So I hear you all saying 'but Jedrek plays for the other team' but all should become clear. Remember Frydek wished a barony on Jedrek? well, his daughter is spending time in Prussia looking for someone to be page to, to pick a live one to help her with it.
Chapter 1
“Are you going to follow Lord Mikołaj’s instructions at court, Uncle Norbert?” asked Emelia. She was as blonde as any Krasiński, but her eyes were smokey-blue, not the bright china blue of the Krasińscy.
“He is my lord,” said Norbert Korwiński. “And I am his steward here in Prussia at Dornquast.”
“It’ll either be hilarious, or fatal,” said Emelia.
“I was going to take his letter and pass the blame,” said Norbert.
oOoOo
The court of Frederick The Great of Prussia managed sumptuous without descent into tastelessness, and Norbert, flanked by Emelia, approached the king.
“Should I worry?” said that monarch, looking wary at the Pole’s approach.
“Well, I do have instructions from Lord Mikołaj,” said Norbert, half apologetically.
“If it involves kissing me enthusiastically, calling me ‘Frydek, my pet’, and generally being Mad Mikołaj, can we just consider it done?” said Frederick. “If he wants me called ‘precious’, I hope at least you will let me know how I offended him.”
Norbert grinned.
“The former, your majesty; he’s actually fond of you, which is more than he could ever say of our previous king. Staś Gustek he likes.”
“Ah, he only contracts names of people he likes; what did he call August III?”
“’The Slug’, your majesty,” said Norbert. “He’s fairly happy at the moment; one of his daughters is a fine surgeon, and she cut a mass out of Gosia, giving her the chance of living longer.”
“Well, that’s good, he wouldn’t want to lose his jewel, his treasure, his sun and moon, his honeyed intoxicant,” said the king.
Norbert beamed.
“Oh, he will be pleased that you remember him and Gosia so well,” he said.
“Yes, actually I believe that,” said Frederick. “Mikołaj Krasiński is a man of simple pleasures, and complex motives. Sometimes I think he might just be the happiest man in the world.”
“He probably is, now, sire. He’s had some problems, Gosia’s health not least. But he was writing in his old, cheerful manner, rather than being businesslike.”
“I am glad,” said Frederick. “Dear me, and I actually mean it. He’s the only damned Pole I ever liked, you know.”
“Oh, I’m fairly palatable when you get to know me,” said Norbert. “I like artillery too, and I adhere to the White Raven principle that there is no problem so large it cannot be cured with enough gunpowder.”
“He didn’t cure The Slug, though.”
“No, but then, The Slug was a duly elected slug, and the sheep must have their way,” said Norbert.
“You White Ravens are all insane,” said Frederick.
Norbert bowed, Polish fashion.
“How kind, sire,” he said.
“And never out of countenance,” said Frederick. “Your daughter?”
“No, sire, a courtesy niece, but she was curious,” said Norbert.
“Of course she was,” said Frederick. “Well, Fraulein, do I live up to expectations?”
Emilia beamed at him and also bowed, Polish fashion.
“Eminently, sire,” she said.
“She’s Jędrek’s daughter,” said Norbert.
“Really? But he ...”
“... is a man of infinite compassion who married a dying noblewoman so her baby would not be born an illegitimate orphan,” said Norbert. “And she is therefore heir to that barony you foisted onto him, and has grown up mostly in Prussia, to be more suited to it.”
Frederick regarded Emilia with interest.
“I like your father,” he said. “Dear me, that makes two Poles I like, I must be slipping.”
“I’m not sure if I count or not,” said Emilia, demurely. “I do have a Polish adoptive father after all, and have been reared mostly by Uncle Norbert once I got older. Papa had issues with Aunt Dorota at Raven’s Knoll, you see. Well, you probably don’t see, but it doesn’t really matter. Papa says you should dress me as a page and find someone suitable to foist me onto.”
Frederick stared.
“Pavel Skobelev’s page ...”
“Has been his wife since they got to Raven’s Knoll after leaving Prussia,” said Norbert, calmly.
“Dammit, I don’t permit women at Sanssouci!” said Frederick.
“You weren’t permitting, sire; you were infiltrated,” said Emilia.
“Besides, Paweł’s minnow doesn’t hardly count as a woman, more as a towarzysz,” said Norbert. “Like Gosia, who can ride sixty miles and more a day and give birth at the end of it.”
“Thank God most Poles are too set in their ways to arm their women; the world would burn,” said Frederick.
“It would have been glorious,” said Norbert, sadly.
“You Ravens!” said the king, absently echoing what many others had said, in Polish, Ruthenian, Russian and English as well as German.
“Do you have someone for me to be page to?” asked Emilia.
“I don’t know about that, but I have someone I want you to dance with,” said the king. “Von Finsternacht! This is Fraulein ... what do you go as, Fraulein?”
“I usually go as Kowalski,” said Emilia, her eyes dancing.
“Oh, that’s how you plan to play it, is it?” said the king.
“I think being Emilia Kowalski is a lot easier than anything else,” said Emilia. “Though if he wants to call me Fraulein Schmidt it makes no odds to me to have the translation used.”
“Fraulein Schmidt, really?” said the heavy-set man who had come over. He was of indeterminate age, and had a military bearing. He wore a plain wig, and dressed in black. Quick eyes might note that his right arm was held stiffly. His eyes were clear, bright blue, and keenly piercing. He was clean-shaven.
“It does well enough,” said Emelia, curtseying.
“So, Herzog Hasso Von Finsternacht rates a curtsey, and I got a Polish bow?” said the king amused.
“Of course, sire; I know to respect you, from tales told by Uncle Norbert, Papa and Uncle Mikołaj, but the duke I do not know,” said Emilia.
Frederick laughed, making heads turn.
“You are as bad as your father and uncles,” he said. “Now go and dance.”
The duke had been looking approval on Emilia for making the king laugh; now a selection of expressions flashed across his face.
“My king....” he said.
Frederick waved a hand, and turned to a courtier who had been trying to attract his attention.
“How badly damaged is it?” asked Emilia.
“I beg your pardon?” said Von Finsternacht.
“Your arm,” said Emilia. “I assume it was wounded somewhere.”
“You noticed? I try to conceal it. It is a souvenir of the last year of the Seven Years War, for which I was just old enough to be wounded and mustered out. But I am one of the few who remembers what it was like, it was a bloody conflict.”
“I heard,” said Emilia. “So how bad is it?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“My, you are prickly. I need to know how much support you will need with dancing. If you have movement with it or not, if you have use of your hand.”
“Oh. I have some use of my hand, but the arm is stiff and weak from the elbow down.”
“Oh, I see. Then you could grasp my forearm and I yours so I can take the weight from it, and we do a more sedate minuet than one with multiple arm hold changes. We can still do plenty of position changes.”
“I don’t generally dance because of it. The king forgot ...”
“The king is watching in gently malicious interest to see how I handle it,” said Emilia. “And whether you lose patience with me fumbling and being afraid of it as some little idiots probably are.”
“You’re right,” he said.
“I am concerned about hurting you; you have pain lines.”
“Oh, you haven’t decided I am just old?”
“You’re four- and thirty; you told me that. I can add and subtract, you know,” said Emilia, sliding her left hand up his forearm to support it, considered, and cupped his elbow. He gave a gasp.
“Oh!”
“Relief? Good,” she said as he nodded.
It was not the most elegant minuet, but his footwork was faultless.
“You’re a swordsman of note, I think,” said Emilia.
“Yes; I fight left-handed, of course,” he said. “How did you know?”
“I note the foot-work,” said Emilia. “Oof!” a passing dancer whirled past and knocked into her, throwing her against the duke.
She steadied herself against him, noted a reaction, and looked up into his eyes.
“Herzog ... I don’t know what you are doing, but I feel unaccountably light-headed and ... strange,” she said, breathlessly. “I think I would like to retire from the dance floor. I enjoyed dancing,” she added.
“So did I,” he said. “Really, Fraulein, do you truly think me such a naive fool as to think you so innocent?”
She looked at him, a frown of confusion on her face.
“I don’t think I’m an innocent,” she said. “I don’t understand what you are saying.”
“How old are you, Fraulein?” he said, steering her to the edge of the dance floor.
“Seventeen, my lord, so I am not a baby. Though a lot of the girls at school were, as well as being boring about various boys,” she added.
“Ah?”
“Well, I know where babies come from, we do have animals after all,” said Emilia. “And I am feeling such a fool, because I blurted out nonsense about what I’m beginning to realise more about. It’s lust, isn’t it?”
“God in Heaven, you really are an innocent, and prattle whatever comes into your head!” he said.
“I do not prattle! Please, you have never heard prattling if you think I do it.”
“The girls at school?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hate it?”
“Thoroughly. I ran away.”
“You did what?”
“I ran away. I climbed out of an upstairs window on a rope manufactured from plaited strips of blanket, and took my horse and rode back to Dornquast to Uncle Norbert.”
“You’re some relation of Krasiński, then.”
“My Uncle Mikołaj. Yes. And Ravens are born climbing. Can we go out on the balcony? You want to kiss me, don’t you?”
“With any other girl, that would be forward; from you, either it is merely straightforward, or you want to lead me on because you want something.”
“I do want something.”
“And what’s that?” it was almost a snap.
“I want you to kiss me and make me feel all those nice feelings again,” said Emilia.
He hurried her onto the balcony with almost indecent haste. His good hand cupped her face for a moment and then moved, to pull her to him. Emilia absently shifted his right arm to fold up against her, and gasped when his hand fell on her breast.
“More than you bargained for? I can’t move it readily now, you know.”
“I ... I think I like it,” said Emilia, lifting her face to his.
He kissed her. It was not a gentle kiss, but demanded. Emilia pressed against him, making little, inarticulate noises, grasping the lapel of his coat with the hand of the arm which supported his, sliding her other arm round his neck.
Then he was pulling away.
“I wish I knew what you were up to,” he said, roughly. “Nice girls do not do this. You ... you seem as though it was your first kiss, but why would an innocent be so wanton?”
“It is my first kiss, and I’m Raven raised, and we go for what we want, and the hell with convention,” said Emilia. “I expect Uncle Norbert will have a cat, but oh, dear me, human mating rituals are a lot more complex than I realised and far more intoxicating.”
“You are the strangest girl I have ever met, and I still wish I knew if that was just you, or if it was design to fascinate me.”
“The thing is, if I meant to fascinate you, wouldn’t I need a reason other than liking what it feels like?” said Emilia. “Are you someone people want to fascinate? Only I don’t really know who you are other than that the king trusts you, or he wouldn’t play games with you, and you’re a soldier and a swordsman, and a duke.”
“For many, being a duke would be reason enough.”
“If you know anything about my father, you will know how often he quarrelled with the king over not wanting to be burdened with a title,” said Emilia. “I don’t need any worthless baubles, I may not be Raven-born, but I’m Raven-reared, and that makes me outrank anyone here except Uncle Norbert.”
“Himmel! I have heard similar sentiments, when I was young, from Mikołaj Krasiński ... and the king believes he means it. Well, you take the wind from my sails, girl.”
“I think it’s a hobby of all Ravens, Hasso.”
He kissed her again, pushing her against the wall, and she whimpered happily into his mouth.
They were interrupted by Norbert.
“Herzog, you are kissing my niece,” said Norbert.
Von Finsternacht took Emilia’s chin in his hand again to turn her face this way and that.
“Why, I do believe you’re correct,” he said.
“She’s a babe,” said Norbert. “I know who you are, you’re a canny old spymaster, and I won’t have you trying to seduce secrets out of a girl scarce out of the schoolroom by flattery and charm.”
“How interesting, he’s accusing me of what I wondered you might be up to,” said Finsternacht to Emilia. “Did you know I am a spymaster?”
“No, I didn’t; nobody bothered to tell me,” said Emilia.
“I’m interested that your uncle accuses me of seducing you, not of coercing you.”
“One; she had an arm around your neck. Two; you are alive and in one piece, which if you tried to maul a Raven girl who has one arm free would not be the case,” said Norbert, laconically.
“The devil! Better training than most ninnies. Well, maybe you should go with your uncle now,” said Finsternacht. “I might forget I am a gentleman if you stay.”
“I ...”
“Go.”
She stepped away and followed Norbert.
“Emilia! You did not learn to behave like that at finishing school!” said Norbert.
“No ...” said Emilia. “It is foolish to act on such whimsy but if he’s a spymaster, at least I don’t have to worry that he’s all very male animal and no brains.”
Norbert shook his head.
The girl had grown up as a Raven, so he should not really be surprised.
Finsternacht, who had sharp hearing, had heard that comment, and was chuckling to himself.
He did not think she was stupid either, despite her beauty.
