So, I read about the siege of the monastery of Jasna Góra and how 70 monks and 80 volunteers held off the massed thousands of the Swedish army and how this inspired the rest of Poland to rise against the invaders, and I was deeply moved and inspired to want to involve Jurko and Mira. So, Polish history book in one hand, Sienkiewicz's Deluge in the other, Wiki open on a variety of subjects I set to. It's a bit 'Deluge vol I, what vol I' as I skip over that, and it fetched up as a novella so I will be following up with 'and other stories' on the meandering journey to Lwów.
we open with the wind up to events where I leapfrog the events of volume one and get to them setting off.
Chapter 1: June 1655
“What the hell! Mira, tell me I am not having a nightmare,” said Jurij Sokołowski, reading a letter.
“Not a sleeping one, anyway, my love, what is it?” said his wife. The little red-head looked over at her handsome husband, slightly sleeker after some years of marriage, but still slender and with well-defined planes on his dark, hawkish face, his dark hair still as unruly as ever in contrast to his long, neat Cossack moustache. He was a much calmer man these days, but still depended heavily on his petite wife, whose gamine beauty had won his heart against his will. Her red curls had grown in the years they had been married, and as she no longer had to hide as a boy, she had not cut them short. Jurko was wont to tease her that her hair had grown into the semblance of the wigs worn by those men who affected western dress.
“It’s from Jan Sobieski,” said Jurij. “He ... damn it, I thought things were bad enough ... he is going to join Karol Gustaw Waza in Sweden, joining the Radziwiłł rebellion against our king in favour of his cousin.” His sea-coloured eyes which changed colour with his mood were grey with concern.
“Oh no!” Mira was shocked. “You must write to him.”
“I will, and to Papa Zagłoba to warn the king. I ... should I join the king?”
“Hardly, we’re the main forces against the Russians and Cossacks here.”
He wrote more fluently these days, and had no difficulty pouring out his thoughts.
“My dear lord-brother,
Jan, don’t do this, I beg you.
I have been so lucky to be forgiven my own foolishness, please do not fall into the trap I fell into, following a cause which turns out to be hollow.
I know Jan Kazimierz has not been the king some have hoped for but he is our king. This is all a plot of that greedy bastard Radziwiłł who will doubtless also use his shared Calvinist faith with Karol Gustaw to insist on sanctions upon Catholic or Orthodox Poles, and a means to seize land, because his true religion is the worship of the Red Złoty Incarnate and his favourite litany is ‘put it in my strongbox’. I wish you will reconsider.
Your brother in arms,
Jurij “
He penned another letter.
“Zagłoba,
You old fox, what is to be done? I thought all was well, Jan-Michal is doing well, and Hryhor is a dear little tyke; the one who is on the way will be Onufry for you if it is a boy. And now this. As if the Russians weren’t enough of a threat, that pox upon the land, that spawn of Satan, Radziwiłł has his plans in motion. Sobieski has been seduced by his words, and other honourable men will likely be so too. Is it Poland’s fate always to be torn apart by honourable men following foolish causes? Tell Jan Kazimierz to beware; I will hold what I might as long as I might. Keep my brother and sister Jan Skrzetuski and Helena Skrzetuska safe and the little knight also.
Go with God,
Jurko
“Mira ...”
She wrapped her arms around him and lifted her face for a kiss; and he carried her into the bedroom to love her until the anger welling up in him was assuaged in the sweet oblivion of exhaustion in her arms.
Time passed
“Mira, I ... I ought to be doing something against the Swedes,” said Jurko. “I was left to hold this border ...”
“Then hold the border, until given orders otherwise,” said Mira. “The king or one of his agents will direct you if the orders have changed. Being here means we will know if they ally with the Cossacks.”
“You are right. But I would like to hear from Zagłoba. The old fox is indestructible; I can’t help wondering whether he is all right.”
“Give it another week, and then we go looking for him”
“You are heavily pregnant ...”
“Friends do what they must.”
The letter arrived two days later.
Jurij
Things have gone to shit sure enough. This took its while to find me. The Radziwiłł princes have as you know gone over to the enemy, and for a while so did Michał, working for Janusz Radziwiłł. Also a wild crazy man called Andrzej Kmicic, whom Michał has fought, and whose actions saved our lives, of which I will tell you more; his proud manner and nobleness of action and refusal to justify himself left me thinking of you, my boy, and hoping he be like you and able to grow past the wildness. Rzędzian however says he has encountered him since, and that he is trying to put right what he has messed up, for the young fool made a vow not to desert Radziwiłł and found himself damned either way, and at loggerheads with his lady-love for it. By Our Lady, you were never so tangled in your honour as young Kmicic, who is as convoluted as one of the fish-eaters’ snaky knots that they use in decoration. It makes me appreciate you the more. But to what happened to us!
Radziwiłł imprisoned Jan, Michał, and me, but decided to send us to Sweden – and I confess Kmicic is to be thanked for that – and so of course I used my not inconsiderable brain to make sure we escaped (are you laughing, my merry lad, while Mira teases you about having dimples when you laugh?)and so here we are, and me in charge of a garrison. Is my other little girl close to her time? When she is delivered, I would hope you might visit.
Onufry Zagłoba
“Captured! Poor Helena, she wanted nothing of war, and expected her Jan to protect her from all that,” said Jurko. “Jan must have been beside himself to fear leaving her widowed with three little ones without the chance to fight back.”
“I am glad they had Papa Zagłoba to be resourceful,” said Mira. “My love, I ... I believe I am going to be early with the baby. I have a dreadful backache, and I just had the first pains.”
“I’ll send for Marianne. It is too early ... it is only August ...”
“Hryhor and Jan-Michał were early ...”
“Yes, but not this early. I will get my lute.”
Marianne, the head of the female servants, assisted as she had before; and Jurko played lute for Mira to concentrate.
Marianne shook her head as the child was delivered.
“I’ll send the boy for the priest,” she said.
Miechysława Sokołowska breathed her first at ten in the morning; and her last as the sun set shortly after eight in the evening.
Mira clung to Jurko, sobbing.
“Oh, love! Was it my fault for loving you too roughly when I was upset about Sobieski?” he asked. “I ... my temper ... I can control it with your love, but ...”
“Hush that nonsense!” Mira managed through her tears. “We have loved vigorously when I was carrying both of the boys, so you know it is not true! And moreover it is too long since to have brought it on!”
He held her. He knew it was so, but part of him wondered if it was anything he had done, for which he should atone, which had cost them their daughter.
Mira recovered physically, but a month passed and Jurko wrote again to Zagłoba.
Papa Zagłoba,
We lost our daughter, she lived only a few hours. I am in despair about Mira, she has lost her sparkle entirely. She is physically recovered, back to sabre drill and dancing as well as ever, but it’s almost as if the dancing figure is a marionette, who does the moves without life and joy in the limbs. She is listless and preoccupied. I expect you will think me a fool, and a fanciful fool at that but I fear her becoming an automaton. She is even listless in bed where she has always been most enthusiastic and it worries me that I cannot distract her. I worry to bring her to a fortress, have you any ideas?
Jurij
An answer was carried by Rzędzian some weeks later. The young blond had changed little, other than being better dressed, with hands full of rings, and carrying a little more weight on his well-knit frame.
“Ho, Cossack, what’s this I hear about your little bird losing her song?” said Rzędzian. “I have a letter from Zagłoba, not because I have to act the messenger, you understand; I’m a man of substance these days. I came because I felt like it. You look seedy.”
“If you can cheer Mira, I don’t care what you came for,” said Jurko.
“Well, here’s a letter for you; I’ll let her beat me with sabre.”
“No ‘let’ about it; she’s better than you, even dispirited.”
“Well, I’ll challenge her, then.”
Jurko read the letter.
“Jurij,
I don’t think you any kind of fool to care about Mira so deeply. I asked some discreet questions”
“Zagłoba and discreet in the same sentence? I’m not sure I believe that,” muttered Jurko, reading on,
“... and I understand it’s normal for a woman to lose interest in bedroom matters for perhaps even several months when she has lately given birth, especially if she loses the baby. As for being depressed, well, she has gone most of the way, had a baby born live and then all the pain turned out to be for nothing. Give her time. It isn’t good time, but perhaps a pilgrimage somewhere?
Give her a big hug from me and love from Helena and Jan.
Zagłoba.
“Mira, would you like to go on a pilgrimage?” asked Jurko. “And Papa Zagłoba, Helena and Jan all send hugs.”
“That is kind of them. A pilgrimage? Right now? Is it right to leave our post?” Mira was anxious. “I ... it does not especially seem wise.”
“I don’t know, but I want to help you.”
“I will think about it.”
With that he had to be content.
Mira perked up at a challenge from Rzędzian, and Jurij was delighted to see a touch of the old sparkle when she told him,
“You are too fond of high living with that new-found wealth of yours; you’re porky.”
“I am not so! Just big-boned,” protested Rzędzian. “And I’d have had more wealth if I’d been able to steal your husband’s chest of goodies before he hid it somewhere different.”
“Why do you think he hid it somewhere different?” said Mira. “He knows you.”
“Nothing wrong with a bit of looting.”
“No; that’s why we’re rich too. Now watch that inside guard or you’ll be sore for a week.” They were using wooden swords, and she whacked his left hip-bone. Rzędzian yelped, and pushed forward. She disengaged fluently, stepped aside, swung the sabre effortlessly with the moulinet to whack his left buttock.
By the time Rzędzian swallowed his pride enough to yield, his left side was sore from ribs to hip, and he was beginning to improve his guard in quinte and septime.
“You’ll want a hot bath; one is waiting for you,” said Mira. “And a pot of horse linament.”
“What, do I look like a horse as well as feeling like I’ve been ridden by someone free with the crop?”
“Certainly not! I like horses and consider them pleasing to look on,” said Mira.
“You’re a whelp,” said Rzędzian.
“That’s what I’m doing wrong; not being rude enough,” said Jurko. She laughed a little, and touched his face.
“You are a good, patient husband to put up with my megrims,” she said.
“You are my best friend, my love, my soulmate,” he said, seriously, taking her hands. She leaned on him.
“It has been so long that I have been unable to shake this heaviness of spirit,” she said.
The baby had been born in August; it was into October.
“No Cossack or Moskal is going to attack at this time year; it would be a good time to go on pilgrimage.”
“And I will sleep on it.”
He kissed her tenderly, and she went to bed, clearly planning to sleep. Jurko let a sigh escape.
“I like you more now you’re in love with the right one for you, you know,” said Rzędzian. “I wish I could help; I see what you mean, it’s like part of her spirit died.”
“She’s snatched me from death, preserved us from capture and death ... and I can’t do a simple thing like keep her happy.”
“Women are difficult creatures,” said Rzędzian. “I’ll pray if it’ll help.”
“I don’t turn down prayer.”
He went to bed himself; at least Mira still wanted to share a bed, and snuggled at him in her sleep. He wrapped his arms around her, and swore to do whatever it took to help her.
Mira sat up in bed, and Jurko jerked awake, in sudden concern.
“Beloved?” he asked
“Jurko,” said Mira, “I had a dream of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. I feel an urge to go and pray to her; I know the year is turning but I want to go there. If we shift, we should be there by the beginning of November, and we can always stay over until the weather improves before coming home.”
Jurko crossed himself.
“I never deny dreams,” he said. “We’ll take a dozen or so men, the roads are not happily travelled these sad days.”
“So long as two of them are Taras and Oleh,” said Mira. “We four have been together forever.” She considered. “While we are awake ...”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! Yes at last I want you to love me. I ... I am sorry I have been so strange.”
“Shh, little one, I love you well enough to be here for you without the sherbet.”
“Sherbet now, please.”
“As my lady commands.” She heard the smile in his voice, as he remembered that she had likened unrequited love to gobbling sherbet in the rain, sweet insubstantial pleasure inside misery. Her love for him was now very much requited.
“You seem more at peace,” said Rzędzian in the morning.
“She had a dream of the Black Madonna,” said Jurko. “We’ll set out as soon as possible.”
“Do you want me to come?”
Jurko shot his odd, sideways glance at the younger man.
“If you want to come, I won’t turn down your company,” he said. “If you prefer to get back to Jan Skrzetuski, I won’t be offended. You’re a man of wealth and substance and must please yourself.”
Rzędzian laughed.
“And only you could make an insult of that! I’ll ride with you some of the way and take a report back to Zagłoba.”
Jurko nodded.
He did owe Rzędzian his life, after all, for patching him up after Michał Wołodyjowski had almost killed him. It was a complex sort of relationship.
Having Rzędzian along would at least be entertaining.
Jurko considered who he might take out of what Sobieski referred to as ‘Jurij’s misfits.’ His men were a mix of Cossacks from his old company, Poles, the odd Silesian, Cek, Hungarian, Lithuanian and even the odd Scotsman. Misfits they might be, and some of them had been serious misfits, unwanted by anyone else; but he and Mira were beloved of their mixed bag of men, whom they had moulded into a very sharp, well-disciplined fighting force, taking techniques of all their native ways of war to add to his own Cossack background. Dawid Fraiters, for example, the son of a Scottish lord fathered on his bailiff’s daughter spoke of a ‘ghillie suit’, worn those who managed the game for their lord, as a result of which Jurko had ordered his men to sew loops onto their ‘plastun cloak’ or scout cloak, which Cossacks used to blend in to the scenery. It had saved Jurko’s life, once. The loops were there that they might jam local vegetation into them, giving even better camouflage. It meant that the cloaks were useful outside of a region where they matched the soil. Taking Dawid was out of the question, though, as his wife was near her time. His Silesian friend Manfred Borekski would do, however. A mix of men from a variety of places would also do very nicely. Dmytro, Anton and Wasyl, the first Cossacks to defect from Chmielnicki to join him, would make a good core. They would volunteer anyway; and then he would choose from other volunteers to make a nice mix of skills and backgrounds. And servants for the mundane tasks; a pity that Janko the farrier was such an irritating man, but they had no other better as yet. Oh well, how much trouble could he cause.
“There’s a lot more to being a banneret assigning one’s own levy than just to being an acting-colonel,” said Jurko, as he wrestled with lists.
“But then, you have absolute control of who your people are without having to take some political appointment as an officer,” said Mira.
“You know, I hadn’t thought of it like that, but you’re right,” agreed Jurko. “I have hand-picked officers, with their patents of nobility from the king, and all men I trust to get the job done.”
Dawid, as one of his officers needed to be apprised that at need there was money in the coffers to help Jan Kazimierz, bribing the Zaporoscy Cossacks if need be to join him. Jurko would beggar himself if need be, for the king who had given him a second chance.
