The Ashes of Bohemia

By Steven L Reak

When two of Rose and Augustine and Josephine and Benjamins children get married they become horrified as army men kidnap their neighbors young son, Joshua, declaring them unfit parents and sending Joshua to work in a woolen factory and spinning mill. Emotionally crushed, Pavel and Karolina are forced  to accept the absence of their you

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steven Reak
• Release date: Nov 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781087854908

Book preview

The Ashes

of

Bohemia

Steven Reak

To our ancestors, brave souls who didn’t know what unforeseen perils and hardships their journey would bring them when they courageously left the familiarity of their homes and homeland behind in search for a better life and tomorrow for themselves and their families, in America over 4,000 miles away. Their determination and spirit should be an inspiration, and beacon, to all of us.

The Ashes of Bohemia is the first book in a three book series. The second book is titled, ‘Lexington Glory Days,’ and the third book in the series is, ‘The Dance Hall – The End of 100 Year Waltz.’ You can read excerpts from any book on the authors website at StevenReak.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright November 2015

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without express written approval by the author.

Table Of Contents

Chapter One

Bohemia 1780

Chapter Two

Joseph and Anna

Chapter Three

The Town Square Massacre

Chapter Four

A Queens Courage, A Kings Dilemma

Chapter Five

Lingering Smoke

Chapter Six

Rumblings of an Uprising

Chapter Seven

The Powerful French People

Chapter Eight

The Men Return

Chapter Nine

Congress of Vienna

Chapter Ten

A Life, and Death

Chapter Eleven

A Time Of Change

Chapter Twelve

Servant Girl

Chapter Thirteen

Young King, Franz Joseph

Chapter Fourteen

Deciding to Leave

Chapter Fifteen

Leaving Bohemia

Chapter Sixteen

The Ashes of Bohemia

Chapter One

Bohemia 1780

The worn out soles on Rose Cipera’s shoes, scuffling along the sidewalk as she searches for scraps of food in piles of garbage, bump into an old man sleeping in garbage for warmth. I’m looking for something fit to feed my family, the raggedly-dressed woman murmurs. We have no food or beds for us or the children, and no shelter. Haven’t since before I can even remember, it’s been so long. Rose turns to her husband, Augustine. There’s no food scraps left. What are we going to do? I remember times we went for days and days without food.  Moments stick in my mind as if I were looking at a picture on a wall. Trudging wearily along streets with no place to go, nothing to do except look for food.  That’s what we do now.  That’s how we spent our day then.  That’s what we still do, look for food. Things wasn’t always this bad.  We never had much, never needed much ‘til we got thrown out of our home. Couldn’t pay the taxes year after year and then one year men came and claimed the whole place for themselves to pay for ‘em.  Can’t remember how long ago it was.  It seems long ago.

Augustine is looking at the dried muck covering his soiled black shoes while sitting crouched on his haunches near the pile of garbage.  He barely notices the slight movement in the pile of debris and litter and stares down at the area by his feet.  The whickers of a rat emerge, and Augustine thinks this might be a source of food for them and swings his leg at the varmint and misses.

The Cipera’s children, clad in old and worn fitting clothes, begin picking leaves off nearby bushes and pick up hands full of grass and put them in their mouths to eat.  Like the other people loitering around them in this crowded marketplace, they’ll eat anything that will fill their belly if it takes away their hunger pains.

Next to them, along the bustling rows of merchants selling their wares along both sides of the street, the somber homeless people look around themselves and lift crates up and look underneath them for something edible to eat.  Sometimes the merchants have to chase them away, afraid they’ll try stealing from them. The homeless look under tables, along dank alley ways, and anyplace they can see and think of that might have a morsel of food left for one of them.

An old woman baring large teeth with some missing, wears a scarf around her hair and curses loudly in disgust. The Lord of the Manor, he ain’t worth shit.  He lives well while his people starve and have no place to live.  Look at the people... She turns around and looks at them.

With an unusual glint in her eye and a smile creeping up on the corner of one side of her mouth, she looks around.  The homeless people around her give her an odd sense of belonging and community.  We could be them, and they could be us.  They sit around half the day, and look for food the other half.  That’s our life too...

What do you know of the Lord of the Manor?  Rose asks the old woman.

Smiling eerily, she looks up at Rose and continues rambling on loudly.  I hear he likes the young for the work they can do. I’ve seen his house. It’s like a mansion. Oh, I bet it’s nice inside. It’s white and perched on a hill with a big porch all along the front of it with a large trimmed lawn in front. Oh, my it’s beautiful.

Rose looks at her peculiarly.  How does one get a cottage from the Lord? 

Ha! Join his army, or volunteer to work for him.  Be prepared to give up your life for him, and your freedom. If I knew better, I wouldn’t be out here digging in the dirt for something to eat!  You work, and work hard for him, for little money. I’ve heard taxes are high, up to seventy percent, but you’d have a roof over your heads. Maybe you’d have to build your own house, I don’t know.  You’d have more than you have now – which is nothing. Nothing at all, but the rags you wear for clothes. I only know the Lord is always looking for able bodies to do his work in the fields, mines and his factories, and to help fight in his armies. Once a month he meets with his tenants to talk things over and discuss any problems anyone has.  Maybe you can find him there.

Just then a wave of difference comes over the crowd.  While others hurry to get out of the horses way and out of the way of the ever growing crowd and their sudden change in position, others heckle him, and yet others curtsy and bow to this man on horseback.

The old woman points a thin, bony finger at him.  Speak of the devil…

Rose quickly looks at the man ponderously.  That’s him?! She exclaims.

That’s him… The devil himself.  The old woman replies.

Suddenly, Rose becomes determined to have the Lord of the Manor hear her.  My Lord!  My Lord!  - Children come around quickly! We are in desperate need of food your Lordship! Of warm clothes, a shelter would be a Godsend.  And work… Can you help us?

His Lordship curiously looks down at her and Augustine and their children.  He begins nodding his head. Your children would make good workers for me.  Come to the monthly gathering I host at my home. A meeting among my servants and myself whereas I hear your grievances and you hear mine. We’ll discuss your situation then, if you think you can handle the workload. The Lord of the Manor and his company of associates continue riding past them. 

Augustine looks around at his older children.  The only thing left for us to do I suppose, is talk to the Lord of the Manor and see if he’ll take us in. It can’t hurt to try.  I don’t want to, but I don’t see how we have any other choice.

Be prepared to give up your life.  And maybe your soul.  It’ll mean giving up your freedom.  You’ll be a slave.  The old woman taunts them.

But we’re going to starve otherwise, he tells her feebly. How can we find him? He inquires of the old woman.

She looks aside and then back at him again with a smile of satisfaction written on her face.  Follow the white roses.

At the monthly meeting between the Lord and his servants there are rows and rows of people, waiting in a long line outside of his home, asking to speak with his Lordship.  Rose and Augustine and their children soon find themselves in the home of the Lord of the Manor, and soon in his company.

Without pretense the Lord simply asks them, Are you ready to become indentured to me? 

Rose looks at Augustine with sadness in her eyes.

We are your Lordship, Augustine tells him. 

Do you understand that in return for your hard labor I give you protection, a cottage to stay in, and a job. You will be paid accordingly and nothing more.  Your food and your existence is up to you.  Do you understand and agree?

We do, your Lordship, they say in unison.

Well then.  In the stately confines of the Nobleman landowner’s home, Augustine Cipera come here.

The Nobleman offers his folded hands out and gestures for him.

Augustine walks towards the man and kneels at his feet. He lays his head into the Lord of the Manor’s hands.

By the Lord before whom this sanctuary is holy, I will to the Lord of the Manor to be true and faithful and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to the laws of God and the order of the world. Augustine repeats these words, which the nobleman’s servant has just spoken to him. Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to him, on condition that he will hold it against me as I shall deserve it, and that he will perform everything as was in our agreement when I submitted myself to him and chose his will.

Again, Augustine repeats the words of the servant, and one by one so does the rest of their family.  After the short ceremony, Rose looks at him.

We done what we had to do, she tells him surely and somberly. 

Standing next to Rose and Augustine, another destitute family is enslaving themselves to the Nobleman landowner.

Josephine and Benjamin Dedic look at one another when the brief ceremony is over, not knowing what to expect next.

In her dark ragged kerchief, tattered black sweater, long dusty skirt and worn out black shoes, Rose approaches the other family.

We’ve been living on the street for three years. Us and the kids, she tells them.

Josephine stares back at her with sunken eyes so deep they appear to have no life behind them.

You poor woman, Rose tells her. You look scared, as white as a ghost.

Josephine mumbles something so quietly, her lips barely moving, that Rose can’t understand her.

What dear? Rose asks.

Josephine again mutters something so quietly that Rose still cannot make out what she says.

It’ll be all right, Rose tries comforting her by taking her ice-cold hand. It’ll be all right, Rose repeats sympathetically and looks around at the poor woman’s children.

Rose and Augustine’s five children and Josephine and Benjamin’s six children are standing nearby, thin as rails and dressed in old shabby clothes so full of rips and holes no amount of darning could repair them.

Joseph, 21—Josephine and Benjamin’s oldest child—looks bashfully out of the corners of his tired eyes at Rose and Augustine’s oldest child Anna, 16.  Joseph catches her looking back at him.

Without moving her neck, Anna quickly catches Joseph’s eyes and then just as quickly averts her gaze away from him. Then, tiredly, they attempt to appear as though they haven’t noticed one another.

Dressed in a new, white colored wool suit and hat, the Nobleman landowner in an instant notices them and then just as quickly darts his eyes back to the two families.

I have two empty cottages near one another. You may live in them at my discretion and will, the Nobleman declares self-righteously. Your work duties will be given to you after my servant shows you to your quarters.

Haughty, the Lord of the Manor remains seated, squarely and pompously dismissing the families without care.

With his servant on horseback leading the two families away, they dredge tiredly and slowly behind him. An hour later, they are led into two small shacks with meager furnishings and bare dirt floors in a small village just outside of a large city.

Josephine looks around the tiny two room cottage.  What do we do for food? She mumbles so quietly she can barely be heard, and the others look around, wondering whether somebody had spoken.

Food. Josephine stiffly mutters desperately, without moving her lips.  Food!

There’s fish in the river and birds and animals to catch, and fruits and berries on the trees, the servant tells her. But stay out of the landowner’s woods. Everyone reports to the fields at sunrise. He abruptly turns and walks away amidst the crying screams of a child being beaten by his father, nearby.

Drawing back the short, tattered and faded gray curtain hanging on the one small window in her tiny dirt floor cottage, Rose notices Joseph Dedic, outside, with her daughter Anna.  The two are talking and soon go on their separate ways.

‘Those two seem to be spending an awful lot of time together,’ she thinks to herself. 

Anna is average height with thick shoulder-length strawberry blond hair pulled back behind her head and tied with a faded red ribbon. Her chamomile state of mind reflects the quiet, child like and innocent young woman that she is.

Rose hears a knock on her door and gets up from a pail that she’s been sitting on and finds Joseph on the other side when she opens it. The two stare at one another for a moment as Joseph teeters back and forth on his heels.  Rose backs away, several yards away from him. 

You’re here to see Anna. 

Joseph walks inside and stands under the doorway to the entryway of the cottage.  Yes, ‘mam I am.

Why aren’t you working?

It’s the Sabbath.

Where do you work?

I’ve been working in the silver mines.

Where did you and Anna plan on going, this afternoon?

We’re going to look for berries, while were out.

"She’s a sweet girl. Not born with a lot of emotions, or sometimes common sense, but she’s young and she has a good heart.  She’s mature for her age.  Quiet, but that’s understandable.  She does her chores like the rest of us, but she’s slow in doing them, but she gets them done.  She has