the starosta's assistants 8

 

Chapter 8

 

Starosta Młocki  listened, bewildered, to the complaint of the tattered, blood-caked individual, and tried to get it straight in his own mind.

“So, as I understand it, you took exception to the actions of Helena Skrzetuska, to whom you are not formally betrothed or related, and slapped her, and you came to find her with her brother when she fled this encounter, proceeded to call Lady Anna-Maria Skrzetuska a whore, insulted her and Captain Skrzetuski’s sister further, and then tried at first to duck a duel for your filthy words, and then played with your little weapon whilst Jeremi Skrzetuski meted out just chastisement?”

“It wasn’t the way you make it sound!” Korwiński whined.

“I’m going to lock you up for impersonating a szlachcic, because you plainly are not one,” said Młocki.

 

oOoOo

 

Michał Skrzetuski read four letters he received in the post. He tossed them over to his good lady.

“What do you think of these, Basia?” he said.

Lady Barbara Skrzetuski perused three different letters, one in the graceful, yet almost unreadable hand of her oldest son, one in the carefully formed hand of someone taught in a village school by a priest or his sister, and one in a spiky, angry hand, with a sufficiency of flourishes to be educated without having the fluency of Jeremi’s. The final one was what she could only describe as a clerical hand; well-educated, but also legible, the hand of a man used to writing reports.

She read her son’s letter first, sighing as she deciphered it. One might think that a captain in the Ulans would have a sufficiency of reports to write, that his handwriting would improve. But then, his handwriting was sufficiently attractive to fool anyone who did not actually read the reports.

“Oh, dear, what a nuisance that Korwiński fellow is,” she said. “Still, at least his heavy-handed attitude made sure that dear Helena realised that all that is handsome is not fair. What an unpleasant fellow he is to strike poor Anna-Maria, especially if he thought she was a little boy, not a warrior.”

“Read Młocki’s next,” Michał pushed the clerical hand towards his wife. She read it with her eyebrows rising, and giggled.

“Really, he arrested him for impersonating a szlachcic? Mind you, his manners leave much to be desired. I can’t believe his impudence in asking – no, Lord Młocki says ‘demanding’ that you go and vouch for him as a neighbour of yours.” She considered. “Are you going to do so?”

“Probably,” said Michał.  “Eventually. When I have nothing better to do.”

Lady Barbara turned to the spiky, angry hand, and discovered it to be from Korwiński, re-iterating the demand to be identified whilst castigating Helena and Anna-Maria as hoydens at best and doubtless worse, and Jeremi as a vicious and malicious brawler and mohock.

“And he expects you to help him get out of gaol when telling you how much he hates your son, daughter, and daughter-in-law?” declared Lady Barbara. “I hope, my dear, it will be a long time before you have enough time to go to Większy-Bydlin.”

“I expect I’ll be called as a witness when he’s arraigned at the next assizes, and I’ll have to go then,” said Michał.

“When will that be?” asked Basia.

“Around Christmas,” said Michał. “And I might even point out that I can’t prove that he’s old Tomas’s son. He turned up when the old man died, but he could be anyone. I hadn’t seen the boy Paweł since he went on some kind of grand tour.”

“It would fit with why he wished to establish himself, marrying Halszka,” said Basia.

“Now, you read that last letter,” said Michał.

Basia did so.

She noted a scrawl on the outside in the handwriting of her son’s friend, Jaracz Rzędzian, ‘Frydek is a good man,’

She read the letter through three times.

“What do you think?” she asked Michał.

“Halszka is a romantic piece. He could have persuaded her to go off with him, and live as his wife until they could get married,” said Michał.  “I trust Jaracz Rzędzian’s judgement. But I would like to meet him.”

“Well, if we are in Dmuchów, letters from the judiciary in Większy-Bydlin can’t reach us,” said Basia. “Moreover, I recall Jeremi writing that Ursyn Kudła was going there, and I want to see that bear again.”

 

oOoOo

 

Sylwia awoke beside Ursyn, and realised that the previous night’s disturbance had not been a nightmare based on those she had had as a child, when Zabiełło had broken into her bedroom.  Her nose told her that a man had died in here, and that Ursyn had saved her and Jaras by killing him. She recalled calling Ursyn off, before he could succumb to any instincts to eat his kill; nobody would permit him to live if he had ever eaten human flesh.

She wrapped her arms around her bear’s neck.

Ursyn licked her face affectionately, and then remembered he was wounded, and held out his bandaged paw to her, with a pathetic whimper.

“Poor paw, ah,” said Sylwia, obediently. She took the bandage off and surveyed the wound. The sabre had been sharp enough that it had bled freely and carried away any infection. Sylwia washed it off.

“It would probably be better open,” she said.

Ursyn held his paw out insistently.

Sylwia went for her pack to find her proper bandages and ointments, and smoothed comfrey cream into the sore web of the claws. Ursyn grunted in relief. Sylwia rebandaged it and Ursyn examined his bandage, and patted it approvingly with the other paw. Then he permitted Sylwia to dress, and go to breakfast, after a short excursion outside to deal with his own most pressing needs.

“I’ll take the body into town for an official post mortem,” said Eugeniusz. “Held in camera, I think. I found a couple of pillows he had dropped; they stank of poppy juice. Clear sign of malicious intent.” He grimaced. “I suspect that he probably murdered Sylwester Lasecki as well, whose death in suspicious circumstance my predecessor never managed to solve; certainly those lands were in his claim as well as your couple of włóki here and the dwór.  I think you inherit those lands.”

Sylwia paled.

“Oh, starosta!  I sold those lands to Uncle Sylwester – I was named for him, he was my father’s baby brother, the child of my grandsire’s second wife – so I could outfit myself as a towarzysz! I... I thought it would be nice to have enough to retire to, when I mustered out.”

“The hell! Well, I don’t know who should be Zabiełło’s heir – it might even be me – but I’ve a mind to award some of it to you, as blood money.”

“It ought to be used to finance his bastards,” said Sylwia.

“Well, I’ll see what can be done,” said Eugeniusz.

 

oOoOo

 

 

 

 

Sylwia and Jaras were to have visitors, when Michał and Barbara Skrzetuscy turned up. Michał clasped wrists with Jaras, and Barbara kissed Sylwia.

“Oh, my dear, I hope you don’t mind us wishing ourselves on you; if you do, we’ll go and see if there are lodgings in town, but I thought I recalled your maiden name aright, and I admired your bear so much,” said Barbara.

It was the way to Sylwia’s heart.

“Oh, as the starosta and his wife have just left, you can have the room we had readied for them; you must excuse the smell, please, we had an unwelcome visitor, trying to kill us in our bed, only Ursyn duelled him, and killed him with hellish quarte.”

“No, really?” asked Michał, interested. “I wouldn’t have thought bears could hold sabres.”

“They can’t, but he does sabre drill with the rest of us, and understands how to parry,” said Sylwia.

Ursyn shambled out to see newcomers, recognised Barbara Skrzetuska’s scent and polonezed her down the room and back, and then bowed to the ground.

“Oh, his poor paw! Was he wounded?” exclaimed Barbara.

Ursyn knew what a poor paw was and promptly held it out for inspection. Barbara took it, cradled it, and made sympathetic noises.

“It isn’t bad, but it was a shock to him, poor baby,” said Sylwia. “But he parried and came back just as if he had done the moulinet, and that was the end of Zabiełło.”

“My goodness!” said Barbara. “Now, I hear our Halszka has an admirer.”

“That’s news to me,” said Sylwia.

“Oh, you don’t know this Frydek? I thought he was with Jaracz Rzędzian,” said Barbara, as Sylwia led her through to be seated and partake of refreshments.

“Frydek Adamiak? Good man,” said Sylwia.  “Dependable, good in a crisis, I’d say.” She hesitated. “Er, his birth....”

“Is in question,” said Michał.  “We don’t want our daughter treated as a peasant, nor her children. Even if she thinks herself in love. In time, it won’t be enough.”

“No, indeed,” said Sylwia, slightly shocked. “I don’t know him very well; he’s been Quartermaster Rzędzian’s man, and he can ride like a demon. He’s more than capable with sabre drill, too; he got a wooden sword to work out with Ursyn.  And that may have saved Ursyn’s life!” she added.

“So he’s able in a szlachta’s skills, courteous enough and kindly enough to help your bear, what are his manners like?”asked Barbara.

“I can’t fault his manners in broad, but his delivery is rough as you might say,” said Sylwia. “What I mean is, he’d steady the elbow of a lady who stumbled, but his speech is rough, he’d say ‘D’you need a hand?’ rather than, ‘May I be of assistance?’ and his Latin is shaky. He’s learned though, so as to keep up with conversations.”

“So he could pass at least as a szlachetka?” said Michał.

“Easily,” said Sylwia. “He’s no less a nobleman in ability and instinct than some of the towarzysze we started off with as Jeremi’s Misfits.”

“We thought we should attend the next masked ball to meet him incognito,” said Barbara.

“Oh, he’ll be masked but on duty,” said Jaras. “I wouldn’t take offence if he isn’t giving you his whole attention; he’ll be checking the crowd for trouble. I think they have one a week and it was last night. I might be wrong.”

“Oh, we could host a public masked ball for charity, at the hotel,” said Barbara.

“Oh, they’ll all really love you for that, ma’am,” said Jaras, with heavy irony.

“Why?” asked Barbara.

“Well, the opportunity for the town thieves to slip upstairs and help themselves to the geegaws of the guests for one,” said  Jaras. “You’d do better to hire the public hall in the town hall where if you slip upstairs you find the starosta doing his paperwork, and if you slip downstairs, you’re conveniently in the cells.”

“Well, then, we shall do that,” said Barbara, decisively.

“We might come, and bring Ursyn,” said Sylwia. “He loves dancing. And a lot of people may think he’s a man in a bear suit.”

“Unless he tries to speak to them,” murmured Jaras. “His Polish is poor and his Latin is worse.”

“His dancing is impeccable in any language,” said Sylwia, severely. “So are his manners.”

“His manners are beautiful,” said Barbara. “Well, then, we shall ride into town and eat there whilst we arrange matters, if you are happy to put us up?”

“More than delighted,” said Sylwia. “Now that Zabiełło fellow is dead, we don’t have to warn guests that they are at risk. And we’d surely love the advice of an experienced land owner how to get the place back in good heart.”

“That, I would be delighted to do,” said Michał, heartily. “I hate seeing good land going to waste. I could probably find you a steward, as well.”

“I’ll be having to deal with the land of my uncle, who was probably murdered as well,” said Sylwia. “It runs with this land, and is another eight włóki. It’s a nice little spread, but for years we had problems from Zabiełło and his cousin, Mieszko, who had friends at court. Paweł Zabiełło owns – owned – 20 włóki and four villages.”

“Trouble?” asked Michał.

“He kept trying to buy us out, and then, ‘accidents’ would happen; a dog scaring in-calf heifers so they miscarried, fires in wheat about to be harvested, barns of newly harvested crops burning down, and the former starosta was as much use as a straw sword,” said Sylwia, bitterly.

“Well, then, little girl,” rumbled Michał, “You write down every so-called accident you recall, as many quantities as you recall, and I’ll help you make a claim on the Zabiełło’s estate.”

“Oh, thank you, sir!” said Sylwia. “It’ll all be in Papa’s journals.”

“Indeed, we are very grateful,” said Jaras.  “I have lands too, but it’s worth considering selling them out, and seeing about purchasing land around here with a windmill.”

“I’d consider buying your lands, to hold as a bargaining chip to consolidate my own,” said Michał.

“You are going to force Korwiński to sell, aren’t you?” said Barbara.

“Well, he’s not the most appealing of neighbours,” said Michał.  “And that’s if he isn’t an imposter at that; never thought of it until Młocki  suggested it.”

“Well, we can discuss all of that,” said Jaras, pleased.