"Leo Frankowski - Stargard 6 - Conrad's Quest for Rubber" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

"Yes, your grace."
 Chapter One

From the Journal of Josip Sobieski

WRITTEN JANUARY 15, 1249, CONCERNING MY CHILDHOOD

MY NAME is Josip Sobieski. I find myself sitting in a cave just south of the Arctic Circle, with nothing
to do for the next three months. In hindsight, this will doubtless seem a wonderful adventure,
especially to someone who has never been here. Presently, I find it to be a deadly bore. To while
away the hours, I have resolved to record the events of my life. I expect that future readers, if any, will
find my experiences a fruitful example of what not to do with the only life God has given them.
In 1230, when I was five years old, my father became a baker at Count Lambert's castle town of
Okoitz. Thus, I had the rare privilege of being personally on hand at the beginning of what was to
become the most remarkable story of our age.
Lord Conrad came to our town on Christmas Eve, in 1231, although he was called Sir Conrad then. I
first became aware of him when I saw him sitting at the high table during a feast. It would have been
hard to miss him, since even seated he was a head taller than Count Lambert, who was himself a
very big man.
He was the talk of the town, having fought and defeated the evil Sir Rheinburg and all his men,
killing each with just a single blow. With the other boys, I watched while four suits of chain-mail
armor were taken to the blacksmith's for repair, so we knew that every word of the story was true.
He was a strange man, much different from the other knights and noblemen who made life at
Okoitz interesting. For one thing, he was always making something, either showing the men how to
build the mills and factories that Okoitz soon became famous for, or carving some toy for the boys of
the town, or sometimes even things for the girls. With his own hands he carved me a spinning top
that, once you learned how to do it, would flip over and spin for a time upside down! I still have that
toy and keep it as a treasure, although I've never been able to figure out exactly why it works.
For another, he took little pleasure in the usual knightly enjoyments. Once, when Sir Stefan brought in
a bear, for baiting, Sir Conrad didn't even know what bearbaiting was. Once he found out, he was
furious, calling the sport cruel. Rather than let the bear be torn apart by the castle dogs, he killed it
himself, with a single stroke of his mighty blade, and he cried while he did it. And then he fought Sir
Stefan over the matter, and I think he might have killed that knight had Count Lambert not intervened.
Sir Conrad didn't like cockfighting either, and soon the peasants at Okoitz stopped doing it,
rather than risk offending him. .
While all of the other adults considered small boys to be little more than nuisances, to be ignored at
best and spanked at worst, Sir Conrad seemed to like us, to actually enjoy our company. He almost
always had time to stop and explain things to us, to tell us some of the thousands of stories he knew,
and to teach us our numbers.
Furthermore, he paid our priest, Father Thomas, to teach us to read and write, every weekday
morning during the winter.
The fathers of most of the boys were peasants, farmers who had little to do during the winter, so
having their boys in school was no hardship for them. My father was a baker, and bakers must work
hard almost every day of the year. If they wish to take even Sunday off, they must work twice as hard
on Saturday, or the people of the town would go hungry without bread. Even then, someone was
needed at the bakery to keep the fires going, since most of the people brought their meals in a pot to our
ovens for cooking.
 This meant that my help was needed every day in my father's bakery, for children naturally help
their parents at their work. My parents had six children, and my father felt that the boys, at least,
should go to school.