Chapter 9

With fire pits dug, in a cleared area, the snow shovelled away used to make windbreaks, the men set up their tents. The new ones needed help.

"You know," said Jurko, meaning to be overheard, "Maybe I'll resign my buława and go for a quiet, easy life digging salt or something. Getting these children stowed for bed is like herding cats."

"Oh, hush," said Helena. "You should try being a mother."

"Yes, but at least our babes are probably more capable than this bunch," said Jurko. "Even Cyryl and Krystyna wouldn't make as much fuss."

"Well, they are nearly three," said Helena.

"They'll be old enough for ponies when this is over," said Jurko. "Come and kiss me, my cuckoo, and make me feel young again."

"Poor old man, it needs kissing better," said Helena. "Come to our tent, and I'll sort out all your sorrows."

It was hard for any of the tyros to camping in this fashion to make anything of the prince's dalliance with his wife, since he had buckled down with the rest to prepare the campsite, and his own tent, which was no grander than that of any other Cossack, and found time to help many people as well. And though no grander, he and his wife had done themselves proud, building a sleeping platform off the ground by lashing logs around four young trees in a rough square, and roping themselves a bed base on it.

And the woman carried as much as any of the men, making it hard to equate their dalliance with the whoring of someone like the traitor, Mikołaj Potocki when he was on campaign.

Snow flakes drifted out of the sullen, overcast sky, no serious snowfall, but a reminder that it would be another two months before winter started to recede.

"The cold weather is good," said Jurko. "We have probably two months, with six hundred men, now, more if the servants can help, so easily six staje a day. Sixty days, three hundred and sixty staje. We could make it to Moscow before rasputitsa."

He got a cheer, even from the tired angels who were not used to sleeping so rough.

They set to work on the road, men going ahead to clear the forest back and cut wood, making two jobs into one, whilst wood had been left to get on with the road. By the afternoon, they could see the mound on which the fortress at Dorogobuż had been built.

"The damned Russians took it in 1632, and I wager they'll try to take it again," warned Andrzej.

"It's worth risking losing our schedule to put in a week adding fortifications and surprises," said Jurko. "If they took it before as a bridgehead into the Commonwealth, they'll come back to it. Military wisdom dictates to keep to what you know works. We need to dent that complacence."

"It'll be there to hold long enough to send for reinforcements, whereas if the only defences they go through are us, though we can delay them, we can't stop them," said Andrzej.

"We'll do some drills at Dorogobuż as well," said Jurko. "Your men need to learn how to make a hedgehog. Papa has sent for ten thousand short muskets, and bayonets that fit at their side, not as plugs, but they will take their time getting there. However, to break a charge might come in handy."

"Break a charge? I like the sound of that," said Andrzej.

The very few people of Dorogobuż welcomed the visitors, and the szlachcic who owned what was left of it invited Jurko to his dwórek.

"I'm not spurning you, my lord-brother, in turning it down, because I'd love to stay with you," said Jurko. "But some of my troops are trainees and a little bit brittle, rather precious, and not used to camping out. I like to keep an eye on them, you understand. I'll eat with you, and my wife too, if you will have us. But anything you can tell me about the Moskale I'll be glad to hear."

"They sent out scouts about a week ago," said the man, one Jan Dąbrowski. "Rode through the village, put their riding whips across anyone who didn't get out of the way, looked at the burned-out fort, and rode away again, back the way they came."

"It's near on four hundred staje to Moskwa, isn't it?" said Jurko.

"Easily three hundred and fifty," said Dąbrowski.

"About a week... can you be more precise?"

"Six days."

"Scouts should make it back to Moskwa by now, then," said Jurko. "Our timing is good, then; we planned to add earthworks to your defences. They won't take it a second time."

oOoOo

Plotting in pairs might not be as effective as plotting in large groups, but the late Pan Piekarski had had his cronies. And his cronies made the mistake of assuming that Prince Jurij would accept an offer of a proper bed with the szlachcic. And that therefore they would be free to enact some punishment on the two boys whom they blamed for all this hardship, and humiliate them into being quiet about it. They chose to involve another pair, to make sure that four of them could contain two slender boys.

As it was, and even with sacks over the heads of the two lads, the revenge-bent hussars had their work cut out muffling and carrying the boys off, away from the rest of the camp.

"You think your backsides hurt after a little gentle whipping? You'll find out how much they can be hurt, and you won't dare tell for fear of being hanged for forbidden vices," whispered the ringleader, when the boys were trussed up. Their assailants all wore rough masks, and spoke in whispers to hide their voices.

"You will not get away with this," said Miszko, seizing his moment, and tied as he was, leaping up to kick out at one of their assailants. Juryk head-butted another.

The other two were dragging Miszko to force him to bend over a fallen tree, pulling down his trousers, when Jurko and Helena, coming home from having eaten at the dwórek, detoured towards the sound of muffled angry yells.

By unspoken consent, and as smoothly as if they were joined by a single common thought, Jurko and Helena went into action, not bothering to draw blade. They were deadly in combination, but left the assailants alive.

Helena rescued the two boys from the sacks over their heads and untied them. They were not too big to bury themselves against her, as they had been wont to do as little boys.

"Helena! He said we wouldn't dare speak because we would half suffoctate in the sacks and that would make us start to enjoy it! That can't be true, can it?" said Miszko.

"The act of suffocation can cause a pseudo-erotic experience," said Jurko. "It leads to fool legends about the growth of supposedly magical plants where the semen of hanged men drips. And you would have spoken out, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, because you wouldn't hang us for forbidden practises," said Juryk. "I remember you spanking us because we spoke about a couple of men who... and you said it was none of our business."

"Well remembered," said Jurko. "Right; we'll have a court martial. There is no shame to you that four men managed to abduct you; and what they planned was not about pleasure but about hurting and humiliating you. I hope you will give evidence?"

Miszko saluted.

"Of course, sir," he said.

oOoOo

The court martial did not take long, and was eerie in the light of pitch torches.

"My adjutant and I caught four men trying to force themselves on two very young men, who have not attained full growth," said Jurko. "I believe it to be a power motive, not pleasure; I don't care what any of you do for pleasure so long as it's not with unwilling partners and that includes children and animals as a matter of course. No rape, male or female, and nothing which renders you unfit for duty, so no sticking in some pox-ridden whore any more than shoving a hussar's wing up your arse. Don't laugh, he was very drunk and it was a wager, but... no, don't laugh, it isn't fair. However! These men had intent to both hurt, and expressed intent to humiliate two youngsters, and I suspect it was because they wanted to hurt and humiliate me, but don't have the balls to go after a warrior of my calibre at the peak of his powers."

The two boys gave their evidence clearly and concisely.

"They're caught red-handed. I can't see a case in defence," said Michał Wołodyjowski. "How do you plead?"

"Those brats brought all this on us by annoying Mietek Piekarski!" said the leader. "And their connection to that filthy Cossack who cozened his way into the house of the king, who used to be a good Cossack-hater, meant that we are suffering untold privations!"

"Untold privations? You're suffering no more privation than the rest of us," said Michał. "I take that as an admission of guilt?"

"We wanted to hurt Prince Jurij by making them resent him for being the cause of it," said another, sullenly.

"Fine. If none of you has anything in mitigation, we'll have four nooses, please," said Michał. "Unless you wanted them impaled, Jurko?"

"Too noisy; I want my beauty sleep," said Jurko. "String them up; so perish all rapists." He added, "And if anyone even thinks of touching the Princess Helena, she'll probably have your skins to make drums from, if she doesn't damage you too much in killing any of you stupid enough to try."

oOoOo

The bodies were put on stakes at the side of the road the next day; rope was too valuable to waste by leaving it. And then they set about renewing old ditches, digging new ones, making palisades, and making killing grounds.

"We will push on, but when we return, I'll leave you a garrison," said Jurko. "And in the meantime I want to press on; I fancy we may meet a garrison force coming this way in the next two days, and I'd like to get far enough to have an advance warning to send back to you. I'm planning on driving forward for a day and making the camp there a place we can hold for a period, with a pallisade as well."

Jurko was not to have two days of road making. He was at the head of the road-building column, digging out for the foundations, and setting out a campsite with ditches into the trees, when he straightened, suddenly, his eyes wide.

"STOP!" he cried, and as his men paused, he listened. And grimaced. "Miszko, Juryk, run like the wind, send everyone back to the fort; we're going to have company. My orders; draw back. Jan will obey."

"Yes, my lord-brother," said Miszko, sudden tears coming his eyes. He gave Jurko and Helena swift, fierce hugs. He, too, heard the thudding of many hoofs, and the jingle of harness.

He had no need to say anything; he knew his brother would die to hold up the advancing Moskale if he had to do so. He said goodbye, and take care, all in one gesture. Now he had his orders; and that would include telling their father if Jurko fell.

Miszko reflected on what Jeremi would do if his favourite son was killed. He had no illusions; he was his father's heir, but Jurij was always Jeremi's first-born and favourite. Miszko intended to prove himself worthy of being as favoured, but it would be bitter if it was because he had to step into his brother's dead shoes. He was crying when he reached Jan to pass the message; but he didn't care. And if he was teased, well, those who teased him did not have a brother like his adored Jurij.

Jurko put the boys, and the rest of the engineers, out of his mind. He had his own problems.

"Kuryło, Wasyl, and Malwina, Petro, Frol, Hryhor, into the ditches with your bows and rifles; complete them while we distract them. When we break them, shoot stragglers."

"How the hell can we form hedgehog, Jurko? We don't have the new bayonets," said Helena.

"Spades," said Jurko. "Good, sharp entrenching spades. Hedgehog, my children, and musketeers on the inside to fire at will."

The advance shovel-masters formed rapidly and in silence into a square, based on Caesar's tortoise, but every direction bristling with the sharp edges of spades, the handle braced against the ground.

And through the trees came riding a proud force of Russian boyars in their tall hats, making them look prouder and taller on their fine horses.

"No wings though," said one of Jurko's new recruits, one who had been seconded to to one of Jurko's own units.

"No wings, no balls either," said Jurko. "Stand fast, my boys; we'll make them buy every yard in blood, theirs or ours, but preferably theirs."