be a product of the imagination, but it seems to me that you are searching in the wrong place, dear brother. The danger lies in the very castle belonging to Miss Janoŭskaja. If you wish to know something about the Little Man at Marsh Firs, come today at nine o'clock in the evening to the place where Raman perished and his cross lies. There your unknown well-wisher will tell you wherein the root of the fatal events lies.”

Recalling Śvieciłovič's fate, I hesitated, but I had no time to lose, or to think long: the clock showed fifteen minutes before nine. If Bierman is the head of the Wild Hunt, and if the Little Man is his handiwork, then reading the perlustrated letter must have upset him terribly. Can it be he's gone instead of me to meet that stranger, to shut up his mouth for him? Quite possible. And in addition, the watchman, when I asked him about Bierman, pointed his hand northwest, in the direction of the road leading to Raman the Elder's cross.

That is where I ran to. Oh! How much I ran those days, and as people would say today, got in some good training. To the devil with such training together with Marsh Firs! The night was brighter than usual. The moon was rising over the heather waste land, a moon so large and crimson, shining so heavenly, our planet's colour so fiery and such a happy one, that a yearning for something bright and tender, bearing absolutely no resemblance to the bog or the waste land, wrung my heart. It was as if some unknown countries and cities made of molten gold had come floating to the earth and had burnt up over it, countries and cities whose life was entirely different, not at all like ours.

The moon, in the meantime having risen higher, became pale and grew smaller, and little white clouds, resembling sour milk, were covering the sky. And again all became cold, dark and mysterious: and there was nothing to be done about it, unless, perhaps, to sit down and write a ballad about an old woman on her horse with her sweetheart sitting in front of her.

Having somehow got through the park, I came onto a path and was already nearing Raman's cross. To the left the forest made a dark wall, and near Raman's cross loomed the figure of a man.

And then... I simply did not believe my eyes. From out of somewhere phantom horsemen appeared. They were slowly approaching that man. In complete silence. And a cold star was burning over their heads.