Conrad Starguard - Lord Conrad's Lady Part 8

Good. This was getting me closer to the mark. Forget about the moral reasons for punishment. They rest on sandy ground. We have to punish wrongdoers in order to (A) stop them from hurting the rest of us again, that is to say, in group self-defense, and (B) as an educational mechanism to convince others that they should not imitate the wrong-doer.

So. Were we going to hang Lubinska because she was likely to abandon her post again and get another 21,000 women and children killed? Of course not! Well, obviously, she should never be trusted with an important post again, but we wouldn't have to kill her to accomplish that. Discharging her or busting her down to the lowest rank would be sufficient. Certainly she presented no further danger to society.

So we must be killing her as a teaching aid. Well, would it be an effective teaching aid? By this time everybody knew how and why she had screwed up. Everyone realized now that to abandon a post can cause a great tragedy. Would one more death added to 21,000 make any difference? No. It would be insignificant.

Then what were we gaining by hanging her? Were we providing ourselves with a sacrificial lamb to cleanse the guilt from our hands? A scapegoat? I never could go along with that strange bit of theology.

Actually, you couldn't blame the captainette for the deaths of all those people, not directly. The Mongols had killed them, and we had killed the Mongols. Case closed.

The Mongols had been let in by Count Herman's wife, and they had killed her for it. Again, case closed.

The captainette had believed the wrong person as to who should be in charge at East Gate. She had believed her traditional boss instead of me. She had been given her command by me, and I had done it because Baroness Krystyana had recommended her.

Night was fading into gray dawn when I finally knew what I had to do. Somehow I was immensely comforted by the certainty of it.

There was quite a crowd in front of the outer wall when I got out there. The sun was about to peek over the horizon, a gallows had been built, and a lot of people were standing around it, including all of my barons who were at Three Walls. The Lubinska woman was near the scaffold, attended by a priest and two guards. I went to her and said quietly, "You're not going to die this morning." Stunned and unbelieving, she looked at me and said nothing.

Baron Vladimir led us in our morning services, and a priest, not the one attending the captainette, said a very quick ma.s.s without a sermon. The people were expecting Captainette Lubinska to climb the scaffold, but she didn't.

I did.

Chapter Fifteen.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF COUNTESS FRANCINE.

The job of writing the articles for the magazine was done in but two days, and work had already begun on the casting of the drums of type to print it. But then the time seemed to drag, for there was much work to be done in the casting of type and the printing of the half gross of pages that the magazine would contain, and none of it could be done by me.

It would be a plain magazine, for there was no time to carve the woodcuts that usually adorned its pages, except for a few old commercial messages that were used to fill otherwise blank s.p.a.ce. Since there was no time to contact the merchants and obtain payment from them, you may be a.s.sured that all the "ads" that we used were from my husband's factories.

Indeed, it seemed for a time that the cover, too, would be blank, until a friar named Roman came down from the cathedral and painted three lithographic blocks for the purpose. He was a merry man, grown pudgy and red-nosed from drinking too much wine, but he was a fine artist for all of that. The cover he made had on the front a fine portrait of Count Conrad in his armor and with our battle flags flying behind him, and on the back a lively scene of our gunners shooting at the Mongol enemies over the heads of our footmen. Further, all this was done in inks of three colors, the first cover that had been done so. I think that some may have purchased the magazine only to have the fine artwork!

I persuaded the abbot to give his men dispensation from the saying of their prayers eight times a day so that they might spend the time in work, and I made arrangements with the inn that they should be fed as they worked at the machines that Conrad had built for them. The monks were at first much taken aback by this, for the waitresses of the inn did their work, as always, nearly naked. Yet there were soon far more smiles on the monks than scowls, and I bade the waitresses to continue as they had. I was something of a heroine to these young ladies, for I had once been of their number and now was of the high n.o.bility. I suppose that my success fed their dreams. Yet when they asked that I dress in their fas.h.i.+on and help serve, I must needs turn them down. My waist had grown too large with pregnancy, and anyway, Conrad would certainly not have approved! Still, I was tempted.

The monks worked from before dawn straight through to the dark of night, but still, the job would be a week in the doing, and always I feared that Duke Henryk would arrive and take the whole thing into hand himself.

I took myself to Wawel Castle and spent the day there talking to any that I could meet about the seym that was soon to be held in Sandomierz. All that I met, the old and the infirm, were enthusiastic for Conrad's enlargement, yet there were very few of the n.o.bility there. All too many were gone or dead.

The city council came to me with the plea that Count Conrad should be their duke and protector, and we talked long as to how this could be accomplished. They then sent representatives to every incorporated city in eastern Poland to plead for our cause, and they did this at their own expense, as well! Not that I was in lack of funds, but when those tightfisted burghers had their own money involved, you can be sure that they would give it their best effort!

While I was thus employed, Sir Wladyclaw was also busy. The weather was now fair and the radios were at last working properly, so his men were no longer needed as messengers. Keeping only one at his side, he sent the others about the countryside in search for Mongols and, when time permitted, to tell the gentry of the victory won by Count Conrad and of the seym to be held at Sandomierz. They found no large groups of the enemy, and we were growing daily more certain that victory was truly ours, but more than once scouts brought back heads barbered in the strange Mongol fas.h.i.+on as proof of their prowess!

I sent occasional messages to my husband, telling him that I was well and that I was helping to organize a meeting of the seyms of eastern Poland, since because of my a.s.sociation with the old duke, I knew so many of the people in this area. I never exactly told him that the feeling here was that he should be duke of all three duchies, for fear that he would decline the offer before it was even made to him. Bishop Ignacy was entirely too accurate in his estimation of my husband! When the time came, I wanted him to think that the nomination was entirely spontaneous and that it was his duty to accept it.

Until the time was right, I wanted him to stay in Three Walls, doing his little engineering things!

He should come to Sandomierz, I told him in the messages I sent, for he did have lands that he had purchased along the Vistula, and thus he was obligated to come, but to be there a little late would cause no harm, I said. My intent was that when he got there, the matter would be already settled. Once he was duke, he would find reasons of his own for remaining duke. I knew it as I knew him.

When the print run was almost done, a scout brought back from the army camp west of Sandomierz a list of the Polish n.o.bility that had survived the battle there. To publish a list of those who had died would have taken a book three times longer than our entire magazine, though we promised that such a magazine would be published in the future. For now, all that we could do was add eight pages with the names of the living. So few!

At last the printing was done, and all the monks fell to the task of combining the pages and binding them together. I was able to get many of the town's folk to help with this task, and as soon as a stack of finished magazines was ready, one of Sir Wladyclaw's scouts was there to take them to all the towns and hamlets of eastern Poland. Of course, we were careful that none were sent to the west for fear that Duke Henryk would hear of it.

The riverboats helped distribute the magazines as well, for Baron Tadaos now had three at his command. Two of them had been found up a small creek, intact but devoid of their crews. There was evidence of a fight, but what exactly had happened there was something that we would probably never know. The baron had found men to operate them and ammunition for their guns, but what he was happiest about had nothing to do with men or arms. His many wives and their children had been found, and all were alive! Indeed, they were helping him operate his boat.

Sir Gregor sent me a message that said that our radio operators at the duke's camp at Legnica told of sickness there and that the duke was taken ill with it. He was not likely to die, yet he would not be fit to travel for at least a week. The message ended with a request that we should pray for the duke's recovery, and indeed I did pray for his health, but that it be returned to him later. Much later!

Once, in our long fireside conversations at my manor before we were married, Conrad had told me of a land in which once he had lived where all the leaders were chosen every few years by all the people. He talked of candidates for office shamelessly putting up great pictures of themselves and hanging many posters with slogans on them as though they were so many cattle to be sold at auction! At the time I laughed at the thought of the old duke thus pandering himself, but as I later thought on it, I could see the necessity of it all.

It took far less time to print the covers, which were done on a separate machine, than to print all the pages of the magazine. Since the facilities and supplies were available, I persuaded Friar Roman to make some posters as Conrad had once described. Some were just the front cover of the magazine, with my love's portrait. Others boldly said, "I want Conrad for my duke! " Many thousands of these were made, though at a price for the friar's services. I promised that after I had my child, I would pose for him in any manner that he wished while he painted me. Well, perhaps it would be fun.

I wanted to get to Sandomierz well ahead of the crowd, to set the stage, as it were. Soon we were on the road again, my maids crowded out of the carriage by stacks of posters and magazines and riding apillion with two of Sir Wladyclaw's Scouts. None of those involved seemed to mind the arrangement in the least.

The captain felt that an escort of five would be safe enough, but I persuaded him to bring all his men to make a better appearance as we rode into Sandomierz.

The city of Sandomierz had been under siege, but it had not been taken. The city council had long looked to the strength of its walls, which were well built and defended. These people were among the few burghers that had purchased sufficient guns and armor from Conrad's factories. Further, they had heeded his thoughts and the suggestions that he often wrote in the magazine and had been ready when the Mongol hordes had come against them. Thus, while the suburbs had been devastated, all that was within their walls was safe. Also, those who had been on the walls had been treated with a view of the major battle of the war, at least in terms of the number of enemy killed. It was here that the riverboats had made their greatest slaughter, and dead Mongols had been heaped up on the bank opposite until they were twenty bodies deep! Even as we arrived, battalions of my husband's men were still stripping and burying the dead, for Conrad was afraid of the pestilence and disease that follow battle. The heads were all up on pikes, a huge monument to Polish arms. Also, the Mongols had looted widely in the Russias, and he wished to see this wealth back in Christian hands.

On arriving, I went directly to the inn. It had been doing very good business, but for months the innkeeper had not been able to deliver its profits to Conrad. I drew on these funds at need, in part to rent most of the rooms at the inn itself. Thus, when an important person could not find lodging in the town, I could offer it to him as a favor from Conrad. And surely no decent man could speak publicly against his host!

We spent much of the next week talking to all who would listen, which was practically everyone, about the upcoming seym and about Count Conrad. It was easy to persuade the town's people to adorn their storefronts and homes with our posters, for it seemed to them that to do otherwise would be to slur the man who had saved their city! They all knew that had Conrad not killed the Mongols west of the city, they and all they had would be gone. And once a burgher had Conrad's name and face on his home, he could hardly say anything but that he favored him! Thus, as the first notables came to attend the seym, it must have seemed to them that the matter ' was already settled. Not many men will go against their neighbors once the matter has been decided!

Further, I hired men who could read well in public to stand in the squares and read the magazine to any who would listen. Thus, we told our story to everyone, including the majority, those who could not read at all.

The good Friar Roman had also written some poems in Conrad's honor, and we were able to find minstrels who put those poems to music. Soon they became all the rage, and other minstrels began to write songs of their own in his honor just to compete!

All things were going beautifully, and I was having a wonderful time.

Chapter Sixteen.

FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD STARGARD.

"There will be no hanging this morning," I said to the crowd from the vantage point of the scaffold. "The right of high justice is vested in me and me alone. Baron Pulaski, you and your jurors did your jobs properly. By the letter of the law, Captainette Lubinska is guilty of abandoning her post in time of war, and the punishment for that is, and ought to be, death by hanging. But the ultimate responsibility is mine, and I choose not to permit the sentence to be carried out, despite her guilt. Perhaps this guilt is mitigated by the fact that she was lied to by a woman who once was her liege lord's wife. Perhaps it is softened by the way she got her charges safely back here to Three Walls."

"But the real reason why I will not hang her is because her death would accomplish nothing. She is not guilty of causing the death of those twelve thousand, five gross, ten dozen, and five women, children, and old men who were murdered at East Gate. The Mongols killed them, and our army killed the Mongols.

All but one, the one in fact who tricked Count Herman's wife into letting the enemy into the fort! That man is now my prisoner, kept alive because we might one day need a messenger who can speak both Polish and the Mongol tongue. He'd probably prefer death to imprisonment, since both of his hands were cut off in the fighting."

"If any of our fellow Poles is guilty of the tragedy at East Gate, it must be Count Herman's wife. She was the one who improperly took charge of the fort and then allowed the Mongols in. Well, the Mongols killed her for the favor, and she's in G.o.d's hands now."

"Captainette Lubinska's crime was therefore one of bad judgment, and if her judgment was bad, she never should have been given such an important post in the first place. I should have relieved her when I saw that she was acting erratically. I gave her the position because she was recommended to me by Baroness Krystyana. So."

"For exercising very poor judgment while in command of a major post, Captainette Lubinska is busted to the lowest grade and is to be given only the most menial of duties for the next five years. After that time she may never again be promoted beyond the third level."

"For recommending a person of poor judgment to an important post, Baroness Krystyana will be demoted to the lowest level for a period of one month during which time she shall be given the most menial of tasks. After that month, she shall be returned to her present position and pay grade."

"For believing Baroness Krystyana and for failing to replace Captainette Lubinska at a later date, Count Conrad Stargard will be demoted to the lowest level for a period of one week, during which time he shall be given the most menial of tasks, and after which he shall be returned to his present position and pay grade."

"I have spoken. It is done."

My proclamation was met with stunned silence. Well, if punishment is supposed to be an educational procedure, I think that these people were being properly educated. At least I was making them think!

For the next week I worked in the kitchen, was.h.i.+ng dishes, while designing a dishwas.h.i.+ng machine in my head. The job involved using a whole new set of muscles, and I came home every night just a bit stiff.

And you know? It felt good!

Krystyana was less gratified working the tub beside me, but then, she always was feisty'

Soon people started coming down to the kitchens so that I could solve their problems. I referred them all to Baron Gregor, since Baron Vladimir had left for the Vistula. I was a lowly worker, and it wasn't fair to expect much from a warrior basic. Soon I had to post my secretary to fend off these people so that I could attend to my proper duties, the was.h.i.+ng of dishes from dawn to dusk, with a timed lunch break.

On my last day of playing bubble dancer, when Krystyana was out feeding the chickens, Natalia let one visitor through to me. It was Warrior Lubinska.

"You shouldn't be doing this, sir. You humiliate yourself."

"There's nothing humiliating about honest work. Actually, I'm rather enjoying it. It's good therapy.

Anyway, you shouldn't call me sir. My army rank is now the same as yours. How about 'my lord,' since it would take the duke to change my civil rank."

"You should have hanged me."

"Nonsense! If you had deserved hanging, I would have done it. You got what you had coming, nothing more and nothing less."

"No, that's not true at all."

"Well, what is true is that you were ordered to do menial labor, and you're not doing it. Take off your jacket and roll up your sleeves. You can help me with these dishes."

I did my clumsy best at talking her out of her depression, but after a few hours of working next to her I could see that I hadn't helped much. I think that much of her problem was what I'd heard called "survivor's guilt," the strange, irrational guilt that a survivor feels after almost everyone has died but her.

Lubinska wasn't the only one feeling it. There were reports from the field hospital we'd set up near the battlefield west of Sandomierz that a number of the surviving knights had committed suicide. But what could I do? I just didn't know.

When our work s.h.i.+ft was over, I told her to buck up, that things would get better. The words were phony, but what else could I say?

The next morning I was told that during the night Lubinska had tied one end of a rope around one of the merlons on the outer wall. She'd tied the other end around her neck and jumped.

Since she was a suicide, there was no ma.s.s said for Warrior Lubinska, and she didn't receive extreme unction. They couldn't bury her in hallowed ground, so they buried her alone, a bit away from the Mongols.

It was bad being a battle commander, but being judge was far worse! I was never trained for this kind of thing. I had no apt.i.tude for it. I just couldn't take it! I had no business being a count.

As soon as Duke Henryk was well, I intended to ask him to make me a baron again and take back the right of high justice. That is, if he'd still talk to me. He hadn't answered my last dozen letters and radio messages, but I guess he was still pretty sick.

The next day I was informed by Francine that it was time for me to show up at the seym in Sandomierz.

It seemed like a tedious thing to do, but good citizens.h.i.+p requires that you vote whenever you have the chance, and I supposed that I should set a good example. Anyway, it would do me good. I needed to get away from things for a while.

When I asked her, Cilicia wasn't interested in going. She had always been a quiet and stay-at-home type when she was pregnant. I was getting ready to set out alone at dawn when Captain Wladyclaw showed up with a dozen of his men to give me an escort, an honor guard, he called it. I thought it a silly waste of manpower and told him so. But they were already at Three Walls, and their proper post was in the east, looking for Mongol stragglers, so they might as well go back east in my company. The captain also said that my wife had insisted that I wear my fancy gold-plated parade armor, which my smiths had once made for me as a Christmas present. I'd worn it at my wedding, but I hadn't touched it since. The captain was fairly adamant about it until I relented and changed out of my practical combat armor. But if I hadn't, Francine would have acted hurt, and that can get hard to take.

"Your wolfskin cloak sets well against that gold armor, my lord," the captain said.

"More importantly, it's warm. We've wasted enough time already. Let's ride," I said.

Big People can run as fast as a modem thoroughbred racehorse, the difference being that they can do it with big armored men on their backs instead of little jockeys, and they car keep it up all day long instead of for a single mile.

We went nonstop until we got to East Gate. Baron Yashoo had the new Riverboat a.s.sembly Building more than half up. In the past seven years we'd cleared more land than we'd used lumber, and what with the new sawmills, it had made sense to saw and stack the wood for proper seasoning. Baron Yashoo was drawing on our lumberyards. I complimented him on his progress, and we were on our way again in minutes.

I wanted to make a stop at Cracow to see Bishop Ignacy and go to confession, but Captain Wladyclaw said that he thought that the bishop was at Sandomierz attending the seym, and anyway, Lady Francine was waiting for us. I saw no point in arguing with him, and we rode on.

Running along the side of the railroad track, or on it sometimes, we made good time, arriving just after noon. Our railroad tracks were far straighter than the twisting trails that pa.s.sed for the roads that covered most of Poland. The girls could really stretch out and move! After a few weeks of being in a city, it felt good to have a fine mount like Silver between my legs. I was smiling as we went through the city gates, and the crowd there was lively.

I supposed that it was natural for people to cheer for a visiting general, a patriotic sort of thing for them to do. It was a few moments before I realized that they were shouting "Duke Conrad!" at me, and a few more before I saw my name and pictures of my face plastered over everything in sight.

All I could think of was that as duke I'd have a hundred times as many court cases to worry about. I'd have to go through the agony of the Captainette Lubinska affair six times every week from now until forever! No way did I like or want that sort of life-and-death responsibility.

No!! Not me! No way, gang!

The crowd was soon so packed that we couldn't move except in the direction in which we were heading, and instead of going to the inn, as I had expected, we were forced toward the main square of the city.

"Captain Wladyclaw, just what the h.e.l.l is going on here?" I shouted at him.

"They seem to be taking us to church, sir," he said pointing to the great Church of St. James across the square.

"That's not what I mean, and you know it! What's with all these posters and pictures and people calling me duke?"

"Well, they need a new duke, and there's n.o.body else left! I'm afraid that you're stuck with the job, sir."

"No! No, I won't do it!" We were being slowly moved toward the church, the crowd acting like some fantastic undertow pulling me to my doom.

"Sir, I believe you've already been elected."

"The h.e.l.l I am! They can't elect me without my permission. "

"I'm not sure of all the legalities, sir, but by tradition, the seym doesn't need anybody's permission to meet and hold an election. Certainly not yours."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it! They can't make me! They'll have to find someone else!" I swear that everybody was smiling and cheering except me. Dammit! Wasn't it enough that I had helped wipe out the Mongol invasion? Did they have to saddle me with a job I didn't want just because I'd helped them?

"Who, sir? I tell you that all of the normal candidates were killed by the Mongols!"

"Duke Henryk! He'd be great for the job." Not only did everybody want to cheer for me, they insisted on touching me, patting my mount, and pawing the legs of my armor. I was getting a sort of claustrophobic feeling.

"They'd never have him, sir. Don't forget that he abandoned eastern Poland to the Mongols and hasn't gotten off his rump in Legnica since."