Conrad Starguard-The Radiant Warrior

by Leo Frankowski

  "But a waitress must be a virgin. The innkeeper's wife should have checked it."

  "She did. I qualify." She was somehow half proud and half ashamed at saying this. She was starting to get herself under control.

  "But you've been married for years!"

  "Have I been? Some would not say so!" You could see the anger that had been locked inside.

  "You mean you never . . . ?"

  "I mean he couldn't!" The tears started again.

  What a horrible situation! I tried to imagine what it must have been like for them, him with a stunningly beautiful woman by his side every night for years, and physically unable to satisfy her yearnings. Her knowing always that any of a thousand men would be eager to take her, but being a public figure in a small town, unable to act freely.

  And all the while the act, the hypocrisy of pretending to be stalwart pillars of the community. It would have driven a stronger man than me to madness. "So you left him. Did you tell him where you were going?"

  "We fought."

  "You fought. Did he hit you?"

  "We shouted and screamed. He wasn't man enough to hit me. I said that I was going back to France, and I am. But the only merchant caravan was going east. They stopped at Sir Miesko's, and I ended up here."

  My decision was obvious. "I'm afraid that you will be staying here for a while. I don't think that a crime has been committed. You merely defended yourself, and I don't think that blow was meant to kill. I don't think that Father John had the right to force you back, because I don't think that he was your husband. A marriage must be consummated.

  "On the other hand, a man is dead and Count Lambert has the right to high justice. I'll inform him of how matters stand and see what he says. Frankly, I can't imagine him harming you. It isn't in his character. But until I have his decision, you must stay at Three Walls. You will not be restrained, but you may not go beyond the gate either."

  "May I continue working?"

  "If you want to. Or I could find room for you somewhere. You could join my household if you liked."

  There was no jail at Three Walls. In fact there were very few jails in medieval Poland. Jailing someone was not considered punishment, since many would enjoy the chance to sit around, not have to work, and still be fed. A person might be restrained when a trial could not be held immediately and the person might be dangerous or try to run away. I couldn't see either of those situations happening here.

  "I'll work. In a few months I'll have passage money home."

  "As you wish. You go to sleep now. I'll go to Okoitz tomorrow. I'll inform you of Count Lambert's decision as soon as possible." Waitresses bunked together at our inns. She wouldn't be alone.

  "Thank you, my lord."

  She got up and walked away. She was still a bit unsteady, but her bare back was straight.

  I liked the way she said "my lord."

  * * *

  The next morning, I called in each of the witnesses and got essentially the same story from every one of them. The innkeeper had told the simple truth. Natasha kept notes, and while her handwriting was not as attractive as Natalia's, there was no problem with accuracy or legibility. I kicked her up from level one to level two in status and pay. It was still a notch below the other main girls, but the differential left her something to work for.

  Before noon, I got to Okoitz, where I found out that the main floor of the cloth factory had been turned into a balloon factory.

  Count Lambert was lord of over a hundred knights, but most of them were home for the winter. He had more than that number of young, female clothworkers for his factory, but they were gone also, and would be replaced in the spring with a mostly fresh batch. But besides these, he had eight dozen peasant families locally, which were pressed into service to make his balloon.

  When I got there, the wicker basket had been completed and the brass platter was installed. This had been a beautifully embossed tray two yards across, the sort of thing that might be used to bring out some fancy dish at a big feast. Now it had a thousand holes punched in it, to let the air flow through the fire better.

  Had I known how attractive the platter was, I would have had another fire grid made, and taken that one in trade. But such is life, with its many lost opportunities.

  Inside, three dozen ladies of all ages were sewing the long cloth panels together. They sat in a great circle of trestle tables, with the finished top of the balloon crumpled in the center. Count Lambert had elected to have his balloon colored red-and-white, the colors of the Piast family and later those of Poland.

  I found Count Lambert in the castle.

  "Sir Conrad, you are here early this month. I hadn't expected you for another week at least."

  "There's been some trouble, my lord. Your priest is dead."

  "Dog's blood! What happened?"

  I told him the story. "So you see, my lord, I don't think a crime has been committed, but the right of high justice is yours."

  "Ordinarily, I'd agree with you, and I don't think that I could bring myself to hang so lovely a woman even if she were guilty. But you're missing the point here. A priest was killed, and a priest's wife killed him. Well, maybe she wasn't a wife as you say, but it's not for us to decide. We don't have jurisdiction. This is a canon-law matter, not civil law. The matter must come before an ecclesiastical court."

  Oh no. If the Church was as inept at settling this thing as it was at handling my inquisition, poor Francine might be a long time getting to France. "What should I do, my lord?"

  "Well, you're here now, so you might as well spend a day or two looking over the work being done. When you return to Three Walls, you must write up the particulars of the case and send them to the Bishop of Wroclaw. Get Sir Miesko's advice on the proper form. He used to be a clerk.

  "Don't bother coming back here until the matter is delivered. The last thing I need is more trouble with the Church! Oh, yes. And while you're here, write up a request from me to the bishop for another priest. Father John used to do that sort of thing for me. No one else but you can do it now."

  "Happy to, my lord. But, for after I'm gone, isn't one of Lady Richeza's schoolteachers here at Okoitz?"

  "Yes, but I'd forgotten about her. One doesn't think of using a woman for that sort of thing, but I suppose she'll do in a pinch. Not that I'd want to pinch that old hag.

  "So Lady Francine is one of your waitresses now! That might be worth a trip to Three Walls to see!"

  The next morning, I stopped to see Sir Miesko. He was surprised that the death had occurred. He hadn't even known that Lady Francine had stopped at his manor with the caravan. After some discussion, it was decided that he should return with me to Three Walls to write up the matter himself.

  Lady Richeza came with us, and brought her four youngest children. "The oldest boy is twelve now," she said. "It's time he had a try at running the manor himself." In another two years the kid could be married. The history of the Middle Ages is largely the history of children.

  Sir Miesko worked three days and made up separate affidavits from each of the witnesses, the innkeeper, the innkeeper's wife, the priest who eventually examined the body, myself and, of course, Lady Francine.

  "If you want the matter to move swiftly, it's best to give them all the information possible on as many separate sheets of parchment as possible," Sir Miesko said.

  Just like modern times. Flood 'em with paperwork!

  It was Lady Richeza's first trip to Three Walls, and she was quite impressed with the plumbing, kitchen, and bathrooms. She was less favorably impressed with the inn, though of course she didn't stay there, but in my noble guest quarters.

  Lady Richeza and Lady Francine spent a lot of time together, talking.

  When the parchment work was completed, I thought it best to deliver it myself. For one thing, Anna could make it to Wroclaw in a day, where it might take a week to go by caravan, and a month could go by before one was going in the right direction at this time of the year.

 
For another, we were spending huge amounts of money to keep the brass works supplied with Hungarian copper. In the twentieth century, Poland is one of the world's largest exporters of copper, and I had a pretty good idea of where the mines would be, a halfday west of Wroclaw, near Legnica. I wanted to scout out the area and see who owned the land. Maybe I could buy it on the cheap.

  Then, too, I'd never been to medieval Wroclaw, and I was having a minor case of cabin fever. Over everyone's objections, I went alone.

  Anna can run like the wind, and leaving at earliest dawn she ran all day almost nonstop until we got to Wroclaw at dusk.

  The city had the usual squalid suburbs, but its center was built on an island, Ostrow Tumski, in the middle of the Odra River. This was well fortified with a sturdy brick wall, as much against floodwaters as against any invader. Above it rose the towers of the centuries' old cathedral and the solider bulk of Piast Castle.

  The guard at the bridge snapped to and saluted as I rode up. He had probably never seen plate armor before, but he recognized the wolf skin cloak I wore, since I'd given identical ones to Duke Henryk the Bearded and his son Prince Henryk the Pious. Wroclaw was the center of Henryk's power, and had been the family seat for centuries.

  In a rather thick German accent, the guard gave me directions to the bishop's residence. The duke had many Germans on his staff, in part because the German laws of primogeniture left a lot of German younger sons landless and thus available for foreign service, and because the duke's wife, mother, and paternal grandmother had all been German. The German princes had as many princesses to dispose of as they did younger sons, and with the concentration of wealth that primogeniture always results in, they could afford whopping big dowries. It was a strange sort of invasion, but an invasion nonetheless.

  The porter at the door of the bishop's residence let me in and called forth the chamberlain. This worthy heard that it was a legal matter and delivered me to the bishop's clerk. "Ah, the illustrious Sir Conrad Stargard! Please be welcome. The bishop is indisposed, but I can doubtless arrange an audience in a week or two."

  I had the distinct feeling that an honorarium paid to the clerk could get me in to the bishop immediately, but fortunately I didn't want to see the old blowhard at all. "That's unfortunate, as I was looking forward to paying my respects to his excellency. Kindly give him this package. It concerns the death of one of his priests."

  "It what?"

  "It was a bloody death by violence, done by a member of the man's own family. But perhaps I shouldn't talk about it, for fear of causing embarrassment to the Church."

  The man was looking at the seals on the package of documents. Sir Miesko had insisted on sealing it with his own seal, the personal seal ring that I'd had made for myself and my seal as Master of the Hunt, which I'd given to him as token of his authority. If a dozen other seals had been available, he would have used them as well, just to make the thing look more important. He also had written the bishop's full name and titles on the outside, along with "personal" and "confidential" in bold letters under it. I'd suggested "For His Excellency's Eyes Only," and Sir Miesko had written that too, liking the phrase.

  All this meant that the clerk didn't dare open it, and he didn't dare delay the matter in the hope of squeezing a little graft out of me.

  "But surely you can tell me! I hold the bishop's every confidence."

  "I'm sure you do. It's all written down in these documents. I believe that his excellency will want to see them without delay."

  "Well, perhaps I could arrange some interview."

  "No, no. I wouldn't think of disturbing his excellency when he is indisposed. I shall pray for his speedy return to health." I got up to leave.

  "But surely—"

  "Not another word. I couldn't possibly disturb so great a Churchman as your master. Once he is feeling better, if I can serve his excellency, I shall be at Piast Castle."

  And I left, chuckling to myself. Hit me up for a bribe, would he? Now let him die of curiosity until the bishop felt like informing him of the matter. What's more, I was sure that clerk would push the package right through just to satisfy his own curiosity.

  Chapter Five

  Dinner was being served at the castle when I arrived. I was ushered to a seat at one of the lower tables, but the duke noticed me and invited me up next to him at the high table, which was quite literally a half yard higher than the others. About the height of a standup bar.

  He had to bump down a baron to do it, who bumped a knight at a lower table, who bumped someone's squire farther down. Furthermore, each of these worthies took his wife or lady friend down with him, but nobody seemed to mind. Apparently, it happened all the time.

  "Well, boy. What brings you to Wroclaw in this weather?"

  "Two matters, your grace. There was a priest killed on my land, and the bishop had to be informed."

  The duke wanted to hear more, so I gave him a brief synopsis of the death of Father John.

  "Ha! That'll set the bishop down a peg. Now tell me the whole story the long way, and tell it loud enough for everyone to hear!"

  One didn't argue with the duke. Direct orders are direct orders, and Lady Francine was going back to France soon, so she wouldn't be embarrassed by the publicity.

  The crowd was suddenly quiet, so I said in a loud voice, "You know, your grace, that Lady Francine was the granddaughter of a bishop in France. She was brought up in a proper household and had every expectation of making a good marriage, being one of the most stunningly beautiful women I've ever seen. But when the Church's Gregorian reforms were put into effect there, forbidding the marriage of the clergy, the barbarous laws of that foreign land decreed that she was suddenly illegitimate! The best that she could do was to marry a poor young priest from Poland, where the Gregorian reforms have not been approved. If there was a dowry, I've never heard of it.

  "That is to say, they went through the legal and holy ceremonies of marriage, but whether it was truly a marriage or not remains to be seen. Lady Francine and Father John came to Poland and lived for several years as man and wife as far as anyone could see, but there was a problem.

  "To put it as simply as possible, Father John was not physically capable of making proper love to a woman. He, ah, couldn't get it up.

  "They lived with this horrible situation for years, but eventually they quarreled. She knew that she wasn't really married, for a marriage must be consummated to exist. She left him and came to work at my inn at Three Walls to earn passage money back to France. Many of you know that a woman must be a true intact virgin to work there as a waitress. I operate inns, not houses of prostitution. The innkeeper's wife physically checks for the presence of a hymen. Lady Francine qualified.

  "Father John found her, tried to drag her back to Okoitz, and pulled a knife when she refused. She hit him with a stool in defense, for the uniform she wore was nearly nothing at all and she carried no weapon with which to defend herself.

  "To the surprise of all, this blow killed him. I came to Wroclaw to deliver proof of all that I've said to the bishop."

  The crowd's reaction was mixed. Some, headed by Prince Henryk, were shocked and more were feeling sorry for Lady Francine, but half of them shared the duke's contempt for the clergy and thought the tale hilarious.

  "That's rich, boy! So now the priest's wife is tending commoners at an inn, and doing it near naked besides!"

  "That was her choice, your grace. Are you familiar with the Pink Dragon Inns?"

  "Yeah, stopped at the one in Cracow. Had to pull rank just to get in, it was so crowded! When are you going to build one for us here at Wroclaw?"

  "This spring, your grace, with your permission."

  "Permission? Boy, you have orders! Just pick a site and I'll see that you get it. What sort of taxes are you paying at Cracow?"

  "Between the town council and the Bishop of Cracow, about one-sixth of profits, your grace."

  "Well, I run this city, and that's what you'll pay to me. If the bishop's
men give you any trouble, you send them to me."

  "Yes, your grace."

  "You going to send us Lady Francine when you get this inn built?"

  "If you wish, your grace, I'll tell her that you requested her presence here. You understand that she's not sworn to me and I can hardly order her to come. But until the legal matter is solved, I've forbidden her to leave Three Walls."

  "Well, don't worry about that, boy. I'll be responsible for her. The bishop can hardly object if you follow my orders. Was this inn the second matter you wanted to talk to me about?"

  "No, your grace. The second matter concerns something far more profitable. But I think it's best talked about in private."

  "As you wish, boy. See me tonight after the festivities."

  After a seven-course meal that was a little overspiced for my taste, a company of clowns and jugglers entertained us for an hour, but the routines were a bit too coarse for me. The highlight of their act was a two-man "horse" routine which ended with the horse shitting on the polished stone floor in front of the duke's table. He thought it was marvelous, and tipped them well. The man who had to clean up the real horse turds looked less amused.

  The clowns were followed by some dancing, mostly waltzes and mazurkas, a craze which I had inadvertently started myself. At least it was better than the half punker-style stuff they were doing before. I was demonstrating a polka, still in my plate armor, when I saw the duke leave. I bowed out shortly after that and was directed to the duke's chamber.

  I stayed at the doorway and said, "Your grace, were you serious last time about not wanting formal courtesies in private?"

  "What? Of course not! I want you to grovel so that I can act magnanimous and tell you not to. Now bow and get it over with!"

  "Yes, your grace." I gave him my deepest bow.

  "Smart-aleck kid. What's this you wanted to talk to me about, and sit down, dammit."

  "Yes, your grace." I sat and he pushed his gold wine cup toward me. It was the same one that he was drinking out of. In offering it he was doing me a considerable honor, local customs being what they were. I took a long pull from it. To not do so would be an insult to the duke. I just hoped that he hadn't spit in it.