Dance of suspicion, working title, novella

 this was an idea which occurred to me, so I let the words flow. It'll need something more to go with it as it's only half a novel, but I can worry about that later.  Maybe I'll send my protagonists to help out Eugeniusz where he has become starosta when Wladyslaw had a cat over the starosta's mismanagement. Uh, this is in the LWH Dance universe, following dancing about with bears and other ursines. 

And this one has formatted itself. Why? 

Chapter 1

 

“Captain Skrzetuski assures me that you are capable of acting the peasant and are willing to do so if the work is interesting enough,” said Starosta Młocki to Quartermaster Jaracz Rzędzian.

“My stupid bucolic act is fairly famous, said Rzędzian, modestly. “And my poczet didn’t seem to think it too risible. Though I’m not sure how long I could fool other peasants. Taking in szlachta is easy enough to explain why there are so many folk takes which involve a clever peasant fooling the wicked lord.”

“I fear that many of our estate have sufficiently closed minds that it induces shutters also on the perceptions,” agreed Młocki, dryly. “I need you to become a groom in the household of a szlachcic. Can you do that?”

“For sure, my lord; the horses at least will tell me no lies and speak more wisdom than many men.”

“You are a cynic.”

“It’s why you want me in police work. What’s this fellow done?”

“If I knew that, I could use more conventional forms of surveillance. I can’t even be sure that he has done anything.  But when a man bearing the name of a convicted traitor goes out of his way to avoid conversation at social gatherings with both starosta and substarosta, one has to be... wary. And I want him watched by another szlachcic rather than set constables to watch him; a matter of etiquette. And our trainees are becoming well-known. If he has done nothing untoward, I want to be able to brush off the watching without prejudice, as you might say; and so I need a stranger.”

“I see,” said Rzędzian. “And you want me, because I am capable of using my initiative and acting independently, but you can also deny me if I do anything which causes offence.”

“More or less,” said Młocki. “You have a good career in the army, so it won’t cause you any problems if I have to fire you as acting under substarosta.”

“I can live with that, and happy to have the leeway,” said Rzędzian. “So, tell me all about this suspicious szlachcic.”

“Michał Wronowski is around forty. He owns a couple of small villages or one large sprawling village in two halves, depending on which way you look at it. Stary Mostów is where his dwór is situated, but a new bridge was built and gave rise to Nowy Mostów, which is the larger of the two villages. It boasts an inn rather than an ale-house, and the new bridge is associated with a weir, which runs a saw-mill. There’s also a windmill for grain.”

“A prosperous little lot,” said Rzędzian. “A man would be ambitious, restless, or plain greedy to risk such a nice little holding for any other games of treason or smuggling or whatever.”

“Yes, and as he seems to live quietly, beyond bringing his daughter into society now she is old enough to be ‘out’, I feel almost ashamed of my suspicions,” sighed Młocki.

“Well, I will look, and it is a matter of doing so as a favour, not an official investigation,” said Rzędzian. “Daughter? Only child? Is she much spoilt?”

“Not as far as I can see, she seems a nice child, not like the Syruciównie I’ve met,” said Młocki. “Though I understand at least one of them is getting herself sorted out.  Her name is Kordula, and she’s been out for around a year, but does not seem to have formed any tendre for any young man.  The nearest neighbour has a son a year or so younger than her, who is thinking of joining the Ulans, one Marcin Prusinowski, a younger brother to...”

“Stefan Prusinowski, the late Stefan Prusinowski, who lost his life playing a stupid prank,” filled in Rzędzian. “Well, if he does join up, he’ll be under strict surveillance from Jeremi, Captain Skrzetuski, that is, in case he’s as stupid as his brother.  I won’t mind a chance to look him over, too.”

“Well, I dare say you will have the opportunity. There’s a sister between the two boys, Agata, who is a confidante of Kordula, I believe. I believe that the older Prusinowski is dithering about letting his son go in to the military, having lost one son, and having a quiverful of girls younger than Marcin, and the youngest boy not out of leading strings. He’d rather the boy courted Kordula, to increase their lands, I suspect. The only other local szlachta are szlachetka.”

“And doubtless any young man of that kind hopeful to gain lands,” said Rzędzian. “I don’t think I’d get any closer to the family claiming to be a suitor than by posing as a groom, moreover, if I don’t like the wench, I shan’t have to pretend to be smitten.”

“No, indeed,” said Młocki.

“Well, I might as well retain my own name; it doesn’t scream nobility,” said Rzędzian. “I don’t guarantee anything, but I’ll do my best.”

“I can’t ask any more than that,” said Młocki.

 

***

 

Kordula Wronowska reflected that the new groom was more obliging than the former chief groom. He was also more decorative when riding out, and did not exude an air of distinct disapproval over females not being kept in a box to be brought out for church on Sunday. Janoczek had sat with his arms folded properly when she drove herself but with an air of outrage that she should be doing what he saw as his job, and doing it well enough not to justify his deep disapproval by overturning the gig into a ditch. He was not inclined to help her into the saddle either, and had always grunted that the mounting block was just outside.

The new man, Rzędzian, was much younger than Janoczek, a well-built, even burly figure, who looked shorter than he was for the width of his shoulders. His waist, however, was relatively slender, and he looked like the painting of Mars on the ceiling of her father’s study, with a thatch of golden curls above a clean-shaven face. Seemingly guileless blue eyes gazed on the world, giving him the look of a simpleton, but those same eyes were chips of ice where he noted that some of the stable hands had neglected their duty, which boded ill for someone.

“They say you were a military man, thrown out for stealing,” ventured Kordula, as he fettled her horse for her. “But I cannot see my father tolerating a thief in his employ, so were you falsely accused?”

“Well, now, my lady, it’s this road,” said Rzędzian, who had told the same story to Lord Wronowski to cover his military bearing. The man had been happy to accept it, having lost his former chief groom to being bribed into the service of another. “It’s by way of having an excess of loyalty, as you might say, to my quartermaster. See, he’s a man to whom you might say I have a tenuous familial connection.”

“That’s a roundabout way of suggesting that you are his unacknowledged son or brother, on the wrong side of the blanket,” said Kordula.

“I rather liked it as a way of putting things myself; such a nebulous descriptor,” said Rzędzian. “And you might very well put it that way; I couldn’t possibly comment.  Suffice it to say, that you won’t find many quartermasters ready to concede that stealing from the king, through creative book-work, really constitutes theft as such, but the army even so takes a dim view of such... redistribution of materiel. In short, I took the blame for the depredations, and my  quartermaster reprimanded for covering up the peculations of a dependent. So here I am, promised a pension, but in the meantime, needing to make my own way.”

“You’re a bit of a rogue, in other words, but loyal,” said Kordula. “You have a very wide vocabulary for a groom.”

“I like to better myself. The infantry would have it that a cavalry man can only add up to four, being the number of legs of his horse; we contend that we can manage six, for being our own legs too, and eight for the captain who also counts his magnificent fox-coloured moustaches. He also fires vocabulary in barrages, and a wise man surrounds himself with the armour of lexicology,” said Rzędzian.

“You are droll,” said Kordula. “It is certainly a change from the dour air of disobliging discouragement which were common to Jan Janoczek.”

“I’m naturally happy,” said Rzędzian. “Do you need aid to mount, my lady?”

“If you would be so good,” said Kordula. “Janoczek made me use the block.”

“If he’s as dour as he sounds, he was probably afraid that touching a lady’s foot would bring too much pleasure to him, and rock his world with sinful delight,” said Rzędzian.

“Possibly true, but you are not supposed to admit to any pleasure,” said Kordula.

“I shall keep it to confess to the priest so I have a sin for Sunday,” said Rzędzian, gravely, tossing her up. “You go up lightly enough, I am surprised you need help.”

“I have never been taught or expected to mount alone,” said Kordula. “Oh my!” as Rzędzian sprang into his saddle in the light leap which was the Ulan way. “And I would not know how to start to do that.”

“I could teach you, lady, so long as you trusted me to catch you if you fell,” said Rzędzian. “But it would help if you did a week of Cossack bends beforehand, to strengthen your legs and make them more supple.”

“If you will show me how, I will do so,” said Kordula.

They rode out into the autumnal air, and Kordula happily breathed in the rich smell of the turned earth.

“Did you wish to ride anywhere in particular, lady?” asked Rzędzian.

“No, just out and about. Do you get jumpy if I leap over hedges, or go by the old bridge and leap the hole in the middle of it?”

“So long as the structure is firm enough where you take off and land,” said Rzędzian. “And I have to rely on you to tell me that, without surveying it myself. You are the resident, and I am a stranger here.”

“Would you stop me if it were dangerous?”

“Certainly; escorting you is worth a good third of my pay, and if you broke your neck, I’d be out of pocket,” said Rzędzian.

“What, not a desire to save a pretty szlachcianka?” Kordula pouted.

Rzędzian laughed.

“Don’t overdo that one, it went beyond pretty affront and into trout,” he said. “Oh, a desire to save a pretty girl is always at the heart of any Ulan’s thoughts.”

“You were mercenary to take the wind out of my sails,” said Kordula.

“Yes,” said Rzędzian.

“You are too familiar,” said Kordula, sternly.

“Do you prefer dour disapproval?”

“No.”

 

She had a good seat and rode well, and took the obstacles she jumped with skill and grace. She seemed surprised and gratified that Rzędzian was able to keep up with her, and jumped with an ease she had not expected in so big a man. She was light in the saddle, being slightly built, with soft dark hair contrasting with a pale complexion so that she looked delicate, like a piece of thistledown which might almost be expected to be blown right off her horse’s back. This was enhanced by her puce redingote, a colour few could wear well, but which suited her well. The waistcoat under it was a lighter rose colour, and the skirt the same colour as the jacket. The colour was so dark it appeared black in some lights, but where the light caught it, it was undoubtedly that fashionable colour so disastrous to so many complexions. Rzędzian admired the boldness of wearing it so dark. It was almost the colour of the leaves of the copper beech, which stood as a dark counterpoint to the bright yellows and tans of the autumn foliage.

He rode over the old bridge ahead of her, making the jump with ease, and swung backwards in his saddle to watch her accomplish it. Her gasp of amazement almost saw her fumble the leap, but she made it.

“And that was my fault for startling you with Ulan tricks, I am sorry, lady,” said Rzędzian.

She looked surprised.

“Why, thank you for that acknowledgement. I should not have let it surprise me,” she said.

Rzędzian laughed and swung back the other way.

“I may not do the Cossack death drag, but I can handle most of the tricks,” he said. “You need Cossack dancing for most of them.”

“I think I need to learn.”

“Your father might not be best pleased... well, I will be working out most mornings and if you choose to copy me, I can’t be held responsible for that, now, can I?” said Rzędzian.

“Casuistry,” said Kordula.

“And haven’t I trained at Raven’s Knoll, to learn casuistry along with tackling The Wall?” said Rzędzian.

“The Wall?”

“Why, the White Ravens have a hill with eight faces, each one different to practice different skills. The Wall is a sheer cliff. And not for taking any horse up,” he added.

“It seems a shame that you should have had to take the blame for your relative. It’s plain that you love and miss the life of a soldier,” said Kordula.

“I do, but perhaps they’ll let me join up again one day, when they’ve recovered from the Rooster... the former captain. A man who crowed a lot and thought he laid golden eggs,” Rzędzian explained. “He caused us a lot of trouble, but my current... well, that’s former most recent captain devised a way to show him up. It was... unpleasant,” he added. “And a long story, which involves me borrowing a herd of cows with pennants on their horns to fool some gullible fellows into thinking that the winged hussars had arrived. How they scattered!” he grinned in remembering the rout at the ford.

“You are a rogue,” said Kordula, severely.

“Aye, lady, but I have my bad points as well,” said Rzędzian. “Why, we are back. When you have rubbed down your horse I will show you the Cossack squats to practise.”

“The other hands....”

“The other hands have taken advantage of me being busy to go see a cockfight at the ale house. So, I shall show you the moves after our horses are fed and watered, and then I will go down to the Cockspur Inn, and take some exercise tanning the jackets of my lazy underlings. I gave them due warning, after all.”

His eyes were chips of flint, and Kordula was glad she was not in his bad books, even if she could, in theory, order him punished.

“I do not think they disobeyed Janoczek,” she said.

“No, but they do not yet know me,” said Rzędzian.