The Last Winged Hussar - a taster

 This is a plot bunny which would not go away.  I'm interested to know what people think; I am only on chapter 2 so it's not going to get posted yet. Wojciech [pronounced Voy-check] is shocked when all he has lived for all his life is destroyed by an act of parliament. Unhappy with the way his country is being ruled, and fearful of foreign influence he decides on a course of action to bring his own justice where he may. 

Lone Ranger? who's that?

Chapter 1: the last winged hussar

1776, Poland

He absently wondered at the paradox that his feet should feel so heavy he was almost stumbling, and yet his head was so light he was afraid of falling as he went down the stairs from the audience chamber.

Automatically, he made his way to the stables to his big roan hussar-horse, whose stable name was Ogień na Skrzydłach, fire on wings, but who answered to Ogień.

“Well, my old friend, we are no longer wanted,” he said, bitterly. “Not even in the ceremonial role we have been shuffled into lately. A chance to join the Ulans, and retrain as light cavalry – in a subordinate position of course. And with a lighter horse. You could beat any Ulan horse standing, my friend, and keep going longer.”

Ogień whickered gently and nuzzled his master. They had been together boy and colt and knew each other well.

“It’s a sad business, my lord,” the voice of Jan Nowak came from the loose box where he was currying the horse. “They told us we can transfer to these Ulans.  I won’t abandon you, my lord, whatever you choose, but I won’t stand by to see anything happen to Ogień.”

“Jan, I will not transfer to the Ulans, and Ogień is my brother in arms,” said Wojciech Ziemadski. “I will not be ordered around by some youth with half my experience; I who have won the right to wear wolfskin when I was scarce more than a stripling myself.”

“What will you do, my lord?” asked  Jan.

“I ... am not sure,” said Wojciech. “Jan ... it is your son who is my steward.”

“Aye, my lord, and loyal as I be, even if some of the young fools amongst your servants want to serve Ulans. I’ve served you since I took you off your father’s Husaria Horse when you could scarce walk; aye, and put you on your first pony the next week, years before you were even breeched.”

“It is their right to do so, as I will not be able to maintain my poczet of lancers any more; to accompany those of my retainers who transfer will see them looked after properly,” said Wojciech.  “I ... let us ride home.”

“They took your armour and wings,” said Jan.

That stirred Wojciech to anger.

“They had no right,” he hissed.

“No, my lord; but they took them anyway,” said Jan.

“Our country is doomed,” said Wojciech.  “The winged hussars are the last bulwark of stability. With the games between Catharine of Russia and our king, Stanislaw August, her puppet, who dances when her hand pulls his ... strings ... we have lost some of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth already, and nobody seems to care. What is the good of electing a king only to be ruled by Russia?  And now he favours ulans and arquebusiers over heavy cavalry.  I have broken arquebusiers before.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Jan. “What will you do? Become a mercenary? Settle on your lands and marry to gain an heir? You are the last Baron Ziemadski.”

“I am also a soldier and have known nothing else,” said Wojciech. “I am beginning to formulate an idea.  There is dissent amongst the nobility, and such leads to unrest, and a failure to keep the peace.  But let us ride home, and I will speak with Jaromar Nowak my steward.”

 “Aye, my lord and he is as loyal as I am,” said old Jan.

“Good,” said Wojciech.

Wojciech sent word for his steward to join him in his study, and went, while he waited, into the family armoury at Castle Ziemadski.  He had often been taken by his father to see the armour of his great ancestor, Wojciech Ziemadski, the first baron, who had been raised to the position for his valour in battle.  Here was his famous red-gold gilded scale armour, the helmet and the face guard set with ruby-red enamel. And his wings; the curved sticks set with feathers, dyed as red as blood to denote his status as a winged hussar, fearsome emblems of a fighting unit which was renowned for winning even against overwhelming odds. The first Wojciech had ridden down upon the Ottomans and routed them at the siege of Vienna, riding at the side of Jan Sobieski III, the king, when the baron had been a king’s favourite.

But that had been when kings had done the job they had been elected to do.

He knew that the armour would fit him. He knew the first Wojciech’s measurements by heart. Six foot two, a thirty-six inch waist, a chest of forty-eight inches, and ten inches more about the shoulders.  The Ziemadski men were blessed with slender waists and a naturally strong physique. They all had piercing blue-grey eyes, and curly hair with a touch of red to it.  The first Wojciech had had a bright auburn hair, if his portrait was to be believed. Wojciech had darker auburn hair, but the red had run true.

He returned to the study where Jaromar Nowak was waiting for him. Jaromar was about Wojciech’s own age, some years short of thirty. Raised alongside his future master, and educated as well.

“My lord! My father has told me the bad news! What are we to do?”

“How much of the property is entailed on a new generation?” asked Wojciech.

“The castle and the home farm and the village,” said Jaromar.

“Good; that leaves plenty which can be sold,” said Wojciech.  “What I want you to do is to sell anything which can be sold, including any geegaws save my ancestors’ armour and portraits. Raise as much as you can, in cash.  Purchase small properties all around the borders, and place caches of money and dried foods in each of them. Do not do it in my name; do it in the name of Jan Kowalski or some such common name, and be sure there is stabling for each.  Keep a horse for yourself, one for your father and of course Ogień, and the mare with the last foal he sired; have someone care for the mare and foal somewhere quiet.  Do you gossip much?”

“No, my lord! Of course not!”

“But others gossip and you hear it?”

“Aye, my lord, though I try to discourage it.”

“When they speak of me drinking too much, look sad and angry but still discourage them.  Let word get out.  And when you have disposed of all my property and found me safe houses, then procure for me a body; the body of a man hanged for armed robbery about my own size and age will do.”

“I ... yes, my lord,” said Jaromar.

“Once you have the body, and I have a list of the properties, disappear to one of them. You are unwed?”

“Yes my lord.”

“Have you a sweetheart?”

“No, my lord.”

“Anyone you wish to take into hiding with you?”

“No, my lord.”

“Good.  Over the next few weeks, you will remove the portraits from the gallery and cache them in the house you choose for yourself; you are their steward and guardian.  Likewise the contents of the armoury. You will buy brandy by the barrel, and will be more open about that, but tight-lipped about the order.”

“And gunpowder; will I leave any in the armoury?”

“You think of everything, Jaromar,” said Wojciech.

It was sad, everyone agreed it, that the handsome young baron should have turned to drink, and ruined his own life because of the parliamentary decree to end the winged hussars. Women at court cried bitter tears that the most eligible bachelor in Poland-Lithuania should be killing himself slowly with drink.

The fire in the baron’s personal quarters was put down to too much brandy and a naked flame; and it was caught too fiercely for anyone to put it out by the time the alarm was raised.  The kegs of brandy he insisted on keeping close to him made the flames too hot to pass, and it was a fortunate thing that a keg of gunpowder in the nearby armoury blew up when it did, making it impossible for the flames to cross from the family part of the house within the walls to the stables and barracks.  Fortunate too that the baron had been in a towering rage from his drinking and had roved through the house, shouting at the servants and driving them out of doors, and telling them not to return until the morrow. Most wept genuine tears at his decline, but could not deny that he had not been a pleasant master to work for of late, morose and surly, and disinclined to listen to tales of woe or weal from his people, as he had done before.

The fear of fire in the stables made the grooms evacuate such horses as remained, which were led by Ogień in a stampede away from home, as if he knew that his master was dead, and was determined to join him, said a wall-eyed ostler, generally held to be a seer for his eye’s ability to look elsewhere than upon the world in front of him.

Nobody had seen two figures slip out of a postern; and none had heard the whistle which summoned Ogień and the horses which looked to him as their herd master. The steward and the head groom were missing; but their absolute loyalty was known.  They must have tried to get to the baron, and took the route through the armoury and had been blown to kingdom come by the gunpowder in there.  Masses would be said for their souls.

The funeral was magnificent; the king attended, and the coffin was surmounted by the wood and feather wings which Wojciech had worn proudly before his world had fallen apart. Men who had known and liked the Winged Hussar cried unashamedly, as did a generation of young women, whose innocent nightly dreams had been of getting their fingers into his unruly curls.

The more worldly wise ones also dreamed of getting their fingers into his curls, but their dreams were better informed. And none seemed to be able of boasting that they had been his mistress.

And now the funeral was over, those dreams were dashed. Rarely had there been such an outpouring of grief.  The baron was dead; the barony reverted to the crown, for all the good it did the king, being but a  damaged castle, a village and enough land to feed the inhabitants.

One hundred miles from the funeral procession, Wojciech was attending to the leatherwork of his ancestor’s armour, to make sure it was in good repair, supple and comfortable.  Each feather on each wing was checked to make sure it was secure; a few had needed to be replaced.  Red breeches and red-dyed boots with a red dolman completed the image.

“I want to strike fear  into the hearts of all wrong-doers and oppressors,” said Wojciech.  “They called my ancestor the anioł krwi, the blood angel; and as such I shall be known. And if any know the stories of him, perhaps they will think my family has a ghost to avenge the slight to the winged hussars. But what they think, I care not. Is the ornamented face guard enough to hide who I am?”

“Save perhaps to an old comrade,” said Jan.  “But it is by the armour that one’s colleagues are recognised in the first instance. You must not stay to chat, however, my lord.”

“Indeed; I must do what I must, and leave,” said Wojciech. “And I must decide upon my first target.”

“There is an ethnic Russian Wojewode, or governor, who oppresses his people with taxes,” said Jan.

“Then we must travel quietly to his district, and Ogień must put up with the indignity of being dyed black until we are ready to strike,” said Wojciech. .  “Jan, my friend, I will need a selection of disguises, and I should have asked Jaromar to arrange such things at the various houses.”

“I will write to him and see it done; in the mean time you will have to make do with me making whiskers for you out of horse hair.”

“I have no doubt Ogień will permit it, and I will survive,” said Wojciech.