Then I looked up Count Lambert to report in. He was with the duke.
“Well, boy. Quite a crowd you’ve attracted,” Duke Henryk said.
“Yes, your grace. I suppose I should feel flattered.”
“I wouldn’t be. Most of them are here to see the blood fly, and they don’t much care whose. What on Earth is that you’re wearing?”
“Your grace, I once told you that I would show your people how to make better armor. Well, this is an example of it.”
“It’s pretty enough. I’m sure the ladies will be impressed. The question is whether it can stop the Crossman from making an impression on you.”
“I suppose we’ll know that in a few days, your grace.”
“I suppose we will. You brought the kids with you?”
“Yes, your grace.”
“Where do you have them chained?”
“I don’t, your grace. I mean they’re not chained. They are with their families.”
“Their families are dead. Crossmen don’t leave survivors. ”
“Their new families, your grace. Every one of them was adopted by a family of my workers at Three Walls. I said that I’d make Christians out of them, and I have. Every one of them has voluntarily accepted Baptism. They are now Christians, and members of Christian Polish families.”
“You said that you would make the horse sing, and by God you have!” The duke laughed. “So when you’re dead, the Crossmen will have to face the bishop to get them back! That’s rich! You intend to keep fighting even after you’re dead! Yours must be a deadly people, Sir Conrad.”
“That depends on how you mean that, your grace. The people here seem to consider war a sport, to be played with sporting rules. They enjoy it. Mine hate war. We hate fighting. We haven’t started a war in five hundred years. But when we must fight, we fight in a serious, deadly way. I don’t mean that we fight well. We don’t. Our children don’t grow up dreaming of performing valorous deeds on the battlefield. Our maidens don’t compete hard for the favors of fighting men. Our young men don’t spend all their spare time discussing strategy and tactics.”
“So when war comes to us, we fight poorly, inefficiently. But we go into it willing to take casualties, willing to die. We fight long wars, and we win.”
“And how long are these wars?”
“Once we fought for a hundred thirty years, when the very name of our country was erased from the map. And we won.”
That silenced the conversation for a bit. Then Count Lambert said, “You say your maidens don’t get excited about military men. Who then do they chase?”
“The answer will surprise you, my lord. Many of them scream. and run after musicians.”
“You’re right, Sir Conrad. I’m dumbfounded. Musicians?”
The duke said, “Ah. There’s his excellency, the bishop. I must inform him about your Christianizing of the Pruthenians. It’ll be fun to watch him squirm!”
With the duke gone, I thought I’d be able to slip out, but Count Lambert wouldn’t hear of it. He dragged me around half the night, introducing me to people. I went into stimulus saturation in about five minutes, and so have no idea who the last hundred people were that I was introduced to.
I was surprised that despite the crowd, I was given a room to myself. Part of it was my status as a sacrificial lamb, but I think that at least some of the reason was that this was the room where Mikhail Malinski had died, and people had attached something stupid and superstitious to it.
Janina, Yawalda, and Natalia were off somewhere with the Banki brothers, so Krystyana and I had some peace and quiet to ourselves.
I met Father Ignacy the next morning and invited him back to my room as the only quiet place in Okoitz. After hearing my confession, he said, “That was quite a feat you accomplished, converting those Pruthenians.”
“There wasn’t much to it, Father. They were homeless children. We gave them warmth and love. The religious instruction and conversion came naturally.”
“Nonetheless, it is the first success the Church has had with the Pruthenians in three hundred years! As a stratagem to keeping the children free, it just might be successful. The Bishops of Cracow and Wroclaw are both convinced that the Church must retain this victory. They have asked my abbot that my brothers arm ourselves with staves, that we might defend the children with force if necessary!”
“Then if that’s so, do you think that they might talk to the Crossmen, and maybe stop this fight? I’ll gladly give back their furs, amber, and other goods. I don’t want to kill anybody, and I certainly don’t want to be killed. I can’t let them have the children, but if the Church is going to protect them even if I lose, what is there to fight about?”
“A worthy thought, Sir Conrad. I’ll present it to their excellencies.” He got up to leave.
“One last thing, Father. Is there any news of the Church’s inquisition of me?”
“I’m surprised that you concern yourself with that at this time, but yes, there is news. I told you that at the request of the bishop, the report was sent to the home monastery in Italy. Well, the home monastery has returned it, saying that no, the proper channel for such a report would be through the secular Church hierarchy. So with great promptness, my abbot sent it to the Bishop of Cracow, who. sent it to the Bishop of Wroclaw, as your lands are in Silesia and thus in the diocese of Wroclaw.”
“You mean that it was in Italy, but rather than send it, to Rome, it came back to Poland? Incredible!”
“Isn’t it though! Who would have thought that a letter could have traveled all the way to Italy and back to Poland in only a single summer and fall? You can almost see the hand of God speeding it along! But I must go now and request audience with their excellencies, to inform them of your offer.”
So the Church bureaucracy was as screwed up as anything the stupid Russians had ever dreamed up.
The Crossmen arrived about noon. There must have been a thousand of them, all in battle armor and on warhorses. Their baggage train stretched for miles, and you would have thought that they were on a campaign in enemy territory rather than come to witness a trial.
They set up a city of tents outside Okoitz, on the other side of the tourney field. It wasn’t the usual medieval hodgepodge, but as neatly laid out as any modem camp, or Ancient Roman one, for that matter.
Unfortunately, their camp was upwind of our town, and occasionally a vast stench wafted in from them. On asking about it, I was told that as a mark of their austerity, it was a rule of the order that the Crossmen neither shaved nor bathed. Ever. No wonder they were so mean.
I saw the two bishops with their entourages go out to the camp. Apparently my offer was being delivered. I also saw my old enemy, Sir Stefan, and his father ride out there. At least all my enemies were in the same camp.
The afternoon went slowly, annoyingly, with too many cloying wellwishers wanting to speak sadly to me.
Some bastard of a merchant had set up a parimutuel gambling stall, betting on the outcome of the fight. The odds were running thirtyeight to one against me. He had two parchment lists, recording who had made each bet and the amount, and two open-top barrels where the money was thrown for all to see. When the fight was over, the merchant would take a twelfth of the whole and the pot would be divided among the winners in accordance to the size of their bets. Two armed guards watched the barrels. The barrel containing bets on me was very low. I still had twenty-six thousand pence in Count Lambert’s strongroom, so I went and bet it all on myself.
I’m really not a gambler, but there are some bets that you really can’t lose. My wager changed the odds to eight to one, but what the heck. If I lost, I’d never miss it, since I’d be dead.
Finally, I went back to my room and stationed Natalia at the door to keep me from being bothered. The girl was a genius at it.
Why was everybody so damn convinced that I was going to die? I was going to win, dammit!
I kept telling myself that.
At supper, the Bishop of Wroclaw informed me that the Crossmen had flatly turned down my offer. They felt that they had to avenge the blood I’d spilt, Sir Stefan had convinced them that I was a warlock, and anyway, their champion was undefeated.
“Of course their champion is undefeated, your excellency. Every champion is undefeated. These are fights to the death. The only champion not undefeated is dead!”