Conrad Starguard-The Radiant Warrior

by Leo Frankowski

  The Bledowska Desert is about twenty square miles of shifting, windblown sand, and blistering hot in the summer. Fortunately, our route only skirted one corner of it, but even so it was a trial.

  "What makes it like this?" Annastashia said.

  "Some trick of the winds, I suppose, my love. Sir Conrad, do you know anything of it?" Sir Vladimir said.

  "Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe something about the way the hills around here are shaped. This area gets very little rainfall."

  "They say it never rains here at all!"

  "I can believe it."

  "Why would God make such a horrid place?" Krystyana asked.

  "How should I know why God does anything? Even so, this area could be useful. It would make a good place to store grain," I said.

  "I think it's a waste of space," Krystyana answered.

  That evening, we stayed at the manor of Sir Vladimir's cousin Sir Augustyn, and his wife. They were a quiet, phlegmatic couple who talked little and went to bed early. A relief after Cracow.

  The next day we were in Okoitz.

  Count Lambert wasn't as angry as I had expected him to be. His reaction was more of the "my child, how could you have gone so wrong" sort of thing, which was even harder to take.

  "You know that by your actions, you have killed yourself. All the things we'd planned together will come to nothing. All these mills and factories will halt without your guiding hand. And the mission that brought you to Poland at the bequest of Prester John, that too must end in failure."

  Count Lambert had become convinced that I was an emissary from the mythical king Prester John. My oath to Father Ignacy was such that I couldn't talk about my origins, so I couldn't set him straight.

  "It's not as bad as all that, my lord. Even if I do get killed, what we've started here will continue to grow. Vitold understands the mill as well as I do, and the Florentine knows more about cloth than me."

  "Perhaps, Sir Conrad, but you are the fire behind all of them. Even if we do prosper without you, it won't last. If you're right about the Mongols' coming, and you've been right about everything else, this town and the rest of Poland will be burned to the ground in eight years. With all the people dead, what use are factories and mills?"

  "The Mongols are a problem, my lord, but at least now you have been warned. Something can still be done—Anyway, I'm not going to lose the trial with the Crossman. I'm going to win. I've won every fight I've been through in this land, and I see no reason why I should stop doing that."

  "Your confidence only exposes your ignorance, Sir Conrad. Killing highwaymen and unsuspecting guards is one thing. Going up against a professional killer is quite another. Truth is, you won't even make a good showing. I've seen your inept lancework.

  "You've never seen a champion in action, and perhaps you should. A trial by combat is to be held on the first of next month at Bytom, a day north of here. It's just over an inheritance, so it won't be to the death, but it'll give you an idea of what you're up against."

  "Very well, my lord, I'll go."

  "Good. Sometimes you can get one of the champions to give you some lessons, for a price. Speaking of which, I have some new orders for you. Sir Vladimir seems to have attached himself to you, and he's one of the best lancemen in Little Poland. From today onward, until your trial, you will work out with him every day for at least three hours. That's on horseback and with the lance. You'll never become good enough to win, but at least you won't die in quite so embarrassing a manner."

  Little Poland is the hilly area around Cracow, as opposed to Big Poland, the plains area farther north and west.

  "As you wish, my lord. I'd intended to practice for the fight. But tell me, was the cloth I requested sent to Three Walls?"

  "It was, and I haven't taken payment for it yet. I wanted to discuss the matter with you. We made a wager on whether or not your windmill would work. Well, you won. And you weren't interested in betting double or nothing on your second windmill."

  "My lord, would you want Duke Henryk to be owing you a vast sum of money?"

  "Hmmm. I can see your point. It would be awkward, wouldn't it. Very well. What say you to taking that cloth as payment for my debt?"

  "If you think the price is fair, it's fine by me, my lord."

  "Hmmm. Well. Then how if I threw in twelve more bolts?"

  The bolts of cloth were huge, a yard high and two yards wide. And cloth was very expensive in the thirteenth century. "I would think that you were being very generous, my lord."

  "Then we'll call the matter settled. Pick out the cloth you want and have it sent to your lands on my mules. And perhaps I'm not really being so generous. After all, I am your liege lord and you have no heir. Once you're dead, all of your property escheats to me. Then too, even though I've sent my vassals their half of the fabric in return for their wool and flax, I have more cloth than I can sell, now that your factory is working."

  "Haven't merchants been coming around to buy it, my lord?"

  "Not as many as I had hoped. Many come looking to buy wool and go away with their mules unloaded. But few come to buy cloth."

  "Perhaps you should consider setting up a sales organization."

  "A what? Well, no matter. We can discuss it in the evening. For now, I want to tour the factory with you."

  Count Lambert had about a hundred fifty knights, most of whom had manors of their own. To "man" his factory, he had asked each of his knights to send him a peasant girl or two, and each of the girls was to be paid for her work in cloth, giving her a full hope chest.

  The knights, knowing their lord's preferences with regards to attractive young ladies, had each sent the loveliest women available, usually the prettiest unmarried girl in a whole village. For a girl to be unmarried in that culture, she had to be in her very early teens.

  And rather than risk embarrassment for the lady and annoyance for their liege lord, they had all explained the customs of Okoitz to the girls to be sent, so that any not so inclined could bow out gracefully and another sent in her place.

  It was a hot day and there was no nudity taboo in thirteenth-century Poland. Many of the girls were scantily clothed and no few of them were completely nude. That factory was like a scene from an Italian science fiction movie.

  It was hard to keep my mind on the machinery. It was hard to keep my mind at all, let alone even notice the machinery.

  Count Lambert was wallowing in all the beauty like a pig in mud. He wandered around, patting a butt here, pinching a tit there and smiling and flirting all the while. The girls seemed thrilled by all the attention from so high a personage, and many were actually competing for their share of caresses.

  Once Count Lambert made it known that I was the favored vassal responsible for the factory and mill, I got my share of the attention, too. Distracting, but vastly enjoyable!

  There were a dozen looms on the factory's third floor. Each was set up to make a different sort of cloth, from heavy tweed to a very fine linen. Vitold had outdone himself with the fine-linen loom, taking wooden machinery farther than I would have thought possible.

  It was sort of the way the printing done by Gutenberg was some of the best ever done, and the way the machining on a prototype is often so much better than that on a production item. When a craftsman knows that he is breaking new ground, he puts his soul into his work. And it shows.

  The cloth that loom turned out was pretty impressive as well. It was strong and light and looked like thin nylon even though it was really linen.

  "This stuff is incredible!" I said. The naked operators stopped their work and crowded around. It was hot on the third floor, but I suspect that the real reason for their nudity was that they got more petting that way. I couldn't resist putting an arm around a redhead.

  "It is good, isn't it," Count Lambert said with a girl in each arm and a young breast in each hand.

  "Good? It's so sheer that you could make a kite out of it!"

  "And what might a kite be?"

>   "A kite, my lord? Well, it's a thing made out of sticks and, I suppose, this cloth. It flies."

  Count Lambert suddenly lost all interest in the ladies he'd been fondling. The sparkle faded from their eyes. "You mean that it were possible for a man to build a thing that flies?"

  "Of course, my lord. I could make you a kite this very afternoon. I simply never thought that you would want such a thing. And there are many things that fly. Aircraft, balloons, helicopters, rockets, dirigibles, and what not."

  "These others we must discuss, but later. For now I want you to immediately build me this kite thing."

  "Yes, my lord. Uh, there is the matter of the fighting practice you ordered."

  "Forget about that for now. After all, you're going to die anyway, and I want as many of your devices saved as possible."

  So on that cheery note, I went out and flew a kite.

  Vitold was pulled from supervising the construction of the second windmill to give me "every possible assistance." I told him to lend me a junior carpenter and sent him back to work.

  I took a yard of the fine linen cloth and put Krystyana and Annastashia, good seamstresses both, to work cutting and sewing. It was done in an hour, and we gave it a thin coating of linseed oil. We set the finished kite up in the sun to polymerize the oil, then had a few rounds of beer.

  It was a simple, traditional diamond-shaped kite, and there was enough of a breeze to fly it right out of the bailey. I no sooner had it airborne than Count Lambert was there. By the time twenty yards of string was out, he'd taken it out of my hands like an impetuous child, and was playing with it himself.

  "That a man could build a thing that could fly!"

  "Of course, my lord. You saw us make it. It's a simple enough thing. This is probably the simplest design, though there are many others."

  "Then I must have them! Sir Conrad, could you stay on a bit past your usual two days?"

  "If you wish, my lord.

  "Earlier today, you mentioned the cloth I was to have. Do you suppose that I could have a few tons of thread and yarn as well? I'd like my people to have knitted underwear as well as decent top clothes."

  "What?" The count was clearly distracted. "Oh, yes. Those marvelous knots you showed my ladies last winter. Take six tons, a dozen tons if you want it."

  I took it. In fact, I sent it along with the cloth to Three Walls within the hour. This forced the muleteers to camp out that night, but that was better than to give Count Lambert the chance to regret his generosity.

  In making and flying that kite, it was as though I had created the wonder of the world. People who had been indifferent to my mills and factories were astounded by a simple child's toy. In the course of the next week, I made box kites, Rondalero kites, French war kites, and even a monstrous Chinese dragon kite.

  Kite-flying became the big game on campus, and grown men, professional warriors and leaders, were soon ignoring their hawks and hunts and flying kites. The fad spread across Poland—within a year across Europe—and the mill couldn't keep up with the demand for Count Lambert's Finest. Prices on that linen cloth soared, and merchants who came to buy it often bought other varieties of fabric as well. By spring, the factory was selling every yard it could make, all because of a silly kite-flying fad.

  At least they didn't name it after me.

  That night at dinner, Count Lambert was glorying in a thick slice of watermelon. I was sure that watermelon didn't come from the New World, but somehow no one from Poland had ever heard of it. "And to think, Sir Conrad, you gave this marvelous stuff to a peasant!"

  "Yes, my lord. Just be sure and save the seeds, and next year there'll be more than enough for everybody."

  "To be sure, to be sure. You've explained over and over again that there is no reason why all these different sorts of melons you brought can't soon be enjoyed by everyone. It simply seems that they are too good to waste on a peasant! Still, nothing's to be done for it, I suppose."

  I'd given the count all those types of plants whose seeds might be eaten, since I was worried that a hungry peasant might eat, say, our entire supply of hybrid wheat the first winter. Actually, I almost had that problem with him. I'd decided it was good PR to show the cook what to do with sweet corn, and, to get enough acreage the next year to plant all the seed we'd grown, sacrificed one ear out of the twenty-seven that were growing so the count could try it.

  The count fell in love with sweet corn. I think that if I hadn't physically stopped him, he would have gone out and personally picked and eaten the entire crop that evening. And there were no more seeds to be had in the century, at least on this side of the Atlantic.

  Count Lambert was generous with his vast new supply of young ladies. He had even asked them to see that I was well taken care of. Krystyana found herself sort of whisked aside, and two most attractive young women joined me in bed that night. It would have been a great erotic fantasy come true, except that after an hour of fondling and fumbling, they both admitted that they didn't know what to do. The count, thinking to do me a huge favor, had sent in two virgins.

  Now, one virgin is a monumental undertaking, if you're going to do it right. But a clumsy man can turn what could have been a fine lover into a frigid bitch. Two at the same time, when I hardly knew either one of them, seemed impossible. Yet the ladies were there and expecting something wonderful to happen. It turned into something of an all-night tutorial session.

  In the end, I did the job reasonably well, and I think the girls were pleased. The truth is that I really preferred an experienced bed partner. This business of two virgins a night was ridiculous, and moderation was in order.

  Say, one a week.

  Chapter Fifteen

  FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR VLADIMIR CHARNETSKI

  When finally we left Okoitz, it was with a certain relief to all our party. Sir Conrad seemed almost haggard from his overindulgence in Count Lambert's vast supply of ladies, and Krystyana was not amused. Both Annastashia and Krystyana were not pleased with the change in character of what was, after all, their home town.

  For mine own self, I had stayed true to my love, though it was a strain. The ladies of the mill were eager for the services of any true belted knight. Indeed, some would do almost anything to get a new belt in their notch.

  Upon our arrival, we found the people at Three Walls far better dressed than before. Every person seemed to sport at least one new article of clothing, and the former slaves were properly clothed. I could see that in a few months, the women would have everyone in fully embroidered peasant garb.

  On arriving, Sir Conrad did a very strange thing. He called his people about him and announced to them that his horse, Anna, was human, or close to it. She had been created by some band of wizards from the distant past, or perhaps she had been transmuted into the form of a horse. Sir Conrad's explanation was not at all clear to me.

  In all events, he had freed her from his ownership of her and proposed to swear her to him in the exact same manner as he had sworn the rest of them.

  All of Sir Conrad's people loved him and most also felt a little fear in his regard. Certainly, none objected to this latest strange thing. We had all heard fireside stories about Persian princes who acted oddly with regards to their horses, even keeping them in their houses and tents. Some later speculated that Sir Conrad had come from Persia.

  He also swore Tadaos the former boatman, now called the bowman, and eight men, some with wives and children, who had been ferrymen on the Vistula. Then he made a speech, saying that all these people were now full citizens of Three Walls, and could enjoy our entertainments and our church as well as anyone, thus giving official sanction to Anna's church-going habits.

  The next day, after our morning's fighting practice, Sir Conrad left for Cieszyn, saying that he wished to discuss some expansion of the Pink Dragon Inn with the innkeeper. Frenchizing, I think he called it, though it involved building a second inn in Cracow, and not at all in France.

  He began to make many su
ch quick side trips, and though I was loath to let him go unprotected, due to my oath to the duke, the truth was that I simply couldn't keep up with him. That horse of his was magic.

  And my oath required me not only to protect Sir Conrad, but to spy upon him as well, a thing I was loath to think of. It weighed on my mind and dirtied my soul. I was left to look after things, an easy task since Yashoo was well trained in his duties, and Tadaos stood the night guard.

  Not long after his departure, some small boys raised a commotion. It seems that they had been playing in the bushes below the mineshaft, and had found another mine or cave. Being young boys, they had of course explored it, and had come out very frightened. One said that the Ghost of the Mines had stolen his belt knife and the other said that the rocks were "sticky," in some frightening manner.

  There is in the countryside about Count Lambert's domain an old legend about a Ghost of the Mines. His name is said to have been Skarbnik, once a rich miser who must forever do penance for his sins. They say that he is the guardian of mineshafts, underground treasures, and even the souls of dead miners. He is wicked and mischievous and often wreaks misfortune on those underground.

  Usually he appears as a white-bearded old man, but sometimes as a mouse or a black cat, and when he does, it is a sign that fire will break out underground.

  And Skarbnik hates noise.

  I, of course, am a civilized, modern man and don't believe in such old wives' tales. The tasks of a true knight are many and varied, but the protection of the people is always high on the list. There might be some harmful animal in there, or even a thief, so there was nothing for it but to investigate the cave myself.

  The mouth of the tunnel was very small. I had to leave my sword outside—there would have been no room to swing it in any event—and crawled into the cave. So tight was it that my mail-clad shoulders brushed the walls and my helmet scraped the ceiling. I pushed a small oil lamp before me and had my dagger in my hand.

  I hope you will not think me unmanly when I say that I do not like small confined places, with their stale airs and dank smells. The thought of the many tons of rock above me was oppressive in the extreme. Yet I pressed on, for a knight must do his duty even if his forehead may sweat and his hand may shake.