Omake #10

 this is the last one I have written, but  I might just write up Jeremi's and Jurij's litst of rules for future Korybut kings. This one is more by way of being a missing scene than a subsequent event

Omake 10

IMO this is where the rot set in, in real life, with the Frenchification of court life under Maria Ludwika.

 

Janina laughed out in mirth at some joke, and Onufry Zagłoba smiled indulgently that she now felt sufficiently relaxed at court to do so.

A bewigged and lace-bedecked flunky of nominal szlachta status, dressed in the western fashion with his waist under his armpits, came up to Zagłoba.

“Pan Zagłoba, you should restrain your wife from laughing in such a vulgar manner,” he said.

“The fuck I will!” said Zagłoba. “Who the hell do you think you are to speak about my wife in such a manner?”

“Sir, I am the Master of Ceremonies, an arbiter of etiquette, and it is my job to give little hints....”

“Jurij! Helena! Come here!” Zagłoba bellowed across the room.

“Pan Zagłoba! You cannot refer to Prince Jurij and the Princess without an honorific....”

“I can and I shall and if he objects, you can censure my headless corpse,” snarled Zagłoba.

“Onufry? What is it?” asked Helena.

“Helena, my sweet, a new joke for you,” said Zagłoba, his eyes glittering. “How do you tell a shovel-master from a Moskal?”

“I’m going to groan, aren’t I?” said Helena. “Go on, how do you tell a shovel-master from a Moskal?”

“One knows his pick and the other picks his nose,” said Zagłoba.

Helena groaned and laughed.

Zagłoba turned on the Master of Ceremonies.

“And are you now going to call Prince Jurij to book for letting his wife laugh out loud instead of the inane false titters some of these damn women seem to make?” he demanded.

“He’d better bloody well not,” said Jurko. “All the blood would irritate the ladies.”

“My prince... I... what a princess does is.... but Lord Zagłoba’s wife....”

“If you’ve been intimidating Janina, you can duel me, as you’re only a half-woman yourself,” said Helena. “What the devil do you mean by it?”

“And since when was it a crime to laugh?” demanded Jurko.

“It is not seemly for nobles to show any excess of emotion.... in France it is considered....”

“If you like the manners of France, you can piss off to France,” snarled Jurko. “We are Sarmatians! We enjoy ourselves fully, and we do not need to hold back for some milksop pisswater French flunkey’s concept of nobility born from the jealous urges of the French whose dicks are made of silk and are as good at pleasuring their women as a half-formed cucumber wilted in the heat, because they have abandoned God for politics and the devil sits in there arseholes, sewing them tight, and laughing at them.”

“No, Jurij, lad, tell us what you really think,” sniggered Zagłoba.

“It is my job to keep etiquette!” wailed the flunkey.

“Not any more; you’re fired,” said Jurko. “What an idea! Now, I grant you, some things are not done... mounting a lance charge in a ballroom would be inappropriate, especially against my father.”

“No, it might break your mirrors, which would be bad for any of those charging,” said Helena.  “They should only charge Papa Jeremi outside, and after having declared Rokosz or it would be poor etiquette.”

Jurko glared at the hapless erstwhile Master of Ceremonies.

“Now,” he said softly, “Your so-called etiquette has caused you to be rude to my dear friend Onufry, and to be devilish rude about his wife, a lady under my protection as one of the ladies to my stepmother, the queen. What is your... etiquette... in the situation where a man is infernally insulted by the rudeness of an underling to a lady who outranks the one who offends? I can’t duel a worm like you. Should I thrash you, or should I impale you?”

“I did not mean to give offence! The former queen, Ludwika Maria, was keen that the manners of France....”

“Fuck off to France, little man, and do not let me see you ever again,” said Jurko.

“Ah, the joys of friends in high places,” said Zagłoba. “A masterful set-down, Jurij.”

“I... did I use my position too much?” said Jurko, startled. “I said what came into my head.”

“And the beauty of it is, he’d have said the same when he was just a captain of Cossacks,” said Helena.

“And your position is there to be used, my boy, and to deal with irritants like that,” said Zagłoba. “As you said, we are Sarmatians, not the mincing fools of the west.”