Thank you much, @Idhrendur ! And thank you also for the excellent work you put in on the CK3 to EU4 converter. I'm having loads of fun continuing this campaign.
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Chapter Fifteen
FIFTEEN
Beware the Quiet Ones
20 August 886 – 13 November 887
Beware the Quiet Ones
20 August 886 – 13 November 887
The Year of the World 6395 – or, on the Western calendar, the year 886 going into 887 – was a bumper-crop year for the Rychnovský dynasty’s third generation. Already Tihomír and Viera were celebrating the birth of their first child – a healthy, dark-haired little girl upon whom they bestowed the fine Serbian name of Ľubica. And Æþelhild had been showing the signs since July. Blažena, who was sincerely grateful and warm toward her English benefactress, kept the older girl company throughout her pregnancy. And for her part, without any ulterior designs or motives, Æþelhild could genuinely say she was glad for her sister-in-law’s company. The Rychnovský menfolk, being the bothersome worry-warts and mother-hens that they were, were constantly contriving to keep Æþelhild withindoors and at rest as much as possible, as if she were herself an infant – or worse, a fragile egg in danger of breaking. For a bold, healthy and active girl like Hilda, that was very nearly too much to bear! Or it would have been had it not been for Blažena’s camaraderie and conspiratorial sisterly solidarity.
Blažena had understood long before now that she could get away with a great deal more than anyone else in the household, if she could simply appeal directly to her father. And during Hilda’s pregnancy she used that advantage with a ruthless lack of scruple – contriving whatever means and whatever excuse she could find to get the bored and restless Hilda out of doors for some fresh air and a means of stretching a pair of long and shapely – if slightly freckled – legs that were aching for want of use. And so Bohodar often directly overrode the officious interjections of his own son and heir.
‘You enjoy it, don’t you?’ Hilda laughed as the two of them went their way down to the millrace.
‘Enjoy what?’ Blažena feigned innocence upon her milky-fair round face. ‘I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean.’
But the spring in her saunter and the exaggeratedly-blameless clasp of her hands behind her back spoke otherwise. Hilda smirked, but her voice soon took a solicitous turn.
‘Are you sleeping better, Blažka? I worry about you.’
Blažena shook her head. ‘Don’t, Hilda, please. I’m sleeping fine.’
‘Are you sure? You haven’t been eating well recently either.’
‘Good Lord!’ Blažena erupted in laughter. ‘You’re worse than your husband! Would you stop worrying! I tell you, there’s nothing at all the matter with my sleep, or with my appetite. I’m just… taking care for my figure, that’s all.’
‘Your figure.’ Æþelhild cast a dubious look at her sister-in-law.
‘Mm,’ Blažena sighed wistfully. ‘Dear sister – I honestly do wish I had the gift for legs and arms like yours, so smooth and strong and svelte. The very least I can do is to watch what I eat – keep the fasts and keep my body pure. After all, aren’t there those who don’t have enough to eat? Why should I gorge myself when there are poor men, women and children who lack even their daily bread?’
Æþelhild forbore from making the obvious rejoinder. Blažena’s pubescent build was after the Bohemian type, and so would her beauty be when it came to maturity. Even if her shoulders and legs and arms would never be as willowy as Hilda’s, other advantages in her were already beginning to show that would more than make up for it. Blažena was already blessed in more ways than one; and Æþelhild felt she did not need the reminder.
Even so… did this concern for her diet have anything to do with what happened in Salzburg? Hilda did have to wonder. Blažena had come back from Salzburg unhappy and brooding, sleeping fitfully if she could sleep at all. Even two years after the fact, Hilda couldn’t help but notice her dear friend’s introspective and unhappy moods. But death – even violent death – was nothing new or shocking. In this vale of tears, with bandits and footpads and other such masterless men on the roads, and shanks and cutpurses and hoodlums enough in the town willing to spill the blood of a brother for a lightweight farthing – was the hanging of one wretched thief truly so astonishing? And although it was good and right that Blažena should remember and pray for those who were hungry, and do works of mercy to feed them, it would do them no good for her to punish herself by starving.
It heartened her, then, that the two of them could go down to the millrace and play and splash in the diverted water for a while in the late summer sun. Genuine, open laughs came again to Blažena’s face. That was something to enjoy and appreciate. And regardless of what Radomír would say, Hilda knew that getting out of doors and fooling around like this would be good for their baby too.
They were still playing about in the millrace when there came a sudden rustle from the rushes on the riverward side. The two of them stopped splashing and looked toward the source of the sound, and out peeked a dark-copper braided head and a round, snub-nosed face, looking like a much-younger Mechthild.
‘Vlastička!’ cried Blažena with delight. ‘What are you doing here?’
Vlasta’s dark eyes grew round with mortification and alarm, and she made a desperate gesture to shush her younger sister. Whatever she was doing, she clearly did not want to be seen or found out.
‘Keep your voice down,’ she mouthed.
‘We will. Why are you hiding?’ asked Æþelhild.
‘Tüzniq,’ Vlasta murmured. An explanation that both the older and the younger girl understood.
Poor Vlasta had not taken well at all to her betrothed, who was now visiting up at the castle. The strange, Asiatic features of the Avar warrior of the Khunzakhal clan to whom Bohodar had promised her had shocked and frightened her witless: his toned bronze skin, his shallow nose, and most of all his beard. Jet-black and stiff as a brush, the poor hapless Avar’s pride had caused Vlasta to shudder and start when he’d gallantly kissed her hand for the first time.
‘I don’t see what your problem is,’ Blažena countered, teasing her sister lightly. ‘Tüzniq’s a fine man, when you talk to him. He’s really quite honourable.’
Vlasta shook her head briskly, her eyes still wide with fear. She retreated into the rushes again. Blažena bit her lower lip to keep from giggling, and Æþelhild’s mouth was taut with a similar struggle.
‘I suppose there’s no accounting for taste,’ Blažena said airily, stretching her elbows and folding her hands behind her loose sable locks, still stringy and streaming with water.
Hilda gave a brisk laugh. ‘And would you marry Tüzniq, if it were up to you?’
Blažena shrugged and gave her head a noncommittal tilt.
Hilda smirked. ‘Ah, I see.’
‘Still,’ Blažena mused, ‘Tüzniq does have his good points. He doesn’t feign or boast or run his mouth – I admire that. But I’ve always thought… when I do marry, I want him to be kind and warm and feeling. Call it silly if you like, but I want a tender man. A sweet man.’
‘That’s not silly at all,’ Hilda nodded. But she couldn’t forbear from asking: ‘Beard or no?’
Again Blažena tilted her head and held her hands behind her back. ‘I… don’t… know,’ she considered in a singsong tone. ‘Maybe… a little bit of beard? Enough scruff to look… you know, manly. I’d want my man caring, but not weak or effeminate. Or—I guess, a goatee, like your father has? That would be fine.’
‘Indeed?’ Hilda pondered. ‘Maybe I should ask your brother to grow one. Just to see how it looks.’
Blažena crinkled her nose and laughed at the image. But such was the tone the two young women set on their way back up to the castle.
They were just within the courtyard when the two of them saw Radomír striding toward them briskly, clearly more than a bit vexed. ‘Hilda! There you are!’
Blažena knew when to make a graceful exit, and she took one now, leaving Æþelhild alone with her irate husband. She crossed her arms and steadied her shoulders.
‘What on earth do you mean, leaving the castle like that in your condition?!’
‘Rado,’ Hilda spoke levelly, ‘I am pregnant, not an invalid. Honestly, I don’t know why you men insist on being so smothering. I was just out for a little swim with Blažka.’
‘And that’s another thing. I want to know why you spend so much time with her. And don’t beat around the bush anymore; I know you have another reason to get close to her.’
Hilda narrowed her gaze at her husband. ‘Don’t you have eyes?’ she asked him. ‘You are your own father’s son, his rightful heir, and you can’t see what’s going on in front of your nose? Very well. I’ll spell it out for you. Duchess Mechthild very nearly died delivering that girl; she was ill throughout the whole pregnancy, and your father feels both guilty over the illness, and grateful to God that both of them are alive today. So he favours her, treasures her, adores her, spoils her rotten. What? You think it was an accident that Bohodar overlooked the educations of his two middle children after he was done tending to yours, and went straight on to personally tutoring Blažena? Believe you me—everything that isn’t tied or staked down in this household will go to her and hers. That was settled long before I came into the picture. Now, you tell me—if you were the daughter-in-law in such a household, what would you do?’
Radomír let out a long breath, calming himself before answering. ‘Alright, then. Suppose you’re right. You are the daughter-in-law in the house. What is it you’re planning?’
‘I—want—Blažena,’ Hilda said emphatically. ‘I want her position, or whatever it takes to secure it in your father’s eyes. But: I know I’m the newcomer. I know I won’t dislodge the longstanding favourite by placing myself against her. So…’
She pointed to her heavy belly. Radomír shook his head, uncomprehending. Hilda sighed.
‘I mean, husband,’ she said quietly but with emphasis, ‘I want Blažena… as my daughter-in-law.’
Poor Radomír. For all his scholarly wit and erudition, for all his gifts of intellect and quickness of hand and eye, he did not see this coming. It struck him like a surprise punch to the gut. Indeed, his mouth fell open as though that was exactly what Hilda had done to him.
‘Hilda!’ Radomír gasped in disbelief. ‘You’re talking about my sister—! And… our—!’
‘Our son, yes,’ Hilda nodded, patting her abdomen. Cool, calm, collected. ‘If a son he is.’
‘Have you taken absolute leave of your senses, woman? And thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister, nor of thy father’s sister: for he uncovereth his near kin: they shall bear their iniquity,’ Radomír hissed at his wife. ‘And didn’t the great Saint Gregory the Dialogist pen a letter to your people specifically, telling the English clergy not to allow exactly such marriages?’
‘Oh, spare me your monastic schoolchild pieties,’ Æþelhild sneered. ‘You know as well as I do that the Church grants dispensations in such cases, particularly where inheritance is at issue. And I also know that your Byzantine branch of the Church even has a special term for it. Isn’t it οἰκονομία or somesuch?’
Æþelhild had done her homework. But that didn’t make Radomír feel any better about it.
‘Blažka won’t agree to this madness. Father won’t agree. And I won’t agree.’
‘I beg to differ,’ Æþelhild levelled a straight, stubborn jaw at her husband. ‘Blažena and I are already close enough that I am beginning to understand how she feels and thinks about samelies, and about menfolk in general. And your father is enough of a dotard when it comes to her, that if she is the one who makes the request, he won’t stand in her way for long. Just as you, Rado, won’t stand in mine.’
Radomír didn’t know it yet, but he was already beaten. Although Æþelhild had never spoken it aloud, she had formed this ambition in her mind on the very night of their wedding, and had kept it burning brightly in her unabashed heart ever since. Radomír might understand the ways of courts, and he might know Scripture and the letters of bishops backwards and forwards—but when it came to understanding the intricacies of household business or the matters of the heart, Æþelhild had him roundly and thoroughly outclassed.
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Remarkable. The readAAR is always safe when sailing through the seas of dreams from @Revan86 - as it is written in meticulous details with ardent labour.
Safe is a blanket term, though - it covers all the fun, joy, despair, wonder, amazement, curious, excitement, awe, and many more; and now the story is getting highly thrilling.
Safe is a blanket term, though - it covers all the fun, joy, despair, wonder, amazement, curious, excitement, awe, and many more; and now the story is getting highly thrilling.
...as in the form of ominous. Irritatingly sinister.
...wow. Just wow. Now we are in the perilous waters.
(Breaking news from your friendly watchdog from fact-checkers of fictional lores: 'Well of course it is the year of the world 6395 as defined since Georgios the Monk in 7th century ce'. Thank you friendly watchdog. Coming next Never-ending Questions: Where did the Sarmatians actually go? Is the name Avestani or Indo-Iranian?)
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Chapter Sixteen
So glad you're enjoying it so far, @filcat and @Idhrendur!
I have here a double-feature for you today, one narrative chapter and one 'modern-day' academic interlude, which integrates some features of the megacampaign continuation that I plan to do eventually. Please enjoy!
SIXTEEN
Gathering for the March
8 January 888
‘Na zelenej lúke sedí zajac,’ Blažena crooned as she rocked the infant, ‘prepletá nôžkami, ako najviac…’
Blažena was cradling in her arms Hilda’s newborn, a bright-eyed baby boy with a shock of red hair, of the same hue as Radomír’s. Blažena had been instantly enraptured with her new nephew, whom she was carrying with the greatest care and the most intense interest. Æþelhild looked on with a happy, fulfilled mother’s grin as her sister-in-law rocked her son in her arms.
‘What’s his name?’ asked Blažena.
‘Bohodar, of course,’ Æþelhild said proudly. ‘Rado objects, wants to name him Zemislav. But I’ll make him see sense eventually.’
‘Both names are fine,’ Blažena beamed, looking down contentedly into her nephew’s alert little face. ‘He is a gift from God, and I’m sure he will also be the pride of the family. Do you know? Viera still won’t let me play like this with little Miloš.’
‘Sister dear,’ Æþelhild started, hearing her infant begin to splutter, ‘hand him back to me. He’s hungry again, sounds like.’
‘Oh! Yes, of course!’ Blažena started, handing little Bohodar back to Æþelhild as her sister-in-law adjusted her shift in preparation. But she couldn’t forbear from tickling Bohodar on the chin with one finger and grinning with crinkled nose at his reaction. ‘Chceš papkať? Áno, chceš! Áno, Bošiško!’
At that moment, Radomír came in the door to their room. Blažena looked up, and was surprised to see a dark glower on her elder brother’s face at the sight of her. That cleared momentarily into a gentler and pleasanter expression – still a bit stiff – but he hadn’t been quick enough in hiding his hostility for Blažena to fail to note it. She wasn’t quite welcome here, at least not in Radomír’s eyes. She reached over and squeezed Hilda’s hand.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ Blažena said.
‘Oh, Blažka,’ Hilda called after her and lay a detaining hand on her sleeve. ‘I had my father send over a pin cask of black damson wine from Bedanford. Would you see to burying it beneath a linden for us?’
Blažena nodded enthusiastically. The time-honoured Moravian ritual of burying a cask of wine beneath a linden tree in anticipation of a newborn baby’s eventual wedding was a joyful one, and the new aunt was pleased to be given the responsibility. But, seeing Radomír glower despite himself again, Blažena took it as her queue to leave. She ducked her head abashedly, not wishing to trespass any longer on her brother’s sufferance, and scurried out of the room.
‘And did you tell her,’ Radomír spoke acidly to his wife when she was out of earshot, ‘that you intend her to drink it with Zemislav when the time comes?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Hilda smiled calmly. ‘As far as she’s concerned, she’s just Bohodar’s little auntie… for now. Best to keep some distance between them for a time. It’s the worst possible thing to have them get too familiar, too soon. I don’t want her seeing him as a little brother rather than husband material.’
‘Well, in that case,’ Radomír amended himself, ‘I’ll go and invite her right back. Let her spend all the time she likes here – feeding him, bathing him, changing his swaddling, cradling him to sleep.’
Hilda laughed mildly. ‘Oh, Rado, my heart – you are too darling! As I told you: you’re not going to stand in my way on this. That’s not a threat, but a fact. Not only are you easily four or five moves behind me already, but you’ll end up on my side in any case. You’ll see it’s best for all of us.’
‘Len cez moju mŕtvolu,’ Radomír muttered through gritted teeth.
‘It won’t come to that,’ Hilda said earnestly. ‘Don’t even joke about such things.’
Bohodar assembled with his zbrojnošov in the snowy courtyard, and walked up and down their ranks with a stern but approving eye, his breath hanging in front of him in the frost-bitten air. The late burgomaster of Kromĕříž, Blahoslav, had done his job remarkably well in gathering them. But now the task of training and organising them fell upon the shoulders of a Nitran, a devoted follower of the Frankish ways, who was also named Radomír. The scowling, boar-eyed martinet, his hair closely cropped to his head, lolled his head and pitched his feet forward as he examined each of the troops with a hostile grimace, pausing on occasion to clout one of them on the head or on the shoulder or in the gut for the state of his gear – berating him in a stern bark before sending him back to make the necessary repairs or cleaning or adjustment. Bohodar didn’t entirely approve of his new marshal’s methods. But he couldn’t deny that Radomír got the job done. And he would be a true asset in the venture ahead.
The knieža of Moravia had already sent the messenger forth into the lands of the Češi, and stated openly his intention to contest the overlordship of those lands held by Vladimir Přemyslovec, and bring the light of Christ thither. Already the black-robed priests had brought out the censers, aspergillum and icons of Juraj, Demeter, Mihail Arhangel, Teodor Tiro and Ondrej Stratilat. They were now busy consecrating the soldiers in this adventure, who were going out to spread the Gospel among the heathen.
The new bishop was there as well. Vojmil had sadly gone to his rest the previous summer, his lack of restraint when it came to food and wine having caught up to him. Bohodar missed his old friend and drinking companion sorely. His replacement, a thin, fair-bearded, cringing little man who often seemed as much like a coney as a man, Hromislav did not particularly endear himself to his knieža. Now, Hromislav went out of his way to make himself agreeable, but that was part of the problem. Getting an honest answer out of Metropolitan Hromislav was like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands. And few things are more irksome than a man who, at least to your face, is disposed to agree with everything you say. Bohodar regarded the bishop with a sour expression, which he hoped the metropolitan didn’t notice as he passed by and sprinkled the lord of Olomouc with the holy water. At least Vojmil, may God make his memory to be eternal, could hold forth his own opinion.
Soon Mechthild came down into the courtyard herself, in a good green woollen mantle. There was a calm look on her face, but she seemed somehow tense, as though holding down some deep well of inward feeling.
‘So you’re off, then?’
‘I am. The heathen have raided us too often. We have a chance to stop that now.’
‘And so the Patriarch and the Emperor in the East send you – you, Bohodar! – off to fight for them, with their blessing. And not one drop of Greek blood in danger of being spilt. Did you at least get the blessing of one woman closer to home?’
‘Yes. Queen Bratromila is as eager as I am to see these raids stop, and bring at least one of the heathen nations under her sway.’ Seeing Mechthild’s incensed look, Bohodar quickly did a volte-face and added: ‘Or—did you mean yourself?’
Mechthild scoffed. ‘For someone as supposedly smart as you are, you can be such a fool sometimes.’
Suddenly, Mechthild took her husband’s face in her hands, and kissed him – a kiss of grief at their separation. She looked up into his eyes.
‘Just promise me this, and I’ll give you my blessing. Come back to me,’ she told him. ‘In victory or defeat, promise you will come back to me.’
Bohodar held her hand. ‘Always. Even in spirit, I won’t stay long parted from you.’
After that, it was time for the zbrojnošov and the horse-riders to depart from the courtyard and make their way to the mustering grounds outside Olomouc, where they would be joined by the able-bodied men from the hamlets surrounding. The men-at-arms, having been prodded and shouted into shape and fitness by the new marshal and having been sprinkled, smoked and blessed by Bishop Hromislav, filed into order and made their way out of the gate and onto the road, amid the dirty slush and thin strands of ice in the banks. Out from the north gate they went, out along the Morava, which was now frozen solid, and planted the signal vane for the muster on a hilltop above a snow-covered lea. There it was set beside the banners, borne by black-robed priests, bearing the face of Christ – the Icon Made Without Hands – and the Holy Mother of God. It was not long before the first of the levy from the hamlets began to arrive. Many of them were talking among themselves; not a few were griping and muttering – no doubt about having to gather together in the cold on an exposed hillside when they should be enjoying the remains of the Christmas feast.
Bohodar drew his wool cloak about him. He had his own shield in his left hand, his spear in his right, and his sword in its scabbard within easy reach. The round wooden plank bore the device of the Rychnovský family: sable, a lion rampant or. He regarded the animal intently over the rim – its long tongue and claws extended, its teeth bared in a devouring grimace. It was funny: Bohodar had never really thought of himself as a lion. Now, he supposed, it would be time to test to see how loud his roar truly was.
I have here a double-feature for you today, one narrative chapter and one 'modern-day' academic interlude, which integrates some features of the megacampaign continuation that I plan to do eventually. Please enjoy!
SIXTEEN
Gathering for the March
8 January 888
‘Na zelenej lúke sedí zajac,’ Blažena crooned as she rocked the infant, ‘prepletá nôžkami, ako najviac…’
Blažena was cradling in her arms Hilda’s newborn, a bright-eyed baby boy with a shock of red hair, of the same hue as Radomír’s. Blažena had been instantly enraptured with her new nephew, whom she was carrying with the greatest care and the most intense interest. Æþelhild looked on with a happy, fulfilled mother’s grin as her sister-in-law rocked her son in her arms.
‘What’s his name?’ asked Blažena.
‘Bohodar, of course,’ Æþelhild said proudly. ‘Rado objects, wants to name him Zemislav. But I’ll make him see sense eventually.’
‘Both names are fine,’ Blažena beamed, looking down contentedly into her nephew’s alert little face. ‘He is a gift from God, and I’m sure he will also be the pride of the family. Do you know? Viera still won’t let me play like this with little Miloš.’
‘Sister dear,’ Æþelhild started, hearing her infant begin to splutter, ‘hand him back to me. He’s hungry again, sounds like.’
‘Oh! Yes, of course!’ Blažena started, handing little Bohodar back to Æþelhild as her sister-in-law adjusted her shift in preparation. But she couldn’t forbear from tickling Bohodar on the chin with one finger and grinning with crinkled nose at his reaction. ‘Chceš papkať? Áno, chceš! Áno, Bošiško!’
At that moment, Radomír came in the door to their room. Blažena looked up, and was surprised to see a dark glower on her elder brother’s face at the sight of her. That cleared momentarily into a gentler and pleasanter expression – still a bit stiff – but he hadn’t been quick enough in hiding his hostility for Blažena to fail to note it. She wasn’t quite welcome here, at least not in Radomír’s eyes. She reached over and squeezed Hilda’s hand.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ Blažena said.
‘Oh, Blažka,’ Hilda called after her and lay a detaining hand on her sleeve. ‘I had my father send over a pin cask of black damson wine from Bedanford. Would you see to burying it beneath a linden for us?’
Blažena nodded enthusiastically. The time-honoured Moravian ritual of burying a cask of wine beneath a linden tree in anticipation of a newborn baby’s eventual wedding was a joyful one, and the new aunt was pleased to be given the responsibility. But, seeing Radomír glower despite himself again, Blažena took it as her queue to leave. She ducked her head abashedly, not wishing to trespass any longer on her brother’s sufferance, and scurried out of the room.
‘And did you tell her,’ Radomír spoke acidly to his wife when she was out of earshot, ‘that you intend her to drink it with Zemislav when the time comes?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Hilda smiled calmly. ‘As far as she’s concerned, she’s just Bohodar’s little auntie… for now. Best to keep some distance between them for a time. It’s the worst possible thing to have them get too familiar, too soon. I don’t want her seeing him as a little brother rather than husband material.’
‘Well, in that case,’ Radomír amended himself, ‘I’ll go and invite her right back. Let her spend all the time she likes here – feeding him, bathing him, changing his swaddling, cradling him to sleep.’
Hilda laughed mildly. ‘Oh, Rado, my heart – you are too darling! As I told you: you’re not going to stand in my way on this. That’s not a threat, but a fact. Not only are you easily four or five moves behind me already, but you’ll end up on my side in any case. You’ll see it’s best for all of us.’
‘Len cez moju mŕtvolu,’ Radomír muttered through gritted teeth.
‘It won’t come to that,’ Hilda said earnestly. ‘Don’t even joke about such things.’
~~~
Bohodar assembled with his zbrojnošov in the snowy courtyard, and walked up and down their ranks with a stern but approving eye, his breath hanging in front of him in the frost-bitten air. The late burgomaster of Kromĕříž, Blahoslav, had done his job remarkably well in gathering them. But now the task of training and organising them fell upon the shoulders of a Nitran, a devoted follower of the Frankish ways, who was also named Radomír. The scowling, boar-eyed martinet, his hair closely cropped to his head, lolled his head and pitched his feet forward as he examined each of the troops with a hostile grimace, pausing on occasion to clout one of them on the head or on the shoulder or in the gut for the state of his gear – berating him in a stern bark before sending him back to make the necessary repairs or cleaning or adjustment. Bohodar didn’t entirely approve of his new marshal’s methods. But he couldn’t deny that Radomír got the job done. And he would be a true asset in the venture ahead.
The knieža of Moravia had already sent the messenger forth into the lands of the Češi, and stated openly his intention to contest the overlordship of those lands held by Vladimir Přemyslovec, and bring the light of Christ thither. Already the black-robed priests had brought out the censers, aspergillum and icons of Juraj, Demeter, Mihail Arhangel, Teodor Tiro and Ondrej Stratilat. They were now busy consecrating the soldiers in this adventure, who were going out to spread the Gospel among the heathen.
The new bishop was there as well. Vojmil had sadly gone to his rest the previous summer, his lack of restraint when it came to food and wine having caught up to him. Bohodar missed his old friend and drinking companion sorely. His replacement, a thin, fair-bearded, cringing little man who often seemed as much like a coney as a man, Hromislav did not particularly endear himself to his knieža. Now, Hromislav went out of his way to make himself agreeable, but that was part of the problem. Getting an honest answer out of Metropolitan Hromislav was like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands. And few things are more irksome than a man who, at least to your face, is disposed to agree with everything you say. Bohodar regarded the bishop with a sour expression, which he hoped the metropolitan didn’t notice as he passed by and sprinkled the lord of Olomouc with the holy water. At least Vojmil, may God make his memory to be eternal, could hold forth his own opinion.
Soon Mechthild came down into the courtyard herself, in a good green woollen mantle. There was a calm look on her face, but she seemed somehow tense, as though holding down some deep well of inward feeling.
‘So you’re off, then?’
‘I am. The heathen have raided us too often. We have a chance to stop that now.’
‘And so the Patriarch and the Emperor in the East send you – you, Bohodar! – off to fight for them, with their blessing. And not one drop of Greek blood in danger of being spilt. Did you at least get the blessing of one woman closer to home?’
‘Yes. Queen Bratromila is as eager as I am to see these raids stop, and bring at least one of the heathen nations under her sway.’ Seeing Mechthild’s incensed look, Bohodar quickly did a volte-face and added: ‘Or—did you mean yourself?’
Mechthild scoffed. ‘For someone as supposedly smart as you are, you can be such a fool sometimes.’
Suddenly, Mechthild took her husband’s face in her hands, and kissed him – a kiss of grief at their separation. She looked up into his eyes.
‘Just promise me this, and I’ll give you my blessing. Come back to me,’ she told him. ‘In victory or defeat, promise you will come back to me.’
Bohodar held her hand. ‘Always. Even in spirit, I won’t stay long parted from you.’
After that, it was time for the zbrojnošov and the horse-riders to depart from the courtyard and make their way to the mustering grounds outside Olomouc, where they would be joined by the able-bodied men from the hamlets surrounding. The men-at-arms, having been prodded and shouted into shape and fitness by the new marshal and having been sprinkled, smoked and blessed by Bishop Hromislav, filed into order and made their way out of the gate and onto the road, amid the dirty slush and thin strands of ice in the banks. Out from the north gate they went, out along the Morava, which was now frozen solid, and planted the signal vane for the muster on a hilltop above a snow-covered lea. There it was set beside the banners, borne by black-robed priests, bearing the face of Christ – the Icon Made Without Hands – and the Holy Mother of God. It was not long before the first of the levy from the hamlets began to arrive. Many of them were talking among themselves; not a few were griping and muttering – no doubt about having to gather together in the cold on an exposed hillside when they should be enjoying the remains of the Christmas feast.
Bohodar drew his wool cloak about him. He had his own shield in his left hand, his spear in his right, and his sword in its scabbard within easy reach. The round wooden plank bore the device of the Rychnovský family: sable, a lion rampant or. He regarded the animal intently over the rim – its long tongue and claws extended, its teeth bared in a devouring grimace. It was funny: Bohodar had never really thought of himself as a lion. Now, he supposed, it would be time to test to see how loud his roar truly was.
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Interlude Two
INTERLUDE II.
A Reading
25 September, 2020
A Reading
25 September, 2020
‘So,’ Grebeníček clapped his hands in eager anticipation. ‘Let us hear from… Mister Sviták! Ľutobor, please read the passage in your textbook from the Budinský letopis, on page 128!’
The rather ungainly, bulky youngster with a messy bowl of dishwater-fair hair, Ľutobor Sviták, stood up with his textbook, and began to declaim:
‘Having taken the mines, Bohodar heard that Opava was beset by the heathen Češi. His heart was moved to pity, and he took his men and he returned to his own fastness. He sent forth a messenger, and bade come before him Borić, who was of Bosna, and who led a band of najatí. And Bohodar said to Borić: “I have taken the mines but I have not enough silver yet in my whole realm to pay thee. I bid thee bide thy patience.” And Borić told him, “The word of Moravia is silver to us. Knieža, we will follow thee.”
‘Hearing of this meeting between Bohodar and Borić, the heathen took to their heels, and fled to the Sliezski. And Borić said to Bohodar: “We must give chase. Thou wilt not get a better chance.” And Bohodar gave heed to Borić and chased Záštita, Vladimír’s master-of-arms for the Češi, all the way to the banks of the Kladská Nisa. There was not enough open field for the riders among the heathen to take to horse. And so the najatí from Bosna taunted the heathen: “And what dost thou mean to do with thy mares, now that thou canst not ride them? Wilt thou make them the mothers of thy sons?” And the Češi, with their backs to the water, were angered to fight. But the spears of the najatí met them, and cut them down as wheat to the sickle. The waters of the Kladská Nisa flowed red, and the crows of Sliezski feasted well. And Záštita fled into the west.
‘Neither were the kindred of Tihomír under Moisie slow to answer. Moisie spoke unto his men: “Gird up the hems of thy tunics, O Serbs! Paint a mark upon thy brows, and wind thy heads in kerchiefs! Moravia calls us and so doth our Lord Christ. Today we set our brothers free from darkness.” They marched northward through the Bavarian lands and met with the the Moravians and the Bosnian najatí at Vyšehrad, who had met Záštita and the Češi in battle.
‘The Češi held the field, and forced the Moravians back to the Vltava. In an uneasy line they stood on the rocky outcrop, not having come together. And then there was a mighty sound from the south side of the ridge. Eight hundred Serbs in mail with axes and roundels sent up a battle cry and moved in a long wall. They caught the Češi in the middle and drove them into the Vltava. The brave soul Bratislav, who owed the knieža the debt of his life, bravely stood in the thick of the fighting, overcoming three dozen Češi and slaying them.’
‘Excellent, Mister Sviták,’ Grebeníček said. ‘Now: why do you think we’re reading about these battles?’
Sviták frowned a bit as he considered. ‘Well, in my view, they kind of guaranteed the independence of Moravia, didn’t they?’
Grebeníček nodded. ‘Interesting. Go on.’
‘I mean…’ Ľubomir took a breath as he considered. ‘… couldn’t we say that if these battles hadn’t happened, the Bohemians would have been more powerful in the long run? Or that maybe even the East Franks would have subsumed them instead?’
Grebeníček folded his hands and made a slight ‘ah’ of satisfaction. ‘All of you will hear, I am sure,’ he said with his slight theatrical tenor, ‘especially if some of you pursue a career in academic history, that we shouldn’t engage in counterfactuals and “what-if” history – that it too easily becomes speculative fiction or fanfiction. With so many different factors, it’s hard to know what would have happened if one event in history had turned out differently. Leave that – as any serious historian will tell you – to Brasilian science fiction authors like Gilliam Terry, and East Geatish strategy-game studios like Tvärsägen Interaktiv.’
There was a smattering of snickers in the room, mostly from the nerdier younger men.
‘And I would agree with that… for the most part. Serious history does deal with fact, and departing too far into the realm of speculation quickly becomes pointless. However, part of the purpose of history engages with the imagination. So we may well wonder what might have happened, if those two battles at Kladská Nisa and Vltava had gone differently, and had the political power remained in the hands of the Přemyslovci. Perhaps the Czech culture rather than the Moravian would have become predominant. Perhaps Bohemia and Moravia might have become a protectorate of the East Franks – culturally closer to the Germans, and religiously closer to the Roman Catholics. Who knows? But, Ľubomir, that’s a very good observation. Yes – many scholars consider these two battles to have been a decisive moment in Moravian history for precisely that reason.’
A blonde girl with wide blue eyes in the back of the room raised her hand shyly.
‘Yes, Miss Šimkovičová?’ Grebeníček called on her.
‘This phrase: “the word of the Moravians is silver” – I’ve heard it before. But… it doesn’t always mean a good thing,’ she spoke quietly.
Edvard Grebeníček nodded, impressed. ‘Intriguing, Petra! Where had you heard it before now?’
‘My mother used to say it,’ Petronela Šimkovičová said. ‘Sometimes for her it meant that the Moravians could be trusted, like in the textbook. But at other times, such as when she got into an argument with a Moravian shopkeeper, she meant it more like… “the Moravians only care about money”; “they don’t honour God”; “they’d sell their own mother”, something like that.’
Grebeníček raised his hands and gave Petronela a little golf-clap. ‘Very astute. Yes, the phrase did indeed accrue a double meaning. And your mother, is she one of our Lesné comrades?’
Petra nodded. ‘From Döbling.’
Grebeníček gave a thoughtful nod. ‘Indeed? Wonderful! Yes, it’s a little sad to say, but that was a rather dark page in Moravia’s history. Prokop Rychnovský took the Slovak-speaking provinces in the Vysočina and Viedenský-Les from the Detvanský family in 1508 and promised them protection. Unfortunately, his son Jozef ran a bit short of funds when he was on the throne. His early reign was also plagued by unrest. And so he sold both of the provinces to Austria. Unsurprisingly, the Lesní Slovaks rather resented Moravia for this treatment. One of them found the phrase in the Budinský letopis and turned it on its head, to imply that the Moravian rulers were secretive, self-interested, and interested only in money.’
Petra nodded. ‘I knew a little bit about that. The Austrian Slovaks still think of it as a betrayal.’
‘That is not surprising,’ Professor Grebeníček nodded understandingly. ‘Moravian history, like the history of all nations, has both its high points and its low points. And the betrayal of the Lesní Slovaks was certainly one of the low points. Are there any other questions about the reading?’
‘Weren’t the Bosnians heretics?’ asked another student, Dorota Kvapilová, raising her hand. ‘I heard they used to run around naked everywhere.’
‘No,’ Živana Biľakova corrected her. ‘That was the Croatians, I think.’
‘I thought they were all the same people,’ Ľutobor Sviták chimed in. ‘Serbs, Bosnians, Croatians. Didn’t they all speak the same language anyway?’
Grebeníček held up a hand, and the students fell silent. ‘To answer the first question: whether or not the Bosnians were heretics is… unclear from the historical records. Certainly the Patriarch thought them to be so, as we see several references in the history to “Gnostics” and “the disease of the Bosniaks”, meaning metaphysical dualism. But the Bosnians never thought of themselves as heretics. They always called themselves “krstjani” or “dobri Bošnjani”. Even the contemporary secondary sources that we have, like the Budinský letopis, suggest that the Bosnians were more than eager to help out their Orthodox brothers in cases like this. The Adamite heresy in Croatia came much later.
‘As to whether or not the Serbs, Bosnians and Croatians were the “same people”… whew. That’s a rabbit hole I don’t want to get into here. It’s well beyond my purview anyway. For the purposes of this class, though, there is an important distinction to be made. The White Croats who appear in the early history of Moravia – and you’ll see White Croat surnames like Bijelahrvatskić and Kobilić in our text – are almost always actually the ancestors of our Carpatho-Russian comrades. They were not the same people as the state that later formed in the western Balkans.’
It was at that moment that the bell rang out over the quad, signalling the end of class.
‘Alright, class. In your books: read pages 134 to 147 on the conversion of Czechia, and answer the three short-response questions on page 148. Midterm paper ideas are due to me during our class after next. As always, feel free to shoot me an e-mail or a text if you have any questions about the material. But that’s all from me – I already got an earful from Dr Sohkki last week about my students being late for their Sámi language lessons; and I’d rather not get you in more trouble with her.’
The students began packing away their books. Most of them were eager to take advantage of their ten-minute break between university lessons, and filed out of the room in the usual jumble. Dr Grebeníček watched them go with a short breath of satisfaction. Well, he’d gotten Sviták to participate today: that was a plus! He did the reading and he even engaged in the conversation afterwards about the South Slavs. He made a mental note to follow up on that conversation at a later class.
He looked out the window of his classroom. Standing on the quad, his countenance turned three-quarters away from him at this vantage point, stood the triumphant martial wingèd figure after whom the university was named, wrought in bronze – lance in hand, eternally prepared to smite the beast at his feet. Grebeníček had always felt the monument to be a bit gaudy – certainly not as elegant and dignified as the icon that rested in the university chapel. But it had grown on him, slowly, such that even today as he had gone into his lecture hall to organise his notes, he had even given the thing a tip of the head and a “dobrý deň”, perhaps a bit ironically given the stern countenance of the image of Saint Michael. Beneath the statue, he knew, there was a Middle Moravian plaque which read:
УНИВЕРЗИТА СВѦТЕГО МИХАЕЛА АРХАНДѢЛА
НА ВѦЧШИЮ СЛАВУ БОЖЮ А НА ВЗДЕЛАВАНИѤ ѤГО ДЕТИ
ЗАЛОЖЕНЫ КРАЛЬОМ ТОМАШОМ В’ НА МЕСТЕ ОЛОМѼЦЕ
В РОКУ СВЕТА ҂ЗРІЅ’
НА ВѦЧШИЮ СЛАВУ БОЖЮ А НА ВЗДЕЛАВАНИѤ ѤГО ДЕТИ
ЗАЛОЖЕНЫ КРАЛЬОМ ТОМАШОМ В’ НА МЕСТЕ ОЛОМѼЦЕ
В РОКУ СВЕТА ҂ЗРІЅ’
And then, in modern Moravian and English:
The University of Saint Michael the Archangel
For the greater glory of God and the education of His children
Founded by King Tomáš 2. in the City of Olomouc
In the Year of the World 7116 (AD 1608)
For the greater glory of God and the education of His children
Founded by King Tomáš 2. in the City of Olomouc
In the Year of the World 7116 (AD 1608)
Grebeníček shook his head and laughed softly to himself. ‘Got to be careful, don’t I? Teaching the history of the Rychnovský dynasty in a university founded by one of their most infamous. Although, old Tomáš was always one to abhor pretence, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t begrudge me a realistic look at the less-than-glorious points of our history.’
Attachments
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Remarkable writing, incredible details - once again, and never to diminish, and ever to amaze, the words are lined up as clockwork, yet in the beauty of freshness for the creation of the story. Kudos.
By the way, have to notify it:
Threadmarks are a bit mixed up, specifically after Chapter Eight: Zbrojnoš.
No problem for the ones like us that already have been mesmerised with this remarkable story and riding with Bohodar in it since the beginning, but it may be confusing for the newcomers.
Incredible detail, and delicious. Now have to check winestores to see if any imports left.
This is - cold. Phewww.
Farewell Vojmil!
Probably a publication mistake, this one ends curiously without a hint. Still, it is fun to question now how it was meant to be complete. Supposing it is not Ishtar, but still wondering about the mystery.
<enter ah here we go again meme>
By the way, have to notify it:
Threadmarks are a bit mixed up, specifically after Chapter Eight: Zbrojnoš.
No problem for the ones like us that already have been mesmerised with this remarkable story and riding with Bohodar in it since the beginning, but it may be confusing for the newcomers.
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Thank you, sir! Appreciated much!
Damson and plum brandies - any kind of slivovitz, really - can be delicious, if made right. But you need to be careful with those! I was lucky to find up in my neck of the woods a Czech brand called R Jelinek, which I shared with my father-in-law when he came over to visit. Good stuff.
Æþelhild's got those calm and stubborn traits, as well as being ambitious. She's not the type to give up easily, she understands people, and her husband is unfortunately a bit of a pushover. Given the right incentive, she can be quite ruthless.
To: Revan86
From: egrebenicek@usma.edu.vm
Subject: Re: Possible typo?
To answer your friend @filcat's question: I don't believe that's a misprint in the text. Although, from a style point of view, it probably would have been a better choice for the author to have capitalised the first letter and place the entire phrase in italics to bracket it off from the rest of the passage!
The phrase „Sable, a lion rampant or“ is, in the heraldry of, say, the Neustrians, the Luxembourgers or the West French, the blazon, or the written description of the Rychnovský family device. The first word denotes the field, or background, of the shield, so „Sable“ would mean a plain black shield. Then the features of the shield follow - any divisions or ordinary modifications to the field (in this case, there are none) - and then the charges, or emblems, by their description and colour. So „a lion rampant“ would be a heraldic lion with its arms and legs outstretched, claws extended, in a stepping or striding pose. And „or“ is not a preposition, but the colour of the lion: „or“ is West French for „gold“ or „yellow“.
The device in Bohodar's time would likely have been adjusted to fit the shape of the round shield he was likely to have used, but by the High Middle Ages, the Rychnovský coat of arms would probably have looked something like this:
I hope that answers your friend's question!
With kind regards,
Ed
LOL. Hey, not my fault that Eastern Europe fragmented into a mess of Waldensians, Lollards and running-around-naked crazy types. That's on the Pope.
Ah. Yes, I saw that. I was a bit confused because I'd labelled all the right posts properly, but then I went into the menu bar and saw they were out of order. It should be fixed now, though.
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Yep, that one is very well known import over here, delicious it is, agreed very good stuff.
Yep, that is a plague of the game. Highly probable cause is a pilgrimage event, then suddenly there is an adamite rhomaion, whereas independent of that, balkans may go insular, islands go waldensian, then one sees an orthodox ghana, catholic tibet, and a lollardic crusader kingdom of jerusalem.LOL. Hey, not my fault that Eastern Europe fragmented into a mess of Waldensians, Lollards and running-around-naked crazy types. That's on the Pope.
Pheew, was almost going to invite Your friendly watchdog from fact-checkers of fictional lores, and naturally Your friendly nerdic defender of the fictional lores comes along with. Fortunately asked before that, and received a wonderful answer, saving self from a comment that would have been highly embarrassing (as if it is not already without them, sigh).
Got it, "or" as l'or de symbole Au. C'est parfait. 'aurais dû vérifier les archives héraldiques et blasons plus attentivement.
Thanks scythians, just thanks, for bringing a symbol with a species that is found nowhere near this (arbitrarily defined) continent to be used in heraldry for hundreds of years, through your goldsmithing technique and art.
It's a cool herald, nevertheless.
Now it is fixed, excellent!
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Chapter Seventeen
Haha! Yeah, the pilgrimage event - combined with the mechanics of faith fervour and the heretical lord conversion choice events - seem like they're deliberately designed to spread heresy.
Yup; either that, or the (considerably more remote possibility that) Greeks had some ridiculously long tribal memories of big cats in the Balkans going back to the Holocene. Supposedly my family's crest features three of 'em. (Or perhaps not - my surname is ridiculously common.)
I'm a little bummed that they got rid of the CoA designer between CK2 and CK3, but the options for the random CoA generator in the character design tool can actually turn out pretty cool. They did here. Believe it or not, I didn't even use the dice for this game.
SEVENTEEN
Seeds of Doubt
26 April 890
Bohodar Rychnovský returned to Olomouc in triumph from Prague. He had taken oaths of fealty from all of the Bohemian lords, both to himself and, more importantly, to Queen Bratromila. Bratromila had come in person to receive her new vassals, and they kissed her hand with all due reverence. Bohodar had thought she would be pleased at the addition of so many lands to her realm – and indeed, for much of the ceremony, she had been gracious and smiling. But there was something else on her mind, the hint of an unspoken sadness. And then Bohodar remembered: she had just recently married Chlothar of Charlemagne’s line at the insistence of her advisors… and he had not been there to object. Not that it wasn’t a politically advantageous match: the resulting alliance between Veľká Morava and Karling-ruled Italy would no doubt be a source of great strength and stability for the realm. But it was clearly not a match of love on her part, and probably not on his either. Neither of them spoke the other’s language particularly well, and what’s more, Chlothar had struck Bohodar as being a resentful and petty man – nowhere close to Bratromila’s equal in generosity or amicability.
It had been a pleasure, then, to undertake the happier duties of a godfather to the flower of the Bohemian nobility. Two of the young hrabata of the Czechs, Róbert of Žatec and Blahomíra of Časlav, had agreed readily to be baptised… and one of the older ones, Vitislav, had agreed to do so as well after a fair bit of arm-twisting. Bohodar had agreed to personally sponsor all three of them, and had brought with him a priest from the Moravian lands to do the honours. The three Czechs were marked with the fragrant holy chrism upon their heads, necks, wrists and ankles, and then immersed fully in the waters of the Vltava along one of its quieter bends. Bohodar was sincerely moved as he heard them recite the Symbol of Faith, and it brought a tear to his eye as he remembered the holy moment of his own baptism.
As he made his way back into his city and his fortification, though, he found waiting for him in the bailey a woman with long, stringy blond hair and a bit of a wild expression on her face.
‘Slava Ysusu Chrystu,’ she greeted him. That was not the standard Moravian ‘Servus’ he had expected, but he replied in her fashion nevertheless.
‘Slava na viki. I’m sorry, you are…?’
‘My name is Světoslava Koceľaková, daughter of one of the landholders in the White Croat lands,’ she replied, ‘but my name is not as important as my purpose. I have come from the mountains to the east, to offer you some of my wisdom… for a price.’
‘Intriguing,’ Bohodar answered. ‘And just what manner of wisdom do you offer?’
The woman spread wide her cloak, and reached into one of the pockets, pulling out several parts of dried and cured plants.
‘Gestinja,’ she introduced one. ‘This will be a familiar one to you, but I can show you how the leaves can be brewed into a tea to still coughs and reduce fevers. Krušína krechká: chewing the bark can free up your watery humours and loosen your bowels. Šikóvča: this one’s one of my most sought-after! Stills the hot humours. Good for your liver, and it helps ward off cancer. And those are just a few of the wares I’m willing to teach you about. I also have seeds and cuttings for you if you’d like to grow some yourself.’
It was indeed a tempting offer. Bohodar was a scholar, and the knowledge of plants was not one of his competencies as yet. But Bohodar could already see trouble looming with his new metropolitan if he began taking botany lessons from a woman like this – who may well have been an adept of the heathen arts of the žrica which were still very much common in those parts. Still… he didn’t want to put her out altogether. She had, after all, greeted him in the name of Christ, and she was asking his hospitality, which he knew he would rue refusing.
‘Tell me,’ Bohodar asked her, ‘do you have any plants that a woman might appreciate? Flowers?’
‘Ahh,’ Světoslava grinned. ‘Something for the wife, then, or a lady friend? Of course, milord, of course! And would this woman be perhaps a nemka?’
Bohodar inclined his head indulgently. ‘She would.’
‘In that case—‘ Světoslava produced with dramatic flair the yellowish-green stem of a flower, ending in a red-veined umbel with clusters of drooping bells of delicate pink on each terminus, ‘here’s something she’s not likely to have seen before. We call them zimoľubka. They are not commonly seen even around my home village; they’re quite picky about where they choose to put down roots… but highly sought-after, and, as you can see, quite lovely. I can show you the best places to put them, if you want to grow them for her.’
‘I think I may take you up on that,’ Bohodar replied.
~~~
Blažena was again fixed to the spot, standing beneath that scaffold in Salzburg, looking up into the frightened, haunted, hopeless face of the condemned man she had seen there five years ago. The sky was a dirty orange, as though lit by far-off, as-yet-unseen flames. The herald, dressed – so it seemed to her – entirely in black, but with the cap of a play-actor that made two great folds on either side of his head. He was reading the list of the man’s crimes, only again Blažena couldn’t make out the words.
Then the herald turned to her with an ugly leer. The next words he spoke were fully intelligible.
‘Well, little girl?’ he asked. ‘Would you do the honours?’
Blažena felt a sharp prod in the small of her back; the German guard behind her had prodded her with the butt of his polearm. She found herself forced to ascend the wooden planks to the scaffold. Somehow the sky seemed to turn brighter and more ominous at the same time, and the whole platform was lit in a dirty orange-yellow glow.
‘Now. Let the penalty commence.’
‘I won’t do it,’ Blažena said, her voice trembling.
Again that ugly leer. ‘And who do you think you are to refuse? Your father can’t save you. He’s gone away. There is nowhere to run or hide. Besides, you are guilty as well.’
And then she found a halter was being drawn around her own neck, and made tight. It hurt, badly. The herald’s face twisted into a sadistic smile at seeing her in pain.
‘Hm. You look much better that way,’ he sneered. ‘Now, for the crime of refusing to kill this thief, your punishment shall be the same as his. And your damnation will be eternal.’
Then the guard had thrown a sack over her head. The halter was drawn still tighter, strangling her, cutting into her neck. Again the pressure on the small of her back was brutal as she was forced forward onto the platform. And then the floor gave way underneath her, and she plummeted down, down—
—and woke up.
Blažena sat up with a start, breathing heavily. She was damp with the sweat of fear. It took her the space of several heartbeats for them to slow down, for her to realise that it hadn’t been real – even though it had felt that way. Blažena rubbed her neck where it met her shoulders. She hadn’t been imagining that part – her shoulders, neck and the muscles across her back ached badly. She massaged them with her palm for a little while. Maybe she’d been sleeping in a funny position, or maybe she’d been slouching too much again.
And the memory that her nightmare had revisited upon her – that too had been real. More times than she could count, that haunted, scrawny, bearded face swam up before her mind’s eye. She still remembered how he’d stumbled on the stairs up to the gallows. Had the last thing he’d ever felt been the pain of slow strangulation? Or, worse – had it been regret, terror, fear of the unknown beyond life? The fear of the law was writ across his face – had the fear of hell been there as well? Blažena found herself wondering about the poor man’s ultimate fate.
She kicked her legs down over the side of her bed and placed her feet on the floor. Could she talk to someone about this? She went over the possibilities.
Her father had returned from the Czech lands today, and Blažena knew better than to disturb him or her mother at all tonight. They would be… busy.
Radko, maybe? Or Hilda? Though the thought of talking with Hilda was tempting, Blažena discounted it as well. She could tell Radko didn’t like her spending too much time with her sister-in-law, though he wouldn’t say why. The two of them had had to take to meeting in semi-secret, often in town by prearrangement. But Hilda too had been a bit distant of late, and she hadn’t seen Bošiško in what seemed like weeks. Hilda was still nursing Bošiško’s baby brother Prokop, so little wonder there.
Her other siblings, perhaps? Blažena had always gotten along well with Vlasta, newlywed to her Avar groom and surprisingly docile about it, but doubted that she would understand. Vlasta was a simple soul, and not much given to asking deep questions. Krásnoroda would be little help too, sadly: little else occupied her attention but what she was going to buy in town with her next allowance. And Slavomíra…! Blažena shot a glare at the snoozing figure on the bed opposite hers. She wasn’t one to entertain grudges, but her youngest sister was a source of constant frustration to her. Blažena had never really wanted a younger sister, having always been the ‘cute’ one, her father’s darling. But lately Slavomíra had taken to holding forth stridently with her opinions, in a way that made Blažena bristle.
What she really wanted was to talk to Vieročka. Her eldest sister had always been a source of comfort; she had excellent taste, and was sweet and kind – even if she could be a bit flighty on occasion. But she was with Tihomír in far-off Niš visiting with Ujko Moisei, celebrating the christening of their third child.
Blažena stood up, lit her bedside candle and went out into the hallway. She didn’t turn down toward her parents’ room or her other siblings’, but went down into the main hall toward the kitchen. She checked in her step, though, when she saw in the main hall another candle was already lit, and a slender figure entering from the chapel. It was Hromislav, her father’s bishop – probably just come out from vigil. Blažena remembered that her father had always gone to Vojmil for advice and comfort when he was still alive. This man of the cloth should be no different – and maybe he had some of the answers she sought.
She went softly down the stairs, candle in hand. The last one, however, creaked loudly. The effect on Hromislav was remarkable: he leapt with a start and a shout of alarm, loudly scraping a nearby bench across the floor and very nearly overturning it. The sudden and frantic movement in turn startled Blažena, who let out a soft cry. That caused the cringing Hromislav to pause. The bishop, seeing that the source of his fear was only one of his lord’s dependents, and a female at that, calmed down – though the fact that she’d seen him take such fright irked him.
‘What are you doing out of bed at this hour, child?’ he demanded sourly of Blažena.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she replied truthfully. ‘I actually had some questions, maybe you could answer for me.’
‘This is really not—well—I…’ Hromislav fidgeted with his hands, considering. He too knew that Blažena was her father’s favourite, and he wasn’t about to get on her bad side. ‘Oh, alright, fine. One or two quick questions, then it’s back off to bed with you.’
Blažena was a little bit put-out by Hromislav’s condescending tone – she was thirteen, after all, and not a little child anymore. And what’s more, she was a noblewoman by right of birth, and a man of the cloth ought to treat her with that respect! At any rate, she asked:
‘So, the Church teaches that Saint Dismas went to heaven, correct?’
‘That is what the Church tells us, and therefore that is true. The thief repented of his sins upon the Cross before he died.’
‘So what happened to… you know, the other one? The one who didn’t repent?’
‘Gestas? He is in hell,’ Hromislav shrugged lightly.
Blažena shook her head. ‘How can that be fair?’
‘Gestas joined the crowd in mocking Jesus and telling him to save him if he was truly Christ. The punishment for his crimes, however, was just. And by rebelling against both the law of this world and the King of the next, he sealed his fate eternally.’
‘But,’ Blažena furrowed her brow, again seeing before her mind’s eye the tormented face of another thief who had not repented, ‘what if he had been starving? What if he had a family? What if he had no choice but to steal in order to save the ones he loved? What if he went to his death in terror of what would happen to them? What if he was simply a poor, frightened man who had done the only thing he could do, only to be crushed under the weight of an unjust law?’
Hromislav began to grow irritated. ‘There is no profit in “what ifs”, child. The Church teaches what it teaches. The law of man receives God’s blessing, and there is no bargaining with Him. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.’
Now, had Bishop Vojmil been alive, he might have been able to empathise with the poor girl’s fears, he would have been able to discern that it was not in fact the impenitent thief but some other man who concerned her, and he would have calmly assured her of what the Orthodox Church in fact does teach. We simply do not know the fate of any person upon his death, and at any rate it is not up to us lowly mortals to decide. And the Judge we must appeal to is not a vengeful hater, but a lover of mankind. He might have reminded her of the saying of Christ that the Heavenly Father does not give stones to his children when they are hungry but bread, and does not give adders to his children but fish. Or the parables of Christ in which those who ask mercy are given it, in which it is the lost silver coin that preoccupies the woman, or the lost lamb which preoccupies the shepherd.
But it was Blažena’s ill luck that she had come across this particular bishop. Hromislav belonged to a type sadly not uncommon in the medieval Orthodox Church, which was as often as not merely a bureaucratic appendage of the whims of the Emperor in the East. Merely a chaplain to a doux, a craven and servile petty clerk, Hromislav saw himself not as a shepherd of souls but as a servant to the legitimacy of the rightful earthly ruler.
Upon hearing this answer, Blažena straightened her back and stiffened her sore shoulders as her face blanched with anger. The thought of the thief she’d seen hanged in Salzburg, suffering eternally for his one moment of perfectly understandable hesitation and fear, not only saddened and frightened her. Now it repulsed her. It was hideous to think of. For the first time in her life, she felt a surge of raw anger and resentment against God, that He would create a man only to condemn him to a life of suffering, to demand of him meek and slavish obedience to his lot, and at the end if he failed to do so to send him into a torment endless in scope and duration, without any chance of reprieve or deliverance.
‘Thank you,’ Blažena told the cleric icily. ‘You’ve been a great help.’
And then she turned on her heel, not waiting for Hromislav to reply, and marched straight back up the stairs.
To make matters even worse, when she got back to her room, she found Slavomíra already awake and alert, sitting up in the bed. As Blažena put the candle on her table, her younger sister reproached her:
‘You shouldn’t even be asking such questions, Blažka. It’s not right for layfolk, let alone those of us of the weaker sex, to doubt the teachings of the Holy Church.’
Blažena was in no mood to humour her sister. ‘Amazing. All those sins the Church preaches to us to avoid – and eavesdropping isn’t among them?’
Blažena could feel Slavomíra bristle behind her at the rebuke, but she didn’t care.
‘I’m sorry, sister. I’m only concerned for your soul.’
‘You’d best keep your own arse clean, then, and leave me well alone,’ Blažena snapped. She stalked back to her bed and lay down on it, deliberately turning her back on Slavomíra and wrapping herself in her sheet. She did not go back to sleep for a long time after that: resentful of the world’s injustice, and outraged by the indifference of even the court of Heaven to the plight of the lowly, vulnerable, fallible and merely-human.
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As promised over in the award thread, I'm dropping by to say this all looks fantastic and I'm really looking forward to catching up. Glad to see you back writing for CK, Revan!
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Chapter Eighteen
Thank you, @DensleyBlair! Great to have you onboard for this one as well! (It has been quite a while since Day of the Doves, hasn't it?)
EIGHTEEN
Two Women’s Honour
14 November 892
The air bit, and the grass beneath the feet of men and hooves of horses crunched with the brittle chill of that November day. Truth be told, Viera enjoyed this weather – the sort of weather that got her blood going and made the blood run to her cheeks – even if it meant that she had to pull her good wool cloak the tighter around her as she rode. She strained her eyes into the clearing ahead of them, and caught sight of their destination: an immense, anvil-shaped boulder of dark sandstone, which had long served as a landmark in southern Moravia and a meeting-place for the royal retainer. It was called Kráľov Stôl – ‘the King’s Table’. Today this massive stone sits north of Uherské Hradišté in southern Czechia, near the village of Jankovice.
At her side were her father, Bohodar; her brother, Radomír; her husband, Tihomír; as well as her father’s marshal and several of his zbrojnošov. They arrayed themselves at rapt attention, standing at ease only when Bohodar gave them the signal. Bohodar himself was clad in mail and helm, with his spear and sword and shield all on him, prepared for battle. It was so when Queen Bratromila came forth into the clearing to greet her vassal from the other side of the stone. Bohodar knelt loyally before her.
‘What brings you here to the south, Bohodar?’ asked the queen, her eyes guarded and cautious. ‘Do you not have your own business to attend to in Olomouc?’
‘None quite as urgent as yours, milady,’ Bohodar answered her meekly. ‘And that business is now also mine. The uprising among the Czechs in the north should not have happened in the first place. It is my oversight that led to this violence, and it is therefore also my responsibility to see it come to an end. As such, I place myself and my entire retinue at your Majesty’s disposal, Queen Bratromila. The more so since you are now a new mother and should not trouble yourself with these warlike affairs.’
It was by chance that Viera happened to look up from her bow. She saw Bratromila’s eyes soften and warm into an expression of genuine gratitude… but she kept her mouth covered all the time, as though she was suffering from a toothache.
‘You see that, Mstislav?’ Bratromila remarked to the dark-bearded man standing beside her. ‘I tell you, I won’t find two such among my landed nobility. Rychnovský speaks like a proper man and a true Moravian. Do you indeed plan to march alongside me to the north? Can you speak as well for your men? For there are now more than a few Bohemians among them, as I can see.’
‘All of them are loyal, your Majesty. To yourself first, and to me second.’
Bratromila nodded. ‘That is good enough for me. You may rise, Bohodar. I will gladly accept your arms. Though we may incline to different rites, you and I, we are both still Christians and know there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’
Viera again happened to glance up. Bratromila let her hand slip away from her face for a brief second – a short time, but long enough for Viera to catch sight of an angry red ulcer on her lower lip. Again that glance she cast at Mstislav, a long and lingering glance… and beneath Mstislav’s beard Viera could see the same marks. She bowed again, deeply, to hide the struggle she made to master her face and mask her surprise. Bratromila—a new mother—and her armiger Mstislav Pohanský, with this same affliction of the mouth? Did that mean what she thought it meant?
Viera’s mind, as usual, leapt boldly to conclusions. But she wasn’t so unkind as to drop an accusation like the one which leapt to her mind without making doubly sure. A couple of discreet questions, perhaps, to a couple of her ladies-in-waiting would be called for her father broke camp and marched north.
Bohodar peered down through his quartz reading-crystal again – a replacement which Hromislav had gone to considerable expense to acquire for him – perusing the details of the proposal in Greek that had been sent to him by the Archbishop-Emeritus Photios.
Photios had been formally laïcised, and had accepted that laïcisation with a degree of grace which few seemed to think him capable. He had even taken a young wife in his old age, of the Aplakes family, and taken the silver road of holiness in starting and raising a family with her. But Bohodar always preferred to think of him as the Archbishop, even when making to him a proposal like this one. Seldom had he ever met a scholar of such depth and perspicacity as Photios, or a man of greater insight into the realm of the heart. Bohodar wondered – if he had been allowed to maintain his see as the Patriarch of Constantinople, might things have turned out differently? Even in his retired life, Photios was of such a tranquil and unflappable temper, wrote with such ease and breadth of knowledge, and attended with such patience and love to those close to him, that Bohodar could easily imagine him becoming a saint.
(As, indeed, in another frame of time and space, he did. Saint Photios the Great has been formally commemorated in the Eastern Orthodox Church since 1847, with a feast-day on the sixth of February.)
Bohodar continued to read from the letter.
… I would with great joy and love welcome your daughter into my family as a bride for my son Philotheos, and I will be sure to acquaint Doux Ioannes with the great honour that she represents. I am sure he will pose no objections once he has been made properly aware of your zealous and energetic efforts in spreading the true faith of Christ among the barbarians. I must here beg your pardon for the state of my penmanship. My sight in my left eye is not what it used to be, though I thank God daily that I am still allowed to suffer for His sake, and purify myself in His sight in the smaller ways that are left to me. We each bear our crosses, large and small…
Bohodar chuckled to himself as he read. Photios certainly wasn’t lacking for talk, and his opinion of himself even in a letter like this was evident. But he still thought it a good match for Slavomíra, a girl whose zeal for all things churchly burned bright, and also a girl for whom good company and stimulating conversation were as water to a fish. (She took after her mother that way.)
At this point in his reverie he was interrupted by the rustling of the flap of his tent, and the ‘psssst’ of someone who wanted to make a quiet entrance.
Bohodar stood quickly, causing the flame of the candle on the board by which he was reading to tremble. Who could be coming to speak with him in his tent at this time of night? He went to the flap and lifted it, finding himself face-to-face with his eldest daughter, Viera.
‘Father,’ she told him, ‘I have some news for you. It won’t be good hearing, but you need to hear it.’
‘Come in, Vieročka,’ Bohodar stood aside from the door to let her pass inside. Viera pulled out a chair and sat in it, opposite Bohodar’s table. ‘What is it you needed to tell me, that couldn’t wait until morning?’
‘It’s not that,’ Viera said hurriedly. ‘It’s just, like I said, not good hearing. And if the wrong person gets wind of it, you understand…’
Bohodar nodded. ‘Go on.’
‘You remember earlier today,’ Viera spoke, ‘when you came to offer Queen Bratromila your whole retainer against the uprising? Did you see how she kept covering her mouth as though she were in pain?’
‘I did.’
‘And did you notice the red ulcer on her lip, that she was trying to hide?’
Bohodar shook his head. ‘But—I trust you that it was there. What is your point?’
Viera took a deep breath, and then continued sotto voce. ‘I… also talked to a couple of her attendants and lady-courtiers. One of them let slip that Mstislav Pohanský has the same affliction of the mouth. Also, I discovered from them that forty weeks prior to her son’s birth, Chlothar Karling was nowhere near Velehrad. He was visiting with his father in Padua. Pohanský was in the court the whole time, and spending a great deal of time together with the Queen behind closed doors. I know I won’t be the only one to put two and two together.’
Bohodar let out a long, slow sigh of mingled sympathy and disgust. ‘You have both witness and proof of all this, Viera. I know you wouldn’t come to me with this if you didn’t.’
‘I have, ocko.’
‘And you haven’t disclosed it to anyone else.’
‘No,’ Viera owned. ‘And I wouldn’t.’
Bohodar banged his fist on the board and cursed. ‘A vysypala si maslo na hlavu! What was that girl thinking?’
‘I’m not entirely sure she was thinking.’ Disinterestedly generous was this speculation from Bohodar’s eldest daughter, so far beyond whose scope was any such falsehood or disloyalty. ‘It’s not exactly a secret that there’s no love lost between Bratromila and her husband. I can imagine she was looking for some kind of escape, or release, which she thought she found in Mstislav’s arms. Only she got caught in another mire: one far harder to escape from.’
Bohodar felt a sudden pang in his heart – a stab directly at his own conscience. Here was his daughter, confronting him with the proofs of Queen Bratromila’s adultery. And he had allowed it to happen. Bohodar could have stayed at court, rather than go gallivanting off to christen the Czechs. He could have tempered the queen’s despair with his presence, given her sound advice, warned her away from this madness. But instead, this had happened: this irrevocable stain on her honour, her character, her family name. He held his head in his hands. It took him a long while to remind himself that Bratromila was a grown woman now, and that it was arrogant presumption for him to take her sins upon himself.
‘Very well, Viera. You did the right thing to come to me with this, and to me alone. This had best stay between the two of us only for now. There’s little else for me to do, but to keep fighting for her, and stay true to my own oaths.’
‘I understand, ocko,’ said Viera.
EIGHTEEN
Two Women’s Honour
14 November 892
The air bit, and the grass beneath the feet of men and hooves of horses crunched with the brittle chill of that November day. Truth be told, Viera enjoyed this weather – the sort of weather that got her blood going and made the blood run to her cheeks – even if it meant that she had to pull her good wool cloak the tighter around her as she rode. She strained her eyes into the clearing ahead of them, and caught sight of their destination: an immense, anvil-shaped boulder of dark sandstone, which had long served as a landmark in southern Moravia and a meeting-place for the royal retainer. It was called Kráľov Stôl – ‘the King’s Table’. Today this massive stone sits north of Uherské Hradišté in southern Czechia, near the village of Jankovice.
At her side were her father, Bohodar; her brother, Radomír; her husband, Tihomír; as well as her father’s marshal and several of his zbrojnošov. They arrayed themselves at rapt attention, standing at ease only when Bohodar gave them the signal. Bohodar himself was clad in mail and helm, with his spear and sword and shield all on him, prepared for battle. It was so when Queen Bratromila came forth into the clearing to greet her vassal from the other side of the stone. Bohodar knelt loyally before her.
‘What brings you here to the south, Bohodar?’ asked the queen, her eyes guarded and cautious. ‘Do you not have your own business to attend to in Olomouc?’
‘None quite as urgent as yours, milady,’ Bohodar answered her meekly. ‘And that business is now also mine. The uprising among the Czechs in the north should not have happened in the first place. It is my oversight that led to this violence, and it is therefore also my responsibility to see it come to an end. As such, I place myself and my entire retinue at your Majesty’s disposal, Queen Bratromila. The more so since you are now a new mother and should not trouble yourself with these warlike affairs.’
It was by chance that Viera happened to look up from her bow. She saw Bratromila’s eyes soften and warm into an expression of genuine gratitude… but she kept her mouth covered all the time, as though she was suffering from a toothache.
‘You see that, Mstislav?’ Bratromila remarked to the dark-bearded man standing beside her. ‘I tell you, I won’t find two such among my landed nobility. Rychnovský speaks like a proper man and a true Moravian. Do you indeed plan to march alongside me to the north? Can you speak as well for your men? For there are now more than a few Bohemians among them, as I can see.’
‘All of them are loyal, your Majesty. To yourself first, and to me second.’
Bratromila nodded. ‘That is good enough for me. You may rise, Bohodar. I will gladly accept your arms. Though we may incline to different rites, you and I, we are both still Christians and know there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’
Viera again happened to glance up. Bratromila let her hand slip away from her face for a brief second – a short time, but long enough for Viera to catch sight of an angry red ulcer on her lower lip. Again that glance she cast at Mstislav, a long and lingering glance… and beneath Mstislav’s beard Viera could see the same marks. She bowed again, deeply, to hide the struggle she made to master her face and mask her surprise. Bratromila—a new mother—and her armiger Mstislav Pohanský, with this same affliction of the mouth? Did that mean what she thought it meant?
Viera’s mind, as usual, leapt boldly to conclusions. But she wasn’t so unkind as to drop an accusation like the one which leapt to her mind without making doubly sure. A couple of discreet questions, perhaps, to a couple of her ladies-in-waiting would be called for her father broke camp and marched north.
~~~
Bohodar peered down through his quartz reading-crystal again – a replacement which Hromislav had gone to considerable expense to acquire for him – perusing the details of the proposal in Greek that had been sent to him by the Archbishop-Emeritus Photios.
Photios had been formally laïcised, and had accepted that laïcisation with a degree of grace which few seemed to think him capable. He had even taken a young wife in his old age, of the Aplakes family, and taken the silver road of holiness in starting and raising a family with her. But Bohodar always preferred to think of him as the Archbishop, even when making to him a proposal like this one. Seldom had he ever met a scholar of such depth and perspicacity as Photios, or a man of greater insight into the realm of the heart. Bohodar wondered – if he had been allowed to maintain his see as the Patriarch of Constantinople, might things have turned out differently? Even in his retired life, Photios was of such a tranquil and unflappable temper, wrote with such ease and breadth of knowledge, and attended with such patience and love to those close to him, that Bohodar could easily imagine him becoming a saint.
(As, indeed, in another frame of time and space, he did. Saint Photios the Great has been formally commemorated in the Eastern Orthodox Church since 1847, with a feast-day on the sixth of February.)
Bohodar continued to read from the letter.
… I would with great joy and love welcome your daughter into my family as a bride for my son Philotheos, and I will be sure to acquaint Doux Ioannes with the great honour that she represents. I am sure he will pose no objections once he has been made properly aware of your zealous and energetic efforts in spreading the true faith of Christ among the barbarians. I must here beg your pardon for the state of my penmanship. My sight in my left eye is not what it used to be, though I thank God daily that I am still allowed to suffer for His sake, and purify myself in His sight in the smaller ways that are left to me. We each bear our crosses, large and small…
Bohodar chuckled to himself as he read. Photios certainly wasn’t lacking for talk, and his opinion of himself even in a letter like this was evident. But he still thought it a good match for Slavomíra, a girl whose zeal for all things churchly burned bright, and also a girl for whom good company and stimulating conversation were as water to a fish. (She took after her mother that way.)
At this point in his reverie he was interrupted by the rustling of the flap of his tent, and the ‘psssst’ of someone who wanted to make a quiet entrance.
Bohodar stood quickly, causing the flame of the candle on the board by which he was reading to tremble. Who could be coming to speak with him in his tent at this time of night? He went to the flap and lifted it, finding himself face-to-face with his eldest daughter, Viera.
‘Father,’ she told him, ‘I have some news for you. It won’t be good hearing, but you need to hear it.’
‘Come in, Vieročka,’ Bohodar stood aside from the door to let her pass inside. Viera pulled out a chair and sat in it, opposite Bohodar’s table. ‘What is it you needed to tell me, that couldn’t wait until morning?’
‘It’s not that,’ Viera said hurriedly. ‘It’s just, like I said, not good hearing. And if the wrong person gets wind of it, you understand…’
Bohodar nodded. ‘Go on.’
‘You remember earlier today,’ Viera spoke, ‘when you came to offer Queen Bratromila your whole retainer against the uprising? Did you see how she kept covering her mouth as though she were in pain?’
‘I did.’
‘And did you notice the red ulcer on her lip, that she was trying to hide?’
Bohodar shook his head. ‘But—I trust you that it was there. What is your point?’
Viera took a deep breath, and then continued sotto voce. ‘I… also talked to a couple of her attendants and lady-courtiers. One of them let slip that Mstislav Pohanský has the same affliction of the mouth. Also, I discovered from them that forty weeks prior to her son’s birth, Chlothar Karling was nowhere near Velehrad. He was visiting with his father in Padua. Pohanský was in the court the whole time, and spending a great deal of time together with the Queen behind closed doors. I know I won’t be the only one to put two and two together.’
Bohodar let out a long, slow sigh of mingled sympathy and disgust. ‘You have both witness and proof of all this, Viera. I know you wouldn’t come to me with this if you didn’t.’
‘I have, ocko.’
‘And you haven’t disclosed it to anyone else.’
‘No,’ Viera owned. ‘And I wouldn’t.’
Bohodar banged his fist on the board and cursed. ‘A vysypala si maslo na hlavu! What was that girl thinking?’
‘I’m not entirely sure she was thinking.’ Disinterestedly generous was this speculation from Bohodar’s eldest daughter, so far beyond whose scope was any such falsehood or disloyalty. ‘It’s not exactly a secret that there’s no love lost between Bratromila and her husband. I can imagine she was looking for some kind of escape, or release, which she thought she found in Mstislav’s arms. Only she got caught in another mire: one far harder to escape from.’
Bohodar felt a sudden pang in his heart – a stab directly at his own conscience. Here was his daughter, confronting him with the proofs of Queen Bratromila’s adultery. And he had allowed it to happen. Bohodar could have stayed at court, rather than go gallivanting off to christen the Czechs. He could have tempered the queen’s despair with his presence, given her sound advice, warned her away from this madness. But instead, this had happened: this irrevocable stain on her honour, her character, her family name. He held his head in his hands. It took him a long while to remind himself that Bratromila was a grown woman now, and that it was arrogant presumption for him to take her sins upon himself.
‘Very well, Viera. You did the right thing to come to me with this, and to me alone. This had best stay between the two of us only for now. There’s little else for me to do, but to keep fighting for her, and stay true to my own oaths.’
‘I understand, ocko,’ said Viera.
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Incredible details, can only express own envy for such; kudos. Knowing only coriander as a herb to fight off fever, but have to check more dictionaries to cast light on these words of mysteries.
Pheww. The nightmare ends, but the questions remain.
And questions to never satisfy with few, but to look for answers, yet to find more questions. Good. Good.
By the way, is that Viera, or Bratromila?
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Once again, @filcat, incredible eye for detail in reading! Yes, that should be Bratromila, not Viera. I fixed that above and in my local copy. Good catch!
I also need to update that glossary at the beginning of the thread at some point along, otherwise I'll forget about those botanical details myself! Gestinja is the local Carpatho-Rusin name for the common Eurasian chestnut. Krušína krechká is a shrub called 'alder buckthorn' in English. Šikóvča is Scotch thistle. And zimoľubka is a regionally-endangered herb called 'umbellate wintergreen' in English. In the traditional medicinal lore these plants have the uses that Svetoslava ascribes to them.
I also need to update that glossary at the beginning of the thread at some point along, otherwise I'll forget about those botanical details myself! Gestinja is the local Carpatho-Rusin name for the common Eurasian chestnut. Krušína krechká is a shrub called 'alder buckthorn' in English. Šikóvča is Scotch thistle. And zimoľubka is a regionally-endangered herb called 'umbellate wintergreen' in English. In the traditional medicinal lore these plants have the uses that Svetoslava ascribes to them.
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Chapter Nineteen
NINETEEN
Hydra
9 December 892 – 6 May 893
Hydra
9 December 892 – 6 May 893
Around a dozen campfires set at regular intervals among the winter trees, creating soggy patches of wet turf amidst the snow, huddled eight hundred able-bodied Czech men. Most of them came from the area around Hradec, though there were those from every corner of the Czech lands here now.
Nadej of Pšov looked them over. He knew that within the next few hours, the same armies which had conquered the Czech lands and turned them into a subject nation under the rule of a woman – not just any woman, but an apostate woman, a woman who had forsaken her ancestral belief – would meet them in battle. Among their opponents would be Bohodar of Moravia, also a follower of the crucified god. And then there would be also those who had but recently held to the ways of their fathers, including Vladimír of the hearth of Přemysl. His men needed to be prepared. Drawing his brows together and drawing in a deep breath, he stepped forward to address them.
‘Hear me!’
Most of the heads huddled around their fires turned to face him.
‘Hear me, Czechs!’ Nadej spoke to them sensibly, without preamble or pretense. ‘The enemy marches upon us. The forces of the wicked woman in Velehrad, who seek to sever us from our fathers, from our sacred land, from the imminent truth of Rod – they are even now descending upon Hradec.’
The Czechs muttered among themselves, and Nadej held up his hand for silence.
‘Understand, here and now, what it is we are fighting for. These followers of Christ, who bow before their icons of their “Mother of God”, would also have men bow before a woman as their queen. Not caring for the land, they would fell our sacred groves, and turn them into farmland. These worshippers of a dead god, who say that he is alive, would have us forsake other truths as well. They would have Slavs marrying nemci, marrying sasi, marrying yellow obrí, weakening and watering down our blood with half-Slavic mongrels not knowing to which land and which kin and which troth they belong.’
There was a rippling murmur of agreement in consternation.
‘Understand also, that in this fight – hard and hateful though it may be – you will have to fight brothers. Fathers. Friends. Men you once believed. Men you once trusted. Such is the way of these believers in untruth – such is the confusion they sow. In the battle before us, you must not hesitate to cut down even your friends or your kin, if they raise a blade against you. Remember this, before everything else: that you are fighting not only for yourselves, but for your sacred land, for the sacred heritage, and for the sacred truth of Rod in his many faces.’
Nadej again received a murmur of agreement. Hands gripped tighter around the hafts of spears and axes. Grim though it was, this was the sacrifice that needed to be made.
‘This is a fight for more than our very lives. This is a fight for the future of the Slavic rod, indeed for the very source and principle of life itself. Every man of you, remember the sacrifices you must make, and the eternal wellspring that you guard.’
By the end of his speech, there was not a single man in that throng of Czech rodnoveri who was not prepared to slay even of his own brother or father or son if he should come across him in battle. Nadej looked upon them with satisfaction. He knew that the battle before them was very near to a hopeless one. But he was also certain in the depths of his burning heart that it was needful and right. The more of his men were convinced of the same, the better.
~~~
‘Is something bothering you, my brother?’
In surprise, Radomír looked across at his strong, silent Serbian brother-in-law. It was rare indeed to hear the wiry, angular, dark-haired South Slav with his deep, but meek and quiet, roust speak up without having been spoken to first. The look of sweet, genuine compassion and fellow-feeling written across his face was much less surprising, even reassuring. Though Radomír understood all too well that he must look like hell itself, if his worry was so apparent that it had moved Tihomír to speak of his own will! Radomír shook his head and gave a gesture of reassurance.
‘I’ll be fine, Tihomír, really. I’m just thinking of my wife and son.’ It was still a matter of some shame, precisely why his wife and little Bošiško so preoccupied him, and so he didn’t elaborate further. Sidling closer on his mount, Tihomír lay his hand tenderly on Radomír’s shoulder.
‘I miss Viera, too. Don’t worry. They will be well.’
Ten simple words, but in them or between them Tihomír somehow managed to convey an entire world of feeling. No one would ever accuse Tihomír of being particularly demonstrative, let alone lusty, but Radomír wondered if he would ever love or understand or care for his wife with the same total and unreserved depth with which the Serb clearly loved and cherished Viera. For that matter, Radomír was a bit awed: he couldn’t ever remember having heard Tihomír ever speak this many words together at once. Radomír recalled – now with a twinge of guilt – a time when he had mistrusted this man at his side, now reassuring him with all the warmth and confidence of a brother of the blood.
Radomír nodded, and watched as Tihomír rode up ahead to join Bohodar. In truth it wasn’t only for Hilda and Blažena and Bohodar the Younger that he worried, much as that particular incestuous intrigue gnawed at his heart. There was another vague worry at the corner of his mind. Viera hadn’t spoken to him before she’d left for Niš, but she had had one interview with Father before then, and clearly whatever she said to him had upset and troubled him deeply.
They passed under black-boughed winter trees, as well as the crisp-scented fir and spruce, and skirted around frozen lakes and over rock-hard solid streams. Riding at Bohodar’s side was the fair-haired young Hrabě of Praha, his one-time enemy Vladimír Přemyslovec. Having just recently come of age, the young man had not yet been dipped in the laver of regeneration. But even in his heathenry, he still held to the oath he had sworn in a fair defeat. Radomír had only spoken with young Vladimír once or twice, but he had already formed a favourable impression of the earnest, clear-eyed, hardworking youth. The Czechs had been blessed to have such a lord, and Bohodar was blessed to have such a vassal.
‘Hold here, milord,’ Vladimír’s voice sailed and then cracked as he held up one gauntleted hand. ‘We are coming up on Bolehošť. The road narrows to single file after we clear the hamlet – it’s the perfect spot for an ambush. If I were Nadej, that is where I would make ready.’
‘How would you suggest we proceed?’ asked Bohodar of Vladimír.
‘I will lead a small band of zbrojnošov on the low side of the road, while you, milord, make your way forward at some distance behind. If we can draw their ambushers into the open, you’ll have a fair shot to take the field with the skirmishers.’
Bohodar nodded. ‘It’s a good plan, but far too risky for you. Let my marshal go instead; he has more experience.’
Vladimír protested at once, and again his voice flew into the high tenor range – a boy still eager to prove his manhood and his honour. ‘Milord, I am not a child! I am fit and strong and cunning – so have my tutors said! – and I am ready to prove my worth to you in battle, even if it is against my own kindred and troth. I beg to be allowed to lead the zbrojnošov.’
Bohodar looked behind him to Radomír, who shrugged affirmatively – as if to say, ‘give the boy a chance’. Bohodar nodded.
‘Very well. Vladimír, you take point as planned on the low side of the road; Radomír, Tihomír, you will each lead a band of skirmishers to the bottleneck – Radko to my rear and Tihomír on the high side. Be wary of clothesline traps, pit traps and caltrops especially. I will lead a second band of zbrojnošov along the main road.’
They made ready, dividing their force of fourteen hundred men into four as ordered, with Vladimír leading the foremost and most-exposed force into the thick of danger. Vladimír kept his eyes and ears alert as they struck out into the forest beyond Bolehošť. They passed under the main road where it narrowed, and the broader side came into view ahead of them. Perhaps Nadej had not laid his trap here after all! Vladimír let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding, and broke into a grin.
Too soon. There was a whistling rush of air, followed by a sickening thud. One zbrojnoš crumpled to earth at Vladimír’s side, the long shaft of an arrow with its feathers protruding from the exposed area of his neck. He was dead before he hit the ground.
‘Vytáhni své zbraně!’ ordered Vladimír. ‘Zvednout štíty!’
Several more arrows whizzed through the trees and landed with sharp thunks into the shields that were hastily lifted by the zbrojnošov. Some of the ones with bows took cover and sent their own arrows back up toward the road whence the ambush had come. And then came the war-cry of the Czechs under Nadej as they pounded down the slope onto the bottleneck.
The impact was sudden and the blow unexpected. Almost before he knew what had happened, one of the rodnoveri had gotten in past his guard and sent a killing blow with his spear into his gut beneath his ribcage. Vladimír’s vision swam and darkened. The head of his assailant went flying as one of the zbrojnošov lopped it off… too late. Vladimír sank to his knees, trying to draw breath and finding only raw fluid there, fiery with unbearable pain. Vladimir saw his own blood spatter the rim of his shield as it came up in a cough from his mouth. Above him he heard Bohodar’s cry of ‘Help! Help for Vladimír!’ on the main road. The ambushers were already being put to flight, caught in a pincer between Tihomír’s skirmishers and Bohodar’s zbrojnošov. But Vladimír knew by then that there was little else they could do for him. He stayed on his knees several moments longer, and then toppled to his side.
It was Radomír who came to his side. ‘Vladimír! Vladimír! You’re hurt!’
‘I’m hurt,’ Vladimír choked from where he lay. ‘Radomír—it hurts—hurts so bad!’
‘Stay with me, Vladimír,’ Radomír gripped his hand. ‘Stay with me!’
‘I—I’m dying,’ Vladimír gurgled. ‘Mother! Mother, anyone, help me! Lord Christ, help me!’
And then he lay still.
Radomír hung his head, crossed himself and lifted up a prayer to Heaven, then closed the young boy’s eyes and arranged him with some greater degree of dignity. Heathen though he may have been, with his final breath he had called upon the name of the Lord – that must count for something. Then Bohodar came up to where his son was kneeling in sombre reflection, and he too fell on his knees and laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. He did not say a single word, but simply kept his son company there in silent vigil for the fallen youth.
Soon the word went up that reinforcements were on their way north from Velehrad. Nadej must have gotten the same intelligence, for his forces turned suddenly and bolted for the broad near side of the main road leading east—the same way Bohodar and his men had come. As soon as they had collected their dead and prepared them decently for burial, the armies of Moravia doubled back and marched after the retreating rodnoveri.
They hadn’t gone three days before they were intercepted by a messenger on horseback.
‘What news?’ asked Bohodar.
‘I shall leave that for you to decide,’ replied the messenger. ‘The first, is that your son-in-law Horislav Divinský sends greetings in Christ’s name, as does your daughter Krásnoroda, and they ask your help to overturn the unjust succession of the knieža of Nitra.’
Bohodar stifled a grimace. Here he was every bit as honour-bound as he was now to Bratromila. He had hoped to influence that family for the better by marrying his daughter to one of Mojmír’s better-behaved vassals, but even in death Mojmír had to go and make this trouble for him. ‘You said the first,’ he replied to the messenger. ‘Is there other news?’
‘There is, I fear,’ he went on. ‘The men of Lower Sliezsko have crossed the border, and at their head is their chieftain Gardomír. He swears he will not rest until all of Sliezsko lies in his grasp.’
Bohodar gave a cry of exasperation, not even bothering to hide it this time. ‘What hydra-headed beast have I struck in my blindness?! And will there be no end of it? Here too I must fight for Bratromila’s honour, and yet where will it stop?’
The messenger bowed and made his exit. ‘If that is all, my knieža…’
There was no help for it. Bohodar had joined one war, and now found himself faced with three.
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Chapter Twenty
TWENTY
Dying Too Fast
3 April 894
Dying Too Fast
3 April 894
Tihomír came across the camp to where Tüzniq was sitting, and gave him a clout on the shoulder. Turning, Tüzniq found himself facing the saturnine Serb, who had an unsearchable look on his brows that nonetheless portended news. Tihomír broke into a broad grin and held up the tri prsta of his right hand in salute to the Avar: the Orthodox sign of blessing. A baptism!
‘Truly?’ asked the Avar. He gave a bark of a laugh and embraced Tihomír happily about the shoulders. Tihomír patted the laughing Avar on the back in answer, and Tüzniq’s bearded face beamed as he continued to hug him. ‘Boy or girl?’
Tihomír raised his pinkie finger, and the corners of his mouth turned upwards.
‘A boy,’ Tüzniq glowed. ‘I’m a father – of a boy! God be praised! What has my Vlastçık named him?’
‘Miroslav,’ Tihomír answered simply, before returning to his own spot by another campfire.
Tüzniq turned to his other brother-in-law, his wispy black brows arching quizzically.
Radomír told the Avar: ‘It’s a fine name. It means “peace and glory”.’
Tüzniq shook his head, taking a skewered piece of meat from the fire and tearing into it with gusto. ‘It is a warrior’s blessing to fight for those he loves, but still it is a heavy thing to be away from my son and my little red-headed woman. My son…! May his name be portentous, and may we bring both glory and peace back with us when we return!’
Radomír grinned, picking his teeth with his own empty skewer. That Tihomír and Viera paired well was not a surprise to him. Both of them being so open-handed and fair-minded, it actually mattered not too much that Tihomír was more of a looker and Viera a leaper. But that Vlasta had not only gotten over her dread of her strange and fierce-looking Asiatic husband, but even grown so close and affectionate with him—that had been something of a surprise. A welcome one, to be sure! Radomír had fought alongside Tüzniq long enough now to value the doughty strength of his wiry build, and was proud to call him a brother. Still, Radomír reflected ruefully that among his older siblings, he was the only one who didn’t really quite see eye-to-eye with his spouse.
Soon Radomír’s father came over to him. Bohodar sat down at the campfire and grabbed another skewer of meat that was roasting there.
‘Well, Radko,’ he told his son, ‘now we have Svatoboj Braslavec in tow, thanks in no small part to you.’
‘A minor annoyance,’ waved Radomír modestly. ‘But who would have thought a peasant from our lands would up and join Nadej’s rebellion?’
Bohodar shook his head ruefully. ‘It’s a trying time,’ he said. There seemed to be something on his mind other than revolting peasants as he said it, something further off. ‘When vassals disrespect their queen, and the queen despises her husband, can men like Nadej or Svatoboj really be blamed for wanting to return to the old ways? Christ is risen from the dead, but when Christians don’t act like He is, who can blame the rodnoveri for mistrusting us?’
‘I’m a bit more worried about Gardomír now,’ Radomír told his father. ‘The Silesians have been joined by the men of Lužice. And I hear that he’s even made an alliance with the severané who raid and plunder the coasts. We’ll have a long fight ahead of us.’
They were camped by Osoblaha, some ways northwest of Opava. It was a well-supported position, with a good source of fresh water and ready supply lines south. The only problem was that it was a little exposed. Horní Hlohov, a fastness under the Silesians’ control, lay only a short ways to the northeast, and there was little tree cover even in the valley at their height.
The alarm went up suddenly, a loud clang of an iron pot on the edge of the camp. At once the Moravians rose to their feet and took up their arms. Bohodar too was on his way toward the edge of the camp whence the alarm came, and heard the one who had called it.
‘Lužice is here! Lužice is upon us!’
‘How many?’
‘Four thousand in all!’
‘Form up a shield-wall,’ Bohodar ordered. ‘Give the bulk of our troops a chance to withdraw! Radomír…’
Radko nodded to his father, and began organising the troops to pull back. Tihomír and Tüzniq stood ready along the bank of the Osoblaha with their shields up. They did not have long before the white and red vanes of the Silesians showed themselves, and they awaited the first flights of arrows from downstream. They did not have long to wait. The thuds and splinters of the arrows as they struck wood resounded off the water.
Radomír had already formed up the mass of the levies to withdraw. The campfires were hastily smothered and all materiel stored safely, and the men were shaped up and ready to retreat. But too late, Radomír realised that they were already in the trap.
From the high hills on either side, towering figures in furs with blond beards, bearing great-axes and round helms, came into view. Seeing their quarry beneath them, they let out an earsplitting yell, and descended upon them in a frenzy, their axes and spears above their heads, heedless of arrow or spear-point from their foes. Radomír gave the orders for another defensive line, but it was too late – the severané were already upon them. Hopelessly, Bohodar’s son watched as his front line went down beneath the raging fury of the Northmen.
It was then that Bohodar, a sudden lurch taking him in the pit of his stomach, had the ill fortune to look back behind him. It was a moment he would never forget – a moment that would haunt his worst nightmares for the rest of his life. As though time itself stood still, he saw the great-axe of the mighty berserker suspended in the air over his son, whose shield had split and rolled to the side. And then the descent. The steel clove into his son’s neck with a sickening, irresistible force, severing his body from his shoulder halfway down to his waist. Radomír did not even utter a sound as he fell. But the foul heathen bane who had split him open kept hacking madly at his body.
Bohodar saw nothing but red, knew nothing but raw hate. He let out a roar himself, and swung himself to the rear, pounding over the shallow riverbank to where his only son now lay in a bloody, mangled heap. He wanted nothing more at this point than to get his hands around that hated Northerner’s neck, to strangle that filthy fell-ape with his bare hands and watch the life drain from his eyes, for what he had done to his son, his only son. But Bohodar never got there. Out of nowhere he was clouted over the head by a Lusatian spear, and he fell senseless to earth. He knew of nothing more after that.
~~~
When Bohodar awoke, his bruised and aching head rolled forward, and he found himself seated on a pack animal, which was being led on the retreat back up the track into the Czech lands by Tüzniq. Somehow they had managed to break free of the trap set by the Lusatians and the Northmen. But the cost had been high. Of the fourteen hundred men that Bohodar had led in battle, only five hundred had made it out of that killing ground on the Osoblaha.
When Tüzniq turned his head, he noted that there was no laughter, no joy in those dark brown eyes now: neither peace nor glory attended him. Beside him was Tihomír, whose silent expression was equally sombre. And then Bohodar knew that what he had seen had been no foul dream. His son was dead – fallen to a Norseman’s axe. It was as though all colour had drained out of the world for him, leaving nothing but grey grief. The cart in front of him, in fact, bore beneath a bloody shroud what little remained of his son that his friends could collect from the field in their hasty retreat.
‘Dear God,’ Bohodar murmured, casting his eyes up to the heavens, ‘why? Why did you take Radomír, my lovely and irreplaceable Radomír, and see fit to leave me behind? What had he done wrong? What have I done wrong?’
Neither Tüzniq nor Tihomír answered him, and he knew that both of his sons-in-law were thinking the same thing. The three of them had not always been close, but fighting alongside each other in this war against the heathen had given them not only appreciation, but a bond deeper than friendship, as deep as blood. The Avar and the Serb might not speak it aloud, but they felt the loss of their Slovien in-law as keenly as if one of their own arms or legs had been severed.
And yet their fight was not over. Gardomír remained at large, and the bulk of Bratromila’s force had not yet reached the northern march. Between the three of them, Bohodar, Tihomír and Tüzniq understood that none of them could yet leave the field. Grief was something that would have to wait.
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An elegant way to define swallowing the words that choke the throat. Kudos.
Storm is gathering. Olomouc should have arranged for better allies (looking at Hilda), and mustered more men.
Very good detail for diminutive form of the name Vlasta from the perspective of Tüzniq the Avar.
(Your friendly watchdog from fact-checkers of fictional lores cuts in abruptly:
It appears that the name Vlasta was added the diminutive -cık, probably reconstruction with Turkish; in that case, contesting Vlastcık, whereas Vlastçığım would be grammatically correct.
Your friendly nerdic defender of the fictional lores jumps in immediately:
Hang on, that contesting is far more unfair than what it is supposed to be. Vlastcık is perfectly suitable, because these chronicles can be considered as a translation to English rather than an original source. In this case, there is no need for the possessive suffix -ım to further define the name, as it is already given as my Vlastcık. For the ç letter, there is no equivalent in English (pronounced as ~ch), thus it was rendered into simply c. Know your place, before jumping into unfair conclusions, watchdog.
Watchdog and nerdic-defender swap angry looks at each other for a second, then watchdog proceeds:
Fine, retracting the objection.
Err... yes, this concludes today's debate, thank you friendly watchdog -woof woof grrrr-, thank you friendly nerdic-defender -it is my divine mission to defend- for your insights. Coming next our reality competition show Guess what? with today's topic: What is the actual name of Iroquois?)
No.
No!
nooOOOOOO!
Twenty: Dying Too Fast was an intense chapter, written remarkably, giving the chill and sorrow reading through it. Kudos.
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@filcat, what on earth would I do without you here to keep me honest?
I think a suitable compromise can be arranged here. Certainly if I can include the dotless-i to represent the Turkic /ɯ/ phoneme (as per the modern Turkish usage; sadly there are no surviving Pannonian Avar lexicons to go by), then it shouldn't be too big an ask from FWfFCoFL to use a c-cedilla to represent /tʃ/.
But yes, I wouldn't be so gauche as to use an agglutinative suffix when trying to get across the plain meaning of a proper name and its possessive in an English story! The diminutive is clear in context whereas the possessive suffix wouldn't necessarily be.
As such I have changed it to Vlastçık above. Thank you, sirs!
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Chapter Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONE
A Gentlewomen’s Agreement
14 October 894
A Gentlewomen’s Agreement
14 October 894
The news of Radomír Rychnovský’s death in battle, as he had tried to lead the Moravian troops out of a Lusatian ambush, reached Olomouc some weeks later. Mechthild put on a brave front before the court, but – quite uncharacteristically – she shut herself up in her room afterward and would not come out for days. The younger sisters of the house, Krásnoroda, Blažena and Slavomíra, each reacted predictably when they heard the news. Krásnoroda at once burst out in noisy wails. Slavomíra piously declaimed that, having bravely stood against the foul heathen in defence of the true Faith, Radomír’s soul was surely in heaven. Blažena fell still and silent, though her grief was no less profound. Voiceless tears dripped onto her hands.
Blažena went straight to seek out Hilda at their meeting-spot by the millrace after she heard the news. Radomír’s widow was already dressed in the mourning white[1]. Although she did not shed any tears, the fragile masque of a smile that she wore, the stiffness of her carriage under the weight of some unseen burden, and the curtness and softness of the replies she made to all inquiries spoke volumes enough to those who knew her about her mental state. As determined as she was to keep a stiff upper lip, Hilda had indeed cared for her husband, and was devastated by the report of his death. This was particularly evident to Blažena, who was close enough to Hilda to be able to read her turns of mood.
‘Are you feeling well?’ asked Blažena.
‘I am well enough,’ Hilda answered her, not making eye contact.
‘Can I get you something? A glass of wine?’
The ghost of a smile crossed Hilda’s face and she turned partway to Blažena. ‘I beg you, sister, do not trouble yourself like this over me. I’ll be fine.’
Blažena, who was not as good at hiding her emotions as Hilda, hugged her sister-in-law hard about the shoulders, trying to impart whatever warmth and stability she could offer. ‘I miss Radko too,’ Blažena choked into her shoulder. ‘I know, not as much and not as dearly as you do, but still.’
Hilda returned her hug. ‘Sister dearest, you’re too sweet. I truly don’t deserve as good a friend as you.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Blažena begged, hugging her still tighter, and now openly sobbing.
‘I must,’ Hilda said. ‘Now that Radko is gone, there is no need for me here. Truth be told, I expect that Father will summon me back to Bedanford before the fall, and with the lack of any better prospects, I will have to go. You understand how things are.’
‘Oh, Hilda—!’ Tears were now openly flowing down Blažena’s face, and she held Hilda’s hands in her own. ‘Tell me, please, is there anything I can do?’
Hilda hesitated, casting her blue eyes to the side. In fairness to her, her qualms were genuine. Now that Radomír was dead, and she was in such a pitiable position as this, angling for her and her elder son’s advancement this way seemed a little bit like cheating.
But the knowledge that she and Prokop at least would soon be bound for Bedanford, with only her dowry returned to her, steeled her resolve. She would no longer be in Bohodar’s corner against all of his other cousins, let alone Blažena’s if she had any progeny – and her Saxon blood would not allow her to trust the whims of Slavonic customary law. Although his claim was strongest, considering that Radomír was dead, now more than ever Hilda needed to make sure Bohodar the younger stood to inherit his grandfather’s estate.
‘There… is one thing. I truly hate to ask this of you, though, because I know it will get you in trouble with your father, and with Holy Church.’
Blažena gave a bitter scoff. ‘Well then, please don’t trouble yourself on that last count. I don’t care one cherry-stone what the Church thinks.’
Hilda gave her sister-in-law a long, searching look, and tholed long before she dared speak again. ‘It’s… this matter of little Bohodar,’ she told her. ‘Soon I will have to take Prokop with me back to Bedanford. Even as Bohodar’s mother I will have no say in how he is brought up. He will have no advocate here. And so I worry about him terribly. How if the family fortune should be split? How if Bohodar, young as he is and an orphan here, should lose out to a more powerful nephew or cousin?’
Blažena nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, I can see how that would be worrisome.’
‘I want someone I trust here – not only to look after him and guide him as he matures, but to forestall any claim upon him by those less worthy. And there is no one here in Olomouc I trust as deeply as you, Blažena.’
Blažena smiled sadly. ‘You flatter me, sister. But what can I do?’
Hilda bit her lip and wrung her hands, to all appearances showing the signs of a bitter inner struggle. ‘Would it be too much to ask—woman to woman, that is—if I ask you to step in for little Bohodar? Not as his aunt, but as… someone closer?’
Blažena hesitated. Hilda gauged her moment. She knew her opponent intimately, and she knew at once that her triumph or failure would hinge upon the next few seconds.
If she put it to Blažena bluntly, that she wanted her to marry her own nephew, of course she would refuse. But: give Blažena a righteous cause… give her someone dear to protect and defend… give her a right to be wronged… and she would brave hell’s fire itself to see it done. And if Hilda could put the Church in her way, one more among the forces of injustice to vanquish, she would attack with relish.
She gave a sad, thin laugh. ‘Of course, it’s silly and ridiculous, give it no more thought. Of course, it is a grave sin even to suggest such a union, and I wouldn’t want you to fall foul of Bishop Hromislav…’
At that, Blažena clutched her sister’s hands. ‘Oh, dear Hilda! Do not fret over that hateful, cringing toad on my account! And if all you’re worried about is my soul, don’t. That’s between me and God.’
And that was when Hilda knew she had won. Her position, and her son’s, in the Rychnovský patrimony was secure. Blažena would seal it for them as his wife. Still, to secure her victory, she went on dispiritedly: ‘Bohodar is such a dear, sweet and gentle boy. I really do worry that someone might take advantage of him, or cheat him of his birth right. For a wife, he needs someone older, someone wiser in the world’s ways. Believe me, if I thought there was any other way for him…’
Blažena clutched her dear friend’s hands tighter, her dark eyes now ablaze with righteous determination. ‘Say no more. I don’t care about all that! For your sake, for the sake of our friendship – for the sake of what’s right in the family – I would gladly go to the altar and over the threshold with Bošiško, even though he is my own blood, and fight for his inheritance to the very last!’
‘That’s on your word?’
‘That’s on my good name as a gentlewoman and a Slav,’ Blažena puffed her considerable chest out proudly. She looked into Hilda’s eyes. ‘When the time comes, I will take your son as my husband. Consider that a promise, Hilda najdrahšia.’
Hilda clasped Blažena to her now, and the warmth and gratitude in her embrace was genuine. However selfish she knew she was being, and however tactical had been her approach to her sister-in-law from the start, Blažena had made this offer to her out of an earnest and heartfelt friendship to her, and out of a true concern for Bohodar’s well-being. Hilda could not have asked for a better resolution… No, that wasn’t true. ‘Better’ would be if Radomír were still alive. Hilda truly did miss him. Only in Blažena’s embrace did the headstrong Englishwoman allow to flow the hot tears that had been long threatening to brim and pour from her eyes.
The two of them sat in companionable silence together for a long time after that, watching the waters of the Morava run down the mill-race.
~~~
The little bridegroom whose fate was being decided along that diverted waterway, was himself sitting disconsolately beneath a plum tree in the orchard nearby, watching the serrate-elliptical fiery orange leaves part from their branches and drift to the ground. Dead.
‘You should be proud,’ they had told him. ‘He fell in battle. He died bravely for the queen, defending Silesia from the heathen.’
But Silesia was far away. And what were the heathen to him, that they should take his father from him?
Bohodar mladší sulked. Death was nothing new to him; it was all around, of course. And he knew a better world than this one awaited the righteous. But that his father was not ever coming back to this one… that was still hard. A long stray strand of red hair blew across Bošiško’s face, and he blew it back up into place with a sullen breath. True, everyone was being very attentive to him now, very gentle. But even that was a bit frustrating to him: the condolences; the assurances of his father’s blessed fate; the sureties that ‘this all happens for a reason’. It was all done sympathetically, true, but he hated being treated like a fragile egg that people feared to drop.
It was then that Bohodar turned his head and saw teta Blažena walking up the road from the watermill. Seeing him, she seemed to brighten and quicken in her step, and went over to where he sat. She gave a sigh and sat down heavily beside him on the plum tree’s roots.
‘I thought I might find you here,’ she said.
Bohodar shrugged, and turned to stare again at his knees. For some reason, Blažena was scrutinising him. Her dark eyes were fixed intently on him… he didn’t know why, but it made him a little nervous, and he began to blush a bit. He was still a little bit too young yet to notice girls, or to understand the nature of Blažena’s newfound interest in him. And so his flusterment turned quickly to resentment. She was thinking about how best to sympathise, that was what she was doing. Bohodar furrowed his brow and dug his chin more firmly into his thighs. He turned his head angrily to tell her off, to tell her to go chuck her platitudes, but she told him thoughtfully:
‘You know, Bošiško, I was about your age when…’ her voice trailed off.
‘When what?’ asked Bohodar mladší.
‘When I saw someone die,’ she said bluntly. ‘It was in Salzburg. I was travelling with your parents.’
Bohodar hadn’t expected that, but it piqued his interest. Finally—here was someone who wasn’t tiptoeing around him. He regarded Blažena with a new appreciation.
‘What happened?’
‘They hanged a man in the square for stealing some bread,’ she said bluntly. She hung her head and shook it, a glum expression on her face. ‘It was… awful. There’s no other way to say it. To deliberately end a life, violently, over such a thing, is horrible. It bothered me a lot. It still bothers me, in fact.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘You’ve lost a father – over something probably just as paltry as that. I’ve lost a brother. Still, I… won’t pretend I know what you’re going through,’ Blažena told him. ‘I imagine you’ve had your fill of people’s pieties. I just came to tell you… you’re not alone. And, if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here for you always. I promise.’
Yes – that was it. Bohodar felt a warm rush of gratitude for his aunt – someone who wouldn’t beat around the bush with him, someone who wouldn’t sugarcoat death, someone he could talk to about these things. That was what he wanted. Bohodar suddenly turned across to his aunt and hugged her.
… For her part, Blažena held Bohodar close to her a bit longer than needful. Though there was nothing but a child’s innocence in his fathom, Blažena was curious to see if she could tell through touch what kind of a man her cute nephew would make. Whether Bošiško could move her, thrill her, excite her, stir up her juices. The days were still early as yet. Still—a promise was a promise. And keeping Bošiško close like this was, in a small way, much like keeping Hilda close.
[1] At this time in continental Europe it was not yet common to wear black as the colour of mourning. White was preferred until about 1400.
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Chapter Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
Westrogothian Excursus
I.
25 November 895
You wired me awake and hit me with a hand of broken nails;
You tied my lead and pulled my chain to watch my blood begin to boil…
Westrogothian Excursus
I.
25 November 895
You wired me awake and hit me with a hand of broken nails;
You tied my lead and pulled my chain to watch my blood begin to boil…
The first sensation that came to him was pain. The dull, throbbing ache that exploded in slow motion inside his head and brought him back to awareness was quickly joined by a choking burn that seared his lungs and made him will to cough. There was a painful roaring in his ears, and it seemed his whole body was swaying, tumbling, pitching without cease, as though he were falling forever through the air.
Achingly, he made to open his eyes, but the shafts from outside stabbed him with further pain – knives of light scraping his skull. He closed his eyes again, only to open them a little later. Slowly, agonisingly, the light began to dim. But everything was a blur of piercing grey. He felt sick.
His stomach heaved and made to empty itself, but there was nothing for it to purge, and instead only a slow burning trickle of his stomach juices made it up and onto the still-pitching ground beneath him.
No. Not ground. Wood. Wood planks.
He blinked. Shook his head. He wasn’t imagining the pitching. The grey he saw was the grey of the sky where it met the water, and broke into rippling fragments of black and glass-green as it approached. He was on a ship – a ship already out to water. The prow of the ship was elegantly carved into an ophidian neck and head, with eyes and teeth painted on for effect. He was sitting on a bench, and lining the side of the long, narrow craft were the round planks and backs of shields. Although his neck screamed in protest, he managed to look up and saw the square, red-and-white patterned sail.
There was a sharp crack and he went pitching face forward from the impact. The splitting pain from the blow took about another half-second to register. Raw animal anger surged in him. He wheeled around where he was sitting and saw a tall, muscular young man, stripped tunicless to the waist and wearing only a loose pair of sailor’s trousers, with piercing blue eyes and long blond hair and beard – both neatly combed and braided – holding an oar. It was with this that he’d struck him. He thrust out the oar with both hands to him, and barked out a command in a tongue which he didn’t understand.
Severané. He knew who these people were. He was on board one of their ships. And he was a prisoner.
And with that realisation, came a painful and hot wave of hatred. And with hatred came memory. The memory of an axe-head suspended in the air, just before the fall. And with that memory, it came back to him that he was Bohodar, knieža of Moravia Proper, lord of Olomouc. And one of these heathen bastards had killed his Radko, his son and heir.
Not that there was much that he could do about it now. His feet were shackled in crude irons, though his hands were kept free, clearly so that he could row when he came to. And that was what this Northman sailor was ordering him to do. With slow and bitter reluctance, he grabbed the oar from the sailor, tipped it, and put the broad end into the water. He rowed slowly, out of time with the others, causing the Northman to raise his hand and strike him again. Bohodar’s first instinct was to stand and try to fight back, but several things made him think better of it.
Just now, there was nowhere to run and no way to fight. Bohodar, looking around, could not see a single welcome black strip of land anywhere along the horizon – everywhere the water faded into grey such that he could not tell where it met sky. At the moment, the wind was still and the ship was becalmed. Bohodar knew that his only real choice right now was to row with the rest. How many of these were free Norsemen, and how many thralls or prisoners like himself, he had no way to tell; even so, he did his level best to move the ship the way he could best guess the rowers were ordered by the severané.
Soon the wind picked up again, one of the able-bodied Norse youth tacked the filling sail into the wind, and the rowers were able to pull their oars inside and rest. Bohodar let out a breath which ended in a rasping cough. Despite the fall chill he was perspiring heavily, causing his tunic to cling damp and lank to his shoulders and chest, and the dull ache in his head had not subsided – more was wrong with it than the blows he’d just taken. And then he remembered – he had fallen ill in that fire attack on Przemków. Having breathed in too much of the smoke, he had taken ill with wracking headaches and these burning, rasping, wracking coughs. Both of them he was still suffering now.
Memory returned to him in fits and starts.
He remembered that Bratromila’s main force had come north and begun laying siege to the fastnesses of the lower Silesian plain, and he had led his own force to their east the better to widen their net as broadly as possible. In hindsight, that had not been the best choice. Gardomír had more men, more allies at his disposal – the men of Lužice, as well as these Northmen. Even with Bratromila’s Italian connexions through her miserly and reluctant husband – and it was anyone’s guess right now whether or not he knew he had been cuckolded – there were still not enough men to match Gardomír’s alliance in the open fields.
When a smaller force had detached from Gardomír’s flank, Bohodar had been goaded into moving his Moravians into position to attack. That had been a strategic mistake – a costly one – and if he had been thinking clearly at the time he wouldn’t have made it. Although their forces were evenly matched in number, Gardomír had better knowledge of the territory, shorter supply lines, better equipment. His men weren’t exhausted. He had taken advantage of the high winds and the atypically-dry fall weather to mount a fire attack on Bohodar’s troops, and had cut them down as they ran. The last thing Bohodar remembered before he blacked out was seeing his sons-in-law mount a rearguard strike on the Northmen to allow their men to retreat to safety. But whether they had fallen, or been taken prisoner like him, Bohodar had no way to tell. Looking around, he could see neither Tüzniq nor Tihomír aboard this vessel. As far as he could tell, he was the only Slav on this ship. He was alone.
He was in no position to know this, having been unconscious most of the time, but Przemków had not been not far from the left bank of the Oder where Gardomír’s Norse allies had beached their longships. It had been a simple matter for them to identify the choicest hostages from that battlefield, and bear them back. By the time Bohodar had awoken, their longship had already cleared Eisenhütten, Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, Kostrzyn and Szczecin, and was well out into the Baltic Sea between Bornholm and the shores of Pomerania.
Twice they came within sight of land, but both times they steered a course around it. The third time they approached, and when they came within sight of the mouth of a river, they dropped the oars again. Once again Bohodar was forced to row, and they steered the longship upstream and into the mouth of the river. The spindly black autumn skeletons of birches and alders and lindens stood thickly around the river as they paddled upstream. But soon enough they came to a sandy lea that stretched up to one side, and here they put into shore and drove the dragon-head up onto the beach.
And then they disembarked. It soon became clear to Bohodar which of them were prisoners and which were crew, because they lined him up alongside a number of other hostages in iron fetters. The severané struck some of those who slouched, or didn’t line up properly. One of the younger crew caught sight of a younger girl with stringy hair, and caught her by the wrist and yanked her out of line. Laughing, he tugged up her jaw and examined her eyes and teeth. The poor girl struggled, but to little avail, as the filthy heathen began pawing her breasts. Bohodar looked away. Soon, however, one of the other severané came up and laid an arresting hand on the young man’s shoulder with a grim shake of his head: evidently this girl was not to be touched. Perhaps she was meant for someone else.
Soon one of the older severané strode forward, with a long, frosty beard and a good fur cloak. Judging by the deference he received, it was clear that he was a ship’s captain or perhaps even a jarl. He inspected the prisoners – his eyes lingering a bit on the girl that the youngster had been handling ill – and then gave a nod of grim satisfaction. He began chattering in the same lilting language that Bohodar had heard before, and then one of the severané – a fellow wearing Greek armour – spoke to the prisoners in Slavonic:
‘By the will of Ulle, and by right of conquest, you are now the property of Rane Ramneson, warleader of the West Geats. Accept your fate. You will be held for sale or for ransom, or to serve as thralls in Lord Rane’s household, at Kungahälla. When told to march, you march.’
And so they did. They were forced to walk in single file, along a chain and under guard at all times, through the woods of birch and linden and over the crisp late-autumn ground, until they came to a place called Ragnhild’s Holm, where stood a massive stone fastening and a grand house which could only belong to a lord. The prisoners were ushered into the fastness, and from there down into the cellar and a series of stone enclosures, barred across with cast iron. The keys turned upon them. Their journey had come to an end, in a fonsel beneath a ringborg in the God-forsaken land of the Scands.
Bohodar turned his throbbing head toward his fellow prisoners. In the dim torchlight he now heard that most of them were in fact Slavs – and not only Moravians and Silesians, but also Poles and Obotrites. (Evidently these Northmen weren’t too picky about capturing and enslaving even their own allies.) He saw one man, far younger than himself, fingering a wooden three-bar cross around his neck, and murmuring a prayer to himself. Bohodar went over to him.
‘What do you think they plan to do with us?’ he asked.
‘You heard him,’ came the brusque answer. ‘We’ll be sold, or held as slaves to these heathen. You, though, milord – you’re probably worth more to them as gisel. They’re like to sell you back home.’
That seemed to be true. Not an hour went by before several of their captors came down and began to sort them. The girl who had been mishandled by the sailor earlier was separated from the rest with several of the other younger and healthier womenfolk, and these were led aside. It was painfully clear what doom awaited them, for they were stripped naked, forced to kneel down while their hair was roughly shorn off, and then given single thin shifts to wear. The able-bodied of the men were also set off to the side and grouped together, examined for their fitness to work, before being led away into another cell of the fonsel. The old men and women, those no longer fit to work, were treated decorously and led back up out into the light of day.
‘Their doom is the worst,’ said the Christian Slav to Bohodar, crossing himself. ‘They are likely to be hanged, and then have their blood spilt and spattered upon their stone and wooden idols as part of their devilish rites.’
Bohodar was placed by himself, and sent to another cell, where he was kept alone. He was fed with porridge and ale, a few berries and a thin slice of raw meat – better fare than he saw the other prisoners receive. It was clear that Rane Ramneson meant to sell him back to his own kin.
Bohodar suddenly felt old, and weak, and tired. His head still throbbed and his lungs still burned from his infirmity. But there also began to burn in his breast a solemn conviction. He was going to bide his time here. But he was going to make sure that not one shred of silver went to these hated severané in his name. This Rane Ramneson was not going to profit one penny from him.
He was going to break his rusty cage.
And he was going to run.
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