After a few hours, we stopped at a clear stream to let the Big People drink and eat, and to have a quick bite ourselves. I was glad that I'd brought some field rations with me, because no one even suggested that anyone should cook some food. I found out that the riders with us were all members of the old nobility, who would rather eat dried meat than demean themselves by cooking it.
I asked Maude if she was hungry, offering what I had; some dried fruit, dried meat, and hard biscuits.
'You eat this?' she said.
I said yes, when necessary, when there wasn't time to cook something better. 'Then I must eat it also.'
And eat it she did, chewing tough beef jerky as though it was a delicate pastry and she was famished. She quickly finished most of my three days' supply, slowing only when she noticed that I wasn't keeping up with her. Soon, between us, we emptied the pouch of everything but the money I'd left at the bottom. I'd had to explain what that was, because I feared that she might try to eat it, too. This was a very strange lady! Still, a man can put up with a lot if the girl is pretty enough.
She then drank my canteen dry, and when I refilled it from the stream, she was surprised that water was available there. When I asked, she said that she had never seen a stream before. I could now sympathize with Lord Conrad when I'd told him that I'd never seen a river.
Since I didn't know what to make of all of this, I said nothing, and once we were under way again, I renewed our discussion of religion.
I think that I quite outdid myself in my eloquence, for nothing so encourages a young man than to have an eager, beautiful young woman breathlessly listening to his every word. I did good work that day in the cause of Christ, for by day's end Maude was well on her way to becoming a good Christian.
And I did good work in my own cause as well, for by nightfall I was sure that she was as in love with me as I was with her.
By the time we got to Lubusz, at midnight, talking so long in the wind of our travel had made my voice quite hoarse. We had made only two quick stops during the day, and seven hours in the saddle is a lot. My body ached. Having even a small lady on my lap as well as a large flag in my hand, well, they did not help.
Worse still, my armor had been designed for an infantryman, and not for riding on someone who looked like a horse. My buttocks were covered with chain mail inside a canvas covering. This was not uncomfortable to occasionally sit down on, but after a long day in the saddle, I think that the individual rings had worked their way right into my privy members! Also, the thigh plates and knee caps were not made with a horse in mind, and had abraded vast areas of the only skin my mother had given me.
I was sore of body, but I really didn't mind, for I was in love.
I pitched a small dome tent next to Lord Conrad's great one, at his bidding, and went gratefully to my bed. The wiser heads, the captains and the lords, would be up for most of the night, conferring about the military situation, but young fellows like me had nothing to do but obey orders when the time came.
Maude stood behind Lord Conrad, to guard him, but from what little I heard through the walls of the tents, I think that perhaps her nakedness bothered some of the local officials. Lord Conrad bid her go to sleep. Having nowhere else to go, she came into my tent, and since it was too small for her to even stand up in, she lay down at my side.
I had stripped off my armor and gambezon, and when she laid a hand on my back, she said that my muscles were sore and tight. I had to admit that this was true, and she said that she had the cure for it.
I'd had my back rubbed before, but it was nothing like this! She started at my toes and fingertips, and worked her way upward and inward, carefully loosening every muscle, every tendon, every joint. Softly, she massaged back to life every square bit of skin on my entire body. She eliminated pains I had not even known I had, and replaced them with the most sensual of all glowing pleasures. I gloried in her golden touch.
I told her that I no longer had to wonder at what Heaven would be like, for now I knew!
I offered to return the favor on her body, but she said no. She had worked to relax me, and would not see her work wasted. I thought of suggesting sex, and thought that if I asked politely, she would oblige. But then I thought better of it. Best to put that off, for the time, for this was the woman I would marry.
Chapter Twenty
From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
JANUARY 14,1250, CONCERNING JUNE 3, 1249
THE BUGLES got us up at dawn. Maude and I went to mass, and I said the Army Oath with the other troops. Maude stood with us, listening but of course not joining in. We ate a quick breakfast, with little Maude again eating three times as much as I did, and I was barely in my armor when Lord Conrad came by.
'There isn't time to teach you how to operate a submachine gun, but you might as well take these,' he said, handing me a pair of the six-shot pistols and holsters that his new company wore. 'They use the same ammunition as that single shot of yours, and their action is simple enough. Just point it and pull the trigger. To load, they break open like your old gun. As for you, young lady, some of the natives have complained about your choice of costume, so tie this around your waist.'
He handed Maude a strip of cloth that I recognized as part of the tablecloth in his tent. With poor grace, she took off her weapons belt and wrapped herself from waist to knees.
'This morning, we are going to conduct a raid on the Brandenburg vanguard. This company is a prototype for what the entire army will be like in ten years, and I need to know just how effective it is in actual combat. Josip, stay to my left no matter what happens. Your main job is to hold the Battle Flag high so that anyone who needs me can find me. After you've done that, try to stop anyone who is trying to kill me, or you, or Maude. Maude, your job is to stick close to us and stop anyone from the other army from hurting us. Got that, you two? Your function is to be defensive only! No stupid heroics allowed, and never leave my side!'
'Yes, sir, your grace.'
'Good. Mount up.'
While I saddled Margarete, Maude put her weapons belt back on. She carried a pistol like those I now wore, a long, thin sword with the handguard removed, a small dagger and two small throwing knives, all without hilts, and a small, one-handed shield of the sort called a buckler. I asked her why she didn't like handguards or hilts.
'They waste weight and space,' she said.
I asked if she wasn't afraid of getting her hand cut.
'No.'
I gritted my teeth, said please, and asked why she would not get her hand cut by her opponent's blade.
'Because I will not put my hand where my enemy puts his weapon.'
I asked if a similar theory was working with regard to her lack of any sort of armor.
'Yes.'
I said nothing, since there wasn't anything I could do to change the matter, even if I managed to win the argument, which wasn't likely. With Maude again on my lap, we were at LordConrad's side long before the rest of the company was ready. We could have taken longer with breakfast.
We rode out, as before, with Lord Conrad and his humble flag bearer in the lead. During the night, thousands of army troops had come up and made camp surrounding the old castle town of Lubusz. They cheered us on, but we rode out without them. Apparently, Lord Conrad's idea of a fair fight, or at least an amusing one, was to attack with odds of six thousand to three hundred — twenty to one — against us.
As before, a platoon soon passed us to take up the point. A bit later one of our aircraft, a graceful machine with two engines, flew overhead and dropped a short spear with a long red ribbon attached. One of our troops broke ranks, retrieved it, and brought it to Lord Conrad. He unscrewed the head, removed a message, and read it. He nodded, put the paper in his pocket, and discarded the spear. We rode on.
In perhaps a quarter hour we heard gunfire up ahead of us, gunfire like I had never heard before. The submachine guns fired at an incredibly fast rate, each one of them spewing out hundreds of bullets a minute!
We got to a rise where we could see what was going on up ahead, and Lord Conrad motioned for me to stop there with him. Then, somehow, Maude was no longer on my lap. She was standing on Silver's rump, behind Lord
