Chapter 18
"Plummeting horse, my dear?" asked Asieńka in the room they shared in the dwór of an accommodating szlachcic. "I should not have chosen to ride inside today."
"You wouldn't have stopped her being a nuisance," said Helena. "She rode off ahead, and the goats ran out and her horse reared. She got her ankle caught in the stirrup and she was lucky not to break her back or have her head stove in."
Elżbieta gave a shriek.
"Oh, Helena! And you rescued her? How brave you are!"
"Well, someone had to, and Jurko had sent me ahead to stop her headlong rush, so I was closest," said Helena.
"There is more to it, then, than Prince Jeremi said," said Asieńka.
"I expect he didn't want to worry anyone about an incident which sounds worse to tell about than it was," said Helena.
The days dragged on; one or other of the coaches had to be eased out of mud from time to time, carefully so as not to break the axle, and the women complaining to be asked to dismount into the mud to lighten the coach. The servants at least dared not complain, and the supply waggon might not be unloaded each time with any ease. And at one point, Jurko, in the lead with Jan, called a halt.
"The road ahead is too boggy to cross, father," he told Jeremi.
"What do you suggest? We can't go through the forest," said Jeremi.
"I was going to cut logs and bed them down in it," said Jurko.
Jeremi nodded.
"Good, there's a golden złóty to every man who helps out, to get us on our way as fast as possible."
He was cheered by the Cossacks, all of whom carried axes. It was barely an hour's delay to get the twenty yards or so of quagmire covered with sturdy branches and small tree boles.
"And three hours at least to dig out and move the coaches through it without the road," said Jurko, pleased.
Jeremi happily handed out money, and the men cheered him, and toasted him in the hirilka they had opened on Jurko's permission to restore their energy.
"Our little father the prince is a generous lord," said one. "And to think we called him Iron-fist and hated him! He doesn't hate Cossacks after all."
"He hates the feckless," said Jurko. "And he has had a false view of Cossacks, but now he sees us more clearly."
Jeremi wondered if he had had a false view of Cossacks. Jurko's men were rough-tongued, ill-educated and larked and played like children, but when work was needed they worked hard and willingly. Which the winged hussars he had along had not, turning up their noses at such military engineering.
"Next time we have to do this, you and your angels will be doing it," said Jeremi to the young lieutenant in charge of the angels. "You have watched to learn how professional soldiers go about military engineering, so you can do it next time under the supervision of the Cossacks. One day, it might save your lives."
The lieutenant had not wanted to get dirty, but he knew the voice of inevitability.
"Yes, my lord," he said.
The angels had a chance to show that they could build corduroy roads as well as any Cossack, and the Cossacks watched and sniggered as wings got caught on low branches when the hussars went to cut wood.
"Why don't we cut it, and your men build?" said Jurko, untangling the young lieutenant's wings from an affectionate trail of moss. "It would be more efficient, Pan Brzechffa."
"Thank you!" gasped Fabian Brzechffa.
That road was a little slower to take shape, but Jeremi nodded, and rewarded those Cossacks who had helped out his hussars as well as those pocztowi who took part in it.
"Isn't it part of an outrider's job to do such things without expecting extra vail?" asked Michał.
"Yes, lad, but you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and a little incentive makes a man work harder," said Jurko. "You will find it the same with your peasants as a landowner. Peasants are like the pocztowi, they work harder and go further in what they do for their angel if appreciated. And like soldiers, they will accept discipline which is fair. If there's a thief in a company of soldiers, you don't hang the whole company; you investigate to find out who it is, and then you set him to walk between two lines of his fellows to strike him. If you've got it wrong, he won't be struck hardly at all, and you know that the real thief will probably be given lumps by his fellows. If you got it right, and the other fellows know he only stole because his family is sick, likely they'll strike him less hard. If he is an inveterate thief, he will be given a good beating. The men know what is fair. And the peasantry the same. Some landowners will hang all the men of a village if they suspect thievery, but that's counterproductive. If they won't give up the thief, and the stolen goods are not in his cottage, then perhaps they should be flogged for withholding information. Equally, a man who has done well should be praised, and praised with gold – a man who saves a child that has fallen in a pond, or under the hooves of horses or oxen. A man who has taken in the orphaned children of a relative should be given reward and aid for their care in helping raise them. Did you notice how some of my men sought out silver to give a tithing of the gold they were given to one of their fellows?"
"Yes, Jurij, and I wondered if they owed him money."
"No, he is a man whose wife was seized by the Tatar raiders and sold to the Ottomans. We recovered her in a harem, and she had two children by the man who owned her. He's being helped out to pay for the raising of another man's children, for it was my condition that he should take her children into his household if he would take her back. Women don't like being separated from their children, even if conceived under less than ideal conditions. So some of the infants we have with our baggage are little half-Turks, but they will grow up all Polish Cossack. He could not take her back to their village as she would not be accepted, which is foolishness. And the children will care for the man they are learning to call 'father' in his old age. But in the meantime, it is not easy for him, so others help."
"I see. And because peasants can't help as much, it is the lord's duty to do so?"
"Precisely," said Jurko. "Peasants are people too, with feelings, and they work harder if they feel valued for the work they do for their lord. A kind word and a smile, noticing if a man is not well, asking after a sick mother, it all helps them to feel that their lord cares."
"I will remember this," said Michał solemnly.
Jeremi was still listening.
It went against all he had been taught, but... perhaps if one treated the peasants in the same way as one treated common soldiers, the peasant levies who served in the infantry and in the poczet of each hussar, they might then respond in a similar way? Perhaps it was not the way of the peasant to sullenly resent his lord and do only just enough work to satisfy.
It might be worth trying.
One could always beat them back into submission if all it did was to make them insolent.
"It's because of Helena that I thought all this out," said Jurko. "We used to kill the slaves when we took Ottoman ships, but that isn't right. And we Cossacks want to be treated right by the szlachta who want our lands. There's no difference. And I grew up a peasant, so I know that other peasants have the same range of feelings and ability as any szlachta. In the Ukraine, we can rise by going to the Sich and becoming warriors, and good warriors rise. It has been known for an exceptional pocztowy to be elevated to the szlachta for his efforts. And essentially, originally all men were equal until made knights for exceptional service. I believe that men who do well should be shown that with trust and position."
"I agree," said Jeremi, breaking in on the conversation. "And I'm making Kurylo officially your quartermaster."
"Thank you, father," said Jurko.
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Malwina actually put up with being in a litter between two Cossacks with relative good grace. She felt humiliated to have to ask to stop to relieve herself, but one of the big men lifted her without comment and carried her to a spot of privacy. She cried out as he set her down, her hip wrung where her leg had twisted in the stirrup, not dislocated, but the muscles badly pulled. The Cossack took her weight on that side, fortunately her uninjured arm.
"I'm not looking," he said, bundling up her skirts and managing to support her by the elbow so she could squat.
Malwina had hung on until it had hurt and was almost crying. It hurt her cruelly to squat as well, and she was glad of a second strong arm about her waist.
"Oh thank you," she managed to gasp.
"You ask whenever you need, miss. I ain't embarrassed and you need not be either."
"What's your name?" asked Malwina.
"Eh, I'm Wasyl if you need someone and I'm not around. But I'm nobody and you don't need to think of me as a person."
"I... I am grateful, Wasyl," said Malwina.
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It was a relief to all to climb out of the dank forest and head for Chełm. The town was situated on a flat-topped hill, and was a defensible site. Jeremi nodded in satisfaction to hear Jurko explaining this to Michał, and pointing out the advantages of the site.
"If we had a war with Cossacks, would they get this far?" asked the child.
"Easily," said Jurko. "Cossacks move like smoke through mist, like wind through the grass, like a current through water, and appear out of what seems to be nowhere. I'll be teaching you all those tricks. And when you have splendid armour and wings, you'll remember. And maybe you'll learn to combine the best of both."
"I want to serve with you."
"And you will, for a while. But you must also be a towarzysz for a while, and learn how to use heavy cavalry. And perhaps when you are a lieutenant, your father will also place you with an infantry regiment, to learn how to use pikemen, and musketeers. These are nervous times, and you need to know you will do well wherever you are."
"I will," said Michał."
In front of Helena, Róża heaved a sigh of relief.
"Will we be there soon?" she asked.
"Not soon, but at least it will be easier going now," said Helena. She was just relieved that they would be spending Sunday in a civilised place, and even the Cossacks did not complain that the night was drawing in on the final approach to the fortified town. They would take succour in the monastery on the hill, and there too the brother infirmarian would look at Malwina's arm. Wasyl supported her as she limped, and then picked her up to carry her.
"The little lady has a broken arm and seriously wrung hip, and bruised and twisted withers too," said Wasyl. "No break to the back anyone can find, so she'll dance well enough in Warszawa."
"She may want to stay here in the infirmary to recover," said the monk.
"Oh, she's game enough; not about to give up, I don't think," said Wasyl.
"I will be riding out with everyone else," said Malwina, with determination, and gritted teeth.
"Oh, you are young and strong, and the will to recover is worth much," said the monk.
Helena visited Malwina in the infirmary.
"How are you?" she asked.
"What, hoping I am damaged enough to leave behind?" said Malwina.
"Hoping you might be feeble enough to leave behind without being too badly damaged," said Helena.
Malwina managed a laugh.
"Devastatingly honest," she said. "Well, I fear you will be disappointed. I have pulled muscles in my hip, which to be honest hurts more than the broken arm, but they don't think it will impede me much if I am gentle with it. But I may have to ride in the coach."
"Oh, that's harsh," said Helena. "I can ask Wasyl and Iwan if they will continue to carry you, so your muscles rest. Or maybe you can ride astride more easily."
"I... thank you. You don't want my company."
"Of course I don't, but I wouldn't want to wish being half crippled on anyone," said Helena. "I can't understand why anyone would voluntarily ride in a coach when they could ride."
"Nor me," said Malwina. "Perhaps I can ride on Wasyl's crupper; it's a bit passive but better than swaying about and jolting on every rut in a coach."
"I'll ask," said Helena.
Malwina nodded. She wanted to go to Warszawa and dance, and see high society, and she would put up with a lot of discomfort to do so, but riding in the coach with her injuries shaken and the sickness engendered by its swaying made her quail. Especially as Maryśka had asked if the sickness faded later in the day, and looked pointedly at her belly.
A full day's rest in a proper bed had Malwina feeling much more like herself, and if part of her would have liked to stay another few days, she determined that she would rather ride out.
Gryzelda however came to see her.
"We are to stay here another two days to see you healing," she said. "I hope that your pain has taught you not to act like a little fool; you should be glad that Helena persuaded my husband to give you time here. We are to take it slowly to Lublin, and then one of the officers will ride ahead and see if we can get transport on the Wisla. Jurij suggested it as easier than riding to Warszawa."
What Jurko had said to Jeremi was that from Lublin it would be at least four days to Warszawa, whereas if he took a day to politic with the grandees of the royal city, Jurko and Jan might ride ahead to Puławy, and procure a few barges to transport the company to Warszawa, sleeping aboard the barges, and be there in the morning, God willing.
Jeremi trusted Jurko's knowledge of shipping, and was interested to test it. Starting a program of canal building would suit him better if he had experienced it for himself; but in principle he was interested.