Asking him to set his own price for the cloth was more flattery and was in fact the best way to get a low price out of him.
If words could get me out of this one, this letter should do it. I just might get myself out of the mess without a fight.
Yet I wasn’t really worried, though I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because the whole thing was so unreal. In the twentieth century, if I had rescued a hundred forty-two children, I’d be a big hero! I’d be in all the papers and on television and the president would pin a medal on me. Here, they were going to try and kill me. I just couldn’t take the whole thing seriously.
But I was tired when I finally stumbled off to bed.
Chapter Ten
Early the next morning, I read my letters to my party and to Sir Miesko’s family, since it was important that our stories were reasonably consistent.
Vladimir felt that I should add a bit more about his victories, so I added a few paragraphs in the margins praising his lancework and horsemanship to the skies. Let him take all the glory. He deserved it and it didn’t mean much to me. All I cared about was getting the kids off safely.
Lambert couldn’t read, but Sir Miesko promised to read my letter to him before explaining the other side of he story.
Sir Miesko said, “I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve had another look at those children. If somebody did that to my kids, well, they’d have to kill me first.”
“Thinking about it, their fathers are all dead, aren’t hey. Conrad, know that I’m behind you in this mess you’ve made.”
He turned to his horse, but then turned back quickly.
“But don’t expect too much! I’ve got my own family to think of!”
So Sir Miesko left for Okoitz, the children were sent with some trusted men to Three Walls and my original party resumed its journey to Sacz. By noon, we approached the turnoff to Vladimir’s folks’ place.
“I know I invited you all to my father’s manor, but I wonder now if that would be wise at this time,” Sir Vladimir said. “In another hour we could be at Oswiecim, and if we push on till dusk we should arrive at the monastery of Tyniec. I think the monastery might be best.”
“Why a monastery?” I asked. “They’d have us sleep with the other men and the girls would be lonely.”
“True. But the monastery gives us the protection of the Church, which might be needful. We still don’t know, how the matter sits with Count Lambert, or what the Crossmen are going to do. Tyniec puts us beyond Lambert’s territory and the Crossmen would never violate Church property.”
“Never?”
“Of course not. After all, they are a religious order.”
“A religious order? You call that bunch of murderers, who massacre villages, enslave children, and trade with the Moslems a religious order?”
“It does seem odd, doesn’t it? But they are sanctioned by the Pope and follow the Order of Saint Benedict, except for the fighting, of course, and the merchandising.”
“Painting a wolf brown doesn’t make it a cow. They’re a bunch of damn murderers even if they do wear crosses on their shirts.”
“I still don’t see why you don’t want to visit your parents. We were all looking forward to it, especially Annastashia. Surely we’d be safe enough there,” I said.
“Safe, yes, but the timing isn’t fight. May I speak frankly? You know that I wish to persuade them to permit my marriage to Annastashia. I want them to be in a good mood when I broach the subject. But just now, I’m under something of a cloud.”
“I don’t understand that.”
“Well, you see, my father is also my liege lord. He swore to keep the trail safe for merchants. By aiding you yesterday, I violated his oath. I dishonored him. He would be well within his fights to have me hanged! Oh, my mother would never let him do it, but he certainly won’t be in any mood to grant favors. In fact, I think it best to avoid him entirely until this matter is settled and we are either proved innocent or are dead.”
“If you don’t want to visit relatives, fine, but the monastery is out. There must be an inn nearby.”
“Not a clean one.”
I’d been without fleas for months and I suppose the monastery would be an interesting experience for the girls.
As we rode into Cracow the next morning-, the guards at the gate stiffened up and saluted. The last time I was here, they had haggled with me and charged me a toll to get in. Obvious wealth and rank have their privileges.
The girls were thrilled. The big city at last! Hundreds of colorful things to see and do. Huge cathedrals, massive stone castles on Wawel Hill, more shops than anything imaginable!
To me, well, take a few dozen historically interesting buildings, put them on a hill with a fine view and populate it with a few hundred gaudily dressed nobles and you have all that was attractive to the eye.
Then surround this with a squalid town of ten thousand uneducated and underfed people and cover it all with a half yard of shit and you have the reality of the situation, With plumbing, sewers, and street cleaners, it would have made a fine tourist trap.
As it was, I preferred the forests.
But the girls deserved a treat after all they’d been through lately. They had done a fine lot of work at Three Walls and they’d seen their first bloody combat, which shook them up a lot more than they wanted to admit. And they were a lot more worried than I was about the upcoming trial, so I worked at keeping them cheered up.
The girls wanted to go shopping and sightseeing and Vladimir felt that it was important to report in at Wawel Castle as soon as possible. I wanted to go see Father Ignacy at the Franciscan monastery. He was the only friend I had in this century who knew that I was from the future. He was my confessor, and I was in need of his services. And there was a certain matter of a Church inquisition into whether I was an instrument of God or an instrument of the devil.
So we compromised. I gave the girls each a handful of silver (their back pay really, but they didn’t look at it that way. They were thrilled), had Vladimir take them shopping, and agreed to meet them at the monastery at noon. Then we’d go to the castle.
A monk who had considered me a klutz when I worked here now greeted me effusively, like a combination great lord and long lost friend. The outfit, again. Father Ignacy met me in his cell and he, at least, was unchanged.
“Welcome, Conrad.”
“Thank you. Father, you said that you would file a report on me with the proper authorities in the Church. How is that going?”
“Quite well, my son. I wrote my report even within the time you were still here last December, and delivered it to my abbot. He delayed it hardly at all, but dispatched it within the month to the Bishop of Cracow.”
“His Excellency acted with surprising speed and tact and within two months sent the letter back to my abbot, suggesting that it would perhaps be better to go through the regular arm of the Church, rather than through the secular one. That is to say, he felt it should go, not through his office, but through the Franciscan home monastery in Italy.”
“We were able to find a messenger going to Italy in much less time than you’d think, and by June the report was speeding its way to Italy.”
So nine months had gone by and the report hadn’t even been delivered. And I’d thought the Russians were screwed up.
“Thank you, Father. A great deal has happened to me since we last met.”
“You wish to confess? How long has it been since your last confession?”
“Only about a week, Father. But-I suppose it’s wrong to say this, but my confessions since I last saw you haven’t felt right. It’s almost as though I didn’t really confess at all.”
“This might be caused by the promise of silence I required of you. You could never tell the whole truth.”
“That might be it, Father.”
“Well, the reasons for that promise are still valid, you must live with it. But now I want you to confess since our last meeting.”
And so I did. I told him of all the things I’d built, the omen I’d had, and the men I’d killed. Confession with Father Ignacy is never the rote affair it is with some priests. He digs into things for hours if need be, but always arrives at the truth of a situation. Once we were through, he looked down and shook his head.