Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/130

106 speedy death, and because the Franciscan father, Tsybek, skilled in wounds, had foretold it, he wished to go to Bogdanets and be buried with his fathers in the graveyard of Ostrov.

But not all of his "fathers" were lying there, for once the family had been numerous. In time of war they were summoned with the watchword, "Grady" ("Hail"); they had on their shield the Blunt Horseshoe, considering themselves better than other possessors of land, who had not always the right of an escutcheon. In the year 1331, at the battle of Plovtsi, seventy-four warriors from Bogdanets were killed in a swamp by German crossbowmen; only one survived,—Voitek, surnamed Tur (Wild Bull), to whom King Vladislav Lokietek, after crushing the Germans, confirmed in special privilege his shield and the lands of Bogdanets. The bones of the seventy-four relatives lay bleaching thenceforth on the field of Plovtsi; Voitek returned to his domestic hearth, but only to see the utter ruin of his family. For, while the men of Bogdanets were dying beneath the arrows of the Germans, robber knights from adjoining Silesia had attacked their nest, burnt the buildings to the ground, slain the people, or led them captive to be sold in remote German provinces.

Voitek was all alone as the heir of broad but unoccupied lands, which had belonged once to a whole ruling family. Five years later he married and begat two sons, Yasko and Matsko, and while hunting in the forest was killed by a wild bull.

The sons grew up under care of their mother, Kasia of Spalenitsa, who in two expeditions took vengeance on the Silesian Germans for their former injustice. In the third expedition she fell; but already she had built Bogdanets castle with the hands of captives, through which Yasko and Matsko, though from former times they were always called possessors, became considerable people. Yasko, coming to maturity, took in marriage Yagenka of Motsarzev, who gave birth to Zbyshko; but Matsko, remaining unmarried, took care of his nephew's property in so far as military expeditions permitted.

But when, in time of civil war between the Grymaliti and the Nalenchi, the castle in Bogdanets was burned a second time, and the people scattered, the lonely Matsko strove in vain to rebuild it. After he had struggled not a few years, he left the land at last to the abbot of Tulcha, his relative, and went himself with Zbyshko, yet a boy, to Lithuania against the Germans.