Лео Франковски - The Flying Warlord

Well, that sort of flabbergasted me, and I said I didn't know which one I should marry. I don't rightly know if he was serious or not, but he says that if I couldn't decide, I should let the girls do it. Let them flip a coin, he says.

Before I can blink twice, the girls are grinning and nodding at each other. One of them digs a silver penny out of my purse and flips it in the air. The other calls "crowns," and that was the way that I proposed to Alona. I never had a word to say about it.

Course, the girls were both jabbering now, working oat the details. If I had to go to East Gate tomorrow, why, Alona's village was only a half mile off the new railroad. She could come with me and I could speak to her father and post banns at the village church, because that's where she wanted to be married. Then Petrushka would be her bridesmaid and right after the ceremony, she'd become the servant.

All this was fine by Petrushka, so the girls had it all settled while me and Baron Conrad never said a word.

Then the girls left in a hurry to tell all their friends and I was left staring at the baron. I think that if I hadn't been drinking and fornicating for three weeks, I might have had enough sense to shout "NO!", but I had been and I didn't. The baron, he just seemed amused and said that under the circumstances I didn't have to get to East Gate until tomorrow night.

But looking back on it all, I tell you that if I had been sensible that night, I would have made the biggest mistake of my life. Them girls was everything a reasonable man could want, and we've been mostly happy together.

So the next morning, I rented us two horses, one with a sidesaddle since Alona didn't figure it was smart wearing the Wroclaw styles home, but had on a nice wool dress she'd made. We got there before noon and I talked to her old man and the priest and we settled everything real quick, since I didn't much care about the dowry and all, what with me making eight pennies a day now. Then I left her with her folks to visit for a day or two and got to East Gate before dark.

They had limelights up around the dock area, so I went out to look at my new boat right after supper, and she was a beauty! She was painted red and white, with gold and black trim, and a big white Piast eagle was painted on her side, just like the one on the back of the dress uniform. She looked more like a castle than a boat, what with her tall, flat armored sides, and there was crenelations all around the top and turrets at all four comers.

I swear I loved that boat more than the girls I was going to marry.

She was huge, fully three dozen yards long and ten wide. She was two and a half stories tall and armored with steel thick enough to stop any arrow but one of mine! She could carry sixty tons of cargo in six containers, and had fourteen cabins for passengers as well, plus five more for the crew. Yet the night guard told me that she only drew a half a yard of water with a full load!

I went down to the engine room and who do I find there but Baron Conrad hisself. I told him this boat of his was the finest looking thing I'd ever seen, both my girls included, and he said he was glad I thought so, but I better not let them hear that. Then he showed me all over that engine. It had a tubular boiler that ran at two dozen atmospheres, and a sealed condenser below the waterline so we got full power from it. It had a separate distillery run off waste heat, with its own condenser to make distilled water for the main boiler, so he didn't figure we'd ever have a fouling problem. It had two big double expansion cylinders that turned a paddle wheel that was two stories tall. There was a kitchen that could feed a whole company of men. There was even a bathroom with hot showers!

Then he got into the armament. We carried twelve swivel guns aboard, plus four steam-powered guns in the comer turrets he called peashooters. These fired ban bearings at the rate of three gross rounds a minute, one after another. And there was two steam projectors, Halmans, he called them, that could throw three pounds of death at the enemy. And during wartime, the boat was set up to carry a full company of men with all their equipment, including their war carts!

Then he told me I better get some sleep, because we was going to take her out in the morning.

We took the steamboat out with a skeleton crew: an engine operator, a fireman, Tadaos and myself, plus a dozen of the carpenters and machinists who had helped build her. And of course I brought Anna along, since she didn't like being far from me, and her senses were better than a human's. There was always the chance that she would spot something wrong before the rest of us did.

One of the watertight compartments below deck leaked a bit, but that was not serious. There were two dozen of them, and it could have been holed without endangering the boat. There were no other hitches, except for Tadaos' problems with the steering wheel. Once, when he wasn't sure if the water ahead was deep enough, we sent a man out ahead of the boat, walking. As long as the water stayed above the guy's knees, we were safe!

I'd planned to just take her a few miles downriver and return, but with things going so well, we went all the way to Cracow. We took up half the dock and drew quite a crowd, so I told Tadaos to speak with the riverboat men and try to talk them into joining the army. We were advertising in the magazine, but most of these men couldn't read.

I rode Anna up to Wawel Castle to pay my respects to the duke and see if he wanted a ride. Duke Henryk the Bearded was even more important to me than Count Lambert, and without the duke's support, I couldn't have accomplished a tenth of what I had. On the way there, Anna gestured that something was wrong, but she didn't know what it was.

The guard at the castle gate looked glum, but he recognized us and let us in. I didn't find out what was the trouble until I asked the marshal, the man in charge of the stables, where I could find the duke.

"Young Duke Henryk is in his chambers, my lord, but I wouldn't bother him just now."

"Young Duke Henryk? What are you talking about? The duke is over seventy!" I said.

"You hadn't heard, my lord? Duke Henryk the Bearded was killed last night. Duke Henryk the Pious now rules."

"Good God in Heaven! How did it happen?"

"It was one of his own guards that killed him, my lord, a Sir Frederick. Shot him with a filthy crossbow while he was asleep. The other guards chopped up Sir Frederick, killed him on the spot, so I don't guess we'll ever find out why he did it."

I left Anna with the marshal and went to young Henryk's chambers. Actually, he was ten years older than I was, but he still might want someone to talk to, and I knew the man fairly well. In any event, I could hardly leave the castle at a time like this without his permission. There was a crowd around his closed door, but just as I got there, the door opened and the new duke came out. He was wearing an army uniform.

"Ah, Baron Conrad. You got here quickly."

"In truth, your grace, I didn't hear the news until I arrived."

"Your grace?" he mused. "Yes, I guess I am that now. I've been going over my late father's private papers. I want to talk to you alone. The rest of you, please tell everyone that I will want to see every noble in the throne room in two hours, but for now, disperse. Come in, Baron Conrad."

"Thank you, your grace. May I say how sorry I am about your father's death?"

"No sorrier than I am, I assure you. But things must go on if I am not to waste the work he spent his life on."

"Have you any idea why Sir Frederick would do such a thing, your grace?"

He thought a moment. "My father was often rude to the man, but there must have been more to it than that. My father made many enemies. He had to knock a lot of heads together to get the lords of both Little and Great Poland to swear allegiance to him. There are a lot of young hotheads out there who thought that they would inherit petty dukedoms and who now find themselves only becoming counts or even barons. Doubtless one of them got to Sir Frederick somehow. But which one? I doubt that we'll ever know. But I tell you this--every noble on my lands is going to swear allegiance to me, and those who don't are going to wish they had!"

"Whoever did it might come after you next, your grace. Perhaps you could use a special sort of bodyguard. I'm sure you've heard many stories about my horse, Anna. The truth is that she's not really a horse. She's almost as intelligent as a man. She's absolutely loyal and she's saved my life many times. The first of her children are of age now, and I'd like you to have one of them, sort of a permanent loan. The young ones are identical to their mother, and might save your life."

"Can they run like she does?"

"Yes, your grace."

"Then I'll take one. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. My father's secret letters to me say some astounding things about you. Are you really from the future?"

"Yes, your grace. I was born in the twentieth century."

"And you don't know how you got here?"

"Not really, your grace. I think it had something to do with an inn I slept in, but that inn is gone now. Certainly my own people never had a time machine."

"But you were Polish, and a sworn officer in the military."

"I am Polish, your grace, and once an officer, always an officer."

"Yes, yes. Then your knowledge of the Tartar invasion is one of simple historical fact?"

"Yes, your grace. But in truth, I am no longer sure just what a historical fact is. In my history, at this time there was nothing like the factories or railroads or aircraft or steamboats that I have built here. My being here has changed things, and I have no idea whether or how these changes will affect other things. In my time, the Mongols invaded Poland in late February and early March of 1241. Two major battles were fought, one at Chmielnick on March seventh, and another at Legnica two weeks later. We lost both battles."

"But you don't know if these things are fixed by fate?"

"No, your grace, I don't. I'm praying that they are not. It is my intent to defeat the Mongols and kill them an."

"I see. Well, you may rest assured that the 'Mongols,' as you persist in calling them, are indeed coming. They are already invading southeastern Russia. We just got word that the city of Vladimir has fallen. They said it had been larger than Cracow. But it's gone now, with almost every man, woman, and child slaughtered, The Mongols even killed every animal-why, I do not know."

"Perhaps they simply enjoy killing, your grace."

"I see. You were definitely not sent here by anyone?"

"Not to my knowledge, your grace, but I got here somehow. Someone must have done it."

"Well. I'll expect you and any of your knights that you have with you to swear fealty to me this afternoon. Tell me, if you hadn't heard of my father's death, why did you come here today?"

"It seems trivial now, your grace, but we just got the first riverboat working. It's tied up at the docks here in Cracow. I came to see if your father wanted to ride it."

"Perhaps tomorrow I might have time to inspect it. For now, good day, Baron Conrad."

I scrounged up some writing materials, wrote some quick letters, and then went down to see Anna.

I met Lady Francine in the courtyard. She had been the old duke's companion (Paramour? Assistant? Toy?) for some years, and we had been friends for even longer. Perhaps next to Cilicia, she was the most beautiful woman in Poland. I gave her my condolences and invited her to join me on my errand.