Читать книгу The Ice People 15 - The East Wind - Margit Sandemo - Страница 7

Chapter 2

Perhaps it is wrong to say that the Swedes capitulated at Poltava, even though that was where the battle was fought.

Karl XII’s officers managed to convince the fever-stricken king that they needed to retreat southwards in order not to fall into the hands of the Russians. He finally agreed to go along with the plan, despite his muddled and lethargic state.

But when the army followed suit, they accidentally went too far down the Vorskla River, past the ford, and ended up in a pocket by Perevolochna, at the confluence of the two raging rivers Vorskla and Dnieper. And that was where the Russians closed in on them.

This was when their war-weariness became a decisive factor. The long years of drudgery and setbacks had finally managed to extinguish their fighting spirit. And they no longer had a king to rouse them and cheer them on – he had long since crossed the river and been transported southwards, ignorant of the dilemma his army was facing. It would have been easy enough for them to fight their way out had they known the true size and efficiency of the Russian forces. The army that captured them was equally as fatigued and starved as they were, and vastly inferior to them in terms of numbers.

True, there were some Swedish regiments willing to continue the fight, but they weren’t enough. It was General Lewenhaupt who gave orders to cease fire, to save the lives of his men. By the time he and the other officers saw just how depleted the Russian Army was, it was too late. But when the Russians, thinking they had captured four or five thousand men, saw the actual size of the force that had fallen into their hands, they were flabbergasted. They had managed to capture sixteen thousand men.

Among them were the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who had risen up against the tsar and gone over to the Swedish side. They were completely convinced that Ukraine belonged to them. These Cossacks were now given horrific punishments. They were broken on the wheel and the rack, and hung upside down with their heads dangling to die in the burning sun.

The Swedes, on the other hand, were marched away from the area. The enormous army was herded like animals across the steppes of Ukraine to Moscow, a distance of seven hundred kilometres, which they travelled on foot. It was a journey that would last six months and no one knows exactly how many Swedish soldiers died along the way.

But the army was heading for Moscow. For Tsar Peter the Great, the Russian triumph was tremendous.

Captain Corfitz Beck and his troops were also subjected to the crushing death march. Time and again, the captain was taken by surprise at his young aide’s stamina and mental strength. But it wasn’t just his hardy vitality that was impressive, it was also the warm-heartedness he displayed when consoling the dying during their last moments. Vendel Grip was always there whenever a man was about to pass away; he always had words of comfort to share that only the dying could hear; he wrote down numerous messages to be sent back to Sweden, the final greetings of the dying prisoners to their mothers, wives and children at home. At first, the guards would take out their whips, but a mere glance from Vendel was enough to calm them down: there was something in his gaze that made them let the man be.

Corfitz Beck wasn’t the only one who observed the boy in wonderment. There were others, both Swedes and Russians, who also noticed him as the journey progressed.

Vendel Grip did not resemble a typical descendant of the Ice People. Thanks to the many light-blond antecedents who had married into the lineage, his shining hair was flaxen blond, its tresses tumbling over his shoulders. His eyes were clear blue, friendly, curious and filled with a great sense of humour, and his skin was so fair that at first it had suffered a great deal due to the sudden harshness of outdoor life, but he had now attained a deep, golden tan that emphasized his cornflower blue eyes and the whiteness of his teeth. His face was more open and friendly than was normally the case with members of his mother’s family and, of course, much more so than his father’s. He had probably inherited his good sense of humour from his great-grandfather, Tancred. Despite that it was clear from his awkward, gauche manner that he was a mere boy of fifteen. And he was not yet fully grown: there was a good chance that he would grow up to be a tall, broad-shouldered man.

Vendel had just finished making things as comfortable as he possibly could for an officer who had been abandoned at the edge of the woods; he had succumbed to an attack of the plague that had infected the army. The boy wiped away a tear from his eye and ran to catch up with Corfitz Beck, who stood waiting for him.

“Just what exactly are you made of, Vendel?”

“Please forgive my moment of weakness, but I ... ”

“I’m not referring to your tears,” Corfitz Beck interrupted him, “I mean, here we are, men are dying by the dozen, and meanwhile you take care of them and clean them up without getting the least bit sick. You seem to have more lives than a cat!”

Vendel smiled. “From what I’ve heard, my mother comes from hardy Norwegian stock.”

“I thought her parents were Danish?”

“We’ve been spreading like weeds all over Scandinavia,” Vendel answered.

“And now all the way to Russia,” the captain mumbled in a low voice. “But I wouldn’t exactly call you weeds. My mother and grandmother, and my grandmother’s father, Christian IV of Denmark, have always spoken well of your lineage. Your ancestors have been known to do some great favours for our family through the ages. Tell me, is it true what they say, that your family is well-versed in witchcraft?”

Vendel laughed. “I don’t believe that! It’s just superstition. It would be wonderful if, by merely wishing it, I could send us all back home with a snap of my fingers, but I can’t.”

“Well, they’re signalling for us to stop farther on. We’ll probably spend the night at that little village over there. It’ll be good to get some food.”

Vendel didn’t answer. He always got so dejected when they raided the small villages for food. He wondered about the miserable state they were left in, with the inhabitants having nothing but starvation to look forward to. He had felt even worse when the Swedes, as conquerors, had gone in and plundered villages. Now at least they were just prisoners of war, so the responsibility lay with the Russians.

Vendel and Captain Beck were assigned lodgings for the night in a miserable little house together with a small group of officers and private soldiers. The conditions were just as grim as they were on all other nights: the quarters were cramped and cold, the sleeping conditions were bad and there was vermin. But as he always said, “Fifty lice more or less on a body that’s already crawling with them won’t make much difference. It just proves that your blood is nutritious and in demand.”

They looked resignedly at the crammed front room.

Corfitz Beck sighed. “It’s my turn to keep watch tonight.”

“I’ll keep you company, Captain.”

“No, Vendel! You’re the youngest and strongest of us here so you always end up being selected to keep watch. You kept watch the night before last and I didn’t keep you company then! Now that just isn’t fair! What you can do is sit in the corner on that bench and I’ll wake you if I need you.”

Vendel agreed to that. They had to sit up in the hall of the small farmhouse because Captain Beck had to keep watch and Vendel wasn’t allowed to sleep in the sitting room. Since it was well into autumn and they were approaching Moscow the weather had turned even colder than it had been up to now. So it was a matter of taking good care of the few rags they were lucky enough still to have. The guards stole as much as they could from them whenever they got the chance.

“Would you like a piece of bread?” Vendel whispered in a low voice after everyone had found a spot to sleep in, no matter how miserable it was. As usual, the officers had been assigned to the living room while the privates had to make do with the hall and the courtyard.

“Where did you get that from?” Corfitz Beck asked as he accepted the bread with gratitude.

“A farmer’s wife gave it to me in the last place we stopped at. She called me ‘little son’ and had tears in her eyes. I was touched and didn’t have anything to thank her with apart from a kiss on the cheek.”

They quietly ate the small piece of bread. If the others had seen it, a big fight would have started and every one of them would have ended up getting such a tiny amount it wouldn’t have satisfied anyone anyway.

“You’ve managed to learn a good deal of Russian,” Corfitz Beck whispered.

Vendel shrugged his shoulders and gave a friendly smile. “I pick up the most useful phrases: ‘food’, ‘sleep’, ‘trade’, ‘You’re a pretty girl’ ... that sort of thing.”

“You sly fox,” Captain Beck smiled.

Then his voice became serious. “It doesn’t look good for Corporal Wärja.”

Vendel looked down at the older man who was lying on the floor, whimpering quietly. “No, it doesn’t, he can’t keep any food down. He’s getting completely dehydrated.”

“Do you think maybe you could get a little water for him?”

“I’ll try.”

Vendel tiptoed out into the starlit night. There hadn’t been any snow yet, but the ground was frozen solid and the soldiers who lay against the walls of the house could be heard shivering loudly.

He stood there for a moment. Above the characteristically pointed rooftops of the village houses and the onion dome of the church, the stars shone so brightly that it practically hurt his eyes to look at them. But perhaps the stinging sensation in his eyes was just as much due to the lack of fat in his diet.

Orion. The Big Dipper. Cassiopeia. The same constellations lit up the night sky of his own home far, far away. He swallowed the lump in his throat and suppressed his feeling of longing for his beautiful little home in Scania. Mum ...

Strangely, he didn’t long so much for his father. They had never understood one another; they were very different. Søren Grip thought that his son was soft and irresponsible and lacked any ambition to gain worldly goods and riches. And his son couldn’t tolerate his father’s lack of morals, as he called it.

But they did have one thing in common, Vendel thought with a sardonic smile. Neither of them could eat if they weren’t sitting at their regular spot at the dinner table. In the evenings his father always sat in his favourite chair, which unfortunately happened to be Vendel’s favourite too. Vendel always ended up being the one who had to give in, in order to avoid a fight. They also preferred the same horse for their morning expeditions. They didn’t ride together, but always at the same time. Then too, his father was the one who got the favoured horse. And I’ve also inherited his temperament, Vendel thought. It’s not that I don’t like him, I do. It’s just that Mum and I have something in our blood that makes us understand one another without having to use words. Dad always wants to demonstrate his power ...

He woke up from his thoughts. For a long time, as he had been watching the night sky that was so familiar to him, he had been convinced that he was at home. But then he looked down at the small, impoverished Russian village lying around him and the reality of his situation came back to him. He felt an unbearable longing and sense of despair burning within him. He hurried to open the door of the small barn and explained to the guard who he was.

It, too, was filled with Swedes, as well as all the people of the farm, who had taken refuge in there now that their house had been seized to house the prisoners. Vendel knew that every single farm in the village was burdened in the same way and he couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt rush through him, though there was nothing he could do to ease the situation.

The only reason he had gone in there was to see whether there was any room for the poor wretches who were sleeping outside, but he quickly saw that it was full. Every nook and cranny was occupied, so that there was hardly any room for the animals. He went back out to the courtyard and found the well. He accidentally stumbled as he crossed the uneven ground and felt the painful chafing on the top of his foot. It was because his boots had been stolen in an unguarded moment so he had had to make do with a pair of clumsy clogs that didn’t fit him properly. The wound had now ruptured again and that was bad because it might easily get infected; it also made it hard for him to walk on the long daily marches they were subjected to.

As he poured water into a wooden pail, he heard a melancholy Russian song accompanied by a domra somewhere in the building. The singer was someone who had been chased out of his own house and who was attempting to keep his spirits up and create a little warmth in the coldness of the night. “Please stop your sad singing,” Vendel silently pleaded. “It’s hard enough for us as it is, we don’t need an extra reminder of our misery from a sad song.”

He went in to the miserable corporal. Wärja lifted his head and drank greedily.

“You’re a good boy,” he whispered in a hoarse voice and let his head fall back.

“Don’t say that,” Vendel smiled good-naturedly. “I’ve just been lucky enough not to get sick, that’s all. Weeds don’t die easily.”

Afterwards he tried to get a little sleep.

It felt as if only a few seconds had passed when Corfitz was shaking him by the shoulders to wake him.

“It’s Wärja, Vendel,” the captain whispered. “Will you help me?”

At first Vendel thought that the old man was dying but it turned out that it was just the water he had been given that had caused a small accident. They helped each other to get the corporal dried and clean, and Vendel took off his own jacket and put it around the sick man.

“That water didn’t help much,” the boy smiled.

“No, but it still tasted wonderful all the same,” cackled the man, full of gallows humour. “You’ll stay here by my side, won’t you, little friend? I’m a little afraid, you see. I didn’t exactly obey God’s words in my younger days.”

“You’ll be fine,” Vendel reassured him. “I’m sure you’d rather stay here in the village so that you can recover?”

“No! Please don’t abandon me here! I want to come with you!”

Vendel nodded. “I’ll see if I can find some boiled milk tomorrow morning. It’s usually good against the plague.”

The old man made a face at the mere thought.

“With a drop of vodka,” Vendel said to encourage him.

That made the corporal nod his head. “You can say what you want about these heathens, but they know their alcohol! Hold my hand, boy!”

Vendel sat with him until he fell asleep. Then he sat down in his corner on the bench. He had to nudge the man next to him who had stretched out, completely taking over the nice spot that had, until then, remained surprisingly unoccupied.

Corfitz Beck seemed deep in his own thoughts. “Vendel,” he said, “Are you a devout believer?”

“Me? I don’t know. I guess I’m like most people: I fear God but I often tend to forget Him.”

“You’d almost think you had the gift of grace, seeing you with those dying men, the way they practically seek your company.”

Vendel thought about his words for a long time, but he didn’t think there was anything particularly holy about himself. On the contrary, he was often delighted at the sight of the beautiful Russian girls they passed and he had improper thoughts about them. He also had a tendency to use strong swearwords whenever things didn’t quite go his way. And since they were still at war, he often had to stop himself from disrespectfully bursting out laughing over the officers’ tendency to take themselves too seriously or pompously glorify themselves. He simply couldn’t take the conceitedness of military honour seriously. All he could see was the deep tragedy that the Swedish Army had spread along its path. Everything inside him protested against the morning prayer they had to say in which they’d ask God to help the Swedes gain victory. Imagine involving God in warfare between two sides of his own creation? Hadn’t they all been created equal in the eyes of God? How could He be expected to watch with satisfaction as one side slaughtered the other? And now ... heaven forgive him, but he found his captivity only fair. If another army had invaded his own Sweden, the Swedes would have done exactly the same thing. They would have imprisoned the intruders and taken just as much revenge on them. He couldn’t bring himself to participate in the officers’ agitated discussions about the gruesome barbarians who were treating the honourable, innocent Swedes so horribly. He agreed with them that the Cossacks were brutal, often more cruel than anything he’d seen before. But still! As though Sweden had had any right to do what they did!

In short, Vendel was not suited to be a soldier. Very few of the Ice People were.

But whereas war had made his kinsman, Mikael Lind of the Ice People, sick to his soul, Vendel seemed more robust. He had the ability to laugh at all the pomposity and at himself and he found some compensation in almost everything. On the other hand, he could easily be moved to tears and that was good for him and not something he ever tried to hold back. The sick and the dying sensed his compassion, they sought him out to console them and perhaps cheer them up in the midst of all their misery.

Vendel probably most resembled the pure-hearted Mattias, though he wasn’t angelic through and through in the same way. Vendel was more of an extrovert, more frank and fearless.

Corfitz Beck didn’t know anything about the heritage of the Ice People within Vendel. All he knew was that the boy had invaluable capabilities that he hadn’t seen in anyone else.

Vendel was well aware of the curse that haunted his lineage. He knew that at least one member of every generation would be afflicted by it, or chosen. And in his generation there had only been four children. But even though Captain Beck claimed that there was something special about him, he himself knew that he wasn’t the one who had been “touched”.

No, what he did know was that there was someone else. But his mother and grandmother wouldn’t talk about it and he himself had never met the rest of the clan since he was old enough to remember anything.

That is, he had a vague memory, so vague that he wondered whether it was just a figment of his imagination after all that talk about the curse. He had been around four or five when the whole family had gathered in Norway. He faintly remembered meeting someone who was smaller than him. He remembered peering into a pair of eyes that were more cat-yellow than he had ever imagined they could be and that were more powerful than those of the numerous adults whom he had seen with the same eyes. The adults’ names were Villemo, Niklas and Ulvhedin, he knew that because his grandmother Lene had told him not so long ago. But she would not say who the child had been. There were three to choose from and they were all younger than him. Ulvhedin had a son named Jon; Villemo’s grandchild, Tengel the Young’s child, was named Dan. And Alv had married and had a daughter who had been christened Ingrid, after her grandmother Irmelin.

But which was it of the three? He hadn’t seen them since, because the Scanian branch of the Ice People was probably the most isolated. No scandal or any other kind of horror story had been mentioned in connection with this child, at least not yet. He was certain he would have heard about it if there had been. He hoped so, at least.

But now he had been away from home for so long. More than two years.

And how much longer would he be away? This journey kept taking him farther and farther away from his home.

He must have been on the verge of falling asleep because his body jerked when Corfitz Beck whispered, “Vendel! There’s someone in the courtyard!”

They got up without a sound and tiptoed over to the door. They opened it carefully. Luckily, to their great surprise, it opened quietly. A figure dressed in a dirty grey rubacha – the Russian shirt with embroidered bands around the collar, sleeves and waist – was kneeling by the sleeping prisoners who lay against the walls of the house. His hands were busily searching for something to steal.

As though the poor prisoners would have had anything left worth stealing!

In the starlight they quickly deduced that it was someone from the village. Their guards weren’t so poorly dressed, and they were much better equipped for the cold. They ran towards him in an attempt to stop him in his criminal actions and he turned around and spotted them. He sprang to his feet and, covering his face with his hands in order not to be recognized, ran off.

Vendel, who didn’t know whether or not he had actually managed to steal anything, ran after him. He heard the captain’s low, warning shout but then he saw that he was running behind him. No doubt to prevent Vendel from getting into a fix.

Which was exactly what Vendel did. Between the little village houses he ran right into the arms of a guard. Corfitz stopped, hesitating, a few metres away.

“Now, now,” the guard said, holding Vendel in a firm grip. “Let the poor farmer be!”

“Thief!” the boy gasped in his poor Russian.

The guard said something they didn’t understand.

He was a big Cossack and there was something dangerous about his soft voice.

“Perhaps you have something for me?” he smiled threateningly.

Vendel’s sense of humour could not be suppressed. “Da. Vosj, (Yes. Louse,)” he responded.

“What?” roared the guard with indignation. “Ja nje vosj! (I’m not a louse.)”

“No, no,” Vendel rushed to correct his mistake. “U menja tolka vsji. Pasjalusta! (I have nothing but lice. Here you go.)” He clutched his hair in an act of demonstration.

You could say what you liked about the Cossacks, but they appreciated that kind of coarse humour. Roaring with laughter, the guard clapped Vendel on the back.

“What about your shirt? Do you want to sell it?”

“Would you sell yours to me?” Vendel immediately answered as he held out a pitiful piece of his torn sleeve. He showed the tear in front of his shirt and the threadbare shoulders as well. Then the Cossack laughed a little more and let him go.

Corfitz, who had been waiting hidden in the shadows, sighed with relief. “Phew. That could have ended very badly! Well, your Russian may not be perfect, but you’ve managed to learn the most important words.”

They hurried back to the little farm, running between the houses.

The soldiers who lay outside had been woken by all the commotion and thanked them. Then the poor souls tried to get back to sleep in the biting cold night.

Corfitz gave a deep sigh when he went inside to rouse the man who was to take over his watch. The wake-up call proved unnecessary: all the men on the farm had been woken by their rescue operation.

“Thank you for your help, Vendel,” the captain said once they had found a sleeping spot.

The boy curled up in his corner. “Oh, it was nothing,” he mumbled in his drowsy voice. “I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

Captain Beck remained standing for a moment in sadness. “If we only could send word back home,” he said quietly. “So that our families knew that we’re still alive. Do you think they know that?”

“I have no idea,” Vendel murmured faintly. “But you can always hope. Someone must have told them about our surrender. About all the prisoners. Or do they only follow the fate of the king?”

“That’s probably what most people do,” Corfitz Beck answered with what for him was exceptional clear-sightedness.

There was no need to find boiled milk with vodka for Corporal Wärja the next morning. His journey ended in that small village. The men managed to collect a few coins and got some of the farm people to bury the old man. Whether it was going to be a Greek Orthodox service or the coffin was just going to be lowered in a suitable place was, at that point, completely immaterial to the old man.

Vendel, who had felt a certain responsibility for keeping the man alive, consoled himself with the thought that at least now Corporal Wärja would no longer be forced to endure the rough treatment they were constantly being subjected to by their guards.

The hardest part of the whole march for the Swedes was their arrival in Moscow. Tsar Peter had seven triumphal arches built to commemorate his victory. Karl XII’s soldiers, who were known for their skill and bravery, were forced to march through them and past the hordes of spectators who, naturally, took the opportunity to taunt them grossly. Every archway was decorated with humiliating caricatures of King Karl and his soldiers. Cannon shots boomed across the city, all the church bells chimed and never had the soldiers of Karl XII felt such a heavy sense of melancholy, shame and anger in their hearts.

This took place on 22 December 1709. That day Captain Beck was so sick that he had to lean on Vendel for support. The captain had recently contracted the plague but had just managed to recover when his lungs became infected. Vendel Grip was extremely concerned for his master. They had been through so much together and had become good friends, despite the fact that they maintained an officer–servant relationship with one another. Vendel was no longer referred to as a servant by anyone. Everyone called him Beck’s aide-de-camp, though that wasn’t what he actually was. Or “the resilient little Grip”.

After the humiliating triumphal procession the prisoners were led to the various parts of Moscow to which they had been assigned. The winter cold was very harsh now and they were all worried about finding a place to stay. Corfitz Beck was billeted in a small house with approximately forty other officers. No one chased Vendel out to the hall this time. That was partly because their opinion of him had changed, and partly because his captain was sick and who was better able to care for him than Vendel?

But their living conditions did not improve in the capital. People prowled around the neighbourhoods with the sole intention of giving those Swedish devils a good thrashing, either with their words or their fists, sometimes even with weapons. The Swedes were again forced to mount a watch at night and so had to take turns sleeping for short periods. During the long, treacherous nights they talked together of their sorrow and longings and also of their aches and pains. The latter became the most popular topic of discussion. Just like patients in a hospital ward, they discussed their stomach troubles, blisters and muscular pains; every discomfort would be described at length and in great detail. But they never mentioned anything about their hopes of returning home. Those were the kind of thoughts every man kept to himself, deep within his heart, behind his tremulous fear for the future.

Vendel nursed his master with great empathy. Though he had not inherited the healing abilities of the Ice People he still had a certain amount of knowledge about what should be done. In time, Corfitz Beck was back on his feet again, and though he was weak and worn out, he was now healthy. The tie between them had grown even stronger. Then one day one of the officers entered with an expression on his face so despondent that just looking at it struck deeper than desperation itself. He collapsed at the only table in the room, his hands covering his face.

“What’s wrong?” one of the others asked uneasily. “Has the king died?”

The man looked up. “The king? Why, I wouldn’t mind ... sorry,” he said as he pulled himself together. “We’re going to be transferred. To Spres.”

“Where’s that?” one of the others asked flatly.

“It’s certainly not westward. Prepare yourselves to be split up: they’re going to divide us and send us to towns and villages east and northeast of here to prevent us from conspiring against them. As though we’re in any shape to start a revolt ... we who don’t even own the shirts on our backs! Look at us! Emaciated, full of lice and finished. How could we pose a danger for the tsar and his scum?”

Unconsciously Vendel took a step towards Corfitz Beck. The captain could not tell whether it was to protect him or whether Vendel was the one who needed protection. Perhaps it was just an expression of his wish for them not to be separated.

They managed to stick together during the process of separation and they were sent to one of the major cities. This was Kazan, an old centre of the Tatars, a long way east of Moscow. In every place where the Swedes were sent, they were free to move about as much as they liked within their allotted city or town, but they were never allowed to cross its boundaries. And it would be a lie to say that things improved at the new places they were sent to. Their religion worked against them. They were considered to be contemptuous infidels who deserved to be spat upon and degraded as much as possible.

They did not stay in their new places of residence for long. In the autumn of 1710 it was discovered that Swedish officers were planning a conspiracy in the city of Kazan. A deserter disclosed a huge escape plan among King Karl XII’s soldiers. Approximately two hundred Swedes, including Corfitz and Vendel, had planned to surprise the Russian forces in Kazan, bringing all the Swedes in the city together and marching as a single force down to Karl XII in Bender. There was a slight chance that they could have pulled it off, because the Russian Army was engaged in Finland, the Baltic provinces and Poland. But then, as we have seen, someone gave them away.

That was the final straw for the Russians. In the autumn of 1711 almost all the prisoners were sent east across the Ural Mountains to Siberia. The roads were not passable at that time of year, so they were shipped along rivers most of the way and the journey took several months, during which they felt that complete darkness had descended upon them. They were farther and farther away from any sense of hope.

Many grown men wept as they crossed the wide rivers. Others had faces frozen in a numbness that they had built up around their dreams. Many were in a state of utter lethargy.

By the time the journey ended, in Tobolsk, Vendel had turned seventeen. His heart overflowed with melancholy at the thought of his loved ones who knew nothing of his whereabouts, the ones back home from whom he was getting farther and farther away each time he was transferred. As far as he could tell, none of Karl XII’s soldiers would ever be able to leave Siberia again.