CONRAD'S QUEST FOR RUBBER

men-at-arms with him, and either of them could have been married to the woman who was killed. Or there may possibly have been a fourth man involved somehow. We don't know. What we do know is that your mother and probably your biological father were dead, that you were adopted, albeit informally, into a family, and that later your stepmother legally married Ilya. She never divorced Ilya, even if she left him for another man. No, there's no way around it. You are stuck with being a baroness, and you are not acting like one.'

It took me a while to say that, since while I was talking, she had continued with her program of kissing and disrobing me.

'I've been planning for this day for years, and you're not going to talk me out of it!'

The conversation continued for a while longer, but there is a limit as to how long any normal man can stay firm in his noble intentions. I bowed to the inevitable before I committed the sin of Onan.

Much later, as she was leaving, I said, 'Well, Baroness, I still think that you should go and at least meet your father. He's stationed at Three Walls, a half day's ride south of here.'

'I'll think about it, your grace.'

And then she left without asking my leave and without saying a good-bye, much less a thank-you.

Baron Piotr was just approaching my office door as the disheveled girl walked away.

'What was that all about, your grace? I'm sure that I've never seen her before.'

'I'm not really sure, but I think I was just raped.'

He pondered that a bit before answering. 'Remarkable. Still, she doesn't seem to have caused you any permanent damage, sir. What disturbs me is that a total stranger could enter your castle and make it all the way to your inner sanctum without being stopped or even identified.

'You know, your grace, I think we are getting entirely too lax about security around here. What if she had had different designs on your body? Putting some extra holes in it, for example. What then? I notice that you aren't even wearing your sword.'

'Hmm. Yes, you're right. I must have left it somewhere.'

'I noticed that you weren't wearing it at lunch, either. Your grace, you must remember that you aren't just a backwoods knight anymore. You have become one of the most important men in the world. There are people who feel that they have good reason to hate you, and men in your position have been assassinated for reasons that no one has ever figured out. The death of Duke Henryk the Bearded is a recent example.'

'Okay, okay, I'll make a point of always wearing my sword from now on. Enough said.'

'No, not quite enough, your grace. You need a bodyguard, or better yet, a number of bodyguards such that there are always at least two of them awake and on hand at all times.'

'Piotr, that would be a royal pain in the butt, and I am not royal enough to have to put up with it. I won't do it. Also, I am not at all sure that bodyguards make a man any safer. They make him stand out when there is safety in anonymity. And bear in mind, the Duke Henryk you mention was murdered by one of his own bodyguards. So was Philip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great's father.'

'You have very little chance at anonymity, your grace, being at least a head taller than anyone else in the city. As to the rest, I expect that guards have saved a hundred rulers for every one they have killed.'

'Piotr, the only really nice thing about being a 'ruler' is that you get to do what you want. I want no bodyguards.'

'Yes, your grace.'

Chapter One

From the Journal of Josip Sobieski

WRITTEN JANUARY 15, 1249, CONCERNING MY CHILDHOOD

MY NAME is Josip Sobieski. I find myself sitting in a cave just south of the Arctic Circle, with nothing to do for the next three months. In hindsight, this will doubtless seem a wonderful adventure, especially to someone who has never been here. Presently, I find it to be a deadly bore. To while away the hours, I have resolved to record the events of my life. I expect that future readers, if any, will find my experiences a fruitful example of what not to do with the only life God has given them.

In 1230, when I was five years old, my father became a baker at Count Lambert's castle town of Okoitz. Thus, I had the rare privilege of being personally on hand at the beginning of what was to become the most remarkable story of our age.

Lord Conrad came to our town on Christmas Eve, in 1231, although he was called Sir Conrad then. I first became aware of him when I saw him sitting at the high table during a feast. It would have been hard to miss him, since even seated he was a head taller than Count Lambert, who was himself a very big man.

He was the talk of the town, having fought and defeated the evil Sir Rheinburg and all his men, killing each with just a single blow. With the other boys, I watched while four suits of chain-mail armor were taken to the blacksmith's for repair, so we knew that every word of the story was true.

He was a strange man, much different from the other knights and noblemen who made life at Okoitz interesting. For one thing, he was always making something, either showing the men how to build the mills and factories that Okoitz soon became famous for, or carving some toy for the boys of the town, or sometimes even things for the girls. With his own hands he carved me a spinning top that, once you learned how to do it, would flip over and spin for a time upside down! I still have that toy and keep it as a treasure, although I've never been able to figure out exactly why it works.

For another, he took little pleasure in the usual knightly enjoyments. Once, when Sir Stefan brought in a bear, for baiting, Sir Conrad didn't even know what bearbaiting was. Once he found out, he was furious, calling the sport cruel. Rather than let the bear be torn apart by the castle dogs, he killed it himself, with a single stroke of his mighty blade, and he cried while he did it. And then he fought Sir Stefan over the matter, and I think he might have killed that knight had Count Lambert not intervened.

Sir Conrad didn't like cockfighting either, and soon the peasants at Okoitz stopped doing it, rather than risk offending him.

While all of the other adults considered small boys to be little more than nuisances, to be ignored at best and spanked at worst, Sir Conrad seemed to like us, to actually enjoy our company. He almost always had time to stop and explain things to us, to tell us some of the thousands of stories he knew, and to teach us our numbers.

Furthermore, he paid our priest, Father Thomas, to teach us to read and write, every weekday morning during the winter.

The fathers of most of the boys were peasants, farmers who had little to do during the winter, so having their boys in school was no hardship for them. My father was a baker, and bakers must work hard almost every day of the year. If they wish to take even Sunday off, they must work twice as hard on Saturday, or the people of the town would go hungry without bread. Even then, someone was needed at the bakery to keep the fires going, since most of the people brought their meals in a pot to our ovens for cooking.

This meant that my help was needed every day in my father's bakery, for children naturally help their parents at their work. My parents had six children, and my father felt that the boys, at least, should go to school.

My older brother and I felt guilty about sitting in school while the rest of the family had to work longer hours. We would have preferred working, but our father's word was law.

Every afternoon, when we all worked together after school, he always questioned us minutely about everything that was said in class. At the time, we thought that he did this to assure himself that we were not wasting the time spent there, but much later we realized that this was his method of absorbing the new learning for himself and for his wife and daughters. Since we boys were responsible for repeating to him every single word that was spoken in class, we did not dare be inattentive.

Both Father Thomas and Sir Conrad praised our diligence. They should have praised our father.

As interesting as Sir Conrad was, his horse received even more attention, from us boys, at least.

Anna was a huge animal, even bigger than Count Lambert's favorite charger. But while Whitefoot was