Chapter 14

There were still two dogs barking ferociously.

"Lie down!" said Michaś, in as deep a voice as he could manage, having managed to join squad one without Jurko noticing.

One dog lay down and thumped its tail apologetically; the second dog followed after a pause.

"If you and Juryk can train them, they're yours," said Jurko. "Strip these fellows; they aren't boyars but they have good clothing and not all our peasants do. And their horses and horse furniture will be worth a bit of loot."

They led the horses back to the road, the old woman and old man lifted gently onto one of them.

It appeared that a few armed soldiers had been with them, but they were no longer a threat.

"Plato!" called Jurko. "What was all that about?"

"Oh, my lord!" cried Plato. "We were getting people packed, and out quietly, but one of the bailiffs was out hunting, and he called to the rest to come and bring dogs, and the house guard."

"Really? Well, that should make taking the Dacha easier," said Jurko. "Can you steal a waggon?"

"Oh, yes, my lord."

"Good; we can send the women and children back to a place where they can be looked after properly until we start building wayposts and pay families to take care of them." He smiled grimly. "And they'll be under guard of proper patrols of course."

"It sounds too good to be true," said Plato.

"No, looking after a waypost with hay that grows and harvests itself which is then spun into gold by a dwarf called Titelitury is too good to be true," said Jurko. "On the whole, I agree, if something sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. But I suppose that depends also on your expectations. It'd be hard work, raising, cutting, and readying hay for horses, feeding messengers at any hour of day or night."

"That sounds more realistic, my lord," said Plato, relieved.

"Your people look pretty emaciated," said Jurko.

"It's winter," said Plato. "I had two meals a day, being drafted as a soldier, but most people don't."

"As God is my witness, I will fight to free the peasants and serfs of Russia from such treatment," swore Jurko.

oOoOo

"My lord," Jadwiga whispered to Longinus's back, in their shared tent, "I found helping at that unlooked-for birth very moving, which is why I sang silly songs. That poor woman is the same age as I am and looks three times my age for her careworn face, and is half my weight. I... I have prayed for her health to improve, and for the baby's life, but please, I want to be all girly and cry, and I need a cuddle."

The patient knight rolled over immediately to put his strong arms around her.

Jadwiga had not lied, and she sobbed against his chest.

However, once she started feeling better, snuggling up against him to go to sleep without giving him the option to change position seemed a very good idea.

oOoOo

Jeremi rode back to Smoleńsk to organise the troops. He found a letter from Krystyna of Sweden waiting for him.

My dear brother,

I am ready to fall on the northern flank of Novgorod to wrest it from the boot of the tsar as a Swedish protectorate. We may yet meet in Moskwa.

Krystyna.

"Well, that should work out nicely if Bohdan has the Don Cossacks stirred up," he said, happily to Radziwiłł.

oOoOo

"Plato, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't 'dacha' mean 'country cottage' or similar?" said Jurko.

"Yes, my lord."

"If that's a country cottage, I'm a mermaid," said Jurko.

Helena walked her fingers down one taut thigh and wandered around to the front, between his legs.

"No, no fishy tail and definitely not a maid," she said.

"Wife! I shall sort you out later," said Jurko.

"We'll get a bed to ourselves in that little palace," said Helena.

"Not quite a palace, but damned close," said Jurko. "Three storeys plus an excess of extra pointy bits; a covered balcony; steps up to the front door under a covering. So he doesn't have to get his poor little head damp walking to his carriage?"

"Yes, my lord," said Plato.

"Durakin melts in the damp," said Jurko. "I'm surprised he could bring himself to embark on a winter war. Mind, those tents were beyond belief. And I've seen the tent of Karol Gustaw of Sweden, and his silver piss pot. So, a house with carven window surrounds looking like lace, or sugar subtleties which grace the tables of despots and kings, and that's a window in the roof, so four storeys. And sprawling across the countryside as well! Come on, then, let us go in and requisition it for Papa." He mounted the steps and hammered loudly on the door.

After a few minutes it opened.

An elderly man in livery stood there, anxiously.

"Ah, good morning," said Jurko. "My name is Prince Jurij Korybut Wiśniowiecki; your former master is my prisoner, and I claim his possessions as spoils of war. You may turn out your servants to greet my wife and me, and then we shall tour the building to consider how I shall house my men. I will wait here whilst you apprise all the staff of our arrival, and fetch them."

"Y... yes, your highness," said the butler.

"Jurko, your audacity!" murmured Helena.

"These damned boyars, as far as I can understand, sell serfs even without land, and of course the serfs with the land, and doubtless lose them as parts of wagers. The way to act is with audacity so we are not questioned."

"My lord is right," said Plato, who had followed them in, gulping at his own audacity and staring around at everything.

"Why don't you act as my household comptroller, and organise them for me?" said Jurko. "You're quite capable Iwan... whatever your patronymic is."

"Ilyich, my lord," said Plato.

"Iwan Iljycz Plato, then," said Jurko.

"My lord! You honour me – I am not worthy!"

"You ask questions and give opinions, that makes you worthy. If your family will not resent me borrowing you."

"My lord, when I was drafted into the army, my family held a memorial service for me."

"But why? Are serf levees thrown forward as cannon fodder?"

"Well, that as well; but conscription is for five and twenty years, and few soldiers survive that long, and moreover, it might as well be that I had died, for how would I otherwise have had a chance to see them ever again? They thought I was a ghost when I walked in."

"Dear God! No leave? The more I learn of these boyars, the lower my opinion gets, and frankly, right now, I'd almost as soon shake Satan's hand."

"Say not so, I pray!" said Plato, in lively alarm, crossing himself.

"Very well, not even in jest," said Jurko. "And how many of your fellows came from the same village?"

"Oh, they rounded up all the men and boys over fourteen and under sixty," said Plato. "And the women expected to break the land and sow seed or be whipped for failing to grow enough for our lord."

"They are betrayers of the sacred trust of landholders; and will go to the ninth circle of hell when they die," said Jurko. "Those servants are taking their own sweet time. Plato, go and be arrogant at them."

Plato came back in short order.

"The servants have all run away," he said.

"Well, I'm damned," said Jurko. "Right, let's look around this cottage palace and see what we can find. Is there a Lady Durakina?"

"No, my lord," said Plato. "But there might be a mistress."

They went through the ground floor first.

"Well, we can find a market for most of this tasteless tat," said Jurko. "As foreman, you're responsible for making a note of anyone who deserves more than one share, which is how we usually do it; we give ten percent to my father for matters of state, I take ten percent of what's left because of my general brilliance, planning, and beautiful Cossack body, ten percent to the officers, and the rest in equal shares, double shares to anyone who has worked especially hard. You'll count in with the officers, as foreman. Kuryło sees to selling it all. I blink at the odd keepsake taken, but expect that man to give some or all of his share to someone in need; it's a matter of honour."

"I see, my lord," said Plato.

"Cossacks, my lad; we're Cossacks," said Jurko. "And that means an obligation to loot anything which isn't nailed down. It'll get broken if we turn the ground floor into barracks anyway."

They made their way to the grand staircase.

"Gilded banister posts, really?" said Jurko. "That'll cover a few muskets. Helena, is there a housewifely way to get gold off wood?"

"Other than burning it?" said Helena. "Use a sabre edge to lift and scrape, I suppose."

"Now I'm wondering if it's worth it," said Jurko.

"Probably not," said Helena.

The first floor was, if possible, even more opulent. The master chamber included a box full of jewels.

"I'd be afraid to go out in some of those rings and chains, in case anyone took me for a courtesan," said Jurko.

"It's the downside of having a beautiful Cossack body, you vain creature," said Helena.

They came upon a locked door. Jurko frowned and unlocked it, the key being hung beside it.

He stepped back quickly and pulled the door to protect him from the missile which hit it solidly.

"Satan's bollocks!" said Jurko.

"They'd have to be pretty solid to hit the door that hard," said Helena. "Someone doesn't like us."

Jurko opened the door again and dived into a roll, coming up and drawing his sabre; Helena went the other way, also drawing hers.

They gaped in astonishment.

Their assailant was a young woman, probably shy of her twenties, with a makeshift crossbow. She was a vision of loveliness, with flaxen hair, blue eyes, pale skin, and a rather full figure. She was dressed, or as Jurko later put it, semi-undressed, in the western fashion, her low-cut neckline leaving little to the imagination.

"Angels and saints, it's a busk and whalebone from a set of stays made into a crossbow," said Helena. "That is brilliant! Do you love Dorogin so much then, that you would attack us for him? I have not seen anything loveable about him."

The girl stared.

"I hate Dorogin," she hissed. "I thought if you were not he, then you must be his men, and I wanted to kill you and escape. Are you not his men? Has he sold me?"

"He was stupid enough to walk into Lithuania," said Jurko. "We captured him. His dacha is our spoils of war."

"I will not be willingly anyone's spoils of war," said the girl. "You are pretty, though. If you offered marriage, I would consider it."

"Sorry, miss, but you are not my type," said Jurko. "And why would I want anyone but my own incomparable wife, who is so taken with your abuse of undergarments?" he indicated Helena, and the girl looked again.

"Why, I did not perceive at first that you are a woman," she said. "You are indeed lovely, even dressed so, and dishevelled."

"Why, thank you," murmured Helena, with heavy irony. "You have pinned the whalebone to the busk, and cut a groove in it... it must have taken you a long time."

"A year," said the girl. "I kept every bone from food to make glue, and I sharpened a nailfile on the hearth, which is limestone, to make a knife. And now I find it is for nothing... unless you purpose to harm me. I have two bolts left and I am fast."

Helena moved and took the weapon from the girl.

"So am I," she said. "We mean you no harm. You are... Swedish?"

"Yes; I am Karin Persdotter, and my father is a merchant. We were in Novgorod when we were seized, and Dorogin tortured my father in front of me, and said he would go free if I gave in to him willingly. What choice did I have? And so long as I behave, he permits me to receive one letter a month from him, and send one, though he reads both, of course. Can I go home?"

"I'm sure we can arrange it," said Jurko. "Papa can write to Queen Krystyna of your plight, and she will find out where your father is."

Karin blinked.

"You seem very sure she will read your father's letters."

"Yes," said Jurko. "Well, you might as well stay here, but you will probably get other women billeted with you for a while."

"I will not share a room with camp followers!" cried Karin, outraged. "I had no choice but to whore for that pig, but I am not a whore!"

"Let us get one thing straight, girl," said Jurko. "The noblewomen who go to war with their menfolk would condescend to share a room with a peasant woman like yourself. If married quarters can be arranged, you will only share with a couple of unwed maids, my sister and my daughter, who serve as pages to us, to free men from such duties. I have not yet viewed the whole place to make disposition of the various regiments. And at that, I do you a favour, as the master chamber next to this will be for my father, and by rights, I should take this, as one of his closest advisors. But it would be discourteous to displace you whilst your father is found. Now be a good girl, and try not to get in the way. If you ask nicely, I'll have someone told off to help you learn to shoot straighter, and if you want to join in sabre drill in the mornings, I've no objection. I hope he has a bath-house."

"Oh, there is a sauna, which is very spacious," said Karin.

"Sauna?"

"It is a Finnish word, for a steam bath," said Karin.

"Sounds ideal," said Jurko. "Do you know your way around the house? Are you free when he is in residence?"

"I have more freedom," she admitted. "I have gone nowhere but some of the rooms downstairs and on this floor."

"Fine; indicate which of the furnishings and knick-knacks in this room are yours, or that you feel it fair to keep as compensation, the rest will be crated up as spoils and to reimburse Durakin's freed serfs."

She opened her mouth, and shut it again, frowning.

"I know nothing of them," she said.

"Then keep your eyes and ears open more than your mouth," suggested Jurko. "And bear in mind that a pretty girl who has her goods on display like that, I presume Dorogin's idea, is asking for insult."

"What do you mean?" asked Karin, opening her eyes wide.

"I mean you should cover your tits up, if you don't want men gazing at them, and trying to touch; I accept that Dorogin has made you dress so shamelessly, but you will dress as a shamefast maid whilst you are in my protection," said Jurko.

"But my gowns are the latest fashions, from France!" said Karin.

"I don't care how the shameless hussies in France dress, in my army you dress modestly, and stay in ladies' corner when you bathe," said Jurko. "Now get that meat out of sight, I feel as if I was in a butcher's shop, being offered whole udder."