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The three younger brothers, Stefan, Josef and Jan, showed little interest in Wladek and the remaining member of the family, Sophia, was happy enough just to cuddle him.

What neither parent had been prepared for was a character and mind so different from those of their own children. No one could dismiss the physical or intellectual difference. The Koskiewiczes were all tall, large-boned with fair hair and grey eyes. Wladek was short and round, with dark hair and intensely blue eyes. The Koskiewiczes bad minimal pretensions to scholarship and were removed from the village school as soon as age or discretion allowed. Wladek, on the other hand, though he was late in walking, spoke at eighteen months. Read at three, but was still unable to dress himself. Wrote at five, but continued to wet his bed. He became the despair of his father and the pride of his mother. His first four years on this earth were memorable only as a continual physical attempt through illness to try to depart from it, and for the sustained efforts of Helena and Florentyna to insure that he did not succeed. He ran around the little wooden cottage barefoot, dressed in his harlequin outfit, a yard or so behind his mother. When Florentyna returned from school, he would transfer his allegiance, never leaving her side until she put him to bed. In her division of the food by nine, Florentyna often sacrificed half of her own share to Wladek or, if he were ill, the entire portion. Wladek wore the clothes she made for him, sang the songs she taught him and shared with her the few toys and presents she had been given.

Because Florentyna was away at school most of the day, Wladek wanted from a young age to go with her. As soon as he was allowed to (holding firmly on to Florentyna's hand until they reached the village school), he walked the eighteen wiorsta, some nine miles, through the woods of moss-covered birches and cypresses and the orchards of Ifine and cherry to Slonim to begin his education.

Wladek liked school from the first day; it was an escape from the tiny cottage which had until then been his whole world. School also confronted him for the first time in life with the savage implications of the Russian occupation of eastern Poland. He learned that his native Polish was to be "ken only in the privacy of the cottage and that while at school, only Russian was to be used. He sensed in the other children around him a fierce pride in the oppressed mother tongue and culture. He, too, felt that same pride. To his surprise, Wladek found that he was not belittled by Mr. Kotowski, his schoolteacher, the way he was at home by his father. Although still the youngest, as at home, it was not long before he rose above all his classmates in everything except height.

His tiny stature misled them into continual underestimation of his real abilities: children always imagine biggest is best. By the age of five, Wladek was first in every subject taken by his class except ironwork.

At night, back at the little wooden cottage, while the other children would tend the violets and poplars that bloomed so fragrantly in their spring-time garden, pick berries, chop wood, catch rabbits or make dresses, Wladek read and read, until he was reading the unopened books of his eldest brother and then those of his elder sister. It began to dawn slowly on Helena Koskiewicz that she had taken on more than she had bargained for when the young hunter had brought home the little animal in place of three rabbits; already Wladek was asking questions she could not answer. She knew soon that she would-be quite unable to cope, and she wasn't sure what to do about it. She had an unswerving belief in destiny and so was not surprised when the decision was taken out of her hands.

One evening in the auturnn of 1911 came the first turning point in Wladek's life. The family had all finished their plain supper of beetroot soup and meatballs, Jasio Koskiewicz was seated snoring by the fire, Helena was sewing, and the other children were playing. Wladek was sitting at the feet of his mother, reading, when above the noise of Stefan and Josef squabbling over the possession of some newly painted pine cones, they heard a loud knock on the door, They all were silent.

A knock was always a surprise to the Koskiewicz family, for the little cottage was eighteen wiorsta from Slonim and over six from the Baron's estate. Visitors were almost unknown, and could be offered only a drink of berry juice and the company of noisy children. The whole family looked towards the door apprehensively. As if it had not happened, they waited for the knock to come again. It did, if anything a little louder. Jasio rose sleepily from his chair, walked to the door and opened it cautiously. When they saw the man standing there, everyone bowed their heads except Wladek, who stared up at the broad, handsome, aristocratic figure in the heavy bearskin coat, whose presence dominated the tiny room and brought fear into the father's eyes. A cordial smile allayed that fear, and the trapper invited the Baron Rosnovski into his home. Nobody spoke. The Baron had never visited them in the past and no one was sure what to say.

Wladek put down his book, rose, and walked towards the stranger, thrusting out his hand before his father could stop him.

'Good evening, sir,' said Wladek.

The Baron took his hand and they stared into each other's eyes. As the Baron released hirn, Wladek's eyes fell on a magnificent silver band around his wrist with an inscription on it that he could not quite make out.

'You must be Wladek.'

'Yes, sir,' said the boy, neither sounding nor showing surprise that the Baron knew his name.

'It is about you that I have come to see your father,' said the Baron.

Wladek remained before the Baron, staring up at him. The trapper signified to his children by a wave of the arm that they should leave him alone with his master, so two of them curtsied, four bowed and all six retreated silently into the loft. Wladek remained, and no one suggested he should do otherwise.

'Koskiewicz,' began the Baron, still standing, as no one had invited him to sit. The trapper had not offered him a chair for two reasons: first, because he was too shy and second, because he assumed the Baron was there to issue a reprimand. 'I have come to ask a favour.'

'Anything, sir, anything,' said the father, wondering wbat he could give the Baron that he did not already have a hundred-fold.

The Baron continued. 'My son, Leon, is now six and is being taught privately at the castle by two tutors, one from our native Poland and the other frorn Germany. They tell me he is a clever boy, but that he lacks competition as he has only himself to beat. Mr. Kotowski, the teacher of the village school at Slonim, tells me that Wladek is the only boy capable of providing the competition that Leon so badly needs. I wonder therefore if you would allow your son to leave the village school and to join Leon and his tutors at the castle.

Wladek continued to stand before the Baron, gazing, while before him there opened a wondrous vision of food and drink, books and teachers wiser by far than Mr. Kotowski. He glanced towards his mother. She, too, was gazing at the Baron, her face filled with wonder and sorrow. His father turned to his mother, and the instant of silent communication between them seemed an eternity to the child.

The trapper gruffly addressed the Baron's feet. 'We would be honoured, sir.'

The Baron looked interrogatively at Helena Koskiewicz.

'The Blessed Virgin forbid that I should ever stand in my child's way,' she said softly, 'though She alone knows how much it will cost me!'

'But, Madam Koskiewicz, your son can return home regularly to see you.'

'Yes, sir. I expect he will do so, at first.' She was about to add some plea but decided against it. The Baron smiled. 'Good. it'ssettled then. Please bring the boy to the castle tomorrow morning by seven o'clock. During the school term Wladek will live with us, and when Christmas comes, he can return to you.' Wladek burst into tears.

'Quiet, boy,' said the trapper.

'I will not go,' said Wladek firmly, wanting to go.

'Quiet, boy,' said the trapper, this time a little louder.

'Why not?' asked the Baron, with compassion in his voice.

'I will never leave Florcia - never.'

'Florcia?' queried the Baron.

'My eldest daughter, sir,' interjected the trapper. 'Don't concern yourself with her, sir. The boy will do as he is told.'

No one spoke. The Baron considered for a moment. Wladek continued to cry controlled tears.

'How old is the girl?' asked the Baron.

'Fourteen,' replied the trapper.

'Could she work in the kitchens?' asked the Baron, relieved to observe that Helena Koskiewicz was not going to burst into tears, as well.

'Oh yes, Baron,' she replied, 'Florcia can cook and-she can sew and she can . . .'

'Good, good, then she can come as well. I shall expect to see them both tomorrow morning at seven.'

The Baron walked to the door and looked back and smiled at Wladek, who returned the smile. Wladek had won his first bargain, and accepted his mother's tight embrace while he stared at the closed door and heard her whisper, 'Ah, Matka's littlest one, what will become of you now?'

Wladek couldn't wait to find out.

Helena Koskiewicz packed for Wladek and Florentyna during the night, not that it would have taken long to pack the entire family's possessions. In the morning, the remainder of the family stood in front of the door to watch them both depart for the castle each holding a paper parcel under one arm. Florentyna tall and graceful, kept looking back, crying and waving; but Wladek, short and ungainly, never once looked back. Florentyna held firmly to Wladek's hand for the entire journey to the Baron's castle.

Their roles were now reversed; from that day on she was to depend on him.

They were clearly expected by the magnificent man in the embroidered suit of green livery who was summoned by their timid knock on the great oak door. Both children had gazed in admiration at the grey uniforms of the soldiers in the town who guarded the nearby Russian-Polish border, but they had never seen anything so resplendent as this liveried servant, towering above them and evidently of overwhelming importance, There was a thick carpet in the hall and Wladek stared at the green and red patterning, amazed by its beauty, wondering if he should take his shoes off and surprised when he walked across it, his footsteps made no sound. The dazzling being conducted them to their bedrooms in the west wing. Separate bedrooms - would they ever get to sleep? At least there was a connecting door, so they needed never to be too far apart, and in fact for many nights they slept together in one bed.

When they had both unpacked, Florentyna was taken to the kitchen, and Wladek to a playroom in the south wing of the castle to meet the Baron's son, Leon. He was a tall, good-looking boy who was so immediately charming and welcoming to Wladek that he abandoned his prepared pugnacious posture with surprise and relief. Leon had been a lonely child, with no one to play with except his niania, the devoted Lithuanian woman who had breast-fed him and attended to his every need since the premature death of his mother. The stocky boy who had come out of the forest promised companionship. At least in one matter they both knew they had been deemed equals.

Leon immediately offerred to show Wladek around the castle, and the tour took the rest of the morning. Wladek remained astounded by its size, the richness of the furniture and fabric, and those car-pets in every room.

To Leon he admitted only to being agreeably impressed: after all, he had won his place in the castle on merit. The main part of the building is early Gothic, explained the Baron's son, as if Wladek were sure to know what Gothic meant. Wladek nodded. Next Leon took his new friend down into the immense cellars, with line upon line of wine bottles covered in dust and cobwebs. Wladek's favourite room was the vast dining hall, with its massive pillared vaulting and stoneflagged floor. There were animals' heads all around the walls. Leon told him they were bison, bear, elk, boar and wolverine. At the end of the room, resplendent, was the Baron's coat of arms below stag's antlers. The Rosnovski family motto read 'Fortune favours the brave'. After a lunch, which Wladek ate so little of because he couldn't master a knife and fork, he met his two tutors who did not give him the same warm welcome, and in the evening he climbed up on to the longest bed he had ever seen and told Florentyna about his adventures. Her excited eyes never once left his face, nor did she even close her mouth, agape with wonder, especially when she heard about the knife and fork, which Wladek described with the fingers of his right hand held out tight together, those of his left splayed wide apart.

The tutoring started at seven sharp, before breakfast, and continued throughout the day with only short breaks for meals. Initially, Leon was clearly ahead of Wladek, but Wladek wrestled determinedly with his books so that as the weeks passed the gap began to narrow, while friendship and rivalry between the two boys developed simultaneously. The German and Polish tutors found it hard to treat their two pupils, the son of a baron, and the son of a trapper, as equals, although they reluctantly conceded to the Baron when he enquired that Mr. Kotowski had made the right academic choice. The tutors' attitude towards Wladek never worried him because by Leon he was always treated as an equal.

The Baron let it be known that he was pleased with the progress the two boys were making and from time to time he would reward Wladek with clothes and toys. Wladek's initial distant and detached admiration for the Baron developed into respect and, when the time came for the boy to return to the little cottage in the forest to rejoin his father and mother for Christmas, he became distressed at the thought of leaving Leon.

His distress was well-founded. Despite the initial happiness he felt at seeing his mother, the short space of three months that he had spent in the Baron's castle had revealed to him deficiencies in his own home of which he had previously been quite unaware. The holiday dragged on. Wladek felt himself stifled by the little cottage with its one room and loft, and dissatisfied by the food dished out in such meagre amounts and then eaten by hand: no one had divided by nine at the castle. After two weeks Wladek longed to return to Leon and the Baron. Every afternoon he would walk the six wiorsta to the castle and sit and stare at the great walls that surrounded the estate. Florentyna, who had lived only among the kitchen servants, took to returning more easily and could not understand that the cottage would never be home again for Wladek. The trapper was not sure how to treat the boy, who was now well-dressed, wellspoken, and talked of things at six that the man did not begin to understand, nor did he want to. The boy seemed to do nothing but waste the entire day reading. Whatever would become of him, the trapper wondered. If he could not swing an axe or trap a hare, how could he ever hope to earn an honest living? He too prayed that the holiday would pass quickly.