"There are still a lot of points that have to be worked out, but in general, that's the program I have in mind. Do I hear any objections? No? Then I'd best get on with it."

Francine stood. "Then if you are to be my duke as well as my love, would you please take these back?"

She handed me the three crowns, and I took them. That got another round of applause.

All my inns had a radio transceiver and a post office, although the posts had been shut down during the war and were not yet working again. I sent messages to many of my key people, asking them to come to Sandomierz. Then I sent to the granary in the Bledowska desert, ordering all carts available to be filled with the new grains and shipped north and east. Spring planting was almost upon us, and I doubted if there was any seed to be found east of the Vistula. The millions of Mongols who had been through surely would have eaten everything they could find.

Next I rode to the ducal palace to take possession of the place. I could have done everything from the inn, but that would have lacked cla.s.s. Also, it would have cost me money in lost revenues, since while the rooms of the inn could be rented out, those of the palace couldn't. At least not now. In the future, once some more efficient government buildings were up, all the old palaces and castles around might make very charming hotels. An interesting thought, anyway.

The palatine of the ducal palace was a venerable gentle man who had been working there all his life. He showed me around, and it wasn't bad at all. I'd visited the place a few years before, but as a mere baron from a distant duchy, I hadn't gotten the grand tour. It was a smaller version of the castle on Wawel Hill, which I also owned now,- thinking about it. It was built of red glazed brick, and a fine collection of old weapons, furs, and tapestries gave it a certain barbaric splendor. There was indoor plumbing, though, and gla.s.s in the windows. Except for adding some radios, there wouldn't have to be much in the way of needed changes.

I made some, anyway. I had lunch and fired the cook. I think that if the last duke could stand the cooking at his palace, he must have gotten his taste buds chopped out in a tournament. I figured that anybody who could ruin roast mutton couldn't possibly be retrainable. He was replaced by the cook at the inn. In the same message to the innkeeper, I explained about Sonya and had her sent over along with my clothes and armor, and the barrel of nine-years-in-wood whiskey, which was declared to be my own private stock. All other innkeepers were to inventory their supply of the stuff and reserve it for my own exclusive use. RHIP. While I was thinking about it, I sent a message to Cieszyn, ordering the cook who had helped me make that first batch to run off another six thousand gallons of it and store it in oak casks.

I promised to call for it in nine years.

Baron Wojciech was the first of the Banki brothers to arrive, since he had been in charge of the cleanup on the battlefield directly across the Vistula from Sandomierz. He came into my chambers at the palace with a cloth-wrapped package under his arm and looked admiringly at the tapestries, the furs, and the brightly painted wood carvings.

"You know," he said, "saving the country must pay pretty good. Someday I'm going to have to try that myself, sir! Or I guess I should call you your grace now."

"Sit down and have some mead," I said, pouring. "Wojciech, you can call me anything but an atheist, and you did your share in saving the country!"

"Thank you, your grace. I have a present for you, or at least a present I can give back to you." He unwrapped the package to display my pistol, the one I had lost during my fight at a pontoon bridge on the other side of the Vistula. It had been polished and cleaned and was only slightly rustpitted. It had my name engraved on it, since the smiths always seemed to do that sort of thing whenever they made anything for me, along with a note as to who had made it. Advertising, I suppose.

"Thank you. I see that you provided a new belt and holster. "

"I didn't know if you'd thrown the old ones away, your grace."

"Just as well. I left them on the Muddling Through, so I suppose they were burned when she was. I take it that you like this palace?"

"Of course! It's beautiful, your grace!"

"Good, because you have a present coming, too. This palace is going to be yours for the next two years.

I want you to run the Sandomierz duchy for me as my deputy."

"Thank you, your grace! I'm honored. Yawalda is going to be thrilled! I know she will fall in love with this place."

"Well, don't get too attached to it. Remember, it's only temporary. "

"Yes, your grace. I'll be able to choose my own subordinates?"

"Within reason, yes. You'll have a battalion of regular army troops under you, but it's going to take some sorting out, since most of the warriors have farms or businesses to get back to. I want to keep three battalions of full-time fighting men together, though, in case we're attacked again. That's one here, one at Cracow, and one at Plock. Your brothers will have the other two. Baron Vladimir will command in time of war, and he'll have about a dozen battalions of part-time active reserve forces to back you up."

"Still, I don't think we'll be bothered for a while, and your main job will be to get every farmer who wants it seed, tools, and all the land he can farm. We can give them credit on supplies, and there should be more than enough land, what with all our losses to the Mongols."

"There were more losses than you know about, your grace. The Mongols took the city of Sieciechow, on the cast bank of the Vistula, and I don't think that they left a single man, woman, child, or domestic animal alive. They just murdered everybody, even the cripples and the priests. We even found somebody's pet dog nailed to a church door. And the young women . . . You don't want to hear about what they did to the young women. And there were worse things. You know those big Mongol catapults? Well, it looks like all the people that were pulling the ropes on them were Polish peasants!

Many thousands of them were killed by our own guns, it looks like."

I put my face in my hands. "Oh, my G.o.d! I was there! We killed them ourselves! We thought that they were Mongols. Those catapults were destroying our riverboats! What else could we do?" I was crying.

At the time, we'd been laughing at the way they died so easily, the way single bullets would take out whole rows of them. Would there be no end to my sins?

"You didn't know, your grace. You couldn't know. And even if you did, like you said, what else could you do?"

"Nothing, Wojciech! There wasn't a d.a.m.n thing we could do. But I'll tell you this! Once we get things squared away around here, in a few years, we are going to go out east and get those filthy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. We are going to hunt them down and kill every Mongol in the world!"

"Good, your grace! I'll help you do it! I've seen the figures on the number of Big People that will be available in ten years, and with them we can chase the Mongols right off the edge of the world. "

"That we will! Or right into the sea of j.a.pan, anyway!"

"Just don't forget me when the time comes. Don't forget that I was the one who had to bury those poor peasants."

"I won't. Tell me, what are things like in the east?"

"Empty, your grace. I think that there were three million Mongols who invaded us, and what they didn't eat, they fed to their horses, and what their horses didn't eat, they burned. You know, I think that's why they had to cross the Vistula so badly during the war. They had eaten everything on the east bank, and it was either cross over or starve! There are a few of the scouts who claim to have even found the remains of half-eaten humans, but you couldn't prove that by me. Just the same, folks are scarce over there. In the weeks that I've been on the east bank, I don't think I've seen over a thousand of our own people, except for the army. We put them all to work, you know, digging graves, mostly. We pay them, of course, and feed them, which is more important. But there are so few of them left!"

"A lot of people believed us when we told them to run to the west. Most of them will be returning. It's important that we repopulate that area. If we leave it empty, somebody else will move in. Maybe some of the warriors we'll be discharging will want land there. Write up an order for me to all commands, telling them that there is land east of the Vistula free for the farming. We can give them credit on tools, seed, and so on."

"Yes, your grace, but our people won't need credit. The booty hasn't been counted yet, but I can tell you we're all rich! I think there was more gold left on the banks of the Vistula than ever crossed it."

"Indeed? I would have thought that the Mongols would have looted their own dead."

"They did, your grace, but I think only on the sly, you know? I mean, there wasn't much to be found on the bodies on the tops of those piles, but there were dead men two dozen deep in some places! They never got to the ones at the bottom. "

"Wow. It looked like they were piled that deep when we were shooting them, but I'd convinced myself since then that it couldn't possibly be true. Well, get yourself settled in and send for your wife and family.

I'll be leaving here in perhaps a week, and you can take this chamber for your own then."

The next few days were spent getting organized. Word came that two Big People had been killed in the war, both while carrying couriers from the battlefield near Sandomierz. Judging from the mess we found around their bodies, they and their riders had spent their lives very dearly, but they had spent them nonetheless. Jenny and Lucy were gone, and they would be missed.

Of their remaining sisters, ten Big People were a.s.signed to the postal service, and the mails started to move again. Six other Big People were a.s.signed to the Detective Corps, since crime was on the rise in the wake of the social disruption of the war. The rest of them were a.s.signed to the scouts, since I was still worried about our borders, and the few planes we had up couldn't be everywhere.

Captain Wladyclaw was sent to patrol the eastern marches, a good place for him. I got the feeling that he was more attached to my wife than to the army, and nonsense like that belongs in The Three Musketeers, not in Poland. He was promised the twenty Big People that would be coming of age in the fall, but for now he was just going to have to make do with what he had. I kept Silver, of course, and Anna seemed to have attached herself to Francine, so I let them stay together. And there were still four Big People with Duke Henryk.

I'd never thought to stockpile farm machinery, war production being what it was, and major orders for plows, cultivators, and harvesters were placed with the factories.

The last of the booty was finally sent to Three Walls, and Baron Piotr was put in charge of counting it.

Working with the Moslem jeweler we'd picked up years ago, he simply had it all melted down, refined it into bricks of pure gold and silver, and then weighed it, except for some pieces that were judged to have sufficient artistic merit to be worth saving. Silver City, the zinc smelting and casting works in the Malapolska Hills, was put into full production making coins. We'd decided that the men should be paid in standard army currency rather than in actual silver and gold. One currency around was-enough.

Jewels were sorted as to size and type, and some wooden warehouses were thrown up to store the war trophies. Just how those fancy swords and armor were to be divided was still unclear. Was it worth sending the entire army back to Three Walls just so each man could take his pick?

After much discussion, we decided that each warrior should be paid his back pay and one thousand pence as an advance on his share of the booty. Knights would be paid two thousand, and so on up the line. Not that they had to draw that much immediately, but they could.

A major headache was determining which men wished to stay with the army and which wanted to return to the semicivilian life of the reserves. And after that there was a major reshuffling of personnel to make up the three battalions of troops that we were keeping on a full-time basis.

None of this concerned the people who worked at my factories, of course. They were aboard forever!

There were crowds of refugees that needed to be fed on their way home and thousands of lost or orphaned children that needed taking care of.

The details kept us up night after night.

Francine was being very quiet and subdued, realizing that she had overstepped her bounds by far in conning me into taking the dukedoms. I finally got it through to her that had she let me in on the plan from the beginning, there wouldn't have been any problem. But you shouldn't surprise a guy that way!

Anyway, she didn't say a word about Sonya. Whether this was because she thought it normal for a n.o.bleman to have a servant or because she was just afraid of another row, I don't know.

Sonya had shown up at the palace in a waitress outfit, and my only comment was to tell her to get rid of the rabbit ears. She worked that day topless, not having her other clothes with her, and the next day all the rest of the women working at the palace were doing the same, even Francine's maids. Old Duke Henryk, the father of the current duke of that name, had in his last years ordered that all of his palace serving wenches should bounce around bare-breasted, and I guess the local girls figured that old Duke Henryk's styles were back. While I never told anyone that she should work with her top off, I knew better than try and stop women when they pick up on a new fad. I just pa.s.sed the word that the style should be restricted to unmarried girls over twelve or so, and then only in warm weather, saying that there was nothing pretty about a girl who was freezing to death. A bit of sanity returned.

In a week the worst of the trivia seemed to be beaten down, and it was time to go to Plock. I invited Francine along, since I knew that some politicking might be needed there. Plock hadn't been hit by the Mongols, and the German Crossmen had their main base of Turon not far away. If I was going to have any resistance, I'd be getting it there. Then I changed my mind. Plock might be the most politic place to go, but I was way overdue for confession. We went instead to Cracow and Bishop Ignacy.

Chapter Nineteen.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF d.u.c.h.eSS FRANCINE.

In the early morning we were set to visit Plock, the capitol of Mazovia, when Conrad abruptly changed our destination. Baron Gregor was removed from my carriage to take the horse ridden by his brother, Baron Wiktor Banki. This worthy knight was put into my carriage to join me, my maids, and that annoying little trollop Conrad had picked up for a servant. The others were told to follow us along the track, but Conrad insisted that we should run to Cracow immediately. The other four carts of our party, being pulled by ordinary horses, might be able to get there by sundown if they could find a change of horses, but the Big People could run us up to Wawel Castle an hour before dinner. Conrad laughed off the idea that we wouldn't be safe without a bigger escort, saying that his sword was better than most, and anyway, the Mongols were all dead or gone. Of course, he was wrong.

Conrad had made such a horrible scene at his coronation that I refuse to write about it! It was all I could do to convince the leaders of the three duchies that he was still suffering from the war and get them to wait on him the next morning. Fortunately, by then Conrad had gotten his wits about him and had done the sensible thing. After accepting the crowns, he went about taking control of Sandomierz with a wise program of ignoring the existing power brokers who had elected him, since he no longer needed them, and putting the whole place under the control of his own trusted men, his army. Those men would follow him into h.e.l.l--or go there alone if he commanded it! I was so proud of him that I didn't complain about his new blond-haired chippy.

Sometimes he is absolutely brilliant, and at other times such a total fool! Or could it be that the whole scene in the Church of St. James was just an act to get them to accept his new program absolutely and without question? Could he actually be that astute? So many times he has done such seemingly dumb things, yet always he ends up on top. No! It was impossible! He was just lucky! I think.

He wasn't so lucky when we were attacked on the road. Conrad was a few gross yards ahead of us when two Mongol warriors rode out of the bushes a gross yards from the road and attacked him in the early morning. Baron Wiktor had his sword out as soon as he saw them, and vaulted to the top of our carriage to defend it. But from there he could accomplish nothing, for Anna had already gone alone to Conrad's aid, and the Mongols were putting all their efforts to the killing of my beloved husband!

Anna screamed a warning, but Conrad was far ahead of us when the fight started. She raced to his aid, but before she got there, it was all over, The first Mongol threw one of those deadly spears at Conrad, the sort that all the warriors I had met complained of. At close range, those spears could puncture even our best armor.

Conrad turned in the saddle and slashed the spear in half as it flew at him! His second blow came downward at the spearman's neck, and head and arm came off the rest of the body in a single piece. He then wheeled his mount and charged at the second Mongol, who was shooting arrows at him. Two of the missiles struck my love in the chest and stuck there, but he paid them no attention. He simply charged straight in and knocked them over, man and horse! As the enemy started to get up, dazed, a last blow of that amazing sword chopped through both helmet and skull, and suddenly all was quiet.

"Well done, your grace!" Sir Wiktor shouted as our carriage coasted to a stop. "I have heard of your prowess often enough, but that's the first time I've ever had the chance to see it."

It was the second time I'd seen my love in battle, and it affected me this time just as it had before. I wanted nothing more than to take him into the bushes and love him on the spot, the child in my womb notwithstanding! A glance at the maids told me that the effect was universal, and the new blonde was chanting, "Yes. Yes. Yes," with a silly grin on her face.

Duke Conrad dismounted and called to Baron Wiktor, "Come help me round up their horses! The people behind us were worried about spare mounts. Now we can leave them some. Francine, get out your writing kit and write them a note that we can leave behind."

There wasn't much time lost in getting the enemy horses, since Anna and Silver cooperated nicely in rounding them up. Soon Conrad came to the carriage with two large purses filled mainly with gold. He looked at the arrows stuck in his golden breastplate as if he had noticed them for the first time, and pulled them out.

"Well, there's a mess for the jeweler to worry about. And here's some booty that we won't have to share with the whole army! What do you say to an eight-way split, for Anna and Silver deserve a share as well."

And that's just what he did. The maids were ecstatic! They each got four years' pay.

The horses were tied to the track along with my letter to Baron Gregor, the dead Mongols were left for the others to dispose of, and we were back on our way to Cracow in minutes. And still I wasn't sure.

Was he that lucky or simply that good?

Finally I asked him about it as he rode along by my side. He said with an almost perfectly straight face, "My strength is as the strength of ten, for my heart is pure."

So I still didn't know! He wouldn't tell me pure what!

At Cracow the carriage was taken from the track at the station, and Anna pushed it slowly through the burned-out cottages of the suburbs. It was a sorry sight, yet the first greenery of spring was on the land, promising the healing of old wounds. At the city gate, Conrad left us to go to the bishop's palace on Wawel Hill, and we followed slowly afterward, for to push the carriage over a plain road without iron rails made Anna's task more difficult.

The guard at the inner gate at Wawel Hill gave us a joyful greeting, saying that Conrad had gone before and that Duke Henryk was here as well. Baron Wiktor and I were more than a little apprehensive as we went to Wawel Castle, for confronting the duke was a thing that neither of us looked forward to. Yet it had to be done, and it was better that we should do it before Conrad was through with Bishop Ignacy.

There was no telling what my love would do if the situation was left to him alone.

As we entered the ducal chamber, Duke Henryk was sitting behind the desk that he had used so many times before, that he himself had once ordered made in imitation of the one Conrad had given to the bishop. But it was a chamber that had been promised to Baron Wiktor by my husband, in a castle that no longer belonged to Henryk!

"Welcome to Wawel Castle, your grace," Baron Wiktor said.

"You bid me welcome, Wiktor? To my own castle?"

"Yours no longer, your grace. The seyms have elected Conrad duke of Little Poland, and of Sandomierz and Mazovia as well."

"The n.o.bles of Cracow all swore fealty to me," Henryk said. I could see that this would go as badly as I had feared.

"True, your grace," Baron Wiktor said, "but since that time, you abandoned the city to the Mongols, and the men who swore to you have been killed almost to a man. The n.o.bles and burghers who are left would never obey one whom they think has betrayed them, and Conrad is now duke. ", "So I have been told by the churlish louts, may their souls be d.a.m.ned! I never abandoned Poland!"

"Yet you were not here when the city was attacked, your grace. Duke Conrad was."

"He was here in disobedience of my orders! I told him to come to me in Legnica!"

"He could not obey you, your grace. Your battle plan was foolish, and he had to obey a higher power."

"What higher power? I was his liege lord!"

"Your grace, can you possibly have forgotten the night five years ago when you and he and 1, along with three dozen others, stood vigil in the mountains? Can you have forgotten that morning when G.o.d Himself put a holy halo about each of our heads and blessed the work that we were going to do? Can you have forgotten that you yourself knelt before Conrad and were knighted by him into our Holy Order of the Radiant Warriors?"

Duke Henryk was cringing before the baron's onslaught. I was surprised to see Baron Wiktor standing up to the duke so forcefully, so masterfully. There was more to the man than I had suspected, and he wasn't through with the duke yet!

"You must have forgotten, for when the time came for us to do the work that G.o.d had ordained, you went and came up with a silly battle plan without even consulting with the man who headed your own order. You had a fine time writing and consulting with every king and duke in Christendom, but you had never a word for the man with the finest army in the world! The man whom G.o.d chose to do the job! So you sat and hid in Legnica while Conrad fought the war without you, and now you have the gall to sit in his castle as if the spoils of that war were yours to take!"

"There was sickness in our camp. The foreign troops were slow in arriving. We could not advance," the duke said weakly.

"The sickness could have been avoided had you heeded Conrad's book on camp sanitation. We had no sickness! And to h.e.l.l with the foreign troops! We didn't need them!"

"Well, the foreign knights have now been sent to Hungary to aid our allies in accordance with my agreement with King Bela. More than half of my own men went with them as well."

"Good, your grace. We no longer need them. What remains to be seen is whether or not we need you any longer, either! "

"You threaten me, Baron Wiktor?"

"No, your grace. I merely suggest that when you meet with my liege lord, Duke Conrad, you a.s.sume a properly grateful att.i.tude. He, not you, saved the country, and he, not you, commands here. Remember that he now controls half of Poland, and he could take the other half by force at any time if he was minded to!"

"I... I will bear your words in mind, Baron Wiktor. If you'll excuse me, d.u.c.h.ess." And with that, Duke Henryk left the chamber, his back bent.