Chapter 14
Told to be ready to be on the road early, Helena was packed, her trunk and overnight bag waiting in the vestibule at seven. She sat on her trunk with a wildly-excited and nervous Róża, whilst Jancia hovered in the background.
Jeremi found her there.
"Helena, my child, what are you doing?" he said.
"Waiting to leave, my lord," said Helena. "Lady Gryzelda told me to be ready to be on the road early, so I did a short bit of sabre drill, washed and changed, and packed, and I am ready. I take it we will break for breakfast on the road, to get a good twenty miles into our journey?"
Jeremi laughed, slapped her on the shoulder, and sighed.
"What an excellent son you are, to complement Jurij," he said. "When my wife said 'early' she was expecting to be on the road before eleven. She'll be having breakfast in bed in an hour or so, exhausted from watching the maids pack. Come and join me for breakfast; Jurij and Jan are there, and Jurij with as many fire ants in his drawers as you... uh, apologies for the coarseness."
"Oh, I'm a Cossack, I don't mind," said Helena. "And it's an appropriate simile. We won't get above forty miles if we don't start until eleven."
"Child, we won't get above twenty-five miles on a good day," said Jeremi.
"I could ride ahead with the Cossacks to set up good staging posts and arrange for the inns to be ready for us?" suggested Helena, brightly, as they moved into the dining room.
"I don't think so," said Jeremi. "Jan and Jurko might take turns doing so, though."
"That's a bit more like it," said Jurko. "With two or three men in rotation so the coaches have plenty of people to guard them. Why are we taking coaches? It would be faster to ride."
"Because, my impetuous boy, Helena might manage to ride to Warszawa at your breakneck speed, but my wife and her ladies would not even manage to ride there, never mind at Cossack pace. And the whole point of presenting Helena at court is to do so under a chaperone."
"Oh, and you need a good excuse to go to court in order to politic about the Cossack situation and talk the king into giving you the position to put the thieving szlachta in their place to prevent an uprising by actually trying to help the king keep his word for once?" said Helena. "I'm glad we have a clever man on the border, after all, the last six hundred or so uprisings over the last fifty years or so have been about the same thing, and everyone always reacts the same to it and gets surprised when the Cossacks protest under arms and put them down brutally, only to set up the conditions for it to happen over. I did understand that right, didn't I?"
"Apart from the exaggerated number of uprisings... essentially, yes," said Jeremi, surprised at how cogently she had put what she had clearly understood and been thinking about.
Really, if a girl could see it, Jurij was quite right. It was time to stop the cycles of uprisings and the only way to do that was to absorb the Cossacks into the Rzeczpospolita, have more fluidity over who was considered szlachta, and gradually Polonise them, without losing the consummate warriors they were.
It had worked with Lithuania after all; and he was Cossack enough himself to know that he could appeal to them, manipulate them, and come out of it very well.
And if sent to the Sich to train, Michał would perhaps be more like his brother.
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Gryzelda finally bustled down to the vestibule with her ladies twittering about her.
"I can't find Helena," she said to Jeremi.
"She's been ready to leave for almost four hours, being a good little soldier's wife," said Jeremi. "I got rid of her into the stables to start helping to fettle the horses and harness them up; I couldn't cope with her vibrating with impatience."
"Dear me, how very impetuous she is!" sighed Gryzelda.
"She complained that if we left so late we'd never manage more than forty miles," said Jeremi, with a touch of malice.
"Forty miles! In one day! Whatever is the child thinking?"
"I wish she was one of my young officers," said Jeremi.
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Helena meekly mounted the large, cumbersome coach, called by the coachman a 'Corbillard' and originating in France. Like the western-style beds, it had a post at each corner and a canopy over the top, and leather curtains hung from it, like bed curtains, currently rolled roughly out of the way and tied to the corner posts. A rail hung with a leather curtain covered the entrance,the step folding back, making a small seat on which a page might sit. Seats ran all the way across, accommodating three abreast front and back.. Helena had gone back upstairs for pillows after having surveyed the coach, giving one to Jancia, and setting one on the box seat for Róża, whom she also wrapped in a quilt.
"You spoil your servant," said Malwina.
"She's a daughter to me; she is Jurko's adoptive daughter so she outranks you, but her legs are shorter," said Helena, sharply. "And she is used to hotter climes for having been abducted by the Turks."
"Girls, there is no need to quarrel," said Gryzelda. "Your solicitude for the poor child does you credit, Helena, but you should be careful in how you refer to Róża in public, or there may be those who take her for your daughter, not as the foundling she is, and it may damage your marriage prospects."
"But why?" asked Helena. "When I marry Jurko, she will become my daughter."
Gryzelda counted to ten, silently.
"You may find another young man suits you better," she said.
"Oh, I doubt it," said Helena. "I belong to Jurko."
"You poor innocent," sneered Malwina. "When he has had his way with you, he will leave you. He's only a Cossack, when all is said and done, handsome and exciting, I grant you, but still, a Cossack."
"Well, I must say I am interested to know how much you despise Prince Jeremi and his sons," said Helena.
"My dove, you should not be confrontational," said little Lady Czeczeła.
"I don't start anything but I won't stand by to have me and mine miscalled by someone so sophisticated she could write a treatise on the beds she has visited," said Helena, trenchantly.
"That was a trifle... out of line," said Gryzelda, wincing. "You have no proof for such an accusation."
"Did you want me to enumerate your husband's officers with whom she has had concourse ?" said Helena.
"You spy!" Malwina was white-faced.
"I call it 'gathering intelligence to use in case of need,'" said Helena.
"You have been in my room and spied on my private thoughts in my commonplace book!" cried Malwina.
"What, do you record their merits and demerits thus? Thank you for letting me know, I might pay a servant to look in it," said Helena. "I have had no need to do so; I have other sources."
Her other sources included the Cossack lad, Ihor, who chatted freely to Helena, as a fellow warrior, and passed on gossip which he barely understood; and Jancia, who did actively spy to keep Helena from being caused trouble.
"What other sources?" demanded Malwina.
"Why, a visit to the laundry with a vail tells readily which officer's sheets have both evidence of concourse, and the scent of your favourite Ciaroscuro perfume on it. You make them a lot of work," said Helena, her eyes wide and limpid. Malwina's scent was heavy and musky with a lot of civet in it, with spices and jasmine. Helena favoured the Jasmine water, which Jurko looted, even as the only cosmetics she favoured were a light dusting with pearl powder, also looted, to make her skin more radiant.
"Malwina, I am disappointed. Flirting is one thing but I am not pleased that you have gone beyond that," said Gryzelda.
"As if Miss Perfect was not sleeping with her Cossack, and maybe with all the Cossacks," sneered Malwina.
"The servants, who know whose sheets smell of whom, will tell you otherwise," said Helena. "I am waiting to marry Jurko. Then I will sport in the sheets with him, but only then."
"The subject is closed," said Gryzelda.
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The corbillard swung back and forth on its leather straps, and Helena compressed her lips so as not to show how queasy she felt. She held out her arms to Róża, who was looking distinctly unwell, and cuddled the child when she scrambled up, until she went to sleep.
Jurko dropped back to look in.
"Ladies, how are you doing?" he asked.
"If you could ask the coachman to steer closer into the wind and keep a closer hold on the tiller, we might not drown," said Helena.
Jurko laughed.
"I know, it's not really funny to be seasick, but you have a droll way to you," he said. "Just hope we don't hit mud, when you'll all have to row."
Helena giggled, which made her feel better.
"Row? Is he touched in the upper works or something?" asked Basieńka. "This is a carriage, not a boat."
"He has a sense of humour," said Helena. "He means if we hit mud, we shall have to get out and push on the wheels."
"Hardly, as we are ladies," said Maryśka with a sneer. "That is for the outriders to do."
"If it's bad, we may need to help," said Helena. "And I don't know about you, but I'd rather push on a wheel than be stranded in the middle of nowhere, perhaps with wolves."
Elżbieta gave a shrill squeal.
"I doubt there will be wolves at this time of year," said Gryzelda. "And the men would kill them."
"I'm wearing boots in any case," said Helena. "Then I don't have to run faster than a wolf, I only have to run faster than Malwina."
"Will you girls behave," said Gryzelda.
"I don't like her," said Helena. "She doesn't like me. She recognises that I am a threat to her former pre-eminence in the muddy puddle in which she swims, and will be when we are transferred to a larger pool because I'm cleverer than she is, prettier than she is, better connected than she is, and I am actually contented and happy without needing to flit from flower to flower to look for sweeter honey. I don't like her because she's determined to get her hooks into my Jurko, not that she has a chance to make beautiful music with him, because she isn't content with playing her own small instrument until the reeds weep with too much fluid."
Malwina went for her, and Helena, passing Róża to Elżbieta beside her, used the girl's own forward momentum to put her on the floor of the carriage.
"Oh, Helena!" moaned Lady Czeczeła.
"I'm sick of her barbed comments," said Helena. "And, Panna Czeczeła, I should not let you sit on that perch for pages, you take my place, and I'll sit on the step there. I apologise, I was looking out for Róża and should never have let you sit there. I'm the youngest, it is my place."
"Oh, my dear, but you are a princess..."
"And still the youngest," said Helena, firmly installing her between Gryzelda and Elżbieta. "Here, use my cushion, let me slide it behind your shoulders."
"Oh, so kind and sweet," murmured Lady Czeczeła.
If Malwina's look was anything to go on, as she got up and resumed her own seat, her views were at odds with those expressed by Lady Czeczeła.
Helena was pleased when the carriage stopped after a couple of hours for a late luncheon.
"How far have we come?" she asked the coachman.
"Oh, we're doing very well, we've come quite ten miles," said the coachman.
"That's hardly more than walking pace," said Helena.
"Well, I can't shake ladies about any faster, can I, my lady? Lady Gryzelda wouldn't like it."
Helena sighed.
"Oh, well, we can't have that," she said.
"Helena? How are you and Róża?" asked Jurko.
"Sick to the stomach and bored," said Helena. "I've been entertaining myself by insulting Malwina, but Gryzelda doesn't like it and it really upsets Panna Czeczeła. If I was only dressed for it, I'd ride."
"Let me take up Róża for a while to give her a rest from the carriage," said Jurko. "If you'd like that, Rosebud?"
"Yes please," whispered Róża.
"I'll ride tomorrow," said Helena. "Stand by to have another page."
Jurko chuckled.
"At least you'll have better conversation, even if we are mincing along at a pace fit for a magnate walking to the house of easement after an enema."
Helena sniggered.
"What does that mean?" asked Róża.
"You explain," said Jurko.
"You brought it up," said Helena. "Oh, very well. It's about when medicine makes you need the outhouse in a hurry and you are afraid you won't get there in time."
"Oh, like the time we all had bad meat," said Róża. "It's not very nice."
"No, but magnates bring it on themselves by eating too much," said Jurko.
"Your father is a magnate," said Helena, severely.
"No he isn't; he's a prince and a warlord but he isn't a magnate," disagreed Jurko. "Well, go find some food; try to eat, and sit there thinking about how I can't get inside that damned bodice to kiss between your bosoms."
"And all the way down," said Helena.
He groaned.
"And all the way down, and it's as well we don't get up to a fast trot or it would hurt."
Helena managed to eat some bread and soup, and persuaded Róża to do so too, and then handed her up to Jurko when they were to get on their way again.
Jeremi raised an eyebrow at the little girl in front of his son.
"She felt so sick in the carriage," Jurko said. "So does Helena."
"She can ride if she wants," said Jeremi. "I'd feel sick in that carriage even if it wasn't moving, with the mooncalf, the drab, the witch, and the giggle."
"You don't like my stepmother's ladies any better than Helena does, then?"
"She doesn't? She has good taste. The air in a carriage full of women gets rancid enough without being swung about on the road."
"Can we pick up the pace at all when we're out of the depression?"
"Probably. I won't tell my wife, though." He considered. "I'll cover for Helena by putting Michał in the carriage tomorrow; he's having trouble riding."
"Well, if I led his horse, you could lift him in now, as I have Róża and he can sit on the step instead."
"I'll ask him."
Helena did not enjoy the addition of Prince Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki to the carriage. He whined, and demanded to have a proper seat.
"Why, Lady Gryzelda, who is the little girl wearing your son's clothing?" asked Helena. "It's not Róża, who made no complaint about sitting on the step."
"I am her son! It's me!" said Michał.
"Oh, no, a prince doesn't make such a fuss," said Helena. "Only a whiny little peasant girl like the bad stepsister in the tale, who was frozen by King Winter."
"I don't know that one," said Michał.
"Why, once there was a man with a daughter who married a woman with a daughter..." Helena told the folktale of how the patient, polite girl was sent home with riches by King Winter, whilst the complaining one was frozen to death. It was a good moral tale, and Michał was better behaved. Helena heaved a sigh of relief.
"Tell me another," demanded the little prince.
Well, it whiled away the tedium and kept him amused, thought Helena. By the time they stopped for the night she had started making them up, and was thoroughly sick of storytelling.