Round the bend

 so this piece of innuendo and double entres, smut and fun was written for a friend who has just had root canal work to give her a giggle. 

You have been warned, do not drink while reading.  

This should be read out loud in a plummy Roedean sort of accent like a 1950s travellogue. 

Round the Bend

 

The River Bend is one of those typically beautiful English rivers, wending its meandering way through quintessentially English countryside, and past villages practising the many country customs so paradigmatic of the English.

Rising in chalk uplands, as a spring in the valley known by the quaint local nomenclature after the river as Bendy Bottom, a series of rills and waterfalls takes the nascent river to the lowlands, where it is fed by watercourses from other chalk bottoms like Saggy Bottom, Scratchy Bottom, Stretchy Bottom, Spanky Bottom and Much Bottom. Here it leaves Ffondelleshire and enters Ruttingshire.

 

One of the first settlements passed is the gracious country home of the Close family. The lawn stretches from the manor down to the water, providing the family with a vista so fair they feel no need to leave home. So close, indeed, are the Close family that their receding chins merge with their necks, and their protuberant eyes and webbed hands and feet lead the locals to affectionately nickname Close Manor as ‘Toad Hall.’ But in such an idyllic setting, one might indeed imagine oneself to be in a world like ‘Wind in the Willows.’ Lord Algernon Close’s acknowledged lady is Lady Augusta Close. She was the Honourable August Close until there was an unfortunate accident involving a silken rope and a sash window, but Lord Algernon did not seem to mind.

 

Below Close Manor is the village of Frotting-on-the-Bend, closely associated with Upper Frotting and by going via a lane known as Rear Approach, one might approach Lower Frotting, at some distance from the river. A little further on, where the river fills a marshy region, full of wild birds and rare flowers, one might find Frotting-in-the-Bog, and its prestigious girls’ school, Lipswell Hall, whose prospectus offers a full and stimulating education. 

 

The region of marsh is surrounded by reed beds, once used to make tallow candles, which doubtless gave the name to the village of Dipwick.  The candles still made there have always been popular in all the Frottings. Dipwick is known for its growing population, extending across the River Licking, a tributary to the Bend, to the village of Sackville, making a vast difference to the region.

 

Running past the marsh, Nob Hill is visible, a lookout post since earliest times, and associated with a village grown from the one-time vicus, or service-town to a Roman camp, and believed to be derived from its Roman name, Koytus Parva. The camp once known as Koytus Magna suffered an interruption to its development when the Roman Empire was falling and everyone withdrew.

Koytus Parva turned down the invitation to be twinned with the German town of Fucking, considering this urban marriage to be too vulgar.  The people of Koytus Parva are very conscious of their classical roots, and indeed the Verpa, Cauda and Priapus families are still prominent.

Not far downriver, the river has been managed somewhat, and a weir built, the village formerly known as Goldenford now called Goldenshower.

 

Across from Nob Hill is Bell End Hill, which accommodates the new town, Blowhard, doubtless named for its location, which has as yet only 69 inhabitants.

 

The River Bend slows down greatly now and meanders back and forth across its flood plain, serving small towns like Bendfordward, and Backford, and the canal which joins them known as the Back Passage. The lowest bridging point is occupied by the town of Much Sucking and its swallowed suburb, Spunklee, at the apex of the estuary, with estuarine villages of Cumoffen and Spray.

 

This pretty river encompasses all that is best in England, and as the valley inhabitants always say to visitors, come again soon!

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.”