korybut spinoff 3 cliffie bonus

 

Chapter 3

 

It amazed Janina how easily Dąbek gave in to these bully-boys. Surely he could ask a group of regulars to stay over, and beat them to a pulp?  He seemed unable to make decisions.

Janina forgot that she had been being trained for the last ten years to be a warrior, and not just a warrior, but a leader of warriors, learning purely by association with her husband and his friends, and her friends, who all went to war with their husbands as a matter of course. She did not like the odds of facing four men, even those who would be considered a soft target by most Cossacks for being overweight, and used only to terrorising peasants.

And she heard a sound in the kitchen, and suppressed a wimper of fear as she realised that Lezek had sent some of his men to come in the back as well.

If he had sent them all, she had very little hope of surviving.

“Oh, Onufry!” she whispered. “I will die well, I won’t let you down. Queen of Poland, be with a mother this day.”

She was angry, however. Angry that Dąbek let them walk all over him; angry that nobody had reported these terrors within the very city walls, angry that such men existed, and angry that she would be selling her life dearly for a fight which should never have happened, against a foe which should never have existed.

 

 

oOoOo

 

Onufry Zagłoba missed his wife. Even a day without her was a day which seemed dull and wasted. The little birds sang their hearts out as they built their nests in the bright spring sunshine, and Zagłoba thought of one or two borderline smutty comments he would have liked to have made to Janina regarding nests and springtime urges. It had been a long, severe winter, so although Easter had been late, Spring was still catching up with the long snows. Zagłoba and Janina had enjoyed sleigh rides through the long winter, but had also driven them out to see if any peasants wanted for anything, carrying sacks of oats and vegetables for far-flung villages, away from any canal or highway.

Zagłoba was as restless as any bird in spring, and slipped along the river path to sneak into the back of the inn, and surprise Janina in the kitchen, and perhaps steal a kiss or two. He apostrophised himself as a fool, his heart beating with excitement at the thought, as if he was a teen-aged lad hoping to surprise a girl he admired at the washing, her shift wet and transparent.

He hurried.

And frowned to see four very disreputable men slip into the kitchen door of the inn.

Janina was in danger! He speeded his steps to be running, silently, on his toes, loosening his sabre from its sheath.

 

oOoOo

 

Janina waited for the door into the inn from the kitchen to open; she would have time to take down a couple of men, perhaps, before Lezek reached, opened, and entered the front door of the inn. She took a knife in her right hand, the cleaver in her left. Tumbling underhand, it was easier to throw, so she chose to keep that in her off hand.

And the door burst open, and they came in, daggers in hand. The knife left her hand, and then the cleaver, and then she had the arapnik in her hand, ready for the chief brigand as he came in the front door, and to make sure that she cracked the iron hard on his head.

Her aim was not entirely true; the weapon was not as finely balanced as a properly made bullhide bolus arapnik. Nevertheless, the brigand chief went down, caught on the jaw, and his three aides were bursting through the door behind him.

And two more men were behind the two she had taken down as they came from the kitchen.

But suddenly, they were crumpling, as their heads briefly seemed to float whilst their bodies crumpled.

And there was her husband, sabre out.

“Oh, Onufry!” Janina almost wept.

Zagłoba stalked forward like a predator. Many discounted him as a fat old man; his barrel chest made him look fat in clothes, even though he had shed the excess weight he had once carried.  Janina moved out of her cover to put her back to his; one at least of the first pair was not dead, her knife having embedded in his upper arm, though the cleaver had done its vicious work in opening up the belly of the other.

Zagłoba was whirling death. The three men with Lezek died before they had a chance to register that the fat old man was every inch, around or up and down, a warrior, a szlachcic trained to kill from the moment he was old enough to hold a sword. One lost his head and the next sat down with a gasp to bleed out as the follow-up blow from moulinet split open his belly. The third tried to slip out of the door, and Zagłoba kicked his legs out from under him, spitting him as he fell.

The one who was not dead made a body charge in despair, his dagger parrying Janina’s blade, and Zagłoba swayed out of the way, and somehow the man was flying out through the window, glass, frame and all.

“Nice little fight,” said Zagłoba, kicking Lezek into unconsciousness as the man tried to move. “Care to tell me what it was about?”

“One-eye is the leader,” said Janina. “Oh, Onufry! I prayed for courage and for Mother of God to be with me, but it was uncommonly good of her to send you as well!”

“Hush, little girl, you’re babbling,” said Zagłoba.  “Let me tie up your fellow... washing line? Splendid. An iron as a weight? Excellent improvisation. What a good wife you are,  but I want to know why, when I came to steal kisses I find unexpected entertainment instead.”

Janina gave a sound which was halfway between a laugh and a sob, and explained it all.

Zagłoba frowned.

“That means that someone in the watch is being paid off,” he said. “Or remarkably lax. I will find out, as you have been good enough to capture the leader.”

 

Dąbek came in the door cautiously at this point, blanching at what he had to step over.

“Ah, ale-draper,” said Zagłoba. “I’ll soon get the mess sorted out, so you can be open as usual. Or maybe,” he indicated the broken window, “a little more open than usual.”

Dąbek crossed himself.

“Dear God, you killed them all?” he gasped.

“Hardly worth working up a sweat over,” said Zagłoba. “Nice little bit of fun; they were trying to menace your cook. I fancy she’s a Cossack, though; she accounted for three of them.

“You... you killed more of them?” Dąbek regarded Janina with horrified fascination.

“I did tell you I was a Cossack,” said Janina. “Perchance you did not take me seriously. But I was glad of my lord’s intervention. I would have been hard pressed against eight. That means two left in the gang,” she said.

“Not for long,” said Zagłoba. “Here, you!” he turned to Dąbek, “Run to the palace and ask for Lord Jan Skrzetuski; he’s a colonel.”

“He went to warn them that I had killed the two who had come to demand money,” said Janina.

“You did what?” Zagłoba’s voice hissed in velvet menace.

“I... I wanted to beg pardon for his men being harmed and offer to pay more!” whimpered Dąbek. “That wench would bring trouble on my roof, killing hard men who do not forgive!”

“I am much less forgiving than a bunch of hopeless bandits,” said Zagłoba. “You shall be impaled as one of their number!”

“Please my lord, I did not know they would come in numbers to kill her! I only wanted to pay a blood price for them, to keep them from taking retribution!”

Zagłoba regarded him levelly.

It would inconvenience the plan to spy on Zabiełło if the man were arrested.

“You’re a poltroon,” he said, in disgust.

“Please, my lord, I’ll go to the colonel as you order,” said Dąbek, sweating.

Zagłoba considered.

Now the bandits were almost all dead, the wretch would do as the strongest man around ordered; and that was Zagłoba.

“Very well; I will accept that you are a weak fool more than a crook. Go to Colonel Skrzetuski. Tell him what happened, and tell him to bring some men to sort things out. I’ll stay here in case the other two turn up. Well run man!”

Dąbek cast Zagłoba a look of dislike and set off at a trot.

He dared not disobey the szlachcic, and his reasons for not disobeying lay dismembered on his inn floor.

 

oOoOo

 

Jan Skrzetuski and a dozen men came to sort out bodies and bear away the wounded but living Lezek.  Zagłoba was drinking mead – he was not paying for it – and filled Jan in on what he suspected the innkeeper had not said.

“He should be hanged,” said Jan.

Zagłoba shrugged.

“For cowardice? It seems harsh, he’s only a peasant.”

Jan caught his eye, horrified, and read that his old friend had his reasons.

“Will you come and question this filth?” he asked.

“Oh, hell, yes,” said Zagłoba, who was not averse to enacting judicial torture on a man who had taken seven armed men against his beloved.

 

oOoOo

 

Lezek fell apart in the first throes of capture shock, damaged by a mere wench, and then that... fiend!  He had never faced a trained warrior before and he mumbled his confession through a broken jaw and cheekbone, implicating all of those he was paying off.

Arrests were rapid, and justice swift.

By the time Janina was telling the story for the fourth time of the magnificent hussar who had come to her aid, the bodies of a dozen members of the watch had been hoisted onto poles along the waterfront, along with Lezek and the two of his associates unfortunate enough not to have gone with him to meet a swift death at the hands of Janina or Zagłoba.

Their crimes were proclaimed; they were named traitors. Traitors against the people, for they had betrayed their positions of trust to serve and protect the people, and therefore were the worst of sinners, since there was no crime worse than betraying a sacred trust.

It would be a long time before any watchman in Warszawa took a bribe of any amount from anyone for anything.

Good King Remi, the people’s king, was easy-going, listened to  his people, and provided regular feasts. He forgave those who made genuine mistakes, like the man who had tried to kill him, believing that the king would make those in the more recently acquired territories of the Rzeczpospolita change their religion. That man was now a part of the king’s own bodyguard, and proud to be so.

But the king never forgave those who had sinned against his people, and his retribution was swift, and harsh.

Some said he could be cruel; others pointed out that there had been fewer executions under his reign than under almost any other king. It was just that when he did execute, he tended to make it one of the more extreme forms.

Thus the talk went around in the inn, as Janina served people.

And then Dawid Zabiełło came in with a few of his friends.

“Full, tonight,” he said.

“People marvelling over our excitement, my lord,” said Janina.

“You’re new, aren’t you?” asked Zabiełło.

“Yes, my lord.  I needed the job.”

“Well, bring us mead, and send Kuba to tell me why the window is broken and what your excitement is, and if it had anything to do with that murdering bastard having all those men impaled.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Janina.

Kuba Dąbek could be relied on to play down her part in the killing of bandits; by the time the evening was over, he would have been rescuing her from them, and killed them, and went running for aid, and fell in with a szlachcic. He would not advertise to anyone that he was scared of Janina.

It worked very well in their favour.

It also worked well that Zabiełło would not be likely to be discussing any plans when the place was so crowded, but now he had seen the new barmaid, he would likely forget her. And so she might overhear when he and his friends were alone in the bar.

No, the banditry had not spoiled things. 

Other than what might have been a nice time having Onufry steal kisses, and give her his roguish look as he murmured about how unruly his hands were as he let them wander up her bare legs, or down from caresses on  her face and neck.

Janina was very put out with the bandits, and had every sympathy with Prince Jurij for complaining how duties ate into Jurij’s shagging time.