The dead knight's stallion was the first to fall. I felt it, but I couldn't see it. It got up and went on for another half hour. It fell again and didn't get up. It was crying in pain.
"Leave the beast, Sir Conrad! That sounds like a broken leg. But if we dismount to dispatch it, we'll never find our horses again."
I was learning to love our horses, and the beast's screams hurt me. But Boris was right; I left the stallion to die in pain.
We went on until we saw a tiny light ahead. Soon a great log barricade was in front of us.
"Hello in the fort!" Boris yelled. "We are two good Christians, dying in the cold!"
It seemed forever before a voice answered. "Stand close to the light! Who goes there?"
"Boris Novacek and Sir Conrad Stargard. Is that you, Sir Miesko?"
"Yes, Master Novacek!" A small gate opened in front of us. "Best go straight to the castle. I'll take care of the mule. Hello, the castle! Visitors!"
Our horses were taken away by a sleepy groom, and we were led into a large, warm kitchen. Four young women sat there. From their expressions, we must have looked like zombies. I certainly felt like one.
"We are sorry to meet you in the kitchen, sir knight, but—"
"First things first," I said. I pulled the kid out from under my clothes. "Do any of you know what to do with one of these?"
This caused a flurry of motion and fast feminine conversation.
"Oh, my God! Is it dead?"
"No. No! The heart beats! When did it last eat?"
"This morning at the latest," I said.
"What happened to the mother?"
"Dead," I said.
"Who, then?" She looked at the others.
"Mrs. Malinski just lost hers!"
"I'll go get her!" One of the women threw on a cloak and ran out.
Another carefully took the kid near the fire. "Diapers! The darling hasn't been changed all day!" She glared at me.
Another of them ran upstairs, presumably after diapers. The two remaining were inspecting the baby. We mere males were forgotten. I could see that the kid was in good hands.
I tried to remove my outer clothes, but my chain mail was frozen to my windbreaker. Distracted by my efforts, one of the women turned. "Oh! You men must be frozen. Come, sit by the fire." In seconds, we were handed huge mugs of wine heated with pokers glowing from the fire. We drained them.
Our mugs were refilled as the diapers arrived. Soon the three women were clustered around the kitchen table, with the baby in the middle. They were rubbing and scrubbing and making silly noises. It made me wish I were a month old.
"I never thought we'd make it here alive," I told them, "so just to be safe, I baptized him. I named him Ignacy."
Conversation stopped dead. All three of them stared at me as if I were a heretic.
"What a terrible thing to do!" the tall blonde said.
"What do you mean terrible? If he died without baptism, he'd go to limbo," I said.
"Limbo? You mean hell."
"So why are you mad? I saved him."
"No, silly, the name!"
"I named him for a good friend. A holy father. A Franciscan. Ignacy is a fine name!"
"For a girl?" This from the redhead.
"Oh." I'd cursed the poor thing with a name she'd hate for the rest of her life. Boris was giggling but didn't want to get involved.
"Don't you know the difference?" the tall blonde asked.
"Damn it, woman, of course I know the difference! What? You think I should have taken her clothes off in that storm just to see what flavor she was? You wanted maybe a properly named corpse?"
They were silent for a minute, and then the fourth woman came back with a buxom, motherly type. The kid was fed on the spot.
By then, the ice on my armor had melted enough for me to peel the mail off my windbreaker. I hung it up to dry. Boris did the same. Then I stripped down to my long underwear. If they could nurse a baby, I could get dry. I confess I was annoyed.
Mrs. Malinski left with the kid, and the four young ones whispered to each other.
Then the tall blonde came over and formally apologized for ignoring us and being a bad hostess. Introductions were made. The tall blonde was Krystyana, and the others were Ilona, Janina, and Natalia.
The count was asleep and not to be disturbed.
Soon things were okay; the rift with our hostesses was smoothed over. The table was washed, and a cloth was spread. Food was put out, and our mugs were refilled. I said grace, and we ate.
I'd forgotten about my wounded arm. Rather than strip in a snowstorm, I'd patched it up through the hole ripped in my clothes and armor. But the blood had soaked my long underwear to the wrist. Krystyana insisted on tending it while I ate. I probably should have refused and done it myself with my first-aid kit, but the food and wine and feminine companionship were working on me.
In the course of that meal they got every bloody detail of the trip out of Boris, who delighted in blow-by-blow accounts.
Later we were escorted to separate rooms. If Boris didn't worry about his property, then neither would I. I stripped down to shorts, T-shirt, and socks and eased my battered body between the clean sheets of a huge bed. It was comfortable enough and covered with an enormously thick feather blanket.
I blew out the oil lamp. It was Christmas Eve, and the bed was a marvelous present.
I was dozing off when I heard the door open.
Krystyana came in.
"That was a beautiful thing you did, Sir Conrad, saving that little girl," She stripped off her single garment and slid into bed beside me. "We'll just have to think up a good nickname for her."