Chapter 17
The guns arrived, and Jurko's assessment that his men could shift them quicker to the base of the hill overlooking Moskwa was shown to be correct. Jurko had not wasted his time waiting for them, and had set up a series of pulleys to use mechanical assist on each stage of the long slow slope up the hill. With enthusiastic Cossacks manning the pulleys, and more to stabilise the rear, pushing, the guns reached the top of the hill too in short order. The horses were glad to have a rest.
"Feel like selling me some of your Cossacks, Prince Jurij?" asked the artillery officer.
"Not on your life, my lord-brother," said Jurko. "You train your own men, or ask for my engineers and pamper them for getting over obstacles."
The colonel laughed. He was about Jurko's age, and was fresh-faced and cheerful looking.
"Samuel Kalinowski1 at your service," he said. "I transferred from the cavalry to be out of the shadow of my father."
"Understandable; I've made shipping and engineering my own, for my own father has a formidable shadow. But it is a shadow that succours and nurtures."
"What a beautiful way to put it! Will you train some of my men to handle weights the way your lads do?"
"Willingly. We are all brothers, after all," said Jurko. "You'll be supporting us; my lads and I will make sure the gate stays open. They will likely try to keep us out of the Kremlin, and here is your copy of the signal flags, and a set, we have had the peasant women sewing away. We'll all need duplicates of letters likely to be used a lot eventually, but for now we have what we have. It'll be hard to make out in the smoke and fog of war, but easier than trying to yell commands."
"The clear bright colours will help, though shapes may be harder to discern."
"Hmm, yes, at sea, if fighting with cannons, one could have a lad up the mast above most of the smoke."
"Oh, well, we have trees; what else are very young new towarzysze for, save for giving the arduous jobs like going up and down trees?" grinned Kalinowski. "My father had me running errands for him when I first joined up until I wondered if my feet would drop off."
Jurko laughed.
"It does them no harm, I use my little brother quite as ruthlessly."
"I'll put my sons with you when they are old enough."
They parted on various duties bent with a tentative friendship forming.
oOoOo
Dawn came up to show a number of cloaked figures with mules at the gates of Moskwa, including a pair of obvious women. What was not obvious was that the women wore sabres inside their skirts. And trousers under their skirts.
The travellers had stained and crumpled papers, which had plainly seen much use. Jurko had driven a gun limber over them on the bare ground a couple of times, when folded, and if the folds, which were cracking, happened to be at points where a signature had to be deciphered, why, that was just unfortunate. They had used paper from Dorogin's dacha, and as his signature might be found there, Jurko had managed a fair copy of it.
"Business?" asked the gate guard.
"Fleeing the Poles," said Jurko, glibly.
"They will never get this far, so you're right to come here," said the guard. "We have men manning a fortress on the road."
"How encouraging!" said Jurko, thinking him a fool to impart such knowledge.
They got into the gate and loitered, chatting sporadically until they were needed.
"What do you think of the tale of this supposed Jewish Messiah, Sabetha Sebi, and his prophet, Nathan Levi?" asked one of Jurko's men.
"Satan's bollocks, Danko, what a time to start a serious conversation," said Jurko.
"I'm half Jewish," said Danko, apologetically.
"Which half, and did you have half a forsekin removed?"
"The bottom half, judging by having been circumcised. My mother's Jewish," said Danko.
"Well, if you want my opinion, it is that he is a fake," said Jurko. "If he's the second coming, nothing on earth is going to prevent his revelation and glory. Because that's the only way I can see him being a Messiah. The stories I've heard, however, suggest that he demands adulation and material comfort, which does not sit easily in my mind for any true prophet. It'll mean trouble, of course, when those Jews stirred up by it taunt Christians who take exception to it. He should be taken seriously, and watched closely. When we've finished this little business with the Moskale, why don't you put together a group of mixed belief, and go take a good look at him? Then you can see for yourself."
"Thanks, Ataman, I probably shall," said Danko.
"And now, stand by for the winged hussars," said Jurko, catching a flash of low morning sunlight on armour.
As the massed hussars poured down the hill, there were shouts of alarm from the gate guards. Jurko and friends shrugged out of the disguises they were wearing, to show their uniforms, and drew weapon.
"For the Rzeczpospolita!" cried Jurko, and they seized the guards, tying them up to prevent them from closing the gate.
Now they might stand back and enjoy the spectacle as the winged hussars arrived, Jeremi at the head, sabre held out. Jurko's eyes filled with tears of emotion at the glorious sight, and with the love and respect he felt for his father.
oOoOo
Jan 'Sobiepan' Zamoyski had not mobilised his considerable troops in support of his brother-in-law. Prince Zamoyski was magnate and ordynat, a man whose family had consolidated its estates to pass on as a single unit to an, as yet unfathered, heir, rather than being split between all the sons. He could be expected to muster eight or nine thousand men to put in the field, on a par with the magnate princes Janusz Radziwiłł and Jeremi Wiśniowiecki himself, but they were waiting in vain for an order to join the fray.
Sobiepan was still sulking that the monkish Jeremi had laid down an edict that he should disperse his harem, finding them suitable husbands amongst his dependants, or giving them a generous annuity, or both, for their services to him and as compensation for enslavement. Sobiepan considerd this an intrusion on his private life. He had not considered that Jeremi had approached him privately to give him the chance to comply with the new laws on slavery rather than denounce him publicly. He did not think of his women as slaves. Though he had bought one girl from impoverished parents, a luscious child she had been at her dawning of womanhood, just like Mariesieńka. It would have been a good match, to marry the French Marysieńka, ties with foreign nobles, and doubtless pleasing to her patron, Ludwika Maria, who still held some influence.
He licked his lips. He wanted that girl!
It was perhaps less than fortuitous in the long run that his towering resentment coincided with a visit to Zamość by the French ambassador, who had both written to France, and travelled to see the brother of the annoying Polish queen. With the canals, he could travel there and back and see Zamoyski in three days, very convenient.
He meditated adding a clause to the treaty that French nationals under treaty should travel freely and for no cost on the canals, before putting it aside to address the magnate.
He was received graciously.
"What can I do for you, Marquise?" asked Sobiepan.
"Oh, I just wanted to ask a small favour," said De Lumbres. "You have some influence, I believe, with your sister?"
"I get on well with both my sisters," said Sobiepan.
"It's with the queen," said De Lumbres. "The king has left her as his consort with full powers to negotiate, but she is... well, pardon me, but just like a woman, she is vacillating and cannot make up her mind to sign a small treaty my king's chief minister has put together, to make life easier."
"Oh, I see, and it makes things more easy for you but not for Jeremi, and she's stalling you until he can see it," said Sobiepan, who had few illusions about his sister's willpower and ability.
"It is for the mutual benefit of our two states," said De Lumbres, smiling fixedly. "But she is preoccupied with her children."
Sobiepan gave a coarse laugh.
"Oh, I know about a French quid pro quo," he said. "Quids in for the French as you might say. What's in it for me to persuade her?"
"Well, that's... direct," said De Lumbres, relaxing somewhat. "What do you want?"
"I want to marry Marysieńka," said Sobiepan. "And her parents are French; I'm sure they'd not turn down a wealthy Polish prince whose own sister is queen."
"I'm sure they'd be delighted," purred de Lumbres.
"Well then! I'll come to Warszawa with you," said Sobiepan.
oOoOo
"Cousin Jan, have you any idea where the French ambassador has disappeared to?" asked Gryzelda of Jan Sobieski, who had been nominated by Jeremi as the queen's champion. His mother had grown up with Jeremi, being the oldest daughter of Jeremi's stern uncle.
"I'll find out," said Sobieski.
Gryzelda nodded. He was reliable like that, if a little inclined to be swayed by French literature. She liked having relatives around; her widowed sister, Joasia, was one of the closest women of the court, though she missed having Helena, Malwina, and Janina. She was comforted to have Zuzanna to fuss around whilst her Jan Skrzetuski was away at war. She was also able to put reliance in Dmitr Jerzy Wiśniowiecki, a young man who was Jan Sobieski's first cousin, the son another of Jeremi's cousins, and married into her own family, to a cousin of hers.
Sobieski returned.
"He's gone to Zamość," he said.
"Zamość! Now what can he want there?" wondered Gryzelda.
"I would not like to speculate," said Sobieski, woodenly.
"Speak up, Jan, what's eating you?" asked Gryzelda.
"I... I was waiting for Marysieńka to grow up, to court her," said Sobieski, blushing furiously.
"What has that... oh." Gryzelda was shrewd enough to follow the pathways of thought of a smitten young man. "You think he is offering influence to persuade her parents in France to broker an agreement with her, to marry him, after the king already turned down his request?"
"He did?" Sobieski looked hopeful.
"He did; he does not think they would suit, and unless it were a love match, he would prefer not to have someone as powerful and as led by his... excuse me, by his lusts... as my brother with a nominally French wife. The French have a habit of interfering too much. I know you're a bit of a Francophile..."
"I enjoy their literature and... and I'm a Marysieńka-phile. I'm not about to turn traitor."
"Your word is good enough. I don't think Marysieńka is old enough to choose, but if she agrees, would you be prepared to enter into a betrothal with her which can be broken by either of you, if you change your minds before she is... oh, eighteen?"
"Yes, my queen; to protect her from the... I mean your brother?"
"Exactly. I am fond of my brother, but I am also alive to his faults. And do not teach Marysieńka what you had been going to call him."
"Oh, it is her notion to call him 'the flute' for he is always fingering his little instrument when he looks at her."
Gryzelda sighed.
"What a nuisance!" she rang a bell and asked for Marysieńka to attend her; and presently the young girl ran coltishly in, and curtseyed.
"What is it, Aunt Gryzelda?" she said.
"My dear child, I had hoped to spare telling you that my brother asked for your hand in marriage; we turned it down, of course. You are too young to be thinking seriously of marriage."
"Oh, thank you, Aunt Gryzelda, I do not like him," said Marysieńka.
"Do you like Jan Sobieski well enough to be betrothed to him, with the proviso that either of you can break it off?" asked Gryzelda.
Marysieńka stood on one leg, nibbling one of her braids, glancing upwards under her lashes at Sobieski.
"I would not object," she whispered.
"Good. Jan, you must ride and sail like the wind to find Ludwika Maria, who is technically the girl's guardian and responsible to her, carrying a letter for me, and return it before De Lumbres returns."
Jan sniggered.
"I can ride day and night if need be," he said. "And for the lovely Lady Marysieńka, I would do anything. And for my queen, of course."
Gryzelda smiled grimly, and took quill and parchment.
My dear Ludwika Maria, she wrote,
The opportunity has arisen to join Marysieńka to my own house through familial ties, since I have received an offer for her hand.
Naturally, she is too young to marry as yet, but as her guardian, perhaps you will give permission for a betrothal to be contracted?
Your sister-queen,
Gryzelda.
That would do it. Jan Sobieski was a relative of Jeremi's, but was she not now of the Korybut house? Ludwika Maria would certainly interpret it, however, that Gryzelda meant her brother, and if, as seemed likely, the widow queen was in contact with De Lumbres, she would be delighted.
She showed the letter to Jan, who chuckled delightedly; and then he was on his way.
"I like him. He's funny, and we read the same books," said Marysieńka.
"And at that a better start to marriage than shared physical attraction," said Gryzelda. "Now run along; being betrothed doesn't mean you can skip lessons."
"No, ma'am," said Marysieńka, dropping a curtsey and running off again.
oOoOo
The winged hussars flowed through Moskwa, and on through each of the successive gates, where the guards were taken completely by surprise. There was a brief bit of fighting at the gates of the Kremlin, the central fortress, but young Kalinowski would be disappointed. Jeremi nodded to an adjutant to fire the rocket which was the signal that he had taken the fortress heart. He noted that someone had doctored the rocket so that it fired coloured smoke and sparks, predominantly blue for the Ukraine.
Oh, well, young officers would be young officers.
And now he had to find, and capture, the tsar.
And decide what to do with him.
Killing him out of hand was repugnant; retaining him as a hostage was also unacceptable.
But his children? Rearing the tsarevitch to be Polish had its attractions. Jeremi did not want to administer the Moskale; they were too alien. But to be shown that he could deliver troops right into the tsar's bedroom, it was a message.
1 In real life, he and his father, Marcin, died at Batoh.
