the substarosta's case book 3

 Just a shortie today; unless I suddenly come up with another, or another Adele, I'm going to risk starting The Scholar's Sweetheart of the Brandon Scandals, I have 13 chapters so far. 

 

Chapter 3 A hole is a hole is a hole, as they say

 

 

“What can I do for you, my lord brother?” Klemens Młocki looked on Timofey Syruć with some wariness. The Syruciowie were, according to Kazimierz, a regular plague; and though Timofey was not, of himself, a problem, there had been a sufficiency of problems caused by the family. Timofey had written a will in which his daughter, Regina, was willed into the care of the court if anything should happen to him, though the cousin responsible for sundry ‘accidents’ was now dead. Karol Syruć had been caught out in the cloth-smuggling and slaving operation, and though his daughter, Wiridiana, and her husband were exemplary citizens, and paid for a number of family bastards to be educated, the family as a whole had caused enough trouble for Klemens to be less than effusive in his greeting.

“I... well, strictly speaking, it’s not a crime,” said Syruć, shuffling his feet. “But it’s odd; and I understand that starostowie look for odd things, which might be a symptom of something else.”

“True enough,” said Klemens. “So, what is this odd thing?”

“Oh, had I not said?” asked Syruć.

“No,” said Klemens.

“It’s the holes, my lord brother,” said Syruć.  “Holes in one of my fields,” he clarified.

“You mean, sink holes? As if there are underground mines or caves, or an underground river?” asked Klemens.

“No, nothing like that,” said Syruć.  “Just... holes. They appear overnight, as if someone is coming along with a spade to dig one or two holes about three feet deep, and a foot or two across. Apparently at random but all in the same field.”

“As if stealing a root crop?”

“Well, in a way, but there’s no crop in that field. It’s heavy clay, and I wanted my steward to arrange to have the entire surface dug over, and drains put in, the way the English and Dutch do it.  You know, with buried chips of gravel, making ways for the water to flow away.”

“I believe they are called French drains,” said Klemens. “Very useful in this heavy clay, as is digging marl into the clay itself.”

“Yes, and I’ve bought in marl, and chippings for the drains, and I suppose I can incorporate the holes into what needs to be dug, but why would anyone dig holes, not ditches, and randomly across the field?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll come and have a look,” said Klemens. “It’s a damned silly time of year to dig holes for the sake of it, though I can understand that you want the drains dug before spring planting, and the marl dug in as well, but the ground must be frozen solid.”

“It is pretty solid,” admitted Timofey.  “I know Jan was not looking forward to having it dug.”

“Your steward?” asked Klemens.

“Yes, a poor relation; the bastard son of Antonin Syruć, who was slain by Lady Mariola.”

“Ah,” said Klemens. “He has a few brothers and sisters I believe, in Sokołowski’s school.”

“I don’t know.  I can’t take on every bastard my relatives have sired,” said Syruć. Klemens  fought not to sneer, knowing that Władysław Solołowski had, with less wealth than Syruć, taken under his wing sundry bastards of the traitor whose lands became his, and other orphans. And took on the szlachta and peasant orphans used and trained to steal by a wicked szlachcic. Moreover, Władysław would have found a way to care for them even without a grant from the king and the fact that there were szlachta willing to pay quite extortionate school fees for their offspring, especially if kept out of the public eye.   

“I have my daughter to think of,” said Syruć, defensively.

“To be sure,” said Klemens. “And an unfortunate upbringing as well. And none of my business. Let us go and look at your holes.”

 

 

The field in question looked as if half the city had turned out to dig random holes. Someone had left a measuring tape behind. Several holes looked as if they were following a line.

“That’s half the work done for a drain,” said Syruć, waving to it. “But why? Jan said he had not started work yet.”

Klemens began chuckling.

“Oh, I suspect that he has begun work, but in a way to spare your peasants much hard labour,” he said.

“What? I do not understand,” said Syruć.

Klemens sighed. It must be hard for Jan Syruć to be subordinate to his less clever relative.

“Let’s go and speak to him,” he said.

 

 

Jan Syruć did not have the immediate look of his relatives, though that was partly because he had ginger hair and was clean-shaven.

“Brilliant idea of yours, to get people digging for treasure, to save the peasants some work,” said Klemens. “How on earth did you get so many people to dig up the field?”

Jan Syruć gave a shy smile.

“Oh, it was not hard,” he said.  “I spoke to a few people about how Karol Syruć hid a fortune from his smuggling on his cousin’s lands, thinking that the authorities would not look for it there.”

“That’s plausible,” said Timofey Syruć. “It would be just like Karol.”

“So, the near ditch?” asked Klemens.

“I picked up some old books cheap, you see,” said Jan. “And mentioned around that he was supposed to have left instructions as to how to find the treasure, and I drew a number of maps, and wrote instructions about how to line up two landmarks, but not how far along in the field the lined up landmarks might be, and I paid a stall holder to let it be known the books had come from his estate, sold off by his daughter. And he did me proud, he dropped a word in the ear of a number of people as if they were the only ones he told.  I was going to give it two more nights, and then set our people to work; and with the snow, we can dig that in as well, as fertiliser.”

“Brilliant!” said Klemens.

“Er, indeed, most commendable,” said Timofey Syruć. 

“Well, sir, as you’ve come over, I can let it be known that it was found, and the Starosta has it,” said Jan. “That way, they won’t interfere after work has begun.”

“Good thinking,” said Klemens. “If you ever get tired of being a steward, I could find you a job in my office.”

“Thank you, my lord; I might consider it,” said Jan.

 

Klemens rode back to the town hall, chuckling.