The Eagle and the Falcon 1

 a few years on from the Swedish invasion and preparing for other excitement

 

 

Chapter 1 Duchy of Kurland [Courland]  August 1654

 

“Thank you for your hospitality, your grace,” said Jeremi to Herzog Jakub Von Kettler, Duke of Kurland.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting your majesty,” said Von Kettler. “Thank you for your son’s excellent aid with adding to my fleet; our colony at Fort Jakob on the River Gambia is well established, and we have had word that colonising Tobago in the Caribbean is going well.”

“I’ve a favour to ask you, with regards to your colonies,” said Jeremi, abruptly. “I... what?”

He had helped himself to some more cucumbers and his wife, Gryzelda, neatly whipped them away.

“Jeremi, you know that cucumbers are under the governance of Saturn, and you are altogether too saturnine a man to risk your good health by eating too many. Remember how ill you were a couple of years ago; why, if you had not been in the peak of health, you might have died. I swear you only survived because the cold of the cucumbers was offset by Jurij feeding you Tatar spiced meat dumplings.”

“Nearly burned my gullet out,” grumbled Jeremi. “Very well, my blossom, I will eschew further cucumbers.”

“My wife takes good care of me, too,” said Von Kettler. They exchanged a look, and much was not said between them that was substituted by eye contact. Jeremi loved Gryzelda dearly, and submitted to the few times she demanded rather than requesting. “What favour was it that you wanted, my liege?” the duke went on.

“It’s about slavery,” said Jeremi. “To be blunt, and to take the moral high ground so we might sneer at the Ottomans, I want to abolish serfdom entirely and to be able to boast that nobody on Rzeczpospolita lands is a slave. And I am aware that most European colonies rely on being sold slaves taken in tribal warfare amongst the various black peoples in Africa, and ship them to the Caribbean too.”

“So I understand,” said Von Kettler. “But we must use black labour, as only they are capable of working in the heat.”

“Not the attitude taken by Cromwell in Britain, as I understand, who ships out Irish and Scots political prisoners to work the plantations in Jamaica,” said Jeremi, dryly. “And you might want to give a thought to... acquiring... some of them.”

Von Kettler nodded.

“We did accidentally steal a British ship carrying supposed slaves, who have been very helpful in helping set up the colonies on Tobago,” he said. “The Cossack captain who took the ship claims it, and the men, were ‘looted’ which is more respectable than stealing.”

“And you’ll never persuade a Cossack otherwise,” said Jeremi. “What I’m proposing is that you manumit the slaves as soon as you have bought them, and either pay them wages as peasants working your lands, or rent them lands which they might pay for using with goods, or sell you the goods and pay a proportion in money. I think that though it would cost more  to you in the short term,  in the long term, happy peasants who can make more for themselves work harder. I... I was not a good landowner at first.  But I have found that better treatment has increased the productivity of my peasantry, and hence my own wealth.”

“Well, if you have seen it on your own lands, I’m willing to give it a try,” said Von Kettler. “And as I’ve been improving my own agriculture, and taking on some Dutch and English methods, and paying my peasants more to do so, and seen how well it worked, I’m more than happy.”

“We are all equal under the Lord, after all,” said Jeremi.

“Amen,” said Von Kettler. “I like that you are ecumenical, too.”

“It’s in my remit as king,” said Jeremi. “Good; I can put that before the Sejm, as well as the changing of the name of the Rzeczpospolita.”

“That will kill most of them of apoplexy,” said Von Kettler, dryly. “Why?”

“Well, it seems to me that the Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth is a devil of a mouthful,” said Jeremi. “And hardly gives much recognition to you, who are only nominally Lithuanian. Moreover, I’ve a mind to invite your brother-in-law, the Duke of Brandenburg, to bring Brandenburg-Prussia into the alliance. I was considering calling it the ‘Sarmatian Rzeczpospolita’ to cover that we are all in descent of the original Sarmatians.”

“Clever. You might even get them liking that,” said Von Kettler. “So, the Ottomans; they pose a risk when we use Jurij’s canal to get to the new world and Africa faster by going down the canal and the Dniepr and out to the Black Sea and thence through the Mediterranean. Are you going to war?”

“Offcially, no; unofficially, yes,” said Jeremi. “What I want to do is to issue a stern order to the Ottomans to return any Sarmatian citizen seized in raids. We lose twenty thousand people a year to their depredations, or rather the depredations of the Tatars, but they would not take so many if the Ottomans did not buy them. They will not return them, I am sure. Indeed, if we then punish the Tatars harshly, the Ottomans, who rely on our people as slaves, will likely decide to see if they can try our borders, because I came to the throne as a peacemaker. If we can then show them that this is a very bad idea, we might impose terms on them.”

“So you want my help and ships to back up Jurij to seize Constantinople,” said Von Kettler.

“Essentially, yes,” said Jeremi. “I thought you were a clever enough man to take my meaning.”

“Timing will be essential,” said Von Kettler. “I send ships out in veritable flocks to avoid both the Ottomans and the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean. It will have to be co-ordinated to have our fleet to hand.”

“Yes, and I want to offer you the position of Vice Admiral of the Fleet; essentially a Field Hetmanship under Jurij as Grand Admiral, or Crown Hetman of the Fleet,” said Jeremi.

“I accept,” said Von Kettler.

“I’ll stay and give your men a royal inspection, if you like, to help their morale,” said Jeremi. “My wife’s going back to my lands to check on anything needful there; she’s more than capable.

“Perhaps you’d like to take a brief trip in one of our new ships?” suggested Von Kettler.

“For sure; and Jurij with me, if you are acceptable. He’s riding in after having checked on some of his irregulars and their preparations against Russia.”

“Well, he is Grand Admiral of the Royal Fleet,” said Von Kettler. “And chief engineer; he’s a talented young man. I’m glad you Cossacks joined us; I’d hate to have either of you as enemies.”

 

 

oOoOo

 

Jeremi returned to his family happily after an enjoyable time inspecting the Kurland fleet and sailing on one of the larger, ocean-going ships. The family were at his ancestral dwór, which he was visiting before moving back to Warszawa. His oldest legitimate child, Michał, and Michał’s best friend and crony, Juryk Chmielnicki were gangly youths of thirteen, almost ready to go as pages to someone suitable. Their other playmate was Róża, a year or so older, who had been adopted by Jeremi’s illegitimate son, Jurij, and she bossed both boys firmly.  They were too old to consider Marysieńka, technically a lady in waiting, and shipped out of France at the age of five, as a playmate though she was now much their own age, as she was a more feminine little girl than Róża. Fortunately, she had Beata Magdalena Wittenberg, a hostage, as her playmate and follower, as Beata was four years her junior. Raina, at eight, was a sturdy, mischievous little girl, often in trouble with her nephew, Jaromka. They also played with Leonard Johan Wittenberg, Beata’s brother. The children’s father was a prisoner in Zamość, but both visited him only when Jeremi insisted that duty meant they should. Both called Jeremi ‘Papa,’ and Jeremi had given up correcting them. In a way, it was the greatest victory over the predatory and cruel Swedish general, who had threatened to torture Jurko.  At first, Jeremi had sent them to church with one of his Protestant officers; but Beata had asked to go with Marysieńka, as her God was more jolly. Jeremi had insisted that she go week and week about to make up her mind; but had not prevented her making her choice. And what Beata wanted, Leonard, or Leo, as he had become, wanted too. And that was as gall and wormwood to their Swedish sire.

Jeremi’s youngest son, Ruryk, was five, and had been, like Michał, a sickly baby. Gryzelda had not conceived again after his birth; and Jeremi was not displeased. Ruryk had been conceived in Jeremi’s and Gryzelda’s celebration that the Swedes had been repelled. He worked on keeping up with his nephew, Janko, Jaromka’s brother, a few months older than him, and Basia and Janek,  children of the cunning Onufry Zagłoba, Basia the oldest of them. At times, Jaromka, Raina, and Leonard were joined by Remuś, son of Helena’s friend, Malwina, and Jurko’s lieutenant, Wasyl.  Helena and Jurko had two younger children, twins Cyryl, named the Polish version of Jurko’s mentor, Kuryło, and Krystyna, after the brave Swedish queen.

Jeremi’s other essentially adoptive children were Władysław and Jadwiga, the children of the previous king. Władysław was now a sturdy youth of eighteen summers, and Jadwiga a year younger.

Jeremi adored the horde of children he had accepted as his family. That Michał had chivvied all of them into a line, arranged by height, to salute him amused him mightily, and as he came off his horse, and Władysław, acting as his page, led both horses away, the neat line of little towarzysze broke up to hurl themselves on Papa, Uncle Jeremi, or Grandpapa, according to their lineage.

And without Jurij and Helena to teach him how to love, he would never have had this, but would be a stern and distant father. Tears came to his eyes, as they always did, when he contemplated this.

“And where’s my best girl?” he demanded, as Gryzelda came forward. He lifted her and swung her round. Her figure was dumpy from Ruryk’s birth, and she had lines of pain, but to Jeremi she was still the most beautiful woman in the world. He had blamed himself for her lack of health, but she had assured him that she would bear it gladly to have little Ruryk.

How long they might have the delicate Ruryk, neither parent could guess; but they did not prevent him from joining in as much as possible with the others. His life would be as happy as they could make it, for as long as it lasted, without spoiling him.

“How did it go?” asked Gryzelda. “You seem optimistic.”

“He was ready to consider the idea and try it,” said Jeremi. “Now all I have to do is to sell it to the Sejm, and fight the golden rights of the more hidebound to hold their fellow beings as chattel goods, purely because of the myth that peasants are a different race.”

“You may have trouble selling it to some of the serfs, as well, my husband,” said Gryzelda. “Don’t you recall how some of our serfs were afraid it would mean they would be thrown out with nowhere to go? It must be made clear that manumitting serfs does not mean abandoning them.”

“Well, if any do abandon their serfs, I’ll bloody well teach them to be sailors or engineers for Jurij,” said Jeremi. “Yes, we’ll have some repercussions from it, and I’ll have Cossacks out collecting any who are thrown out, regardless of any laws I might make about that, and given succour. We lose enough people every year to the predations of the ruddy Tatars and Turks, you’d think people would treat all their peasants as precious, being the means by which their wealth is won, but no.”

“I can sing the refrain,” said Gryzelda, snuggling. “I’ve missed you.”

“Wife!  I’ve missed you, too,” said Jeremi. “I need a damned good massage.”

“Oh, just your back, my lord, my king?”

“Oh, hell, no, more at the front, thank you,” said Jeremi.

They went off, Gryzelda giggling.

 

oOoOo

 

Jurko looked over his family, sighing in delight. They were his family and he was deliriously happy. Helena too. They saw her cousins occasionally; but essentially they had been left far behind, like his own mother.....

Jurko shuddered, briefly.

They had been in Kijów, a year or so after Jeremi had been elected king, and he had come face to face with his mother in the street, thrusting  herself out in front of him, eluding his guards. Prince Jurij Korybut Wiśniowiecki rated the sort of honour guard the Cossack, Jurko Bohun, did not.

And there she was.

“Jurko! My Jurko! Don’t you recognise me, your own mother?” she intoned.

He hardly had recognised her. She was a few years older than his father, but looked almost old enough to be his grandmother.

“I don’t have a mother,” said Jurko. He felt Jan Skrzetuski stiffen beside him, surprised and disappointed that he should repudiate her. “I haven’t had a mother since I was thirteen years old and my father got married, though I didn’t realise then what prompted my mother to throw a tantrum and tell me to get out. She told me to go to the Sich as I’d never amount to anything. I was glad to leave, away from the changing stream of lovers she had who used to beat on a scrawny little boy. I hadn’t had my final growth spurt then, and I wasn’t well fed. Little girls my age were taller than me. I went to the Sich, and I became a man, and then I became a registered Cossack. And then I met my wife and my father and gained a family. But I have no mother; you are mistaken, old woman. I don’t know you.”

He walked on past her, fighting to stop the tears flowing down his fine, dark face. And Jan had drawn him into his arms and embraced him.

They had got drunk together, and Kuryło had explained why to Helena and to Zuzanna, Jan’s wife. And he had never spoken of it again. But he had arranged for his mother to be taken into a nunnery to be cared for.

Word had reached him, just before his father returned from Kurland, that she had died.

Helena slid an arm around Jurko’s waist.

“I did read the letter which made you go stony-faced and drop it on the floor,” she said. “And you should pray for her soul.”

“I... I will try,” said Jurko. “All I can think of is the anger and malice in her eyes when she threw me out. It was so like the Princess Kurcewiczowa when she looked at you, which was one reason I was so ready to protect you, even though part of me was afraid of committing to marriage so young. Then, in Kijów, she was... calculating. She expected to go to court in fine fabrics, be the mother of the famous Prince Jurij, Grand Hetman of the Fleet.  I read it all in one look. But she was not sorry she had thrown me out because she repented, she was sorry because I made myself rich and famous, and then, beside Papa, my star rose even further. I hate her.”

“I understand,” said Helena.

He knew that she did, that it was no platitude. Her aunt was as grasping and malignant.

“Come to bed,” he said.

She went with him, gladly, and he released all his pain in loving her with a desperation of need.

And then he sobbed, and she held him; and he slept.

And he woke much cleansed, and went to the chapel to pray, at last, for her soul.

 

 

poets and spies 15

 

Chapter 15

 

Jack was beyond delighted when Daphne brought him his dinner on a tray. She blushed.

“I need to apologise,” she said.

“You have nothing to apologise for; I was indelicate in my delight in sharing understanding,” said Jack.

“I shouldn’t have been so... Francine would call it ‘preceptress disease,’” said Daphne. “You know, unwed ladies of uncertain age who have given up all hope, and so find anything to do with... with intimacy frightening.”

“And you don’t?”

“I don’t want to be a governess. I want to be married and have my own children, and I want a husband who cares about what I want as well as what he wants. I’d like to marry well enough to thumb my nose at my stepmother, who wants me kept down.  She has her children, my half-siblings, and she doesn’t want reminders that she’s only four years older than I am, and that I’m the only child of Papa’s first marriage. I don’t really care about being anything like a countess so long as I am free. I considered David Peacock, you know; he seems a good sort of man, and I’m used enough to hard work, I’d make a good farmer’s wife, you know.”

“It seems a waste of your brains.”                                                                                               

“The Peacock boys have bettered themselves, don’t underestimate them,” said Daphne.  “But I couldn’t help it, when I saw a beautiful young god across the salon... but he belonged to someone else.”

“You felt it too?”

“Yes.” She blushed. “But l... lust isn’t enough.”

“How eminently sensible!”

“Francine,” said Daphne. “We discussed love and lust hypothetically at school, and she waved her hands and said something like, ‘eh bien, mes amies, lust, oh it makes the blood sing and the pulse race, and you have a beautiful young man, but if that is all you have, what will you then do with him when he is forty, and has a paunch and is thin on top?’ because Francine is very practical.”

Jack laughed.

“I am vain enough to fight gaining a paunch and my family usually has a good head of hair. But I will go grey and gain wrinkles some years in advance of you. I am something of a sportsman, but I am also a closet poet, and  I like to read. I like the theatre, but I genuinely enjoy being in the country, where I tend to live much like a country squire. Alice hated it; called it being ‘immolated in a muddy hole.’”

“I like living in the country,” said Daphne. “Are you proposing, and if so, is it as wife, or mistress?”

“What, you would expect me to suggest making a young lady into my mistress?” Jack was startled.

“I have no great family and I am no catch as a wife to an earl,” said Daphne. “They say mistresses have more fun; I should think the ones who have most fun are wives who are treated also as mistresses, because they have no worries about being discarded and poor. I would want a legal document if I was your mistress, to have a pension of three hundred a year if you discarded me.”

“A mean amount. But you have thought it out.”

“I... I want to touch you and I want you to explain the more... well, you know which poems. But I’m not stupid enough to think I can aspire to marrying you, so I need... safeguards. A woman who has lost her looks is a leaf tossed in the wind, at the mercy of the world’s cruel  wintery blast. I know it’s mercenary; but... but it is a big step.” She finished on a whisper.

“Come here,” said Jack.

She went to him; and though he only had one good arm to put round her, he pulled her on top of him. And then he kissed her, rolling her over with his injured arm on top so his hand could caress her without moving too much.

Daphne surrendered to  his kiss, wriggling happily against him, one hand sliding into his blond hair, the other on his chest.  When he lifted his lips from hers, she growled at him.

“A wife who is treated like a mistress suits me very well,” he said. “Oh, Miss Kempe! What is your first name? Nobody has ever told me.”

“Daphne,” said Daphne.

“What, a shrub to be mother of my little shrubs? You are fond of them, I think?”

“I adore them,” said Daphne. “Are you sure you want to marry me?”

“Oh, yes, I’m not going to let you go; you are intelligent, enter into my interests, and you bubble with passion. Though we might get married quietly, here, and forget to send a notice to the paper so we can pretend you are my mistress.” His eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Oh, what a most excellent prank!” said Daphne.

“I need to see your father,” said Jack.

“I should write first,” said Daphne. “If I say I have received an offer of marriage from my friend’s husband’s brother, my stepmother will assume you to be the sort of bucolic she assumes Mr. Brierly to be. If she had any idea who you are, she’d take steps to collect me and make sure I never saw you again, you know.”

“She could try; I am not going to let that happen, however! But Stoat, a bucolic? I can imagine his outrage, and him groping for a quizzing glass,” laughed Jack. “Oh, you can say I own some land in Hertfordshire, and run sheep.”

“I shall,” said Daphne. “But you have a wounded arm, and you are using it too much! You should lie still while I kiss you, now I know how.”

“Oho, you would like to take the lead? Well, why not?” he rolled back onto his back, and she sat over him, blushing, and brushed his lips with hers.

His dinner tray, on the commode, was entirely forgotten.

 

oOoOo

 

Stoat negotiated rapidly with the farmer who had possession of horses, and soon had acquired a couple of good riding beasts. Francine had no fears of riding astride, and they cantered off. Stoat was inspired to stop at the coaching inn.

“My friends!” he said. “I am looking for my cousin, who owes me money, and moreover I suspect him of trying to cheat at a wager; he is a sallow fellow, with dark hair, and he affects the English look with a coat he bought from a smuggler.”

“Oh, him!” the landlord spat. “So that was what he was agitated about, that it was imperative to know when the calèche would be here. And he was relieved not to wait long.”

“Oh, the cheat! The villain! You mean he has left already?” cried Stoat.

“Aye, two hours since,” said the landlord.

“Well! I was to race him to Paris as we both have business there, but we were to set  off together,” said Stoat.  “I pray you, what inns are the overnight stops for the calèche?” the calèche stopped overnight instead of going night and day alike like the stagecoach or the mailcoach. 

Furnished with the information about the overnight stops, Stoat left a vail which would be generous for a prosperous grocer, and went out to mount up.

“He has two hours start on us,” he said. “And though I want to push on and get ahead, I don’t want to push the horses too hard. The calèche after all will have changes of horses regularly, as it’s a government-run transport.  They’ll be able to sustain a speed of eight miles an hour;  and reasonably speaking on these nags, we won’t go a lot faster.”

“They are not bad animals, I think,” said Francine.

“Sweetness, they are not bad animals, but they have not been exercised regularly, or had their stamina maintained. They are too old to be likely to throw out splints, but we don’t want them dropping dead of apoplexy for being pushed too hard. Or developing cramps, or dying for sweating too hard and not being sufficiently hydrated. We shall have to stop and buy them bran and give them a wet bran mash with honey and salt, to keep them going.”

“I am sorry; I had no idea,” said Francine. “Me, I only ride the beasts, I do not know what makes them go.”

“A lot of tender care, actually,” said Stoat. “Horses are unbelievably delicate.”

“I know about needing to cool them,” said Francine, “And to be gentle with their mouths.”

“Which is more than many know, and in most circumstances is all you need to know,” said Stoat. “But these beasts have been allowed to get out of condition, and as you can see, they are reluctant to canter.”

“But that man did not warn us, we might have been people who would make them gallop!” said Francine.

“Quite,” said Stoat. “And I’ll see if we can’t take the poor beasts with us when we go.”

“Good; cruelty to dumb beasts is not proper nor respectable,” said Francine.

“I doubt we will catch up before the calèche stops for the night,” said Stoat. “At this point we have a problem. As, indeed, at all points hereon if we stop the calèche. Collet is surrounded by people who will not like to see another man killed.”

“But he is in English clothes; will they question it if you pretend to be whatever the French have instead of Bow Street Runners?”

“Not as easy as when the Committee for Public Safety was so feared, but... it might work,” said Stoat. “When we stop to feed the nags, I’ll see if I can construct a document. Few enough of them will have seen a warrant for arrest or a policeman’s warrant of identity, and I know the basic form and enough formulaic phrases. I even have an official seal on my fobs.”

“Bon, that will do nicely. You have the bearing and sheer gall to carry it out.” She considered. “There is, somewhere, a pun in there on Gallic and gall, but I cannot think it through at the moment, my brains are being jarred worse than my backside is, for this wretched beast refusing to go at anything faster than a trot.”

“You know to rise and fall, at least.”

“I have watched men at the trot. I am not unobservant. I am not happy with M. Collet, for it is not an accustomed movement, and everything is going to hurt, tomorrow.”

“I am sorry, love.”

“I do not blame you, my Stoat, I blame Collet. And I will not weep for him. He is interrupting our marital bed, and that is unforgiveable.”

“Totally,” said Stoat, with a straight face.

What was amusing was that most Frenchmen would nod solemnly in agreement with  Francine; l’amour was sacred.

 

They stopped to feed the horses at a ramshackle looking inn, in a village which appeared not to have a name, and Stoat was content to order food for the horses and for his companion and himself and to sit in the shadows to construct some papers which should pass muster when they caught up with Collet. The odd food stain would not matter, but would indeed add verisimilitude. Francine was glad just to be off a horse, and wished only that the chairs were not so hard. She sat on her satchel.

“Sorry, little one,” said Stoat. “Shall I hire a room for you to rest, and go on alone?”

“I will not be a liability,” said Francine. “Me, I am hardy. Did not I manage to drive, and drive, and drive, in pursuit of poor Romilda, when my wrists were breaking, but breaking from the effort? I have the fortitude to be an English heroine, as good as any in any novel, yes, and better than those who scream and faint to give the hero something to do. Me, if I wrote a novel, I would make it so that the heroine does not know what hysterics are, and make her a good foil for her hero. But some of them can endure, and mon Dieu! How loudly some of them do their enduring! But me, I suffer, but in silence. Have I made one word of complaint?”

“No, my sweet, you are stoic and uncomplaining, and I adore you,” said Stoat. “But a man is permitted to worry when he sees his wife is in some pain and suffering, and to offer her succour.”

“Vraiment,” said Francine. “And his wife appreciates such courtesy, but though she longs for nothing so much as to sink into a goose-feather bed, and preferably in his loving arms, the good wife is nonetheless more dutiful than this, and manages not to sigh after a cushion for her so-abused arse.”

“Sweetness!” said Stoat.

They applied themselves to a simple, but nourishing, meal of chicken stew, with plenty of onion and turnip to pad it out, and a piece of black bread with a scrape of butter on it. The wine was red, rough and undistinguished.

“Adequate,” said Francine, somewhat revived “But they would have been better to have fed the wine to the chicken, to revive it before butchering it.  But if that was cassoulet de poulet aux fines herbes as he said, I am a Hottentot.  Certainly, the pullet involved was more of an old crone of a fowl. But it was well enough cooked.”

Stoat laughed, and went to settle up. Some negotiation led to him presenting a feather pillow to Francine to ride on.

“My hero!” said Francine. “I will express my gratitude when we can be together properly.”

“I hope it helps,” said Stoat.

“Me, I will not cease to resent Collet, but I will do so from a position of less discomfort,” said Francine.

 

 

Francine was certainly ready to curse Collet in English, French, and Latin by the time they reached the large village of Brecqueflori, a pretty village set on the side of a hill, which the road climbed. There was an estaminet as well as the coaching inn. Here they left their horses, having paid for them to be fed and watered, not a usual service offered by an estaminet, but Stoat bribed the proprietor well, and to bring them on to the inn when they were satisfied. 

He flashed his forged documents.

“I am about to arrest a dangerous criminal, citizen,” he said. “Your co-operation is appreciated, and I know you will do nothing to impede my official business.”

The implied threat made the accompanying thanks more credible.

They drank a glass of unmemorable wine, and strolled over to the inn. Under cover of darkness, Francine slipped a cold hand into her husband’s hand. He squeezed it reassuringly.  Killing a man in what would be cold blood was never easy; but Collet had shot the unsuspecting earl, and planned to finish him off.

And Stoat was certain that he had more blood on his hands than that of his harmless brother.

 

wings of diplomacy 1

 I have posted this as a sample before but just to get started again, here it is complete.

Chapter 1

 

“I’ve changed my mind, tell him to go back!” said Irene trying to pull a comic face at her husband through her labour.

Wojciech held her hands, and Jan, as  imperturbable over delivering his foster-son’s first child as over delivering a foal, called calm instructions to the girl he loved as dearly as if she was his own daughter.

“It’s just a trifle late for that” Wojciech said dryly. “I’m afraid he already has the order to charge.”

“Stop bellyaching about it and push,” said Jan.

Wojciech George came into the world protesting over the hurry but quite capable of fastening onto a nipple with tenacity.  Although the Polish for George was Jerzy, Irene wanted her son to have a name which would do in England; and St. George, that quintessentially English saint, shared his day with St. Wojciech.  Somehow it seemed appropriate.

Wojciech gazed proudly down at his wife and son.

“He is beautiful!” he said.

“He’s red and wrinkled and looks like a pickled plum” said Irene, cheerfully kissing her pickled plum adoringly.  “Feliks, you shall be first to hold your brother” and she passed him over.

Feliks was adopted; he had been Wojciech’s first friend when Wojciech had set out to be the last winged hussar, and had attracted Wojciech’s notice by the fellow feeling of sharing hair the colour of a new horse chestnut. Orphaned, he had gone to find his winged hussar, and had been adopted, Wojciech talked by Irene into laying aside his scruples over blurring the distance between peasant and szlachta.

Their adopted daughter, Aleksandra,  was the child of a szlachcic ruined by debt occasioned by borrowing to care for his sick wife. He had turned to crime, and Wojciech had duelled him to give him an honourable death. Ala, the name she had chosen for herself rather than the more conventional ‘Ola’,  had not forgotten her Papa, but called Wojciech ‘Papa’ not ‘New Papa’ now, and was happy for Irene to be ‘Mama’. She would have to know more, one day; but one day was a long time away. Feliks was  her partisan supporter, and he would be of his adoptive brother.  Wojciech insisted that he have time off the school he attended with Irene’s brother Błażej and their friends so he could meet his little brother or sister, and know that he was still part of the family.

Feliks appreciated that.

“Oh, my innocent brother, so happy and peaceful,” he murmured. “Enjoy it while you can; you have to be a baron one day.”

“Poor little babe,” said Wojciech, “Let him slumber in blissful ignorance or I’ll foist it onto you.”

“Now there’s no need to get nasty, Papa,” grinned Feliks.

 

oOoOo

 

The little family was settling down to a feeding routine when a letter arrived from Warszawa.

 

To our most beloved agent and force of arms on the border, the last winged hussar, greetings.

Wojciech, I would like you to come to Warszawa as soon as you might, with your good lady and anyone else you feel you need, ready to undertake a journey on my behalf.

Stanisław August.

 

“Damn, damn, double damn and all the devils in hell and the imps in purgatory!” said Wojciech. He continued cursing for two straight minutes. Irenka stared, open mouthed.

“Papa never swears,” said Feliks, in awe.

“No, but apparently when he does so, he does it in spades,” said Irene.

“Letter from the king; I am sorry to sully your ears,” said Wojciech, tossing it to his wife. He knelt to beg forgiveness from God for swearing. Irene read it.

“He means England, I wager,” said Irene.

Wojciech considered.

“Do you think so, Irenka?” he asked.

“He specified me. I think that is suggestive.”

“Well! Yes, I suppose so.”

 

oOoOo

 

 

 

Wojciech entered the gold and white ballroom of the  palace with his usual softly heavy tread, and Irenka on his arm. Compared to many, they were conservatively clad, and Wojciech clung to Sarmatian garb rather than trick himself out in the current fashion.  Irene, used to western clothes, wore a panniered ballgown in a claret so deep that it appeared black in the folds, deep enough not to clash with either her hair or that of her husband’s effulgent locks. His kontusz was of similar shade, in brocade wrought with leaves in red, orange and gold, making him a creature of blood and fire. It was an effect they had discussed to help to further the legend of the Last Winged Hussar, the Blood Angel. His żupan was black, touched with gold, and he wore red hussar boots over black trousers, and a black kontusz sash, heavy with gold bullion. His ruby signet gleamed on his finger, and rubies matching it in shade adorned Irenka’s neck. She was unpowdered, and her strawberry-blonde hair was close in colour to the red-gold on Wojciech’s kontusz.

There was a gasp from a youth who had, until that moment, considered himself very fine in his new Western clothes. He was a handsome youth, and knew how to dress for his colouring, in a rich, dark blue jacket, heavy with gold lace across the chest and down the sides to where it cut away, over a velvet waistcoat in the same blue, voided in a pattern of fleurs-de-lis showing the gold silken ground of the cloth. His breeches were in a cream satin, suggesting gold, but not sufficiently  overdone to be vulgar. It was about the colour of his pale golden locks, which shone through his hair powder in places, caught into a queue at the base of his neck, the black solitaire exquisitely tied over his snowy cravat.

“Hellfire!” he exclaimed. “Płodziewicz!”

“And what do you have against my Godbrother, whelp?” asked the big man whose even paler blond hair was not powdered.

The boy’s father sank his face into his hands as the lad opened his mouth.

“He’s a big bully!” said the boy. “He made my father thrash me, but how was I to know he was a szlachcic? He was digging!”

“I dig sometimes too,” said Seweryn Krasiński, still more amused than angered. “A soldier has to know how to deal with bodily waste, you know. And a good landowner helps his peasants in times when all hands are needed on the land, like at harvest. Didn’t your father teach you that?”

“But ... but it’s what peasants are for!” squealed young Zdziarski, as Wojciech approached and plainly recognised the youth who had impeded his rescue of the carter who had brought his adoptive son Feliks to him, who had been buried in a landslide.

“Still has a voice like a magpie with a stick up his arse,” he said. “Don’t go picking on Lady Filka Krasińska any more than on my wife; those of us who are allied to the Raven banner don’t have meek wives.  Filka put three war rockets through the last person who irritated her.”

“Made the devil of a mess,” said Seweryn.

“I couldn’t tell by the time you’d walked through what was left,” said Wojciech.

“I wouldn’t have done if I’d known,” said Seweryn defensively. “What are you doing in Warszawa?”

“I don’t know; I got a letter asking me to attend the king so I came,” said Wojciech. “Well, I know in broad, he wants me to be diplomatic in England.”

“You?” said Seweryn. “You big lug, the words ‘Wojciech’ and ‘diplomatic’ are mutually exclusive.”

“It’s because of Irenka’s relatives,” said Wojciech. “At least, I assume so. Or he might have sent you.”

“Dear God, you can’t let Filka loose in England since she discovered war rocketry, it’s only a century since London last burned,” said Seweryn.

“Oy!” said Phyllis.

“If you and your brother got together ...” said Seweryn.

“Oh, fair point,” agreed Phyllis. “Wojan, dear Godbrother, I take it you know young Lord Zdziarski?”

“Unfortunately,” said Wojciech. “But he may have improved with keeping. I take exception to brats who tell their men to shoot my –at the time – pregnant wife as well as shooting me because I wouldn’t let him interrupt a rescue mission of some of my dependents.”

Phyllis peered at Cyprian Zdziarski.

“His head is still attached, and he shows no signs of having met Hellish Polish Quarte going the wrong way,” she said.

“I was busy,” shrugged Wojciech, “and pre-occupied. And then his father arrived and asked nicely for his life. I suggested thrashing him.  Did it do any good, and are you civilised enough for a szlachcic to speak to now, boy?” he asked Zdziarski.

“I ... I ... you will meet me for that!” squealed Zdziarski.

His father groaned.

The dark, saturnine man, with the scarred face, standing near him, grinned.

“Have you any other sons, Lord Zdziarski?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“Married?”

“Widowed.”

“If I was you, I’d look for a bride to breed an heir,” said Władysław Sokołowski. “Your whelp just irritated the third best swordsman in Poland.”

“And you’re the best ...”

“No, my wife’s the best. I stand between her and Wojciech since losing an arm. And Wojciech is a force of nature.”

“What the devil can I do?”

“Well as he’s in a good mood, he may just play with the boy and humiliate him. If I was you, I’d send him to school for a year to curb his manners.”

“Yes, I think I will.” He considered. “I might just send him to school in Lapland and hope he doesn’t irritate the reindeer.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it,” said Władysław. “Wojciech:the king wants you; he’s in the octagonal salon.”

 

 

“Well, my last Winged Hussar, how are things on the borders?” asked the king. “Did you have a quiet journey?”

“Quieter than they were, sire,” rumbled Wojciech. “Funnily enough the fear of being run down by winged hussars has a deterrent effect on brigands. It worked on the brief interruption to our journey, too, but there were only four of them, so I had them outnumbered without Irenka having to disturb herself. They flung themselves off their horses and surrendered.”

“I wonder why?” said Stanisław August with an innocent look. Wojciech laughed.

“I confess, I play up the melodrama, sire,” he said.

“And I always thought you straightforward and humourless when you were at court,” said the king. “I believe I did not know you at all.”

“Oh, I am straightforward on the whole,” said Wojciech. “But a look of bovine stupidity on the face of a large man is generally believed, and it means one does not get involved in tedious smalltalk.  I am also quite good at maintaining an immobile face. Sokołowski describes me as having a distressing turn of levity.”

“Well, I am glad; you are accounted by many as a dour fellow.”

“Including my young brother-in-law who still has not figured me out,” grinned Wojciech. “Poor Błazej! But he will learn. He’ll hear tales of Seweryn’s and my exploits with gunpowder while he’s at Raven’s Knoll.”

“I thought that was Mikołaj?”

“Oh, it’s a Raven Banner thing.  But you didn’t want to talk about my youthful peccadilloes or how we scared Władek half to death with a fusillade of firecrackers in the bushes.”

“To be honest, I’d probably enjoy very much the tales of your youthful peccadilloes, but it wasn’t why I asked you here,” said the king. “You have planned to visit Lady Irenka’s family in Britain, I believe?”

“Yes, we had considered it,” said Wojciech.

“Then perhaps you will consider doing so now?”

“At your command, sire. My mission?”

“To deliver certain letters to George III of England from me, and to bring back any reply. You’ll have full diplomatic status.  I’ve had a house leased for you in St. George’s square, which I thought appropriate as your name day is shared with that English saint.”

“Aye, sire, it’s why our firstborn is Wojciech George, not our own version of the name, Jerzy, or Jurij. So he has links to his English family, and has a name-day of both names together.”

“I hope the Lady Irena will enjoy meeting her relations and showing her son to them,” said the king. “The appeal to the English king is personal; I know him, of course, from my time in England. But I have a sense of fear with all the black eagles perched overlooking our lone white eagle.”

“Aye,” said Wojciech. “It is an ominous presence.  I will not leave first thing, I have a certain engagement to teach a puppy a lesson.”

“Oh?”

“The Zdziarski boy.”

“He is only a boy; he is well grown but he’s young. Go easy on him.”

“I was planning on giving him a lesson. Not on hurting him,” rumbled Wojciech, hurt.

“I should take your words at their meaning; thank you. And my apologies,” said the king.

Wojciech bowed.

 

oOoOo

 

 

 

Zdziarski fils was not a morning person. However, he turned up on time on the river bank at the time-honoured duelling ground. He was clad in plain dark morning clothes, and took off his jacket and waistcoat, handing them to a servant.  Wojciech shucked his kontusz and żupan, passing them to Irene.

“You bring your wife to a duel?” said Zdziarski.

“She’s my second,” said Wojciech.

Wojciech had already decided to do what Irenka had done to a loudmouth, and proceeded to use his sabre, twice the size of the boy’s weapon, with the delicate touch of an artist with a paintbrush. Cyprian Zdziarski fought with all he could manage, and was sobbing in frustration at his failure to even mark the damned red hussar. He sniffed hard on tears of anger and resentment and shook his head, and then noticed that red drops flew off when he did so. Holding his karabela at long guard he raised a hand to his face. He looked disbelievingly at his fingers; and then touched another part. He looked down and saw his shirt cut at chest and belly, and his smallclothes across the thigh. The cuts were perfectly straight.

“I apologise, my lord,” he said stiffly.

“Well, lad,  you’re not so stupid you can figure out when you are outclassed,” said Wojciech. “Try to learn to curb that temper of yours, and you’ll have a better chance to grow up, and to become a decent man. You’ve been spoilt, which isn’t entirely your fault, but it is up to you to do something about it.”

“I ... yes, my lord,” said Zdziarski.