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.

 

Korybut: an as yet unnamed tale.

 this started of as a 3-5k word omake and ended up as a novel. I was going to start it tomorrow now I wrapped it, but I thought, hey, it's Sunday... 

In which Janina and Onufry discover a treacherous plot which turns out to have a little bit of French in it, and in which foreign policy involves looting  a treaty bride and a little bit of assassination.

Chapter 1 spring 1658

 

Janina Zagłoba sat herself down on her husband’s knee.        

“Onufry, my dear lord, I overheard Prince Jurij talking to you about a man he mistrusts,” she said.

“I don’t suppose he’d mind if you dropped the ‘Prince’, my dear,” said Zagłoba. “We’ve been married ten years, and you call Helena by name.”

“He makes me a little nervous; he’s so very... well, very,” said Janina.

Zagłoba laughed.

“An intense young man, certainly, who puts his whole self into all that he does,” he agreed. “As to the man he distrusts, yes, a Dawid Zabiełło, who is ambitious and seems sly. He looks around with a calculating look.”

“Well, doesn’t he frequent an inn called ‘Jerusalem’?” asked Janina. “I heard that mentioned.”

“He does; but if anyone went in there for us as customers, I doubt he’d talk freely in front of any stranger, even if it was someone he didn’t know by sight.”

“But I expect he talks in front of bar wenches,” said Janina.

“Of course; they don’t know Latin, which is the province of the noble class.”

“Onufry, I know Latin. You taught me yourself so nobody should look down on me when you married me. And I have not forgotten how to be a bar wench, as I was in my father’s tavern before,” said Janina. “I am sure I could get a job there, especially if one of the other servers received a sudden legacy. Pr... Jurij could arrange that, surely? And I would present a sob story of needing somewhere to go, being a young widow, who is with child. I look younger than most peasant women my age, or I’d take Basia to add verisimilitude to the story. She’s quick, and clever. Janek can’t act to save his life, bless him.”

Basia was Zagłoba’s love-child, and Janina’s step-daughter, and at ten years old more interested in swordplay than embroidery, something which did not trouble Janina. She would be capable of playing a part! Janek was Janina’s oldest son, not quite a year younger than his half-sister. Naturally, Nufcio, at six, and Halcia at three were too young.

Zagłoba surveyed his wife, critically. She was almost thirty, but she was right, she looked like a young matron of the class in which she lived, a szlachcianka. A peasant woman of thirty was careworn already. Janina could pass as a young widow of two- or three-and-twenty quite easily. Janina took care of herself, joined in the sabre-drill with her husband, and had rapidly regained her figure after every birth.

Finding objectivity difficult, Zagłoba kissed his beloved wife. This led to a distraction, and it was a long time later that he lay with his arms around her, spooning against her back, considering her suggestion.

“It’s bold,” he said. “Your suggestion. I think Basia is too cheeky to carry off being a peasant girl, though. She would lose her temper and tell off a szlachcic for spilling wine, or being drunk, and then she’s likely to be beheaded. It isn’t legal, but it happens. Especially amongst those like young Zabiełło whose consideration for his golden rights exceeds his less than golden abilities. But nobody can ask you to take such a risk....” his arms tightened.

“I’m volunteering, Onufry. Because if we can find out enough to usurp his plans before they get going, we could save lives, if he truly is looking to start some kind of coup. It’s my duty to the Rzeczpospolita to use such skills as I have, and to use what I learned before you came into my life, and made me the happiest woman alive.”

Onufry Zagłoba still wondered why this wonderful, beautiful woman loved him, and had done so when he had been eating and drinking himself to death out of loneliness. He was almost thirty years older than she was, although now he was as fit and had as taut muscles as any Cossack, and looked, if truth were told, younger than he had done when first he married Janina. He nuzzled her neck, and she giggled as his moustache, a thing of magnificence, tickled her.

“Janina, you are more noble than many a szlachcianka to suggest it,” he said. “I adore you.”

“Would my lord like to prove how much he adores me, again?” asked Janina, turning towards him.

He kissed her hungrily.

“Oh, my lovely wife,” he said. “I still marvel that you married me, and that you love me, and desire me. Not that I’m complaining.”

“You talk too much,” said Janina, kissing him.

 

oOoOo

 

“Mama, can I help you spy?” asked Basia, standing on one leg, and poking at her boot top with the raised toe.

“Honeycake, if a szlachcic calls me ‘wench’ and handles me familiarly, will you be able to refrain from calling him all the rude names Jaromka Wiśniowiecki teaches you, and slapping his face?” said Janina.

Basia nibbled her plait.

“He’d deserve it,” she said.

“For sure, and what do you think he’d do to a peasant girl who acted like that?”

Basia scowled.

“I get it,” she said. “My temper is too hot. I’m going to go and beat Jaromka at chess and then fight him, so I don’t cry.”

“Good girl,” said Janina.

“Why do you have to do it, Mama?” asked Janek. “Won’t it be dangerous?”

“Someone has to do it, son,” said Janina. “And I know how. You know that Mama was a serving girl before meeting Papa; I’ve never hidden it, and Grandpapa now has his little retirement cottage.”

Janek sighed.

“I suppose you have to do your duty,” he said. “I wish you didn’t have to.”

“I wish there were not ambitious and wicked men to make me have to take this duty,” said Janina. “But there are, and so I do what I can, and what I must.”

 

Zagłoba looked Janina over.        

Barefoot, and in a kirtle kilted up to mid calf, her neckline low and displaying her shapely bosom,  which was pushed up by the bodice she wore, her hair bundled into a shawl, she looked every inch a bar wench.

“I may have to strip you to the skin to check all is correct,” he said.

Janina’s breath came fast.

“If you delay me too much I may lose my nerve,” she said. “And the innkeeper must not smell sex on me, so no, no quickie across your lap either.”

“It’s going to be very hard,” said Zagłoba, plaintively.

“Then come in when Zabiełło is elsewhere and flirt with me,” said Janina. “I can report while you are mussing me....”

He growled.

“So I can,” he said. “Go, wench, before I throw you over my shoulder and have my wicked way with you.”

 

He took himself to the palace as Janina made her way to the inn, and soon managed to speak to Jurij Korybut Wiśniowiecki Bohun, the king’s oldest son.

“We have a spy on Zabiełło,” said Zagłoba, without beating about the bush.

“We do?” said Jurko.

“We do; Janina has gone for a job in the inn he frequents, I bribed one of the other servers by having him inherit a lease to an inn, on my lands, and a decent legacy. Janina is posing as a young widow, looking for a job as a bar wench.” He paused, eyes shut, stroking his moustache in contemplation of her low-cut gown and the lacing pushing up her pert bosom. “And what a disguise,” he added.

“Well, I salute your sense of duty,” said Jurko, laughing. “I’m not sure I’d give up Helena in such an imposture; I hate losing any of Jurij’s shagging time, and my perfect and irresistible Cossack body needs frequent exercise.”

“I am unspeakably brave,” sighed Zagłoba.

Neither mentioned how brave Janina was. If her imposture was discovered, she would suffer greatly. And neither wished to think too much about that.

There would be discreet guards about the inn, but they must needs be distant and discreet, and unsuspected. Essentially, she was on her own.

 

 

oOoOo

 

“Someone mentioned you had a vacancy for a serving girl,” said Janina to the innkeeper in the Jerusalem Inn.

He was middle aged; about the age Zagłoba had been when she had first known him. As her husband had been then, he was running to fat, and had the reddish nose of a man who sampled his own wine. Here the resemblance stopped.  Where Onufry Zagłoba’s eyes had crinkled in myriad wrinkles of laughter and good nature, the lines forming on the innkeeper’s face were those of bad temper. Janina could imagine him being a violent drunk, where her Onufry had merely sung more and more off key, telling more and more lurid jokes, until he passed out. She had shaved Onufry’s privy hair when he broke a promise and got drunk when she had asked him not to; and he had worked hard to change for her. This man would likely beat any woman who did that.

He grunted, leering at her breasts.

“I was looking for a serving man, but I suppose you’ll do,” he said. “Three grosze a week, your keep, and somewhere to sleep.”

“That’s robbery,” said Janina.

“Take it or leave it; it’s what’s on offer,” said the innkeeper. “I’m Kuba Dąbek, and you can either have a blanket on the hearth, or you can share my bed.”

“I’ll take the blanket on the hearth, thank you,” said Janina, with dignity. “My poor Jan! I miss him too much to think of moving on.” She sniffed hard, and managed to summon a couple of tears by thinking that she might well have been a widow by now, had her Onufry continued eating and drinking too much. Strictly, his name was Jan Onufry, which is why she chose ‘Jan’ as a name for her dead fictitious husband.

“Well, when you get tired of sleeping in the cinders, my room is over the bar,” said Dąbek, leering again. “A waste for a young woman like you to be celibate.”

“If I look for companionship again, it won’t be to become someone’s free skivvy,” said Janina, with spirit.

“Hoity-toity, ain’t you? You could do a lot worse, you know.”

“And I could do a lot better. I want a job, and even the pittance you are paying is better than nothing.”

“You don’t have to take it.”

Janina sighed.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “And you know it or you would not have made the offer. A young widow, pregnant with a posthumous child, is in no position to turn down anything, and I saw you look for how pregnant I am, to see how long you could exploit me.”

“You’re free with fancy words like ‘exploit.’

“My Jan’s inn was on the highway, and the toffs like to use fancy words to drive home how we don’t know all the words in our own language, never mind their Latin,” said Janina. “You pick some up. But when I was visiting my sister, who’s in service, some bastard managed to burn the inn down, and my Jan in it.”

“Fire’s always a risk,” muttered Dąbek, crossing himself. “Another reason for you to sleep by the fire, to keep an eye on any drunkards messing about.”

“Not without another grosz per week to do so,” said Janina. “Otherwise, I’ll save myself, and not bother about you.”

“You virago! Very well,” he said, grudgingly.

 

Janina sighed in relief. She had her feet, so to speak, under the table. She had spoken blithely about spying on Zabiełło, but one should not divide  the bearskin until the bear is dead, and this was the first step. Now she must reacquaint herself with serving in the bar, and doubtless helping to cook meals as well, which she was out of practice doing, though she cooked when they were on campaign. Things had been fairly peaceful since the defeat of the Moskale and the Ottomans a couple of years back, but they still went on trainings with Prince Jurij’s ‘shovelmasters’ who were adding to the road and canal network across the Rzeczpospolita. Her sabre drill and Cossack dancing, however, made her strong and supple, and she could ply a shovel with any other shovelmaster, knew how to fell a tree, and drive a pile. She had been interested from when she had first seen the Korybut Bridge being built. Jurko firmly called it the Mermaid Bridge, but though the fishermen used his whimsical name, most inhabitants of Warszawa preferred to honour the banner of their king and prince. King Remi, the people’s king, was popular.

Ironically, Jurij owned this inn, on Ulica Korybuta, Korybut street, known unofficially as ‘Koniecpolski’s End’ as trying to sabotage Jurij’s building of it had ultimately led to the downfall of the eponymous Koniecpolski, and death at Jurij’s hands just over the river. Janina shuddered at the gamble King Jeremi had taken, his first act as king to strip to his bare chest in front of the rebels, demanding to know who dared take the first shot at their newly elected, lawful king.  All the Wiśniowiecy were insane! But she loved them all dearly.

She went into the kitchen.

“What meals do you offer?” she asked.

“Soup and pierogi, pork cutlets, śledź, and cold meats and cheese with bread,” said Dąbek. “Nothing fancy.”

“Herring forszmak would make a nice change and is easy, as you have herring for śledź,” said Janina. “Mincing the herring with sour cream and cooking it with cheese and onion on top would be a quick, easy meal. And we might consider the meat version, too, with the new potatoes the king has introduced.”

“If you want to mess about and do it, I’ve no objection,” he shrugged.

A pretty girl who could cook was more of a draw than that miserable fellow who had run out on him for some legacy.