Лео Франковски - The Radiant Warrior

When the noise stopped, I said, "What's more, I'm going to be rude enough to hint at what I want for my present! You remember all those seeds I gave you last

Christmas? Well, I want them back!"

"If you can't do that, then give me about a quarter of your new seeds! And I'd like you to loan me the packages they came in, so I'll know what's what!" They all laughed and cheered again, so I expected that we'd have watermelon next year.

As things were winding down and I was leaving, Count Lambert half jokingly said, "You gave the priest that magnificent goblet and I only got this gold chain?"

I was dumbstruck. That chain weighed half a kilo! It was probably worth eight thousand American dollars!

"I didn't realize that you wanted the goblet, my lord. But I'll make you a promise. In four years, I'll gift you with a hundred glass goblets, and enough glassware so that every man below you, commoners and all, can toast you with it!"

It was his turn to be dumbstruck.

The next day we had a beautiful wedding. Everything went off nicely, the church was packed and I gave the bride to a beaming Sir Vladimir.

As father of the bride, I paid for the wedding feast, which also was held in the cloth factory for lack of anything else large enough. Lambert gave me a good price on the food and drink, since if it wasn't for the wedding, he would have had to put on a feast that day anyway. It was the Christmas season.

The honeymoon trip wasn't then a local custom, so the next morning we went back toward Three Walls, Sir Vladimir and his new wife included. We got as far as Sir

Miesko's, where they were ready for us.

After the workers were settled into the copious hay of Sir Miesko's biggest barn, we sat down to dinner in the manor. At his suggestion, since seven more places were available once Sir Miesko's family and my party were seated, I invited in my bailiff, my two foremen and their wives, and my accountant, Piotr.

These people were awestruck at the honor done them, and scarcely said a word as supper started, although Piotr kept glancing at Krystyana, who was sitting across from him. The poor kid was still smitten.

I told Sir Miesko about Count Lambert's plan for the Great Hunt. I also told him that I really didn't want to get much involved with it, but that Count Lambert had insisted. "What I'm building up to is that I would like you to do the job for me. Would you like to be my deputy? Count Lambert said that we could take as our portion pretty much whatever we wanted. Do you think you might be interested?"

"I might. Even a small share of the take from all of Count Lambert's lands would be vast! Consider what was harvested from your lands alone! But there are details to be considered.."

We were soon into a deep conversation, with Lady Richeza and Krystyana sitting between us. These two fine and understanding women looked at each other, got up, and sat back down once Sir Miesko and I had scooted close together. The conversation never broke and not a word was said about the new table arrangement.

The deal we made was that Sir Miesko would take complete charge of the project in all but name. He would divide the county into eight or nine hunting districts, and appoint a district master for each. The district masters would be responsible for building an enclosure if something suitable wasn't already available, seeing that everything was properly arranged and feeding the people participating. In return for this they would get all the deer skins taken in their district.

Peasants participating would divide one-quarter of the meat between them, and the nobles there would get another quarter. The landowners would get half the meat, proportioned according to their areas. Sir Miesko would get all the furs taken, except for the wolf skins, which were to be mine. I also got any aurochs captured, to be delivered live to me. They were an endangered species and I meant to domesticate them.

"Sir Conrad, you're taking the short end of the stick!" Sir Miesko said. It's interesting that he used an expression that has lasted to modem times. The local custom among these largely illiterate people was to account for debts by cutting notches into a stick. If I lent you three pigs, we would cut three notches into a stick of wood. Then we would split the stick about in half, down the middle of the notches, so we each had a record. When the sticks were put back together again, it would be obvious if either of us had done further whittling! Wood never splits evenly. and as the lender, the creditor, I got the larger stick of wood and became the stickholder. You, as the borrower, got the short end of the stick.

"I'm satisfied with the deal as it stands."

"Be that as it may, Sir Conrad, wolf skins aren't worth much. Half the time they're burned along with the rest of the animal! The other furs will be worth a thousand times as much."

"Fine. You'll be doing all the work and bearing all the expenses. I'm happy just to get the whole project off my shoulders. Just remember to stress that all the females and young of useful species, along with one-sixth of the males, are to be spared."

"That much is obvious, once you've explained it. But you've been given a gift and I've taken it from you."

"I said I was happy. Just try not to get me in trouble, okay?"

"Rest assured of that. But I don't think my trouble or expenses will be large. I need only write a few dozen letters. It will cost me nothing to send them since every landowner in the county, or at least their men, comes by here monthly to deliver food for your city at Three Walls."

"What? I thought that you were providing our food."

"I am. You asked me to keep you supplied and we agreed on prices. Surely you don't think that the hundred farmers I have here could feed the almost thousand folk you have in your valley! I mentioned your needs and your prices to my fellow noblemen, and they have delivered their surplus grains here, for pickup by your people."

"I have paid the others precisely what I have charged you, so I have made no immoral profit. I have charged them reasonable rates for fodder for their pack animals and storage in my barns, but surely you can't complain about that."

I was surprised, but I didn't have a legitimate bitch. I was getting what I had agreed on.

"No, no, Sir Miesko, I have no complaint. I simply had never thought it out. I owe you thanks for supplying my needs without bothering me with details. I hope this will be a precedent for the Great Hunt."

While we were talking, the party went on around us. Sir Miesko's wife, Lady

Richeza, is the most gracious woman imaginable. Warm and caring, she was working my awkward subordinates into the conversation. By the time I was back into it, they were all talking boisterously about recent events. Soon she summoned her musicians and we were all dancing.

I noticed that little Piotr Kulcyznski asked Krystyana to dance a waltz, and she turned him down. He soon went outside, and Lady Richeza followed. As things were breaking up, she came to me. "That poor boy truly loves Krystyana."

"I know. It hurts me to see his pain. But she won't even look at him! That little kid is brilliant! With a proper education he'd be a Nobel prize winner."

"And what is that?"

"Where I come from, there is a yearly set of prizes given to those who are judged to have made the greatest contributions to an understanding of the world around us, and the greatest contributions to literature, medicine, and peace. To win one of these is a greater honor than to, say, be the chief administrator of the United Nations. It also pays well. With training, I think Piotr could win the prize in mathematics."

"Yours must be a wondrous land."

"There is much good about it, but also much bad. This land has much to be said for it."