The Lions of Olomouc: a CKIII Ironman AAR (Duchy of Moravia, 867)

[Revan86]

II.
12 February 896

Too cold to start a fire, I’m burning diesel, burning dinosaur bones –
I’ll take the river down to still water and ride a pack of dogs…​

The days went by. Bohodar had kept the wooden spoon he was fed with, and made notches in it against the bars to keep track of them – twenty, then forty. Forty-five. Forty-six. Forty-seven. Bohodar could see nothing of the outside, but he could tell from the pearly shafts of light that fell whenever the cellar door was opened by the guards, and by the gusts of icy wind that blew down, that winter had come to the shores of the West Geats.

Bohodar wondered about his family a lot.

Most of all he missed his beloved Mechthild, whom he hadn’t seen, let alone embraced, in months. The memory of his wife was one of the only things that kept him warm on these frigid winter nights. Oh, God! If only he could see her now! He rued that he could not be there to comfort her, to console her, to help her be strong. Even if he was assured of her love, the love that he had won in his youth, there was still so much left that he wanted to say to her. And, indeed, to all of their daughters.

His youngest daughter would have passed her sixteenth birthday back in October. He wondered about Slavomíra, whether she had already gone off to Eastern Rome to marry that son of Archbishop-Emeritus Photios. He was sure she would have little trouble in those courts. It would also be a blessing for Blažena, to be removed from her youngest sister. The two of them were always bickering and sniping and taunting each other, sometimes with a cruelty that saddened Bohodar.

Blažena…! What was his favourite (no sense in denying it now) daughter doing right now, he wondered? She wouldn’t ever be a warrior, of course, but her understanding of how armies worked had given her a fine sense of thrift – any household she ran would be a tight ship indeed! She had turned out well; Bohodar noted with satisfaction that native to her were the same even-handedness, the same forthrightness and sense of fair play that graced her older siblings.

And once again a surge of raw pain and hatred swept over Bohodar as he thought about his son’s death. To be cut down with such malice in his twenty-fourth year…! The thought gave him all the more reason to deny these severané any satisfaction – pecuniary or otherwise – that they might derive from him.

Again the shafts of grey light as the cellar door swung open. Again the blast of frost that hit his face and bit his ears. (If this was what it felt like in the cellar where it was cool but not cold, how frigid must it be outside?!) The guard came down with his portion of porridge and ale. The berries had been replaced with a handful of dried seeds, and the meat was no longer raw but jerked. Bohodar spat. Although these men had been treating him ‘well’, at least in comparison with the other prisoners, it still rankled him that their hospitality came at a price to his kin that was bound to be extortionate. But there was no point now in refusing. His health had not yet returned.

To his surprise, the man who came down to meet him was not an underling. It was the same white-bearded, well-kept high-born Northman whom he had seen when they had gotten off the ship. There came with him his fellow that he had seen in Greek armour, who he assumed was along as an interpreter. Bohodar regarded them both sullenly.

Rane Ramneson looked over his most valuable prisoner with an appraising eye. There was no malice in it, no ill will – only the intent interest of an assayer examining a particularly rich vein of ore on his land. Somehow this was more irksome to Bohodar than if he had come with blows and curses. Rane spoke to his interpreter in the lilting babble of his Northman tongue. The Greek-armoured Varangian nodded, and then spoke to Bohodar in Slavonic:

‘His Lordship the jarl wants to know if you have found your accommodations comfortable so far.’

‘Well enough,’ Bohodar replied. ‘I’m fed and watered. I suppose I could do with a bit more heat, though.’

The Varangian threw back his head and let out a roaring belly laugh, then exchanged a few more words with the jarl at his side, who also cracked a wry grin. Turning back to Bohodar, he said: ‘So could we all up here, Rychnovský. So could we all. Trust me, you’re not alone: this is Geatland, after all – the giants of winter storm fiercely up here.’

The jarl gave a signal to his interpreter, along with a verbal command. The Varangian nodded.

‘Jarl Rane says you must eat and drink heartily, to overcome your illness. We’ll also furnish you with an extra brazier. You’re no good to us dead.’

Bohodar had to agree, though for entirely different reasons. He had no intention at all of dying in Rane’s fonsels. ‘His lordship is kind,’ Bohodar nodded.

That got a smirk from both the Varangian and his master.

‘Has there been any word from Moravia?’ asked Bohodar.

The Varangian interpreter shrugged and told him: ‘I can tell you that your queen has already made a settlement with Gardomír. I’m afraid she’s had to acknowledge that she’s lost her rights as lady over all of Silesia. The war is over.’

Bohodar nodded glumly. ‘What about from my family?’

‘Nothing so far. Jarl Rane hasn’t just yet set a price on you, though, let alone sent a herald, so I wouldn’t take that ill. Chances are you’ll be free and off home within this sixmonth, provided you can cough up the silver.’

‘That is reassuring,’ Bohodar said to them.

The Norsemen were good to their word, such as it was. They not only gave him the food and drink, but also placed an additional fire in his cell, and sent a thrall-girl down with wood and pitch to keep it lit. Bohodar drank in the warmth greedily against the chill. Let the Norsemen think he was cowed and helpless for now, a sick and infirm man at the twilight of his middle years – that was all well and good. His revenge would come in time. For now, he would do meekly as he was told: eat, drink, and rest by the embers to recover his strength. He gave another wretched cough, and sidled closer to the remains of the fire.

 

[Revan86]

III.
21 March 896

Hits like a Phillips head inside my brain –
It’s gonna be too dark to sleep again,
Cutting my teeth on bars and rusty chains…​

Bohodar had run out of space on the front of his spoon, and had begun etching the back on the corner of the iron bars that held him.

Eighty-three. Eighty-four. Eighty-five.

The days got gradually longer and warmer. The light shafting through the cellar door was still pearly-white, which meant the snows hadn’t melted yet. But there air had lost its bite, and the cold winds had exhausted themselves. Spring had not yet come, but it was coming.

The dull pain throbbing in his head had subsided. By the eighty-fifth day, he noticed that he had not woken up coughing up the black phlegm. He breathed. There was no rasp, no froth. He breathed again – deeply, through his nose. Even though the air in the fonsel was dank and stale, it was still welcome to him to be able to smell it, to breathe it freely, to feel the clarity all the way down to his diaphragm.

He was mending. He was getting stronger by the day.

Thank God. God would grant him his revenge, and deliver him from this fonsel just as he had delivered Saint Paul and Saint Silas from the one in Philippoi.

He was well enough, and his head was clear enough now, that he began to observe his surroundings with greater care and attention. Crude though they were, the bars which held him were solidly built and fixed into their stone moorings. Even if he were younger and had the full strength of his prime, Bohodar wouldn’t be able to bend or dislodge this iron lattice with his muscles alone.

Also, the cellar door was placed further off from him than it was for the able-bodied men who were to be sold as farm-thralls. Of course – Bohodar was expected to fetch a higher sum of silver, and so he was to be more carefully guarded. But he noticed that there were only ever two guards below at all times, and by the light that came in through the cellar – there was no other way to count the hours – they worked in three shifts each day.

Sometimes a Northman himself – a kirtisvein or a common karl – would come down to bring him his meat, porridge and ale. But sometimes they sent down a crop-headed she-thrall from the house to do this chore. Bohodar waited until one of these came along. It so happened that the young Slavic woman whom he’d seen being mistreated when she’d stepped off the boat was given this chore on one March day, and Bohodar took his chance to ask her – softly and out of hearing of the guards:

‘Koľko vonku?’

Frightened, the girl looked both left and right before answering, not daring to look him in the eye as she did so. She whispered: ‘Päť. Dvaja na každom konci dvora. Jeden na hliadke.’

She dared not say more. Bohodar flicked up a single glance at her – not daring to say more himself for fear of getting her in trouble. But he inclined his head infinitesimally in gratitude as she left the food with him. She’d gotten the message, and left quickly.

So there were five guards outside: two each at the north and south gates of the stockade, and one patrolling. Of course, he didn’t know where the patroller would be at any point, and he would have to go from his memory of when he’d first been led into the fastness how to get to the north gate of the stockade. Still, if he alerted one, all would come, and he would stand no chance – one man against five. There had to be some other way about it.

Bohodar eyed the recess in the wall some yards down the hall from where his own cell lay. Intently he waited there to see how many of the young men were still being held inside. There hadn’t been more than eight or nine in there to begin with. If even two or three had been sent to fates elsewhere, Bohodar would be out of luck. But he listened to the thin, occasional voices from down the hall and tried to sort them out, one from the other. He watched as one or other of them would come to the bars and lean against them, and try to count how many individuals were left.

Six. There were six. They were an even match for the guards.

If he was going to mount his break, he needed to do it soon.

Although Bohodar felt healthier, he still pretended to act weak and infirm, and kept up a semblance of his rasping cough for the benefit of his guards. He was thin and pale and drawn enough that they didn’t need much convincing of it. They were easy – even contemptuous – around him, the way they weren’t around the other prisoners. In their eyes he was little more threat than the poor souls whose fate was to be sacrificed to devils.

Bohodar waited, pretending to snooze, though wide awake, as the guards’ watch drew to an end and they began to tire. One of them decided to retire early, and signalled to his fellow that he was bound topside. Bohodar waited until he had heard the cellar door open and then close again. The guard in front of his own cell had his back to him. What could a sick, broken old man possibly do to him?

Bohodar shambled softly to his feet, then padded silently up behind the guard, taking care not to rustle the straw on the floor or step in any of the puddles of snowmelt that had leaked down. If the guard noticed him now, it would all be over. But this guard was getting tired himself, and complacent, and it was getting near the end of his own shift. Bohodar crept behind him unnoticed.

It took the Norseman completely by surprise when a pair of strong wrists shot out between the bars on either side of his head, and then clamped around his neck, dragging him back against the cage he was guarding. Bohodar growled as he anchored one wrist in the elbow on the other side, and tugged against the bars, squeezing the Norseman’s neck like a vice being screwed tight. There was little the Norseman could do to free himself from that angle. The same cage that kept his prisoner inside also kept him from turning around. In panic, the severan clutched at Bohodar’s bare arm and tried to claw at it, tried to get his jaw beneath it to bite, to wrench himself free. But Bohodar tugged still harder and wouldn’t let him free. He was drawing strength from every single erg of loathing he bore toward the Northmen for the death of his son, and squeezing the breath from this poor guard with it. Radomír’s murderer might have escaped him that day, but this guard wouldn’t!

The strangled guard began to gurgle. His heels scraped against the stones beneath him, his arms were now thrashing against the bars of the cage as he fought for breath. Bohodar saw his cheeks and ears turn red in the dim firelight, then blue. He wheezed pathetically, and the convulsions his body was making against the bars got weaker and weaker. Then Bohodar felt the man’s head droop and his body fall deadweight, nearly yanking his shoulders out of their sockets. Then, slowly, he retracted his arms from between the bars, and caught his victim under the shoulders to slide him silently to the ground.

And then he fumbled in the dark for the keys on his belt. He knew he had only a matter of minutes – if that – before this guard’s relief arrived. He slid them up and off from the dead man’s waist, and hurriedly slid one of them into the lock. The metal rasped and grated loudly, causing Bohodar to wince. But the lock fell heavily off its mooring, and he was able to slide it off the latch and swing the gate open. He did the same with a smaller key on the irons on his ankles, and soon those fell off him too. Not stopping to check if he was dead or alive, Bohodar dragged the unconscious guard inside, closed the gate behind him, and locked him in. Then he hurried across and up the hall to where the able-bodied Slavic men were penned. He fumbled with the key in that lock, too.

‘Go,’ he told them. ‘North gate: only two guards, but be careful of the patrol. See if you can make it to one of the longships on the river.’

‘God bless you, milord,’ whispered one of them as they quietly filed out and up the cellar.

They opened the cellar door – it was, blessedly, full dark outside save for the moon – and padded out into the darkness. The snow on the ground was patchy and had melted in most places. But there was enough of it that if any guards happened to be looking this way it wouldn’t be hard for them to detect the movement of dark bodies upon it. The seven escaped prisoners took care to stay in the shadows, and hug the walls wherever possible.

They made it to the north gate, and saw the two guards – still standing at ease. Their breakout hadn’t been noticed yet, thankfully – the relief must not have arrived yet. One of the Slavs managed to overpower one guard, slide his knife out from its scabbard as he lay prone, and slit his throat before the other guard took notice… and by that time it was too late for him, too.

The six were already out of the gate and Bohodar was right behind them, when he heard a cry of alarm and anger go up from the fastening within the stockade. They had been found out. Other raised voices in a babble of agitated Norse answered him, and that was soon followed by the bays and barks of hounds.

The six had already taken to their heels. Bohodar followed them out into the moonlit early-spring night – into the wild budding birches of Geatland. God willing, they would all reach the river before the hounds reached them.

 

[Revan86]

IV.
22 March 896

When the forest burns along the road like God’s eyes in my headlights,
When the dogs are looking for their bones, and it’s raining icepicks on your steel shore,

I’m gonna break
I’m gonna break my
I’m gonna break my rusty cage
And run.
​

All stealth put aside in favour of speed, Bohodar crashed through the undergrowth. It was here he began to feel his age, as his lungs – but newly recovered and wanting for exercise – burned not with sickness but with the strain of exertion. By now the moon had fallen, and the skies were turning from black to a dark, colourless grey, with a thin sliver of radiance shafting between the trees to show the stark outline of the horizon before him. Soon the dawn would break. He needed to move quickly.

From the north side of Kungahälla, the six escaped Slavic thralls and he had needed to turn east. There was no sense blundering uphill in the dark. The right bank of the river lay off to the east, and with it their chance of escape. The baying of the hounds of the severané could still be heard in the distance behind them.

And then, amid the shadows of the night as it made to flee into the west, he broke through the trees and saw it below him. A wide, gentle band, glimmering the deepest of iron greys in the gloom, majestically stretching before them and flowing left to right across their field of vision through a pair of leas on either side. And there were three longships – right there on their same bank.

They weren’t out of the woods yet, though – quite literally. They scrambled down through the underbrush even as Bohodar noted with alarm the glaring red of torchlight amid the trees, glowing like the eyes of God’s wrath. Their hunters were coming.

They scrambled like madmen across the heath and over the grass, down to the sandy bank, and dove over the side of the nearest longship. Bohodar stayed on the shore and pushed with all his strength. The heavy keel gave but by inches, and Bohodar’s heart pounded for every breath that they lost to its reticence. Looking behind him, again he caught the glare of torchlight through the trees above them, and the flickering of the shadows that it cast. They were out of time.

Bohodar gave one last heave, and blessedly felt the resistance of the sand beneath give way. Water swirled in around the wedge of the keel where it had dug into the sand, and the wooden longship began to drift with the current. One of the former thralls held out his hand to Bohodar, who took it, and hauled up over the edge, gasping.

The other Slavs had set to work placing the oars and prepping the sail, though it was not yet raised – in these river-waters raising a sail would only slow you down. Bohodar sat in the stern and laid an oar across his knees, all the while looking worriedly back toward the forest where the severané were still hunting them. Any minute now they would clear the trees and see one of their longships putting out into the river. The gathering glimmer over the eastern sky had grown stronger, bathing the entire river in a lighter shade of slate-grey, and now he could see unaided the dark outlines of the shore, of the sides of the ship, and the silhouettes of his fellow sailors as they went to their places fore and aft and put out the oars, ready to row out to midriver to gain as much speed and distance as they could on their pursuers.

The light worked in their favour, but it also worked against them. Bohodar heard whistles in the air, followed by plunks and disturbances in the water. They had been spotted, and archers were taking aim at them from the shore. The six took cover behind the round shields in their notches on either side, but continued to row forward as Bohodar steered behind into midriver. The middle-aged knieža looked behind him and saw the other two longships they had left behind on shore, as Northmen were boarding them and heaving them out to water.

By now the current was carrying them as fast as it could bear them, downstream out to the south and west away from the gathering dawn. Still the seven crewmen of the stolen Norse vessel pulled with all their might to add whatever speed they could to the river’s power, until the waters opened before them and embraced the entirety of the western sky.

‘Hang to port, deti moje,’ Bohodar instructed his fellow Slavs. The nautical term of endearment caught in his throat as he thought on what had happened to the son of his blood. ‘And hug the coastline as far as it takes us! Keep the sun on our port side as long as it stays morning.’

Bohodar chanced several times to look behind them. The two other longships with Rane Ramneson’s men aboard were not yet out of sight, and once they were out of the mouth of the river, the West Geats put their sails up.

One of the escaped Slavs, a short-haired man with dark squinting eyes, laid up his oar and went straight to the sails himself. He heaved at the rope and lifted the cloth up the mast with all his strength, straining against the wind as it filled and added speed to their craft. The dark-eyed Slav having completed his work, he tied off the line and made it fast, then returned to his notch.

It wasn’t enough. The other two ships, more skilfully piloted by Northmen who knew the seas and coastlines like the backs of their hands from childhood, were still gaining on them. The winds filled their sails as well, and they had the better knowledge of how to make use of them. Arrows continued to fly. Now they were near enough that the arrows could strike timber, and the thuds reverberated in the seat behind Bohodar. On either side of them, the Norse longships were gaining. Soon they would be caught and returned to captivity, and it was unlikely there would be another such chance at escape.

The winds grew harder, louder. For some reason, the skies in the west still failed to lighten, and it seemed as though the night was fighting to stay in the sky. Then, with a sudden dull ache in his bones, Bohodar realised what was happening.

‘Take down the sails, deti moje! Quickly!’ he instructed them. ‘And pull up your shields over your heads!’

Cries of ‘What?’ and ‘Are you mad?’ came back to him, but they remembered how Bohodar had strangled the guard with his bare hands, freed them with his key, and told them how best to make this escape. They obeyed him, and the dark-eyed Slav undid the hard work he had already done, and lowered the boom with the sails, swinging it around and tying off the bulk. The other five did as Bohodar had ordered, and took the shields out of their notches and laid them across their shoulders. There was laughter behind them. The Norsemen thought they were surrendering.

The sky cracked open. Night turned to brightest day for a flash as lightning tore across the firmament, which was covered in thick, glowering, unforgiving cloud. And then the rain came hissing down in sudden heavy sheets.

And not just rain. White pebbles, big around as marbles, came pelting down onto their boat. The hailstones gleamed off the dark planks. Some of them were unforgivingly jagged, looking more like the heads of spears or hammers than harmless round river-stones.

The laughs and whoops of triumph behind them turned to shouts of dismay and wrath as the heavy hailstones pelted straight through the sails of their pursuers, making long, jagged tears. Their own sails having been taken down and bound fast, were safe from such rough treatment, however. The Northmen’s ships kept pace for a spell, but soon began to fall behind as the men aboard tried to control the damage.

Bohodar crossed himself beneath his shield as he heard the Norsemen’s boats falling further and further behind them. This sudden hailstorm – the earliest of the spring season – had, he was sure, been sent by God to save them.

They waited until the storm, as sudden in its ending as in its beginning, had abated. And then they put their shields back in their notches and resumed their rowing. It was some time before they dared to raise the patterned sail of their stolen ship again – but by that time, the Northmen had given up the pursuit and returned to Kungahälla to make repairs to the sails and recoup their losses.

‘Dear God,’ Bohodar crossed himself again and again and gave his words of thanks. ‘Your ways are inscrutable; Your blessings incalculable. You have delivered me out of the hands of my enemies; and I shall undertake Your paths, and embark upon penance for whatever days are left to me.’

The sun climbed the sky over the land off to their left as they continued their southward course. Eventually it grew full light, though the sky was still pearly with cloud and the sun beamed through but hazily. Bohodar chanced to look out over the side into the calm water.

By this time, Bohodar had grown a bristling, spiky scruff that extruded haphazardly in patches from his cheeks, the lower part of his jaw and his chin, all the way down to his neck – not quite to his Adam’s apple, but almost. Sadly, he hadn’t the disposition for a proper beard, which is why he kept himself shaven most of the time. And his unshorn grey hair hung in a lank, drooping mop around all the sides of his head. When he looked into his reflection in the water, he hardly recognised himself.

But he was alive. And he was free. And he was bound for home.

 

[filcat]

‘Tell me, please, is there anything I can do?’

No, no, no, do not ask that Blažena, do not -

‘There… is one thing.

sigh. Too late.

Blažena gave a bitter scoff. ‘Well then, please don’t trouble yourself on that last count. I don’t care one cherry-stone what the Church thinks.’

...and with this reply, the circle is complete, the story folds as clockwork, the arc concludes with impeccable precision.

With the above quote, as well as The Valiant from The Thin Wedge of Europe, have to update the official status for this story (universal filcat-o-meter) from remarkable to magnificent. And it has been only 30 years of the story.

Kudos.

---

You wired me awake and hit me with a hand of broken nails;
You tied my lead and pulled my chain to watch my blood begin to boil…​

Too cold to start a fire, I’m burning diesel, burning dinosaur bones –
I’ll take the river down to still water and ride a pack of dogs…​

Wonderful choice

And he was going to run.

This is exhilarating; yes! Revenge will be yours, Bohodar! Do not despair!

(no sense in denying it now)

Cruel reality hits the human when at its lowest condition.

Thank God. God would grant him his revenge, and deliver him from this fonsel just as he had delivered Saint Paul and Saint Silas from the one in Philippoi.

Hmmm, an earthquake is a little bit too much, isn't it?
On the other hand, cannot say have wished for less vicious revenge plans in own runs, and have committed much worse, so that is empathetic-ally understandable - ck3 has its ways to aggravate the player. But that is gameplay-talk.

From the story's perspective, it is a precise definition considering the condition of Bohodar. Kudos.

The six had already taken to their heels. Bohodar followed them out into the moonlit early-spring night – into the wild budding birches of Geatland. God willing, they would all reach the river before the hounds reached them.

Run Bohodar run! (obvious reference to Lola rennt (1998), not the other less obvious one)

(Also, since you are there Bohyasha, check for some stones of eddas for Atlakviða, will ya? A small piece would suffice. If not, no problem. Godspeed, return home safe.)

---

Wait...

Hits like a Phillips head inside my brain –
It’s gonna be too dark to sleep again,
Cutting my teeth on bars and rusty chains…

Oh no this is not the one by Johnny Cash.
This is...
...the original soundgarden.

Ears; ears bleeding.

Hang on. This can be salvaged. Some operations, some rest, some medication; that will heal the wounds.

First, small operation.
To clear up the mind, pre-op. Hurt by Johnny Cash (2002) (so that every bit of whatever left from nine inch nails can be forgotten forever - one stone, two birds)
Then, the main procedure. Song of the Volga Boatmen - Эй, ухнем! by Red Army Chorus (with Leonid Kharitonov - 1965)
If complication occurs during pre-op procedure, then Ярило by Arkona (2009).
To close up the incision, Сумецкая by Otava Yo (2015).

Second, post-operation rest.
To ease the pain. Sinnerman by Nina Simone (1965).
After the pain treatment, rest. This Bitter Earth by Dinah Washington (1960 - though the version with On the Nature of Daylight would do also).
Awake - Still sleepy? Get up! Guten Morgen! Blut im Auge by Equilibrium (2008).

Third, go to apothecary.
Grüezi mitenand! Epona by Eluveitie (2017).
Medication? Doctor's orders to restore the mind; Jagun Jagun by BANTU (2020).
As supplementary, pseudo-medieval tunes; Oyneng Yar by Faun (2011).
After treatment support, sounds of the sky from different corners of the earth; Hunnu Guren by Batzorig Vaanchig & Auļi (2019)

Final check-up; Forces (Berserk) by Susumu Hirasawa (1997) (loop for hours until healing conditions reached)

 

[Revan86]

and with this reply, the circle is complete, the story folds as clockwork, the arc concludes with impeccable precision.

With the above quote, as well as The Valiant from The Thin Wedge of Europe, have to update the official status for this story (universal filcat-o-meter) from remarkable to magnificent. And it has been only 30 years of the story.

Kudos.

Thank you, sir, you are far too kind!

I was a bit worried as I was writing that 'The Valiant' was a bit too French, a bit too high-medieval Malory, not Slavic enough in character. Czech and Slovak folktales usually feature heroes that are a bit more modest, a bit less boastful, a bit more cunning in a folksy, šikovná-Manka or šťastný-Vanek sort of way. But given the pan-Europeanness of the Sleeping King in the Mountain myth and the presence of bolder tall-tale folk heroes like Jurko Jánošík in (much-later) Slovak national lore, I figured I could kinda sorta get away with that one.

Run Bohodar run! (obvious reference to Lola rennt (1998), not the other less obvious one)

(Also, since you are there Bohyasha, check for some stones of eddas for Atlakviða, will ya? A small piece would suffice. If not, no problem. Godspeed, return home safe.)

LOL, yes!

(Also, drat. Huge missed opportunity there, particularly given Bohodar's scholastic proclivities...)

Oh no this is not the one by Johnny Cash.
This is...
...the original soundgarden.

Ears; ears bleeding.

Oops. Sorry.

To be fair, the video I linked was the (superior) Johnny Cash cover on American II, but I had been listening to both versions while writing, and I needed that bridge to fill out the four-part chapter I was writing.

Hang on. This can be salvaged. Some operations, some rest, some medication; that will heal the wounds.

First, small operation.
To clear up the mind, pre-op. Hurt by Johnny Cash (2002) (so that every bit of whatever left from nine inch nails can be forgotten forever - one stone, two birds)
Then, the main procedure. Song of the Volga Boatmen - Эй, ухнем! by Red Army Chorus (with Leonid Kharitonov - 1965)
If complication occurs during pre-op procedure, then Ярило by Arkona (2009).
To close up the incision, Сумецкая by Otava Yo (2015).

Okay, first - more Cash + Soviet choral classics - always good for the soul.
It's been awhile since I've listened to Аркона (I've got «Лепта» and «Возрождение» in my library, but to be level with you the early-'00s blackened-folk stuff kinda lost its appeal to me a few years ago), but that song is not bad! Gives me a hankering to listen to Moonsorrow's early stuff (Suden uni) again for some reason.
Also... Отава Ё! Молодец. Это совершенство. *chef's kiss*

Second, post-operation rest.
To ease the pain. Sinnerman by Nina Simone (1965).
After the pain treatment, rest. This Bitter Earth by Dinah Washington (1960 - though the version with On the Nature of Daylight would do also).
Awake - Still sleepy? Get up! Guten Morgen! Blut im Auge by Equilibrium (2008).

Classics.

(Out of curiosity - I know this is kind of a left turn coming off of incomparables like Simone and Washington - but have you heard of Blues Pills? They're obviously more of a post-Ghost retro fuzz-metal outfit than classic blues, but their lead singer has that kind of catch.)

Equilibrium? ... mmmmmm, kinda losing me there. Obviously they are ridiculously important in the folk-metal canon, but when it comes to this sort of music I tend to prefer Die Apokalyptischen Reiter's later albums.

Third, go to apothecary.
Grüezi mitenand! Epona by Eluveitie (2017).
Medication? Doctor's orders to restore the mind; Jagun Jagun by BANTU (2020).
As supplementary, pseudo-medieval tunes; Oyneng Yar by Faun (2011).
After treatment support, sounds of the sky from different corners of the earth; Hunnu Guren by Batzorig Vaanchig & Auļi (2019)

IN THE WEST HE AROSE, THE HIGH KING FROM ANTUMNOS--!
(Yes, I know that's from Origins. Still good, though. Also, to all you naysayers and nitpicking purists who say Eluveitie haven't put out anything good since Slania, you know where you can stick that red-hot poker. The Evocations albums are actually quality pieces of music, and Ategnatos easily ranks up there with Spirit in terms of quality folk-metal.)

Now we're getting into sort of unfamiliar territory. Haven't heard of BANTU before now, but I'm digging it. Faun reminds me a bit of Sava - not a bad sound. And 'Hunnu Guren' --- yes, now we talkin'! Get that 马头琴 playing and 呼麦 chant going. Nothing else like it to lift the spirits. Never heard it mixed with bagpipes, though...

 

[filcat]

Ah that's just awesome. Until writing a comment, Part IV was already published. Have to find a way to write shorter and quicker comments.
- You know that is something you are truly incapable, right, filcat? To write shorter comments, let alone quickly?
- Yawn. At least I'll try.
- I think you'll more like die tryin'.

(...) and it seemed as though the night was fighting to stay in the sky.

Impeccable description (and will archive it with a reference to its creator to preserve in the list of unique magnificence to avoid accidental-coincidental copy-quotes on it).

And not just rain. White pebbles, big around as marbles, came pelting down onto their boat. The hailstones gleamed off the dark planks. Some of them were unforgivingly jagged, looking more like the heads of spears or hammers than harmless round river-stones.

Spoiler: Wooooouuu-h Yeah baby!

But he was alive. And he was free. And he was bound for home.

And time for revenge!

---

(Yes, I know that's from Origins. Still good, though. Also, to all you naysayers and nitpicking purists who say Eluveitie haven't put out anything good since Slania, you know where you can stick that red-hot poker. The Evocations albums are actually quality pieces of music, and Ategnatos easily ranks up there with Spirit in terms of quality folk-metal.)

Nope, not a purist; personally cannot be. Still Eluveitie, still listening - abandoning a group due to some different-sound-to-going-off-style reasons is not own strongest suit.
E.g.: Still listening to In Flames, even if they have undergone through severe metamorphosis post-Colony.

Equilibrium? ... mmmmmm, kinda losing me there. Obviously they are ridiculously important in the folk-metal canon, but when it comes to this sort of music I tend to prefer Die Apokalyptischen Reiter's later albums.

Hmmm, problem, right there. But the counter-proposal at the end saves the day; Friede sei mit dir, aber Es wird schlimmer! (nicht so, aber na ja, die Titel sind so)

And 'Hunnu Guren' --- yes, now we talkin'! Get that 马头琴 playing and 呼麦 chant going. Nothing else like it to lift the spirits. Never heard it mixed with bagpipes, though...

That one is naturally the magic of khöömi Batzorig Vaanchig and his morin khuur - horse fiddle; bagpipes-addition is a wonderfully mental collaboration from the latvians Auļi.
Batzorig also performs with the ensemble band Khusugtun; but there are many other Altaic, Tuvan, or Mongolian, etc. khöömi performers-bands - Altai Kai band comes to mind first; Bukchuluun Ganburged has to be mentioned also; but for more metal-lic sounds, of course there is The HU (and thanks to some st*r wars game, they are now hyper-famous).

(Out of curiosity - I know this is kind of a left turn coming off of incomparables like Simone and Washington - but have you heard of Blues Pills? They're obviously more of a post-Ghost retro fuzz-metal outfit than classic blues, but their lead singer has that kind of catch.)

Woow - this one missed the eyes. This is... wonderful. Should have caught this earlier; have archived it immediately, and now will check all of its albums.

Sincerely thankful for sharing another greatness, helping own eyesight to increase for unknown and unheard and hidden tastes.

Spoiler: Think this is a beginning

---

- Lol filcat, is this your understanding of posting a short-and-quick comment?
- Hey, I did what I could do, tried my best.
- Mate, my fingers hurt when scrolling-down through your comments...
- What would you prefer I should have done, another history-meme?
- I have no more words for you. No words.

 

[Revan86]

TWENTY-THREE
Upon the Return
2 April 896​

Apart from the miraculous hailstorm, the rest of the Slavs’ voyage home was uneventful. Thanks to the one Pomeranian among them, they managed to find without trouble the inlet to the Szczecin Lagoon, and from there up the Oder they were able to make their way back to their respective homelands. His Slavic sailors each took their leave of him, one after the other, and soon he was left alone to make the passage over the mountains, down into Opava, and from there into Moravia proper.

Olomouc was a sight for sore eyes indeed. The stone fastness stood upon its motte, and the Morava bending around the town fortifications, the familiar south gate, and there went the road that would lead him home. For three and a half years he had been away, on one disastrous campaign after another, from costly victory to defeat back to costly victory. He had not come away unscathed, but the deepest wound of all – the loss of a son – could not be seen with the eyes.

The knieža of Olomouc was soon past the mill-race and inside the bailey. By the guest-houses, Bohodar was hailed by a young woman with an oaken-hued crown braid and amber eyes to match. She was quite attractive, with a fashionably-slender figure, a swan-neck and a heart-shaped face… though she moved a bit stiffly, as if her joints gave her trouble. However, it rather startled Bohodar to see that although there was earnestness and passion behind those eyes, there was no great warmth. Although he had never seen her before, for some reason she looked remarkably familiar.

‘Kníže můj,’ she courtesied slowly, but with polite exactitude. ‘Your return has been long awaited! It is a pleasure finally to lay eyes on you, as it were, in the flesh.’

Bohodar accepted her obeisances graciously, and favoured her with a smile. ‘I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, madam…?’

‘Marie,’ she told him. ‘In your absence I have been filling the duties of your kancelár; I hope you don’t mind. We’ve managed to keep the rakoušané entertained while they were here; although I think he rather regretted not being able to see your Lordship in person, he nevertheless assured me that he would be happy to keep up the correspondence.’

‘A pleasure, Marie. But, pardon my bluntness, on what grounds…?’

Even as he said it, the familiarity of her face struck him. No – he had never seen her before, in the flesh. But that slender neck, that fair complexion, that straight and well-formed nose, that oaken sheen of her hair… those he did know, or rather had known, though it was like a ghost come back to haunt him.

‘… Forgive me,’ Bohodar said, ‘but are you any relation of Vladimír Přemyslovec?’

‘Ah,’ Marie mouthed with a smirk. ‘My ill-fated younger brother. He always was an impetuous simpleton – I’m not surprised he went and got himself killed.’ The contemptuous ease with which she said it, and the utter lack of warmth for her brother, sent a slight chill over Bohodar. ‘But yes, I am the heir to his fortunes and his titles. Unlike him, I had the wit and wherewithal to know how the wind was blowing. Never fear, I shall make good use of my honours and my position in your service.’

Marie indicated her chest so Bohodar couldn’t fail to notice the square silver cross that rested upon it.

It came as something of a shock to Bohodar. Of course, ever since his baptism and conversion at the hands of Saint Methodius, he had always been convinced of the complete and unconditional truth of the Orthodox faith. But he recalled the pitiable and heartwrenching way that the heathen Vladimír had met his death. And now he beheld his clearly competent and voluble, but cold and pitiless, Orthodox sister, so like him and yet so unlike. Bohodar had to wonder… all the more so since the icy miracle from heaven that had secured his deliverance from the severané. God’s reach was unfathomable, and the gifts He bestowed incomprehensible to the human eye. Who could see the grand design? Might there yet be comfort in the hereafter for Vladimír? And might not there yet show in his elder sister here some glimmer of the courage he recalled in the brother? Who could tell?

‘Very well, hraběnka Marie. Carry on as you have done. I am going within.’

Marie smirked again. ‘Not to worry. You and Lady Mechthild shall not be disturbed.’

Something would have to be done about that cheek, though.

Bohodar made his way up the motte and into the keep, his eyes adjusting to the dark. And then he saw the one person he had been longing all these three and a half years most to see. Bohodar’s eyes drank in his wife at the top of the stairs leading up to their rooms from the main hall. She had checked in her step, as though trying to decide whether or not to believe her eyes. He paused. Although Mechthild’s head was greyer still than his, such hot desire as he hadn’t felt in decades was gripping him hard by the heart and by the loins. And yet between them, with the death of Radomír, there was this this sadness, this wound that hadn’t yet been lanced. How was he to bridge it? Almost before he had finished wondering what to say to her, the words of Odysseus came tumbling out of his mouth as if of their own will:

‘Δαιμονίη, περί σοί γε γυναικῶν θηλυτεράων
κῆρ ἀτέραμνον ἔθηκαν Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾽ ἔχοντες:
οὐ μέν κ᾽ ἄλλη γ᾽ ὧδε γυνὴ τετληότι θυμῷ
ἀνδρὸς ἀφεσταίη!’​

Mechthild, hearing and knowing this, gave him proud Penelopeia’s answer, her dark Swabian eyes blazing with the selfsame fire that scorched him:

‘Δαιμόνι᾽, οὔτ᾽ ἄρ τι μεγαλίζομαι οὔτ᾽ ἀθερίζω
οὔτε λίην ἄγαμαι, μάλα δ᾽ εὖ οἶδ᾽ οἷος ἔησθα
ἐξ Ἰθάκης ἐπὶ νηὸς ἰὼν δολιχηρέτμοιο.’​

Step by trembling step, Bohodar mounted the stairs to his wife, who gripped him hard by the hands and drew him to her. Tears were welling in her eyes. ‘Μή μοι, Ὀδυσσεῦ, σκύζευ,’ she murmured.

Bohodar lifted her chin, and wiped away the tears from each eye with his fingers. He kissed one eyelid, then the other. Then he kissed her forehead. Then her mouth. Then her neck. Mechthild sighed and clasped Bohodar about the shoulders, then tugged him bodily back toward their room. Shutting and dropping the latch on the door behind her, she made short work of her clothes, and then his. Bohodar clasped his wife and ran his hands down her bare flanks. Before Bohodar and Mechthild tried to mend their shared wound of the heart, they knitted their bodies together for the sheer comfort of it, each of them assured of the tenderness and care of the other.

When they were done, Bohodar turned aside to his wife and ran a hand over her naked flesh. ‘Well, at least you didn’t move the bed! Not one inch, I see.’

‘Never once,’ Mechthild assured him warmly, laying her hand across the back of his, and turning her face to him. There were lines of worry and sorrow that ran across her forehead, and creases at either side of her mouth, but Bohodar had never seen her more beautiful. Could there be anything sweeter for a husband than the devotion that his wife had borne for him, than the loyalty she had shown to him? Even though there remained between them the cruel fact – their Telemachos was gone, having fought his last fight from afar – here truly was his faithful Penelopeia.

There would be time for them to speak later. About Radomír… and about other things. Mechthild had earned his trust over and over: to her, and to her alone, would he speak about what Viera had disclosed to him about the Queen, before he left to do battle in her name.

~~~​

It was some time afterward that Bohodar was sitting in the great hall, alone, reading an Arabic volume which Hromislav had managed to acquire for him, that his quiet, angular-faced son-in-law came over to him and sat down beside him. He set before them on the table a great big three-gallon flagon of fine damson wine, a ladle, and two cups. He motioned to his offering with a tip of his head.

Bohodar wasn’t about to turn down an invitation like that. The Serb crossed himself and ladled out two full cups of the strong, full-bodied red wine, and raised his to the knieža’s.

‘Radku,’ he said simply.

Bohodar lifted his own cup to toast his dead son. Tihomír drained his whole cup in a single go, then set his cup down with a sigh. He shook his head vigorously, and then ladled himself out another cup.

At Bohodar’s questioning glance, Tihomír gave his father-in-law a sly smile.

‘Slávki,’ he said. ‘Mojoj ćerki.’

So Viera’d gone and mothered another one while he was in Westrogothia, had she? A daughter? Sure, Bohodar would drink to her, too: a new young life gained – hardly a fair exchange for the young life lost, but one to be grateful for nonetheless. He quaffed his second as quickly as Tihomír did. The third and the fourth cups, Bohodar and Tihomír sipped at more slowly. In that space, sorrow and joy were allowed to sit with them as amiable drinking-companions in their silence. Bohodar beheld his saturnine son-in-law with keen respect and regard. For some reason Bohodar felt closest to Tihomír among all four of his sons-in-law. There was something about sitting together with Tihomír – even if, as was his wont, he said nothing at all – that set his mind deeply at ease, in a way he hadn’t felt since Vojmil had gone to his rest. Words spoken were Tihomír’s only parsimony. In everything else – food, drink, silver, time, even joy and sorrow as now – the Serb shared all he had and all he was, without question and without reserve.

Bohodar and Tihomír went on drinking from his flagon until they were down to the lees… and Bohodar was feeling the effects in his head, in the flush of his face, and in the infuriating reticence of his shoulders to stay upright. When the flagon was well and truly empty, the two of them stumbled up the stairs, supporting each other as best they could, and hanging upon each other when they could not. Somehow, eventually, they managed it, and Bohodar sent Tihomír back to his wife before shambling off to his own quarters. He was met outside his door, however, by Blažena.

‘Ah, Blažka! You’re up at this hour?’

‘I, ah…’ his daughter began, but then shook his head and thought better of it. ‘I did have something I want to speak to you about, but I won’t impose. It’s the kind of matter for which I’d rather have your ear when I know there’s a clear head behind it.’

Bohodar gave a grunt of acknowledgement. ‘Hodná holka,’ he complimented her. ‘Dob’ noc.’

Blažena smiled and kissed her father on the forehead. ‘Dobrú noc, ocko môj.’

 

[Silverio90]

It seems that Moravians don't lose time...

 

[filcat]

Almost before he had finished wondering what to say to her, the words of Odysseus came tumbling out of his mouth as if of their own will:

‘Δαιμονίη, περί σοί γε γυναικῶν θηλυτεράων
κῆρ ἀτέραμνον ἔθηκαν Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾽ ἔχοντες:
οὐ μέν κ᾽ ἄλλη γ᾽ ὧδε γυνὴ τετληότι θυμῷ
ἀνδρὸς ἀφεσταίη!’​

Mechthild, hearing and knowing this, gave him proud Penelopeia’s answer, her dark Swabian eyes blazing with the selfsame fire that scorched him:

‘Δαιμόνι᾽, οὔτ᾽ ἄρ τι μεγαλίζομαι οὔτ᾽ ἀθερίζω
οὔτε λίην ἄγαμαι, μάλα δ᾽ εὖ οἶδ᾽ οἷος ἔησθα
ἐξ Ἰθάκης ἐπὶ νηὸς ἰὼν δολιχηρέτμοιο.’​

Pure magnificence, using the verses to depict the reunification that is. Kudos.

their Telemachos was gone, having fought his last fight from afar

Yep, this metaphor was guaranteed as soon as the name of the Ἰθακήσιος was uttered, or even expected when Bohodar jumped into the longship of freedom. Well played, well played.

‘I did have something I want to speak to you about, but I won’t impose. It’s the kind of matter for which I’d rather have your ear when I know there’s a clear head behind it.’

There does not exist any level of clarity one can have to comprehend that matter, Blažena, but sure, go ahead, it is 10. century ce after all.

 

[MatthewP]

Just wanted to pop in and say this is terrific, not many AARs with this quality. Can’t wait to follow the rest.

I can’t decide if I’m sad or relieved by the plan to cut down on detail for most of the rest. On the one hand I will miss the beautiful character building of this narrative so far, but on the other it does seem unsustainable for a mega campaign and I’d like to see the story catch up to the gameplay in EU4.

 

[Revan86]

@Silverio90 - Well, they hadn't seen each other for four years, can't really blame them...

@filcat -

Yep, this metaphor was guaranteed as soon as the name of the Ἰθακήσιος was uttered, or even expected when Bohodar jumped into the longship of freedom. Well played, well played.

I dunno, I thought outlaw country music + the Odyssey was a deft touch at the time, but the Coen Brothers kinda beat me to it.

There does not exist any level of clarity one can have to comprehend that matter, Blažena, but sure, go ahead, it is 10. century ce after all.

True, true. Even so.

@MatthewP -

Just wanted to pop in and say this is terrific, not many AARs with this quality. Can’t wait to follow the rest.

I can’t decide if I’m sad or relieved by the plan to cut down on detail for most of the rest. On the one hand I will miss the beautiful character building of this narrative so far, but on the other it does seem unsustainable for a mega campaign and I’d like to see the story catch up to the gameplay in EU4.

Thank you for the kind words! The choice between in-depth character pieces and pacing was kind of a wrench for me as well. On the one hand, I got kind of attached to these characters; on the other hand, I don't want to lose sight of the forest for the trees, and miss the main arc for the various eddies and bycurrents that I could easily get lost in. Hopefully this structure will keep me honest.

TWENTY-FOUR
From the Slopes of Mount Silpios
25 June 897

An mîna liobista unfargilîhlihha Mahthild, in Gotes namo gruozzen, unt’ mîna êwiga hôhahta unt’ zaneiga, ir liobafollar gatu Bohodar—

For He only knows to what purpose, my own weighty sins being what they are, God has provided me with a helpmeet as He provided Rachel unto Isaac: a woman truly unsurpassed in consideration, understanding and honesty. Only a Mechthild of Stuttgart would, having a husband returned from four years at war and home at last, not only consent for him to leave her side once more so soon – but understand so readily his reasons and the debt he owes to God for deliverance. God willing it shall not be for long. As I undertake this journey on behalf of our son’s soul and salvation, Mechthild, may this letter to you, as paltry and unworthy an offering as it must seem, furnish you with all the assurances of my admiration and adoration of you. You and you alone are always in my thoughts, and your name, every morning and night, is first upon my lips in commendation to the mercies of our Lord Jesus Christ and the All-Holy Mother of God.

[Written somewhere southeast of Blatnohrad; 2 April. – Ed.]

Our journey continues at speed. My beloved, your advice to me to stay over in Balaton on my journey was well-thought. Though he is still wearing the white on account of his poor departed father Ivan (may God forgive whatever of his sins were the cause of his deadly affliction), little Drahoslav has proven to be a most attentive and gracious host to our party. Although he inclines to the Franks as a matter of policy, he is a good Slav. He takes it as a point of pride to feed and wine his guests to their fill and more, as a show of his munificence. He is not the best of conversationalists, as he does not like to dwell deeply on any one topic for too long, but he was eager to hear my tales of war, of my capture by Rane Ramneson and my escape from his clutches.

His estate rests on the southwestern shore of the lake. The lake is beautiful, by the way, with waters of a vibrant green and the sun in its perfect sphere glittering in thousands of tiny mirrors off the surface. We spent some time fishing, but I am ashamed to say that I am not as well-versed in the art even as our host, who laughed heartily when he first saw me cast a line. I caught two small pikeperches big enough to eat, but nothing more extraordinary than that, the whole time.

At the end of our stay, Drahoslav urged us to stay several more days or even weeks, but we would press onward. Not taking it amiss, he furnished us forward with supplies for the next leg of our pilgrimage, and asked that we deliver our prayers for him at the Church of Saint Peter. These I am more than willing to give, for the fellowship he has shown us. Do I imagine wrong, Mechthild, that we may have in Drahoslav a worthy grandson-in-law, fit for one of Viera’s or Vlasta’s daughters? I look forward to speaking with you of this matter in person upon my return.

[Written near Adrianopolis; date unclear. – Ed.]

I have never seen such wretched weather! I had thought that, if we left by late March, we would traverse the Bosporus after the worst of the winter storms was over – no such luck. Our pilgrimage party joined up with several others on the road out from Adrianopolis, and we stopped to hold Liturgy on Sunday morning, at an altar under the open air (for the nearest parish church was in no fit state to be used). No sooner had the Great Litany been said, but a mighty wind blew up from the south, and carried with it angry dark clouds, which at once opened up and let down torrents upon our heads. Most of our party fared their way back to their tents while Father Miloš (obstinate fellow) kept shouting his homily into the rising winds even as the rain was soaking through to our skin. I stayed as long as I could, dearest, but I will not lie to you – I have never departed church in such haste after the Mysteries were offered as I did from that debacle.

I have kept this letter safely in a dry spot, and am trying my best to keep the parchment clean and neat for you as I write, but I am drenched to the skin and still shivering. I pray I do not catch cold, or worse.

[Written from Ánkyra; 26 May. – Ed.]

Mechthild, doubts beset me! Not for the first time, I question the wisdom of this venture. Is it not my own vainglory which spurs me on? I cannot imagine that Radomír is anywhere else but in heaven, Christian soul that he was, laying down life for his friends. He is buried with honour in Velehrad; Bratromila has seen to that. What more need has he of me, in such bliss as he must be now? And even though we are well into Asia, and our holy destination draws ever nearer, I long more and more for home, and still more for your warm embrace.

I would turn back again tomorrow, to hold you in my arms again! But… no. Mechthild, knowing your temper as I do—though you did upbraid me for leaving again so soon, and though you did win from me the promise of this letter—I know that if I were to turn back now, never having reached the caves where the Prince of the Apostles prayed, you would think less of me, and I would deserve it. What I set out to do, what I promised to our Radomír, I shall fulfil. Honour demands no less.

Pray for me, beloved. I fear the hooks and snares of the Evil One as he seeks to turn me back.

[Written from Antiocheia on the Orontēs; 28 June. – Ed.]

As I put the quill to my paper, even as I write, I am looking out from the slopes of Mount Silpios out over the city to the river. The Orontēs flows in a long band from northeast to southwest across the city, and the ancient buildings of earth and stone stand tightly packed together all along it. Oh, my wife – my heart! Were that you were here with me: breathing this holy air, revering the sacred dust of this place, where those upon the Way were first called ‘Christians’!

First I visited the ruin of the great Golden House, built by Holy Emperor Constantine. The gilt wooden dome is still there amid the cracked pillars and general wrack. Then I went to Starios Mons, to the cave which the locals call the Kinīssat Mār Sëm‘ūn. There I knelt in the dark of the cave church where Saint Peter once prayed, and kissed the hallowed mosaic-covered floor where the Apostle once knelt. There I offered my prayers: for Radomír, for you, for all of our daughters, in thanks for my deliverance from the heathen. Now I know I made no mistake! Though nothing can sever Radomír from God’s everlasting love, yet I know that my prayers were heard, and it was as though a great burden were lifted off of my shoulders! Finally I undertook the walk eastward, over the hills and into the desert, until I came to the stump of another Mār Sëm‘ūn, who lived his whole monastic life upon the pillar which it held aloft, exposed to the elements, and now lies buried beneath this rock.

I am enclosing and sending back with this letter some of the holy myrrh from the cave church, and a particle from the stump of Saint Sëm‘ūn’s pillar. These are yours to venerate and to adore. This way, perhaps, it will indeed be as though you were here with me…

[The letter continues on for some more paragraphs, and inquires after Matylda’s and their daughters’ health and condition, and the state of affairs in Olomouc before concluding. – Ed.]

 

[Revan86]

TWENTY-FIVE
Vazal silou – kamarát voľný
25 – 31 December 897​

Bohodar held the candle before his face, sheltering the brittle shard of light from the chilly winter wind with his hand as the procession made its way from the Church of the Panagia to the hall in Hradec. Beside him, Mechthild did the same. And behind them, were the two of their progeny that had accompanied them here: their daughter Blažena, and their grandson Bohodar mladší. (Viera, Vlasta, Krásnoroda and Slavomíra were all celebrating the feast in the south, with their in-laws.) Bohodar looked aside to his wife in the procession. Not for the first time, and not for the last, Bohodar admired her elegant walk, and the effect that the cold air had on his wife’s cheeks, making them bloom bright like roses. He traced her cheek and held a candle-warmed hand against it, which she received gratefully… but which he had to replace ere his light blew out. When at last they reached the hall, the bishop turned toward them with his candle and called out joyously:

‘Kristus sa narodil!’

To which the answer went up: ‘Oslavte ho!’

‘The joy of the feast be with you!’

And with that, the bishop flung open the doors to Vitislav’s hall, and bade them all come inside. Bohodar starší and Mechthild led the way within, and Vitislav himself placed them at the end of the hall nearest him. Blažena and Bohodar mladší were seated a bit further down.

Vitislav Slavníkov, the hrabě of Hradec, was a jovial host indeed. Though one of his eyes had been unsightly gouged, and he wore a leather patch over it, the other eye glimmered beneficently over the truly magnificent Christmas spread that he and his wife Dorota had prepared for them all. It soon became clear to Bohodar, as the hrabě sank his teeth greedily into his second leg of mutton and downed his fifth bowl of wine, that Vitislav’s idea of hospitality was to furnish forth for his guests as many and as sumptuous victuals as he could afford – food and wine being chief among the pleasures he himself enjoyed, the sheer volume of food he had spread before them was a sincere gesture of kindness.

‘Bože môj,’ Bošiško muttered, not loud enough so that anyone but Blažena could hear him, crossing himself before sheepishly spearing one of the smaller links of sausage with his knife. ‘What cupidity! Does he truly expect us to eat all of this?’

Blažena smiled warmly. Her young nephew’s fastidiousness, the rival of her own, was one of his more endearing qualities in her eyes. ‘I imagine—or rather, I should hope—at least some of this spread will go to feed the poor and hungry. That would be in keeping with the feast.’

Bošiško smiled wanly. ‘Then it would be best – once politeness is satisfied – if I should leave the more for them. They need it more than I do.’

Blažena again watched her young nephew intently. How kind he was, and how thoughtful, yet how innocent! She did not know if his mother had revealed anything to him of the bargain she had struck with her over him, but she certainly had told him nothing of it herself. Indeed, she had not yet even broached the subject successfully with her father. Something was holding her back from it, yet the knowledge of her promise weighed heavily on her.

Vitislav interrupted her thinking with a roar. ‘More wine, my dear! More wine! I say, Bohodar—you have been more than generous with me since my conversion to the True Faith.’

‘Not that I had much of a say in the matter,’ Bohodar starší answered his vassal.

Vitislav let out a roaring laugh, and clapped Bohodar on the shoulder with a meaty hand. ‘Well, that’s all one! I just wanted to show you a small part of my appreciation! But this path you’ve embarked me on… I do say it all fascinates me greatly. If I could impose on you a bit more, could I ask you a bit about your voyage to Antioch? I wonder, did you pass through Asia Minor on your way there?’

‘My stay in that region was a bit brief,’ Bohodar inclined his head modestly. ‘I confess I was a bit eager to hurry to my destination…’

‘My husband is too self-deprecating,’ Mechthild spoke up vivaciously. ‘He wrote me an excellent letter, and one of the passages indeed he wrote from Ánkyra, where he stayed for – what was it? Four days? A week? You did spend some time in those parts, I’m sure of it.’

‘I knew it!’ Vitislav’s good eye lit up with a jovial twinkle. ‘I knew you couldn’t resist the calls of the Asian solitaries! And tell me… did you spend a good deal of time at the pillar of Saint Simeon?’

‘He even sent me back a piece of the pillar,’ Mechthild volunteered. ‘An invaluable gift.’

Bohodar smiled and shrugged to his host.

‘You don’t say!’ Vitislav broke into a broad grin. ‘Well. In that case, Bohodar, you absolutely must tell me more of it. Tell me what you experienced, how you prayed, what manner of techniques you learned from the elders and holy men whom you encountered over there! I am indeed eager to hear of it all.’

Blažena excused herself from the table, following where Bošiško had gone off with the other children. Whenever the talk turned to matters of the Church, whenever possible, she tuned out or left. She would attend the Liturgies for the sake of appearances and for politeness, but anything longer than that, and she simply lost interest. As she went out to the courtyard, she arrived just in time to see Bošiško get shoved hard by a younger boy with blond hair – full force, clearly with the younger one intending him malice. Blažena, being older than them both, stepped in to intervene, but Bošiško held up a hand. The little boy began pummeling Bohodar with his fists, but the older boy withstood the blows, held him by the shoulders, and tried to calm him.

‘Strojmír. Strojmír! Hej, brácho, ukľudni sa, jo? It’s just a game… you want to talk about it? C’mon, sit over here and we’ll talk…’

Watching this from the side, Blažena felt her heart skip a beat in her chest. She held her hands to her cheeks, knowing that the red on them wasn’t wholly owing to the outdoor cold. It was as though Bohodar mladší had metamorphosed before her eyes. In dealing so kindly and thoughtfully and maturely with the younger boy, in showing strength without being moved by passions of anger or revenge, he had somehow emerged from boyhood himself in her eyes, as a butterfly from a chrysalis… or as though a veil had been torn away from her eyes. Now, all of a sudden, Blažena couldn’t help but notice his emerging jawline and Adam’s apple, the widening span of his shoulders, his athletic torso.

And it struck her, even as she was checking him out again, how much of Bošiško was what she said she wanted in a man. Here before her was a fair youth, nimble of mind, modest of habit, tender and sweet and kind – but clearly also not a pushover. And yes… that was a thin bit of red stubble growing along his upper lip and on either side of his face before his ears!

And he was hers to claim, at least as far as his mother was concerned. All that stood in her way now was the Church… and her father – his grandfather. And of course it was the latter who daunted her moreso than the former. But this realisation of her own attraction gave her courage. Before this Christmas feast was out, she would declare her promise to her father. If she still considered marrying Bošiško a duty, a demand of honour, that duty was now laced with desire, all the stronger for its subterfuge.

~~~​

‘Fascinating!’ Vitislav was saying. Indeed he was fascinated – it had been two whole minutes since he had touched his heaping plate! ‘You say the monks still hold vigils nightly at the pillar? And did you get to join them? Oh, to have been there myself…!’

‘The monks do allow laymen – and even laywomen, at least before dark – to come to all of the Liturgies and vigils that they hold by the pillar. There is an icon of Saint Simeon erected there, as well as the wonderworking relics of the man himself – though these are buried. Some say that a pillar of light can still be seen over the place.’

‘Wonderful! Ah—milord,’ Vitislav leaned a little closer to his liege so that he could hear, ‘I have been making some plans to circulate some of the useful and salutary of the writings of the Holy Fathers, including those of Diadochos of Photikē, among the local kirks of my realm, and having the priests read aloud from them so that all of my people might benefit. What do you think of this idea?’

After Bohodar heard more about Vitislav’s plan to scribe and circulate the texts, he nodded his head and told him: ‘It’s a plan. It’s a good plan. If Saint Methodius were alive today, he’d be proud. But—I beg your pardon, Vitislav—I may be able to provide the assistance of my own court scribes to you and even personally assist in the effort, if you’ll have it.’

Vitislav clapped his meaty hands together and grinned broadly, his cheek pushing up over his eye patch. ‘Splendid! Yes! I look forward to working with you on this project, my liege. The two of us shall do credit to the True Faith, I am sure. Kristus sa narodil!’

‘Oslavte Ho!’ answered Bohodar. Mechthild was smirking at him from behind her bowl of wine. It had been her idea in the first place to travel to Hradec for the high holy day, and now Bohodar could see why. The several times he’d interacted with Vitislav, Bohodar had taken him for a conniving, self-centred grasper… but now that he’d talked with him a while, he found a man of intelligence and true goodwill, whose vices were simple and even childlike, but who strove after the true knowledge with zeal nevertheless. Husband mouthed a ‘danca’ to wife, and wife rewarded husband with a deepening dimple.

When it was time to retire – though this marked only the first day of the twelve-night festivities – Bohodar and Mechthild went off to their corner to sleep. But a slender hand tugged on Bohodar’s sleeve.

‘Ocko,’ came Blažena’s voice, softly. ‘Might I have a word?’

Christmas feast though it was, Bohodar was (relatively) sober. And Blažena would wait no longer to be heard. Bohodar nodded indulgently to his daughter, and she led him around to a quiet corner, sat down opposite him, and folded her hands neatly in her lap.

‘I want to discuss my marriage,’ she told him.

‘Marriage?’ Bohodar raised his brows.

‘You needn’t look so surprised,’ Blažena straightened her neck. ‘I am twenty-three years old, and even my younger sister is married now. As far as I know, you never made any plans on me.’

Bohodar rubbed his temples. ‘Sweetling, I wanted you to be able to choose well, and freely.’

Blažena opened her mouth, closed it again, fidgeted a bit with her fingers in her lap, then spoke once more. ‘I have made my choice – indeed, I made a promise that I would honour. But for it I need your blessing, father.’

‘Blažka,’ Bohodar told her indulgently, ‘you have had my blessing from the day you were born! But who is the lucky man? He is a worthy gentleman, I hope?’

Blažena’s eyes took light. ‘Worthy? Oh, yes. The one I am promised to is mild, forbearing, amiable—strong, but never overbearing—wise and understanding beyond his years.’

Bohodar smiled to see his daughter so enraptured. ‘Well, I’ve never known you to exaggerate, Blažka. Your swain sounds like a truly delightful lad, and undoubtedly worthy of you. I confess I do not understand your grimness on this business, as I think I should like him very well, and give you to him gladly! Name him to me, so that I may know him better!’

Blažena lowered her eyes, wrung her hands in her lap, took a deep breath. Bohodar sat up, concerned.

‘You fear I will forbid you to him?’ he asked gently.

Blažena gave her head a quick shake, as though to clear it, and steeled herself for whatever reaction her father might give her. ‘There is no need,’ she told him, ‘for me to make an introduction. You know him already, very well. The man I want—the man I am sworn to—is your grandson. My nephew. Bošiško.’

Silence fell. It was more dreadful to Blažena even than the wrathful outburst she had feared. But, she had spoken it at last. It was out in the open. The burden was off her aching shoulders.

‘You understand fully,’ Bohodar said to his daughter, ‘what it is you are asking of me?’

Blažena nodded.

Bohodar let out a long slow breath and rubbed the back of his head ruefully. ‘Well… let’s leave aside the fact that you and he are ten years apart, and the obvious fact of your blood relation. Please tell me how this promise came about.’

At that, Blažena disclosed to her father Hilda’s understanding of the family dynamic, her fears over her son’s inheritance, and the promise she had made to Hilda upon Radomír’s death. She then told him that she had been subtly keeping an eye on Bohodar ever afterward, and had only recently realized that she liked him more than an aunt should like a nephew.

‘And—please, Father, I beg you—do not blame Hilda beyond her due in this. I know all too well how her proposal must seem, and how base her motives may look. But I agreed to this match with my eyes wide open. I would not stand in the way of Bohodar’s birth right then, as his aunt with the entail thus in question. And I will fight for it now, myself, as his bride.’

Bohodar held his head in his hands and gripped his hair. ‘That I should be so mistrusted by my own daughter-in-law, for her to connive thus against me—! And by my own daughter as well—!’

‘Father, be reasonable!’ Blažena pleaded. ‘I know you are! How must it have looked to her? My elder sisters were all promised to others in their youth! And my younger sister given to Philotheos Aplakēs while I am still single and unclaimed! You took care to bring up Vieročka, and Radko… but then you passed both Vlastička and Krásnička over—and yes, Slavomíra, too—and singled me out for your wardship! What was Hilda to think, not knowing our laws and our ways? For a father and daughter to be as close as you and I are, and me unpromised…’

Blažena left the thought incomplete, but it still brought a guilty flush to her face.

Bohodar drew his hand down his face. There were tears in his eyes.

‘Blažka,’ he told her woefully, ‘you were ever the dearest one to me, but never in such a way! I still have nightmares about when your mother was laden with you, how ill and drawn and pale she was… how thin, how lacking in appetite… Every time I looked at you, I couldn’t help but thank God that Mechthild lived.’

‘I know, Father. I know that,’ Blažena shifted her seat and leaned her head on her father’s arm, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly. ‘I know how much you love Mother, and I know what pains it cost her to bear me, and how dear I am to you both. Hilda couldn’t have known that – or even if she did, she could not have appreciated it as I do. But even that doesn’t change my determination. Whatever was in Hilda’s mind, at the very least I may be true and honest to her.’

‘Then you also know,’ Bohodar told her wearily, ‘that in the end, I won’t deny you even this… what you are asking of me.’

‘Father,’ Blažena sobbed. Her ‘thank you’ was left unspoken. There would be more to say later, but for now, this was enough.

 

[Revan86]

TWENTY-SIX.
The Gardener and the Fool
14 October 902​

‘I take it you had a pleasant walk, milord?’

Bohodar turned aside and saw his gardener there, Světoslava Koceľaková. She had on her arm the haulms of some dried herb, and her wild blond hair was tousled after her day’s work. There was still something about her that unsettled the knieža of Olomouc. Was it that her gaze was just a trifle too intense, or that the mind behind it was so obviously harder at work than she was wont to let on?

‘Quite pleasant, thank you, Světoslava. I haven’t been this relaxed in weeks. Bratromila truly is a good friend, and understands me better than anyone… apart from Mechthild, that is.’

‘Mm,’ Světoslava placed her free hand thoughtfully on her chin. ‘Friendship is quite the blessing, is it not? But it’s good policy for a man in your position not to be too relaxed around those who profess it to you. They might not all be so… faithful.’

‘I thank you for your concern, gardener,’ Bohodar placed ever so slight an emphasis on the last word to remind her of her place.

‘Naturally, I meant no disrespect,’ Světoslava held up her free hand. ‘I speak only out of disinterested concern for your lordship. You are, after all, my benefactor – I know well enough not to bite the hand that feeds. Tell me—did your wife enjoy those floral arrangements that I put out over the summer, on the north side of the castle yard?’

‘She did indeed,’ Bohodar remarked, a tad surprised. ‘She remarked several times to me that it was her favourite spot to sit, because it was so fragrant. And of course she always enjoys the sight of the zimoľubki in bloom.’

Světoslava smiled. ‘I’m happy to hear it! It’s always good to know one’s work is appreciated. Your Mechthild—for a nemka, she’s a fine woman indeed. I can see why you love her so well. Not the brightest candle in the hall, of course, but for a woman of her appetites to sleep alone with such dogged constancy throughout her husband’s long absences speaks well to her strength of character.’

‘Drž jazyk za zubami,’ Bohodar growled. ‘I never realised I had such an impudent gardener!’

Světoslava did not flinch, or cringe, or shy away from the large nobleman’s wrath. Instead, the gaze that she met him with was so steady, so unnervingly knowing, that Bohodar had to check himself. ‘A pity…’ she murmured, patting her bundle of haulms, ‘what happened to Burgomaster Zubrivoj… is it not?’

‘Večná pamäť,’ Bohodar crossed himself. ‘He was getting on in years. His heart gave out, it happens to the best of men.’

‘Amin,’ Světoslava nodded with sad gravity. ‘Did you know… there is a flower we call napérstniki, which likes to grow on shady mountain slopes or in tall woods with not a lot of underbrush. The bell-shaped flowers grow in long, tall clusters from a single stalk in its second year of growth, and can reach a violent shade of magenta – they bloom brightest in late May. We herbalists use juice from the fresh flowers in… very small doses to treat diseases of the heart. But it can have quite the opposite effect in larger doses. Even a few drops can stop the heart completely… when was it that Burgomaster Zubrivoj’s heart gave out again?’

‘This past May,’ Bohodar answered her slowly. A cold chill ran down his spine, that had nothing at all to do with the October chill. He found himself both intrigued and appalled by his gardener’s unsettling insights. ‘Do you know something?’

Světoslava shrugged eloquently. ‘As I said – a pity. With the proper dosage of a preparation of napérstnik, his life might have been saved. But, I am only a simple gardener, so what do I know?’

‘Mphm,’ Bohodar murmured doubtfully. He was beginning to suspect that there was very little that was simple about this gardener he had hired.

‘There is… another thing you ought to know,’ Světoslava ventured again. ‘But it touches on some that are quite dear to you, so I will ask your forbearance for any, ah… impudence first.’

‘You really are trying my patience,’ Bohodar growled again. But he found he couldn’t resist the lure she had put out to him. He sighed. ‘Very well. What is it that you have to say?’

‘Well,’ Světoslava looked aside reticently, ‘as a practising herbalist, it often so happens that folk of your household come to me for certain complaints. One of Tihomír’s serving-girls, for instance, came to me several times for a marigold ointment. Now, marigold – nochtki, we call it back home – is a lovely flower in arrangements, a fine bright orange-yellow, and its roots are beneficial for the soil. It’s also used by sillier young girls and adherents of the, ah… older superstitions, in charms and incantations meant to find out one’s true love and other such rot. But the ointment, you see, is one of my milder treatments – very soothing, no ill effects – for burns and rashes and chafing in rather… sensitive spots.’

‘Burns?’ asked Bohodar. ‘But Tihomír never showed signs of any burn or rash…’

Světoslava shook her head with a slight smile. ‘I noticed that as well. And since it was a serving-girl asking for the ointment, I deduced that it must be a lady of his household – probably the lady – suffering from this complaint. If it were Tihomír, surely he would send his valet? Yet it was clear from the serving-girl’s demeanour that her visit to me was a matter of some delicacy.’

‘And so you investigated,’ Bohodar sighed.

‘Your Grace,’ Světoslava shook her head with a wry smile. ‘please do give me at least a little credit for a certain degree of discretion. Tihomír himself knew nothing of these visits, and anyone who has met our good Serb would never for a moment think he would so much as raise a hand to your lady daughter, let alone deliberately burn her. And yet there was no unusual activity either around your son-in-law’s personal quarters or their dwelling in town. Yet I did observe Viera showing some physical discomfort… more than her usual hangovers, that is—’

‘The point, Koceľaková?’ Bohodar interrupted her, crossing his arms.

‘I was getting to that,’ she retorted, a bit testily. ‘Anyway, a couple of delicate questions to her maid-servant who came for the ointment, and I was able to deduce—as evidently she was not—that Viera would wait until her husband was asleep after their samelies, and then take Tihomír’s belt from the bedstand, and rub it between her—’

‘That’s—quite enough,’ Bohodar winced. ‘I get the picture… Though I really wish I didn’t. I take it you told me this to demonstrate your skill?’

‘To your benefit, milord,’ Světoslava tapped her nose. ‘After all, I am merely—’

‘A simple gardener,’ Bohodar finished. ‘Yes, I know. Well. Now that, as you say, Burgomaster Zubrivoj is sadly deceased, there is a certain vacancy in my administration. Your, ah, disinterested advice may well have earned you a sizeable advance in your simple gardening work.’

‘Milord is most kind,’ Světoslava courtesied. ‘But remember, please: Bratromila may be a queen, and she may be your liege, but she is not to be trusted. Go on your relaxing little walks with her if you must, but take care not to show her too much of your back.’

With that disconcerting warning hanging over them, she placed the haulms over her shoulder and sauntered away. And Bohodar was left with a grudging admiration for his gardener’s subtlety and perception, as well as a nagging doubt as to whether his burgomaster’s death had been quite so natural in cause after all.

~~~​

‘We’re here,’ said Blažena, breathless and blushing with excitement.

She had led the other Bohodar – the grandson of the elder – under the eaves of a disused byre in the foregate of Olomouc, chosen specifically for its secluded shadows and its remoteness from any prying eyes. The younger Bohodar, brushing a lock of stringy red hair away from his eyes, looked around him. Given the excitement with which Blažena had brought him here, he felt sure there would be some sort of natural wonder to be seen. But there was nothing here but a run-down old barn.

‘What’s here?’ he asked.

‘You,’ Blažena told him, still blushing. ‘And me. Together. Alone.’

Now it was Bohodar’s turn to feel the hot blood rushing to his face. He had long known that his mother desired that he be engaged to his aunt – it was one of those open secrets that a family doesn’t speak of aloud but everyone in it knows. It hadn’t raised any resentment or surprise in him when he had been informed of it, shortly after he had turned fourteen… but it had made things between him and Blažena a bit more awkward. Although he had found in her a steadfast and sympathetic ear when it came to discussing his father and the torment that his death had stirred in him, now he found it strangely difficult to speak to her.

Blažena noted her young nephew’s look of discomfort, and she asked him:

‘Boško, you like me, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do, tetuška! You understand me. I can… talk to you about things.’

‘Do you… object to the idea of marrying me?’ she asked.

‘I don’t—’ Bohodar blushed harder. ‘I mean, I hadn’t—’

To tell truth, he hadn’t known what to feel about their engagement. But now that he was alone with Blažena, not just the fact but the truth of it had struck home to him. Now for him it was no longer an intellectual exercise: here was Blažena before him, in the flesh. And now it struck him, standing face to face with her, that she was indeed remarkably pretty. Her skin was smooth, healthy and creamy-fair. Her glass-green eyes gleamed intently upon him from under a pair of lustrous walnut brows; her graceful long neck was leaning towards him slightly…

‘Hej, Boško!’

Bohodar shook his head uncomfortably, but Blažena was smiling still more broadly. She took his hands, and held them in front of her.

‘To tell you the truth, I brought you here so that we could… practice.’

‘Practice… what?’ Bohodar gaped.

Blažena leaned forward expectantly. Bohodar felt his heart smashing against his ribcage as she did so. He gulped, and could feel himself trembling as he turned his head upward and closed his eyes. Nervously he continued craning until his cheek bumped up awkwardly against hers, and their lips brushed, causing a pleasant thrill to run through the whole of his young body from the back of his neck all the way down to his green loins. Bohodar opened his eyes from that, and saw Blažena standing there, her eyes still closed, taking in a deep breath through her nose as though savouring the air.

‘Do—do you want me to do it again?’ asked Bohodar, a little uncertainly.

Blažena nodded. ‘Again—yes. Longer this time.’

Bohodar again gave her a tentative peck, letting himself linger there a second longer. But Blažena gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him in, pressing him close, basking in the tender warmth of his young lips on her own. Their mouths opened and their tongues met. Bohodar put his arms around her waist, and the two of them kissed there under the eaves until they were both pleasantly winded. When Bohodar began moving his hands up her belly, though, Blažena lay a bracing grip on his wrist.

‘No. Not that. Not just yet,’ she told him. ‘Not that I buy the superstitions, but… I want us to wait for our wedding day. Then… then, Boško…’

Bohodar nodded. ‘I understand. But… you still want to practice now?’

‘Do I?!’

It was not a question but a demand – one which Bohodar was all too willing to oblige.

It was getting toward afternoon before they decided to be done and head home before they were missed. As they went through the town gate, however, they were stopped on the way by an elderly man.

Now, for some time there had lived just within the precinct of the gate of Olomouc, this odd old beggar had made his name known. He had wild hair grizzled sandy-brown and grey, and a scraggly beard which reached down to his navel. When he turned his head to the side, one could see upon his breast a heavy three-bar cross made of iron, suspended by a thick rope which had clearly chafed hard against his neck. His name, insofar as he gave it out to be known, was Leopold. There were times when the poor man was taken with fits of seizure. But he also muttered prayers constantly under his breath, and slept without cover regardless of rain or snow. The pronouncements he made to the people of Olomouc rarely failed to reveal themselves as truth. To some, he was as one cursed by devils. But to others, Leopold had garnered the reputation of a jurod – a ‘holy fool’.

Now Leopold stepped up to Bohodar. In something of an imitation of what Blažena and he had been doing, he grabbed the young boy hard by the shoulders, pulled him to him, and kissed him soundly on each cheek and then on the lips. Bohodar leapt back as if scalded.

‘Neither like Judas,’ Leopold told him, shaking his shaggy head, ‘but in love do I bequeathe thee this, that you may give your grandfather to know it, the man for whom you are named. For he truly is a righteous defender of Orthodoxy. And you, son!’ Leopold bowed to him. ‘Kráľ! Kráľ! Kráľ celej Moravy!’

‘Get out of our way, you crazy old man,’ Blažena snapped. ‘You’ll get yourself taken for treason, talking like that! You don’t even know who we are!’

But, as Leopold beheld Blažena, he sank to his knees, weeping.

‘Wait—!’ Blažena cried out. ‘I didn’t mean—I’m sorry if I—’

But Leopold again shook his shaggy head.

‘No, it’s true what thou sayest about me, I am only a crazy old man. But I am not weeping for myself,’ Leopold told her. Then he looked up into her eyes with his blazing blue ones, and told her: ‘I’m weeping for thee. For thine unborn son… and his. The mark of thy sin shall be upon him—here,’ he said, pointing to his chest. ‘He shall have to fight for his every breath. And fight he will, but succumb. Repent—I beg thee! Repent! Do not uncover thy father’s flesh!’

Blažena stepped forward and struck poor Leopold full in the face. Leopold did not defend himself, but continued to kneel in the street, weeping softly.

‘You have no idea what you’re talking about,’ the knieža’s daughter huffed angrily. ‘Come on, Boško. Let’s leave. I’ve had enough of this raving old street clown.’

Bohodar went with her, but not before he heard Leopold muttering heavenward:

‘Otče, otpusti imě; ne vedäť vo čto tvoräť… Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing…’

 

[bsmithers333]

I'm all caught up now, and all I can say is thank you for this gem of a play through!

I could pick any number of great scenes, but the escape sequence was inspired. THAT's how a high-learning character escapes from prison—with planning, quick thinking, and an ambiguous mix of luck and divine providence. Bravo!

 

[Revan86]

Thanks for the kind words, @bsmithers333!

Of course, I couldn't have predicted when Bratromila went to war with Gardomír that he'd call in the Swedes on his side. But that whole four-part sequence was ridiculous amounts of fun to write... even if I was doing some DS9-Klingon revisionism re: my Nordic fandom from Bloodsnake and Battlewolf, and tending more toward sympathy with the victims of Norse depredations instead. Bohodar's definitely more of a planner than a straight-up fighter, though. I'm glad that came off here!

 

[Revan86]

TWENTY-SEVEN
Words to the Wise
5 December 902

The wedding of Bohodar mladší and Blažena was planned to be held on the Feast of Saint Nicholas. As this was the only day during the Nativity Fast that the rules were relaxed to allow fish and wine, it was the perfect late-autumn day for it. Even the Queen and some of her retinue were invited, and they had accepted the invitation with pleasure. The table was laden with perch and fat white bream and wine was poured straight from the barrel into fine glass decanters, along with bread and salt, turnips and pickled cabbage and mixed roasted vegetables. Bohodar looked over the tables sitting alongside the roaring hearth, and nodded his head approvingly at the work. But soon he caught sight of the table arrangements and his brow grew darker.

‘Vojtěch!’ he cried out.

It did not take long for Vojtěch Slavníkov, the son of the lately-deceased Vitislav, to appear at Bohodar’s side, with his long, easy lope. The lean, slender lad looked inquiringly toward his elderly overlord. Bohodar’s eye soured: Vojtěch was a handsome rogue and deft of arm and leg, but the cocky way he treated his father’s old job – that of his lord’s šafár – as his own by right rather than as a grace from his liege, rather rubbed Bohodar the wrong way.

‘Was it your idea to place Slavomíra and Philotheos so close to the bridal seat?’

‘Yes, milord. As she is the closest sister in age to the bride, I thought it only suitable for her to be seated nearby the fortunate one.’

‘That’s asking for trouble,’ Bohodar frowned. ‘Slavomíra and Blažena fight like cat and dog. Seat them somewhere else.’

‘I really don’t think that’s a good idea, milord, given the expectations—’

‘I beg your pardon, šafár. But were you about to tell me about how best to manage my own family at this feast? It rather sounded as though you were.’

Vojtěch’s face froze, and then he shook it as he considered that he had just stepped over a line with his lordship. At once he tried to smooth things over. ‘You are… right, of course, milord. It wouldn’t do to have the happy day spoilt by bickering. Slavomíra and Philotheos shall sit somewhere else – but not too much further down, or they’ll be insulted.’

‘I leave it to your discretion, as long as you understand the material point,’ Bohodar told Vojtěch in a tone which suggested that his tolerance for his vassal’s ‘discretion’ had hard limits.

There was little else the new hrabě of Hradec could say but ‘Milord.’

Bohodar’s brow was still twitching when he went out into the courtyard. Examining the troops assembled there, again he had to cry out:

‘Bratislav!’

At once his steadfastly-loyal marshal, who had proven his worth in battle at the Vltava cliffs and bore the scars to show for it, appeared at his side.

‘Is this all you could manage?’ he waved at the two lines of men. ‘You do realise that it’s the queen we are entertaining here, and not some farthing-weight burgomistress?’

‘I beg your pardon, milord,’ Bratislav bowed. ‘We don’t have a levy called up right now, so the men I could muster for you had to be drawn from the garrison. And since you and the queen are good friends, well, I thought…’

Bohodar scowled. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting I’m the sort of “friend” who skimps on ceremony and cuts corners because I expect to be forgiven for it.’

‘N—not at all, milord,’ Bratislav held up a pair of appeasing hands against Bohodar’s glower. ‘I will get some more men off the garrison. The watch officer should be able to spare at least twenty more.’

‘Get them here. Now.’

Bratislav Pohanský pulled a volte-face and went out to carry out his lord’s commands, but that did nothing to ease Bohodar’s dudgeon. To tell the truth, this whole marriage had him on edge. He had heard of what happened in Olomouc Gate with Leopold, and had gone in person to apologise to the holy fool for his daughter’s unpardonable rudeness and violence. The holy man’s warnings still rang in his ears. He did not want his daughter and his grandson to suffer; and still less did he want his line to suffer. But how could that be done without trampling down promises, breaking hearts, tearing apart entail agreements, and setting his children at fray amongst each other? Bohodar ran a hand through his hair distractedly. He personally saw to the arrangement of the twenty additional guards of honour for the queen’s arrival before finally the royal carriage arrived.

Bohodar knelt before the carriage as Bratromila emerged. She beamed down at her vassal, and held out her hands to him.

‘Dear Bohodar! You didn’t need to do all this for me! Come, stand, let me greet you properly.’

Bohodar stood. Bratromila gave him a brisk pat on the arm and dimpled deeply for him. It took a trained eye to notice, but Bohodar did take careful note of the painstaking cosmetic work that Bratromila had put into hiding the ulcers on her lower lip.

‘It is a true pleasure to have your Majesty here,’ Bohodar told her earnestly.

‘Not at all!’ Bratromila said briskly. ‘The pleasure is mine, every time I come to see my faithful champion in the field. And for the wedding of your grandson… and your daughter. Well. Rather irregular, no?’

‘Irregular perhaps,’ Bohodar owned ruefully. ‘Not unheard of.’

‘And not entirely to your liking, either,’ Bratromila noted shrewdly. ‘Family obligations are not an easy thing, are they? Even for the family’s ostensible head.’

Bohodar took his liege’s and friend’s sympathy with the gratitude it was due. ‘No. No, they aren’t easy. This match was… not my first choice, but even I have to own that it makes the family estate simpler to manage for young Boško, once I’m dead.’

‘God willing, not for many years yet,’ Bratromila said. ‘I beg your pardon for coming early, also. I thought it might give us some time to talk a bit, before the procession.’

‘Of course. Would your Majesty like to come within by the hearth and enjoy some ale? It’s Czech.’

‘Both. Gladly,’ Bratromila nodded. ‘Mstislav—would you see to the stabling and carriages?’

The queen’s faithful shadow, Marshal Bratislav’s kinsman, still raven-haired and -bearded, stepped off and bowed to her. ‘Yes, my Queen. At once.’

‘Good man,’ Bratromila tilted her chin up at him. Bohodar caught the lingering look that flashed from her to him, and fretted over it. Evidently the affection that had sired Bratromila’s son – which Bohodar, Mechthild and Viera alone knew about, to his knowledge – had not yet grown cold on her part. As to his, who could say? Still, he led the Queen inside to a seat. Mechthild was already in the room with a pewter vessel and graciously poured Bratromila a bowl of ale, and never let it run dry.

Mechthild had noticed her husband’s ill mood despite the fact that Bratromila was with them, and turned to him in apprehension when she thought Bratromila had turned her head for a second. But Bohodar lay an affectionate hand on his wife’s, knowing the question she would ask and forestalling an answer to it until they were alone. Bratromila noticed this, and when the conversation drew to a lull and Mechthild left to refill the vessel, Bratromila leaned closer to Bohodar and told him:

‘I envy you. Truly I do. You saw your chance,’ she nodded to where Mechthild had gone, ‘and you took it. Love like that doesn’t come to everyone. Or when it does, it comes too late.’ The queen heaved a wistful sigh. ‘Perhaps if I had been freer… if I didn’t have these other obligations, or if Father hadn’t…’

The vulnerable moment passed, though, and Bratromila shook her head briskly. ‘Never mind all that. Tonight, we drink to your new happy couple—irregular or no. May they stay that way lifelong!’

Bohodar raised his bowl to that, and drained it together with his liege. Mechthild joined them again and sat with them, and the three of them drank – but not too heavily – before the time came to set off to the churchyard where the Rychnovský groom and the Rychnovský bride were to be garlanded. The two of them appeared before the bishop – Hromislav still didn’t look too happy about it, and Bohodar regarded his daughter sharply as he saw a little smirk playing on her lips – to receive the blessing, to receive the garlands and to receive the cup of sharing. They drank. A cheer went up. Mechthild shed happy tears as the bride and the groom shared a lingering kiss. Then it was back to the hall.

The seats had been rearranged to suit his order, but to Bohodar’s chagrin, Vojtěch Slavníkov had replaced Philotheos in his seat with Mstislav Pohanský. He conversed as well as he could with the queen’s sullen manservant until Boško and Blažena retired upstairs, and Mstislav was deep in his cups as the beer flowed out and the wine flowed in… and out again. Over a lull in the conversation could be heard a steady, forceful rhythm: the creaking of jointed wood from above the ceiling. Several of the rowdier male retainers cheered the consummation above them and drained their bowls, while Mstislav looked dispiritedly into his own.

‘Being married must be nice,’ he mumbled sourly. ‘Mila never gets that loud for me.’

Bohodar’s eyes widened. Mstislav blanched, and not just from the drink.

‘Pay that no mind, milord,’ Mstislav slurred. ‘It’s the wine talking. It’s all rubbish.’

But he couldn’t unhear what he just heard. However much he wished he could. And – worse – that was Světoslava Koceľaková seated two seats down from him. There was no mistake: she’d heard it as well. Bohodar passed a hand slowly in front of his face, and changed the subject quickly.

As the evening wore down and more of the guests retired either to their corners of the keep or to their lodgings elsewhere in the town, Queen Bratromila and Mstislav Pohanský among them, Světoslava sought Bohodar out.

‘Mstislav and the queen. You heard?’

‘Heard,’ Bohodar affirmed, ‘and saw. More than I wanted. Čert.’

Světoslava lowered her voice. ‘I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you have to use it. Get the upper hand on her now, while you can.’

‘Get the…?’ Bohodar gaped. ‘No. I knew her father, for God’s sake. She’s my friend. And she’s been through enough as it is. And besides, even if all of those weren’t true, I wouldn’t use her so shamefully.’

‘That… sense of shame,’ Světoslava urged, ‘is admirable. But she doesn’t share it. Bratromila Is an adulteress who has birthed another man’s son behind her husband’s back. That secret will come back to haunt her, and when it does, whom do you think she will round on? She won’t hurt those she know can do her harm. She will take that sense of honour of yours, and use it, ruthlessly, against you. I suggest you let her know that you’re onto her now, and she won’t be able to do so later.’

‘Thank you, gardener,’ Bohodar snapped. ‘That will be quite enough. I will take your… suggestion… under advisement.’

Světoslava courtesied, and wisely withdrew.

Bohodar glared up at the ceiling. All quiet now. Boško and Blažena would be asleep – all the better for them. But the patriarch of the family wouldn’t be sleeping for awhile yet: his mind was too busy. He sat and nursed a half-drunk bowl of Moravian wine for a long time, before Mechthild reentered the hall, flushed and happy. She enjoyed playing the hostess, and finally having been able to plan and hold a wedding feast at home, so long after Radko’s and Hilda’s, had been a dear opportunity to be seized. But seeing her husband in such a morose mood, her face fell. She hurried over to him, and asked:

‘Bohodar? Hwaz ist lôs?’

Bohodar sighed.

‘Do you know? Vojtěch Slavníkov saw fit to sit Slavomíra and Blažena just by each other, and would have done so had I not stopped him at the last minute. And he had the gall to argue back with me about it. Same with Bratislav Pohanský later: he thought he could skimp on the honours for the Queen and for our two upstairs, and do away with formalities on account of my closeness to her.’

‘Ah,’ Mechthild nodded.

‘Speaking of these blasted Pohanskýs,’ Bohodar went on, ‘Slavníkov sat Mstislav down next to us, you saw that. And he let drop something to me… which he really shouldn’t have. The matter between him and the Queen, the one I told you about before, is… not settled. And Světoslava came to hear of it.’

‘Oh, no,’ Mechthild put a hand to her face.

‘Mm. She all but told me to use it to my advantage against the Queen.’

‘Which you won’t,’ Mechthild said. Neither a question nor a demand: it was a statement of faith in her husband’s decency and fairmindedness.

‘Which I won’t. But… Bože môj, Mechthild! These advisors of mine, taking such liberties as they do… am I just too soft with them?’

‘Would you like me to have a word with one of them?’ asked Mechthild. ‘I’d be more than happy to.’

Bohodar felt a sudden surge of warmth toward his wife. Her hair was all grey now. There were crows’ feet at the corners of her eyes, and wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. But there was still that glimmer in her passionate zibeline eyes – the look that had first drawn him in as he’d accompanied Saint Methodius to Velehrad. He leaned toward Mechthild and took her hands.

‘It’s a wedding-feast,’ he told her. ‘Maybe we could keep celebrating on our own… just the two of us?’

Mechthild broke into a grin. ‘I like the way you think, my knieža.’

 

[Revan86]

TWENTY-EIGHT
Troubles on the Northern Border
5 April 906

‘Hold there, peasant!’

The grey-haired, elderly Moravian man turned about to see a well-favoured, tall, black-avised youth, looking down at him from his war-horse, sword in scabbard at his side and a lance in his hand. The rider displayed his colours proudly, and the shield on his back was blazoned with two red stripes and a white one in the centre, upon which was a prowling lion. Instinctively, the elderly Moravian peasant backed away and held up his hands.

‘Begging your pardon, milord—’

The lordling held up his hand for silence, and he got it. ‘You have nothing to fear from me,’ the haughty youth told him, ‘as long as you answer my questions truly. Now: is this the right path to the Krzyżkowice Crossroads?’

‘Just keep going on straight as your bound, milord.’

The young man gave a stiff nod. ‘And have you seen any war parties at bay of late?’

‘Not since the raid two months past.’

‘Mm,’ the youth said, steeling his eyes at the road before him, as if staring at it hard enough could make it reveal its secrets. ‘Off with you, clod. Be about your business, and stay well out of mine.’

The peasant bowed deeply to the ruler, and hurried off, thankful that this young lord was not of the kind that harmed those of his class for sport. Had the young man but known it, though, he might have behaved with greater courtesy to the older peasant – for that peasant had been Boleslav of Hlinka, whose son Jaroslav would go on to sire a great family of honoured knights and generals in Moravia… and one day even rise to take the throne of an Empire. But that is another tale.

The youngster on horseback had his more pressing business at hand. The path before him was mostly flat – a rarity in these hilly parts – though it bore him between two ditches, through several gentle curves beneath the budding boughs of oak and the patiently-enduring spruce. The youngster clicked his tongue and nudged the war-horse beneath him with his heels, and rider and mount progressed along the track toward the crossroads.

Soon enough, he came within view of it. There was a clearing, dotted with new shoots of green grass. And amongst these, he could see clearly a single rider with a kolovrat symbol on his shield, leading a young woman with frizzy black hair in a good noblewoman’s gown along behind him. The young man rode forward again yet a ways and examined the young woman with a fresh eye. She was well-favoured, as might be expected from the mingling of Serbian and Moravian blood – tall, with a comely oval face and bright lips. She kept her dark eyes meekly cast down, but she appeared to be whole and healthy. The rider approached, and the heathen with the kolovrat held up an arresting hand.

‘That’s far enough,’ he said, ‘if you value the lady’s life.’

The youngster with the lion shield raised a hostile jaw, but drew his horse to a halt. He hadn’t come all this way to fail in his mission. Despite his reluctant obedience, the heathen regarded him warily. The raven-haired woman also looked up and regarded the strange youngster with mingled curiosity and doubt. There was no question but that the same tweening occurred to both hostage and guard about him.

‘You aren’t one of Rychnovský’s men,’ the kolovrat-bearing guard accused him.

The young rider scoffed. ‘Not the quickest dog on the track, are we? No, I am not Rychnovský’s man, or anyone’s. I am, however, here for the lady you have with you.’

‘Then it’s going to cost you,’ the heathen told him. ‘Bohodar Rychnovský owes my master twenty-five marks in gold for his granddaughter’s safe return.’

The young rider took his free gloved hand and reached down into his saddlebag, and produced a fat, heavy purse. The clear, pure ring of precious metal within gave no doubt about what it contained. ‘You’ll find adequate compensation here, Silesian,’ he said. ‘Hand over the girl, and you may count it yourself.’

The rider held out the purse in his hand, a thin smile drawn across his lips, as the heathen considered. Then he cut the bonds of his hostage and gave her a rough nudge in the back. Stumbling a bit, the girl made her way hesitantly over to her ambiguous rescuer. When she was halfway over to him, the rider tossed the purse over to the heathen, who weighed the ransom in his hand, opened the purse and bit one of the coins. Evidently he was satisfied.

The young rider helped the girl into the saddle behind him, and turned about. But there was the unmistakeable sound of tension – the pulling of sinew – and the twang of release. In a flash, the shield was off the rider’s back and in his free hand, and the girl both felt the shivering impact of the arrowhead in the timber, and saw the head punch through. She let out a shriek. But the rider had already turned his horse about and was riding down hard on the heathen.

The Silesian stood no chance against one hundred stone of angry horseflesh. He fell beneath the horse’s hooves, and the horseshoes cracked his shield down the middle. Reining the horse in before it kicked the idiot to death, the young rider levelled his lance down at the defeated heathen with a smirk.

‘Thought we’d collect a double commission now, did we? Wait for the Rychnovský embassy to arrive and then ambush them as well, hm?’ The young man clicked his tongue and shook his head chidingly. ‘Bold of you. But not smart, not smart.’

He lit down from his horse and drew his knife. The heathen moaned in pain and fear.

‘Don’t!’ cried the Rychnovský girl, still on the horse. ‘Please don’t!’

The young rider turned back to her with a raised brow, then back to the heathen cringing at his feet. ‘You hear that? Such pity she takes over an undeserving piece of filth like you. Lucky for you, I need you alive. It doesn’t suit my purpose to start a war between Upper Silesia and my new ally… on the other hand, though, I think a lesson needs to be taught.’

The young rider sheathed his knife and made to move back to his horse, but swiftly shot out a booted foot to deliver a vicious kick to the heathen’s belly, causing the man to double over onto the ground.

‘Now run back to your whoreson master Suligost,’ he snarled. ‘And let him know the mercy that Drahoslav, High Chieftain of Balaton, has shown to you for the lady Ľubica’s sake.’

With that, Drahoslav mounted his horse, wheeled around, and started down the road back to Opava. Ľubica had her arms around him for balance, but she couldn’t help but notice the supple grace of the torso she was gripping. My new ally… did that mean what she thought it meant?

‘Did—did dedko send you?’

Drahoslav, in front of her, let out a breath. ‘In a way of speaking, yes. He’s got his own hands full at the moment dealing with Bratromila’s boneheaded war on Milčané, and his own vassals sniffing and pawing after the heathen borderlands on their doorstep like so many badly-trained hound pups. As your groom, it fell to me instead to deliver the ransom for you.’

‘My groom?’

‘Well. If you’ll have me, that is. Your grandfather certainly doesn’t object to the idea.’

Ľubica considered in silence. She wasn’t entirely sure that she liked this preening cockerel of a high chieftain. She remembered the needless kick he’d delivered to his beaten opponent, and also the fact that she’d had to stop him from killing him – it was clear to her that Drahoslav had something of a cruel streak. On the other hand, to be the lady of a foreign court to the south, nearer to the Empire, with opportunities to meet all manner of new and interesting people and undertake any number of projects… those prospects tempted her sorely. It might well be worth putting up with an overconfident, petty-minded husband to be the lady of Balaton.

Such were the thoughts that occupied her on the ride back to Olomouc. She did not give Drahoslav an answer even after he rode with her to the gate to her grandfather’s castle, and escorted her inside with the proper courtesy. However, the knieža was nowhere to be found. Neither was Mechthild, nor Viera. However, a shriek met her ears. It was a baby: but this was no ordinary baby’s cry. This was a wail of agony and terror, wrenching its way through walls and corridors to reach her ears. Ľubica hurried to the side, up the stairs and into the room where the cries were coming from.

‘Hold her arms still, fool boy!’ Ľubica recognised the voice as that of the elderly Winfrida, the physician. She was standing on one side of a table opposite Boško. Bohodar and Mechthild stood behind them – he holding her, and she holding her fist to her mouth in sympathy.

‘Easy, girl,’ Winfrida spoke soothingly to the newborn baby on the table. ‘Easy there. Easy. Just—’

Another wild cry—pure, blind, uncomprehending pain—burst from the table. Winfrida was massaging the baby’s legs with a light but steady force. Ľubica peered her head into the room meekly and looked at the naked infant girl on the table – her navel still bound in a bloody bandage from the severing of the umbilicus – and a wave of sympathetic queasiness in her gut gripped her as she saw the shape of the newborn’s left foot. The arch was bent unnaturally, like a taut bow; the toes were splayed inward; and the whole foot was turned underneath her at a sickening angle.

Winfrida continued to try to massage the girl’s foot into a semblance of normal shape. However, as the baby’s screams hoarsened and weakened into piteous sobs, Winfrida relented at last, produced a bandage, and wrapped it tightly around the foot to hold her work in place.

‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘I dare not do more than that for now. Hippocrates says to be gentle and gradual with the foot in this condition, but to keep massaging the foot into shape regularly. Blahomíra will never be able to walk on it completely normally, but God willing she’ll at least be able to walk, with the aid of shoes special-made.’

‘Thank you, Winfrida,’ Boško spoke quietly.

‘Don’t thank me, thank Hippocrates,’ Winfrida glared at him. ‘And I hope this shows you the folly of disobeying God’s will when it comes to marrying close kin.’

Winfrida brushed by Ľubica and out into the hallway without another word. It was only then that she saw Blažena lying on the bed, sweaty, exhausted and in tears. However, Boško picked up the baby from the table and handed her over, and his wife cradled the still-sobbing infant to her breast and tried to lull her to sleep.

It was then that Bohodar saw Ľubica standing in the doorway, and he ran to her and gripped her in a hug. ‘Oh, thank God you’re safe!’

‘I’m safe, dedko. But it was Drahoslav of Balaton who came out to my rescue. He said you’d agreed to him marrying me?’

‘He has my consent,’ Bohodar told her. ‘If you want him.’

‘I… I think…’ Ľubica turned her head slightly. ‘I need time to think. I haven’t rejected him outright, but he’s still… not quite what I expected.’

‘I understand,’ Bohodar said. ‘Take your time.’

Then it was Mechthild’s, Boško’s and Blažena’s turns to welcome home their kinswoman, which they did with earnest gratitude. Blahomíra’s plight would be long and difficult to deal with, and the threats on the northern border were still at large: but at least in Ľubica’s return there was ample cause for rejoicing.

 

[Revan86]

TWENTY-NINE
Faithful Tas
29 December 909​

Bohodar attended the Christmas feast in Olomouc that year with his usual good cheer, but these days he mostly just felt tired. His joints ached, and his body felt heavy and sluggish at the best of times. He still felt keenly the loss of Radomír, his only son, and often went to visit his grave in the churchyard at Velehrad, where Queen Bratromila had buried him with honour. Even these visits had soured of late, though they had become more necessary and more frequent at the same time.

Bohodar had tried to warn her several times since Boško and Blažena’s wedding feast, that he knew of Bratromila’s extramarital activities. He had advised her that she should call them off, or at the very least keep a lower profile. That warning had gone unheeded. Bratromila had not kept her affair with Mstislav Pohanský as discreet or as quiet as Mstislav had complained. Her resentful Frankish husband Chlothar knew of the whole thing. He made that clear as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

Upon the news that Clovis II of Italy had died, Chlothar Karling had wasted no time in riding to Turin to claim the throne that was his by right. Barely had the crown sat with the bishop’s blessing upon his head, than he had denounced his wife publicly in the most humiliating fashion, both proclaiming aloud and publishing abroad a litany of his fickle, venomous and incontinent wife’s appalling treacheries and defiling cavorts in his own bed. Enough of the particulars were present in that publication – which he had circulated in Slavonic as well for her vassals’ benefit – to prove her guilty of adultery past any doubt. Her faithlessness exposed to the world by her vindictive husband, she fell into a serious illness and kept to said bed, unable to move from it.

Bohodar was at once sympathetically partizan toward his liege and friend, and also understanding of Chlothar’s anger. Mechthild and he were close enough, and he trusted enough in her integrity, to know that she would never betray him in such a way. But even so… suppose Mechthild weren’t quite so committed to her own honour and intense sense of right? Suppose that voracious libido of hers tired of him? Suppose she had taken someone else into his bed, and he came to know of it? It would strike straight at Bohodar’s heart, and shatter it. He didn’t trust himself to know what he might do if such knowledge came to him. He might even do what Chlothar had done to Bratromila. Bohodar crossed himself and mouthed a ‘God forbid’ at the very thought. But such was the tenor of his visits to Velehrad now. He would come to pay his respects to the son he had outlived, and he would come to condole with and look after Bratromila in her illness.

Bohodar’s second grandson by Radko and Hilda, Prokop, had taken a Cumbrian wife – a slender young redhead named Annest. They had wasted no time – in April of 909, Annest had given birth to a redheaded little girl, whom they had named Kostislava. This followed upon the birth, in August of the prior year, of Boško and Blažena’s second daughter Zbislava. Unfortunately, Winfrida had pronounced that this child too had a deformity: the irregular size and shape of her skull and the curvature of her spine had indicated to her that she would grow little taller than three feet when she reached adulthood.

Blažena had grown rather sombre at this news, and Leopold’s warning to her about her firstborn son echoed in her ears. She had dismissed it before without a thought as the ravings of a lunatic, but… with two daughters already both born with such deformities, was it indeed beyond the realm of reason? Was she indeed doing harm to her own line by bearing her nephew’s children? But she had grown so close to Boško that leaving him even on the accepted ecclesiastical grounds was well outside her scope. By now, Bohodar mladší had become every hair the man she had wanted since she had first begun to think about men. To a degree she hadn’t thought possible when she’d made the promise to Hilda, Blažena found herself depending on her strong and caring nephew-husband. Indeed, her belly was round and swelling with their third child even now.

And then there was the matter of Bohodar’s bishop. Often he felt as if he had to relitigate for himself all of the scholarly prerogatives and privileges that Vojmil had ultimately come to accept in his liege. The problem was that Hromislav was at once more agreeable and less understanding than Vojmil was. Bohodar felt it easier to get his way over Hromislav, but also couldn’t shake the feeling that Hromislav secretly resisted him rather than opposing him to his face.

Such were the preoccupations of the knieža of Olomouc at this Christmas feast. As the others feasted merrily, when he looked to where his grandson and daughter sat, the two of them had plates but scantly used, with modest portions of the festival sausages and smoked meats and cheeses upon them – they were rapt in each other. The mild and easygoing lad was clearly holding the hand of his sharper, sterner aunt under the table… and the mirroring glows on their faces threatened to outshine even the five-torch wreath which blazed in the middle of the hall. Prokop and Annest were withdrawn to a corner – Prokop had never been particularly good with crowds, and his Cumbrian wife was of the same temperament. And at the seat near him…

Mechthild caught Bohodar’s look and took his hand comfortingly. He was looking at the empty seat where Radomír should have been sitting. They had set out a trencher and a bowl of wine for him, the same as always, in remembrance. But where the birth of Christ was celebrated, His promise to all people, Radomír included, was sure. Bohodar patted his wife’s hand and held it firmly. Mechthild, in her sixty-sixth year, was also feeling her age. She complained of pains in her joints, and walking was getting more difficult for her – but for someone of her outgoing temperament, seclusion to her bed was unbearable unless her husband was there with her.

The door flung open, and a man of thirty-odd years with short-cropped blond hair and a thin goatee to match came in. His blue eyes were wide and wild with worry. Bohodar recognised him at once for the husband of his chancellor Marie Přemyslová: Tas Přemyslovec, the hrabě of Boleslav ukrutný’s town.

‘Where is Winfrida?’ he asked. Panic, the dull edge of a knife, scraped painfully beneath his voice.

‘She is in Austria, visiting her relations for the feast,’ Bohodar answered him. ‘Why? What is the matter?’

‘You’d best come quick, my liege,’ the young hrabě told him. Bohodar made a perfunctory apology for his absence, stood from his chair and followed Tas out into the dark and the snow.

Their hurried footsteps crunched over the pale drifts as they made their way around the hall to a section of the castle that was under repair from Suligost’s onslaught. Bohodar saw at once what had alarmed Tas. The scaffolding had broken clean through, leaving several jagged ends of planks suspended treacherously in the frigid air. And underneath…

‘Svätý Pane Kriste,’ Bohodar whispered under his breath, crossing himself. He could make out, lying in a depression made by impact in a long snowdrift, the outline and form of a man. Judging from the wooden detritus that had made its way down with him, it was clear that he had been atop the scaffolding when it gave way, dropping twenty feet to the ground. There was also no mistaking the telltale dark trickle that was widening and lengthening out from beneath his body. Bohodar hurried over to the man, with Tas following close at his heels.

Bohodar didn’t dare turn the man over just yet, but he held his hand in front of the fallen one’s face. He could feel moisture and warmth emanating from behind the man’s dark beard.

‘Thank God, he lives and breathes,’ Bohodar murmured. The knieža took a quick look over the man’s body, and felt his skull, neck, ribcage and limbs with his hands. ‘No breaks. His guardian angel was on watch: the snow cushioned his fall.’

‘But, so much blood…’ Tas murmured.

‘Yes. Cut his shoulder wide open on something, looks like. Let’s move him indoors, quick. Dedo Mráz is more likely to do him harm than his wounds at this point.’

Tas helped Bohodar move the man inside. Again Bohodar felt the protesting ache in his joints as he hefted the man up by the shoulders, and again he found himself feeling his age. He was thankful for having a young pair of arms like Tas’s to lift the man’s legs. They moved him to the nearest bed within the keep. In the torchlight they could now see clearly the deep, ugly gash that was bleeding so profusely – the splinters that still stuck out nastily from the flesh like nails showed how he had come by the wound.

‘Imagine there’s much we can do for him?’ Tas asked. Bohodar glared at the young man. However, Tas wasn’t being flippant at all: his face showed genuine concern, and he was biting his nails. It’s just that he was in such a state of nerves that everything looked hopeless to him. Bohodar answered him directly.

‘Yes, there is,’ he said. ‘Go for some water, some clean rags, and dry bedclothes. Hurry.’

Tas scurried off at once. Bohodar was reminded of the time he and Bishop Vojmil (God rest him) had treated the soldier with the arrow wound at the barracks… though how unlike Vojmil Tas was! Vojmil at least had patience; Tas leapt into action somewhat like an untrained puppy. Bohodar smiled grimly as he began picking the visible splinters out of the wound and began to clean and close it with his fingers.

Tas returned promptly with all that Bohodar had asked for, and then they could begin to clean and dress the wound in earnest. Now Bohodar could see the benefits to the poor man of having fallen on fresh snow—apart from the wood that had laid him open, the wound was already fairly clean. Tas helped him wash the man’s wound, and held his arm steady as Bohodar dressed it tightly.

‘Will he live?’ asked Tas.

‘God willing, many years yet,’ Bohodar spoke, crossing himself. Warmth and a clean bed, and food when he came to, would do for the man what the bandages might not.

Tas nodded, and let out a breath of sheer relief. ‘Good. I’d hate for the holy day to be spoilt by any man’s death. I’m glad you were here in person, milord.’

Bohodar again took his vassal’s measure. Jittery he might be, but Tas clearly had a kind heart. ‘You weren’t so bad yourself, young man. I couldn’t have done without your help hauling him in, or finding the bandaging for his wounds.’

‘I’ll drink his health with you, then, sire,’ Tas offered.

‘Absolutely.’

 

[filcat]

Sincere apologies for the absence in the past weeks. It will take some more time to return in full capacity (or close to, if not 100% turbo-filcat level).
Terribly sorry for this late notification after the main post in the AARland page. Time constraints, insufficient capabilities, low accessibility, so excuses and more excuses.

But of course, the other post, which is the main one to notify the nomination, took precedence over this one. In any case, found an opportunity to mark the words here one more time, not just to abide the forum and award rules.

Every and each story written in the AARland is a work of passion, and they all deserve appreciation. Many of them are rising in the skies of infinite horizons, notable in their art. They deserve all the praise one can afford. Some of them are exceptional, they sail to the outer limits of the galaxy. Few of them are unique, in the passion they are crafted they travel beyond the boundaries. There are a handful of them reaching the galaxies to meet only by the dreams they give birth through every and each of the letters, words, lines, posts, stories. This is one of the handful, and stopping now as the words will fail for further praising it.

@Revan86, congratulations: You are the writAAR of the week.

To all the readAARs: Congratulations, you will definitely enjoy this magnificent AAR.


Edit: Corrected typographical errors.

 

[alscon]

I've caught up now, and it's truly impressive how alive that court of Olomouc feels. A tale well worth hogging the spotlight for this week .

Bratromila is digging her grave with her adultery. Even if learned Bohodar stands by his liege for now, he both won't live forever and may have a change of heart if she pushes her luck too far.