Book Four Chapter Twenty-Four
I haven't dug deep enough to know anything like that. I know that base stats can go as high as 99, but it's a very blue moon that I see any character, player or otherwise, with a score above 40. Based solely on what I've seen, I would guess that the median base attribute score for an adult character (in good health, with no handicaps) is about 10, with a standard distribution of 3 or 4 points in either direction. But you'd have to ask a game developer about that. Thanks as always for the comment, @Midnite Duke!
Yup. And Vojta stays understandably happy for awhile. Welcome back and thanks for the comment, @alscon!
TWENTY-FOUR
Once Again in Antioch
12 September 1168 – 19 December 1173
Anna took to her new duties as her father’s court leech with zeal and dedication that could only be described as ‘religious’. She walked about the castle with a copy of the Animadversiones de occasu ossium crooked under her arm like a Psalter. She could be seen in her off-hours poring over Arabic and Greek tomes that had been brought back from their native lands, in an attempt to supplement her Norman French great-great-great-great-grandmother’s formidable repository of medical knowledge with the wisdom of other sources. And—more to the point—her cures took such effect that she had scarcely turned seventeen before she was already trusted by her patients, and accounted to be a physician of noted skill.
This was of great and consequential help to her elder brother. Kostislava had not spent two months in Olomouc Castle before it was determined she was pregnant—the newlywed couple had lost no time. Anna accompanied and counselled her sister-in-law all throughout her term, with Queen Czenzi close at hand the whole time, whose experience in pregnancy and childbirth had been the most extensive. And Anna presided with midwife and priest in the delivery of their child when her due day arrived. Soon the young court physic held in her hands—her first nephew, a healthy youngster whom their parents named Želimír. Vojta and Kostislava both shared the wish, that the peace which Vojta’s father had built would be preserved through his reign and his son’s and his grandson’s.
Not sure I've seen a bride give birth before turning seventeen before...
Naturally the Kráľ welcomed his grandson’s birth with great joy—and approved his son’s choice of name for the little boy. The king had his hands full, however, tutoring two other children.
It had not escaped his attention that Czenzi did favour somewhat their daughter Rózsa—who alone among their children bore a Hungarian name (which still held meaning among the Slovien). And so he had taken to giving her his personal attention.
In addition, he had taken on the tutelage of his maršal Knieža Nonn’s grandson Rostislav Koceľuk. It took some effort for Botta to refrain from calling him ‘Pavelkov’: the reigning Pavelkov branch had taken to cleping themselves, not after Pavel the father of Boľka, but instead after his more illustrious Pannonian Slavic ancestor Koceľ, the better to add to their glory. And the little golden-haired lad was more comfortable in his own Carpatho-Russian tongue than in the language of the court, and Nonn had gratefully taken the opportunity of having his grandson be educated in Olomouc—by the king, no less!
Rózsa and Rostislav were two pease in a pod! In truth, little Roško rather hero-worshipped his elder foster-sister. Whenever the bookish little Rózsa would pore over the Scriptures as part of her lessons, so too would Roško. When she spent extra time kneeling at prayer before the icon of her patron Saint Chloë, little Roško would do the same. When she took to speaking of the mercy of Jesus Christ and the necessity of living a pure and blameless life of fasting and prayer, Roško fastidiously imitated her.
‘What do you mean by that, you little peasant?’ one of the town boys gave the blond-haired boy a heavy shove, pushing him backward.
‘I mean—I mean—’ Roško looked around at the ring of Moravian lads, all of whom were older and bigger than he was, fighting to keep the panic from his voice, ‘just—if we aren’t careful to adorn ourselves with virtue—if we don’t keep our wicks trimmed, and oil in our lamps—’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ the older kid sneered. ‘Listen to this villain’s brat, lecturing us like he’s some starec! Don’t you think we ought to teach him a lesson, boys?’
Roťko made a weak attempt to push the older kid away and get out of the ring, but he was shoved squarely back into the middle. The Moravians closed around him, their eyes beginning to gleam with the cruelty eyes bestowed only upon those who know their quarry has no means of fighting back.
They didn’t see a slender, wiry form come shooting into the ring, black braid flying out behind her like a bandit’s banner—throwing sharp little fists and elbows into the field of Roško’s attackers. She managed to bloody some noses and jab a few throats before coming into some bruises and scrapes of her own as she got flung onto the cobbles of the street. Roško flung himself, with a boldness that seemed to come from outside him, onto the back of the one who had thrown his foster-sister down—and bit him hard on the ear. A yelp and a curse rewarded him, but he was quickly enough dislodged and flung off. But between them, Rózsa and Roško had exhausted the town boys’ taste for fighting, and they picked themselves up and left.
‘Are you alright?’ asked Rózsa of little Rostislav. She already had a black eye starting to swell, a cut lip, a torn skirt and a bleeding shin.
‘Okay,’ he said, nursing a couple scrapes of his own. ‘Thanks.’
‘Do not let them stop you,’ Rózsa told him, laying a grave hand on his shoulder. ‘You do honour to Our Lord by spreading His word, even if some of the seed may fall on stony ground. Focus on your own reward—do what you can, but leave them to theirs.’
Rostislav nodded seriously, and the two of them made their way back up hand-in-hand to the castle.
That wasn’t the only time Roško had taken to imitating his elder foster-sister. When Kostislava was still in bed recuperating from the birth of her firstborn, Rózsa had come in with a game-fowl soup she’d boiled herself to help her sister-in-law feel better. And that afternoon, not many hours later, Roško had come in with some fresh blueberries he’d picked himself for Kostislava to eat. It made the Kráľ happy to see both of his wards follow in Christ’s footsteps not only in word, but in deeds of mercy and love.
Rózsa managed to make her father proud in other ways. Despite her willingness to jump into scuffles and her seemingly inexhaustible zeal for Holy Orthodoxy, she was a remarkably clever girl with a particular gift for managing lands. Seeing how the girl was (understandably) the apple of Queen Czenzi’s eye, King Bohodar made arrangements with the headwoman of the Serbian zadruga of Užice, Marija Markića, to have her young son Ioan betrothed morganatically to his daughter. Rózsa, understanding that this would afford her the opportunity to stay home with her elder sister and her mother, agreed readily to the match.
~~~
The Kráľ spent his time these days still circuiting the lands which he ruled. He might go on the occasional hunt or two and bring back a trophy for one of his daughters, but by and large these hunts served primarily as a pretext for continually examining the state of the roads and the villages. Bohodar was not content to sit behind the walls of Olomouc Castle and rule from afar. Much like Kráľ Eustach, Bohodar wanted very much to place his rule closer to the common people of Moravia, to the bower and to the craftsman—and to ensure that the peace he desired to build in his realm reached them. The king’s court therefore often was held in the open, in the villages where he went ‘hunting’.
Also, if Rózsa had learned zeal in her childhood, at least it could be said that she had come by it honestly. Bohodar still suffered pangs of contrition for his violent youth, and routinely sought to ease his conscience by sending money to Constantinople, or by seeking solace in… unconventional methods of meditative prayer. Once had he very nearly earned a rebuke from his own Archbishop Vlastimil for his pursuit of such methods.
It got to the point where he began very seriously to contemplate yet another journey to the ruins of the Great Dome.
‘I will say it again,’ said his ever-practical and ever-sensible wife, ‘don’t take any unnecessary risks. I know the romantic turn of your mind. I didn’t want you taking such risks for my love. I don’t even want you taking such risks for God’s.’
Bohodar held his wife soundly to him. ‘I won’t.’
‘Promise me.’
‘I promise.’
That turned out to be a fairly expensive promise to keep. The king hadn’t set out for a week on the Jerusalem Way before he found himself to be hopelessly turned about on a side road! Thankfully, still being within the borders of his own realm, he had no need to fear bandits. But it still cost him great effort to find a guide back to the main road—not to mention the promise of a hefty reward from his treasury! It was enough to elevate said guide to a minor honour upon the king’s return.
Bohodar’s common touch proved to be the stuff of stories well afield of his own marches, as well—as he quickly found upon listening with care and discretion to the tales that his fellow-pilgrims told. Bohodar learned that he was known by many cognomens abroad: ‘Ploughman-King’, ‘the Dove’, ‘Bower-Friend’ and ‘the Eccentric’… none of which nicknames seemed to have stuck at home. Bohodar wasn’t sure whether or not to be grateful for that favour.
The walls of Antioch were known to Bohodar this time as he approached from the north. But this time, before he got there, he took a vantage point on the slopes of Mount Silpius. He took out a loose sheet of parchment, a knife, some charcoal and vinegar and a quill, and began to draught a view of the city of his pilgrimage. A gift for Czenzi.
Czenzi might not be able to accompany him on this journey—she was busy watching after Kostislava and their new grandson Žeľko—but at least Botta could bring her this back, along with a couple of other keepsakes from the journey. A worldly motivation? Perhaps. But he would not only pray for her and for those he loved here. When he returned to her, he wanted Czenzi to understand that even when she was apart from him, she was always within his mind and within his heart, never having left it for a second.
Maybe that was the ‘romantic turn of his mind’. But that mind was all Czenzi’s.
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