Wolf for a Lioness 2

 apologies for being very late.  I took a pain killer last night and it knocked me for six, which was the idea, but ...

 

Chapter 2

 

Isabeau awoke in a sunnier mood, having conceived an idea overnight.  The day without looked promising too, when she unfastened the shutters of the solar, the sun rising golden and turning the lands below to a sea of soft gold as it reflected on the morning mist.  Soon the mist would dissipate and the myriad threads of gossamer spider webs would gleam in the early morning sunshine, as the harvest spiders spread their delicate webs across the land.  Isabeau felt that she had woven an idea as intricate and clever as any of the beautiful webs, that would defeat her enemies as surely as spiders defeated flies.

After breaking her fast, Isabeau asked Wulfric to come into the solar; he bowed, and followed her respectfully. 

“I have a few roofs to inspect, lady, when you have finished with me; they will need shoring up for the winter,” said Wulfric.

“You take care of our people so well,” said Isabeau.  “Wulfric, I have in sooth discovered a most excellent solution to my dilemma.”

“Indeed, lady?” said Wulfric, cautiously.  “You have thought about whom to marry?”

“Yes,” said Isabeau.  “If I marry you, we might continue in the same way, and both continue to care for the people, and we might then both be happy.”

Wulfric stared, his face darkening.  His brows drew together in anger and his blue eyes reminded Isabeau of the blue of lightning in a storm.

“By the Rood!  Is that what you think of me?  a convenience to make sure you have a husband in name only, to be naught but a glorified steward still, and doubtless complacent should you wish to have lovers?  I am not a serf that you can walk upon thus roughly my lady!  When I take a wife I would have a real wife, who will lay with me and bear my children, be my helpmate, I will not be made a mockery of a man!” he shouted.

Isabeau went white.

“I had not thought to deny you marital rights,” she said stiffly, “but I am glad you have refused if what you are looking for is a chattel to do nothing but rear children, you are like all the rest!  I have had a lucky escape, not to be tied to a barbarian of a Saxon whose idea of a grand hall is a stinking barn with earwigs in the roof!”

It was unfair, and Isabeau knew it; Wulfric was far more cultured than the Norman knights who sought her hand, but she was hurt that he would think she would expect a marriage in name only.

Wulfric was furious.  Had she not said they might continue as before?  As mistress and vassal, essentially!  Marriage was a meeting of equals!

“Well, since this conversation is over, I shall be away about my duties, lady,” he said, woodenly.

“Yes, do.  You are an excellent steward even if you prove yourself insufficient of a man not to be unmanned by partnership with a wife who is lettered and educated,” said Isabeau.

His face burned with anger.

“This is what a man expects!” he snarled, and jerked her into his arms to kiss her roughly and thoroughly.

Isabeau made a faint noise of protest then the oddest of sensations swept her body and she found her lips opening under the pressure of his mouth, and a feeling of softness suffused her being.

Then she was stumbling with a cry as he pushed her away, and flung out of the chamber.

Isabeau touched her lips with a trembling hand, her other hand going to her chest, her heart beating wildly.

It was as well that her old nurse, supposedly her chaperone, dozed by the fire in the upper chamber of the solar.  Old Alice would be incensed by such contumely!  And contumely it was – and Wulfric should be punished for laying lewd hands on a Norman lady.

But she did not want to punish him.

Isabeau told herself firmly that he was too good a steward to let such an incident interfere with the good running of the estates. He had been angered; and she had intended to anger him, because he had hurt her by his scornful rejection.

Well, if that was the way he intended to use a wife, perhaps it was as well that the whole matter was over.  To so assault the whole senses of a woman was…

She did not want it to happen again.  The matter was over, and if she did not refer to it again, they might put it behind them and return to their usual relationship.  Though somehow, Isabeau feared that the pleasant camaraderie had been shattered irretrievably.

Isabeau tried to busy herself with sewing, but somehow it seemed difficult to settle to it, and she found herself staring out of the window, furious with herself that she had been so unsettled by something so insignificant, wondering why her lips still burned from that kiss.

Finally she saw Wulfric’s tall straight figure walking up from the fields, and hastily sat herself down in the tall chair to stitch viciously on a torn sheet.

There was a knock at the solar door.

“Come in,” said Isabeau.

Wulfric entered, doffed his cap, and knelt before her.

“I apologise for insulting you, lady.  I should not have done so.  I am sorry.”

The sight of Wulfric, set of face, kneeling before her profoundly disturbed Isabeau; and she jumped up, scattering thread and sewing.

“Wulfric, get up, I will not have you kneeling to me!” she said impatiently. “The incident is closed; I have already forgotten it!”

“And will you also forgive, lady?” asked Wulfric.

“I – yes, if it needs forgiving, I forgive. And it never happened.”

“Thank you, lady,” said Wulfric, rising, though he would not meet her eyes.

“It was as much my fault for wording my suggestion carelessly,” Isabeau found herself saying.

“No lady; it was not your fault.  And besides, it never happened,” said Wulfric, with a ghost of a smile. 

“Very well.  What were your findings regarding the roofs?” asked Isabeau, briskly. As well to change the subject if he did not wish to discuss it.

“Those that need repair will be getting it: Brihtric the thatcher and his boy have been cutting reed, as old Alric the reedcutter died in the winter.”

Isabeau frowned.

“Is there nobody to take his place? It is not seemly that a skilled thatcher should also be cutting his own reed, and wasting time that could be used for thatching.  I fear it might make him skimp if he runs out of time.”

“He has been cutting reed all summer at my direction because of being without Alric,” said Wulfric.  “He has been showing the fatherless boy Anketil how to do it, so the boy might have a trade of sorts to keep his mother.” 

“Good, I had wondered whether to suggest he enter the nearest monastery, and she a nunnery, but that obviates the need,” said Isabeau.  “He is not a stupid lad, and a trade will give him pride.  If he shows an interest, have Brihtric teach him thatching also; and another may learn reed cutting.  But I sense you conceal something; you are not telling me all.”

“I am wondering how to word something,” said Wulfric.  “One of the damaged roofs was, I feel certain, damaged deliberately.”

“Why would anyone do that?” asked Isabeau.

“It’s Torulf Byfield,” said Wulfric, with distaste, “whom I am, in mine own mind, certain was responsible for the siring of Anketil.  He is lazy, feckless and greedy, as I believe you already know?”

“Yes, my father warned me that he was not to be believed if he complained of anything, not without careful investigation,” said Isabeau.  “But why damage his own roof?”

“It is old thatch,” said Wulfric.  “Still perfectly good, but the hut next to him was re-thatched in the spring, and it looks very fine, and by comparison Torfeld’s looks a little shabby.  I think he made a hole in his roof in order to have it thatched.  What will you have me do?”

Isabeau considered.

“Have Brihtric thatch around the hole; if it costs more to do the repair than to do the whole house, then so be it,” she said, “and fine Torulf for carelessness.  That way he is punished by having to pay the fine, though not as much as for deliberate damage, and too by having shiny new reeds on just a part of his roof, which will look even worse than having it all the same colour.”

Wulfric laughed.

“Lady, that is very meet,” he said.  “He is a man who feels deeply what people say about him, and that will be a harsher punishment than the fine, to feel that people whisper behind their hands and call him Torulf Pied-roof!”

“Good, let it be so,” said Isabeau, pleased that she and Wulfric might work together with very little embarrassment.

Then she caught his eye, and she was blushing furiously!

“I’ll go and give orders to Brihtric right away, and tell Torulf that he is fined,” said Wulfric, firmly, and left Isabeau to her blushes and confused thoughts.

Isabeau fought with herself, the memory of the feeling of his lips hard on hers surging up, turning her knees weak, and the feelings surging through her whole body as though she were fevered by the exchange.

 

 

There was some little constraint when Isabeau and Wulfric met at the noon bever; but Wulfric spoke determinedly about how the peasants were gathering in the last of the harvest, and that the winnowing had been delayed by the breaking of a flail, but that Arnulf the carpenter was carving a new flail blade.  Mother Edith, the village wise woman, had warned of a harsh winter, and it was imperative to get the harvest in and stored in preparation.

“How good is she?” asked Isabeau.

“I’ve never known her to be wrong about weather,” said Wulfric.  “I have not trust in her spells and love philtres though, such things are for silly girls.”

Isabeau smiled.

“It is nothing but foolishness, but I wish you will speak to Edith about it; it would be a shame if someone disappointed in love who had used one of her philtres accused her of witchcraft.  She is no witch is she?”  she asked anxiously, crossing herself.

“No, she is no witch, it amuses her to pretend to have witching knowledge though, to get gifts,” said Wulfric. “I would not tolerate a true witch spreading evil amongst the peasants.”

Isabeau gave a brief nod.

“Well, tell her to cease the foolishness; if she will not do so for her own safety, then tell her we can ill afford to lose our weather wise woman and midwife.  I will have her gifted with dainties from the high table to refrain from her foolishness, for I am sure she will find white manchet bread easier to her few remaining teeth than mazlin,” she added.

Wulfric nodded.

“I had not thought of the possibility of someone accusing her of witchcraft,” he said, “You are good to think of it, lady, for any accusation of witchcraft must indeed be taken seriously, and anyone examining her cannot know her as we do, and know that it is in sooth but Edith desiring a little bit of attention.  The promise of white bread, will, I feel sure, persuade her to desist.”

Isabeau thought grimly that she did not put it past Fleury or Danforth to consider the services of a witch to use a love philtre on her; the better to win her lands. 

She wondered whether to speak to Wulfric about it; he was looking at her quizzically.

“I was wondering about whether Sir Hugh or Sir Gilbert might consider approaching a witch,” she said.

Wulfric gasped.

“That – that would be an iniquity!” he said, “By the Rood, surely they would not so imperil their immortal souls?”

“If what we think is true regarding the killing of my father, I would have said they have already imperilled their immortal souls,” said Isabeau, tartly. 

“I – no, I cannot think that Sir Hugh Fleury would do so; I think he would fear a witch more than he would wish to purchase a spell.  And Sir Gilbert Danforth… I suspect him of not believing in anything at all, including witchcraft.”

“It would be a comfort to believe that,” said Isabeau, “I shall pray that thine assessment be correct. What a terrible thing if indeed he has no faith at all!”

Wulfric shrugged.

“It’s his soul,” he said.

A page came up to the High Table where Isabeau and Wulfric conversed and Old Alice drank her bever in cheerful and deaf unconcern at the doings of witches.

“Lady, Sir Gilbert Danforth and Sir Hugh Fleury are without, and would speak with you privily,” the little page piped.

“Talk of devils,” growled Wulfric.

“Let them be brought within; they might put any business they have to me here at the High Table, for I will not receive them privily,” said Isabeau. The page bowed; and ran off.

 

 

Wolf for a Lioness 1

 I looked through this, it was on chapter 7 not 11 but I think it will finish happily around 8 or 9. And I felt inspired enough to write the secon 2/3 of 7. 

Chapter 1   Late August, 1105

 

Isabeau stared out of the narrow window of the solar, without seeing the fair lands lit by watery autumnal sunshine, the woods a dark smear on the other side of the strips of the village fields as a counterpoint to the soft golden light. 

She sighed deeply, and chewed on one of her long, dark plaits.

Now that her father was dead, all before her was hers.  And yet it was not.  A lone woman, especially a lone woman who was scarcely more than a girl, could not hope to hold lands alone.  It might be her father’s wishes, but there were too many who would see her lands as a fair prize, and herself merely as an added bonus.  Already she had received fair communication from both Sir Gilbert Danforth, and Sir Hugh Fleury, who had intimated in their letters that they would be glad to join their houses to that of the late Sir Ferrand de Curtney, and made it sound as though they offered her a favour.  Isabeau disliked both Danforth and Fleury; and her father had not willingly invited them to his table.

And yet, was there any choice?  If she did not marry, the more powerful local bullies, the Bigods or the de la Poles, might wrest her land from her by force, marrying her off to some minor member of their extensive families to satisfy the legalities, and grant to such the stewardship of her lands.

But if she married either Danforth or Fleury, she might just as well be in the same case; for neither one was like to permit her any say in her lands.  They were the sort of men who held the opinion that no woman was any good for anything save childbearing and rearing – and conveniently forgot that the first education a man child would have would be at his mother’s knee.  It was harder to forgive such attitudes when Isabeau could see plainly that the letters that had been written to her had been penned by a scribe or a priest, and each had made his mark at the bottom.  Isabeau read and wrote fluently, for her father was a great believer in education for all.  Even the petties in the village attended a dame school for a few years before they were old enough to work on the land; and the peasants were glad enough of it, for it provided their offspring with a meal once a day, and the ability to seek apprenticeship to a trade, if Sir Ferrand gave permission.  Isabeau growled, an unladylike noise, for she doubted that her permission was legal.

“My lady?” the light baritone voice spoke behind her; and Isabeau swung round. She saw the familiar tall, loosely-knit figure of her steward, his hair cut short for convenience, and his  beard neatly and closely trimmed to his square, determined jaw. His hair and beard were the bright ginger that suggested Viking ancestors, but his skin was tanned without being ruddy.   He wore a plain undyed woollen bliaut over dark trousers, neatly cross-gartered to short boots.  Were it not for the fine quality of the cloth he wore, one might almost take him for a peasant for the lack of adornment on his knee-length tunic.

“Wulfric?  Why did you not knock?” she demanded.

“In sooth, my lady, I did knock, and so lost were you in your thoughts, perchance you heard it not.  I ventured to enter, and I hear sounds of angered frustration,” said Wulfric.

“Angered frustration? By my troth, a good choice of words, my steward, as your choices for the lands are always good.”

He shrugged.

“I love this land, lady.”

She nodded.

“Aye, and right glad I am that when wert dispossessed in favour of my sire that thou hadst the brazen insolence to come and demand the right to be his steward.  Hast made the land stay in good heart, and kept lord and men able to work together.”

Wulfric bowed.

“In sooth, lady, though dispossessed for my father’s continued defiance against William the bastard, I felt honour bound to those who had been our vassals, that I must needs do as I might for them, even if it meant swearing fealty to one placed over my father’s lands.  My duty to them supersedes my filial piety, and though angered at first, my father understood, and forgave my defiance ere he died.  But you wish not to speak of me, methinks, but of what has angered and frustrated you?”

“It is the fact of being a woman, Wulfric; that I might not hold my land without marriage,” said Isabeau.  “For how could I ally myself with such coarse and ill-educated fools as either Danforth or Fleury?  It – it would besides be a betrayal of the land, of the people, for either one would be a harsh master.  And yet is that maybe preferable to being subjected by force to the whim of the Bigods, or the de la Poles?”

Wulfric grunted.

“It is a dilemma, lady.  It seems to me that you should answer fair to these ill-penned missives,” he waved at the letters Isabeau had dropped scornfully to the floor, “claiming that womanly grief for your father possesses your soul, and that you cannot begin to consider the felicity of marriage arrangements until a decent period of mourning has passed.  It won't hold them up forever but it may give you a period of time in which to consider alternatives and maybe to search wider for a suitable spouse.  For I fear you are correct, that nothing else would keep the rapacious from your lands.”

“You are generous of spirit, Wulfric, for there is no irony in your voice when you speak of my lands,” said Isabeau.

“Your father was a better man than mine, methinks, and did well by his peasantry and serfs,” said Wulfric, “as no doubt will his daughter, given the chance to do so.”

“If I can find a suitable husband, that is,” said Isabeau, bitterly.  “I need a man who is not going to interfere with me, and who will not try to impose his own will on the land.  Where indeed might I find such an one, for certes, no man who is well born will accept such a bargain.  And yet, perchance I should consider a man who is not well born, an honest artisan, who will look upon me with respect.  For do not the wives of artisans often help with their husband’s crafts?”

“Such an one might indeed give you respect, lady, but I fear such would lose the respect of many of your vassals, and indeed there might be those such as Fleury and Danforth who would declare to their overlord that you had run mad, in your grief, and had made a marriage that was improper and might seek to overturn it.  You must needs marry at least a yeoman, and better, a knight.”

“Ha, perhaps to my advantage a knight riddled with eld, shaking with the palsy of his advanced years, who will die upon our wedding night of over-excitement ere he has laid hand upon me, that as a widow I might be considered more able, though the change is but of one day’s feasting,” said Isabeau.

Wulfric laughed.

“Apart from the thought that you would shrink from such a drooling and senile lover, it hath its merits,” he said, “though think you not that some might attempt to get the marriage annulled on grounds of non-consummation?” he flushed.

So did Isabeau.

“Why, I believe there is much debate about what makes a marriage,” she said, “the church authorities have been torn as to whether it is the union by consent of both parties – and a mockery that is, with many a young girl married with no thought for her wishes – or whether it should be union by consent and followed by consummation.  But there is enough fuel to argue, as many learned men do, that one cannot say that the marriage of the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph was no marriage, and yet that marriage was never consummated.”

“I thought that Our Lord Jesus was said to have had brothers and sisters born after him?” said Wulfric.

“The Church dismisses that as folklore only,” said Isabeau.  “I debated it with Father Hubert, who is a learned man, if sadly humourless.”

“And were he not a priest, a perfect candidate to marry and thus hasten into an early grave, my lady,” laughed Wulfric.

Isabeau wrinkled her nose.  She was used to Wulfric teasing her, and took no offence at that implied laughing criticism, more concerned for her own thoughts on the subject of such a marriage. 

“I confess that the thought of being in any wise…intimate… with an elderly man doth sour my stomach,” she said, “even for an instant.  And I must hope to find some other way than what was scarce but a jest.  Wilt apply thy mind, good Wulfric, and help me solve my dilemma?”

“Right willingly, lady,” said Wulfric.

Wulfric disliked the idea of Lady Isabeau being mauled by some old man, though either Fleury or Danforth would be worse, and neither noted for their douce manner.  A spirited and intelligent lady would be like to be beaten into submission by either – and indeed by many a man. It was a shame she had not been born a boy, in some ways, though her dark beauty would be lost on a man’s frame.  Wulfric sighed.  If only Sir Ferrand had not fallen on his ride home, a moment of uncharacteristic carelessness, he would not have taken the fever that had killed him, from both his cracked skull and lying in a ditch half conscious before the household was alerted by his gelding limping home without him.   Wulfric’s eyes narrowed.

“What is it?” asked Isabeau, sharply.

“Lady, I pondered your sire’s death, and wondered.  And in sooth, I have considered remaining silent, but you are your sire’s daughter, and as brave as the lion that graces your family escutcheon ….”

“Wulfric, do not beat about the bush, but come haply to the point.”

“I will.  I have wondered if indeed your father’s death was the accident it has been said, or whether it were caused by human agency.  For the gelding’s hock was cut, it was thought by a stone in whatever animal scrape he may have set his foot; but a thought arose unbidden to my mind…”

“Speak on,” said Isabeau, intently, “and let us see whether the suspicion that hath communicated itself to my thoughts at your words tallies with thine own considerations.”

“I wondered if any had stretched a rope across the way to trip the horse and precipitate your father down the slope and into that noisome ditch,” said Wulfric.  “One who perchance knew right well that your father would not countenance your hand bestowed upon the same, but that fatherless and alone, you might then be browbeaten into marriage, along with these fair pastures.”

Isabeau’s dark eyes sparkled with anger.

“Aye, thy words make perfect sense, though it likes me not to consider that any knight should stoop so low.  And yet, I find I might believe it readily in either one; Sir Hugh Fleury hath the brutality necessary, and Sir Gilbert Danforth the low cunning.  And even so, perchance they might have acted together; did not, forsooth, their letters to me come even within hours of each other?  Happenstance they have made some pact, whereby they have sworn that whichever of the two of them I should wed, haply will the other receive some grant of land from his confederate, as will also serve to purchase silence upon their deadly endeavour.”

“We cannot prove it, Lady,” said Wulfric.  “It is but surmise and conjecture, based on your father’s careful habits and the cut upon the horse’s hock.  Which even so might have been caused by a stone in an animal scrape.”

“Aye; aye, it might, and nothing in there to go to mine overlord, who being Roger Bigod, and High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk might be expected to take some interest therein.  However, he is being more careful for having sailed too close to the wind in supporting Robert Curthose over William Rufus, and dare not anger King Henry, methinks, being but recently restored to lands, and a position of trust for his support to the king in the more recent rebellion.  Perchance in that wish not to anger the king, he may fear to move against two knights of unstained reputation – at least for any that know them not – on the word of a girl, distraught at her father’s death.  I think he would not act to uncover the truth.  It would be more like that he would find some way of taking these lands unto himself, depriving both Danforth and Fleury of the same by way of subtle punishment where he might not move too openly, and gaining advantage to himself as well.”

“I fear you read him accurately, lady,” said Wulfric.  “I had not though that we would have enough to provide as any proof, but spoke out merely to place you more upon your guard against these men, who I feel sure in mine own mind have engineered your unprotected state.”

“At least I have you to protect me, Wulfric,” said Isabeau.  “You have always been here for me, boy and man, you have set me on my first pony, and have told me off for wilful tears and temper and  have been here to run to when father was away putting down rebellion.  Alack-a-day that you may not protect me against the ills of marriage.”

“My sister says it is a fine state for one whose husband is a good man,” ventured Wulfric.

“But then Saegifu has picked a man who adores the ground she walks on,” said Isabeau, dryly.  “We will speak of this more anon; for the nonce I see you hold the accounts, and it does not do to put off the duties of the estate for personal considerations.”

“My sister is a wise woman, and freer, I dare swear, than a Norman lady,” said Wulfric.

“Alas that you are correct! Well, I shall pen these missives and lay my pearls of education before the swine who cannot read them, and hope that their secretary reads the whole and does not edit what is written to avoid blows.”

“And that is something you cannot rule out.”

 

Wojciech goes a-venturing bits; and on how I actually write.

 I got started and I recently added the bits about the little blond snot. I wanted to know the outcome of that so I could use him in a chronologically later book. I haven't abandoned this I was just finding it hard. It has a working title of 'Wings of Diplomacy'. However, this demonstrates some of my working method in progress, I have an outline I follow and tend to add outlines for coming chapters with what i intend to include, which may be subject to change when new characters insist on writing themselved in or scenes go differently to how I planned them. My characters are unruly. They say there are three types of writers. 

[1] those who write and find out the plot as they do so

[2] those who plan meticulously

[3] those whose work is largely planned, but is still a bit feral, has bitten, and will bite again. 

No prizes for guessing that I am number 3! I strive to be number 2 but my characters growl at me and I am intimidated into letting them do as they please.

 

 

Chapter 1

 

“I’ve changed my mind, tell him to go back!” said Irene trying to pull a comic face at her husband through her labour.

Wojciech held her hands, and Jan, as  imperturbable over delivering his foster-son’s first child as over delivering a foal, called calm instructions to the girl he loved as dearly as if she was his own daughter.

“It’s just a trifle late for that” Wojciech said dryly. “I’m afraid he already has the order to charge.”

“Stop bellyaching about it and push,” said Jan.

Wojciech George came into the world protesting over the hurry but quite capable of fastening onto a nipple with tenacity.  Although the Polish for George was Jerzy, Irene wanted her son to have a name which would do in England; and St. George, that quintessentially English saint, shared his day with St. Wojciech.  Somehow it seemed appropriate.

Wojciech gazed proudly down at his wife and son.

“He is beautiful!” he said.

“He’s red and wrinkled and looks like a pickled plum” said Irene, cheerfully kissing her pickled plum adoringly.  “Feliks, you shall be first to hold your brother” and she passed him over.

Feliks was adopted; he had been Wojciech’s first friend when Wojciech had set out to be the last winged hussar, and had attracted Wojciech’s notice by the fellow feeling of sharing hair the colour of a new horse chestnut. Orphaned, he had gone to find his winged hussar, and had been adopted, Wojciech talked by Irene into laying aside his scruples over blurring the distance between peasant and szlachta.

Their adopted daughter, Aleksandra,  was the child of a szlachcic ruined by debt occasioned by borrowing to care for his sick wife. He had turned to crime, and Wojciech had duelled him to give him an honourable death. Ala, the name she had chosen for herself rather than the more conventional ‘Ola’,  had not forgotten her Papa, but called Wojciech ‘Papa’ not ‘New Papa’ now, and was happy for Irene to be ‘Mama’. She would have to know more, one day; but one day was a long time away. Feliks was  her partisan supporter, and he would be of his adoptive brother.  Wojciech insisted that he have time off the school he attended with Irene’s brother Błażej and their friends so he could meet his little brother or sister, and know that he was still part of the family.

Feliks appreciated that.

“Oh, my innocent brother, so happy and peaceful,” he murmured. “Enjoy it while you can; you have to be a baron one day.”

“Poor little babe,” said Wojciech, “Let him slumber in blissful ignorance or I’ll foist it onto you.”

“Now there’s no need to get nasty, Papa,” grinned Feliks.

 

 

[Letter from the king requesting and requiring Wojciech to go and spend time in England, both delivering letters to George III and testing how much England would stand with Poland. Wojciech, who never swears, curses comprehensively for two straight minutes without repetition. Irenka much impressed. Persuades him that at least they can visit her family.]

 

[Have Wojciech meet his grandfather – Olek – and Gryfina.]

 

[Zdziarski, the blond fellow carrying too much flesh and his snot of a son are in Warsaw when the Wings go through.]

 

Wojciech entered the gold and white ballroom of the  palace with his usual softly heavy tread, and Irenka on his arm. Compared to many, they were conservatively clad, and Wojciech clung to Sarmatian garb rather than trick himself out in the current fashion.  Irene, used to western clothes, wore a panniered ballgown in a claret so deep that it appeared black in the folds, deep enough not to clash with either her hair or that of her husband’s effulgent locks. His kontusz was of similar shade, in brocade wrought with leaves in red, orange and gold, making him a creature of blood and fire. It was an effect they had discussed to help to further the legend of the Last Winged Hussar, the Blood Angel. His żupan was black, touched with gold, and he wore red hussar boots over black trousers, and a black kontusz sash, heavy with gold bullion. His ruby signet gleamed on his finger, and rubies matching it in shade adorned Irenka’s neck. She was unpowdered, and her strawberry-blonde hair was close in colour to the red-gold on Wojciech’s kontusz.

There was a gasp from a youth who had, until that moment, considered himself very fine in his new Western clothes. He was a handsome youth, and knew how to dress for his colouring, in a rich, dark blue jacket, heavy with gold lace across the chest and down the sides to where it cut away, over a velvet waistcoat in the same blue, voided in a pattern of fleurs-de-lis showing the gold silken ground of the cloth. His breeches were in a cream satin, suggesting gold, but not sufficiently  overdone to be vulgar. It was about the colour of his pale golden locks, which shone through his hair powder in places, caught into a queue at the base of his neck, the black solitaire exquisitely tied over his snowy cravat.

“Hellfire!” he exclaimed. “Płodziewicz!”

“And what do you have against my Godbrother, whelp?” asked the big man whose even paler blond hair was not powdered.

The boy’s father sank his face into his hands as the lad opened his mouth.

“He’s a big bully!” said the boy. “He made my father thrash me, but how was I to know he was a szlachcic? He was digging!”

“I dig sometimes too,” said Seweryn Krasiński, still more amused than angered. “A soldier has to know how to deal with bodily waste, you know. And a good landowner helps his peasants in times when all hands are needed on the land, like at harvest. Didn’t your father teach you that?”

“But ... but it’s what peasants are for!” squealed young Zdziarski, as Wojciech approached and plainly recognised the youth who had impeded his rescue of the carter who had brought his adoptive son Felix to him, who had been buried in a landslide.

“Still has a voice like a magpie with a stick up his arse,” he said. “Don’t go picking on Lady Filka Krasińska any more than on my wife; those of us who are allied to the Raven banner don’t have meek wives.  Filka put three war rockets through the last person who irritated her.”

“Made the devil of a mess,” said Seweryn.

“I couldn’t tell by the time you’d walked through what was left,” said Wojciech.

“I wouldn’t have done if I’d known,” said Seweryn defensively. “What are you doing in Warszawa?”

“I don’t know; I got a letter asking me to attend the king so I came,” said Wojciech. “Well, I know in broad, he wants me to be diplomatic in England.”

“You?” said Seweryn. “You big lug, the words ‘Wojciech’ and ‘diplomatic’ are mutually exclusive.”

“It’s because of Irenka’s relatives,” said Wojciech. “At least, I assume so. Or he might have sent you.”

“Dear God, you can’t let Filka loose in England since she discovered war rocketry, it’s only a century since London last burned,” said Seweryn.

“Oy!” said Phyllis.

“If you and your brother got together ...” said Seweryn.

“Oh, fair point,” agreed Phyllis. “Wojan, dear Godbrother, I take it you know young Lord Zdziarski?”

“Unfortunately,” said Wojciech. “But he may have improved with keeping. I take exception to brats who tell their men to shoot my –at the time – pregnant wife as well as shooting me because I wouldn’t let him interrupt a rescue mission of some of my dependents.”

Phyllis peered at Cyprian Zdziarski.

“His head is still attached, and he shows no signs of having met Hellish Polish Quarte going the wrong way,” she said.

“I was busy,” shrugged Wojciech, “and pre-occupied. And then his father arrived and asked nicely for his life. I suggested thrashing him.  Did it do any good, and are you civilised enough for a szlachcic to speak to now, boy?” he asked Zdziarski.

“I ... I ... you will meet me for that!” squealed Zdziarski.

His father groaned.

The dark, saturnine man, with the scarred face, standing near him, grinned.

“Have you any other sons, Lord Zdziarski?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“Married?”

“Widowed.”

“If I was you, I’d look for a bride to breed an heir,” said Władysław Sokołowski. “Your whelp just irritated the third best swordsman in Poland.”

“And you’re the best ...”

“No, my wife’s the best. I stand between her and Wojciech since losing an arm. And Wojciech is a force of nature.”

“What the devil can I do?”

“Well as he’s in a good mood, he may just play with the boy and humiliate him. If I was you, I’d send him to school for a year to curb his manners.”

“Yes, I think I will.” He considered. “I might just send him to school in Lapland and hope he doesn’t irritate the reindeer.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it,” said Władysław.

 

 

[Wojciech sees the king and finds out he's to go to England as a personal envoy to George III]

 

 

 

 

Zdziarski fils was not a morning person. However, he turned up on time on the river bank at the time-honoured duelling ground. He was clad in plain dark morning clothes, and took off his jacket and waistcoat, handing them to a servant.  Wojciech shucked his kontusz and żupan, passing them to Irene.

“You bring your wife to a duel?” said Zdziarski.

“She’s my second,” said Wojciech.

Wojciech had already decided to do what Irenka had done to a loudmouth, and proceeded to use his sabre, twice the size of the boy’s weapon, with the delicate touch of an artist with a paintbrush. Cyprian Zdziarski fought with all he could manage, and was sobbing in frustration at his failure to even mark the damned red hussar. He sniffed hard on tears of anger and resentment and shook his head, and then noticed that red drops flew off when he did so. Holding his karabela at long guard he raised a hand to his face. He looked disbelievingly at his fingers; and then touched another part. He looked down and saw his shirt cut at chest and belly, and his smallclothes across the thigh. The cuts were perfectly straight.

“I apologise, my lord,” he said stiffly.

“Well, lad,  you’re not so stupid you can figure out when you are outclassed,” said Wojciech. “Try to learn to curb that temper of yours, and you’ll have a better chance to grow up, and to become a decent man. You’ve been spoilt, which isn’t entirely your fault, but it is up to you to do something about it.”

“I ... yes, my lord,” said Zdziarski.

 

[need to decide whether to send Wojciech by sea from Gdansk or overland, and a few adventures on the way, arrive and seek Irenka's grandparents first, spitting a highwayman on the way there, which guarantees Wojciech of being talked about in London. See the king, highwayman's friends try to kill him, fat chance of that, maybe meet Edmund? Phyllis' brother. Could bring him to Poland.]