Eric Flint - Grantville Gazette.Volume XV

So, it was a church that relied almost entirely on ritual and custom. Good enough, perhaps, for the illiterate or semi-literate peasants of eastern Europe, and the Cossacks. But it had lost the allegiance of the native ruling classes of the vast Ruthenian lands. For all practical purposes, they had been Polonized. Ethnically still Ruthenian, they spoke Polish and practiced Catholicism or, in some cases, Protestantism. Very few of them even dwelt any longer on their Ruthenian estates. They left those to be managed by overseers-often Jewish-while they moved to Warsaw and Krakow and lived in city mansions. The last of the great Ruthenian magnates still of Orthodox faith, Prince Wladyslaw Dominik Zalaswski-perhaps the richest lord in the entire Commonwealth-had converted to Catholicism in the summer of 1632.

The end result was a "Commonwealth of Both Nations" that was actually a commonwealth of three nations-but the third nation, the Ruthenians, had no voice or say in the affairs of state.

Nor did the Poles and Lithuanians bother to be polite about the matter. Just two years earlier, a Cossack delegation had shown up at the electoral convention which chose Wladislaw IV as the successor to the Polish-Lithuanian throne, following the death of his father Zygmunt III. They claimed the right to participate in the convention, pointing to their frequent and valiant role in Poland's battles with the Turks and Tatars as their credentials.

The response had been blunt, and as rude as you could ask for. It was explained to the Ukrainian roughnecks that, yes, they were indeed part of the Commonwealth's body-just as nails are part of the human body, and need to be trimmed from time to time. And they were not welcome in the convention.

Leaving aside the arrogance and bigotry involved, it was hard for Melissa to imagine anything more stupid on the part of Poland and Lithuania's rulers. Bad enough, that they treated their Ruthenian serfs like animals. But to do so when those serfs had living among them a large and ferocious warrior caste like the Cossacks…

They were practically begging for a social explosion, and, sure enough, it was on the horizon. In the universe she'd come from, the situation had finally erupted in the great Cossack revolt of 1648, led by the Cossack ataman Bohdan Chmielnicki. The revolt had shaken the Commonwealth to its foundations, leaving it wide open to the foreign invasions that would devastate Poland and go down in its history as "The Deluge." And, in the end, Poland would lose the Ukraine to Moscow. And with that loss, the power equation between the two great Slavic nations would shift drastically in favor of the Russians.

Morris was muttering something. She thought it was "I knew it."

"Stop muttering, husband," said Judith. "Say it out loud, if you have to say it."

"I knew it," he pronounced.

Krzysztof Opalinski frowned. "Knew what?"

Zaborowsky, whom Melissa had already pegged as the brighter of the two Polish radicals, gave him a sideways glance. "He means 'I knew the Cossacks would be useless. Probably enemies.'"

Fedorovych demanded a translation. Jakub gave it to him, and from the brevity Melissa was sure he pulled no punches. But instead of matching Morris' glare with one of his own, the Cossack just grinned.

He jabbered something. Jakub translated.

"He says he didn't mean to suggest anything would be easy. With Cossacks, nothing is easy. He says you should watch them quarreling over the loot. Worse than Jews in a haggling fury."

Morris looked to the ceiling. "Oh, swell."

Later that night, after they retired to their chamber-chambers, rather-James Nichols gave their surroundings another admiring whistle. Then, eyed the bed a bit dubiously, and the canopy over it more dubiously still.

"You realize that if that thing comes down and buries us, we'll smother to death. Damn thing must weigh half a ton."

"Oh, don't be silly," said Melissa. But her own gaze at the canopy was probably on the dubious side, also. The thing wasn't really a "canopy" such as you might find over a bed in a fancy hotel. It bore a closer resemblance to the unicorn tapestries she'd once seen at The Cloisters museum in New York. It certainly didn't weigh half a ton. That was just ridiculous. Still, it wouldn't be a lot of fun to wriggle out from under if it did come down.

Not that that was likely to happen, of course. The four corner posters holding it up didn't bear much resemblance to anything you'd see in a fancy hotel either. They looked more like floor beams, except they were ornately carved.

There came a soft knock at the door of the entrance salon they'd closed behind them. James turned and gave it a frown. The door was visible through the wide entryway connecting the salon with the bedchamber.

"Who…?"

Melissa was already moving through the entryway toward the door. "That'll be Red, I imagine. At least, if I interpreted a look he gave me at the end of the meal correctly."

"Why would…"

Melissa paused at the door. As thick as it was, she wasn't worried about anyone standing outside hearing their conversation.

"Why? Because, knowing Red, I'm sure there are things he's not prepared to ask or say in front of anybody. Especially not someone like the Roths, whom he likes personally but are for all practical purposes in Wallenstein's camp."

The frown on James' forehead faded. "Ah." Then he grinned. "You don't seriously mean to suggest that a flaming commie like Red Sybolt isn't entirely trustful of the intentions of Albrecht von Wallenstein, mercenary-captain-in-the-service-of-reaction- par-excellance and nowadays a crowned king in his own right?"

Melissa smiled. "Not hardly."

She opened the door. Sure enough, Red Sybolt was standing there. To her surprise, though, he was accompanied by Jakub Zaborowsky. She'd expected him to come alone.

As she ushered them into the salon, Melissa pondered that for a moment. Why Zaborowsky and not Opalinski? She was quite sure there wasn't any mistrust involved. Having spent a very long dinner in conversation, much of it with the two Poles, she felt confident she had the measure of Krzysztof Opalinski. Allowing for the inevitable cultural variations you'd expect from the gap in time and place, Krzysztof reminded her of any number of student radicals she'd known in the 1960s. Sincere; earnest; filled with a genuine desire To Do The Right Thing. Whatever faults such people had, treachery was rarely one of them.

On the other hand…

As a rule, they did have faults. The biggest of them-which Krzysztof Opalinski certainly shared, from what she'd seen-was a tendency toward certainties. And, still worse, simplicities. Revolution was not a complex and turbulent episode in human affairs, filled with contradictions and confusion. It was spelled with a capital "R."

Such people could be trusted not to be treacherous, sure enough. But they could usually be trusted to screw up, too, sooner or later.

Red Sybolt was a different sort of person altogether. He had the same strength of convictions-probably even stronger, in fact. But he was a man in his mid-forties, born and raised in a working class family, who'd developed his opinions and his political tactics dealing with coal miners in the gritty reality of working lives. Not from speeches spouted on college campuses, or late night talk sessions. And he'd held those convictions for many years, solid as a rock, where most student radicals shaded into comfortable liberalism within a short time after leaving the ivory halls.

So. If she was right, that meant that Red thought there was a lot more substance to Zaborowsky than to his companion. Which wouldn't surprise Melissa at all, since that was her assessment also.

Those calculations didn't take more than a few seconds, by which time they were all seated in the comfortable chairs and divans in the salon.