ceiling! I said that the first two was mine, and I'd wallop anybody who said different!
Then I said that what with my rank and all, I was allowed a wife and four servants, and I was going to Okoitz to find me another one. They said that it took their permission, too, and they had to pass on any girl I picked. So we left two of the kids with a family at East Gate and we took one of the passenger carts to Okoitz the next time we had a few days off.
Well, you know I found me a pretty and willing girl in just no time at all, and so did they. The trouble was that they wasn't the same girl, and we had us another row about it. Finally we compromised and I took the both of the new girls on. But that's going to be the end of it, unless all four of them get pregnant simultaneous. If they do that on me, well, I'm still allowed one more, and after that I'll just have to get me some more rank.
Chapter Eleven
FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD STARGARD
There were Mongols in Cracow, but they weren't invading just yet. This was a diplomatic party, and the duke wanted me and some of my people there to advise him.
We'd had plenty of warning about their coming, since they were spotted at one of our depots on the River Bug. The operator there got out a radio message fast, and she was bright enough to warn away the steamboats in the area. I don't think they saw any of the planes, either.
I knew that it was important to make as brave a show as possible, but at the same time I didn't want them to see everything we had. Word went out on the radio that the steamboats and airplanes were to avoid the Mongols, the guns were to be taken down and hidden, and that the radios themselves were not to be talked about.
I'd never publicized the radios, but I knew that scattered around as they had to be, there was no way of keeping their existence a secret. Operating principles were something else, but since few people knew them anyway, I wasn't worried.
In fact, I needn't have worried at all, since people who did hear about them didn't believe it. They'd believe in a steamboat because they saw it, and the same was true with the airplanes, which still had people running outdoors and pointing upward whenever one went over, but a machine that made sparks and talked to people miles away? ... Nawww...
I wanted the Mongols to be afraid of us, but for the wrong reasons. There wouldn't be enough of Anna's mature children to make a difference in the invasion. Oh, they'd stand night guard duty and run messages, but there would only be thirty-three adult Big People by the time of the battle, and that wasn't enough to tip the scales.
Still, if I could make the Mongols worry about fighting a highly mobile cavalry force, they might conduct their strategy accordingly, and that couldn't do us any harm. Mobility was where we were weakest.
I collected all the Big People I could, twenty of them counting Anna, along with some of my main people, and rode to Cracow. I brought Sir Vladimir, Sir Piotr, and the Banki brothers, among others.
I brought Cilicia along, and I had the others bring their wives. We came in civilian clothes and without armor, my idea being to lend the occasion as little dignity as possible.
We arrived in the early morning, just hours ahead of the Mongol delegation. Duke Henryk met with me and asked me to do the bulk of the talking at the preliminary meeting, since I apparently knew more about the Mongols than anybody else.
'Just stand on the dais by my left hand, Baron Conrad. Should I want to talk to them directly, I shall signal you. But talk as you see fit.'
A number of counts were up there as well, sort of an honor guard. The throne room was filled with gawkers, but all of my own people were there as well. This was supposed to be just a formal meeting, with further negotiations to be held in private. At least that was what the duke thought. I had somewhat different ideas, and the Mongols were way out in left field!
The Mongol ambassador entered with twenty warriors at his back. Surprisingly, he spoke very good Polish.
'I have come-'
'A moment,' Duke Henryk said. 'First off, who are you? Are you a Mongol?'
'No. I am a Tartar.'
The duke gave me a smug look, but the ambassador continued.
'I am a Tartar but the great Ogotai Kakhan is a Mongol. They are slightly different tribes, like your Silesians and Mazovians.'
'Thank you for clearing that up. Now, you were saying?'
'I have come to accept your submission to my lord, Batu Khan, and to the great Ogotai Kakhan, Lord of All the World!' He was bowlegged and he stank, but you couldn't accuse him of not coming to the point. His head was shaved, leaving ridiculous tufts of hair on his forehead and behind his ears, but then military organizations generally adopt funny haircuts. He wore gaudy silk brocades that might once have been attractive, but now were grease- stained and filthy.
Yet he wasn't at all what I had expected. He didn't look like a Mongol! He did not have slanty, black eyes * They were green and Caucasoid. His skin, under the dirt, looked to be white, rather than yellow, and his hair was not black. It was red! And none of his men were 'Mongoloid' either.
I Rather than answer the man, the duke glanced at me, so I said, 'That's quite a statement. Why should we want to do such a thing?'
'Why? You will do it because you want to live!'
'We've been doing a pretty good job of living without the khan. Why should we' want that to change?' He wasn't using any honorifics on me, so I didn't see why I should use them on him.
'You talk like a fool or a crazy man! All men must submit to the kakhan!'
'I'm a crazy man? I hope you realize that your last few statements sound like those of a rampant megalomaniac. But I repeat my question. Why should we want to do something as silly as bowing down to your kaka?'
'That's kakhan, you fool, and you will submit or our swords will take all your heads!' He drew his sword for emphasis. Apparently, he felt that I wasn't playing my role properly.
'Oh. With swords like that? May I see it?' He handed it to me. It was good Damascus steel, better than what most of the conventional knights carried. But I couldn't let him get one up on us.
'A pretty handle,' I said. 'Where did you steal it?'
'I won that blade at the Battle of Samarkand, when the fools there refused submission ' '
'Well, that's a bit far to go. Mine only has an iron hilt. May I test them?'
'Destroy your blade if you want!'
I drew my own sword. Setting the tip of his blade to the marble floor, I shaved a thin wire of steel off the edge of his sword.
'The edge is soft,' I said, throwing the wire to him. Then I put my blade tip to the floor, edge up, and swung at it with his. His blade was cut in two. 'The shank was weak. Next time, don't steal a sword because of its flashy mountings.' I tossed the pieces back to him:
The emissary was livid. This was not going as planned. 'It is not weapons that win, it is the men behind the weapons!'
'You know, I've been saying that for years. That's why I know that we have nothing to fear from you people.'
'The kakhan has the finest army in the world!'
'He has a bunch of undisciplined goat herders, suitable only for murdering helpless women and children. True warriors need not fear them.'
'Undisciplined? You lie! Choose three of my men.'
