With the count's leave, I left him gazing out across his lands. I wanted to check on some things, and anyway, dinner was being skipped to leave an appetite for the feast.
My horse, Anna, was happy to see me. She was in a good stall in a big, clean stable, and she had been carefully groomed. "Are they treating you okay, Anna?"
She nodded yes.
"Anything you need?"
She shook her head no.
"Right." I didn't want to believe this.
Uneaten oats lay in the trough in front of her. I patted her neck and went in search of the kid I'd brought in.
Everyone in the bailey seemed to be hurrying about, getting last things done before the feast. Many were still in the plain gray wool that was everyday wear for most people, but some were already in their Sunday best, dyed in bright colors, with a great deal of embroidery.
Everyone seemed to know who I was. Passersby greeted me with smiles and nods. I had always thought of peasants as being brutally downtrodden, forced to grovel before their masters. I'm sure that that must have happened somewhere, but I saw none of it at Okoitz.
I was passing the mill when a man stopped me. He had a basket of food in one hand and a pail of beer in the other. "Sir Conrad? Could it be that you are looking for the child you saved?"
"In fact, I am."
"Then I shall take you there. I am Mikhail Malinski, and the child is with my wife."
"Then I am in your debt, Mikhail."
"No, Sir Conrad. It is I who am in your debt. Understand that two nights ago our third child died at birth. My wife grieved horribly for a day and a half. I thought it would be the death of her. But she's happy now. You understand?"
"I understand. We are in each other's debt. Let's see them."
"In a moment, sir. I have but a quick errand." He went inside the millhouse, and I followed. I was shocked by what I found. Four men were chained to a heavy "hourglass" mill, grinding grain to flour. It was the first brutal thing I'd seen in Okoitz.
"What's all this?"
"Why, the mill, Sir Conrad. Oh! You mean the men. These two were caught last week drunk, disorderly, and annoying some married women. They'll be here until the end of Christmas.
"This one's my brother. I always warned him about his poaching. He got six months for it."
"I wasn't poaching! I shot that deer on my land and tracked him to where they found us!"
"Save your lies for someone who'll believe them, brother! They found you four miles from your land, and that deer had an arrow through its heart. It couldn't have gone four yards!"
"What about this last one?"
"Oh, he's a bad one, he is. They caught him stealing from a merchant. He's worked off maybe half of the five years he got." Mikhail put down the food. "Your Christmas feast, brother. Share it if you want."
As we left, I said, "Five years for theft seemed severe."
"Had he robbed another peasant, it would have been only six months. But merchants have to be protected, you know. If they aren't, they might stop coming, and who would we sell our grain and hides to?"
"I see. What if someone stole from a knight?"
"Why, I can't remember such a thing ever happening, Sir Conrad. I suppose, if the knight let him live, that it would be far more than five years."
I ceased to worry about the location of my gold.
"What do you do when there aren't any criminals?"
"Well, the grain has to be ground to flour, doesn't it? There's usually a spot or two open on the mill, and the rest of us men have to take turns at it. But we keep an eye out for lawbreakers."
"I can see where you would. You keep saying 'men.' What do you do about female criminals?"
"Well, that's rare, Sir Conrad. Women are more law-abiding. But there was a time, two years ago, when a girl—only twelve, she was—stole a silver-handled dagger from the count himself."
"What did the count do?"
"Got his dagger back and told the girl's father. He beat his daughter to within a thumb's width of her life! Then the count gave the father a month at the stone for not bringing up his daughter right! As I said, it doesn't happen too often."
"What if she'd been married?"
"At twelve? You shouldn't marry a girl off until she's at least budding!"
"No, no, Mikhail. I mean, what about an older woman?"
"Why, that'd be up to her husband, of course!" Mikhail walked up to his house.
In the twentieth century, it would have been called a shed. It was three meters wide and five deep, and it was one of a long row of similar log dwellings that stretched along the outer log wall. Next to the wall and above the sheds was a two-meter-wide wooden walkway, apparently a place for defenders to stand. The rest of the roof was straw.
"All this was by the count's own plans, it was. Houses next to each other keep each other warm and take less walls to build. The neighbors make noise, but that's not the count's fault." The door had no hinges but was picked up and moved aside. Mikhail went in without knocking, and I followed.
Apparently, the lack of a nudity taboo applied to married women as well. Judging by the flush of her skin, Mrs. Malinski was just back from the sauna. I guessed her to be around thirty but later found out that she was only nineteen. She was doing up her long hair and didn't bother getting up or even covering herself.
"Sir Conrad! I am sorry that I did not speak to you last night, but the baby . . . you know . . ."
"I quite understand, Mrs. Malinski." A campfire burned smokily at the center of the single room. Their few spare clothes were hung from pegs in the log walls, next to bags of food, bunches of garlic, and a single cooking pot. Bags of straw on the floor served as beds. Two small children were playing on the dirt floor. Yet Mikhail was obviously proud of his home! What had he been born in?
"We have real wooden floors going in next year, the count says," Mikhail told me.
"He is a good lord, isn't he?"
"The best! Why, he could get a dozen men for every man here if there was room for them."
I was pensive as I walked back past the latrines and the granary. These were good people, and there was so much that I could help them with. But I would have to leave as soon as the roads were clear.
One thing remained yet to do. There was a church, so there had to be a priest. I had killed—or at least caused the deaths of—five people. And there were two very young women that I had . . . had. Damn it! They were not rapes! I needed confession.
The church was full of commotion when I got there. The altar had been removed, along with the candlesticks, the relic—a lock of hair from Saint Adalbert, I found out later—and all of the appurtenances. The church was furnished with movable chairs instead of bolted-down pews; I half suspect that the use of pews was the result of a clerical rebellion to secular use of the church. The chairs were being rearranged, and long, collapsible trestle tables were being set up. The fact is that the church was the only room in Okoitz large enough to hold everybody.
Asking about, I learned that the priest, a Father John, and his wife (!) were in their chambers to the left of the altar.
I entered and discovered that the nudity taboo did apply to a priest's wife, at least to this priest's wife. From her accented shriek, I gathered that she was French. She was an attractive woman, better looking than any of the count's handmaidens. I turned to leave but was stopped by the priest.
"Please forgive her, Sir Conrad. She is new to Poland and not used to the local customs." His wife was still arranging a blanket around herself.
"Of course, Father. But still, I should leave."
"You may if you wish. But as a personal favor, I would prefer that you did not. You are from the west. Know that I met Francine when I was a student in Paris. She is the granddaughter of a bishop and was legitimate before the second Lateran Council forbade such marriages in the west. But these decrees were never ratified here in my native Poland, so here we are now, under God, man and wife."
He turned to his wife. "Francine, we cannot bring the word of God to these people unless we adhere to the local customs! There is no prohibition against nudity in the commandments, nor in the words of Christ. Remember the parable of the lilies of the field and care not about your raiment. Now, disrobe. Please."
She was embarrassed, probably as much as I was. The whole situation was awkward. There wasn't anything that I could say, but I tried to give her a confident smile and nod. She bit her lower lip, looked at me, and stood up. Then she slowly dropped her blanket. I think she did it slowly in order to pull it up if I disapproved rather than from a desire to entice.
She really was a beautiful woman, as fine as any you would see in modern Cracow. Her hair was black, the first black hair I had seen in the thirteenth century. Her waist was tiny, her hips were full, and her breasts were voluptuous orbs topped by tiny, coal-dark nipples.
"Thank you, love. Now, Christ also talked of the virtues of cleanliness, and the sauna grows cold," the priest said.
"Yes. Sir Conrad." She nodded to me and ran through the doorway.
"Thank you, Sir Conrad. I've been trying to get her to do that all day. She objected to their nudity, and they objected to her smell." The priest paused, and we heard a roar of applause from the crowd in the church. "Damn, but I wish they hadn't done that!"
This was a far stranger priest than Father Ignacy!
His next sermon was on the importance of being kind to people who were trying to fit in. Still, he seemed, for some unreasonable reason, to be a holy man.
"I took my sauna earlier, hoping that she would join me, but no such luck. But, Sir Conrad, you came here for a reason of your own. Can I help you?"
"Well, Father, I came here for a confession."
"Of course, my son, if you need it. The church is crowded now, but we are private enough here. Would this be adequate?"
I agreed, confessed, and told him about the people I had killed, the underaged girls I had copulated with, and lastly about coveting his wife!
He passed off the first two as not being sins at all but merely the things any sensible man would do. As for the last:
"You must learn to fight the results of your training. Had you seen her fully clothed, you might have thought her beautiful, but you would not have had these sensual thoughts. She was wearing what God gave her. The sin was in your eyes, Sir Conrad."
I thought about it, and he was right. I eventually got to know Francine as the unique and creative human being she really was. I learned that my initial impressions of her had been entirely wrong. She was not a shy and modest housewife. There was something of the whore in her and much of the bitch. But I get ahead of myself.
I went away with a penance of a single Pater Noster and three Ave Marias. I was somewhat surprised by that as I left the priest's chambers, but my surprise was increased when I saw Francine walking back, nude, through the crowded church. She smiled at me with her back straight. She strutted!
Her actions had much in common, I think, with the religious conversion of the goliard poet.
Half an hour later, we were seated behind a trestle table on the dais, near where the altar stood. There were five of us: Count Lambert, Sir Miesko, myself, Father John, and Francine. There were also six empty chairs that I found were for Krystyana's gang. They wouldn't actually be using them, since they were in charge of the banquet, but they had the right to sit at the head table even if they didn't have time for it.
Try to imagine six modern fourteen-year-olds being in charge of a sit-down banquet for two hundred people. Yet they did a fine job!
All the adult commoners were seated at long, narrow tables, sitting at only one side. A space was left between each pair of tables for the "servants" to walk. Actually, the servants were the peasant women. An elaborate schedule had been worked out such that each woman helped serve a certain course but most of the time played guest.
Everyone was there. The gate to Okoitz was not only left unguarded, it was left open! Had a known outlaw walked in, he would have been served along with the rest, until the festival was over. Afterward they might have hanged him.
The children were seated through the door in the count's hall. Part of the serving orchestration kept them fed, too. The babies were farther back, in the hallways and in some of the unused guest rooms. A stream of mothers flowed back and forth, but our six bright harem girls kept it all going and the food coming besides. Even the cooks took their turn at playing guest. The girls never did, the first night. But after, for the next two weeks, they were administrators, grand ladies!
Boris was down among the crowd with acceptable ladies seated on either side. He waved. I waved back, and the crowd applauded.
I had a normal place setting before me. There was a long tablecloth that doubled, I discovered, as a napkin. I had a spoon, a cup, a bowl, a large pitcher of wine—beer for the commons—and a salt shaker made of a hard wheat roll with a finger hole punched in the top.
We at the head table each had these to ourselves because of the six empty places. Among the commoners, each pair shared a setting, almost invariably a man and a woman. Not that there was a scarcity of place settings, it was just one of those things one did at a banquet. You shared a spoon, shared a cup, shared with your sister or your wife.
Musicians took turns playing—a recorder, a shawm, a pipe and tabor, a krummhorn, a bagpipe. Not the Scottish war pipes, of course, but the higher-pitched, more friendly Polish version. They had obviously practiced long for the occasion. Only when the banquet was over did they play in concert.
Father John said an elaborate grace.
The first course was a stew. Somebody's grandmother ladled it out to most of the people, but we at the head table were graced with Krystyana's service. I winked at her, and she winked back.
Stew was followed by broiled steaks. Janina placed before me a thick slab of bread directly on the tablecloth, and a girl named Yawalda, to whom I had not yet been introduced, put a juicy slice of meat on it. I found out much later that it was from the horse we had lost in last night's snowstorm. It wasn't bad.
Course followed course, usually a meat thing followed by a grain thing. There were no fresh vegetables at all.
On the final course, the count himself got up. He took a huge tray from Natalia and Janina and personally handed a small piece of cake to each person in the room, laughing and joking continuously. He got halfway through the church and then went into his "hall," where he personally gave a piece to each child. He went up and down the hallways, putting a small piece in each baby's hand, or at least on his bedclothes. Then he came back into the church and passed out cake to every commoner he had missed before.
He returned to the head table, where he placed a piece in front of each chair, including the vacant seats of the ladies-in-waiting. He stared as if aghast at the pieces left on the tray and then went up the table again, doubling the "nobles' " portions, to the applause of the crowd. Reaching the end, he put the five remaining cakes in his hand and pretended to count the crowd. Then he stuffed them into his own pouch, and the commons roared their approval.
I was so intent on this performance that I had not tasted the cakes. When Count Lambert sat down next to me—two empty chairs were between us—he said, "Well, eat up, Sir Conrad."
So I bowed and smiled and bit into one of them. It was good enough, but it was really only ordinary honey and nut cake. Nothing like the glories they make in modern Torun. I waved Krystyana over.
"This is excellent, my lord, but I too have something to contribute to the feast." When Krystyana got there, I said, "Now, quick like a bunny! I have a piece of brown stuff wrapped in silver and some brown paper. The last I saw of it, it was on my bed. Bring it here quickly!" She was off like an arrow.
"This is some cake of your own?" the count asked.
"Something like that. Chocolate."
As Krystyana came back, the other five girls were handing out bread rolls to the commons, without any helpers.
Seven pieces of chocolate were left. It was obvious that I couldn't share it with two hundred commoners and an equal number of children. There were five at the head table, plus six more who belonged there.
I broke each piece in two, got up, and started to put half a piece at each place.
The count stood up. "It's some foreign delicacy," he shouted. "It's only this big." He gesticulated. "So there's only enough for the head table, plus some for the king and queen!" This also met with shouted approval. Had there been elections just then, I think Genghis Khan could have been voted in.
So I went on, passing them out, not missing myself. When I sat down, three pieces were left.
"What is this business about a king and queen, my lord?"
He was tasting his chocolate and staring wide-eyed. "Why, we are about to select one of each, for the holidays at least. A king and a queen of misrule. See those small loaves they're handing out—wheat for the men and rye for the women? Well, in one of each sort of loaves there is a bean, and the two who get the beans shall be our king and queen for the festival. Further, you and I and the good Sir Miesko and Father John and wife shall become commoners!"
"You mean that the king would have the right to Francine?" I asked.
"She's married. Still, he might try; try and get away with it, perhaps, until the holiday was over. Then I'd cut the bastard's balls off! If I have no right to her, I'll be damned if any peasant can take her!"
"Uh. Yes. There are these three pieces left . . ."
"Well. One for the king and one for the queen. As to the last, well, rank hath its privileges." He started to put it in his pouch, and then he stopped. He waved Natalia over. "Give this to Pyotr Morocek's redheaded daughter." As she darted away, he looked at me and said, "It looks as though you are going to be robbing me of some of my ladies, Sir Conrad. I had better start restocking now!"
It evolved that Mrs. Malinski got the woman's bean and became queen. The blacksmith became king and ordered us "common swine" away from the head table. A side table had been prepared for us.
His first act was to order up his own six "ladies-in-waiting," namely, the six fattest women in the church. Mrs. Malinski demanded her right to some "boys-in-waiting," and called up three septuagenarians, who snuggled up to her. All this was greeted with great ribaldry from the crowd.
The king demanded that the count show more respect for blacksmiths and should henceforth act like one.
A leather apron was brought forth, and a hammer. Lambert put them on and went through a parody that I would have appreciated more had I known the blacksmith better.
Sir Miesko was charged with abandoning his wife, and another was named in her place. This huge matron was given a feather pillow, and he permitted her to beat him around the room, to the commons' delight. A great deal of beer was circulating.
My turn came up. The "king" said that since I was so adept at saving babies, I must be one of their breed. This had to be a setup, because all too soon three large women I had never met ran forward and pinned a huge diaper over my embroidered tunic and hose. I'd thought that the safety pin was a modern invention.
I was then forcibly presented with six large breasts to suck on, four of which were lactating. I survived. A television situation comedy would have contained higher, and considerably less coarse, humor.
Francine was then summoned. The "king" claimed that she had shown her wonders to but a few and that this was unfair. He commanded her to strip naked and walk among the crowd to show them what beauty was.
I tensed myself for a fight. I was quite willing to put up with the buffoonery with regard to the count, Sir Miesko, and myself. I would not permit them to humiliate a priest's wife, even though the whole concept of a priest having a wife confused me.
I never had a chance to draw my sword.
Francine stood up from her seat at the side and pulled herself out of her garments. The crowd cheered. I was awestruck. She strutted and wiggled her way up and down the tables of the commons, pinching a chin here, kissing a hairy peasant's lips there. The cheering rose to deafening levels, and she gloried in it! At last, she came to our side table. She gave Sir Miesko a peck on the cheek, which he accepted. The count demanded more and stroked her from armpit to knee.
At my turn, I wanted much more. I sat her on my knee and kissed her. She wiggled her body close.
"But this is all for the Church," she said with mock innocence. "One must mingle with the barbarians and follow their customs."
I didn't know if I wanted to beat her or rape her, so I handed her down to her husband. She stayed there the rest of the night, eventually permitting a cloak to be draped around her shoulders. The situation struck me as being more than slightly sick.
The priest and our six ladies were notably exempted from the hazing, as the king and queen turned on the commoners. All the musicians were playing in the hopes that they wouldn't be called out.
The various performances that the king and queen required of the commons were, if anything, even more crude than those required of the nobles. Most of them involved incomprehensible in-jokes that soon became boring. Boring to me, at least. Everyone else was having a marvelous time.
Eventually our royalty of misrule ran out of ideas and called for the dancing to start. Tables were moved out, chairs were moved back, and two barrels of beer were rolled in. The tops were removed from the barrels, and the beer was just dipped out.
Lambert, Sir Miesko, and I were required to join in the first dance. I was unsure of just what steps to try, but Krystyana dragged me out on the floor.
I'm not convinced that you could call it dancing. Okoitz had never heard of a polka or a mazurka, let alone a waltz, but people contented themselves with enthusiastically jumping up and down. They were not quite as bad as the modern punkers, but they came close.
That ordeal completed, I found myself standing at the sidelines next to the count. He tapped my shoulder and motioned for me to follow. He went to his chambers. A look of relief crossed his face as he closed the door. "I'm glad that we only have to do this once a year! Custom requires that I put on a party and play the clown, but I have as little liking for it as you do."
"It was a bit . . . raucous, my lord."
"Yes. I hope that you haven't gotten a bad opinion of us. Had you seen these people during harvest, your impression would have been different. We'll have to put in an appearance later, but for now, do you play chess? Oh, and do take off that stupid diaper."
I'm not a great player, but I'm competent. The game he played was identical to modern chess, except the pawns couldn't capture en passant. The count's game was good but extremely conservative; the strategy of play had evolved vastly in seven hundred years. That evening I won four games out of four.
"Sir Conrad, that brown cake you served—is there any more about?"
"I'm afraid not, nor is there any way of making more. I was surprised at that cake of yours."
"Good, yes?"
"Oh, yes. Delicious. But when all of that food and drink was flowing so generously, you were somewhat sparing with it."
"Of course. It had honey in it. I could have sold that honey for more than what the rest of the feast cost."
"Honey is that rare here? I'm surprised. It should be a natural product, easy to get."
"Easy enough to get, Sir Conrad, once you find a honey tree. A full-time honey hunter finds one, maybe two trees a year."
"Remarkable. What do you do then?"
"Why, you smoke the bees out and chop open the tree, of course."
"I begin to see your problem. You know, my lord, bees can't hollow out a tree themselves. They have to find a suitable place to build a hive. If you chop up every hollow tree, there isn't any place for them to live. No wonder honey is rare."
"I see. You're suggesting that we hollow out trees?"
"It doesn't have to be a whole tree. A simple wooden box will do. You know, bees are very remarkable creatures. I've read a few articles on them. Did you know that they have a language?"
"What! Insects talking?"
"Not exactly talking, but when a bee finds a field of flowers, she goes back to her hive and does a dance that tells the others where to go."
"Remarkable! You say 'she.' What of the male bees?"
So I prattled on for an hour about bees. Friends have accused me of having a garbage pit mind. Things fall in there and sort of stay around, fermenting. The upshot was that I agreed to instruct Lambert's carpenter on making beehives, a gross of them.
There would be nothing much to it, of course. Just a simple rectangular wooden box of about forty liters' capacity would do. You drilled a hole of four square centimeters near the bottom, facing south, and mounted them on a pole at least three meters in the air.
"It's been a pleasant and educational evening, Sir Conrad. Doubly so since you wouldn't wager any money on your chess playing. But now we must rejoin the buffoonery below."
The end point of the evening was the gift giving. Gift wrapping was unknown, but it wasn't missed. The only awkward moment occurred when the priest and his wife gave me a wooden crucifix and a carved rosary—the priest's own work—and I hadn't realized that they were on my Christmas list. The best return gift that I could think of on short notice was some rose seeds.
I also got a new sword belt from Sir Miesko. The harem didn't give; they just got. Well, maybe they did give. That night I was visited by Yawalda and Mary. They liked to work as a team.