some pics for Bess

 

... one ring which, as a navigational aid can 'in the darkness find them'....

New union flag

an alternate version as Rob's banner

dance of nestlings released

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09HHY5SRJ

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HSNV1NS

 

Dance of Nestlings now live

 

Opinions, please?

 So I'm getting towards publishing Anna-Maria, and I'm still struggling with the title, and I know we had this discussion, but... 

Ok, I am NOT going with the facetious suggestion of a friend 'Dance of Tongues' as I'd pick up the wrong sort of readers. No cunning linguists, thank you!

Is Dance of Words too plain? with Anna-Maria being pedantic to a fault. It's about more than her prolix, it's also about the concealment of Towarzysz Shaggy as someone with a heritable condition [of bear], and how Jeremi Skrzetuski turns around the idea of being misfits and losers into Misfits being something they are proud of; using words to misdirect the captain; and how much is unspoken in the desire of the captain to do Jeremi down. 

Can I use dance of words?

Bess and the Gunpowder Plot chapter 1

 I posted this as a taster, but I am re-posting as a reminder, and will add chapter 2 right away as well. Bess is now on the faculty as more than an usher, but as a Knight of the Garter must also attend such things as the opening of Parliament on November 5th. 

There are those disaffected traitors who do not trust to the tolerance promised by the Queen's grandson, and of course the Necromancer of Spain is still a problem, manipulating Spain's weak king. And as if that wasn't enough, there are always the generally nasty. 

Chapter 1

 

“I have seen it working, but it still offends my sense of logic that astrology should work. I don’t see how the movement of the majestic heavens can affect our small lives below,” said Rafe Sackwild.

Roger Bray was working on astrological charts in the staff room. 

“Well, now, it’s interesting that you should say so, for you accept that there is no logic behind some people being able to produce blue healing flame.”

Rafe sighed.

“Yes, I accept that some people have a talent, as some people have a talent with art or with music.”

Roger Bray smiled.

“Ah, now, music, my other love,” he said. “An excellent analogy.  Some people can play music, others write it, a talent in degrees.  Now as I am beginning to see it, the use of astrology to cast the future is but a form of meditation, and one might as well use a crystal ball or throw about seeds to read the patterns.  The talent is in staring at the heavens and reaching an inner talent of seeing. I did once believe in the immutable message of the heavens, but since teaching, and seeing which scholars succeed, and which ones could barely prophecy that the sun will rise in the east  to herald breaking their own fast, I have adapted mine own thinking.”

“Come, this is interesting,” said Rafe, pulling his chair closer.  “We must infer that you have the necessary talent which is why you have always guided us so well in such matters as hatching and the attacks of enemies.”

“Yes, and I tested it by asking those senior scholars to read the heavens for interpreting the coming year,” said Roger. “Diccon de Bercy, in all seriousness, told me that the hens would be off lay, and that someone would have a display of fireworks.  Tangwystl informed me that she had a tune in her head and could not listen to the stars without writing it down.  Audrey said that she was afraid there might be something wrong with the dragon eggs laid this year, and Bess ... your good lady is very good, you know.”

“She is not my lady,” said Rafe, blushing fierily.

“Oh for goodness sake!  You do realise we have, those of us who have noticed, a book on when your betrothal ring goes on her finger now she is essentially teaching full time, don’t you?”

Rafe went even redder.

“I have not asked her,” he said.

“I would if I was you,” said Roger.  “You want her comfortable when Frostfire comes into season, don’t you?”

“Egad!” said Rafe.  “And she has enough trouble from hearing all dragons.”

“Exactly,” said Roger.  “However, when not distracted, she informed me that her reading of the heavens were that there were somewhere eggs which were neither alive nor dead, and that someone had deadly ideas involving gunpowder.  She got quite upset; it appears to be some plot against the Queen and young Rob.  Rob, incidentally, could not divine his way out of a burlap sack.”

Rafe laughed.

“Nor I; I feel for him.”

“It is not always comfortable, Rafe,” said Roger.  “You see, I have another young sister and brother at my parents’ home, and I have been casting their horoscopes.  And it seems likely that unless I help out, Peter is likely to die.”

“Had not you and Lil been considering rescuing them anyway, the way you rescued Joan?” asked Rafe.

“Lil mentioned this, too, and Joan is keen,” said Roger.  “I cannot help thinking that it seemeth unfair to take children from their parents.”

“As I recall you saying that you took Joan because you feared she would be forced to be a lady in the household of a future husband.  How old is your other sister?”

“Kate is eight ... you are right.  I was disquieted about her ...”

“You can always call on us, you know,” said Rafe.  “Don’t forget we now have portals at our disposal.  We should not have to take all the dragons if you wanted to be a bit more quiet, though one person has to take the portal physically.”

“There is, however, nothing to stop me visiting, and installing a portal in place,” said Roger.

“A good idea,” said Rafe. “Place it in some little-used closet or on the back of a door to the jakes; I will set about designing one painted on cloth, or – even better,  perhaps to gift your stepmother with it as a hanging, or a board, a painting of you with Skysong.”

“Indeed, it would be something to boast of, to have a son who is a draxier,” said Roger.  “I do not think they have any idea that I have Joan, nor that Jennyth, my niece, survived when her parents drowned.”

“All the better,” said Rafe. “Isn’t there a girl in Joan’s year who is artistic?”

“Barbara Kett; yes, she is in Topaz house, and she has nobody to give her a lift home for the holidays and lives too far to go readily.  I will offer her a trip home in payment for a painting.”

“That, I am sure, she will be pleased to accept as an exchange,” said Rafe.

 

Bess whirled into the staffroom.

“We are going to have to rescue Marjorie!” she declared, waving a letter. “Rafe, why are you laughing?”

“Because not so long ago you wanted to strangle her,” he said.

“Well, I’m not sure I’m ever going to like her, but good lack, she has had precious little guidance from her parents, and it would be poor spirited to abandon her when we had reached a level of understanding.  She is to be married at harvest.”  Bess passed over the letter.

“My dear friends and relatives at the school,

My parents have indeed arranged a marriage for me, and it is to a youth named Perkin Aston; I do not know if you recall, but there was a sister, Mary, who was at first with the paying students.  My father formed a friendship with hers, and they plot to harm the school somehow, and marrying me to this Perkin is a seal of their friendship.  I do not like him, he is arrogant and cruel, and I believe he might try to kill my little drakeling, Aurelius.  I am sending him to Isobel to stay, and I beg you to help me. I do not want the school harmed, and though I know I should perhaps stay and marry Perkin to spy on him and his father, I do not want to do so, I am so afraid, and I am afraid for Aurelius.

Your sister, cousin and friend, Marjorie.”

 

“Marry! But that’s a pretty pair of villains come together,” said Rafe.

“Yes, and right glad I am that neither has the ear of anyone powerful,” said Bess. “I wish we might manage to send fabric or paper gates by drakeling, but the risk of what might happen if they twist or bend is too great.”

“I was going to send a portrait with the runes on it, if you will place them, to rescue my sister and brother,” said Rodger Bray.  “Plainly it is a time for rescues!”

“A time for rescues indeed,” said Lord Essex, grimly, coming in on this sentence. “I just had a drakeling from my sister, who was one of the first to have them. She is married to Northumberland, the so-called ‘Wizard Earl’.  She just had time to send a message ere they were all dragged off, her drakeling was very upset, he was sending pictures of them being bundled under blankets and thrown into coaches.”

“Her own drakeling has an inate sense of where she is,” said Bess. “Marjorie and the little Brays must wait, for this is urgent.  When the drakeling has rested  and eaten, he shall ride on the head of one of our dragons, and we will go in immediate pursuit.”

“Could this be what is intended?  To lure us?” asked Rafe.

Essex shook his head.

“My sister said she hid in the priest’s hole in order to write the letter, and her drakeling remained invisible when they forced Percy to tell them how to open it, by threatening one of my nieces; she could hear it through the panelling.  They do not know she has a drakeling, nor that we have message. You overthink things, good Rafe.”

“I’m a philosopher, not a soldier,” said Rafe. “But I’ll willingly fight for the lives of innocents.  I was taught the sword. How old are your nieces, Essex?”

“Dorothy is the oldest child, she is six; Lucy is but four.  Algernon is two and Henry is a babe in arms, born this very year when the queen tried to get my sister Dorothy and Percy to reconcile. It has not succeeded,” Essex said. “Dorothy was going to bring her children to live with Frances and me, until Algernon is old enough to need more of his father.”

“Aye, that seemeth meet to me,” said Bess.  “I will ask my coruscation to speak with this drakeling.  Rodge, Lil will wish to come, and perchance other dominies?”

“No,” said Essex. “Let us warn them, but not leave the school entirely unprotected lest it be a feint, and any force in place watching for many dragons leaving.  We five will be sufficient, methinks, four dragons to take me as a passenger,  and on return, another five adults, for they have taken three servants as well as my sister and brother-in-law, I seem to understand from the pictures of Spellweaver, the drakeling, and four small children.  You can do it, can’t you?”

Bess was later to say that he had put her strongly in mind of a puppy with the look he gave.

“Frostfire informs me that she can take three adults and a child without trouble, maybe more,” said Bess. “I believe her estimate to be accurate.  Lil Bray’s Glitterwing can carry as many. Duskwing and Skysong can carry two adults easily,” she added the two youngest dragons, Bonded to Rafe and Rodge Bray.  “We shall be able to carry as many as need be,” she said.

Essex nodded.

“Then let us array for war,” he said.

 

 

Bess had a hollow feeling in her belly.  It was not exactly fear, though she would admit to being a little afraid.  It was ... apprehension, worry more than fear for herself.  She was going to war, and she was not sure how well she would handle it.  Though she had defended the school more than once, somehow it was different taking the fight to others.  But those innocent children must be rescued.

Rafe gave her a tremulous smile.

“Only Essex amongst us is a warrior,” he said.  “But Duskwing says that those who have taken his relatives will see only dragons attacking, and not our cringing hearts.”

“Certes, I hope so,” said Bess. “At least Frostfire is certain that she can follow Spellweaver’s thoughts of where to go for her mistress. They are remarkable little creatures to find places by pictures of people, without anyone sending them having to know where they are going.”

“It is some innate clairvoyance, perchance,” said Rafe.

“I had not thought of it, but you are likely right,” said Bess.  “And how do we discuss this so calmly, Rafe?”

“Because the alternative is screaming in terror,” said Rafe. “Why are we going to do this, not the Ruby Knights?”

“Because Essex wants gentle people around his sister and her children,” said Bess, who was quite good at divining the way Essex thought.  “I think from what pictures Spellweaver sent, he thinks it not a large band, and so something we might deal with easily, and he wants clever, not martial, and friends not underlings.”

Rafe nodded.

“I don’t say you are wrong, Bess,” he said.  “And perhaps it is as well for us to be tried and tested in such a mission, for the thoughts Rodge has reported on his horoscopes which you, too, have returned are sobering.”

“I fear a mass of gunpowder somewhere, perhaps one of the palaces,” said Bess.

“I wager it would either be Richmond, or the Palace of Westminster when she opens Parliament,” said Rafe.

“That’s it!” said Bess.  “Good; now I might write to Salisbury and tell him to be on the watch.”

“There are altogether too many traitors,” said Rafe.  “And ambitious men as well as those whose religious affiliation ties them too tightly to a foreign power.”

“Yes, and why anyone should put a fat old man with too many rings and more lace gowns than a London courtesan above their rightful monarch I don’t know,” said Bess. 

Rafe laughed.

“Now that’s about as unflattering description of the Pope as any I’ve heard,” he said.

“I feel uncomfortable that Catholics appear to give a form of worship to a man, not God-made-man like Jesus, but a man who is elected by other men,” said Bess. “I may have misunderstood it, of course.”

“It is of no import, so long as any worship God, but as the Bible tells us, ‘render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God, that which is God’s,’ our queen being our Caesar,” said Rafe.

“True,” said Bess. “It is only some who would see her usurped and under the orders of the Pope.”

“And I wager Philip of Spain does as he pleases, whatever the Pope says,” said Rafe.

“I won’t say you’re wrong,” said Bess.

 

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.

 

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[1] Somewhat derogatory word for a Pole