Dance of Fledglings 1

 well, my computer is lovely and clean, inside and out - I paid for a rush job - but! they can only get me a keyboard with [a] and American keyboard and [b] I would have to wait for it to come from China. Now the first is obviously the worst as American keyboards are arranged in a really weird manner, and a touch typist goes insane trying to use it [I had to return a laptop once because it was just unusable that way] so I am still on the external keyboard. 

oh well. Apparently my machine is a really rare model. who knew? presumably that was why it was cheap. It's also the best laptop I've ever had. 

Chapter 1 July 1778

 

“What a big school we have now,” Mieczysława remarked to her brother, Wojsław.

“Yes, more than forty, since we took in the new ones,” said Wojsław. “I heard Lord Jędrowski say that there would have to be six classes, all learning different things from our different teachers, and each with a form-teacher to be our special teacher.”

“Goodness! What else did you hear?” asked Mieczysława. “I got caught last time I was doing constructive eavesdropping; I got too interested and forgot I was sweeping up my wood-shavings; and you know how the Falcon is; he heard the noise stop.”

Wojsław nodded; he knew how Lord Sokołowski was, and the idea of him hearing a sound stop was perfectly logical.  The king’s spy was very good at noticing anomalies.

“Well, they were discussing who was to take charge of which class,” said Wojsław. “And Lord Jędrowski is to have charge of the top class, of course, being headmaster.  We’re to have Lady Milena.”

“Oh good,” said Mieczysława. “I like her and admire her an awful lot; the only person better would be Lady Joanna.”

“Well the Falcons won’t be teaching as a regular thing because they do have the ordinary duties of szlachta, and enough land to make that a full-time business,” said Wojsław.  “I’m glad we can call Lady Milena ‘Lady Milena’ though, not ‘Lady Jędrowska’ now she married Lord Jędrowski. He was saying that his class and maybe ours could call him ‘Lord Joachim’.”

“That’s nice,” said Mieczysława. “Though it’s not as if Mestek didn’t already call him, ‘my lord brother Joachim’, but then, Mestek is a law unto himself.”

“Well, Mestek always has been a cheeky brat, even before he was adopted as a Falcon,” laughed Wojsław. “He had to be, not to end up cowed by that horrid grandsire of his.”

They shared a moment of silence; the former lord of the three villages had sired bastards freely, and as unwanted children, the oldest of them had learned to spy and eavesdrop and share information to survive the horrors of casual abuse and at times the outright attempts to cause death by accident that their maternal relatives could not be officially blamed for. Mestek’s spirit had attracted Władysław Sokołowski and his wife, Joanna, and they had promptly adopted him, and subsequently swept all the Zabiełło bastards into their dwór and built a school, organising adoptions for the older ones. Wojsław and Mieczysława had been adopted by the steward, Stefan Wesołowski and his wife, Basia, whose fall when pregnant with their only son, Tomasz, had rendered her unable to have any more children. Tomasz was in the top class in the school, with Wojsław and Mieczysława the level behind him. Mestek, who was only eight, was already doing lessons above his own age-group.

“Well yes, but what else did you find? How are we being split?” demanded Mieczysława.

“Let me tell it without interruptions, kitten!” said Wojsław. “Well, we were split into three levels in the one classroom, but while the Falcons are having more classrooms built, there will be three classes in the exercise room, and one in our common-room. We aren’t getting the Podolscy little ones for a while, which the Falcon  said was a relief, because their aunt wants to look after them until they’re a bit older. So the second youngest class will be Maja, the middle Morscy children and the two youngest Białkowscy, and being a new class means Maja will more than keep up which she was having trouble with, being permitted to do some lessons.”

Mieczysława nodded. Maja was a child they took a proprietary interest in, being one of the Zabiełłowie, and one of the four adopted children of the Sokołowscy couple. Tekla was the youngest bastard of Lady Milena’s late first husband; August and Dominik Białkowscy were the children of Jan Białkowski, a widower, who had come visiting to see if he might put some of his older children in the school and who had stayed to teach. The Morscy pair, Wojtul and Ania, had less than a year between them and had been orphaned because their uncaring father had been more interested in his treasonous profit-making and had callously abandoned them in his attempted flight into Russia.

“All good, are the babies really having school, and where would they be? I count only five teaching spaces.”

“Oh, the real babies will have morning lessons in the orphanage wing. That’s the Morscy twins, their brother Zbisko, Marysienka Zabiełłowna, and Mirosz who’s Sokołowski now. Lady Magdalena is teaching them, and she may be slow for having a bad birth, but she’s of the White Raven Banner and that means that their slow is as good as most other people,” declared Wojsław, with partisan fervour.

Mieczysława nodded, seeing nothing to dispute in this statement.

“So we’re still second class, have they then split the third?”

“Yes,” said Wojsław. “Paulina Piekarska and Judyta Zaklikówna have Sławka who is now Zaklikówna with them still, and have two of the Białkowscy girls with them, Filek Dobczyk and Andrzej Podolski. Oh, and Andrzej’s sister-in-law, Alojza Hulewiezowna.  I was talking to him, and his sister and brother-in-law will let their nieces and nephews come when he’s more settled and able to keep an eye out for them.”

“Goodness, I thought it was bad enough having our sire’s immorality spreading us wide, then Lady Milena’s first husband leaving three bastards, but Andrzej’s half-brother deliberately getting children on his peasants to rear as thieves takes some getting used to,” said Mieczysława. “Filek must be glad of another boy; Słáwka comes close but it’s not the same, I don’t suppose.”

“What name is she using this week?” asked Wojsław.

“She’s not too sure,” said Mieczysława. Słáwka wanted a name which was not just a pet name of her unloved sire, Mieczysław, known as Mieczko, Zabiełło, and her adopted father Olek Zaklika was indulgent in permitting her to try out how she felt about other names.

“Well, I think she should celebrate Lord Olek and settle on Aleksandra,” said Wojsław.

Mieczysława remembered just in time that squealing with delight was castigated as ‘girly’ by her brother, and modified the noise to a yell.

“Yes! Brilliant!  I will go and tell her as soon as you’ve given me the rest of the gossip you’ve been earwigging.”

“Brilliantly and constructively eavesdropping on news, if you please,” said Wojsław, who knew one could never win with sisters, but had to make the effort for form’s sake.  “Well, the fourth class is Mestek, of course, with Juruś and Mieczyk still, and with no desire to try to pull ahead like Sławka, Alicja Jędrowska, as she is, now Lord Joachim has adopted her properly, Hieronim Białkowski, and one of the boys who were trained to pick pockets, Wincenty Mroczek. His brother, Antoni, is in with us, and two of the girl pickpockets, Konstancja and Elżbieta Świrscy, one of the other boys, Sebastian Czarnkowski, and otherwise it’s much the same, Adam Zaklika, Emil Piekarski, Wiktoria Białkowska, oh, and another of the Hulewicz sisters, Zuzana. We have the biggest class.”

“I haven’t got to know any of the former pickpockets well; I hope they won’t steal from us or the people who have been so good to us,” worried Mieczysława.

“Apparently they had a rule not to steal from comrades,” said Wojsław. “If only to keep peace! It’s disgusting, that evil man playing on their resentments of being poor, orphaned szlachta to make them steal for him, and tricking them into a wicked oath. I don’t think they’re dishonest by inclination.”

“Well, if they are we will have to cure them of it,” said Mieczysława. “So the top class has the two oldest Białkoscy in it, Klementyna and Bartosz, and is otherwise the same? Idzik Piekarski, our brother Tomasz, Luczyna Dobczykowna?”

“And Felicja Wąż, who’s a cousin of the Zabiełło-Wąż brothers, and she has a mysterious background and that was when I was caught, when they were discussing her, and their voices went lower, and I leaned too far and fell outside the window,” said Wojsław. “And the Falcon Raven-cuffed me about the back of the head as soon as he had ascertained that I wasn’t hurt, and Papa put a couple of good whacks across my backside, and I was ejected from the vicinity.  But Luczyna has been spending time with her and says she’s nice.”

“Good,” said Mieczysława. “How did you manage to fall?”

“I was standing on an upturned bucket to lift me higher; you know how high the windows are at the back where there’s no veranda, and it was only open a crack,” said Wojsław.

“A bucket? Wasn’t there anything better?”

“Not that I could get in time to hear anything interesting,” said Wojsław.

“Oh, all right then,” said his sister.

***

 

“You can’t stay with me, as I have a bachelor household,” Eugeniusz Zabiełło- Wąż told Felicja. “And my little brother just got married, and it wouldn’t be right to intrude. But I’m a cousin removed a few times, if you need me. I’m not sociable, or friendly, and I like dogs more than I like people, but family is family.  And what the hell your parents were thinking in being intimidated into treating you like that, I don’t know.”

“Their patron wanted to marry me,” said Felicja. “And I would not agree, and the priest would not marry us if I did not agree. So he came up with the idea of showing me what goes on in a brothel where the girls are hurt by men who like hurting. And that gave me a pretty good idea what sort of man knows where such a place is and has a good enough relationship with the madam to make such arrangements.”

“Quite,” said Eugeniusz.  “We won’t tell Zbigniew or Alexandra about it though, only that you were ill-treated.  They’re innocents.”

“I understand,” said Felicja. “Lady Sokołowska said I can talk to her about it too, or to Lady Jędrowski. Lady Jędrowski said her first husband was a man like that so ...”

“Well, I am glad you have a woman to talk to who understands,” said Eugeniusz, much relieved. “And I won’t arrange a marriage for you, and I’ll be sure and check out anyone who wants to court you.”

“Thank you, Cousin Eugeniusz,” said Felicja

“I am proud to be related to you,” said Eugeniusz.  “Resourceful and brave of you to jump out of an upstairs window and run away with a broken ankle! I don’t know how you did it.”

“Terror,” said Felicja. “I really like that I am allowed to learn sabre drill and Cossack riding tricks and so on!”

Eugeniusz laughed.

“I wish the school might have been there for Zbigniew and me,” he said, with a sigh at the end of his laugh. “Enjoy it, little cousin.”

 

***

 

“Papa,” said Słáwka Zaklika, leaning on her adopted father, who was married to her eldest real half-sister, “Mieczysława had an idea about my new name.”

“And what was that, little one of renown?”

“I want to be Aleksandra after you, and Oleńka most of the time after you,” said Sławka.

“Are you sure?” said Olek, startled.

“Yes,” said Sławka. “It’s perfect; I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Much better than Florentyna, Genowefa, Serafina, Filomela and all the other names I tried. None of them quite fitted but Oleńka does.”

“I am glad,” said Olek, kissing her light brown curls. His eyes smiled a rueful smile across the top of her head at his young wife, glad for his adoptive daughter, and fighting tears over his daughter Oleńka who had married Walenty Płodziewicz and who had been dead as long as Gryfina had been alive. This child did not know; and he would never let her know the pain she caused. She was her own person, and he reminded himself it would not have hurt so much had she come to him named Aleksandra.  On the other hand, nor would it have been so gratifying that his name was one she wanted to choose. His emotions were a little complex at the moment.

“It’s good to get that settled,” agreed Gryfina, her eyes answering his in understanding. “And that means when baby is born, we shan’t accidentally end up with a name you wanted if it’s a girl.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” said  Sławka, or rather, Oleńka. “When are you due?”

“Any time  now,” said Gryfina.

Oleńka counted on her fingers.

“That’s eight months after the wedding, shouldn’t it be nine?” she said.

“Well, Papa and I were naughty,” said Gryfina.

“Goodness!” said Oleńka . “I ought to be outraged. But I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Gryfina laughed and blushed. So did Olek.

“We didn’t feel like delaying,” said Olek.

“No, you need to fit a lifetime of marriage into how long you have,” said Oleńka, sighing that her new Papa was not younger.

“A lovely way to put it,” said Olek, softly.  “And my Lady Lionhawk is one of life’s special people and I couldn’t resist her.”

“Oy, if we are going the route ‘the woman tempted me’, I shall accuse you of being a serpent,” said Gryfina.

He grinned at her with his perfect teeth, glad to be diverted from melancholy thoughts, and she blushed.

“I’ll go and amuse myself elsewhere,” said Oleńka, with a theatrical sigh.

 

***

 

Sławka was introduced as Oleńka at school on Monday. It would take a while for everyone to remember, but her brothers Juruś and Mieczyk had at least had the weekend to get used to it.  And the excitement of it was soon eclipsed by Gryfina going into labour, and being delivered of a son. Gryfina was tired but elated.

“We’re calling him ‘Władysław’ as our Falcon did so much for us,” Olek announced, much to the consternation of Władysław Sokołowski.  “A second son will be ‘Lew’ so we have a Falcon and a lion to go with Lady Lionhawk.”

A couple of weeks later, Joanna also went into labour, and Małgorzata Sokołowska was born, red in the face and protesting loudly.  Mestek was full of how he had been the first person to hold his baby sister after Mama and Papa, but that his job was to feed Bronisława. Bronisława was the illegitimate  half sister of the Piekarscy children and Judyta Zaklikówna, but had been firmly adopted by Joanna, who had brought her alive into the world as a seven-month child and had fought to save the baby’s life.

It would be forgotten in time that she was not the child of Władysław and Joanna. She had the pale hair of any Raven Banner child, and if Małgorzata was red haired when her hair was thick enough for it to be apparent, well, few questions would be asked.

Meanwhile, the new children had been settling in.