Conrad Starguard-The Radiant Warrior

by Leo Frankowski

  "Even that will be quite large, my lord."

  "What of it? You'll find I've had a drawing board of the sort you favor built and set up in your old room, along with a supply of parchment, pens, lamps, and that sort of thing. I'll send a wench to call you to supper. Pick one to your liking for tonight, but you might want to try out Natasha. She's nicely skilled. Well? Be off with you!"

  I went to my room and got to work. I obviously wouldn't be allowed to leave Okoitz until I had completed a set of drawings.

  I spent a few hours doing arithmetic and decided that if I could heat a sphere of air fourteen yards in diameter to fifty degrees warmer than ambient, I could lift about five hundred pounds. Was it reasonable to expect a warming of fifty degrees Celsius? Would Count Lambert plus an undefined balloon made with unspecified and unweighed materials weigh less than five hundred pounds? I hadn't the foggiest idea. I wasn't even certain about the specific gravity of air. Nobody had ever asked me to design a balloon before.

  All I could do was to make a number of reasonable-sounding engineering approximations, which my colorful American friends called WAGs: Wild Ass Guesses.

  I was called to supper by an attractive and cheerful young lady who announced that she was Natasha. Again bowing to the inevitable, I asked her to join me for supper.

  Once seated with Count Lambert and another lady, I was told that Kotcha was in the kitchen, and what did I want done with her?

  I told Count Lambert that she was joining my household, and it seemed right that she should eat at the same table as I did. He nodded benignly. Perhaps he was glad to be getting out of having to provide for her, which he would have done if I hadn't wanted to take her, or perhaps he realized that I was quite capable of making an issue of not hurting a girl's feelings.

  But in any event the ragged little nine-year-old was soon sitting wide-eyed between me and Count Lambert. He soon had his arm around her. People in the thirteenth century touched a lot more than those in the twentieth. It was a fatherly caress—Count Lambert wasn't interested in a lady sexually until she was filled out.

  It was a pleasant meal. Even though there were only five of us at the table, four wenches were serving and three musicians playing. Almost everything in medieval Poland was expensive except for people. You could have as many servants as you could afford to feed. A peasant considered getting a job as a servant to be a wonderful thing. The work was easy and they fed and clothed you well, for almost no nobleman wanted ragged or starving people around.

  Count Lambert got his maids by exercising a variant of his droit du seigneur. Separated from his wife, he asked the prettiest girls in his town to be handmaidens. This was a euphemism, since they were usually pregnant in six months. He then found each of them an acceptable husband, paid for the wedding expenses and a small dowry, and went to church regularly, with everybody happy with him.

  Musicians didn't have the high status they enjoy in the modern world. They were playing quietly in the background, ignored while the conversation went on: Muzak. I was talking. "You understand that I've never designed a hot air balloon before, my lord? I can't promise that the first one will work. We'll have to build one and see how it goes."

  "Reasonable, Sir Conrad. But you've had a chance to think on it. Tell me what the first one will be like."

  "It's a cloth bag, made of the same thin material that we made kites from. It's like a ball on the top and a cone on the bottom," I said, gesticulating. "It is the custom of my people to make them brightly colored, but that's up to you. It should be fourteen yards across at the widest and twenty yards high. It must be strongly made, but kept as light as possible.

  "To launch it, I think if you found three big trees in your forest that grew in a triangle, and cut the tops off, they could serve to support the balloon until the air inside is warm. It should be launched only in a dead calm, the sort that often happens in the gray dawn."

  "That seems easy enough. I'll have it done. You will have drawings of this before you leave, won't you?"

  "Yes, my lord. Would it be too much to ask if you tethered the balloon for safety? Tied it to a tree with a long rope?"

  "Well at first, of course. After that, we'll see."

  "Count Lambert, I say again that there is no controlling these things. You don't know where you'll come down. Do you really want to fall into Frederick the Second's outhouse?"

  "Ha! That would stuper his mundi, wouldn't it!"

  I gritted my teeth, but there was nothing else that I could do.

  I had Kotcha put up with a couple of Count Lambert's ladies—they were only five years older than her—and intended to get in an hour of drawing before I sacked out. Such things "gang aft agley" at Okoitz. Natasha was all she was cracked up to be. Lord, what an enthusiastic young lady! We went to bed early and I really didn't get much sleep. Good, though.

  I started drawing the next morning, but to make an accurate drawing, with dimensions, of a single panel required an awful lot of math. And it all had to be done long hand, without a calculator of tables or anything but my skull and a goose quill pen.

  Halfway through, I found that I was doing everything in decimal rather than the duodecimal arithmetic that I had taught everybody else. I have always had the darndest time thinking in duodecimal, and going over this diary, sometimes I'm not sure myself when I was talking in base-twelve and when in base-ten. So far as the balloon was concerned, I completed the calculations in base-ten and then translated the whole thing into base-twelve.

  And there were all the detail drawings. How to do a tent stitch, how to fasten the ropes to the basket, the importance of carrying sandbags. I wasn't done until noon the next day.

  Natasha stayed with me, eager to run errands but happy if ignored. I began to realize that there was a good mind in that pretty little head.

  After dinner, I explained my drawings to Count Lambert, because he couldn't read.

  "Excellent, Sir Conrad! I think we can make short work of it. You seem to have taken a fancy to my Natasha. Would you believe that not a week ago, she sported a maidenhead?"

  "That's hard to believe, my lord. She's remarkably . . . adept."

  "Isn't she though. But I can certify it since I relieved her of that liability myself. She has a pure natural talent. See here. I've kept you half a day past our agreed time. What say I give her to you in compensation?"

  "You're going to give her to me?"

  "If you wish. As I said, she's only been here a week. There's months and months of use in her yet."

  She'd probably be a lot happier and healthier at Three Walls than at Okoitz, anyway. "I'll take her, my lord."

  So I headed back to Three Walls with Kotcha riding in front of me, Natasha riding sidesaddle at my back, and my huge wolf skin cape thrown around all three of us. Anna didn't even notice the extra weight.

  Once home at Three Walls, I had the unpleasant job of telling Janina about the death of her family. That cast a pall over the household for several days. But life continues and these people were used to death. They saw so much of it.

  Kotcha took her job as Anna's servant quite seriously, and sometimes it was hard to get her out of the stables and into school.

  Natasha, well, Natasha was remarkable. Natalia was my secretary, but handling our records, the bank, and the payroll took up most of her time. Natasha became my personal assistant, not that I'd realized that I needed any such person.

  But she was quite capable of sitting for hours, sewing or knitting, without making a sound or intruding on what was going on. Then if I needed an errand run, which was fairly often in these telephoneless times, she was eager to drop everything and run it. And she always did a competent job. There was nothing stupid about her. Just absolutely . . . compliant.

  It was so easy to take her for granted that sometimes I even forgot she was in the room. I occasionally neglected to dismiss her for the night. In fact, once I was in bed with Yawalda and actually in the middle of the sex act when I realized that there was another p
erson in the room, at which point there was nothing to do but invite her in.

  All told, a strange, interesting, and remarkably comfortable young woman.

  And a far cry from Krystyana, who was getting increasingly feisty.

  * * *

  FROM THE DIARY OF PIOTR KULCZYNSKI

  Sir Conrad had drawn up a table of organization for his people at Three Walls. This was a chart showing who worked for who, which made it child's play to know who to go to for a given thing. This chart was mounted on the wall in the dining room, where all could see it. Further, the name of every adult in the city was written on little pieces of wood that could be moved around on the chart. It took a while for us to grasp the significance of this. Here was a place where a man could rise! Another of his gifts to us.

  It also defined the status and pay of each person, and I was surprised to discover myself near the top, directly below Sir Conrad himself, and an equal to the foremen and my love Krystyana. I was now paid three pence a day, an excellent sum, since my food, my lodging, my work clothes, my horse and expenses were all paid in addition to this. My net was easily five times what my father made, and I had naught to spend it at but the inn, which I did.

  The Pink Dragon Inn was a remarkable place and all of Sir Conrad's planning. The common room was bright and clean and always full of good cheer, with good beer at reasonable prices. The waitresses were all very pretty and immodestly clad, with tall heeled shoes and fishnet stockings. They wore a hat with rabbit ears and a sort of loincloth with a rabbit's tail. And that was all. When it was cold outside, the innkeeper kept the fires high in the two big fireplaces to keep the waitresses warm but unclothed. Their bodies and breasts were bare. This had the effect of attracting the men, though most of the ladies stayed away, for fear of the competition.

  Most of the people at Three Walls were from Cieszyn, except for the Pruthenians, and they were still children. The people of Sir Conrad's household were mainly from Okoitz, my hometown, but they rarely came to the inn. I usually drank with Ilya, the blacksmith foreman.

  "Aren't you supposed to be with your family, Ilya?" It is pleasant to talk as an equal with someone you once worked for. It gives a real feeling of progress. "I distinctly remember that you promised to spend half an hour a day with them when Sir Conrad allowed you space in the bachelors' quarters."

  "I spent all night with her Sunday last. That's four of these new hours, so I'm good for the week. If you don't like it, I'll stuff one of your ledger books up your arse."

  "But my wishes hardly matter. What if your wife doesn't like it?"

  "Then I'll stuff one of them up her arse! Look. I never wanted to get married, but Count Lambert told me to do it. You know the man! Could you argue with him?"

  "That's hardly the question. It's—"

  "Count Lambert doesn't like his wife, so she stays in Hungary and he beds down half the girls in Silesia! But me? All I ever wanted was to be left alone! So I get saddled with a silly woman and a clutch of bawling brats! Sir Conrad doesn't want to marry, so does anybody force him to the altar with that snip of a girl you want? He's a bigshot nobleman, so of course not!"

  "And I pray that never happens."

  "More the fool, you! You have a silly little boy's attitude about things! You think you can marry your princess and live happily ever after! That happens in fireside stories, but it doesn't happen in life. In the first place, she'll never have you. She's set on getting herself a full belted knight, just like her friend Annastashia did. In the second, if you did get her, she'd make your life miserable, the same way every woman has made every man miserable since Adam was stupid enough to want an afternoon snack."

  "There can be true love, my friend. Consider . . ." But I saw that he was no longer listening. He was staring over my right shoulder. I turned to see what it was about, and was shocked. No one else in the place would know her except Ilya and me, for we were the only ones here from Okoitz. But the absolutely beautiful and nearly naked serving wench tending the table behind us was Francine, the wife of the priest, Father John, at Okoitz!

  "What do we do?" I whispered to Ilya. It was hard taking my eyes off her.

  "I don't think we do anything, except maybe change tables so she waits on us!" He whispered back, not even looking at me. "It's none of our business. What she does and what the priest does are up to them."

  "But what would Sir Conrad say?"

  "What he says is up to him. Would you want her blood on your hands? This could come to that!"

  She was back at the bar now, but I said, "Doesn't the inn require that every waitress be a true intact virgin? But she's been married for years!"

  "I know nothing. I see nothing. I hear nothing," Ilya chanted.

  Soon our waitress went off-duty for the night, so Francine tended our table. I didn't know what to say, and so was silent. Ilya pretended that he had never seen her before, and slipped a few silver pence into her loincloth. She acted as though she didn't recognize him, although of course she must have. They had lived in the same village for years! She gave him a hug in thank you, while he sat there, her magnificent breasts on either side of his hairy cheeks. I was dumbstruck.

  She gave me a squeeze as well, even though I had not tipped her, and then went to her other tables.

  Ilya refused to discuss the subject.

  We stayed until closing, and then both came back the next night, to find Francine again tending our table. I'm sure that neither one of us mentioned anything to anybody, but I think somebody must have, for there was an air of foreboding about the inn that night, like a storm about to break or a battle about to be joined.

  She was calling herself Mary now, but there was no mistaking her or her thick French accent. It was near closing when Francine's husband hurried into the inn.

  He was in his usual clerical garb, but it was covered with snow, for it was a foul night. He was bare-headed and must have been long without his hat, for his hair and eyebrows were thick with rime.

  His eyes were red, as with madness or as with one who has not slept for many days. A frightening sight! It was hard to believe that he was the quiet man who had taught me my letters.

  Ilya and I froze, but the other twenty or so patrons paid little mind, at first.

  "Woman, come home!"

  "No!"

  "You are my wife!" Father John grabbed her by the hand. She pulled herself away.

  "Get away from me! I'm not your wife!"

  I saw Father John draw a knife. "Woman!"

  By this time, every man in the place was on his feet, and would have gone to her aid, had there been but time. But it all happened so quickly!

  Being much smaller than the others, and behind many of them, I could not see what happened. I only heard the scream, the crash, and the dull sound of the body falling to the floor.

  Chapter Four

  FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD SCHWARTZ

  Krystyana and the innkeeper's wife were shaking me awake. There was trouble at the inn.

  I called for Sir Vladimir, Tadaos, and Anna. Whatever was wrong, I wanted some force behind me. As Sir Vladimir was just changing guard with Tadaos, they were both up and in armor, so I didn't bother with mine. They were ready before I was, and the four of us, followed by a crowd of gawkers, went across the snow to the inn, with Krystyana and Annastashia guarding the closed gate.

  The innkeeper had let no one else leave and had touched nothing. Francine was crumpled in a corner, nearly naked. I was shocked to see her. I hadn't known that she had left Okoitz. And how could a married woman get a job as a waitress at the inn? Yet she was in that uniform, what there was of it. She stared at me, but I couldn't read her eyes.

  The body was stretched out on the floor, facedown. The clerical garb was obvious, as was the trickle of blood pooling beneath the head. I turned to the innkeeper. "What the hell happened?"

  "Well, my lord, the short of it was that he came in, there was some shouting, and she tried to get away. He pulled a knife and she hit him on the
head with a stool. I was surprised that it killed him, but it did. I would have smashed him one myself, only I never had the chance."

  I nodded, and turned the body over. The forehead was caved in and the face was streaked with blood. It was a few moments before I recognized Count Lambert's priest.

  I sat down at a table, still not quite awake. Being lord also meant that you had to be the cop, as well as the judge, the jury, and sometimes even the executioner. I noticed that Natalia had come along.

  "Natalia, get everyone's name and then send them home. Lady Francine, come over here. We must talk. Somebody get us some beer." Coffee would have been more welcome, but there wasn't anything available with caffeine in it.

  The place was soon cleared and the body was taken to the church. It was closing time anyway. Francine walked unsteadily over. Her long black hair was disheveled and her face was streaked with tears. They were running down her cheeks and falling to her bare breasts.

  "My lady, what is this all about?" I asked.

  At my gesture Natalia started taking notes on birch bark. Later, if it was needed, she would make a good copy on parchment, which was expensive.

  "About? I suppose it's about my being a murderer." She spoke with a thick French accent. Her huge eyes were still gushing tears. Her tiny nipples were wet and dripping. I gave her my handkerchief.

  "Murder? I'm not sure of that. They say that you tried to get away and he drew a weapon. That's not murder. That's manslaughter at the worse. I'm still not convinced that a crime has been committed.

  "For starters, what are you doing here? And what are you doing as a waitress?"

  She tried to dry her tears, but they kept coming. She even wiped her chin and chest.

  "I came here to earn money. It takes money to travel and France is a long ways away. It is well known that a woman can make more as one of your waitresses than at any other trade, even the most sordid." Even in her emotional state, she was still rational. There was good metal under that lovely exterior.