The Flying Warlord

FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD STARGARD

Anna carried us both through the day, and that night in Cracow, the duke granted us an immediate private audience.

"Baron Conrad. I'm glad you're here. I was about to send men out in search of you. But the matter which we must discuss, well, are you sure that you want the Countess Francine present?"

"Quite sure, your Grace."

"Very well, then. What is this business between you and Count Lambert's daughter? Dalliance with peasant girls and heathens is bad enough. Trifling with the peerage is something else!"

"Your Grace, I have never met the count's daughter! I have never seen her, let alone touched her. I had forgotten that she even existed until Count Lambert told me yesterday that she is in Poland!"

"Then what's this business of his insisting that you marry her?"

"I don't know, your Grace. I was shocked by his demands. He said that you had approved the marriage."

"Well, he asked me if I would approve such a marriage, and of course I said I would do so. You know that I would be delighted to see you married. This business of your cohabiting with an infidel Moslem is shameful, and your fornications with my ward are even worse!"

"Your ward?"

"Countess Francine here, of course! She's not married and she has no family in the country, so she must have a guardian, and who else but a duke could be guardian to a countess? Use your head, man. It's complicated by the fact that she was my father's friend and is quite capable of taking care of herself, but nonetheless I am personally responsible for her before God, and you have been bedding her!"

"That is the other matter that I would like to discuss with you, your Grace. The Countess Francine and I would like to be married."

For the first time, the duke relaxed and smiled. "And is this your wish as well, Countess?"

"With all my heart, your Grace."

"Then with all mine, you have my approval. But back to the matter at hand. My impression was that you, Conrad, had been the instigator of the marriage proceedings between yourself and Jadwiga. I mean, that's the usual thing! If two people wish to get married, they talk to the girl's father, and if there is a major inheritance involved, the father talks to his liege. I thought that in approving Lambert's request, I was granting your wishes!"

"I swear I knew nothing of it, your Grace."

"Well. For now, I'll take your word for it, but if you're lying to me, I'll see you hung! All I know of this is that your secretary, Lady Natalia, came to me this morning and reported your conversation with Count Lambert verbatim. She even had it in writing, though I could scarcely believe it! Does she always do things like this?"

He tossed a sheaf of papers at me. I quickly scanned it.

"She has a remarkable memory, your Grace. The door was open and I guess we were pretty loud. But this is what was said, word for word."

"She also told me that you had taken all your ready gold and had headed west without explaining to anyone. She was deathly worried about you."

"I'm sorry I upset her, your Grace. I was pretty upset myself."

"As I suppose I would have been in your position. This business of only swearing for nine years. I suppose that's true?"

"Yes, your Grace. At the time, I didn't know how long I would want to stay."

"I see. But later, when you were enlarged to a barony, you must have sworn again to Lambert. Was there any time limit made in that oath?"

"No, your Grace."

"Then the second oath supercedes the first. Count Lambert had no right to threaten you with escheating your lands. Also, if you are to marry Countess Francine, you must be enlarged to her county. That is to say, you must swear fealty to me as my count, though you will also remain Count Lambert's baron. You will be his subordinate, yet his equal in status. As to Lambert, you will have no further problems with him, I assure you. He and I will have a serious talk! For the rest, see a priest, or perhaps the Bishop of Cracow, since he's a friend of yours, and post proper banns. Your oath of fealty can be taken at the wedding."

"Yes, your Grace, although we had thought that just a simple ceremony-"

"What! My ward being married in a back chapel like an eloping peasant? I wouldn't hear of it! You shall be married in Wawel Cathedral before all the nobility of the land and I shall give the bride away! Now be off with you both and, uh, separate bedrooms until the wedding, right?"

The next morning, Bishop Ignacy was as pleased about the wedding as the duke, and the date was set for three days after Twelfth Night. Francine stayed on in Cracow to help with the arrangements, but I still had a war to get ready for.

Word of my engagement had gotten to Hell before me, and I had to put up with a lot of stupid cheering, but I soon got things back to business.

"The steamboat that sank has been brought back up," Natalia reported. "And the boatyard says they'll have it fixed in a month. Sir Ilya has taken over the problem of those axeheads. He says that he was tempering axeheads over wood fires nine years ago and he can still do it. They found three containers of size-five shin guards labeled size one, so that's all right, and one of the cooks from mess hall eleventeen brought over the fifty-five cases of maps and wanted to know how he was supposed to cook them so that even a grunt could eat it. They got delivered to him in the same container as the seven cases of applesauce he'd ordered."

"So problems are being solved," I said.

"Yes sir. But there are eighty thousand rounds of swivel gun ammunition that were cast oversize and won't fit in the chambers. Coherers-is that how you pronounce it?-coherers for the radios have been breaking faster than expected and we're almost out of spares, and six thousand sets of goose-down underwear were found to be stuffed with chicken feathers. They say they're too scratchy to wear."

"So things are back to normal," I said. "And Natalia--thank you. Thank you for everything."

That night I went back to Three Walls. Cilicia had already left, gone back to her father in the valley I had given his people. Well, all right, I'd miss her, but she had to do what she had to do. She'd taken our boy with her and that was not all right. He was my son and by God he'd be raised a Christian, and that went double for the one in the cooker.

But then I cooled down and decided that this was not the time to push it. Maybe Cilicia would come back. Maybe we'd all be killed in the invasion. And maybe the horse would sing.

Later. We'd see about it later.

For now, there were mass maneuvers with the war carts.

I think I was dreading my wedding more than the Mongol invasion. It was not a pleasant Christmas, in part because of my worries, but mostly because we really didn't celebrate it. We held a High Mass in the morning and served a better than average dinner, then spent the afternoon in training. There were complaints from all quarters, but we couldn't waste the time. Furthermore, the men couldn't have their families with them, and I would rather have them mad than maudlin.

My wedding preparations went on without me. Countess Francine wrote me constantly and visited me twice at Hell to keep me updated, although she insisted on sleeping alone. These wedding customs are ridiculous! With both Cilicia and Francine unavailable, sexual frustration was added to all my other problems. After a week, Natalia got together with Krystyana, who had taken over food preparation at Hell. They started sending me young peasant girls on the theory that I shouldn't go to waste. Bless them.

Despite the war preparations, the duke was planning to make my wedding the major social event of the year! Every count and baron under the duke was expected to attend, and the dukes of Sandomierz and Mazovia were coming along with their peerages. This when we should have been sharpening our swords!

But there was nothing I could do about it.

Years ago, I had mentioned cutting gemstones to my Moslem jeweler, and now he gave me a faceted stone that I think was diamond. It wasn't as sparkling as a modem gem, but maybe that was because the jeweler didn't have all the angles exactly right. At least it cut glass. I had it set in a gold ring and Countess Francine was pleased with it, but nobody had ever heard of an engagement ring before. It started a new fad.

The day approached and I left for Cracow with my best three-dozen men and their ladies. We got there to find out that the heralds had taken over the seating arrangements in the cathedral and there was room for only barons and better. My own party wouldn't be able to attend!

I went to the duke with the problem and he swore me in as count a day early. Then I swore in my whole party as barons! I even swore in Novacek, who had never been knighted! Damn all heralds, anyway.

Word was that this was to be a military wedding, and all were to be dressed in their best armor. Well, I had my gold stuff and my best man, Baron Vladimir, had managed to scrounge up a similar set, as it turned out, from Count Lambert. But most of my people had only NightFighter armor, efficient but not decorative. They did what they could, bleaching it white and adding bright red baldrics. They certainly stood out among the polished plate.

For me, well, it was like I had agreed to have my leg amputated with an axe, and then the doctors decided to do it with a grinding wheel instead.

Somehow, I survived the ceremony.

"Why is it that men smile at a wedding and women cry?"

Afterward, there was a reception that filled most of the rooms in Wawel Castle. I was trying to be agreeable to a crowd of people that I hardly knew when Count Lambert came up.

"May I offer you my congratulations, Count Conrad, as well as my apologies? I realize now how crass and crude I was to handle that matter in the way I did. Can you forgive me?"

"Of course, my lord. At least I think I still address you that way. There is nothing to forgive. We were both overwrought and the less said now the better."

"I quite agree. And as to your form of address, my friend, well, you can call me anything you like but a coward. I think that equals speech would be most appropriate, don't you think so, Conrad?"

"That sounds good to me, Lambert." I smiled, though I knew our relationship would never again be the same.

Finally, things settled down enough so that Francine and I could sneak off and enjoy our first night together in a month and a half.

Early the next morning, Duke Henryk called the visiting dukes and all counts present to a council of war, and I finally saw why attendance at this event had been mandatory. The wedding had been a cover for the council.

Besides the Polish nobility, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order was there with a dozen of his masters. There was bad blood between the Crossmen and me, so they had not attended the wedding. There was also a representative from the Knights Hospitalers, as well as nobles from both King Louis IX of France and Emperor Frederic II of Germany. Duke Henryk had been doing his homework.

After an opening prayer, Duke Henryk introduced the envoy from the King of France. Speaking through an interpreter, this marquis pledged the support of France to our cause, and said that already, three thousand lances of French knights were coming to our aid, a total of about nine thousand men, a third of them nobles, a third squires, and a third crossbow men.

The emperor's envoy made a similar statement, promising half again as many men as the French, as well as supplies for the French forces as they crossed the Holy Roman Empire.

You could see the mood of the room lightening. The Polish knights wouldn't have to fight alone! We had powerful friends coming to our aid!

Duke Henryk spoke of strong contingents of Spanish, English, and Italian knights coming to Poland as well. He had been in communication with King Bela of Hungary and Tzar Ivan Asen 11 of the Bulgarian Empire. Since these two empires were threatened with invasion at the same time as Poland, he could not in good con science ask them for aid. But they had agreed that should any of the three powers defeat the Mongols in its own country, that power would then go to the aid of the others.

With emperors and kings accounted for, the Knights Hospitalers stood and promised six hundred knights to our aid, which was almost all that they had.

The Teutonic Knights promised only five hundred, saying that their men were on the frontiers as well, and they could not leave those borders undefended. All present knew that was bullshit. The Crossmen had over three thousand men and the Pruthenians against whom 2500 were supposed to be guarding were no serious danger. At worst, they might do a little cattle-raiding and, what with all the animals running free, they could take their pick without hurting anybody. I got madder when I found out that to get even this little help out of the Crossmen, the duke had had to promise to rescind his father's ban on their order in Silesia. I'd nearly gotten killed getting them thrown out! There was nothing I could do about it now, but someday I was going to get those bastards.

Duke Boleslaw V of Mazovia stood and pledged every man he had, about sixteen thousand of them. In the history books, he's called "the chaste" or "the bashful," depending on whether the particular historian liked him or not. The nickname had to do with his love life, not his fighting. At fifteen, he looked to be a hellraiser.

The Duke of Sandomierz followed suit, pledging twelve thousand men. Knighthood was not really well established in Sandomierz and Mazovia. The men fought in family groups rather than in feudal levies, and the concept of nobility was somewhat different. Not that it mattered much right now.

Duke Henryk announced that from Silesia, Great and Little Poland, he would lead twenty-nine thousand men into battle, over half of whom were knighted, and that he did not include in this total the infantry that I was training.

I was the only mere count who spoke at that council. I said that they all knew about the arms and armor that my men had made. Indeed, most of those present were wearing our products. They knew about the steamboats, but were surprised to learn that there would be three dozen of them on the Vistula alone. The aircraft were well known, and I spoke a bit on the advantages of aerial reconnaissance, until the duke motioned for me to hurry it up.

Then I announced the radios and told what they could do. I don't think anybody believed me! They'd all heard tales about my Warrior's School, but when I said that we would march out with a hundred fifty thousand fighting men, there were looks of stupid disbelief and a few people laughed. They simply didn't think in terms that large.

I was red-faced when I stepped down.

Nonetheless, there was a feeling of buoyancy and confidence in the room. We had the men, we had the power, we had allies coming in from all of Christendom!

Then Duke Henryk announced his battle plan and things started to fall apart. He said that all the foreign contingents, most of which were already on the way, would be gathering at Legnica, and that the rest of us should meet them there. We could then have a single, strong, unified army with which to advance eastward toward the Mongols.

The knights of Little Poland, Sandomierz, and Mazovia were not the least bit pleased by this plan! It meant that they would have to march hundreds of miles west, wait for the foreigners to arrive, and then march back again! And while this was going on, their own lands would be completely at the mercy of the Mongol invaders with no one to defend them!

Young Duke Boleslaw was the first on his feet, shouting. "Henryk, do you expect me to abandon my own duchy, my own people, to go off to your estates to defend your lands? Because if you do, you're crazy! My lands, and those of Sandomierz and Little Poland are in front of yours! The Tartars must go through us before they can touch your precious lands! It is you who should come and support us!"

Duke Henryk was on his feet. "We will come in your support! But don't you see that we must come together? If every man stands and defends his own manor, the Tartars will chew us up one by one in little bites! If we join together in a single army, we will be invincible! The choice of Legnica as a rallying point is the result of simple geography. It is the center point of all the knights who will be fighting on our side, the center of gravity, as Count Conrad would call it. Yes, it is on my lands, but it has to be on somebody's lands! Further, arrangements have already been made to feed and house the vast number of fighting men who will be gathering. Can any of you provide such a thing? Can Sandomierz or Plock feed so many men?"

"Merchants will come," Duke Boleslaw said. "They always do! I say that I will defend eastern Poland with my life! I will not run back for three hundred miles while my people are murdered! I will defend, and if you and your foreigners can come up in time to help me, I will be forever grateful to you. But if you are late, may God have mercy on you, because no one else will!"

And with that bit of bombast, the kid stomped out of the room, followed by all the men of Mazovia. After a few awkward moments, the Duke of Sandomierz stood and followed him, and in a few minutes, the hall was half empty. Even those men from Little Poland, men from the Cracow area who were personally sworn to Duke Henryk, had left. To them, the decision to be made was between abandoning their lands and peoples, or abandoning their oath to their duke. And they had made it. Even many still in the room seemed uncertain.

"Well," the duke said. "It seems that we must fight without them. But at least you men are with me, and Count Conrad's men outnumber by far all those that have left."

I had to stand. "Your grace, don't you see that I can't bring all my men to Legnica, either? I have a major force in my boats on the Vistula. I cannot bring those boats overland to the Odra. They must be used in eastern Poland or not be used at all! The aircraft will be far more useful than you now realize, but we only have one airport! That airport is near Okoitz, which is east of Legnica, and if it is overrun, the planes are useless! My infantry needs the railroads to travel quickly. We have built extensive tracks along the Vistula and through the Malapolska Hills, the area that we will need to defend first. If we can win there, western Poland is safe. But the railroad net is thin in western Poland and nonexistent in many areas. We haven't had time to expand it yet. My men can not effectively fight in western Poland!"

"So. You, too, Conrad?"

"Your grace, I am not abandoning you, but don't you realize what the radios and the rails mean? It is not necessary for all of us to be in the same spot for us to be together! With good communications, we can work in concert even though we are hundreds of miles apart."

"Count Conrad, I don't understand what you're saying. But what I do know is that every man true to me will join me at Legnica before the first of March!"

With that he got up and left, and the council of war was never called again. Instead of one Polish Army, there were now three of them. Those in the east under Duke Boleslaw, those in the west under Duke Henryk, and those men sworn to me. We were in pieces before the Mongols had even arrived.