Conrad Starguard - The Crosstime Enginee Part 9

This caused a flurry of motion and fast feminine conversation.

"Oh, my G.o.d! Is it dead?"

"No. No! The heart beats! When did it last eat?"

"This morning at the latest," I said.

"What happened to the mother?"

"Dead," I said.

"Who, then?" She looked at the others.

"Mrs. Malinski just lost hers!"

"I'll go get her!" One of the women threw on a cloak and ran out. Another carefully took the kid near the fire. "Diapers! The darling hasn't been changed all day!" She glared at me.

Another of them ran upstairs, presumably after diapers. The two remaining were inspecting the baby. We mere males were forgotten. I could see that the kid was 'in good hands.

I tried to remove my outer clothes, but my chain mail was frozen to my windbreaker. Distracted by my efforts, one of the women turned. "Oh! You men must be frozen. Come, sit by the fire." In seconds, we were handed huge mugs of wine heated with pokers glowing from the fire. We drained them. Our mugs were refilled as the diapers arrived. Soon the three women were cl.u.s.tered around the kitchen table, with the baby in the middle. They were rubbing and scrubbing and making silly noises. It made me wish I were a month old.

"I never thought we'd make it here alive," I told them, "so just to be safe, I baptized him. I named him Ignacy."

Conversation stopped dead. All three of them stared at me as if I were a heretic.

"What a terrible thing to do!" the tall blonde said.

"What do you mean terrible? If he died without baptism, he'd go to limbo," I said.

"Limbo? You mean h.e.l.l."

"So why are you mad? I saved him."

"No, silly, the name!"

"I named him for a good friend. A holy father. A Franciscan. Ignacy is a fine name!"

"For a girl?" This from the redhead.

"Oh. " I'd cursed the poor thing with a name she'd hate for the rest of her life. Boris was giggling but didn't want to get involved. "Don't you know the difference?" the tall blonde asked.

"d.a.m.n it, woman, of course I know the difference! What? You think I should have taken her clothes off in that storm just to see what flavor she was? You wanted maybe a properly named corpse?"

They were silent for a minute, and then the fourth woman came back with a buxom, motherly type. The kid was fed on the spot.

By then, the ice on my armor had melted enough for me to peel the mail off my windbreaker. I hung it up to dry. Boris did the same. Then I stripped down to my long underwear. If they could nurse a baby, I could get dry. I confess I was annoyed.

Mrs. Malinski left with the kid, and the four young ones whispered to each other.

Then the tall blonde came over and formally apologized for ignoring us and being a bad hostess.

Introductions were made. The tall blonde was Krystyana, and the others were Ilona, Janina, and Natalia.

The count was asleep and not to be disturbed.

Soon things were okay; the rift with our hostesses was smoothed over. The table was washed, and a cloth was spread. Food was put out, and our mugs were refilled. I said grace, and we ate.

I'd forgotten about my wounded arm. Rather than strip in a snowstorm, I'd patched it up through the hole ripped in my clothes and armor. But the blood had soaked my long underwear to the wrist.

Krystyana insisted on tending it while I ate. I probably should have refused and done it myself with my first-aid kit, but the food and wine and feminine companionship were working on me. In the course of that meal they got every b.l.o.o.d.y detail of the trip out of Boris, who delighted in blow-by- blow accounts.

Later we were escorted to separate rooms. If Boris didn't worry about his property, then neither would 1. 1 stripped down to shorts, T-shirt, and socks and eased my battered body between the clean sheets of a huge bed. It was comfortable enough and covered with an enormously thick feather blanket. I blew out the oil lamp. It was Christmas Eve, and the bed was a marvelous present.

I was dozing off when I heard the door open.

Krystyana came in.

"That was a beautiful thing you did, Sir Conrad, saving that little girl." She stripped off her single garment and slid into bed beside me. "We'll just have to think up a good nickname for her."

Chapter Ten

Late the next morning, I was lying on my back and Krystyana was lying on my stomach with her elbows on my shoulders.

She was intently studying my T-shirt. The night before, things had been urgent and necessary, and I was in too much of a hurry at first and too tired afterward to remove my undershirt. Actually, I was still wearing my socks. The morning had been one of calm and wondrous delight, and I hadn't felt the need to change anything.

I couldn't honestly call Krystyana beautiful, but she was certainly pretty. She had lovely long blond hair that was draped over my shoulders. It went well with her light blue eyes and blond, almost unnoticeable eyebrows and lashes. Her nose was perhaps a little too long, her mouth was too wide, and her teeth were not good, but there was nothing ugly about her. I mentioned that she was tall, but only in comparison to the others. Now her head was at shoulder level and her stretched out toes brushed my shins. Her body was slender and most acceptable. She looked younger than I had thought last night. Perhaps she was sixteen. I found out later that she was fourteen, the usual age of marriage among the people of Okoitz.

"Sir Conrad, this is the most amazing knot work! Do you know how it's made?" She was staring at my knitted cotton T-shirt. Knot work? I studied it, too. Yes, I suppose you could call those knots.

And once you thought of them as being hand tied knots, yes, it was amazing.

"I've never thought about it. I suppose I could figure it out."

"I wish you would. I'd love to do something like this. It's fantastic!"

"You really like my shirt?"

"Oh, yes! Last night I was awfully impressed with that sweater thing you wore, but this is unbelievable. Everything is so tiny"' "Well, if you want it ' it's yours. Merry Christmas." "Whee!

But you mustn't give our Christmas presents now, Sir Conrad. Christmas presents are for this evening. "

"As you like. This evening, then. For now, why don't you knock off the sir stuff. My friends call me Conrad, or just Con."

"But that would be most improper, Sir Conrad ! If I hailed you not as a knight but as an ordinary man, why, it would be as though I was sleeping with a man before marriage, and that would be a sin."

I was confused. "You aren't married, are you?"

"Of course not!" She was shocked.

"Our... customs seem to be different. Could you please explain to me-slowly as you would to a child-just what it is that you are talking about?" She gave me a "mere man" look but said "You are a belted knight. I am an unmarried wench and not of the n.o.bility. You have the right to take any such unmarried woman who attracts you. Therefore, I have an obligation to do as you please. If one is performing an obligation, one cannot possibly be sinning. But for me to wantonly copulate out of wedlock ' that would be at least a venial sin." It was the most incredible series of rationalizations- based on the right to rape!--I had ever heard.

"I have the right to take any peasant girl I want?" Accepting the favors of a lady who climbs into one's bed is one thing. Forcibly taking any woman in the fields is quite another, and not for Conrad Schwartz, thank you! "Not only a right, Sir Conrad, but a duty! 'Sir' means sire,' you know. Not one man in a hundred becomes a knight, and the realm needs the children of such heroes."

Charles Darwin in a wheelbarrow! Knighthood as a eugenic program to improve the species?

"But it was- you who came to me."

"Nonsense, Sir Conrad. I merely Jay down for some sleep. It was you who took me. If I made myself more accessible, why, it was only to save some other wench who might be less inclined.

Therefore, it doubles my virtue." What an amazing ball of tangled justifications! Good, though. I leaned back to ponder it all. She leaned forward to get at the window and hit the sore spots on my arm and shoulder. I winced loudly.

"I'm sorry, Sir Conrad. I forgot your wounds." She jumped out of bed and opened an oil- covered parchment window that let in a little light but no sight. She really had an excellent body, willowy yet rounded. "It's a wonderful day! Clear blue sky with not a cloud. But it's late! We've missed ma.s.s, and on Christmas day! And look! That steam! They're already quenching the sauna.

Hurry or we'll be late!"

I sat up in bed and started fumbling for my clothes. There was absolutely no heat in the room!

"No. No, silly." She kneeled at my feet, yanked off my socks, and threw them any which way.

She pulled off my T-shirt; this she folded neatly and set aside. Then she grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out the door and down the stairs. I was cold, naked, and embarra.s.sed, but I followed her through the kitchen and out the back door to the end of a line of naked people running over cold whiteness. The snow on either side of us was more than a meter deep, but a path had been shoveled to the sauna.

Somehow, I had always thought of the sauna as a Scandinavian custom that had spread only in modem times, but there it was. Perhaps the problem is that I had always a.s.sumed that my ancestors were all stem, heroic types and that my grandmother was a virgin.

This sauna was different from any I had seen before. It was a brick dome with walls well over a meter thick. A small hole vented smoke at the top, and a tiny door opened at the side. To heat it, a roaring pinewood fire was kept burning inside for four hours. Then the fire was quenched and after a few minutes for the smoke to clear, the customers ran in. Once heated, the sauna stayed hot all day.

I was handed a board by the attendant. I followed Krystyana's bottom through the door, except that she only had to stoop while I had to crawl through the tiny opening.

The door closed behind me, and the smoke hole was plugged. I was enveloped in heat and darkness. Someone took my arm and led me to a place to sit down. My b.u.t.t touched the hot bricks, and I jerked upward, hitting my head on the low ceiling. Someone placed my board on the brick shelf and sat me on it. As my eyes adjusted, I made out an oil lamp.

Dim shapes took form around me. We were in a room shaped like an arena that could have seated fifty, if they were friendly, but I counted only eight plus myself. They were friendly anyway.

A wind burned man with dark blond hair sat across from me-last night's gateman, Sir Miesko. The other man I hadn't met. He was a handsome muscular sort about my own age. He was tall, as the locals went, and blond, much blonder than 1. In the twentieth century I would have suspected him of bleaching his hair. Ilona and a woman I hadn't met were sitting on either side cuddled under his powerful arms and happy. A third woman was rubbing the muscles of his neck and shoulders.

Krystyana and Janina were sitting next to me, and Natalia sat by Sir Miesko. We were all nude.

The sight of those healthy bodies was delightful, but there is nothing s.e.xy about female skin in a sauna. At these high temperatures, the gallant reflex does not take place Following the blond man's example, I spread my arms' and the ladies snuggled close to me. I noticed that Sir Miesko still had his hands on his knees. "Sir Conrad," he said, "You must realize that to have the right to do something is one thing. To be able to get away with it is quite another." The blond man laughed.

"Sir Miesko, you astound me with your valor in battle and your meekness in wedlock. You had best take the advice of the Holy Church and never strike your wife with a stick longer than the distance from your fingertip to your elbow, nor bigger around than your thumb. Then take my advice and never use anything less! And often, Sir Miesko, to ensure your bliss, marital and otherwise."

"Your advice is always welcome, my lord, though it may be that I will state certain facts at tonight's festival." He grinned.

"Hah! That my wife chooses to stay in Hungary and I support her there? Well met, Sir Miesko."

He turned to me. "And this must be the n.o.ble giant, Sir Conrad Stargard, who comes from a mysterious land not to be mentioned, decked with mystic equipment." His eyes twinkled, and he smiled. "A man who defeats bandits and highwaymen in droves and captures vast booty! A man who rescues maidens of the tenderest of ages, grabs them from the clutches of death and merchants, and at great personal peril transports them to safety! And a man who, exhausted from fighting the forces of evil and brute nature, still has sap enough in him to keep Krystyana here smiling all morning as she hasn't smiled in months." Krystyana threw a wet cedar branch at him, but he took no notice of it. "I trust that those wounds and bruises are the result of honest battle and were not received from the calm ministrations of our gentle Krystyana." A fistful of wet branches flew.

"n.o.ble Sir Conrad, I am delighted to meet you and honored by your presence. Know that I am Count Lambert Piast and that I welcome you to Okoitz." I started to rise. It was blindingly hot, and sweat cascaded off me. But on my first day in this century, I had been bashed on the head for not adhering to the proper forms of courtesy. I had determined to learn them all and follow them to the letter.

"Ah, ah. Please, do not bow. It is not that I have disrespect for formalities but that a bow implies getting up again, and I fear for the roof." "I thank you, Count Lambert, and my skull thanks you as well," I said, trying to match his flippant yet perceptive conversation. "But I complain that your description of me far overshoots the facts."

"I know, but that really is the gist of the story that's been circulating. You're the first news in weeks, and these people need something to talk about. I know the story of the child is true because I have talked to the Malinski woman and seen to the girl's safety."

"Boris Novacek was being sensible, you know, in wanting to leave the child behind. It was only the purest luck that let you find Okoitz; in that dark blizzard. A merchant can afford to be sensible, but a n.o.bleman often cannot. A n.o.bleman must think of justice and honor first, and d.a.m.n the odds!

You did well, Sir Conrad."

"Third hand information-that is, from reality to Boris to Ilona to me-has it that you killed five highwaymen on the trail. Is this true?" "No, my lord, I Wed only two. One may have been a thief, an extortionist, or only an irate creditor for all I know. He kept striking at me, and I could not dissuade him. I regret his death. The second was a knight I got with a lucky blow. Of the others, one of whom turned out to be a woman-I wounded two that my horse dispatched, and my horse struck down the last." "Ali, yes. Your docile fighting mare. Your skinny sword and your strange tactics. But later with that. It's time to go out."

I was thankful, for my eyesight was blurring with the heat. One strange effect of the sauna is that once you are hot enough, cold doesn't bother you. I stood in knee-deep snow swishing myself down with a bundle of cedar branches, removing sweat and dirt. We were in a courtyard surrounded by buildings, but the people had absolutely no nudity taboo! Dozens of peasants were coming and going and paying no special attention to the nine of us nude in the snow. I'd never heard of such a custom in Poland, but then, it isn't the sort of thing monks put into history books, is it?

I was musing on that when I felt a sharp whack on the b.u.t.tocks. I spun around Krystyana was standing, facing me, with a cedar switch in her hand. Her legs were wide, her fists Were on her hips, and she was grinning, daring me to do something.

I was unsure of just what, but I accepted her challenge and swatted her across the obvious protuberances.

She squealed and struck back, and soon the other five girls joined in on her side. I was surrounded and getting the worst of it.

"Fear not, Sir Conrad! I come to thine aid"' The count swatted his way into the circle. "Back to back, Sir Conrad!"

"For this timely aid, much thanks, my lord. Together we may yet be victorious!" I shouted back.

A crowd was gathering and cheering us on, generally favoring their own s.e.x.

Still, the count and I were losing. We were outnumbered and were pulling our punches, or rather our swats. The opposition wasn't. "Sir Miesko!" the count shouted. "You would show the white feather to your liege lord on the field of battle? Defend me!"

"My lord, it's not the enemy I fear but my wife! In all events, things appear to be about to fall to your advantage."

Uh, yes. In the cold, the gallant reflex was no longer impossible. Had I the time, I would have been embarra.s.sed. The fight had the same effect on the count. As uninhibited as these people were, I was afraid that I was about to be involved in a public orgy.

"Defend me, Sir Miesko!"

"My lord, I shall support you with mine trebuchets." Sir Mies...o...b..gan pelting us indiscriminately with s...o...b..a.l.l.s. Some minutes later, the count stopped one with his face.

"Fair ladies," he said, "I call a truce with you that we might first dispatch our common foe."

Krystyana was, as usual, the spokeswoman (and ringleader). "With pleasure, my lord. Ladies, demolish me that man!"

The eight of us turned instantly on Sir Miesko and buried him under our s...o...b..a.l.l.s.

Seeing Sir Mies...o...b..ing trounced, some of the spectators- there must have been a hundred by now--started pelting us with s...o...b..a.l.l.s. Suddenly the count stiffened and raised his hand. Instantly, all motion stopped.

s...o...b..a.l.l.s in the air seemed to drop quickly, as if embarra.s.sed. "My good people!" the count intoned. There was suddenly nothing of the clown or wit about him. Here was a born commander, knowledgeable of his people, confident of their support.

"I know that this is Christmas day, but the festival does not begin for three hours. I am your liege lord, and I expect to be treated with respect." A smile flashed. "Until then. "