Лео Франковски - The High-Tech Knight

The none bells were ringing as we entered the gates of Cieszyn. I started heading for the castle, as was my custom, but Conrad directed us to the Pink Dragon Inn.

"You and I would be welcome at the fort," he whispered. "The girls would not."

I saw the wisdom in this. I had heard that Conrad owned the Pink Dragon Inn, and I suppose that I expected it to be filled with more of his mechanical contrivances. What I found surprised me. The place had a large carved wooden sign, as brightly painted as a statue in church. It had a large and fat pink dragon, beer mug in hand, staring with great lechery at a small and remarkably feminine pink rabbit. This strangely proportioned rodent was grinning back at the dragon.

We were met at the door by Tadeusz, the innkeeper. He was a huge man, as round as a ball, with a full beard and a clean white-apron, yet for all his size he moved with remarkable speed.

"Sir Conrad! Welcome, my lord! It is joyous to see you again!"

"Nice to see you, too, Tadeusz."

"This noble lord and these fine ladies, they are your guests, my lord?"

"Oh, yes. They lodge at the inn's expense."

I was relieved to hear this. You see, while my father is hardly a pauper, his expenses in recent years have been high. Not only had he provided three sons with horse, arms, and armor, but he had provided a total of seven large dowries in the course of getting my six sisters married. (It happened that one prospective brother-in-law had the effrontery to drop his dowry into the Odra River while on a ferryboat. To his credit, he did try to retrieve the sack, but was unfortunately wearing full armor at the time. Or perhaps fortunately, for had he not drowned, my father would surely have dealt the fellow a less honorable death. I suppose every family has a skeleton or two about.)

Be that as it may, my father does not see fit to provide lavishly for a son who has remained a bachelor. My services to Lambert had been in discharge of feudal duty, so of course I had not been paid. The duke had not mentioned money, so I could hardly broach so mundane a subject to so high a personage.

The result was that I had in my possession a total of nine pence, enough perhaps for a meal and lodging for a night. After that, well, I would always be welcome at Cieszyn Castle, Count Herman's wife being my mother's second cousin. Also, since my father is one of eleven living children and my mother one of seventeen, there was always a relative nearby who would be happy of company. In fact, I once computed that it would be possible to spend four and a half years visiting them all without spending a pence, without overstaying a welcome, and without imposing on the same relative twice. My family may not be wealthy, nor high in the nobility, but we are prolific.

The duke, however, had charged me to stay with Conrad and this would have proved difficult had not Conrad himself paid my way.

Conrad and I dismounted and helped the girls down. A half dozen stable boys scurried out and took away our horses.

"Curry them down and feed them of the best!" Tadeusz shouted. "The very best, mind you!"

Conrad stopped the boy who was leading off his horse, removed his small, heavy saddlebags and draped them over the innkeeper's shoulder, which visibly sagged under the weight.

"See that these are put in a safe place, Tadeusz, and have something sensible done with our baggage."

Conrad introduced his party, but the innkeeper became increasingly fretful.

"But you did not let me know that you were coming, my lord."

"Well, it's not like I could phone ahead."

The innkeeper paused to let that strange statement pass, being perhaps more used to Conrad than I was.

"Business has been extremely good, my lord. The inn is full."

"That's wonderful!"

"It is wonderful that I cannot provide my liege lord and each of his noble guests with rooms?"

"It's wonderful that our inn is doing well." At the time, I was shocked by Conrad's use of the royal plural, but on getting to know him better I found that he thought of the inn as belonging to both himself and the innkeeper. Conrad owned it legally and Tadeusz managed it, so it was "theirs." He actually thought that way.

"We don't all need separate rooms," Conrad said, rubbing at the dirt on his neck. "What about the room that you were supposed to keep reserved for me?"

"Why, your accountant, Piotr, uses that, my lord. I know! Those merchants from Prague! I shall evict them. I never liked Bohemians anyway!"

"Hey, none of that! If we've rented them rooms, the rooms are theirs. Look, for tonight, put Piotr up with the stable boys, find a second bed and put it up in the room for Sir Vladimir and Annastashia. Three of our ladies can sleep with the waitresses."

"Ah, my lord. Some of these maidens wish to be waitresses?"

"I'm afraid that they don't qualify. For now I want a tall beer and a warm bath before supper."

I later found that to be a waitress at the Pink Dragon Inn, a maiden must needs be a true intact virgin; a thing my Annastashia had ceased at months ago.

Although the sun was still high, the common room of the inn was full of customers. At a whispered word from our host, a party of young men quickly smiled, bowed and vacated a table for us. It seems that they worked at the brass foundry, which Conrad also owned.

A pair of fast-moving waitresses quickly cleaned the table and brought us pitchers of cool beer from the cellars. They were maids of exceptional beauty and most immodestly clad.

To start from the bottom, they wore shoes with extremely high heels; two or three fingers high. They wore no dress, but a tight fitting cloth that barely covered their breasts and privy members. The back of this skimpy garment had an absurd puff of fur, like a rabbit's tail. Their legs were covered with tight hose of a material suitable for netting small fish. There were bands of cloth at their necks and wrists — suggestive of shackles-and a, strange sort of hat, reminiscent of a rabbit's ears. And that was all.

I found myself staring at these lovely apparitions until Annastashia kicked me, quite painfully, in the shin.

Conrad didn't bother to sit as cool beer was placed before us. He simply downed his mug with a single pull, said, "To the showers!" and went out the inn's backdoor.

"Can he do something to make it rain?" Natalia asked between gulps of beer.

"No," Krystyana said. "He just means that we should follow him to the bathhouse."

"Oh, good! I've always wanted to take a bath!"

Count Lambert's castle town had a sauna for use in the winter and there was a nearby stream with a swimming hole for use in the summer. But there was no bathhouse. The girls had heard Krystyana's descriptions of the glories of soaking in a hot tub and they scurried eagerly after Conrad.

I, perforce, mounted rear guard and showed admirable foresight in securing a pitcher of beer from the table to take with us. The bathhouse was an establishment separate from the inn, but adjoining it. Conrad did not own the place, but had made special arrangements with it for the convenience of the inn's servants and guests. A brass token from the inn paid our fare.

The baths were of the traditional sort, with men and maids bathing together. There is a fad, prevalent in some of the larger cities, that separates the sexes. An annoying modernism, it spoils the scenery; and how is a man to get his back clean?

As I entered the changing room, Sir Conrad was already walking out, having left his clothes and armor scattered on the floor.

"A wise thought, that," he said, noticing my pitcher. "Boy! Run to the inn and bring back a few more pitchers of beer! And mugs!" He stumbled into the darkened bathroom.

The girls, having seen Conrad scatter his clothing and equipment about the room, naturally assumed that this was the proper way to do things. Soon stockings and embroidered petticoats were scattered atop chain mail and leather.