"Oh, you can't wear them with those shorts. You have to wear this kind, with a belt." She promptly pulled down my undershorts.
"Interesting. And these boots are odd." This game was becoming fun. It was highly unusual to be pursued instead of the pursuer!
"I think they'll fit you." She was down at my knees, making sure I got a good look past her loose, low bodice. "Oh, your feet are cold! We'll. have to get them warm!"
The game continued, and sometime later I was trying to figure out a belt buckle and Janina was lying nude on the bed.
"Damn it, Sir Conrad, get over here!"
So I bowed to the inevitable and permitted my body to be abused, knowing full well that she would later claim that she had been forced. She was not as pretty as Krystyana, but youth and enthusiasm make up for a lot.
Janina was promised my last T-shirt.
Over the next few days, I was visited by the other four ladies. Apparently they believed in share and share alike. A sound socialist principle but astounding when applied to one's person! If peasant women really outnumbered knights by a hundred to one, I couldn't imagine any possibility of rape in the modern sense of the word. A man would be too worn out satisfying the volunteers.
I later found out that in addition to giving the girls a socially acceptable outlet for their youthful sexuality and permitting them to mingle with the upper crust, a knight was expected to do well by his "friends" in providing them with a proper dowry and a substantial husband. Since the women seemed enthusiastic, I could find no fault with the system.
You could see where the girl's parents would go along with it, too. It was socially acceptable, it connected them with the nobility, and it saved them the price of a dowry and a wedding.
I was being dressed in my new outfit. Belted linen undershorts were topped with a pullover linen shirt. The deep blue pants-they really were plural, two separate pieces-were tied to the belt on the shorts. They were joined in the middle by a kind of diaper called a codpiece. The arrangement made a lot of sense, considering the use of outdoor latrines in the winter. A gorgeously embroidered long-sleeved tunic of rich burgundy was pulled on next. Something like shoelaces closed the neck.
Soft, black glove-leather boots-without thick soles; they were more like leather stockings-were pulled on. For outdoors, there were thick felt overshoes. Attractive but inferior to my hiking boots.
Over it all, a rich blue cape, matching the pants, was fastened to the left shoulder.
My plain leather belt spoiled the ensemble, but etiquette required one to wear a sword and a knife. My sword sheath suddenly seemed shabby and my jackknife case plain.
Janina was fitting the last of this around me when there was a knock on the door.
"Enter!" she cried, despite the fact that she was still naked.
"Sir Conrad," Count Lambert said, ignoring the naked lady, "I was hoping to see the fabulous equipment that you-I must say that that outfit suits you and fits you quite well." The whole sauna party trailed in with him.
"Thank you, my lord. It's beautiful, and the embroidery is lovely."
"Yes, isn't it? My ladies made it for me last fall, as a surprise. They were all new then and didn't know my size. But it fits you, so please take it as a gift."
"Why… why, thank you, my lord." Months of work must have gone into the embroidery alone.
"Please don't think that I'm giving you my castoffs. I could never wear it, and the dears were most disappointed. They seem to have taken quite a liking to you, though." He gestured at Janina's nudity.
"But… please, my lord, I hope I haven't-"
"Not in the least, Sir Conrad. What's the use in having things if you can't share them with your friends? Just see that you don't take all of them with you as you ride away. Leave a few behind to train the next bunch. It's a bloody nuisance to have to do it yourself! Now, about your mystic equipage…"
So I got my pack and showed them how it was worn. I unrolled the sleeping bag, and Janina crawled in. The room was not heated, and she had to be freezing. The count played a long while with the zipper and eventually came to understand it.
"A wondrous device, Sir Conrad! Could you teach our smiths the way of this?"
"Perhaps, my lord, but not in the few weeks that I shall be here."
"I see. And this? This is your pavilion?"
"Yes, my lord. Oh, I almost forgot! I have a letter here for you. It was brought up from Hungary by Father Ignacy."
He glanced at the envelope and threw it to Janina. "Bring that to me sometime when I'm already in a bad mood. There's no point in spoiling a good one."
I set up the nylon dome tent on the wooden floor. It didn't require tent stakes. The count asked all sorts of questions about the tent and cloth and floor, the fiberglass poles, the snaps and zippers and mosquito netting.
"A veritable house! And so light!"
"Heavier than it should be, my lord. It's still wet. We'll leave it out."
We went through the rest of my things. The lightness of my canteen and mess kit surprised them, but otherwise there was no great impression made. They took a mild interest in the freeze-dried food, but I don't think they realized just how long those few grams would last. The Swiss army knife was considered an ingenious toy. They really didn't know what steel was.
My first-aid kit was treated with studied indifference by the count and Sir Miesko, at least. To worry about an injury was below their knightly dignity. The ladies showed some interestJanina was still in my sleeping bag-but seemed to feel it best to remain silent.
"And these parchment packages, Sir Conrad?"
"Seeds. I bought them as a present for my mother."
Sir Miesko was greatly taken with my compass.
"So this needle always points to true north?"
"Not exactly. There is some error, to the west. But it always points in the same direction, and if you take it out on a clear night and orient the card with the pole star, you will know the amount. Also, the presence of iron will throw it off."
"Of course. Cold iron always confounds the devices Of fairy."
"No, Sir Miesko! It was made by skillful men, knowledgeable in science. Science is the art of discovering the ways in which God made the world and has nothing to do with witchcraft."
"You swear this?"
"On my honor! Furthermore, if you like this compass, it is yours-my Christmas gift."
"Then on my honor, I accept, but keep it until this evening."
The sewing kit, especially the needles with their tiny holes, was met with great enthusiasm by the ladies. I knew what I would do about their four remaining presents.
I'd saved the binoculars for last. They caused quite a stir, with people taking them out of each others' hands. Finally, Count Lambert took them back from Janina.
"Girl, do you want to freeze to death? Get some clothes on!" He strode from the room, down the hall, and out onto a balcony, a part of the defenses. He spent some time adjusting the lenses and looking out upon his lands.
"Excuse me, Count," I said, "but I have not seen Boris Novacek all day. Do you know what has become of him?"
"He left at gray dawn with two of my grooms and five horses — It seems that you lost a horse and its baggage last night. They went out to find them." He swept the fields with my binoculars.
"And there they are, by God! Look! The snow is so deep that the men are forced to break through in front of the horses." He lowered the binoculars.
"No, by God! You can't look, can you? This is a wondrous device, Sir Conrad!" He raised them back to his eyes. "See! Two horses drag the dead war-horse behind them. On another, the baggage. Look-that shield! A black eagle on a red field! You got him, Sir Conrad!"
"I got who?"
"You killed Sir Rheinburg, a foul German renegade knight who has been looting and killing my merchants for more than a year. That black eagle has killed eight of my knights, slaughtered a gross of my commoners, and stolen God knows how many cattle! But you got the bastard, damn it,
you got him!" Count Lambert was slapping my back with enthusiasm.
"At the time, it seemed a matter of simple necessity," I said.
"Ali, but now it's a matter of rejoicing! What's more, Sir Conrad, the bounty on him is yours-ten thousand pence, it stands at."
Richer and richer. Thinking about it, where was my pouch? But it would not have been polite to ask.
"You seem to appreciate my binoculars, my lord," I said.
"Appreciate them? They are things of wonder! What a difference these would make on a battlefield!"
"Then you have completed my Christmas list my lord. Please take them as my gift." Actually, since I had left my home in Katowice, six weeks earlier, I had used my binoculars exactly once and the compass not at all. Certainly they were small gifts for favors received.
Chapter
Chapter Eleven
With the Count's leave, I left him gazing out across his lands. I wanted to check on some things, and anyway, dinner was being skipped to leave an appetite for the feast.
My horse, Anna, was happy to see me. She was in a good stall in a big, clean stable, and she had been carefully groomed. "Are they treating you okay, Anna?"
She nodded yes.
"Anything you need?"
She shook her head no.
"Right." I didn't want to believe this.
Uneaten oats lay in the trough in front of her. I patted her neck and went in search of the kid I'd brought in.
Everyone in the bailey seemed to be hurrying about, getting last things done before the feast. Many were still in the plain gray wool that was everyday wear for most people, but some were already in their Sunday best, dyed in bright colors, with a great deal of embroidery.
Everyone seemed to know who I was. Passersby greeted me with smiles and nods. I had always thought of peasants as being brutally downtrodden, forced to grovel before their masters. I'm sure that that must have happened somewhere, but I saw none of it at Okoitz.
I was passing the mill when a man stopped me. He had a basket of food in one hand and a pail of beer in the other. "Sir Conrad? Could it be that you are looking for the child you saved?"
"In fact, I am."
"Then I shall take you there. I am Mikhail Malinski, and the child is with my wife."
"Then I am in your debt, Mikhail."
"No, Sir Conrad. It is I who am in your debt. Understand that two nights ago our third child died at birth. My wife grieved horribly for a day and a half. I thought it would be the death of her. But she's happy now. You understand?"
"I understand. We are in each other's debt. Let's see them."
"In a moment, sir. I have but a quick errand." He went inside the millhouse, and I followed. I was shocked by what I found. Four men were chained to a heavy "hourglass" mill, grinding grain to flour. It was the first brutal thing I'd seen in Okoitz.
"What's all this?"
"Why, the mill, Sir Conrad. Oh! You mean the men. These two were caught last week drunk, disorderly, and annoying some married women. They'll be here until the end of Christmas."
"This one's my brother. I always warned him about his poaching. He got six months for it."
"I wasn't poaching! I shot that deer on my land and tracked him to where they found us!"
"Save your lies for someone who'll believe them, brother! They found you four miles from your land, and that deer had an arrow through its heart. It couldn't have gone four yards!"
"What about this last one?"
"Oh, he's a bad one, he is. They caught him stealing from a merchant. He's worked off maybe half of the five years he got." Mikhail put down the food. "Your Christmas feast, brother. Share it if you want."
As we left, I said, "Five years for theft seemed severe."
"Had he robbed another peasant, it would have been only six months. But merchants have to be protected, you know. If they aren't, they might stop coming, and who would we sell our grain and hides to?"
"I see. What if someone stole from a knight?"
"Why, I can't remember such a thing ever happening, Sir Conrad. I suppose, if the knight let him live, that it would be far more than five years."
I ceased to worry about the location of my gold.
"What do you do when there aren't any criminals?"
"Well, the grain has to be ground to flour, doesn't it? There's usually a spot or two open on the mill, and the rest of us men have to take turns at it. But we keep an eye out for lawbreakers."
"I can see where you would. You keep saying 'men.' What do you do about female criminals?"
"Well, that's rare, Sir Conrad. Women are more lawabiding. But there was a time, two years ago, when a girl-only twelve, she was-stole a silver-handled dagger from the count himself."
"What did the count do?"
"Got his dagger back and told the girl's father. He beat his daughter to within a thumb's width of her life! Then the count gave the father a month at the stone for not bringing up his daughter right! As I said, it doesn't happen too often."
"What if she'd been married?"
"At twelve? You shouldn't marry a girl off until she's at least budding!"
"No, no, Mikhail. I mean, what about an older woman?"
"Why, that'd be up to her husband, of course!" Mikhail walked up to his house.
In the twentieth century, it would have been called a shed. It was three meters wide and five deep, and it was one of a long row of similar log dwellings that stretched along the outer log wall. Next to the wall and above the sheds was a two-meterwide wooden walkway, apparently a place for defenders to stand. The rest of the roof was straw.
"All this was by the count's own plans, it was. Houses next to each other keep each other warm and take less walls to build. The neighbors make noise, but that's not the count's fault." The door had no hinges but was picked up and moved aside. Mikhail went in without knocking, and I followed.
Apparently, the lack of a nudity taboo applied to married women as well. Judging by the flush of her skin, Mrs. Malinski was just back from the sauna. I guessed her to be around thirty but later found out that she was only nineteen. She was doing up her long hair and didn't bother getting up or even covering herself.
"Sir Conrad! I am sorry that I did not speak to you last night, but the baby… you know…"
"I quite understand, Mrs. Malinski." A campfire burned smokily at the center of the single room. Their few spare clothes were hung from pegs in the log walls, next to bags of food, bunches of garlic, and a single cooking pot. Bags of straw on the floor served as beds. Two small children were playing on the dirt floor. Yet Mikhail was obviously proud of his home! What had he been born in?
"We have real wooden floors going in next year, the count says," Mikhail told me.
"He is a good lord, isn't he?"
"The best! Why, he could get a dozen men for every man here if there was room for them."
I was pensive as I walked back past the latrines and the grainery. These were good people, and there was so much that I could help them with. But I would have to leave as soon as the roads were clear.
One thing remained yet to do. There was a church, so there had to be a priest. I had killed-or at least caused the deaths offive people. And there were two very young women that I had… had. Damn it! They were not rapes! I needed confession.
The church was full of commotion when I got there. The altar had been removed, along with the candlesticks, the relic-a lock of hair from Saint Adalbert, I found out later-and all of the appurtenances. The church was furnished with movable chairs instead of bolted-down pews; I half suspect that the use of pews was the result of a clerical rebellion to secular use of the church. The chairs were being rearranged, and long, collapsible trestle tables were being set up. The fact is that the church was the only room in Okoitz large enough to hold everybody.
Asking about, I learned that the priest, a Father John, and his wife (!) were in their chambers to the left of the altar.
I entered and discovered that the nudity tabo
o did apply to a priest's wife, at least to this priest's wife. From her accented shriek, I gathered that she was French. She was an attractive woman, better looking than any of the count's handmaidens. I turned to leave but was stopped by the priest.
"Please forgive her, Sir Conrad. She is new to Poland and not used to the local customs." His wife was still arranging a blanket around herself.
"Of course, Father. But still, I should leave."
"You may if you wish. But as a personal favor, I would prefer that you did not. You are from the west. Know that I met Francine when I was a student in Paris. She is the granddaughter of a bishop and was legitimate before the second Lateran Council forbade such marriages in the west. But these decrees were never ratified here in my native Poland, so here we are now, under God, man and We."
He turned to his wife. "Francine, we cannot bring the word of God to these people unless we adhere to the local customs! There is no prohibition against nudity in the commandments, nor in the words of Christ. Remember the parable of the lilies of the field and care not about your raiment. Now, disrobe. Please."
She was embarrassed, probably as much as I was. The whole situation was awkward. There wasn't anything that I could say, but I tried to give her a confident smile and nod. She bit her lower lip, looked at me, and stood up. Then she slowly dropped her blanket. I think she did it slowly in order to pull it up if I disapproved rather than from a desire to entice.
She really was a beautiful woman, as fine as any you would see in modem Cracow. Her hair was black, the first black hair I had seen in the thirteenth century. Her waist was tiny, her hips were full, and her breasts were voluptuous orbs topped by tiny, coal-dark nipples.
"Thank you, love. Now, Christ also talked of the virtues of cleanliness, and the sauna grows cold," the priest said.
"Yes. Sir Conrad." She nodded to me and ran through the doorway.
"Thank you, Sir Conrad. I've been trying to get her to do that all day. She objected to their nudity, and they objected to her smell." The priest paused, and we heard a roar of applause from the crowd in the church. "Damn, but I wish they hadn't done that!"
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