the princess and the cossack 1

 

Written from before Helena saw Bohun brain a man in front of her, at a time when she listened still wide-eyed to the stories he and her cousins told of their derring do. This assumes Helena overheard a certain conversation, and decided to be frank with Jurko.

 

 

Kurylo looked at his kinsman and ataman and laughed. The handsome young Cossack had his arms full of jewels and gold, and carried some woman’s headdress stiff with jewels by the expedient of putting it on his own dark, unruly locks.

“The harem princess look doesn’t go with the bloodstains, ataman,” he said.

Jurij Bohun grinned at him, his even teeth very white in his regular tawny face.

“How else am I to carry it?” he asked. His sea-coloured eyes danced with fun knowing that he looked ridiculous. He had not looked ridiculous to the Janissaries he had recently been slaying with his quick sabre.

“Don’t you have enough?”

“You can never have enough loot. Besides, I am depriving the Turks of it, and every złoty’s worth taken from them is one they cannot spend on war.  Also, I need to impress the old princess.”

Kurylo made a face.

The princess was the mother of the Kurcewiczowie often accompanied Bohun and his Cossacks on their raids on the Tatars and the Sultanate, and Kurylo was not certain it was healthy. The five –or four since the oldest had been captured and blinded – might  be technical princes but in fact fulfilled the Polish proverbial description of dirt-poor szlachciura as ‘bare foot but with spurs.’

“We are your brothers, not them,” he said.

“I ... it is a place of roots, of a kind,” said Bohun. “I have no father that I know of.”

Kurylo shrugged.

“So? It is not uncommon.  You fancy their cousin.”

Bohun flushed.

“She’s still little more than a child,” he said, defensively.

“You want her. So wait until she’s old enough, and take her,” said Kurylo.

“I can’t do that! She’s a szlachcianka; more, a princess, and ... and I want to marry her.”

“You do have it bad. Well, with this haul, why not enter negotiations with the old woman and get it all settled?”

“I ... yes, I might,” said Bohun. “She tells me to call her ‘mother’ but I think all her love goes to the loot I take, which she sincerely adores.  I don’t like how she treats Helena either; calls her a burden, and slaps her readily which she’d never have dared do when her husband was alive. And her sons take some of their tone from her, and though they are not unkind as such to the child, they make like they look down on her. I ... I know what that is like,” he muttered. “It destroys the spirit. I fear that many years more of it will leave her cowed, and the spirit of fun gone from her.”

 

 

 

oOoOo

 

Helena Kurcewiczówna listened to a conversation between her cousins’ friend, Jurij Bohun, and her aunt. She was shocked at herself for listening, knowing that eavesdropping was seriously rude, and that eavesdroppers rarely hear good of themselves.

But he loved her!

Her father had loved her, but did not take her with him when he went into exile.

Her uncle loved her, but he died.

Wassylij, her blind cousin, was kind to her.

Love ... that was to crave for. Maybe Bohun wasn’t as scary as he sometimes looked. Certainly when he laughed, his sea-coloured eyes crinkled in his dark, handsome face, and at the sides of his long, elegant moustaches, dimples lurked. Oh he was sweet when he laughed; and he was handsome all the time. He was newly promoted Captain of Registered Cossacks, and he had come to show off his new title, she supposed, as well as more loot from another raid. Rozłogi dripped with fine fabrics from the adventures he and her cousins had, and they told many a story in the evenings. It sounded exciting.

 

 

Helena lurked, in order to accost him.

Helena was just fifteen years old, and she was a princess. Not that it meant much. She had been effectively orphaned at the age of four, when her father, Wassylij had been accused of treason and had fled. Her Uncle Konstantin had done his best for her until he had died, and then her governess had been dismissed, and though not treated quite as a servant, she was expected to do all the sewing and mending for the family, and her uncouth aunt had no good word for her. The old princess was a Cossack woman with the barest veneer of sophistication. Illiterate herself, she had never seen a reason to have her sons taught the skills which marked the difference between szlachta and the peasantry. Effectively, Helena  felt as though she had gone from being raised as a princess to being a peasant, and that would have been hard, but bearable if she had only been loved. With the dubious care of a cold, hard woman she was miserable.

 

“Jurko, may I speak to you?” Helena asked when he had left her aunt and was striding towards the stable.

Jurko Bohun smiled at Helena. She was barely a woman, but the promise of beauty lay upon her, if one looked past the gawkiness of a teen-aged girl.  Her features were regular and her hair a rich brown, echoed in her big, beautiful eyes.

“Of course, princess,” he replied to her.  How solemn her dark eyes were! She should not need to look so solemn, so ready to cringe from hurt, her eyes should laugh.

“I overheard,” she said, abruptly. “I overheard you bargaining my dowry to my aunt for my hand in marriage, to let her keep Rozłogi.”

He was disconcerted, and gave her the curious upwards glance through his brows which subconsciously she read as a man hurt too often to look straight.

“I know it’s your house, but do you think she’d ever let you take it?” he asked, softly. “She’d find a way. And she’s quite ruthless. Any husband of yours who did not surrender it ...” he left the thought hanging. “It wasn’t an attempt to rush you into marriage,” he added, hastily. He gazed at her with his liquid, sea-green eyes.

“I hate my aunt,” said Helena. “But I don’t know you. You spend all your time with my cousins, and they call me ‘little girl’ and despise me.  If I marry you, I’d want you to keep your promise to the letter, and permit her to remain, but not as head of the house. I’d want her in a servant’s room, not the chatelaine of my house.”

He chuckled, and his dimples danced.

“Oh, very clever, Halszka! I did not specify anything,” he said. “She wouldn’t take it lying down.”

“Have you any idea what she really thinks of you, Jurko?” said Helena, in a cold, hard little voice. “She encourages you to call her ‘mother’, and calls you her falcon. Behind your back she gloats to me about how clever her sons were to cultivate your friendship as you fill the dwór with riches in your craving to have a real family. She wants you to bed her, you know; I’ve seen her watching you, and she has that look ... you know.” She blushed. “When she says ‘my falcon’ to you, she ... her eyes burn. And I don’t suppose any agreement over my fate would remain ...unaltered. Nor do I think she would hesitate for a moment if she thought she could get a better deal selling me to someone else. I think the only reason she hasn’t given me to her sons to play with, apart from them having a shred or two of decency left, is because I’m a commodity.”

“Hell!” said Jurko, shocked. “I ... my cuckoo, I can’t let her treat you like that.”

“Jurko, take me with you on your next raid, and teach me to be brave enough to stand up to her, and let me get to know you,” she said, impulsively.

“What?” he was nonplussed.

“You and my cousins seem to enjoy yourselves, so take me with you.  I want to have fun too, and being stuck here with her is no fun at all. Please, Jurko! Then I will understand you better.” She laid a slender hand on his chest.

“Sweet Helena, we fight.” He laid his shapely, capable hand on hers. She felt the calluses on his hand from gripping a sabre.

“Then teach me sabre so I can fight with you.” It was a rash suggestion, impulsive; if she had not been feeling so down at having been beaten so hard for clumsy stitchery before Jurko had come and lifted her spirits by declaring love for her, she might never have spoken so.

He flushed.

“We ... we  fight the Turk and the Tatars. And ... and sometimes there are female slaves...” he tailed off.

She looked at him in horror.

“Jurko!  If  ... if  the Tatars came when you were away, we would have no defence and the next slave girl you wanted to use might be me. You know how my aunt hates me; can you guarantee that she would not bargain to hand me over?”

He gasped in horror, and tears sprang to his emotional eyes.

“Halszka! I could not bear that! I had not thought of it.”

“I ... I think you would be such a bohatyr if you rescued the women and children, and brought them back,” said Helena, turning her big dark eyes on with full intensity.

“Go steal clothing from your cousin Mikołaj’s room; he’s the nearest to you in size,” said Jurko. “We’ll have to cut your hair.”

She gasped; it was shameful for a woman to have her hair cut save on her wedding night, but for her own safety ... Helena reasoned that in a way, it marked her marriage to Jurko.

 

 

Captain Bohun regarded his men.

“Right, you depraved goat-fucking good-for-nothing Cossacks, no more screwing the slaves,” he said. “You want to touch, you bought it and you chose a wife. We’re bringing them all back, to prove it can be done, that we do not have to be at ransom to the Tatars. What, is a quick screw worth more to you than living eternally in glory as heroes?”

The young boy beside him turned approving, worshipful eyes on him, and Jurko’s cup ran over.

“You’re our ataman,” said one of the older Cossacks. “May we ask why?”

“We need to improve our position,” said Jurko. “You know the rumblings amongst the Cossack atamans who have been badly treated by the Lach[1] landowners. And you also know how nothing good has ever come of it. When it happens again, we must be so famous, so covered with glory that we are not mistrusted, not made scapegoats. We have it good with our life fighting for Poland, and we have plunder besides, and our Pułkownik is indulgent, but Prince Jeremi neither likes nor trusts us. We need to have enough popular support to avoid him demonising us.”

This caused a mutter of approval. Jurko knew that it was affection and respect for himself which would be the deciding factor in whether his men joined the next charismatic leader of the Sich; and proud as he was of his Cossack roots, he craved acceptance by true szlachta, not just those like the Kurtzewiczowie.

 

“Jurko,” said Helena, “I know you don’t like Prince Jeremi Korybut Wiśniowiecki, but my father was his father’s man ...you told me my father was cleared, which my aunt has never done.  I wondered if we should ... you know, write to him, and tell him the situation.”

“I don’t write so good,” said Jurko, flushing a dull red.

“I can teach you, when we are on the ship, and not doing a lot,” said Helena.

“I ... yes, I would like that,” said Jurko. “But will you write?  I can append my name.”

“Yes, I will,” said Helena. “And let us get that sent with one of your Cossacks.”

 

 

“To my dread lord and prince, Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, herbu Korybut,”  wrote Helena, who was copying the style of official letters she had seen.

“Written by the hand of Helena Kurcewiczówna-Bułyha for herself and for Jurij Bohun, Captain of Cossacks. My prince, it is Captain Bohun who has told me that my father’s name was cleared, my aunt still informing me that I am the daughter of a traitor, who should be grateful for her care of me.

As I understand it, I am heir of Rozłogi, but Captain Bohun has told me that my aunt has told him that if he will blink at her keeping the house and lands for herself and her sons, my cousins, he might have me in marriage. My prince, my Cossack captain is a true knight who does all he might to protect me; my cousins are kindly, but they are simple men, and in the thrall of their mother, my aunt. I have left Rozłogi in the guise of a boy, under the captain’s protection, since I cannot bear the slights, the lies and the cruelty of my aunt any longer. I do not count her as my legal guardian, but I consider you to be so, and I beg your leave to marry my captain when I am of a better age so to do, and that you will give him dominion over Rozłogi. He will not break his oath, which he swore to protect me, for my aunt would, I feel, sell me to any man who wanted me if she could keep her home. But he never said where she might have her chamber ...

This is the situation, my prince, and I go with Captain Bohun on a raid even as this is sent, because the privations of warfare are preferable to another night being abused and beaten by my aunt.

Written this day, some time in August by the Polish calendar

Helena Kurcewiczówna-Bułyha.

Jurij Bohun, Captain of Cossacks”

Jurko added his signature to hers.

“He is good to those who put their trust in him,” he said.  “I will try to do so, my cuckoo, my darling.”

“Oh, Jurko, you make me feel so safe,” sighed Helena.

“I hope I will always keep you safe,” said Jurko, emotion flooding him. “And to that end I will drill you mercilessly with the sabre, so you might protect yourself.”

 

“Who’s the whelp, ataman?” asked Kurylo.

“A connection of the Kurzewiczowie,” said Jurko, nonchalantly. Helena was sitting on the ground, clutching the pain of a stitch in her side where he had pressed her mercilessly in sabre drill.

“Not very well trained,” said Kurylo.

“Not trained at all,” said Jurko. “Education neglected entirely for being an unwanted whelp. I’ll lick him into shape, though.”

“Aye, well, you’d know about that,” said Kurylo. “Has he the fire to come through being unwanted? You’re exceptional.”

“Yes, he’ll get there,” said Jurko. “The will is strong in him, stronger than his physical strength which is negligible. He can read and write, and was kept as sedate as a girl.”

“Poor brat,” said Kurylo. “Are you training him to be an officer under you?”

“Yes,” said Jurko.

 

---

[1] Somewhat derogatory word for a Pole

Dance of Fledglings chapter 1

 Having renamed the original by this name 'Dance of Nestlings' following on shortly after that left off and covering the spring and summer of 1779, parallel in period to the adventures of Towarzysz Ursyn Kudla and friends. 

I know Kudla needs dark l; I type my blurbs direct online. If I had a number pad I could use the ascii code.

Chapter 1

 

“Papa,” said Mestek, “I am old enough to take on some of your duties to help you. I can ride out to check on some of the spring planting, and see if the peasants need anything after the winter and write a report on the states of their cottages.”

“You reckon you can manage that much writing, hetman?” asked Władysław.

Mestek sighed.

“It is, indeed, an on-er-ous duty,” he savoured the word, “but it is why we are szlachta, to undertake the on-er-ous duties in life.”

“Quite right,” agreed Władysław. “Suppose you take Brzozowe Dolany and I do the rest; and you can see if Olek will give you refreshments.”

“Oh, my lord brother Olek is always good for milk and honey cakes,” said Mestek, brightening. He was very fond of the elderly szlachcic who had adopted three of Mestek’s half-siblings when Władysław and Joanna had adopted him. Indeed, Olek was married to the oldest of Mestek’s half-siblings.  On paper, it was a ludicrous match, but Gryfina adored her aged, but indefatigable and joyous, husband.  Mestek was well ahead of his age-group at school, and indeed of his class, being a small sponge for knowledge, so having time out to learn how to rule the lands which would one day be his was not going to cause any problems, and moreover, Władysław enjoyed being with his adoptive son. Even when the together was apart, splitting a task between them.  Władysław did not want the little boy to stray too close to Stare Dolany, where the child had been born, and where his vicious grandparents and callous mother had met their deaths not so long ago, as their hut burned them and the cruel Ryszard Świnka, who had kidnapped two little girls. Aniela Rutska had had the presence of mind to pretend to be related to Władysław, to have value as a hostage, and Świnka had assumed the pale blonde Paulina Piekarska was related to Władysław’s wife, Joanna, herself as silver-gilt blonde as any of her family. Paulina was Paulina no longer, having been badly burned whilst helping Aniela to escape, and was now Jurijana Sokołowska, adopted by the Falcons, and named for Władysław’s proud ancestor, Jurij, who had also redeemed himself in fire after repenting and atoning for his early treachery. Jurijana and Aniela were inseparable, and were also close friends with two of the other girls in their age group. Jurijana’s former friend, Judyta, did not even recognise Jurijana after her long convalescence as having once been Paulina. More shameful was that neither of her brothers did so. However, the burned-out hut remained, since nobody cared to do more than rob out timbers for burning, and rumours of the ghost of Gostón and his family, bound by their own malevolence, abounded. Mestek had loathed his relatives as much as they had hated him for being the illegitimate spawn of the former lord, but it was still something Władysław wanted to spare him. Distracted by the thoughts of the generosity of Olek, Mestek would not ask why he was not being sent to the region with the fewest peasants and the least work. Gostón had been the furthest flung of the peasants, and if Mestek went that way, he would not need to go near Gostón’s home, but habit would take him there, Władysław suspected.

“Papa?” Mestek interrupted his reverie.

“Yes, Hetman?” said Władysław.

“I went and looked at the burned out cottage already,” said Mestek. “If that was why you were sending me off to our lord-brother Olek’s lands.  I sort of needed to see, and I talked about it with Jurijana, and she sort of needed to see, too, so we went together so we could cry without others seeing it.”

“I see,” said Władysław. “Are you angry with me that I did not risk undoing the door and having the flames whoosh out?”

“Oh, no, Papa; they chose to be wicked, and they would have left my lord-lady-sister if it had been the other way about. But... well, you know. Or you wouldn’t have not wanted me to go look.”

“The question is, how did you and Jurijana feel about it?”

“We went and prayed, and then it was better,” said Mestek. “And I prayed that Gostón would be good one day, but if you ask me, it’ll take until Armageddon.”

“Well, I am sure that the Good Lord will not give up hope,” said Władysław. Mestek always made him feel better about things, being so straightforward and sensible for a child who could also be deep at times.

Mestek rode off, feeling happier for having told his father that he had been to see the burned out cottage. It had not been forbidden, exactly, but he had a feeling it might have been if he had asked first. And Papa seemed not to be angry about it at all, and understood. Which was good. Fathers, reflected Mestek, at least, the real fathers, not the seed-merchants like the man who sired him, were special sorts of people.

He was still pondering this when he fell in with Jan Bąk, the son of the village sołtys. A wary friendship of sorts had grown between the boys since Mestek had saved Jan’s sister’s life by plunging into the icy pond for her, and had helped save Jan too from the consequences of disobedience.

“Hey,” said Jan.

“Hey,” said Mestek.

Technically Jan should call Mestek ‘my lord’, and in public he did, but Mestek was more comfortable not making an issue of it.

“What are you up to? Truanting?” asked Jan.

“I’m helping Papa by checking our tenants near Lord Olek, to see if they need anything and if the spring planting is under way,” said Mestek. He got off his pony. “Want to come along? If you’re sołtys one day, knowing everyone would be handy for you.”

“I guess so,” said Jan, who had not really considered it.

“Didn’t they offer you a chance to be a scholar?” asked Mestek.

“I turned it down,” said Jan. “I work pretty hard on Pa’s plot of land, but I don’t think I could work as hard as them boys my age in school! I can read, write, and figure, you know,” he added, hastily.

“You ought to learn Latin so you understand szlachta,” said Mestek. “Having advance warning of what grown-ups are talking about is jolly handy.”

“I guess so,” said Jan. “Whose land is up here?”

“Widow Nowak, who is more or less a pensioner of Lord Olek,” said Mestek. “She grows herbs and is a herbwife. Mama buys from her. It doesn’t cover all her needs, but Lord Olek lets her keep the land for a peppercorn rent, which means a sum so small it would only buy one peppercorn. I asked. He likes that the herbs she grows are good and well-tended, and she and her husband were hard workers when he was alive and young. You give back what you are given,” he added. “I like the widow, she used to tend some of my wounds when I lived with Gostón.”

“They say his ghost walks, but I don’t believe it. Wilk went and put a stone in the mouth of what was left before he and his brother took all the remains to the church, and he did the same for everyone there.”

“They’ll say anything,” said Mestek. “The place needs to be torn down and another cottage built, and the lands tended better. It’s not as dry as Olek’s lands, and you can raise a decent crop there, and right now it’s going wasted. The problem with Stare Dolany is that it’s pretty much a Zaścianek, a village of mud-grubbing szlachta, except there aren’t enough szlachta there to grub the mud efficiently, after the Piekarscy...” he shuddered, having more idea of what the older doctor had done than a child his age had any right knowing. “And Morski and his brother were traitors, and the children gone to live with my lord-brother-Godfather. And the cottages of the men he took lying empty, too, and the lands unused. What we really need are some runaway serfs who will be glad of somewhere to settle with no questions asked; there’s a generation spent for my unlamented sire getting the women killed in childbed and the men killed fighting his battles.”

“Your Pa really expects you to think about things, don’t he?”

“Yes, but I think fairly deeply anyway.  I’m going to inherit the land one day, and I need to do my best for all my people. I’ll be grateful for a good sołtys to that end too,” he added.

“Sometimes you seem older than me.”

“It’s one of the heavy duties of being a szlachcic now,” said Mestek, deciding that Jan would not thank him for a beautiful word like ‘onerous.’ “You have to learn to grow up quickly.”

“Hmm, I think your Pa has more idea of duty than privilege, which ain’t like all szlachta,” said Jan. “I’m sorry I thought you were going to show off and be a stuck up little arse.”

“Papa says privilege comes with duty, and one without the other is wrong,” said Mestek. “We get paid to worry harder, he says, and think of things which need doing.  I guess I understand why you’d expect me to be an arse. The szlachta most in the village were the Piekarscy.”

Jan sniggered.

“And you have to be at school with them,” he said.

“Idzik isn’t so bad,” said Mestek. “And he is going to be a doctor and be a proper one. Emil... oh, well, there’s nothing really wrong with Emil now he’s away from his father. I don’t like him, but that’s not really his fault.  Excuse me,” he added, turning off the road to a cottage. He knocked, and a peasant woman answered.

“My lord!” she said, dropping a bob of a curtsey.

“You haven’t reported that your chimney is awry,” said Mestek.

“Oh, my lord, my husband is waiting for my brother to visit, to fix it,” said the woman.

“Well, it’s time for the spring gales, and that’s not good,” said Mestek.

“I’ll see my brother comes over tomorrow.”

“Good; see you do. Papa will recompense him for his time, and your husband for saving a builder, if they know how to do it. If they don’t and make a mess of it, he will wax ‘scrutiatingly irritable,” he added.

“My brother’s a mason,” said the woman, hastily.

“Oh, that is good,” said Mestek.

Jan was waiting for him.

“Proper little lord, you,” he said.

“The peasants don’t like someone being con-cil-iatory,” said Mestek. “I don’t have to lordling at you. You’re betwixt and between, and Papa wouldn’t have turned a hair at you being a scholar, and he won’t if Maryla wants to.  Like any children Wilk and Ryksa have will be reared with us, because Ryksa has one daughter who is a szlachcianka, and Wilk is too clever not to hope his children will be. It’s against all the rules, but some rules are silly.”

Jan digested this.

“Szlachta come in good and bad too,” he said.

“Yes, and we all fart and piss as well,” said Mestek. “We’re just trained to have longer words for breaking wind and urinating.”

Jan laughed.

 

 oOoOo

 

Joanna was in the village, officiating at the birth of Wilk’s first child, by his wife Ryksa, who had borne Gryfina, the oldest of Mieszko Zabiełło’s bastards, when Ryksa was barely more than a child herself. Her parents had not been kind to her or to Gryfina, and her understanding with Wilk had been broken off. It was a late marriage and pregnancy, but Ryksa was literate, and helped Wilk out as Władysław’s agent in the village, and they lived well enough on the good pay this brought, without being indolent.  Joanna had no real worries about Ryksa coming safely through the birth.

“Oh, my lady, you don’t have to....” said Ryksa.

“Yes, I do,” said Joanna. “I’m a healer, and I want to make sure all our people are healthy. Now let me check your dilation, which is embarrassing and uncomfortable to do, so let’s pretend we’re just chatting about things in general. And by the way, you’re further on than I was anticipating with Wilk’s somewhat casual message, so this shouldn’t take too long.  Now, tell me if he’s a good husband, because I suspect he’s as doting as my Władek is.”

“I love Wilk, and he’s good to me,” said Ryksa. “And... oooooh!”

“That’s it, you’re doing fine,” said Joanna. “Soon have a little wolf-cub ready to howl at the moon until silenced by the milkbar.”

Half an hour later saw the delivery of a little boy, with a full head of hair, and a good yell.

“What are you calling him?” asked Joanna, tying off the umbilicus.

“Well, lady, we thought he should be ‘Wladysław’ for best, after our good patron, but he’ll be called ‘Wilczek’ I expect, as you say, a little Wolfling.”

“And both very appropriate,” said Joanna.

 

oOoOo

 

Mestek met Joanna on their respective ways back to The Mews. Mestek sported a black eye and a degree of mud about his person, and Jan had a thick lip and was limping. Joanna raised an eyebrow.

“Were you lads fighting about anything in particular?” she asked, mildly.

“Oh, we weren’t fighting each other,” said Mestek.  “Only Stanek and Majka-Magdza Kapustka live rather a way out of town,  and she comes from the town, you know, where Starosta Wronowski lives. And her sister was visiting with a brood of self-important little snot-nosed offspring, and they egged on the Kapustki children, who really are cabbage-heads, and they wanted to roll me in a ditch for looking beautiful. Which is sort of understandable, but I was working, and besides, when big boys of twelve or thirteen set on someone who isn’t yet nine, it’s not very fair, and I didn’t want to use my sabre on children.”

“No, indeed,” said Joanna. “So you fought back, and Jan helped? Well done, Jan.”

“Mestek’s a damn good fighter, my lady,” said Jan, who had been on the receiving end often enough, and took no offence in Joanna assuming that he had been fighting Mestek. Though he did flush in shame that as a bigger boy, he had been guilty of trying to bully his now friend.

 “You can always come up to the dwór to learn more techniques, even if you don’t want to be a scholar, Jan,” said Joanna. “I’m happy to know you were there and sorry you took lumps on Mestek’s behalf. Anything that needs treating?”

“Oh, no, my lady,” said Jan. “But Me ... Lord Mestek was going to come back to explain to Pa, so I don’t get thrashed.”

“Oh, of course, very important to stand by your supporters, Mestek,” said Joanna. “I trust the incursion of town snots look worse than you do?”

“Of course, Mama! There were only six of them, and only two of them were much bigger than me, so we had them outnumbered,” said Mestek.

“Of course,” said Joanna.

“Lord Mestek cut sticks from the hedge with his sabre and twirled them like a windmill!” said Jan, who had been impressed.

“Quite right; when the weight and size of your opponent is against you, there is no shame in using weapons,” said Joanna. “Your Aunt Mariola did likewise once, but things got nasty and she had to draw her swords. Mariola is almost as good as I am.”

“I will be as good as Papa was, one day,” said Mestek. “I say! Did Ryksa hatch?”

“There is now a little Wolfling,” said Joanna.

“Excellent!” said Mestek. “He’s almost a second-hand brother.”

 

Milord Gardener

 one of those plot bunnies that got to half a chapter.  I am going well with Dance of Fledglings though and will probably begin posting tomorrow.

A lot of writers complain of the difficulty of getting plot bunnies. My problem is that they breed like ... bunnies ... but that getting them written is the hard work. I've got over 200 plot bunnies written down, Some I've combined in side plots or internal plot arcs in other thing. But I need to write faster ...

Chapter 1

 

 

“Your problem, Felix, is that you would have spurned a mere silver spoon in your mouth when you were born, and have had it easy ever since,” said the Honourable Peregrine Leger.

Felix Halenhurst, Earl Holmshaw, smiled his ridiculously sweet smile.

“Honestly, Perry, you make me sound like some totally mercenary fellow.”

“You are generous, Felix, but it don’t mean anything to you,” said Andrew, Viscount Glenduve.   “You are wealthy, so good looking you are almost pretty, a born horseman, solid cricketer, can stand up to box against any prize fighter, and you are even-tempered and a pleasant companion.  If the pair of us didn’t love you like a brother, we’d be forced to hate you for being such a revolting paragon.”

“I love you too, Drew, but I am taken aback at being called a paragon.”

“It’s a fault,” said Drew.  “And one all the women love; you are the most eligible bachelor in London.”

“And don’t I know it!” groaned Felix.  “I would retire to my estates save that I owe it to my family to marry and produce an heir.”

The three young men had been through Eton and Oxford together, and were firm cronies. Felix had been teased by them since they had first met up at the age of eleven about his curly blond hair and outrageously long eyelashes.  And yet, he managed not to look at all like a girl, for his chin was square and determined, and his shoulders broad.

“Your problem is,” said Perry, “That you’ve never turned an honest day’s toil in your life.”

“I resent that,” said Felix.  “I run my own estate, and I do a lot of my own gardening, it being an avocation of mine.”

“Yes, but when you have a problem, you throw money at it,” said Andrew.  “And it won’t fadge, for you cannot hire someone to choose a wife for you.”

“I know that,” said Felix.

“You know it in your head, but not in your heart,” said Perry.  “You ain’t spoilt but it’s only by the best of good luck. And I wager that if you took an honest job as Mr. Blank of Nowhere, and had to live on your income, you’d learn a lot more about what really matters in life.”

“You’re on,” said Felix.  “I accept the wager.”

“So, you’ll take on doing an honest job of toil as a gardener, for, what, three months?” demanded Perry.

“Yes,” said Felix.  “It will serve as a repairing lease during the season to disappear from society and get away from the rapacious clutches of those who fall in love with my title, and find my looks not intolerable as well.”

“I think most of them fall in love with a pretty doll and are pleased he is well-blunted and a nobleman into the bargain,” said Drew.

“Whichever it is, they are superficial,” said Felix, “Though I would prefer it was that way round than the other.”

“We’ll arrange you a job then,” said Perry.

 

Felix reflected on the words of his friends.  He had been an earl for as long as he could remember, his parents having died in a coach accident before he was breeched, and he had had a series of governesses, tutors and instructors in etiquette, deportment, dancing and the sword, who treated him like a little prince.  Felix was glad that he had been sent to Eton, even if not as young as some boys were, in time to knock his corners off.  He could have become quite insufferable, growing up in an atmosphere of deference.  No, Mr. Hume would not have permitted it.  Felix had retained the services of one of his tutors, who were engaged by his trustees to keep up his lessons in the holidays, as his secretary.  Mr. Hume had bear-led him on the Grand Tour, and had made sure that Felix saw important cultural sites, as well as enjoying foreign cuisine and the sort of culture most young men enjoyed, This was to say ballet in France, concerts in Germany, and the one bordello he managed to visit in Italy before foreswearing women of easy virtue when Mr. Hume took him to see those in the final stages of syphilis in a mad house.  It had been an excellent lesson in fastidiousness, but had left him rather diffident around women. 

Of course, it would not matter how shy Felix might feel with women, he was still lionised by parents of daughters for his wealth and title, and would probably continue to be so, he thought cynically, if he had been a hunchback with a squint.  That he was also good looking meant that the girls he was introduced to were not trying to escape him, though none of them ever seemed able to find anything to say.  He thought them all insipid and boring.  In this, Felix did most of the young ladies to whom he had been introduced an injustice; having been adjured by their anxious mothers to make a good impression on the earl, most of them were afraid to say anything which would give him a bad impression, even if they were not struck dumb by his physical beauty.  Felix was cynical about his physical beauty. It was true that his hair was long, golden and curly, when allowed out of its strict and powdered queue; and his eyes were large and smoky blue with outrageously long eyelashes.  However, his jaw was, in his own words, as square as a peasant farmer’s, and his nose wandered past the aristocratic into a hint of the aquiline.  His lips were too large, and Felix thought them coarse.  He had no idea how singularly sweet his smile was when he was genuinely happy, and how his mouth echoed his every mood; or how many women wished they had such well-developed lips as he.  He was blissfully unaware of how many of his ‘insipid’ dance partners became quite hot and bothered in the privacy of their own beds at imagining being kissed by those mobile lips.

 

 

“I have it all fixed up for you, Felix,” said Peregrine Leger.  “I wrote to my godmother, Lady Staines.  She’s a widow, reclusive and has never heard of you, I am certain.  I told her I had a gardener to find work for, a head gardener, mind, so you’re being spoilt in having the ordering of other men.  I didn’t think you would last the course being told what to do by someone you would doubtless disagree with.”

“I appreciate that, Perry,” said Felix, who had been thinking much the same thing.

“Yes, well, my Aunt Emily, as she likes me to call her, has a need for a chief gardener, so she can pension off the current one, who has let the place go to seed.  She says you will have a fair budget to improve it, so long as you steer clear of wholesale landscaping.  She likes her geometric parterres and topiary in front of the house the way they are, and a knot garden of roses behind it, and no follies, ruins, Chinese pagodas, rock gardens, wildernesses or distant aspects, thank you very much.”

“She sounds very set in her ways.”

“She is, but I wager you will enjoy both the kitchen garden and the apothecary garden, which are walled gardens either side of the knot garden. It’s more by way of being a maze than a knot garden;  she designed it herself when she was first married.  There’s a central circular meeting of the ways, with a pond, and a bench to watch it, and curved benches under arches between each of the four paths out. The paths have  trellises periodically for climbing roses, and traveller’s joy, clematis she calls it, and woodbine, and lilac as well, and the scent is incredible.  She will tell you she built it herself, and believe what she says, but of course the trellises were constructed by her gardeners, and the slabs in the pathways as well, and I doubt she dug the pond or installed the fountain.”

“It is unusual for one of our estate to take on such things personally,” said Felix, who had dug an ornamental pond alongside his gardeners.  “It sounds delightful, if not entirely in the modern style.”

“Oh, it’s a splendid place to take a lady for a quick bit of dalliance, or it would be if Aunt Emily entertained as much as she ought to,” said Perry.  “Her ambition is to have a fragrant scent at all times of year, which is a bit insane if you ask me, because if you dallied in a garden sniffing the scents in midwinter, you’d end up with a headcold and unable to smell any scents.”

“Perhaps she hopes to have such plants brought inside to brighten up the worst weather,” said Felix.  “It sounds an interesting challenge; I will try to rise to it.”

“You know what makes my heart sink?” said Drew. “It’s the thought that you probably will enjoy rising to the challenge and then people will accuse me of being a Jacobite for having a Scots name and title.  I will be accused of having done away with you because you can’t be bothered to come home after the three months is up, because you will be having a torrid affair with some shrub.”

Felix laughed.

“Somehow I doubt that I will find a nymph named Daphne amidst the laurels,” he said.

 

 

 

Felix takes a job as gardener to a dowager widow who has a pretty great niece to stay, to try to teach the girl not to be gauche, awkward and a bluestocking.  She’s something of a botanist and of course they fall in love in the garden.

Lady Emily Staines