"Baron, you were magnificent," I said as soon as the door closed. I couldn't resist throwing my arms around him!

"I merely spoke the truth," Wiktor said as he disengaged himself and sat behind the desk. "Duke Conrad has made me his deputy here, and I would have failed him if I had let someone else usurp that power.

Please be seated, my d.u.c.h.ess. Our lord can't be too much longer with his confessor."

Chapter Twenty.

FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD STARGARD.

My session with Bishop Ignacy was one of the longest that we ever spent together, and the vespers bell rang long before we were done. We had supper sent up to us, and my confession continued well into the night. With most priests, confession is a fairly short, perfunctory affair, but it is never so with Bishop Ignacy. I was deeply troubled, and he took all the time that was necessary to dig into all the b.l.o.o.d.y, crowded doings of the last month.

In the end he gave me his usual scolding about my s.e.xual affairs, but absolved me completely for all that had happened in the course of fighting the Mongols, and for the Lubinska business as well. I felt clean for the first time since we had headed out for war. Clean, but still I bore scars within that would always be with me.

When we were through, I said, "By the way, what did you think of those inquisitors that I had sent to you, Father?"

"What inquisitors? I have met no one from the Holy Inquisition. "

"Well, the day before we marched out to war against the Mongols, two members of the inquisition came to speak to me. "

"And what did they have to say?"

"I'm not at all sure, Father. You see, neither of them could speak Polish, and I can speak neither Italian nor Latin. Furthermore, they had apparently been forbidden to speak of the matter with anyone else but me, so they could not explain the thing to our translator. Also, you have forbidden me to talk about my transportation to this century with anyone but you, Father. Therefore, I made sure that they had a good map to Cracow and directions on how to get here and told them that they should talk to you. Now you say that they never got here. "

"Well, that's reasonable enough, seeing as how you probably gave them one of your 'army maps' with south at the top and everything else topsy-turvy. No wonder they got lost! Everybody knows that east belongs at the top of a map! After all, the Garden of Eden was in the east, and we are all descended from Adam and Eve, who lived there. Since we are descended from the east, it must be above us, and therefore it belongs at the top of the map. It's perfectly logical!"

"Yes, Father. So you haven't seen them?"

"No, and by this time I think it unlikely that they will arrive. They have either been killed by the Tartars or they are going back to Rome in disgust! Now I will have to write a formal letter of inquiry, explaining what little I know of this matter and asking what happened to the inquisitors. "

"Yes, Father. Could you please ask them to send someone who speaks the language next time?"

"Good night, Conrad."

A sleepy castle page showed me the way up to the suite that had been reserved for me, the duke's apartment. I found that Francine was already asleep, but Sonya was waiting up for me, good little servant that she was.

In the morning, bathed and shaved, I was having breakfast, when Francine joined me.

"Good morning, Francine. You slept well?"

"Yes, my love, though perforce alone." Sonya brought us some more sausages and hotcakes, and I could tell that Francine was trying to ignore her. She had accepted Cilicia and had offered me her own maids on occasion, yet she didn't seem to like me having one of my own, somehow. Oh, well. Women are strange. It was best to ignore the situation and wait for the horse to sing.

"Well, you were sleeping when I got back. I didn't see any point in waking you."

"You took so long in confession?"

"I had a lot to confess. Millions of people are dead because of me," I said.

"And many millions more yet live because of your diligence and prowess. Have I ever told you how much the whole of Christendom owes you?"

"Hmph. I'm just a man who's trying to do his job."

"Then there is more work yet for you to do, my love. Duke Henryk is in the castle."

"And we're in his old room. I guess I'll have to have it out with him today, though I can't say that I'm looking forward to it."

"Much of the way has been cleared for you, my love. Baron Wiktor and I talked long with him yesterday. There is much to the baron that I had not seen before."

"He's a good man, though his brother Gregor is the truly wise one of that bunch. That's why I'm giving Gregor command of Mazovia. Sonya, would you please go to Duke Henryk and ask him when it would be convenient for him to talk with me today? And, uh, put a dress on first. Henryk has this problem with feminine skin. "

"Wait!" Francine said as Sonya was about to leave. "is that wise, my love? You command here, and you should tell him when it would please you to meet. And if it pleases you to have your wenches nearly naked, you should not change your custom to suit a visitor."

I shook my head and said, "Okay. We'll compromise."

"Sonya, ask the duke if he would join me here for dinner at noon and don't bother dressing up for the occasion. After that, tell the cooks to have a meal for two sent up at three sharp and remind them that I fired the head cook at Sandomierz. You know my tastes in food."

As she left, I said, "Satisfied?"

"With you, always, my love. You might want to dress in one of your army uniforms to remind the duke of your bond with him and the fact that you head the Order of the Radiant Warriors. "

"As you will." It takes so little to keep her happy sometimes.

I spent part of the morning with Baron Wiktor, getting things organized in Cracow, and then saw a delegation of the city fathers.

They wanted me to redesign the lower city for them, since it had mostly been burned to the ground. Yet at the same time, they wanted to start rebuilding immediately, without waiting to install sewers and water mains. And once we got into it, they didn't want a new street layout, either, since that would mean that all the existing building plots would change, and who would know who owned what? Somehow they wanted me to bless it and make it all better, but not to change anything!

My own private thought was that it would be easier to simply build a new city. As for the old one, well, there had been a half yard of organic fertilizer on the ground there for centuries. If they would put a plow to it, they'd have the richest farmland in the world! But I couldn't tell them that, so I told them to think over what they really wanted and promised to meet with them later.

I knew that in the end what we would do was come up with some new building codes, requiring fireproof materials for the walls at least, and plan to put in the utilities later in a piecemeal fashion, the way things are normally done. It would be more efficient to build from scratch, but there wasn't time. The people of Cracow had to have a place to live now. But best for them to come to that realization for themselves.

I had Natalia make a note to tell the factories to get into full production of all building materials as soon as possible. She was Baron Gregor's wife and would soon be leaving me to join him at his new post in Plock. She was trying to train one of the other girls to take her place, but she had been with me for nine years, and training a replacement to know what I wanted without being told every little thing wasn't easy.

It was a pleasant spring day, and I had lunch set up on one of the battlements that served as a balcony. I was surprised to see that the duke also wore one of our red and white army dress uniforms, probably for the same reason that I did. Francine had been fight again.

"Welcome, your grace, " I said. "Have a seat."

"Thank you, your grace," he said, looking pale from his recent illness. "I want to start by offering you my apology. I formulated a poor battle plan without your advice and consent. I ordered you to follow it even though you knew that it was foolish. And in anger, I have not answered your many letters and messages.

For these things I ask your forgiveness."

"I accept your apology, your grace. 1, too, need to apologize, since I deliberately disobeyed your direct orders. But let's just say that these unpleasant things never happened. "

"Done. And since we now are both of the same rank, wouldn't equals speech be more appropriate?"

"Right you are, Henryk. Much has happened since our last meeting. It's been almost half a year." Sonya and three of the castle servants brought in our food and set the table. While it was a warm day for the season, it wasn't run-around-in-half-a-bathing-suit warm, and I could see her tiny nipples harden up in the breeze. I waved her back into the building with the other servants.

"True, Conrad, and that is entirely too long. Where should we begin?"

"Well. I suppose that you have heard that Count Lambert fell fighting the Mongols. I was there, and before he died, he told me that I was his heir and that you had approved it. Is this true?"

He looked down at his plate. "Oh, yes, you inherit his lands and much more besides. Did you know that Lambert's brother, Count Herman, also died?"

Lunch consisted of breaded chicken, deep-fried in a pressure cooker A la Colonel Sanders, with French fries and coleslaw. And bottled beer with some fizz in it. No coffee or c.o.ke, alas. Henryk didn't seem to know how to handle the chicken, so I picked up a drumstick to show him that eating with the hands was proper for this exotic dish.

"No, I didn't, although I knew that Herman's wife was dead."

"Count Herman died of the sickness that struck my camp at Legnica. Now, do not tell me about your book concerning camp sanitation measures. I am well aware of it. I had my own knights follow your suggestions to the letter, but I was unable to control the foreign troops that well. They insisted on doing things as they always had, and disease spread among them the way it always does. And then, of course, my own men caught it. As best as I can determine, Count Herman died just a few hours before his brother did, and the count's wife was killed a half day before that. Therefore, Herman inherited his wife's share of their estates, and Lambert inherited them before his death. This means that they all come down to you. You are now Count of Cieszyn as well as Count of Okoitz!"

"Wow. I'd certainly never expected that," I said.

"It is also possible that you have inherited Lambert's extensive Hungarian estates as well, since his daughter has not been heard from since she left, and I understand that the fighting in Hungary has been fierce. I do not think that they were hit with as many Tartars as you were, however. The number of enemy heads on pikes along your railroad tracks would be unbelievable had I not seen them with my own eyes. "

"I wish I could help the Hungarians out, but my foot soldiers would be almost helpless without the railroads, and there are none in Hungary. You know, I once tried to get King Bela to let me run a line down into his country and to put some steamboats on his rivers, but he refused me permission to do it.

As to the heads you saw, well, they represent not one in twelve of the Mongols we killed. Before you go back west, we must visit the major battlefields here. Then I'll show you heads!"

"We must do that. As to King Bela, well, if he lives out the war, he will be less arrogant in dealing with you. But these are all trivial matters compared with what we really have to talk about. You know that my father spent his life trying to unite the country, and that I have done all that I can to continue his work. I now hold all of western Poland, except for the seacoast of Pomerania. You hold all of the cast except for what is held by the Teutonic Order-"

"The Crossmen were sworn to my predecessor, in theory at least, and they'll d.a.m.n well swear to me or leave bleeding! " I said.

"Well put! I think together we would have little trouble getting the Pomeranians back into the fold, as well. And we must be together!"

"Indeed. I agree."

"Good. Well, then. I came here to offer you my oath of fealty, Conrad. You will be the first king of Poland in a hundred years!"

"Hmph, And what if I don't accept your oath?"

"What? How can you say that? After all this, you mean to humiliate me further?"

"Not at all. I'm just saying that under certain conditions I would be willing to swear to you!" I said.

"Do you actually mean that? Why? You have the power now, not I! Why would you do such a thing?"

"Because I don't want to be a king! I'm not even very thrilled about being a duke. I'm a technical man, an engineer. I have no training in law, or politics, or sovereignty! I don't like sitting in judgment over other human beings. I don't even like sitting at the high table of a banquet! Sovereignty is a job that you have been training for all of your life, and you're welcome to it! I want to be free to get back to work at developing industry here, and I want you to take over all the other trivia for me."

"You would be a craftsman and call the crown trivia?"

"Yes, because it is! In the long run my job will be far more important than yours. "

"Well, if that is truly your wish, then so be it. But a moment ago you said 'under certain conditions.' What conditions did you have in mind?"

I pulled out a list from my breast pocket.

"Well, first off, I'll stay in charge of the army. My forces will be the only military forces in Poland, and all other forces will be either disbanded or merged with the army over the next six years. I'll pay for the army myself, but that's the only thing I'll pay for. There will be no other taxes on me."

"Granted, although disbanding the feudal levies will be no easy feat. What else?"

"I'll have to stay Duke of Sandomierz, Little Poland, and Mazovia. Frankly, the people here wouldn't have you directly in command, and these areas will be underpopulated for some time, anyway. But I don't want the dukedoms to be hereditary. If they were, there's a good chance that your heirs and mine would come to blows, and that's best avoided now. "

"You mean that I would be your heir?"

"Yes, insofar as those parts of the duchies that are not settled by the army are concerned. You, or your heir, will inherit the fealty of those lands and peoples that remain under the conventional n.o.bility. The army will keep its own lands and choose its own leader, although I haven't worked out how yet," I said.

"Then, of course, I completely agree. Next?"

"Primogeniture. This business of dividing the country UP between the sons of the last king has got to stop. An equal division among the heirs of lesser t.i.tles is fine, but the country, once united, must be indivisible."

"I had planned such a change myself. Granted. Next?"

"The lands that I have inherited border on Little Poland. I want them combined with my duchy here."

"Very well, although bear in mind that the law in each of the duchies of Poland is different. There will be a certain reluctance to change on the part of the people living there. "

"That's another thing. I want a single, simple set of laws that is the same throughout the land. I want that law to be administered by carefully trained and very honest men, and not by the local lord of the manor.

We need a system of police and judges and courts that honestly and fairly enforce the law, not the barbaric hodgepodge that we have now. "

"Now, that will be a hard thing to do. People resist changes even when they are for the better.

Furthermore, it will be expensive."

"I'll be responsible for the salaries of the people involved, if necessary, but the rest is your job. You write the laws, and you administer the system. Only check with me before you publish those laws. I don't demand veto power or anything like that, but I do want to have a chance to give you my advice."

"I will agree to this in principle, although we both know that it will be many years in the doing. What about your army? Will these laws cover it as well?"

"If a warrior breaks a civil law, he will be punished by the civil courts. There will be military laws as well that the warriors will be subject to, but civilians won't. I'll worry about military law."

"Good. Next?"

The meal was over, and the servants cleared the table. Sonya brought in desert. Ice cream! Excellent, despite its lack of vanilla flavoring. You know, there are advantages to occasionally firing a cook!

"I'm going to be building forts all around the borders of the country. I'll pay for the land I need, but once bought, it will be army property, under army control and not taxable by anyone. Okay?"

"Very well. Anything else?"

"Well, there's Copper City. For years I've been running it and sending you the profits. The bookkeeping involved is annoying. I want it made mine entirely."

"I hereby grant you t.i.tle to Copper City. Is that the last request?"

"It is."

"Good. Then the matter is settled, though we shall have to put it all in writing, of course. Since you dictated the terms, why don't you see to getting some fair copies made. Then there is the matter of your oath of fealty. We will want to do it again with all of your officers and my n.o.bles present, but let us swear to each other now, while the sun is yet high."