It was drill and drill and drill, with pike and axe and gun. Even the sword was de-emphasized, since it takes years to make a swordsman. The new troops were issued axes as a secondary weapon. Most of these farmboys already knew how to use an axe.
And amid all this work, doing something that none of us had ever done before, dealing with six times as many people as we had ever handled before, trying to keep track of millions of details without the aid of a computer or even a decent bureaucracy, my liege lord, Count Lambert came visiting.
'Baron Conrad, there is a very serious matter that I wish to speak to you about.'
'Yes, my lord?' Shit. A brand new steamboat had just sunk the first time it slid down the ways, six tons of battle-axes had been found to be improperly heat-treated, and we seemed to be out of size-five shin guards. What did he want?
'Can we speak privately?'
'Of course, my lord.' I led the way back to my private office, leaving Piotr to track down the fifty-five cases of missing maps.
'It's my daughter, Baron Conrad. She's come to Poland, and I'm worried about her.'
'Your daughter, my lord? I'd forgotten that you had one. Well, except for the children that you've gotten off your peasant girls-but I gather you aren't talking about one of them.'
'No, no, of course not. I mean my real daughter, the child of my deceased wife.'
'I'm sorry, my lord, but I hadn't even heard that your wife had died.'
'I suppose that we can allow for the fact that you've been inordinately busy lately, and of course you never met the woman. She lived with her relatives in Hungary for her last eleven years, and of course our daughter was with her. But now that she is dead, my child has returned to me.'
This sudden outbreak of parental love surprised me. I'd never known the count to get sentimental about anything before, and his habits with the girls at Okoitz were such that he must have fathered hundreds of children. Oh, he always made sure that the girl was married off properly, and with a decent dowry, but his interest always stopped at that point. Why bring the problem to me?
'I suppose that will make for some changes in your household, my lord, but I can assure you that children add a lot to a home. She'll doubtless be a great comfort to you as you grow older.' Just smooth it all over with honeyed oatmeal, I thought. Sometimes that works.
'Well, there is that, but don't you see? She's not exactly a child anymore. She's a young woman! She's fourteen years old and it's my duty to find her a proper husband.'
'That's certainly fine, Christian thinking, my lord, but why discuss it with an old, confirmed bachelor like me? Better you should go talk to all of your female relatives and have them be on the lookout for a suitable young man.'
'You know that most of those old bitches don't like me, Conrad, and anyway, I know the man I'd want for my heir.'
That was the first time in nine years that he had called me just 'Conrad.' I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about this conversation.
'What's this talk about an heir, my lord? You're barely over forty and you come from a long-lived family. Why, you'll probably live longer than your uncle the old duke did!'
'Lately, I have had a premonition of death. I feel it strongly, and I am worried.' He shook his head.
'We're all concerned about the invasion, my lord. Any of us could fall in battle, but a knight doesn't worry about that sort of thing, does he? Anyway, if you've come for my advice about your daughter, it's to let the girl pick her own future husband. She'll be a lot happier that way, and it will vastly increase your domestic tranquility.'
'But I didn't come for your advice, Conrad. I came for your consent!'
'My consent, my lord?'
'To marriage, of course!'
'To marriage!' I stood. For the first time in twenty years, my voice broke and it came out like a squeak.
'Of course! What do you think I'm talking about? I want you to be my son-in-law! I want you to marry my only child and be my heir.'
'But, but I'm just not the marrying kind! The whole institution frightens me! No, no, my lord. I would never make a decent son-in-law! You'd learn to hate me. So would she!'
'Nonsense, my boy. Why, you and I have gotten along for years with never a cross word. All the women around seem to love you. Why should my daughter be any different?'
'What's this 'my boy' business? I'm only two years younger than you! I'm an old man! You shouldn't saddle your daughter with an old man! She'll end up being a young widow, and you know all the trouble they get into!'
'Again, nonsense! You're as healthy a man as I've ever met, and any woman with any brains about her prefers a mature man to a young stripling.'
'They didn't when I was a stripling!'
'Well, that simply proves your prowess! None of your ladies are complaining, are they?'
'It's not a matter of my ladies, my lord. For years now, I've been satisfied with just one, Cilicia. She's heavy with our second child now. I couldn't possibly leave her.'
'Well, you wouldn't have to leave her, just sort of get her out of the way for a while. Anyway, I know full well that you haven't been absolutely faithful to her. You manage to get to Countess Francine's, manor at least once a month.'
'She's an old friend.'
'And a close one, no doubt. But that's all one to me. Just keep up appearances, and you'll hear no complaints from your father-in-law.'
'My lord, I've never even met your daughter.'
'So? She's a normal, healthy girl. She has all the standard features. What more can be said? And she'll learn Polish soon enough, so that's no problem.'
'She doesn't even speak Polish! Well, I don't speak any Hungarian! What do we do? Invite an interpreter to bed with us?'
'Mind your manners, Conrad. This is my own flesh and blood we're talking about.'
'There are hundreds of girls that are your own flesh and blood! And all the rest of them can at least speak the language! Why don't you make me marry one of them?'
'Conrad! Control yourself! If this goes on, you shall anger me.'
'See what a lousy son-in-law I'd make? We had an excellent relationship until it was torn asunder by the mere mention of marriage! Find another man, my lord. I don't want to get married!'
'That's your final word, then?'
'Yes, my lord, it is.'
'Well then. It has certainly been a pleasure having you for a vassal, and the experience has been vastly profitable. Tell me, where were you planning to go next?'
'My lord, what are you talking about? You can't fire me like a bricklayer who's finished his job! We made an oath together, and that oath gives you no right to force me into marriage.'
'True. We made an oath. Do you remember it? It was Christmas time, almost nine years ago. True, I don't have the fight to force marriage on you, but you made one strange addition to the standard oath, which at the time I thought inconsequential, but now it comes into the fore. You swore fealty to me for only nine years! Those nine years will be up in three weeks, at which time our agreement is off! So I wish you well. Be sure and fill your saddlebags before you leave. Take a few carts of gold with you if you wish. But I am not minded to renew my oath with one who would so crassly insult my own daughter as to refuse her hand in marriage.'
I was dumbstruck. I had put that in my oath! At the time, I wasn't sure whether I could get technology going in this century or not, and if I couldn't I wanted to have the right to be somewhere else than in the middle of a Mongol massacre, where one more dead body wouldn't have done Poland much good. I had left myself a coward's way out and now I was paying for it!
'But-but the army, the boats, the aircraft! I'm needed here now more than ever! You can't do this! Not to me nor to Poland.'
'Wrong, Baron. Or at least 'baron' for the next three weeks. I can do it and I intend to do it. Sir Vladimir can handle the army properly, I'm sure, and Sir Tadaos can do what's right with the steamboats. And the aircraft? Well,
