"The Flying Warlord" - читать интересную книгу автора (Франковски Лео)

FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD STARGARD

There were Mongols in Cracow, but they weren't invading just yet. This was a diplomatic party, and the duke wanted me and some of my people there to advise him.

We'd had plenty of warning about their coming, since they were spotted at one of our depots on the River Bug. The operator there got out a radio message fast, and she was bright enough to warn away the steamboats in the area. I don't think they saw any of the planes, either.

I knew that it was important to make as brave a show as possible, but at the same time I didn't want them to see everything we had. Word went out on the radio that the steamboats and airplanes were to avoid the Mongols, the guns were to be taken down and hidden, and that the radios themselves were not to be talked about.

I'd never publicized the radios, but I knew that scattered around as they had to be, there was no way of keeping their existence a secret. Operating principles were something else, but since few people knew them anyway, I wasn't worried.

In fact, I needn't have worried at all, since people who did hear about them didn't believe it. They'd believe in a steamboat because they saw it, and the same was true with the airplanes, which still had people running outdoors and pointing upward whenever one went over, but a machine that made sparks and talked to people miles away? ... Nawww...

I wanted the Mongols to be afraid of us, but for the wrong reasons. There wouldn't be enough of Anna's mature children to make a difference in the invasion. Oh, they'd stand night guard duty and run messages, but there would only be thirty-three adult Big People by the time of the battle, and that wasn't enough to tip the scales.

Still, if I could make the Mongols worry about fighting a highly mobile cavalry force, they might conduct their strategy accordingly, and that couldn't do us any harm. Mobility was where we were weakest.

I collected all the Big People I could, twenty of them counting Anna, along with some of my main people, and rode to Cracow. I brought Sir Vladimir, Sir Piotr, and the Banki brothers, among others.

I brought Cilicia along, and I had the others bring their wives. We came in civilian clothes and without armor, my idea being to lend the occasion as little dignity as possible.

We arrived in the early morning, just hours ahead of the Mongol delegation. Duke Henryk met with me and asked me to do the bulk of the talking at the preliminary meeting, since I apparently knew more about the Mongols than anybody else.

"Just stand on the dais by my left hand, Baron Conrad. Should I want to talk to them directly, I shall signal you. But talk as you see fit."

A number of counts were up there as well, sort of an honor guard. The throne room was filled with gawkers, but all of my own people were there as well. This was supposed to be just a formal meeting, with further negotiations to be held in private. At least that was what the duke thought. I had somewhat different ideas, and the Mongols were way out in left field!

The Mongol ambassador entered with twenty warriors at his back. Surprisingly, he spoke very good Polish.

"I have come-"

"A moment," Duke Henryk said. "First off, who are you? Are you a Mongol?"

"No. I am a Tartar."

The duke gave me a smug look, but the ambassador continued.

"I am a Tartar but the great Ogotai Kakhan is a Mongol. They are slightly different tribes, like your Silesians and Mazovians."

"Thank you for clearing that up. Now, you were saying?"

"I have come to accept your submission to my lord, Batu Khan, and to the great Ogotai Kakhan, Lord of All the World!" He was bowlegged and he stank, but you couldn't accuse him of not coming to the point. His head was shaved, leaving ridiculous tufts of hair on his forehead and behind his ears, but then military organizations generally adopt funny haircuts. He wore gaudy silk brocades that might once have been attractive, but now were grease-stained and filthy.

Yet he wasn't at all what I had expected. He didn't look like a Mongol! He did not have slanty, black eyes * They were green and Caucasoid. His skin, under the dirt, looked to be white, rather than yellow, and his hair was not black. It was red! And none of his men were "Mongoloid" either.

I Rather than answer the man, the duke glanced at me, so I said, "That's quite a statement. Why should we want to do such a thing?"

"Why? You will do it because you want to live!"

"We've been doing a pretty good job of living without the khan. Why should we' want that to change?" He wasn't using any honorifics on me, so I didn't see why I should use them on him.

"You talk like a fool or a crazy man! All men must submit to the kakhan!"

"I'm a crazy man? I hope you realize that your last few statements sound like those of a rampant megalomaniac. But I repeat my question. Why should we want to do something as silly as bowing down to your kaka?"

"That's kakhan, you fool, and you will submit or our swords will take all your heads!" He drew his sword for emphasis. Apparently, he felt that I wasn't playing my role properly.

"Oh. With swords like that? May I see it?" He handed it to me. It was good Damascus steel, better than what most of the conventional knights carried. But I couldn't let him get one up on us.

"A pretty handle," I said. "Where did you steal it?"

"I won that blade at the Battle of Samarkand, when the fools there refused submission ' "

"Well, that's a bit far to go. Mine only has an iron hilt. May I test them?"

"Destroy your blade if you want!"

I drew my own sword. Setting the tip of his blade to the marble floor, I shaved a thin wire of steel off the edge of his sword.

"The edge is soft," I said, throwing the wire to him. Then I put my blade tip to the floor, edge up, and swung at it with his. His blade was cut in two. "The shank was weak. Next time, don't steal a sword because of its flashy mountings." I tossed the pieces back to him:

The emissary was livid. This was not going as planned. "It is not weapons that win, it is the men behind the weapons!"

"You know, I've been saying that for years. That's why I know that we have nothing to fear from you people."

"The kakhan has the finest army in the world!"

"He has a bunch of undisciplined goat herders, suitable only for murdering helpless women and children. True warriors need not fear them."

"Undisciplined? You lie! Choose three of my men."

"If you wish. That one, that one, and that one." I'd picked the three most gaudily dressed of his entourage, and I think I picked right. I must have singled out someone pretty important, since a trickle of sweat went down the ambassador's cheek. I could see him weighing the loss of face against the loss of someone special. Face lost out.

"The first man you picked is Subotai Bahadur. He, like me, is sworn to report to Batu Khan. You must pick another. "

"As you like. How about that pretty little guy on the end?" I later found out that this man was the ambassador's son, but the father didn't bat an eye.

He spoke briefly to the three men in what must have been Mongolian. Then he said, "I have just ordered these men to cut their own throats, as a demonstration of their loyalty and obedience to the kakhan!"

And those three men did it! One after another, they stepped forward, said some sort of prayer, drew their belt knives, and cut their own throats! There were gasps of horror and disbelief from the audience. I glanced at the duke and he looked a little pale.

If word of this got around, Polish morale would suffer. I couldn't let them outdo us, but I wasn't going to see if any of my men felt suicidal! So I laughed at him.

"Well, don't feel too bad about it," I said. "We have crazy people in this country, too. Of course, we try not to show them off in public when company is calling, but I suppose that customs differ. How about that one? Would he cut his throat, too?"

"Any true Mongol would obey orders!"

"Then let's see it!"

And damned if he didn't order it and the poor bastard ended up bleeding on the floor along with the others.

"And how about that one?" I said.

"What are you trying to do?" screamed the ambassador.

"Well, I figured that if we could get every Mongol to cut his fool throat, we wouldn't have to fight a war next spring." The room exploded in laughter.

"Were I not forbidden by my lord Batu to fight, I would kill you here and now!"

"It wouldn't be much of a fight, especially since you don't have a sword anymore. Why, any of our women could beat any of your fools with a sword. Even little Krystyana over there could take on any one of you, and she's had six children."

"Could 1, my lord? Could I really fight him?" Krystyana said as she eagerly stepped out from the crowd. She was in court dress and so of course was unarmed, but she had borrowed her husband's sword with such vigor that Sir Piotr had a thin trickle of blood running down from his left ear.

"Well, I was just talking, Lady Krystyana. This is a diplomatic meeting, and not the place for a fight."

"Ah! You make a foolish boast and then you try to wiggle out of it! I say that you must back up your boast!"

"I suppose, if you insist. Sir Piotr, what do you say about this? She's your wife, after all."

"My lord, when she's in this mood, I've found it's best to let her have her own way."

"Very well then, pick your best swordsman," I said to the ambassador.

"Let the lady choose her own executioner," he said with a greasy smile.

"I want that one," Krystyana said. "He's wearing the most gold, and I get it when I win, don't I?"

"To the victor goes the spoils, my lady," I said.

"Good! Of course, I can't fight in this silly outfit!" She said, as she stripped her clothes off. The Mongols were all wearing armor and she was proposing to fight naked!

At this time, Poland didn't have a nudity taboo, so a naked lady wasn't all that unheard of, but the duke had let it be known that he wanted a complete coverup in his own court, and thus far, no one had ever dared defy him. I glanced at the duke again, but he just looked up at the coffered ceiling.

The Mongol acted as if he was just going to walk up and murder her. Krystyana parried his blow easily and gave him a horizontal cut on the forehead.

This startled the man, and he started hacking in earnest. It got him nowhere. He might have been good at saber fighting on horseback, but his footwork was almost nonexistent. The parries used on horseback are different from those used on foot, and are slower, since on a horse you have the animal's neck between your legs and it gets in the way.

But mostly, he'd never seen a rapier before, whereas Krystyana had often fought rapier against saber. She'd beaten me that way quite a few times.

So she played with him. She added a vertical cut to the one horizontal one on his forehead, making a perfect Christian cross. Then she put a cross on each cheek, and during all this had not taken a cut herself.

She was making the Mongol look like a buffoon, which was wonderful. She was savvy enough to realize that we had to take people's minds off the dead bodies on the floor.

The crowd was going wild, and the ambassador was turning livid purple.

"She's making a Christian out of him!" Piotr yelled.

"Does that count as a Baptism?" somebody shouted.

"No! That's Extreme Unction!" another wit called back.

"Krystyana, didn't your mother tell you not to play with your food?" yelled someone else.

She was working at cutting the Mongol's armor off when I said, "I think you've made your point, Lady Krystyana. Kill him and be done with it."

"Yes, my lord. On the count of four! One! ... Two' ... Three! . . . "

And she skewered him, straight through the heart, on the count of four. Then she bowed to the duke and to the crowd, picked up her clothes, and retired. The applause rocked the castle!

I turned to the ambassador. "With regards to your request for submission, the answer is no."

"And who are you, to say this thing? What is your name and station?"

"I am Baron Conrad Stargard."

"What! I have been talking to a mere baron?"

"Surely you didn't expect our duke to dirty his lips by talking to such as you? I'm the lowest ranking man up here!"

The Mongols turned and left, leaving their dead on the floor.

The duke stood and motioned for me to follow. Once we were alone in his privy chamber, he turned and glared at me.

"Damn you, Conrad! I asked you to conduct a preliminary interview, not to set policy for me!"

"Yes, your grace. I guess I sort of got carried away."

"You 'sort of got carried away'? Were my father still on the throne, you would be carried away in a coffin!"

"Yes, your grace."

"Yes, your grace!' Is that all you can say?"

"Well, your grace, what other outcome could there have been? Surely you never considered submitting to them! You know what has happened to every other people that has done that. They make insatiable demands, require hostages, and ruinous tribute! Poland under the Mongols would be a living hell until they killed us all! Then it would be a dead one!"

"I know, I know. But there was no need to make them mad! You've told me that their plan is to simultaneously attack both Poland and Hungary. After what you've done, they just might come at us alone with all their forces! King Bela can put two knights in the field for every one that Poland can, and I include Sandomierz, Mazovia, and the Teutonic Knights as being with us!"

"Then maybe I've done some good, your grace. If I've made them mad enough, they'll go straight back to Batu Khan without talking to the other Polish powers. There was always the chance that they could have split us up, or talked some of the others into being neutral."

"That would never have happened, Baron. We may not be united, but we Poles would always stand together against a foreign aggressor."

"I hope you're right, your grace. But the Crossmen aren't Poles, they're Germans who have no great love for us. The Duke of Mazovia is a fourteen-year-old boy! Who can tell about a child?"

"Perhaps the Teutonic Knights are a cipher, but if the Duke of Mazovia's youth causes problems, they will be in the Other direction, entirely. He might rashly charge into certain slaughter, but he won't prove a coward."

"Yes, your grace."

"As to the Mongols, well, we'll talk to them again tomorrow."

At this point, a page knocked, entered and announced that the Mongol party had left Wawel Hill.

"Damn!" the duke said. "Baron Conrad, go after them and see what you can do about extending the negotiations."

"Yes, your grace," I said, fully intending to do just the opposite.

I had had my people dress, not in armor or even dress uniforms, but in civilian court garb, and our embroidered velvets shone in all the colors of the rainbow and then some. Some of the colors that Piotr wore had to be unique!

Since we were all riding Big People, we caught up with the Mongols within the hour.

"Hello, ambassador. You left without your honor guard!" I said.

"More of your insolence, Baron Conrad? You call this bunch of fops an honor guard? Why, none of you are in armor and half of you are women!"

"What's more, they're our better half Why should we need armor in our own country? None of our people would harm us and these woods were cleansed of wolves years ago. Haven't you ever been in a civilized country before?"

"I've seen silly fools before, riding sleek horses."

"Speaking of which, can those little ponies of yours run? What say we race, say from here to the River Bug."

His men had four spare mounts each and he could see that we didn't have any. He said, "Are you suggesting a wager, Baron?"

"Why not? Shall we say a bag of gold to the winner?"

He insisted on seeing my gold, but we made the bet. We soon left them in our dust. When we were about six miles ahead of them, we stopped by a brook and broke out a picnic supper. We were well into it before the Mongols caught up with us, their horses lathered with sweat.

"Care to join us, ambassador?" Krystyana shouted and waved. "There are plenty of leftovers!"

"A Mongol eats in the saddle!" The ambassador was not amused. They rode on.

We passed them again a while later, and I slowed down to chat. "I notice that you have changed horses already. Surely those little things can't be tired yet!"

"Changing horses is the custom of my people," he said stiffly.

"As you like," I said, "but it's obvious that this is not a fair contest. We'll try to make it more even."

With that, Anna and I went to the front of his column, circled ahead of it, ran back to the end, then back to the front again, literally running circles around them. The others in my party joined in the fun, laughing and shouting while the Mongols galloped stoically forward.

Toward dusk, we again left them behind, and when they caught up with us, we had a big campfire going, and Cilicia was dancing for us around it. Piotr and two of the Bankis were playing recorders and the rest of us were keeping time by beating on saddles and swords. A glass bottle of wine was being passed around. I was stretched out with my back to a tree.

Cilicia timed it such that they got a good eyeful of her magnificent nude body, then ended the dance by failing naked into my arms.

"Again you work to humiliate me," the ambassador said. "What manner of devil's spawn are you riding?"

"These? Why, they're just ordinary Christian horses. In fact, these are all just mares. We keep the stallions for battle, when you really need something big and fast. Haven't you seen good horses before?" I asked.

"We have fought Christians before. All the Russias do homage to us! But they did not have such animals as these!"

"Oh. Well, those were Orthodox Christians. We're Catholics. There's a difference."

"Your false gods have nothing to do with your horses!"

"Don't tell them that! They might get mad. They're all very religious," I said.

"Bah! They might be fast, but they would never last through a campaign. Sleek horses like those must eat grain! They'd starve if they had to travel across the steppes!"

"Well, we have a lot of grain for them to eat, but in fact they prefer fresh grass when they can get it. And in a pinch, they can eat darned nearly anything. Anna! Come here, girl!"

The ambassador looked astounded as Anna came up.

"Anna, this man doesn't think that you can get along without grain. Would you please eat that tree for him?"

Anna looked at the pine tree I'd pointed to, winced, and made an expression of a bad taste in her mouth. Then she looked wistfully at a young apple tree near by.

"Oh, okay. Eat the apple tree instead."

Before the dumbfounded Mongols, Anna and a few of her daughters ate that tree right down to the ground, biting off chunks of wood and chewing them up.

"Well," I said, "this has been a pleasant diversion, but we didn't bring our camping gear with us. There's an inn a dozen or so miles up the road, right on the River Bug. We'll wait for you there and collect on the bet."

"Mongols prefer to sleep under the stars!"

"Suit yourselves. You're welcome to the fire, but be sure to put it out when you leave. Forest fires, you know."

The Big People came when we called them. We saddled up while Cilicia put her clothes back on and galloped off into the pitch-dark night. Big People have the most amazing eyesight. They really can see in the dark.

It was another of my Pink Dragon Inns, one I hadn't visited before. The innkeeper promised to wake me when the Mongols arrived, but they never came. Later the next day we got word that they crossed over into Russia a few miles upstream.

"They cheated on their bet!" Sir Vladimir said.

"Don't worry," Sir Piotr said. "We'll collect in the spring."