Thus it was that I found out that Henryk had started out by offering fealty, as was to be expected, but my stupid, doddering husband had refused it! After Conrad returned and I explained it all to him, he again left me to spend the night with his blond trollop.

I am becoming convinced that my mother was right. The pains of this world are too much for a woman to bear, and the only sensible course is to retire to a nunnery.

Why am I tortured like Tantalus, to have all that I desire but a hand's length away, only to always have it wrenched away when it is seemingly within my grasp? What great sin have I committed that I should be treated by G.o.d in so cruel a manner?

Yet still, I strived to be a peacemaker, and when I was formally invited to a banquet with Conrad and that duke, I decided that it would be seemly to go. Perhaps some small thing could be rescued from this debacle.

Such was not to be. At the feast Henryk taunted my husband, making him act the clown, the buffoon to him. And Conrad willingly did it! He louted before the mob and Henryk, too. Conrad, whose armies could have stomped this entire castle flat without taking their hands out of those pocket things of theirs!

I was mortified. And no sooner was this ugly scene over than some simpering courtier pranced up and casually mentioned that Conrad had also given away our own children's birthrights. They were to be disinherited in favor of Henryk! The child in my own womb was to be cast out before it had even had the chance to draw its first breath.

So now Conrad and Henryk have gone north to make a mess of things in Mazovia, to alienate the population and probably get themselves into a stupid, useless war with the d.a.m.ned Teutonic Knights!

And I sit here alone, abandoned by all save the servants, my guards, and the courtiers.

A nunnery. There must be a decent nunnery somewhere in Poland!

Chapter Twenty-three.

FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD STARGARD.

d.a.m.n. I had to face yet another high-anxiety situation, and this was likely to be a big one. I had been b.u.mping heads with the Knights of the Cross since the first day I got to this century, when one of them had bashed me on the head for not groveling properly. Later I'd caught seven of them taking a gross of children south to sell as slaves to Moslem brothels, and when we had put a, stop to this molestation of children by cutting down most of the Crossmen, I had been forced to fight a Trial by Combat with their champion to stop the Crossmen from repossessing those kids.

Plus, well, I knew my history well enough to know that having those Germans on Polish soil would cause seven hundred years of misery for my country. Not only were they completely obliterating several Baltic peoples now, they would continue their b.l.o.o.d.y expansionist ways forever!

Several of the most murderous battles of the entire Middle Ages were fought against them, and once they were defrocked by the Pope and had become a secular Protestant group, they became the duchy of Prussia that was eventually to unite Germany under a military dictatorship that was one of the root causes of World War I. And World War II was started when Hitler invaded Poland to forcefully take the land bridge that separated Prussia from the rest of Germany.

Added to all this, my father and uncles had been resistance fighters in Poland during World War 11. 1 grew up hearing firsthand about all the unspeakable atrocities committed by the Germans. I mean, the Russians are by no means pleasant, but they are sweetness and light compared to the n.a.z.i Germans.

Germans are not a lovable people!

Furthermore, while they had sworn fealty to Duke Boleslaw of Mazovia, they had failed to come to the aid of my predecessor when he had called on them to join in the defense of the country against the Mongols. All they had done was to send a puny five-hundred-man force to Henryk at Legnica, and he had been forced to bribe them to get even that!

I now had the opportunity to remove these evil people from the map of the world, and you can bet that I was going to do everything in my power to do it!

"Battle stations," I shouted. "Baron Gregor! Get the gates closed and your men and guns on the walls!"

Within moments, bugles were blowing and men were scurrying about, finding their arms and armor, readying themselves, and finding their proper positions. It wasn't as well rehea.r.s.ed as most of the army's maneuvers. In fact, we had never gotten around to actually practicing it yet at all. Chaos and confusion were sucking up precious minutes.

But G.o.d was still on our side, for the Crossmen had been spotted from the cathedral tower two miles from the city and were advancing only at a walk. The troops managed to get the gates closed in time, but just barely.

I was as late as anyone, since the only an-nor I had with me was the d.a.m.nable gold parade stuff that Francine had insisted that I wear, and it takes forever to get into it. I was panting as I joined Henryk and Gregor at the Northern Gate. Henryk was wearing the golden armor I had given him years ago, but Gregor was wearing the much more practical cloth-covered army combat armor.

The Grand Master was just coming into view, riding at the head of the miles-long column. He was easily spotted since his surcoat was more highly decorated than were those of his men, although it was done in the same drab black and white as the others. Under their garb, I noticed that they were all wearing old-fashioned chain mail, being too proud to buy better armor from my factories. Not that I would have approved the sale.

"That's not the same Grand Master I met at my Trial by Combat," I said, looking through my binoculars.

"No," Henryk replied, squinting through a telescope of the sort that all my officers carried. "Herman von Salza died peacefully two years ago, in his sleep. "

"There's very little justice in this world," Baron Gregor said.

"There is even less than you think. The filthy blackguard coming toward us was sent by me to aid the Hungarians not a month ago. He could not have gone there and still be here now! It seems that he has broken yet another vow," Henryk said.

"Wonderful," I said. "Unless these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have changed their ways recently, none of them will be able to speak Polish. Does anybody around here speak enough German to act as a translator?"

"I do," Henryk said. When I looked at him in surprise, he added, "My mother was German, after all, and I had to learn more of the language to speak to my wife. I'll talk to them, but I think that talk is all we should do with them today. I would rather that this did not come to a battle, Conrad. If we must fight them, let us try to do it on their soil, ruining their property, not ours,"

"A good thought, and the army could use a few more months' rest after fighting the Mongols," I said.

"The problem is that their property is my property. I am their liege lord, after all."

"True in theory, Conrad. In practice, I have some doubts. Well, wish me well."

The German column had stopped in front of the closed city gate, and Henryk shouted down at their leader. An exchange in German started that went on for some minutes while the rest of us on the wall waited around, wondering what was being said. All I could tell was that the words were getting louder and harsher. German seems to be a great language for being rude in.

Finally Henryk took pity on us and said, "Mostly, I've been discussing his failure to go to the aid of King Bela as promised. He wasn't expecting to find me here."

"Well, when you get around to it, tell him that I am prepared to accept his oath of unconditional fealty."

"He will love you for it," Henryk said dryly, and then started shouting in German again. The Crossman column continued to advance, crowding against the city wall and spreading to both sides of the gate.

There were more than twelve hundred swivel guns on the wall, mounted in holes hastily drilled into the parapets. That much at least had been done during our week here. Every gun that could be brought to bear was pointed at the big black crosses that the Germans wore on their surcoats. Nice of them to provide us with cross hairs.

The unintelligible conversation went on for the fair part of an hour. I was beginning to wonder if I shouldn't send out for refreshments when Henryk turned to me.

"He says that he doesn't need to swear fealty to you because he is here in Poland by a perpetual written treaty with the late Duke Boleslaw's uncle, the previous Duke Conrad I of Mazovia. That man still lives, you know, but he's prematurely senile. Poor fellow, he's only fifty-four, but he can't even feed himself, let alone say a complete sentence. "

"I'd like to see that treaty," I said.

"As would 1. They say they have it with them and invite us to come down and examine it. Are you minded to risk it, Conrad?"

"Don't do it, your graces!" Baron Gregor said. "Those Crossmen can't be trusted under ordinary circ.u.mstances, and just now it would be to their advantage to see both of you dead."

"Hmph. Henryk, what say we invite a delegation of them inside the city. We can sit down with them someplace comfortable, have a meal, and try to talk out our problems."

"A n.o.ble thought, Conrad, but it is best to meet a Crossman in the open and to be upwind of him. The rules of their order forbid all bathing, shaving, and whatnot, you know. If rumor can be believed, they don't even wipe their a.r.s.es. Also, they have more strange dietary restrictions than the Jews, which they adhere to rigorously, in public at least, so it is nearly impossible to feed them without giving offense. I ate their food once, and I would not willingly repeat the experience. Enough said?"

"So there is no excuse that you could make to get a few of them inside here."

"None that would not convince them that we were planning treachery. Dishonest people a.s.sume that all others are like them."

"Then you figure that we should go out there and trust them?" I said.

"Well, the first part of that, anyway. We really must see this doc.u.ment that they have. But their very presence here proves that they are oath breakers, so keep your sword loose in its sheath."

"Okay. Let's do it, then. Baron Gregor, I'd like to have six companies of troops ready at the gate to come to our rescue, and make sure that the gunners on the walls are alert! "

"Right, your grace."

I tightened my armor, loosened my sword, and went down the steps with Henryk behind me. I ducked and went through the small door that was opened for us in the main gate, and faced my adversaries. As luck would have it, I was downwind of them, and Henryk's advice about their lack of bathing proved to be entirely too true. The small door was closed behind us, and despite the fact that we were out in the open, I felt claustrophobic. I glanced at Henryk, and he started talking to them in German. After a while they handed him a rolled-up piece of parchment, which he unrolled and studied silently for a while. Then, without a comment, he handed it to me.

"It's an obvious fraud," I said. "First off it's written in German! A Polish treaty, granting lands on Polish soil, would be in Polish, not in some foreign language. Then, there is no date on this 'doc.u.ment'! Anything official has to have a date. And worst of all, there is not a single signature on it. And not a single seal! It's preposterous, and I can't even read what it says."

"Well, I can," said Henryk, "and I a.s.sure you that the content is as absurd as the format. It purports to give the Teutonic Order permission to do as they please to the inhabitants outside our borders, whether they be Christian or heathen, and grants them Polish lands equal in area to those that they conquer from our neighbors. Furthermore, it states that all such lands taken or granted become their property, subject only to the Holy See and the empire. They no longer admit to being your va.s.sals, or the other Conrad's, either. What is your reaction to that pile of barley?"

"You can tell them that I am waiting for their abject submission to me, and barring that, that they have one year in which to leave my lands and all of Poland. After that, I will kill them all and put their heads up on pikes, as I have done with the other people who have recently invaded my land. Tell them that exactly." There was no point in prolonging the conversation, and anyway, the smell of these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds was getting to me. At least the Mongols didn't stand upwind and breathe in your face! On the improbable chance that they did swear to obey me absolutely in all things, I planned to send them back to the Holy Land where they had started from and tell them to kill rag heads. I just wanted them out!

So I stood there while they screamed gibberish at one another for a quarter of an hour. I envied the UN people with their headsets and their real-time translations, but Henryk seemed to be doing his best, and I didn't want to break his stride.

Eventually he turned to me and said, "They don't seem to have grasped the extent of what you have done with the Mongols. What say you have some of your people give a delegation of theirs the tour that you just gave me."

"Fine, just so long as I don't have to do it myself. Their stench is overpowering me!"

After another long babbling match, with more gutturals than could have been manufactured by three dogs fighting over a dead pig, Henryk said, "Good. They will have twenty men ready to go tomorrow."

"Done," I said, though that meant that we'd have to spend days hosing their stench out of one of our only three riverboats. "I presume that you will be escorting them, your grace."

"I seem to be stuck with the task, your grace, being the only one handy who speaks German.

Sovereignty is a demanding profession."

"And one that you are welcome to," I said.

That evening Henryk came to my quarters. "You know, Conrad, fighting the Crossmen is not going to be as straightforward as beating the Mongols. The Knights of the Cross are in theory a religious order, and they have papal sanction. Certain factions in the Church are not going to be pleased with us when we kill them. Then, too, Emperor Frederick Il has conferred on them an imperial charter, and he won't love us either if our plans go well."

"Are you saying that we should back off on them?" I asked.

"No. I think that we have to get rid of them or they will be a thorn in our side forever. But I think you should know that this is an issue where for the first time in a century, the Pope and the emperor will agree on something. We may well have a further war with the empire on our hands, as well as papal sanctions against us. I for one would not like to be excommunicated."

"Nor would 1. Well, then, I'd say that you have your work cut out for you. You must see what you can do about gaining support for our cause in the Church and in foreign courts. "

"How right you are, Conrad. And you must see to it that not all of your forces face the east. The next war may come at us from the west! "

The next morning they went away, the Crossmen and the king, and I was able to get another boat the next day, the RB47 Millennium Falcon. Later, as I was pulling into East Gate, I got a radio message from Henryk.

CONRAD. THE CROSSMEN ARE BOTH FRIGHTENED AND ADAMANT THAT THEY WILL.

NOT LEAVE. I a.s.sUME THAT YOU WERE SERIOUS ABOUT GIVING THEM ONE YEAR.

TO GET OUT, FOR THAT IS THE ULTIMATUM THAT I HAVE GIVEN THEM. HAVE I DONE.

RIGHT BY YOU?-HENRYK.

After thinking about it a bit, I had them send back: HENRYK. FINE BY ME, BUT GIVE THEM UNTIL THE FIRST OF JUNE 1242. THAT WILL.

GIVE MY TROOPS TIME TO GET THE SPRING PLANTING IN. CONRAD.

Thus, I had a year before I had to worry about any more military or political nonsense, and I was eager to get back to some simple, sensible technical problems. At the time I didn't think it would take much to throw out the Crossmen, not when I had an army that had kicked s.h.i.t out of the Mongols! Of course, I screw up pretty often.

The Riverboat a.s.sembly Building had been completed, and work was under way on the construction of four new steamboats. Two of our existing Vistula boats were doing patrol and transport duty, but the third had been fitted with a derrick and was engaged in salvaging what it could from the boats that had been lost in the war. Already, the engines, boilers, and all the major hardware needed for the boats under construction were on hand and being rebuilt, and more salvage was coming in every day. Plenty of seasoned lumber was available, and the boatwrights were sure that we could replace our war losses by late fall.

East Gate was now manned by a company of regulars, most of whom worked as boatwrights and the rest as mule skinners on the railroad.

My first inclination was to go straight to Three Walls and dive into some refreshing engineering work, but on reflection I realized that it was important that the folks at the other installations see me. Best to make as fast a tour as possible. I sent my entourage to my home by mule-drawn carriages while I went out ahead alone on Silver.

My first stop that morning was at Sir Miesko's manor. His wife, Lady Richeza, had been instrumental in starting and running the school system, and when the war had come, she had invited all the lady teachers in eastern Poland to weather the Mongol advance behind the strong walls of the manor. Most of them were still there, since commercial transportation had only recently resumed operation.

She said that her husband was in Hungary, fighting the Mongols for King Bela, and that I would know better than she where her older sons were, since they were all members of my army. I a.s.sured her that her boys were all well, and she served me a nice dinner. During the meal, she and her fellow schoolteachers proudly told me every detail concerning how the Mongols had attacked the manor and about how the ladies had shot them all down with the swivel guns that Sir Miesko had provided in such abundance.

They got quite animated in the telling of the tale, pantomiming themselves in battle with a degree of showmanship surpa.s.sed only by Baron Vladimir when he was a young man! It is surprising how much bloodthirstiness lurks in the heart of the gentlest of schoolteachers. After dinner they proudly displayed the booty that they had taken, the sacks of gold and silver as well as saddles, arms, and bloodstained armor. They had decided to keep it and divide it up among themselves, since the school system was more than well enough funded. They even had the enemy heads up on pikes in the gruesome army fashion!

It was mid afternoon before I could bid these charming, learned, and remarkably brutal elderly ladies good-bye and ride to Okoitz.

Chapter Twenty-four.

Okoitz had been the seat and home of my liege lord, Count Lambert, and I had built him a magnificent castle there in return for six years of output from the cloth factory that I had designed for him. Lambert had been a libertine and c.o.c.ksman par excellence, though in a very friendly sort of way, and the girls "manning" his factory were remarkably loving and giving. The biggest Pink Dragon Inn I owned was at Okoitz, having been enlarged three times over the years. You see, this was where the boys came to meet the girls working at the factory. And why were so many girls eager to get work at the cloth factory?

Because this was where the boys were, obviously!

The castle had room for the hundred peasant families that farmed the land in the area and worked at a part-time sugar mill in the winter. There was also room for the six hundred attractive young ladies who worked at the cloth factory and the hundred-odd servants, cooks, and repairmen who did all the work needed to feed so many people and keep the place livable.

But all these people together occupied only half the living s.p.a.ce at Okoitz. On certain occasions Count Lambert liked to invite all the n.o.bility in the county over for a festival, and to make this possible, there was rather posh living s.p.a.ce here for an additional thousand people.

The count was inordinately proud of his castle, but no sooner had it been completed and furnished than he had been killed and I had inherited the place.

The problem was, What to do with it?

I toured the town, starting with the factory, looking at it with new eyes. The machinery was mostly of wood and at least eight years old. I had been pretty proud of it when I had first designed the place, but now, compared with my other installations, it was behind the times. Everything was very labor-intensive, and for a good reason. Every time I had suggested some improvement to Count Lambert, he had always found reasons why it should not be done. The truth was that he didn't give a d.a.m.n about efficiency, but rather he looked at every job eliminated as one less girl he had in his fabulous harem! Eventually I had stopped trying to sell him on improvements altogether. The factory was far superior to its compet.i.tion, anyway, even though there were a dozen similar operations going now in Poland alone, owned and operated by men Lambert had proudly shown through his factory.

But now, while I certainly didn't plan any reductions in the work force, there was always the need for more production, and the local herds had increased such that during the last two years the county had actually been selling raw wool to outside buyers. New factories were definitely in order--two new factories, one for linen cloth and one for wool. The old one was made of wood and lacked proper foundations, anyway. It was showing signs of rot.

Okoitz was built above the huge Upper Silesian coalfield, one of the biggest in the world, and there was already a working mine on the property. Steam-powered factories were obviously the way to go.

Of course, developing the new machinery would have to be done here, where the problems involved with working with fibers could confront the designers directly. Designing at a distance, as the Russians usually do things, is inefficient and can lead to disaster. This meant that we would have to build a machine shop here first. Not a production shop, but a research and development shop.