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

[Revan86]

Ahh, Valentine's Day! An appropriate observance for a brief meditation on how lust can become something deeper.

Naturally, there will stand here the obligatory NSFW warning for the explicit nature of the opening text.

(Also, if you're a native speaker of Czech or Slovak, please kindly forgive my atrocious attempts at rendering 'the throes'. If Google Translate is any indication, I will happily forgive you if you want to bust out a great big ROFLMAO at my authorial expense.)

TWENTY-EIGHT
Twice Lost
9 May 1342 – 22 January 1345​

‘Da! Da! Ublízovaaaaaaj-áj-áj!’ Katarína moaned. ‘Tam! Tam! Da, iŝi—táááám! Iŝi! Iŝi-iŝi-iŝi-iŝi-iŝi!! Mírko, končajúúúúú—!!’

Radomír held Katarína firmly on either side of her rump. Katarína’s voice kept coming, but her urgent ululations stopped making sense. Her deep red muff thrust up hard against his nose, her thighs spread as wide as they could, and her hips flexed in strong, pulsing paroxysms. Radomír couldn’t help but be struck with awe as she welled up like a bubbling spring in front of his face. Beyond the rotund womb in front of him, he heard Katarína gasping in long, contented breaths.

Radomír slid his body up beneath one of her splayed legs until his face was level with hers. She turned gingerly in his arms, so as not to disturb the baby, and embraced him with tender gratitude and affection, kissing his neck.

‘I love what you do for me,’ Katarína breathed sleepily, her face beaming with afterglow.

‘Told you I’d keep spoiling you… especially when you’re pregnant.’

‘Hmmm… you did.’ Katarína smiled. Then she reached down between his legs, began stroking and working him underneath, and whispered: ‘Chočeš ožby ja zossála tvuj? Budu gľogati ho dľa tebe.’

A tempting offer indeed! Radomír got rock-hard again as soon as that promise left Katarína’s naughty, hardworking little mouth. She was certainly enthusiastic and thorough in returning his favours, though they might land her as long as a three-year fasting penance later when she confessed. And Radomír had to admit he liked how she taught him all sorts of off-colour Russian lingo in bed. But…

‘Ďákuju,’ he told her, holding and kissing each of her hands in turn before sitting up, ‘but not tonight. I’m afraid business can’t wait. The Local Zbor will be meeting in Olomouc in about a week, and I still haven’t made all of the arrangements.’

Katarína sat up. ‘I could help you with that, too! I have no doubts about your ability to keep the bishops and monks happy with the courtly niceties, but let’s be honest—I’ve always been more astute on matters of doctrine than you have. If you want some pointers—?’

‘Thank you,’ said Radomír gratefully.

‘It’s the least I can do for my drúžinový little diplomat’s tongue,’ Katarína glowed. ‘Really.’

~~~

Over the next few days, Katarína tutored her husband and primed him on all of the relevant points of Church discipline and canon law that would be discussed at the upcoming Zbor. Radomír had had little idea of how contentious Orthodox churchly authorities could become over even (what he considered) very small differences of opinion! The current Zbor would debate—that was the polite word for it—the new teachings of a certain priestmonk named Grēgorios of Thessaly.

This priestmonk’s doctrines concerning private inward prayer and the repetitions of the name of the Lord were under the scrutiny of several honoured Constantinopolitan prelates and clerical court officials including the Chief Archivist. The direst of the accusations levelled against him, was that he was resuscitating the old Euchite heresy of the Peter the Wolf.

‘I don’t understand,’ Radomír sighed in frustration. ‘All these doctrinal positions and subtleties are so many angels dancing on the head of a pin to me!’

‘No, this is crucially important,’ Katarína told him. ‘What is at stake is the actual monastic practice. The monks in Athos, Mount Sinai and Strandzha who practice the inward Prayer of the Heart, rely on the doctrine of the Uncreated Light, the Energy of God. This Thessalian priestmonk has merely made that doctrine explicit in his writings.’

Radomír still shook his head.

‘It all seems so much clearer to me if I think of it this way: the princes of Thessaly and Moldavia have gained a pious reputation for sheltering these monks, and the Byzantine Emperor sees them as a threat to his customary claims. If the Emperor can discredit these monks, it will be easier to reunite Thessaly and the Bulgarian lands under his rule.’

‘You’re not seeing with the eyes of faith,’ chided his wife. ‘There is more than just a power struggle going on here. This is a matter of how the Holy Spirit imparts to us. In this case, Thessaly and Moldavia happen to be on the correct side, supporting the monks.’

‘And you do see with the eyes of faith,’ Radomír wondered.

Katarína considered. ‘I can thank God for a couple of natural virtues. Like a good Russian girl, I’m willing to work. And I’m willing to submit myself to a husband. But I’m very much so a sinner, a slave of the passions. I can only hope our Lord can use what He finds good in me to His good, and that He will have mercy upon me for the rest.’

Over the weeks and months which followed the Zbor, the Kráľ learned from the Kráľovná. She taught him of history, mathematics, physics, alchemy, and of course the queen of the sciences as well. Radomír, although not as deeply literate as his wife, was nonetheless a quick and eager pupil, and he learned a great deal under her tutelage.

Katarína gave birth once again: this time to a son, a strong, healthy, red-headed little lad whom they named Prisnec. Prisnec was the apple of his father’s eye, though even as an infant he was already crawling off out of sight, climbing upon anything climbable, or poking into corners where he wasn’t welcome. It was certainly a handful to keep track of him!

Katarína’s menses returned the following May—once. And then they did not return again. Having birthed three children did not diminish her appetites in the slightest. Indeed, Radomír’s faithful ministrations to her when she was pregnant only whetted her fleshly appetites. And soon she was bearing their fourth inside her. But—alas for this child’s fate!

Radomír awoke one chilly October morning, alone. He could not find his wife anywhere.

He called, and called—and searched, and searched. But for a long time Katarína was not to be found. When at last she answered, he found that she had locked herself in the toilet on the upper east wall of the castle; and that she had done so since the night prior.

‘Leave me be!’ she called out to him. There was a note of anxious strain in her voice.

‘Can I help?’ asked Radomír.

‘Nït! Nït!’ she cried desperately. ‘Próšu—prósto ujdi!’

Radomír, crestfallen, walked away from the door. It was several hours before Katarína appeared again. She was blanched pale, and she walked stiffly as though in pain. Radomír noticed also that her hand went to her back several times. There were some drops of half-dried blood on the hem of her skirt. She did not look at Radomír or speak to him—instead, she sought out her mother-in-law Lodovica. The next time Radomír saw Katarína, her face was streaked with what he knew to be angry tears.

‘Kaťuša…’ the young king reached out to her.

But she recoiled from him, as though his touch burned her.

Radomír was gobsmacked. He felt abandoned. But what he was still rather too young and too naïve yet to realise, was that Katarína—far from having rejected him!—was in fact bearing her grief hard upon herself. She blamed herself, and was furious with herself, for having lost their child. She even felt as though God was punishing her, cursing her, smiting her for the sins of her passionate imagination, which she carried with her into the bedroom.

It was nigh on a fortnight before Katarína would face him again. She still looked pale and drawn—and by now the bump which had begun to form had vanished, just as the little life inside had. She shuffled toward him without a word, and then collapsed on Radomír’s lap and fell apart. Her body wracked itself with sobs. Radomír didn’t say anything back to her. Awkwardly at first, he patted her on the back and shoulders, and gently stroked her long, tousled red hair. That was exactly the response she needed. She clung hard to his torso, like a frightened forest animal gripping a steady branch of a tall tree.

Katarína kept to their room most of the time. Many days she didn’t even get out of bed, except to feed Svietlana and Prisnec, or sing them to sleep. But Radomír was patient and gentle with his wife. And when he encouraged her, he did so softly and with kindness. Katarína didn’t always respond right away. The hurt was still within her, and would not leave. But the hole in her heart left by the unformed departed child, she found was filled by Radomír and their three other children in unexpected ways. Radomír’s tenderness didn’t rid her of the pain of loss—nor, in fact, did she find (to her surprise) that she wanted it to. The loss would always be there: but not having to bear it alone, made bearing it that much easier.

Radomír, too, found his appreciation for his queen deepening. As a teenage male, of course he was overjoyed with a wife of Katarína’s wild libido. But in her grief, he was discovering that his love for Katarína was far deeper than mere desire. She had a heart within her, one that suffered all of a mother’s suffering, and he found to his surprise that he revered her for that.

~~~

‘I never took you for a man of commerce, milord,’ Živoslava commented after a long and meandering discourse with the king on the subject of mining prospects in the Tatras, during the Christmas feast that year. ‘Yet I’m pleasantly surprised at how well you grasp the basics. Tell me, where did you learn it?’

‘I haven’t yet,’ said Radomír with uncharacteristic modesty. ‘Well—let’s just say I’m still learning it. You know my wife, she’s amazing not only at housekeeping but at managing all sorts of ventures, commercial and domestic. Honestly, most of my efforts these days have been aimed at trying to keep up with her!’

The townswoman made a satisfied cluck. ‘Well. You’re always finding something to spark your interest in your spouse, if you’re wise—and lucky. I daresay she’s a lucky woman herself to find a husband who puts the effort into understanding her! I remember when my man was alive…’

Her eyes took on a misty look briefly, before she shook her head and returned to her subject. ‘Well, as I was saying… it’s all a matter of finding the right people. You can’t just send any corvée into the mountains with some clueless peasant or other at their head, and expect to turn a profit working a copper vein up there. One needs a man of skill—and of risk.’

Radomír nodded sagely. ‘Both rare qualities.’

‘Yes, you do understand,’ Živoslava grinned. ‘Don’t give up on either of those qualities, O Kráľ.’

Vladimír Mikulčický had furnished forth the table with all of the usual festival delicacies—meats and cheeses galore, naturally, for the season—but he was truly munificent with his wine and mead during this week of merrymaking. Radomír found quickly that he had to be careful how much he imbibed—and also how often he let his spymaster see him when his goblet was empty, because he would always ensure that it was refilled, and take offence if he didn’t match cups with the desired gusto. Still, Christmas had been well-spent: Radomír resolved to keep up his correspondence with the burgomistress he had befriended in Nitra.

And when he returned home, he was greeted with enthusiasm by his wife, in her usual manner.

Radomír straightaway began to swap letters with the burgomistress Živoslava. In hers, she gave him a number of useful pointers on how to evaluate a new venture or building project, as well as how to keep track of official expenses. He found these little exhortations and stray bits of advice to be, at first, a bit overbearing—but the Slovak woman was nothing if not warm and genuine, and following her pointers very rarely led him astray.

It was therefore something of a surprise when, at the mention of Živoslava’s name in the Zhromaždenie, the normally people-pleasing Vladimír—her own liege lord—grew unaccountably cold in his aspect. On questioning him, evidently Vladimír thought her to be something of a schoolmarm and a spoilsport.

After the council session had ended, Radomír drew Vladimír aside and began recounting to him each of the projects and household improvements she’d been advising him on… how they had kept the coffers full, and how even Queen Katarína had come to approve of her methods.

‘You might well consider taking advantage of some of her knowledge yourself,’ the Kráľ advised his vassal. ‘Her manners might be a bit townish, but one can’t argue with her results, or with her general goodwill. If she’s lecturing you, it means she thinks you’re worth teaching.’

‘Is that so?’ asked Vladimír. He didn’t look too convinced, at first—but his visage had softened considerably, and he seemed better-disposed now to think well of her advice, if not of the lady herself.

~~~​

Katarína sat on the edge of their bed, looking silently and distantly out the bedroom window. Radomír swept softly to her side when he saw the tears glittering on her face.

‘It happened again,’ she said hollowly. ‘I lost this one, too.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Radomír told her softly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

This time, Katarína didn’t snatch her hand away from his. Instead, she availed herself of his shoulder, and unburdened her eyes of their floods as they came. Radomír held her for a long time. And for a long time after that. And even though she knew he couldn’t take away the pain and grief from her, she knew he would hold her, and hold that pain together with her.

 

[Midnite Duke]

My computer almost melted at the beginning. (Need to do windows update.) Are the two stillborn counted as part of the ten? Does CK3 have a representation for stillborn like the GoT mod's teddy bear? Thank you for the update.

 

[Revan86]

My computer almost melted at the beginning. (Need to do windows update.)

LOL! Maybe upgrade the fan, too, heh.

Are the two stillborn counted as part of the ten? Does CK3 have a representation for stillborn like the GoT mod's teddy bear?

Actually, no on both counts. Vanilla CK3 as of 1.4.x (not sure what they're doing now) does not count stillbirths / miscarriages as dead children; only as pregnancy-terminating events.

Thank you for the update.

You're quite welcome!

 

[Revan86]

TWENTY-NINE
Quid pro quo
2 September 1345 – 7 July 1346

By the Year of the World 6854, the realm of Veľká Morava had become the undisputed and unrivalled leader in both military and civic technologies on the European subcontinent. Having taken full advantage of its close historical linkages with Constantinople and its good relations with nations west (in particular the English and Anglo-Norse realms), the Moravian kingdom married in itself the knowledge of black powder from far Taugats beyond the steppes and the arithmetical and geometric advances produced by the Islâmic emirates nearer home, with the technical skills in forging and precise tooling which came from the North Sea shores.

The constant rubbing of shoulders and coin among the pilgrims on the Jerusalem Way as it wound through the Morava Valley had created an atmosphere of unparalleled intellectual ferment. And of course, the ingenious methods which the nobles had been using over the past decades to destroy each other from the shadows had been put to more innocuous uses in the civil realm—advancing both medical knowledge and logistics. Knowledge of the Moravian tongue, which was now simply called Slovensko, was a mark of prestige and learning in the East, much as Old Bulgarian had been four hundred years earlier. By now, there was little doubt but that Moravia shone at the apex of sæcular learning.

And Radomír, the Kráľ of this glorious realm, though he was tempted indeed to bask in the reflected glory of his land’s cosmopolitan sophistication and ingenuity—still felt that it was not enough. He did not long merely for the worldly gains and riches which the knowledge of the world could afford. More than anything else, he desired his realm to be whole again, in soul and in law. Mere craft, mere commerce, mere technique… these things were at best a pale shadow, and at worst a mockery, of the true togetherness and spiritual amity which he sought to inculcate.

More and more he found himself looking to the mountains of Maramoroš for his inspiration. Well was he aware that Siget was something of a wasp’s-nest of intrigue. The fate of Kaťuša’s rather wicked and indiscreet great-grandfather was still spoken of. But when he went to visit his wife’s mother and sister, he would pass through and occasionally spend the night in outlying villages.

These Carpatho-Russian hamlets, each of them farming their marginal little strips of barely-arable foothill and rock-strewn montane forest-edge, were usually home to two or three large extended families each. But as often as not, these remote villages were places of refuge for runaway villeins or former brigands. These would be sheltered and fed, even welcomed and made to belong, even if their beards were white, and even if they could no longer hold a pick or an axe or a plough. What impressed Radomír (impressionable though he still was, as a young king), though, was the close sense of harmony and support and mutual obligation to which each member gave and from which each member enjoyed. It was something which he found all too seldom in the larger, more mercantile-minded cities of the west—in Olomouc or in Praha or in Plzeň.

When he returned from his visits to Maramoroš, he found it difficult to readjust to life in Olomouc. On the other hand, the long trips to and from Siget offered the Kráľ and the Kráľovná numerous chances for intimacy, of which they availed themselves often and with vigour… with the usual result. The knowledge did not, however, bring Katarína joy this time—she worried that this babe, too, would on account of her faults not come to see the light of day.

Katarína therefore secluded herself, and spent much of her time in prayer for both herself and for her unborn child… a sixth whose fate would by God’s grace be better than the fourth and the fifth. Radomír, for his part, took care not to tax his wife with business of state.

As a result, many of the tasks which had come to his wife in the daily maintenance of castle, holdings and realm finances—now fell to the Queen Mother.

It was well known as a matter of family lore that the Swabian folk are frugal and parsimonious to a fault. Queen Mother Lodovica was no exception to this rule. Even when Katarína was in seclusion, the coffers were always full, the ledgers were always meticulously balanced, and the various tax receipts were always carefully accounted for: owing to her mother-in-law’s efforts and skill.

‘Son, may I speak with you for a moment?’ asked Lodovica.

‘Certainly,’ said Radomír. ‘Are you speaking to me as my mother, or as an advisor of finance?’

‘Both,’ Lodovica answered him sternly.

Radomír set aside the decree he was working on, and listened intently.

Lodovica took in a deep breath, then began. ‘You will need to keep a much more careful eye on your kinsman, Stastko.’

‘Whatever for?’ asked the king. ‘Stastko’s a bit short-tempered, maybe, but he’s always been a sporting fellow. What should trouble me about him?’

Lodovica’s eyes narrowed. ‘Mírko, this is exactly what I’ve come to fear from you. I pray God it is not owing to a fault I’ve made in your upbringing, but you are far too ready to think the best of your vassals and your peers. Not all men are driven by pure or seemly motives.’

‘I’m listening, Mother,’ Radomír told her, trying not to be irked by this maternal lecture.

‘Ever since your ancestor Slovoľubec subjugated the Češi with the help of the Bosniaci, they have long harboured among themselves dreams of independence—just as the rulers of Nitra have long harboured among themselves dreams of usurping the crown.’

‘This I know already,’ said Radomír.

‘I’m not sure you do,’ Lodovica snapped. ‘And as God sees me, child, you are going to hear me out.’

Radomír put a firm check on his tongue.

‘The Češi have long seen their speech and their ways dwindle into obscurity—most of their brethren in the Bohemian south having adopted Slovák manners. But even those who speak as you do, carry the dreams of their fathers in their hearts. Stastko is no exception. The heirs of Daniel have long listened to their advisors, and have been reared from childhood on tales of the days of Přemysl Oráč and Libuše.’

Radomír wanted to ask, ‘And why should this trouble me?’, but he held his tongue.

‘Stastko is not merely the “sporting fellow” you think he is. Mark him closely. He will try to win favours from you, and wheedle silver out of you, speaking of his poverty and appealing to your ties by blood. And then when your back is turned, he will begin plotting against you.’

‘What makes you think this?’ asked Radomír.

‘I have marked the difference between the way he speaks to me, and the way he speaks to those below him. Such a difference is not the mark of an honest man,’ she told her son.

Radomír still wanted to argue somewhat—but he saw that his mother was, as usual, being totally sincere. And she was attempting to look out for him. Radomír bowed his head.

‘Áno, Matka,’ the king answered. ‘I will keep an eye on Stastko.’

As it turned out, Lodovica’s advice turned out to be both sage and timely.

Stastko Rychnovský-Vyšehrad, the Knieža of the Bohemian Lands, soon appeared in the royal court. His broad, brown-bearded face, which when younger would have been rather handsome, had now unfortunately been scarred with pock-marks around his lips. Like the king, he was a masterful speaker with a winsome personality; unfortunately, he also had a choleric and impatient streak which occasionally cost him those advantages his craft would have one him otherwise.

‘O Kráľ,’ the Knieža implored him, ‘have pity upon a poor cousin! The recent buildup of forces along the East Frankish marches has bled me dry. Could you not spare some gold from the treasury—on behalf of your kinfolk, Radomír?’

Had his mother not spoken to him earlier, Radomír might well simply have given Stastko the money. A chance to show his magnanimity and family feeling, and all the prestige that would bring to the court? Not to mention a chance to hearken back to the simpler times when kings flung open their coffers to all and sundry, and gave feasts where not a single armly man in the countryside would go wanting for food! This was not an opportunity to be passed up! But, with Queen Mother Lodovica having alerted him to potential ulterior motives on his vassal’s part, Radomír began to think better of it.

‘Well, Stastko—it seems to me that what you truly need,’ Radomír began with a light, easy smile, ‘is someone to help ease your burden. Help you manage your household a bit better. There are, I take it, several titles which you hold in your person, which you could contrive to give away. Žatec, for example?’

Stastko’s demeanour became instantly cooler, and warier. ‘You want me to give you Žatec, in exchange for gold? Pardon me, my liege, but that seems a rather disadvantageous bargain from my standpoint.’

‘Nothing of the sort,’ Radomír answered sweetly. ‘Žatec would be under your overlordship. I’m merely suggesting that you delegate. I would suggest—’ Radomír looked around the hall and opened a hand toward one of his družinniki, a saucy-looking, tow-headed youth with a thin beard on his chin, ‘—Ladomír over here. He’s got a remarkable head for figures. If you would entitle and enfeoff him in Žatec, I’m sure he would be quite serviceable to you as a šafár.’

Behind Radomír, so as he could not see it, Queen Mother Lodovica looked on with a grimly pleased look. Her son might be a tad too trusting, but he was not a fool: he knew how to work a room. He had deftly manœuvred Stastko into a position where he would either have to withdraw his request for money, or accept Ladomír as his vassal. And Radomír had carefully phrased his offer in such a way that Stastko wouldn’t be able to decline it without appearing churlish. Lodovica’s only question now was: could this Ladomír be trusted? Would he stay loyal to Mírek, even from Stastko’s court in Praha?

‘I accept your offer, my liege,’ said Stastko.

‘Good. You may have the gold you need to discharge your debts at once. Ladomír, if you please…?’

The tow-headed youth gave a slightly insouciant bow to the king, and followed Stastko Rychnovský-Vyšehrad out of the hall.

~~~​

As Queen Mother Lodovica entered the storeroom, her jaw dropped as she beheld what was inside.

There were smashed and leaking jars, overturned crocks with spilt grains, and spatters of butter and pickling brine and compote everywhere. And in the middle of it all sat Prisnec, his face stained with a considerable portion of the spoils of his raid, regarding his grandmother with a look at once guilty and somewhat pleased with himself and all the havoc he’d wrought.

At once Lodovica grabbed her grandson up by the scruff of the neck and hauled him out of the storeroom, marching him grimly up to where his parents were. As grandparents went, she was not the indulgent type—but she would see to it that Radomír and Katarína straightened the little imp out.

‘Prisnec!’ cried Radomír on beholding his son. ‘Mother—what happened?’

‘Your son broke into the cellars,’ she chided. ‘He managed to smash and waste what looked to me like half of the pantry, looking to sate his sweet tooth.’

‘Well?’ asked Radomír.

‘Sorry, ‘Addy,’ the three-year-old lad lowered his face.

Was he embarrassed? Yes. Was he abashed? Perhaps. But sorry? Somehow his father doubted it.

‘To the bath with you, Prisnec,’ the Kráľ told him. ‘Kristina will see to it that you get cleaned up. I will be up later to talk with you about this incident at length.’

The boy groaned. He hated bath-time. But he didn’t dare gainsay his father.

Radomír’s mother stayed around, however, longer than he thought she would merely to bring him back his wayward son. He looked her in the eye and asked:

‘Was there something else, Mother?’

‘There is,’ Lodovica told him grimly. ‘Stastko Rychnovský-Vyšehrad claims himself willing to put aside his errant turn toward the Pope in Rome… if you will grant him some consideration in the future.’

‘The nerve,’ Radomír shook his head.

‘That’s not all. He has also taken to gathering other of your vassals to him, and speaking of the need for greater local control for local concerns, and greater privileges to the nobility.’

Radomír sighed and put his fingers to the bridge of his nose. ‘You did tell me he would be trouble.’

‘It serves a king well to know where trouble will arise,’ his mother answered on a diffident note. ‘Among the Češi—that is one such place, alongside Nitra. Stastko has never been an exception to that rule.’

‘What do you think I should do?’

‘For now—wait,’ Lodovica told her son. ‘That can be hard, I know, especially for you. But make sure that you keep a weather eye on Nitra while they think your eye is turned upon your cousin in the west. And it would be best for you to begin building up a power base here.’

It wasn’t long after that that Katarína gave birth once more. This child had survived the birth. Like his second sister, he was darker of feature. His hair was brown, and he was rather light and scrawny for a newborn. But he was alive, and the midwife handed him to his mother, who was overcome with gratitude.

‘Husband,’ said Katarína, ‘what do you think of the name Aquila for him?’

‘Aquila?’ asked Radomír.

‘Sure—after Saint Aquila, one of the Seventy: an assistant to Paul the Apostle.’

Radomír considered. He wasn’t entirely averse to names from Scripture hearkening to Greek or Latin, but with few exceptions, his family had always used names derived from the Slavic. He asked his wife: ‘What sort of nicknames does Aquila have?’

‘In Russian?’ It was Katarína’s turn to consider. ‘We could call him Kiľa, or maybe Kulin.’

‘I like Kulin.’

And so Aquila he was christened after the Apostle—though both his parents called him Kulin.

 

[Midnite Duke]

Prisnec and Lodovica, two more delightful companions. Thank you for the wonderful journey.

The French area to the northeast, HOW?

 

[filcat]

Right. First, house cleaning.

Have to catch up for re-readings, but that will take time.
Quick input should be provided meanwhile.

---

The French area to the northeast, HOW?

Spoiler: say what

Of course by how the story behind it is asked, which seems ostensibly rich for many more to tell.
But for a banal explanation:

Well that is ck for ya.


You know, just as becoming the target of a crusade and a jihad at the same time while not having any beef against any of the abrahamic faiths, because your character's thrice banished moronic half-cousin inherits one county on the other side of the map.

Yeah. A wednesday in ck timeline.

Spoiler: Yeah

 

[Revan86]

THIRTY
Adoration
15 July 1346 – 5 June 1348

‘Did you get him, Vasil?’

The masterless man squinted off up the hillside where he’d shot his arrow. He could just vaguely make out a scruff of grizzled fur amid the pine-bound rocks above, and a dark trickle of red streaming off the side. It wasn’t moving.

‘I think I got him, Saša.’

Vasil replaced the bow over his lean shoulders, and readjusted his too-loose waist-belt over the hem of his baggy tunic. Then he and Saša picked their way up the hillside.

Life was not easy for men in the Low Beskids. Granted, it was easier in peacetime than when there was a war—and life had been fairly peaceful in the days of Kráľ Radomír in far-away Olomouc. But still this area was poor, and always had been—the soil rocky, the growing weather short. Many lived off what they could grow in their own gardens or gather from the edges of the pine forests. What little extra they had could be bartered in Siloš or Užhorod, perhaps, for a few dashes of fennel seed and savoury greens, or a handful of coppers. If a young man had any ambition, he bade his elders farewell and set out on the road for Nitra, perhaps kissing a sweetheart farewell and promising to return. But rare was the young man who did. More common it was, for young men with ambitions closer to home, to band together and seek their fortunes outside the ducal writ.

As Vasil and Saša went, they were nowhere close to being the most egregious or cutthroat of rogues. From fear of God instilled in them from their Babča’s warnings and from the stern homilies of the village priest, they still scrupled not to prey upon the two-legged kind, and sought only after the four-legged.

Vasil and Saša came upon their fallen quarry. The wolf lay still, the fletching of Vasil’s arrow flying like a victorious banner planted in its side. Saša gingerly toed his way toward it. Dead was no matter, but a wolf was nowise more vicious than when it was alive and wounded. But no growl escaped its ribcage, and no more white teeth than its canines were bared from its black lips.

‘Pretty scrawny,’ Vasil adjudged, shaking his head grimly. ‘And old. Won’t get much meat off him for Mamka.’

‘Hide’ll fetch something, though,’ said Saša.

‘Wait—d’you hear that?’ asked Vasil.

The call of a horn sounded again. Nearer this time. And the sound of hooves and the calls of men.

‘Quick! Help me!’ Vasil hissed, dragging the rear legs of their kill in a panic.

Saša tried to aid his brother in hauling the animal out of sight of the road, but the two of them were not quick enough. They’d already been spotted—the lead heralds let out a mock-hunting call at them.

‘Who is it?’ moaned Saša in despair. ‘Is it the Pan?’

Vasil made out the foremost banner among the riders, and his heart caught with dread. It was worse than Pan Rastislav. It was worse even than Knieža Vladimír. The distinctive black banner with the yellow lion rampant showed—a device with no quartering. And it was accompanied by a blue vane with a white-and-red-chequered crowned eagle emblazoned upon it. It was the Kráľ.

The time for hiding was long gone; there was nowhere even to run. They dropped the wolf between them. And Vasil’s arrow was still lodged in the dead beast’s side, the distinctively-dyed feathers blazing treacherously against them. The two of them would be lucky if they escaped flaying, let alone the halter.

Then came a smooth-cheeked man to the fore, tall and broad-shouldered, with short-cropped red hair, upon a sleek, fat, proud white mount. From the way all the other men deferred to him, as well as by his bold air, this was clearly the Kráľ himself.

‘Dóbryj deň, moi čolovičiska!’ the king called condescendingly to his wayward subjects.

Vasil and Saša knelt down in front of the king and touched their heads to the earth.

‘Vašoj Vysokopreosjäŝénnejšeje, Vyšinkejšeje, Blagodïinejšeje, Avgustejšeje i Koroľskoje Velíčestvo!’ Saša rattled off as many obsequious superlatives and honourifics as he could remember in the hope that, when directed toward such an exalted personage as was now before him, they might go some way toward softening the blows of the whip at them that were now doubtless forthcoming.

‘Please, your Majesty,’ Vasil pleaded. ‘We did not do this!’

Radomír looked around at his entourage, and sent up an uproarious laugh, causing the two kneeling men to flinch.

‘I suppose,’ the king remarked jocundly to them, ‘that it’s mere coincidence that a quiver of arrows with the self-same fletching as that which killed the animal between you, just so happens to be strapped across your back, Sir Woodsman!’

‘Please, your Gracious Excellency,’ Saša cried out, ‘spare our lives! We’ve got a sick mother at home!’

‘Oh?’ asked the king. ‘Well, well. With a couple of good-for-nothing runaways like the two of you for sons, little wonder the poor woman’s sick. But on the other hand—’ here the king paused as he marked the trail of blood back up to the rock atop which the wolf was shot, ‘—if that scruffy thing fell atop of that, from a shot drawn from anywhere around where we are, one of you must know of a marksman of no mean skill. I should very much like to meet the fellow who dropped him.’

The heads of the two prostrate men turned a fraction toward each other, as though they were silently considering between them how much of the truth to tell. At length Vasil raised his head a hair, and spoke:

‘I am the man, O Kráľ.’

The king leapt nimbly from the back of his horse and stepped up to Vasil, looming over him.

‘You do realise,’ the young king pronounced ominously, ‘the penalty for poaching in the woods which are the rightful property of Pan Rastislav?’

Vasil gulped hard, barely able to swallow. It was as though the halter were already closing around his neck. ‘Yes, milord,’ he managed.

‘Then you know you’re lucky it’s I who found you, and not him!’ the king chuckled, clapping Vasil on the shoulder. ‘Up on your feet. Give this amateur a couple of pointers with the bow, with that rock as a mark, and I shall consider your debt for the trespass duly paid!’

~~~

As soon as the Kráľ entered the cabin, he was at once assailed by a cloud of wild red hair and a thin linen shift, and showered with passionate kisses.

Katarína wasn’t much one for hunting, and certainly not for large parties of strange folk. But she did love the quiet and solitude of these Beskid hunts. And she wasn’t about to let an opportunity pass for being alone and intimate with Radomír. Radomír petted his Queen for what seemed to him a short while before his redheaded consort sank down, nestled her bare knees snug around his ankles, unclasped his belt, tossed it aside, and yanked down his hose.

She then lifted her shift clear of hips, navel, breasts and shoulders, finally tossing her rubious mane free and flinging the garment to a far corner. She sauntered to the bed and reclined, wantonly presenting herself to her husband.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘I’m just back from hunting; I’m all sweaty.’

‘All the better,’ she purred.

To his wife’s delight, Radomír made no further demurral.

The royal couple had spent the last three months this way, in this hunting-camp in the Beskid foothills. Katarína’s libido, which had burned hot before, was practically scalding now—and Radomír had a vague inkling of why. Evidently, she’d gotten it into her head that a certain Greco-Polish refugee at their court in Olomouc, Anna, had designs on him. Katarína had resorted to a string of subtle hidden revenges on the would-be interloper. And now that she had Radomír to herself in a cabin in the woods, she wanted as much as possible to confirm Radomír’s love for her by her favoured means.

It wasn’t all fun and games for Radomír, though. As well as hunting while it was light, he had been supervising the reconversion of the last remnants of the old Čističe elsewhere in the Carpathians.

Part of his reason for being here, as well, was to assuage the wounded pride and hurt feelings of his most powerful and ambitious vassal. Vladimír Mikulčický had been relieved of the forest holdings he held in the traditionally German lands of the Viedenský Les, and he hadn’t quite forgiven his overlord for that particular loss yet.

Also, on the other side of the mountains, another powerful vassal of his, Vojvod Tichomil 2. of Sliezsko, was conducting his own private little war against the Galicians. Radomír viewed this with alarm—not because he had any particular love for Galicia, but rather because the land-hunger of his two most influential middle vassals had grown insatiable. He had to nip it in the bud. And so he had brought his missive to Užhorod in the hopes of ending the western assault on Přemysl.

The answer would soon be forthcoming, though it would not be to Radomír’s liking.

The Silesian vojvod offered to end the war… but only if the Kráľ offered him a suitable compensation for the losses he’d already incurred in the bloody pursuit of his goal. The fact that Radomír had to answer Tichomil’s request at all was obnoxious. As well as being burdensome, it was truly untimely.

The theme in all of Radomír’s public decrees and speeches in his early reign had been entirely to the following effect:

Moravia had gotten too wealthy, expanded too far, sunk too deep into luxury and indolence since the death of the last great king, Kaloján. The easy wealth of silver had tarnished the Moravian soul; the glimmer of cut crystal had darkened it. The kingdom needed a deep, spiritual renewal. The kingdom needed to return in prayer and fasting to the True Faith. The nobles needed to pay the proper respect to the Archōn of the earthly realm to inculcate the proper attitude to the Pantokratōr of the Cosmos.

Radomír had therefore staged long, ceremonious Orthodox processions in the streets of each of the three major cities of the west of his realm: Olomouc, Pardubice and Praha. He had also commissioned, for the purpose of public appearances, a resplendent robe of blue woven Taugats silk lined with purest white ermine.

The tailored robe had already set the treasury back considerably—but paying this bribe to end Tichomil’s naked land grab had truly cleaned the dust from the bottom.

Katarína had been—to no one’s surprise, least of all her own—impregnated on their hunting trip. As the king was still struggling with his debts, she carried and bore their seventh child (the fifth to be live-born), a fair-skinned, rosy-cheeked, red-headed little boy who was the spitting image of his father. Katarína insisted firmly that the little one be named for Radomír.

As for Anna… that offer had come as well. Sooner than the Kráľ had expected.

Radomír turned her down gently, but firmly. Katarína devoted herself to him in the ways she knew best. She’d borne him five children besides. And it wasn’t in Radomír’s open and guileless nature to repay good needlessly with evil.

 

[Midnite Duke]

Anna looks like a little old for the Kral. When is Queen Katarina not pregnant? Is she or Radomir lustful (or the CK3 equivalent)? Thank you for updating.

 

[Revan86]

Prisnec and Lodovica, two more delightful companions. Thank you for the wonderful journey.

The French area to the northeast, HOW?

Right. First, house cleaning.

Have to catch up for re-readings, but that will take time.
Quick input should be provided meanwhile.

---

Spoiler: say what

View attachment 949716

Of course by how the story behind it is asked, which seems ostensibly rich for many more to tell.
But for a banal explanation:

Well that is ck for ya.


You know, just as becoming the target of a crusade and a jihad at the same time while not having any beef against any of the abrahamic faiths, because your character's thrice banished moronic half-cousin inherits one county on the other side of the map.

Yeah. A wednesday in ck timeline.

Spoiler: Yeah

View attachment 949719

So... about that French-speaking area in Poland.

I'm honestly not too sure how it happened, though I agree with @filcat that it's a fairly ordinary occurrence in CK3. My best guess is that that territory fell into the hands of a West Francian or Lotharingian nobleman by dint of succession law some hundred or hundred-fifty years back (him being the closest male relative of the old lord of that area, or something) and the larger kingdom never let it go until the populace assimilated.

Anna looks like a little old for the Kral. When is Queen Katarina not pregnant? Is she or Radomir lustful (or the CK3 equivalent)? Thank you for updating.

LOL, yeah. Not sure why she thought she could get anywhere with him...

When is Katarína not pregnant? Uhhh... she's been pretty consistently pregnant since she got married. Even I was surprised at how often she got knocked up in-game.

She is, however, lustful as well as shy and diligent. Radomír is brave, ambitious and trusting.

Thanks to you both, @Midnite Duke and @filcat, for being loyal readers!

 

[Revan86]

THIRTY-ONE
Blíženec
9 June 1348 – 20 October 1349

It took a lot to impress Radomír. But he was quite impressed with the newly-built palace that had been erected, as he rode into the new-old Ruthenian capital of Kiev.

Kiev, it was true, had been the traditional seat of power of the Rus’ state; its position at the confluence of the Desná and the Dniepr rivers made it a natural focus of commerce—but it was also quite susceptible to attack from several sides. Mozyř, which lay further upstream on a high bank overlooking the Pripjäť, had long been favoured by the Ruthenian Grand Princes and Princesses over Kiev on account of its ease of defence—however, Mozyř had also grown in cultural and religious importance as the centre of Rus’ learning and Orthodox piety.

But Vjačeslava Vseslavovná, the new Grand Princess of Great Rus’, had returned the seat of Ruthenian rule back downstream, to the former capital. And she had lost no time in renovating the walls, cleaning the streets, enforcing the Rus’ justice along the dock districts, and… building this new marvel of masonry and woodwork that served as her personal display of power and opulence.

Radomír had to wonder somewhat at the Grand Princess’s motivations. The new Rus’ monarch supposedly quite stingy and grudging of her coinpurse—to the point where, it was rumoured, she would have a tenant beaten in public, who gave her half a silver obol in taxes less than he owed. Was it a delusion of grandeur that had led her to construct this extravagant new townscape? Was it a debt she felt she owed to her ancestors? Or was there some other reason for this costly move?

The Moravian Kráľ felt a twinge of loneliness. Radomír found himself wishing that Katarína had come with him: if she had come along, he would have been able to share these thoughts of his with her, and she would have been able to enjoy the sights of the newly-rebuilt Ruthenian city with him. But she’d preferred in this case to stay home. Katarína had little love for social events and gatherings.

Radomír also found himself hoping he wouldn’t make an ass of himself in front of the Ruthenian Grand Princess, as he evidently had in his recent correspondence with the Moldavian Vojvoda Vladimil 3. His letters had been quite warm and cordial up until the last one. For the life of him, Radomír couldn’t figure out what it was he’d written amiss—but there had been no more letters forthcoming from that southeastern country.

In the meantime, the Moravian King enjoyed the sights and sounds of Kiev. The old wood-fronted Slavic edifices mingled with the more Western-influenced architecture of plaster and slate shingles, giving the town something of a split personality. Radomír couldn’t help but be drawn to the former. Eventually he came to the new palace, which was almost entirely built in the Western style.

Vjačeslava was at the door personally to greet her guests and invite them within. Soon the gathering was in full swing. The Ruthenian Grand Princess was a portly, fleshy woman with florid cheeks and credible jowls, with a demure and placid bearing and a pleasant, mild alto voice. But for all that, there was a hard set to her mouth and an acquisitive, assaying glimmer in her blue-grey eyes which portended to Radomír that she was not a woman to be crossed.

‘This is quite the lively tune!’ exclaimed Radomír as the musicians started up an air.

‘It’s a chorovód,’ Vjačeslava remarked, as the guests formed a circular pattern alternating men and women, setting a cheery rhythm with their feet around a single focus. ‘If you would believe it, the folk of the southern lands of the Rus’ prefer an even livelier and wilder setting for this dance. Personally, I like my music to be bright and merry, but the southern music is too quick. It’s somewhat disagreeable to me.’

‘Yet you moved your capital downstream from Mozyř,’ Radomír observed.

‘So I did,’ Vjačeslava’s jowls deepened slyly.

‘To what purpose?’ asked Radomír.

Vjačeslava Vseslavovná raised her iron-grey brows. ‘I should have thought that apparent at once, particularly to a distinguished and wise ruler such as yourself! Why do you keep your capital in Olomouc, and not in, say, the High Tatras?’

Radomír thought for a while. ‘I suppose it’s tradition,’ he answered her. ‘Our family has always ruled from Olomouc, even after King Bohodar 1. reunited the two halves of Moravia and set Velehrad upon the path of the True Faith. But one can’t argue with the results!’

‘And what results would those be?’

‘Well, Olomouc is quite happily set at a central position in the Morava Valley. It’s a natural hub of traffic, almost as much so as Bratislava.’

‘Well, there you are,’ Vjačeslava told him. ‘You’ve answered your own question. You rule from Olomouc rather than from Velehrad because Olomouc is more profitable to you, and better showcases your nation’s grandeur. Kiev is the same way. Mozyř might have suited my forefathers, who wanted the security of the forests, the quiet contemplation of the hermits, the stillness of the Pripjäť. But Kiev—Kiev is the image of power, wealth, prestige! Do you not agree?’

Privately, Radomír didn’t agree. Maybe he’d gone on one too many hunts, or made love to Katarína in one too many secluded rustic Carpathian cabins. But he rather inclined to the picture she painted of Mozyř. The contemplative asceticism of such a place stirred him deep in his heart—there it would be possible to ascend the ladder to heaven and see God face to face. Here in this newly-rebuilt Kiev of worldly commerce, amid this hotch-potch which was half-Russian and half-Western and less than the two halves put together, such higher striving clearly wasn’t possible. He began to think about the possibility of moving the Moravian capital back to Velehrad… patronising the monasteries there…

‘Would you care to join the dance, young man?’ asked Vjačeslava.

‘I’d be delighted,’ Radomír bowed to her politely, taking her arm and moving into the circle.

Here, Radomír found he accorded better with Vjačeslava Vseslavovná. Her movements kept scrupulous time with the gusli and the žalejka, but they were deliberate and stately—Radomír found her surprisingly graceful for a woman of her age and bodily proportions. When the dance was over, Radomír complimented her on her skill.

‘You’re too kind, young man. You ought to have seen me when I was twenty years younger!’

‘I’ll bet you were quite the charmer,’ Radomír told her.

A misty look came over the Grand Princess’s eyes, and at once she began regaling the younger monarch with tales of her youth in Mozyř, and her memories of her grandfather’s court, and her father’s. Despite Radomír’s continuing impression of her that she was a rather stony-hearted skinflint, he could still see that her family and its standing meant a great deal to her—and that she was motivated by a sincere desire to make her mark upon her principality. This was something Radomír could well relate to.

For the next several days in Kiev, Radomír kept up his conversations with his female counterpart in that land. In truth, although the commonalities between them were more of experience than of temperament or character, Radomír felt confident in building upon these, and the two of them spent long in conversation with each other. By the time Radomír left Kiev, he felt he’d forged a strong bond with the Rus’ Knyaginya.

~~~

​

‘I’ve never grown this fast before,’ complained Katarína to Radomír.

‘How do you know?’

That had been the wrong response. Katarína grabbed a pillow from the bed and gave her husband the basting with it he’d been asking for, before bawling at him:

‘How many times have you sown fruitful seed in me, Mírko? Eight! Eight times I’ve been pregnant by you. I know what my body should look like at this tide. I’m too big now! I look like a bombard ball!’

Radomír privately had to own that his wife was telling the truth. It was only her sixth month of this one, and already her belly was nearing thrice as big around as she normally was. Her skin was stretched taut and shiny over the expanse, and her navel extruded from her (as it wasn’t wont to). She was eating and drinking enough for a horse, passing water seemingly on the hour, and growing winded and weary even from short walks up and down stairs. Even her body hair, thick and dense even in normal times, was exploding in unruly tangles that sprawled under her arms and along the insides of her thighs. And…

Katarína had burst into noisy, wracking sobs, slumped heavily onto the bed, and seemed adrift in helpless despair over… everything.

Radomír put his arm around her and let her cry into his shoulder for a good twenty minutes, rocking her gently back and forth. She was too exhausted both by the state of her body and by her violent surge of emotion to answer him once she’d calmed down. Radomír let her lie back on the bed and tucked her in under the covers. She was already asleep by the time he did so.

Well—let her sleep. She woke up in untimely way more than twice as often as she usually did. And even Queen Mother Lodovica, her own mother Sjätosláva, the midwife, the cook and the other women about the castle had little to offer her this time by way of advice, the way they had her last seven pregnancies. Even their friend Pravdomila Rychnovská (once again illicitly pregnant by a man unknown to any but her) had little advice to give her on her strange symptoms. No doubt she felt very alone right now.

Radomír sat at his wife’s side and kept vigil over her that night. When she finally awoke, she saw him in this attitude, and told him:

‘I’m grateful for you, you know.’

‘Grateful?’

‘I’m a vain and selfish woman, Mírko,’ she told him. ‘I’m a slave to passion. I thought for a long time that my lust could bring me close to you. But I couldn’t reach your heart, your noble heart, that way. It was only after I… lost… those two children of ours, that I started to understand how to care for you. How it feels to be cared for by you. How to be grateful for what we have.’

‘Kaťuša,’ Radomír told her, stroking her hair, ‘you’re not the only one who had to learn.’

She gave a sad smile and shook her head. ‘You were good to me, when I felt I was no good.’

The two of them stared into each other’s eyes for awhile, before Katarína gripped his hand and squeezed down on it, hard. Possessively.

‘Don’t leave me now,’ she murmured to him. ‘I fear I may not survive this one. Be there for me.’

‘Now,’ Radomír promised her, ‘and always. In sickness and in health.’

When her due day came three months later, though, by God’s grace she survived the difficult pregnancy. As it turned out, the midwife lightened her not by one, but by two precious new lives. The first to emerge from Katarína’s womb was a little girl. The second: a boy. Both had the same red hair and fair skin of both their parents and all their elder siblings.

They were christened Dušana and Ostromír.

 

[Midnite Duke]

A double-header helps in the quest for a baseball team. Do you know how to type a small c with a caron? I read alt269, but that gives me a musical note. Thank you

The pop-up 'Queen Yekaterine gained the trait pregnant', may be the most repeated phrase in this section.

 

[Revan86]

THIRTY-TWO
Companions
30 January 1350 – 1 October 1351​

The marriage of Radomír and Katarína Sjätopolkovná was mostly a happy one, even though the clergy were wont to chastise the two in private for the excesses of their intimate life, and occasionally also for the way in which their fleshly desires showed indiscreetly in public. The lively Kráľ and the retiring Kráľovná had talents that complemented each other quite nicely. Radomír had no objections whatsoever to a sensible and thrifty wife whose attention to detail not only spared his expenses but even filled his coffer. And Katarína was more than happy to have a husband who could handle guests face-to-face while she worked behind the scenes.

And despite their disparate gifts of talent, the two of them were near-equals in intellect. The Kráľovná enjoyed her Kráľ’s playful sweet nothings as much as he enjoyed saying them to her, but by this point the two of them ran far deeper than that. Radomír enjoyed hearing his Kaťuša hold forth on many topics: art, poetry, rhetoric (mostly homilies), theatre both sacred and profane. Despite her Russian perspective not always aligning with his own Moravian aesthetics, Radomír found their differences stimulating even when they clashed.

There was one thing, though, that put strain on their marriage early on.

Katarína, who had long been scorched of the inward fire of her passions, tended to look fiercely upon other women, assuming that they possessed the same. And Radomír was not ill-favoured to look upon. Kaťuša therefore mistrusted women who got too close to Radomír. And there were plenty of those.

Pravdomila, she could tolerate. She’d come with the territory, being a Rychnovská and having grown up alongside her husband. Katarína knew perfectly well where Pravdomila stood with Radomír—as they were close kin and childhood friends, and Radomír jealous of a reputation tarnished by his incestuous forebears, she feared no threat to her marriage-bed from that quarter.

There had been Anna, their Greek guest, as well. She had been rather artless in her pursuit of Radomír. Even though she knew his tastes, still she couldn’t approach his heart. Katarína had observed that little failed seduction with some alarm at first. But when it became clear to her that Anna’s open flirtations were getting just a little too desperate, she became instead darkly amused.

But it was harder for her to countenance Radomír’s closeness to the Burgomistress Živoslava. Živoslava was older than Radomír—much older—but she had a vivacity and cheeky cleverness that drew men to her. And Radomír laughed together with her, or even vented his frustrations to her.

It started out as a twinge of irritation, but soon Katarína found a bitter gall in her throat whenever she thought of Živoslava. She crept out at night to visit Živoslava’s lodgings by stealth when she visited Olomouc, and went through her belongings. This went on for some years. But no matter how she tried, she could find no evidence that the Kráľ’s friendship with the Purkmistrička had ever been anything more than friendly, or that her husband had ever been anything less than faithful to her. This should have come as a relief to Katarína’s passionate soul—but she still burned too hot for that knowledge to give her any respite.

She did not immediately understand the diplomatic necessity of Radomír’s closeness with the Velikaya Knyažna of Great Rus’, either. She deeply mistrusted Vjačeslava’s unaccustomed warmth of address whenever she made visits of state to the Moravian court. She didn’t like, either, Radomír’s familiar tone which he used in her presence. Again she took herself to stealth to uncover the nature of their relationship.

She even went through the Kráľ’s state papers and personal correspondence, painstakingly combing through every letter Vjačeslava had sent him. Desperately she endeavoured to find some incriminating phrase, some saucy indecent remark, some proof of what she least wanted to find, some inkling that would confirm the images her fevered imagination conjured of Radomír sporting in another woman’s bed. But she could find none. Her husband was as clear and honest as day. He and the foreign potentate were nothing more than friends.

Indeed, she found a reference in his letters to her!

‘Sláva Vseslavovná,’ she read the letter aloud upon her breath, ‘I beg you to enclose in your next letter some materials of artistic and poetic interest from your land—from holy Mozyř in particular. I wish to share with my darling Kaťuša more from the people she originates from. I revere her beauty, and I wish to express in the language of her heart that which I find most beautiful in her. I do not know how the Russians regard the love of a husband and wife, but even with all of my diplomatic skill I find my Moravian tongue to be inadequate to express the adoration in which I stand of her. Kaťuša is my light…’

Upon reading this, Katarína certainly didn’t feel herself to be light. She felt dark, miserable and polluted. Her husband was so kind and good to her, and she had repaid him with this sneaking suspicion! She had imagined him sinning against her with dozens of other women. She had placed him in all manner of lurid and bestial degradations with them. These devilish suggestions, which had found a ready audience in her unchaste mind, had brought her nothing but pain. All while in reality, her Radomír had been guilty of no such sin against her!

She began to sob over the letter, and her tears fell upon it.

What could she do?

Her normal recourse, when these jealous fits had come upon her, had been to get Radomír inside their chambers, bolt the door, fling off her clothes and attack him mercilessly. But sex had never been able to purge these thoughts from her head. The sweet oblivion of orgasm never lasted—and the bitterness of envy inevitably crept in afterward to take its place.

Katarína turned instead to the prayer her mother had taught her, the prayer that Saint Gregory of Thessaly had championed in the Zbor: ‘Gospodi Îsuse Christe, Syne Božij, pomiluj mja, grešnuju!’

Having turned to Christ with these words, she resolved on the spot that she would not spy on or interfere in another of her husband’s friendships. Thrice already he had proven faithful to her, and more. It was time she did the same for him.

~~~

‘Kaťuša,’ Radomír told her one morning, ‘I was thinking about the possibility of bringing your sister to Olomouc, that we might entertain her. What manner of dishes does she like?’

The mention of Praksida at once put Katarína’s nerves on alert. Old habits die hard. But as the image arose in her mind of Radomír approaching her older sister with lascivious intent, she at once forced herself to remember the letter from Radomír to Vjačeslava. With her mind, she knew her husband could be trusted; it took effort, however, to remind her heart of the fact.

‘She enjoys paleňata,’ Katarína told him. ‘The cooks should already know how to make them; if they don’t, I can teach them. They’re quite simple.’

Radomír nodded. ‘A good idea, Kaťuša. It’s been awhile since I’ve had paleňata; I’ll make sure we prepare some suitably for her when she comes.’

Katarína hesitated for a long moment, and then blurted out:

‘Mírko.’

‘Yes?’

‘If you’re looking to get on my sister’s good side… would you like me to talk to her myself?’

‘I’d be grateful,’ Radomír told her.

~~~​

For Katarína Sjätopolkovná to overcome the envy in her heart that had built up over half a lifetime was no easy task. The Kráľovná had been insecure about her body and her looks ever since she was a teen. Deep down, she worried that she wouldn’t be good enough for Radomír. That feeling was compounded by the smouldering gaze with which she’d followed countless good-looking young men… necks and shoulders, wrists, chests, rumps and groins. Thank God she wasn’t so bold ever to act on the thoughts she’d harboured! But if she was this voracious, how much would other women be after Radomír? Little had she understood how her opinion even of her own sister was coloured by her own unchaste desires.

She told herself this a thousand times on the road to Siget. But she still found herself slowing the pace of her mount, looking over her shoulder, wondering if it would be too much trouble. Little nagging excuses. But it was to her credit that she urged herself on.

‘Kaťuša!’ cried Praksida in delight as she beheld her younger sister at the gate of her estate. She ran out to meet her. ‘Come within! Come within—your Majesty!’

It was spoken with just a hint of a smirk, but there was nothing at all unfriendly about her reception.

‘Thank you, Paraša,’ Katarína took her sister’s hands and allowed herself to be led inside her father’s hall. The familiar place was bright and warm, and Praksida steered her to a seat near hers. The two of them chatted together for an hour or two over various things, catching up on news—until the older sister came to the point.

‘What business brings you here?’ asked Praksida.

Kaťuša regarded her elder sister carefully. Age hadn’t changed her at all! Her hair was still sleek, straight and obedient; her dark eyes were still wild and alluring; her face was still the same smooth, regular, handsome shape. Why had Paraša always been the pretty one? She took a deep breath.

‘My husband would like to extend you an invitation to Olomouc. Don’t think of it as being “requested and required”, it’s purely a social occasion.’

Praksida raised her eyebrows. ‘Me? I’m flattered. What ulterior motive am I to assume for this honour?’

‘None, none at all!’ Katarína answered her, a bit too vehemently. ‘My husband is and always has been a very magnanimous man, and he’s always considered you not only as a vassal, but as family! You are most welcome in Olomouc at any time!’

‘This is the first I’ve heard that,’ Praksida tilted her head to the side.

‘It’s truth, Paraša,’ Katarína assured her. ‘Radomír has a great vision for Moravia, but he also wishes to respect and understand the regions. You would be as welcome as the headwoman of Podkarpatská, as you would be as my sister.’

A smile spread slowly over Praksida’s face. ‘Very well, sister. You know, I always thought you rather begrudged me. If you’re here at your husband’s behest, I know he must be sincere!’

~~~​

Katarína crossed herself as she made her way into the palace chapel in Olomouc. She made a bow and kissed the icon of the Theotokos, then made a prostration before the icon of Christ, and then found the icon of Saint Mary of Egypt and set a lit candle before it. Although it couldn’t at all be said of Katarína that she had led as infamous a life as the saint had prior to her conversion, still she felt herself inwardly to be a struggler against the same passions.

In a small way, now, she had overcome her envy of her sister, and allowed herself to trust in Radomír once more. She could breathe again.

‘Imagine finding you here,’ said a warm voice behind her.

‘Mírko,’ Katarína whispered.

The Kráľ knelt beside her and placed his own lit candle beside hers.

‘I just received a letter from your sister. It seems that whatever you said to her, it made a positive impression!’

‘Happy to be of help to you,’ said Katarína.

The two of them knelt together in silence for some minutes. There wasn’t need for further words between them now; they were warm in each other’s company. However, as though by mutual agreement, the two of them stood up together, made their reverences, and left the chapel. When they made their way to bed, they clasped each other happily, in the same tender warmth.

~~~

Radomír spent some time in the weeks and months that followed, composing verse.

The main theme upon which he wrote, was the long brotherhood that had existed between the Pavelkov lineage of Siget and the royal line of Rychnov, going back all the way to the first of his namesakes in the kingly line. If he tended to elide certain elements of that relationship—such as Kráľ Eustach’s church-burning in Chust or the rebellion of Knieža Zvonimír—it was for an understandable cause. Katarína also, he consulted to make changes here and there as needed.

The finished work placed a great deal of emphasis on Praksida’s able leadership of Siget and Podkarpatská, her might and skill with the axe, and her bold leadership of men—all qualities which Radomír valued and respected.

It was at this time that Katarína’s belly began to swell again. Astonishingly, even her morning sickness was mild this time. Even though the mother of seven bore her pregnancy with all the ease and confidence of long practice, Radomír never tired of seeing his wife in a family way. He thought her most adorable in those first weeks after the discovery, when her prominent cheeks were aglow.

The Queen also went about her business managing the castle and estates with a cheerier disposition and an easier mind, or it seemed to her husband. It was almost as though, even though a weight had been added to her body again, something of a heavier weight had been lifted off her heart.

Their seven children were growing bigger all the time. It was astonishing to Radomír how tall Kvetoslava and Svetlana had gotten already—sooner rather than later, it seemed, they would catch up with their mother! And Prisnec and Kulin wouldn’t be too far behind them.

Kvetoslava, unfortunately, spent most of her time now in her chambers, not going outside for fear of being picked on by her cousin Zvonimír. And doubly unfortunate was that Prisnec seemed to be following her lead. Many were the times when Katarína, who abhorred sloth and irresponsibility, upbraided both her eldest daughter and her eldest son in the harshest terms for this sad shortcoming, but to little avail. Radomír reflected, in a manner entirely self-unaware, that physical beauty might be a dangerous thing. It may very well have been the case that Kvetoslava and Prisnec, having come to a too-early awareness of their natural gifts, found it easier to manipulate and cajole others into doing what they wanted, rather than working for it themselves.

This suspicion seemed to be borne out by Svetlana and Kulin. Neither of them was a great beauty: Svetlana was a darkling girl with strong features and a swart complexion; while Kulin’s angular face and prominent cheekbones (so handsome in Katarína) gave him an almost comical look. But what they lacked in looks, they more than made up for in personality: Svetlana was every bit as attentive to detail and meticulous in her labours as her mother was, and Kulin was shaping up to be a studious lad of deep and profound thoughts.

~~~​

‘That was truly delicious!’ exclaimed Praksida. ‘My compliments on the mincemeat paleňata.’

‘That was your sister’s doing,’ Radomír said modestly.

‘Ah, she remembered. My sister is quite fortunate, you know,’ Praksida told Radomír. ‘And I don’t simply mean for her exaltation as Kráľovná.’

Radomír nodded acknowledgement of the compliment.

‘I am fortunate as well,’ Praksida told him, ‘to have your trust and goodwill, O Kráľ. I had always had, I suppose, a suspicion that I attained my position as maršalka on account of my great-grandfather’s service in the same office. But being invited here, and dining with you and Kaťuša, and being able to speak my mind freely about the state of Moravia’s defences and the rights of Podkarpatská… it’s more than I hoped for from you.’

‘I value your opinion,’ said Radomír, ‘both as a maršal and as a sister!’

‘Ďakujeme,’ Praksida smiled warmly.

‘You’re more than welcome to stay,’ Radomír told her. ‘Or to return, at any time you wish.’

Praksida shook her head. ‘That is generous of you, O Kráľ… but the sowing season is upon us and I must be at home to supervise my lands in person. I haven’t the benefit, either of a truly capable šafár, or—as you have—of a consort who knows how to handle household matters.’ She quickly looked around her and mock-whispered to the king: ‘Don’t tell Kaťuša I said that.’

Radomír laughed. He’d been part of a large enough brood to know how sisters were. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’

‘Take care of her,’ Praksida bade him by way of benediction. ‘Kaťuša is dear to me. Don’t tell her I said that either.’

And with that, she departed back for Siget.

Radomír did as his sister-in-law instructed, making sure to be active with Kaťuša during the summer months, with healthy invigorating exercise both outdoors and in the boudoir—and then during the autumn months as she grew round and heavy and near her due day making sure she was safe, warm and comfortable. When she gave birth, it was to a healthy, beautiful young daughter whom they christened Chrysē, or Zlata.

Although Katarína had managed to subdue her envy of other women who appreciated her husband as a friend, there were still some who waxed green with it when they saw how close Radomír was to his maršalka—for other reasons.

Drahoslav Rychnovský-Lehnice, the Vojvoda of Sliezsko, approached his liege and kinsman with what he believed was a surefire way of poisoning their relationship. He’d managed to uncover an unsavoury personal secret of the Kňažná of Podkarpatská. But to his surprise and dismay, the Kráľ rebuffed him.

‘I trust Praksida,’ he told Drahoslav. ‘It would be best for you, if you leave this matter lie.’

Drahoslav smiled unpleasantly. ‘Far be it from me to stand between you and your bevy of admirers.’

He was, however, mistaken—in much the same way Katarína had been mistaken about Radomír until late. Radomír was partial only to his Queen, the woman who shared his bed—to her, he was unshakeably loyal. Among the other women around him, the so-called ‘bevy’, Radomír had no favourites, nor any inclination to grow closer to any of them than would be appropriate for a married man. And at least now, Katarína trusted him to keep those boundaries fixed.

 

[Midnite Duke]

Eight, one more for a full baseball team. The couple are still learning about each other. Thank you

 

[Revan86]

THIRTY-THREE
Northern Repose
28 November 1351 – 6 September 1355

The mysterious, sudden and untimely death of Knieža Bystrík 3. of Nitra was never adequately explained.

The physician in Nitra ascribed the death of the eldest son of the former Knieža Vladimír Mikulčický to poison, and that seemed clear and safe enough a discernment as any. Apart from the mottling of the skin and the distortion of his face in the final throes, there was no other mark upon Bystrík, which would certainly indicate poison as the murder weapon. Yet the subsequent inspection of the castle in Nitra and the interrogation of all who waited on and visited Bystrík in his final hours revealed nothing—not even a possible vehicle of delivery!

What was even more puzzling was the motive. Bystrík was well-liked all around. He was a scrupulous, earnest, fastidious ruler, one who never made waves or courted enmities of any kind, and who was fair and equable to all who were in his service, whether high or low.

The one possible motive that might be seen for his death was the sizeable fortune that had been left to him by Vladimír, amounting to well over two thousand denár of fine gold. But the whole of that fortune had been left to his infant daughter Ctislava—and, of course, owing to her age, to suspect her of her own father’s death was ludicrous. The fortune itself had been untouched, and was accounted for down to the last coin. No adventurous pilferer or embezzler had laid so much as a finger on it!

To be sure, it was whispered among some of the more cynical folk in Bratislava, that Bystrík had never quite seen eye-to-eye with the king. His popularity being what it was, as well, he had plenty of sympathy among the other vassals. And with that massive war-chest in his possession, to buy all manner of armaments and soldiers of fortune, if he had embarked upon an uprising, the king would be hard-pressed to put it down.

Of course, none of these suspicions were ever aired publicly, within earshot of any of the king’s agents. Besides, there was no proof of any involvement by the king… or, for that matter, anyone else. Ctislava’s guardian, her teenage uncle Ladomír, kept the investigation open for some time afterwards, but was despairing of anything new coming to light. Bystrík would have to remain unavenged.

~~~​

Radomír grunted, again and again and again. The Queen let out a satisfied gasp.

‘Tobí poďačilos?’ Kráľovná Katarína asked her husband, turning her body to embrace him.

Radomír gave another grunt. ‘Want another go?’ he asked brusquely.

Katarína gave a low chuckle. ‘What’s gotten into you? Usually it’s me who has to ask you for seconds—let alone fourths or fifths!’

‘I’ve had a lot on my mind recently.’

‘I’ll say you have,’ Katarína laughed again, fondling him. ‘A lot down here, too.’

Radomír lifted her to her feet and admired her naked figure. Katarína put her hands on her husband’s shoulders, closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. She gave up stifling her voice and let out a long, low moan—spreading her thighs as his fingers slid up between them.

‘Ááh, môj muž…’ Katarína sighed enjoyably, already half regretting what she was about to say, ‘Not that I don’t enjoy this… but don’t you think it would be wise to find another outlet for your stress?’

‘Another outlet?’ asked Radomír.

‘When I’m feeling pent-up,’ Katarína told him, ‘I usually find something to clean or something to mend. If all the work is done, then I go for a nice brisk walk in the courtyard or out across the bridge in the countryside.’

Radomír considered this. And then he did so.

Radomír found to his delight that his wife’s suggestion was sound. Long, spirited walks improved his mood immensely, and took his mind quite effectively off of the distractions and lascivious thoughts that had been bothering him. Spending time regularly out-of-doors became a habit for him thereafter.

As for Katarína, she was still healthy and fertile. She conceived once more, and when her term came, she gave birth to a healthy girl, whom she insisted on naming Vlasta.

~~~​

‘Šesť jablkových koláčov, prosím.’

The baker handed Kvetoslava the sweet apple pastries, and she handed him a small handful of copper coins. The transaction having been made, the princess dropped the baker a friendly courtesy and took her leave back to the castle.

Kvetoslava examined her purchase: six pastries—one each for Lana, Necko, Kulin, Radko, Duška and Míra. Vlasta was a newborn, and Zlata wasn’t old enough to eat solid food yet. Kvetoslava had, as was typical of her, taken no thought for herself. When she reached the castle she offered them to her brothers and sisters, who all took them gratefully. Prisnec wolfed his own down like there was a famine on—but he always ate like that. Kvetoslava smiled tolerantly.

‘Slow down, Necko!’ chided Kulin. ‘Do you want Babička to see you eating like that?’

‘So? Babička isn’t here!’ Prisnec grunted through a mouthful of pastry.

‘Don’t make light of that,’ Svietlana dropped her voice to a solemn hush. ‘From what I hear, Babička’s been kidnapped by the severané.’

‘What?’ gasped Akvila, Radomír and Ostromír at the same time. Lodovica had been popular among her younger grandsons, to whom she had always been partial to the point of indulgence.

‘It happened while she was away on a visit to her cousins on the Rhine,’ Svietlana informed them. ‘They appeared on the river without warning, sacked the village she was staying in, and had her in the hold long before the prince’s men arrived.’

The seven royal children fell to a hush. Suddenly the uneaten portions of pastry they were holding in their hands no longer seemed so appealing. The tale of Saint Dorotea, the one among the Rychnovských to have been formally glorified, had been told to the children long enough for it to have become familiar—the gruesome tortures and indignities she had suffered prior to her death had been impressed firmly upon their imaginations, but the glories of the heavenly crown she now wore seeming a bit too far off yet for their young minds to comprehend. They did love their Babička and could not bear the thought of her suffering a similar fate.

‘I’m sure they’ll release her,’ Kvetoslava said—trying her hardest to make herself believe it. ‘She’s too valuable to hurt. They’ll be sending for a ransom in short order, and we’ll have Babička back ere long!’

‘I hope so,’ Kulin murmured, crossing himself. ‘Gospodi pomiluj.’

~~~

The frustration that Radomír felt as he stalked the forests of Opole in vain for any sign of game, was second only to the sorrow he felt over his mother. No ransom note had been forthcoming from the Norse-ruled Kingdom of Clwyd. It seemed that the burgomaster of Llandudno, Hjálmar, had no intention of releasing Queen Mother Lodovica from his custody.

Radomír’s teeth ground. It wasn’t often that he felt as helpless as this, and he didn’t like the feeling one bit. Although he knew on an intellectual level that in such cases he was to put his trust in God, he found that trusting God was difficult to do when the liberty of his mother, the woman who had borne him into the world, was thus trampled.

Hunting, outdoor walks, outdoor runs… that was how he was dealing with it. He couldn’t reach the severané, but he could reach the wilds, with bow and spear in hand. The only problem was—there was no game to be found out here whatsoever. Neither hart nor hare, nor even a trail of one, came into view the whole time. Radomír was in high dudgeon by the time they returned. However, he resisted the temptation to go out and buy a feigned prize for the return—although he was the sort to seize opportunities as they came, nonetheless he preferred an honest defeat to a manufactured victory.

The black news came just after the New Year, in the Year of the World 6865.

Lodovica da Ponte, the Queen-Consort of Vojtech 2., the Queen-Mother of Great Moravia, died an ignominious death in the fonsels at Llandudno in Clwyd, at the age of fifty. Malnutrition, despair, and general ill-treatment at Hjálmar’s hands had been the culprits.

Radomír wore the colours of mourning for nearly two years afterward. He did not touch meat or wine, and he even kept himself apart from Katarína for several months after he heard the news. Very much so to her credit, Katarína understood and respected her husband’s intentions, and maintained her distance from him through that time without complaint. She understood quite well what it was to be filial, and she couldn’t yet bear the thought herself of losing Svätosláva.

 

[Midnite Duke]

What was the Queen-Mother doing in Wales? Is Wales Norse? What is the status of the British Isles? Vlasta is child #? Do we have a cricket team?

 

[Revan86]

What was the Queen-Mother doing in Wales? Is Wales Norse? What is the status of the British Isles? Vlasta is child #? Do we have a cricket team?

Gwynedd and Clwyd have been under Norse-Gaelic rule since about the 1050s. For most of that time they were Insularists in faith, and they'd only been Orthodox for about a generation or two prior to this. Remember Torgil, the husband of Saint Dorotea? He ended up as ruler of Gwynedd.

As to what Queen-Mother Lodovica was doing there, my serious best guess is that she was captured in a raid.

The British Isles are divided between a massive kingdom of Scotland which encompasses all of the Gaelic lands (Scotland, Ireland, even Iceland), a Kingdom of England (which controls about 2/3 of England) and a Kingdom of Wessex (which controls the other 1/3).

Vlasta is kiddo #9 by the game's count, #11 if you count the miscarriages.

THIRTY-FOUR
Kulin and the Doe
3 October 1355 – 17 September 1358​

The years that followed, for Kráľ Radomír, were dark and shadowed over by the fact of the loss of his mother. He still blamed himself that he had allowed her to go abroad into East Francia. And he still blamed himself that he had not gone at once, in person, to her rescue after she had been captured by the severané.

His contrition, at least on this scope, was sincere. He earnestly entreated God to preserve the faith of his lands, and his prayers bore fruit in at least two cases. The Hrabata of the northernmost marches of the Czech lands, Mislava Abovská and Gorazd Lampsiōtēs, came to their senses at last—and returned from the Roman flock to that of the Orthodox. Radomír stood as witness and sponsor as his two vassals received the holy chrism and were once again led before the altar to be consecrated to God.

It appeared that Kulin and Radko were also developing a close fraternal bond. The two of them were inseparable these days! The more so since Kulin had gotten Radko out of a nasty scrap one time in town. Radomír himself had been there to witness it—how, without a second thought or a look backwards, Kulin had leapt into the fray at seeing his younger brother ganged up on.

Kulin, Kráľ Radomír discovered to his delight, was quickly growing to be a redoubtable fighter and with a doughty heart. It seemed to him a waste that Katarína continued insisting that he apply himself in his studies of the Holy Scriptures and the ancient philosophers.

Radomír found himself having serious doubts about his eldest son and heir. Prisnec was proving to be a profound disappointment. The lad took little pleasure in anything but sleeping or eating—and both of those things he did to excess. Prisnec was, in short, a constant reminder to Radomír of the decadent spirit of ease and sloth and material greed that he was trying to purge from his kingdom. More and more he began to fear for his kingdom’s fate, as well as for his own soul.

Kvetoslava came of age first, and she quickly took as her beau a young man of the Abovský lineage: Bohuslav, the son of Miroslava of Abov. She was, thankfully, sensible enough to ask her father first for his blessing before taking a step too rash with Bohuslav. Radomír, seeing in Bohuslav an earnest and clean-living young man as well as one who was handsome of face, happily gave his consent.

Svietlana, darker of complexion and quicker of wit (in most things) than her older sister, was a bit shrewder in her ambitions. Kvetoslava, being a placid and conventional girl, had looked about her for a good-hearted lad with a pretty face with whom she could be content. Such a choice was not for Svietlana!

When she began entertaining suitors for her hand, her attention was caught by a certain Miloslaw von Magdeburg. Miloslaw wasn’t much to look at—in fact, he was a rather plain lad. But his father, a Germanised Sorb, was the head of a significant band of free warriors.

Svietlana couldn’t be said to understand military matters in any great depth, but she did know that mercenaries like Derwan von Magdeburg were coming to be in high demand among the princes of Central Europe, and being at the side of the eldest son of a mercenary captain would open many doors for her. Miloslaw thus suited her ambitions, and not merely her sentiments.

Radomír had no objections to this match, either! He blessed Svietlana to marry Miloslaw in November of 6867.

In his own court, Kráľ Radomír continued to be distressed by his childhood friend Pravdomila. She continued to fornicate shamelessly with some man still unknown to him, without doing the honest thing and receiving the Church’s blessing. She bore forth for a third time, and then a fourth, the unsanctioned fruits of their sin, hers and her unknown inamorato’s—two boys, Ctiboh and Dalibor. In her own way, though, Pravdomila was faithful: she protected his name and reputation securely behind her lips—but it was clear to anyone who looked at Agrafena, Ladomír, Ctiboh and Dalibor that they were all sired by one and the same father.

For his own part, Radomír suspected a married man was the father. Even though Pravdomila’s natural intelligence might attract some sinful brother or priestmonk or bishop, he couldn’t see her besmirching her faith in such a way. Rather, it was probably a man of high reputation already well-established with a wife, and one who liked to keep the bed in his Olomouc lodgings warm when his wife wasn’t with him. Such a man ought to be flattered to have a mistress as true-hearted as Pravdomila.

~~~​

‘That’s it!’ Radomír fumed at Praksida, ‘I’m going on a hunt!’

‘A… hunt, Mírek?’ Praksida cast a troubled look at her friend. ‘Are you well? Is there something I ought to know?’

Radomír planted a fist against the wall and heaved a deep sigh. ‘That son of mine. My eldest. Why in God’s name does he have to be such a layabout? What have I done to deserve such an heir?’

Praksida cracked a smile. ‘Well, children are as they are. And you do have other sons.’

Radomír nodded. ‘That I do. But how am I to know they won’t follow in their older brother’s footsteps?’

‘The only way to really know for sure is to test them,’ Praksida told him. ‘And I think a hunt would be an excellent idea, Mírek. Take the boys along with you. Nothing shows you what a boy’s really made of like bringing him out into the elements.’

And so it was decided. Radomír first, however, in secret had a captive-born hind taken and released into the woods along their path, though she would be flagged to make her easier to track. Now to see, Radomír thought grimly, what my sons are truly capable of.

Prisnec, as usual, hung back and joked with the servants. Radomír cast a disparaging eye over at the lad. As usual, the topic of his conversation rarely strayed from idle chatter, and his favourite topics were what they were going to eat when they returned. He had little interest in the forest itself.

Kulin, on the other hand, quickly picked up on the trail, and led his own hounds after the formerly-captive doe. Radomír marked this. The boy didn’t have far to track. Radomír hung back for a little bit, but kept his son within earshot at all times.

Then he heard, very clearly, the sounds of overwhelming fear and agony. They were coming from the direction that Kulin had gone. Radomír took off through the brush.

He saw Kulin there, his knife drawn and bloody, standing over the helplessly-squirming, clearly agonised and bewildered, hind. The hind was dying slowly and painfully from a series of shallow cuts that had been slashed along its belly. The queer look of delight and satisfaction in the animal’s suffering took Radomír wholly aback. There was a morbid darkness in his second son’s soul which he had not foreseen—and would not have done, had he not taken the boy with him on this hunt.

‘Kulin,’ spoke Radomír gently.

Kulin leapt, startled, and whirled about to face his father.

‘You did that,’ Radomír told him.

Kulin jutted out his jaw. ‘And so what if I did? It’s a flagged doe—and mine to do with as I please!’

Radomír shook his head sadly. ‘No,’ he told his son. ‘All creatures belong alone to one Creator.’

‘But He gave us dominion over them!’

‘That dominion does not extend to outright cruelty,’ Radomír raged. ‘I tell you, boy—I brought you out here because I thought you might be a meet replacement for Prisnec, who isn’t fit to govern a village fair. The lords might have taken from me the right to choose my own heir, but I had meant to win it back… and select you for the title. Clearly,’ he enunciated each word here, ‘I was gravely mistaken in my choice. I shall have to look instead to Radko or Míra.’

‘You didn’t tell me that this was a test!’ yelped Kulin, bewildered.

‘It wouldn’t have been much of a test if I had told you about it, would it?’ asked his father.

‘You—!’ Kulin’s hands balled into little fist. ‘You set this up! All of it! All to see if I was a worthy son!’

‘And you failed,’ Radomír said pitilessly.

Kulin never quite fully trusted his father again after that. Indeed, he found it difficult to truly trust anyone after that. But at least he was much more careful not to demonstrate, or at least outwardly show, the cruel streak that had festered in him unmarked. Radomír hadn’t wholly given up on Kulin as an heir… he had to take care to observe him in secret, since Kulin came to (correctly) suspect he was being watched at all times. But the rare times on which he let down his guard, Radomír found some cautious reasons for hope. He fed and petted some of the courtyard cats, and did not inflict upon them any pain or distress.

‘Husband,’ Katarína asked him one evening after her first granddaughter had been born, tugging at his cotte. ‘If I may have a word with you?’

‘Anything, dearest!’

‘I want you to give me the responsibility,’ she asked him, ‘of choosing brides for our sons.’

Radomír couldn’t explain exactly why, but he found this request a bit unnerving. Still, he could see no reason to refuse her.

‘Certainly.’

‘And also…’ she told him, blushing, ‘I want you to make some… secret alterations within the palace.’

‘Secret alterations?’

‘I’ll show you what I mean to do,’ Katarína told him. ‘I’m sure you won’t mind.’

 

[Midnite Duke]

Kat not with child, is the day of deliverance upon us. What son will inherit? Thank you

 

[Idhrendur]

Secret alterations, huh? Now I'm curious.

 

[Revan86]

Kat not with child, is the day of deliverance upon us. What son will inherit? Thank you

Heh. Well, she had to slow down sometime.

As to which son inherits... you'll just have to read on! And thanks for sticking with me this far!

Secret alterations, huh? Now I'm curious.

That will crop up sooner rather than later. Thanks for reading, @Idhrendur!

THIRTY-FIVE
Rus’ký jazyk
30 September 1358 – 15 June 1359​

‘Wait, Duška!’ cried Ostromír, struggling after his twin sister as her carriage rattled away.

‘I’m sorry, Míra!’ Dušana hollered back. ‘Only three invitations!’

‘Wait!’ Ostromír called out, before collapsing in the dust, with the sting of tears beginning and threatening to erupt from behind his eyes.

Who wants to go to Bítov anyway? the youngster thought bitterly. I bet it’s boring and smelly there. Let them go, I can just play by myself…

Katarína surged out across the courtyard after her youngest son.

‘Míra, it’s alright,’ she told him, hugging him close against her shoulder. ‘It’s alright—you can stay here with Mamička, how about that? And Kulin’s here, and so’s Necko…’

‘Necko might as well not be,’ Míra sniffled. ‘Probably sleeping it off in the wine-cellar again.’

‘Who told you that?’ asked his mother sharply.

Míra shrugged.

‘Well—that’s not your business,’ she rebuked Ostromír. ‘However, I shall have to have a talk with your brothers—including Radomír, when he gets back.’

But Katarína kept holding her crestfallen son close to her for several minutes while he calmed down.

‘I think I’ll go play with Kulin,’ Ostromír sighed dully.

‘Good idea,’ his mother approved. ‘Stay safe, keep warm.’

She watched Ostromír go in search of his elder brother, and then returned into the castle, taking a breath as she did so. She hated meetings, but this one with the Boršód guildsmen was proceeding nicely apace. She felt she’d gotten close to a breakthrough with them, just before seeing the ado in the courtyard. She’d worked with and alongside enough townsmen to understand a bit of their mentality—and she also understood how the artïli were organised back home. With a bit more cajoling, she felt certain she could make them see reason and limit their price floor on basic goods in south of Nitra.

Katarína couldn’t know that history would record this as a ‘defeat’ of the guildsmen. If she had known that, she might not have agreed to it. She wanted, rather, to strike a decent compromise between the needs of the town and the needs of the peasantry, one which both the guildsmen and the bowers could be happy with. Katarína was born to nobility, but she often felt herself to be closer to those who toiled and crafted than to those who owned land and fought—and she wanted to do right by them.

~~~​

‘A pótum?’

‘A pótum… ja zajavil vostóčno-frankskýj kancelář…’

‘Vostóčno-frankskomu kanceláru,’ Katarína corrected her husband.

‘kanceláru, čto torgóvcam go krajnu—’

‘Go krajna,’ Katarína corrected him again.

‘—krajna,’ Radomír went on, ‘búdut rády v Práge… no on takže chotel, ožby… ja rozdročil te že práva—’

Katarína let out a loud giggle at this. Radomír stopped short in his recitation.

‘What is it?’

‘The East Frankish chancellor wanted you to jerk his merchants off?’ she asked behind a smirk, making the matching motion with her other hand.

‘Is that what I said?’

‘I think you meant to say rosšrovil, dearest, not rozdročil,’ Katarína told him. ‘You’re mixing the Russian up with the Moravian predĺžiť, I think. Think instead of rozšíriť, it’s closer to what I think you mean. The chancellor wanted you to extend the same rights of the merchants in Praha to those elsewhere. Right?’

Radomír let out a snarl of frustration. ‘I’ll never get this right!’

Katarína shook her head. ‘No! No, dorogýj! You’re doing very well! Really!’

Radomír folded his arms and looked morosely out the window. Katarína stood from where she sat, moved across their bedroom and embraced her husband from the back. She held him closely.

‘Really,’ she assured him. ‘I’m really flattered that you’re trying to learn my mother tongue in earnest. Russian is not an easy language to learn, not even for other Slavs! And it’s not your fault that I’ve got a dirty mind.’

‘What if I make an ass of myself at the feast?’ Radomír asked.

‘You won’t,’ Katarína assured him. ‘I’ll be right there with you.’

‘You will?’ asked Radomír. ‘But you hate feasts!’

Katarína clasped her husband still closer. ‘If you’re there, it won’t be so bad to be a guest.’

~~~​

Thus the royal couple made their way to Siget, where Praksida would be hosting them at the feast of Pentecost. The occasion, Radomír reflected, was most apposite. He prayed to the Holy Spirit to descend upon him as He had upon the Apostles, but specifically with the gift of the Russian tongue.

When they arrived at the hall in Siget, the doors were flung open and the place was bright with firelight and candlelight. The warm smells of roast mutton and beef, spiced wine, roasted onions and turnips, poultry, and fresh bread and pastries met the royal noses all at once. Truly this one would be a feast to remember!

At once, however, Katarína shrank behind her husband’s shoulder. She feared crowds, she hated the noise and hubbub of people, and she truly dreaded meeting the eyes of people she didn’t know. It had always been rather a weakness of hers. Still, overcoming this fear for the moment, she went up beside Radomír and took her place at her sister’s side. Praksida clasped Katarína’s hand warmly.

‘I’m glad you could come, sister!’

Katarína smiled weakly back. She would be happy if she could sit by her sister, and not have to converse with others in the hall.

Unfortunately, the crowd in the hall only grew larger, as a loud, rowdy, drunken throng of seľáne from the countryside came bustling into the hall and making their way inexorably toward the high table where their Kňažná sat, and her sister. Radomír saw Katarína blanch as the throng drew close to her. The Kráľ decided in a moment to stand up and descend to the middle of the hall.

‘Ej, braťa móï!’ Radomír roared, clapping the nearest two of them on the shoulders and steering them back toward the far end of the hall. ‘Anú, spivem sja pisňu vesïľa!’

Turning his head backwards slightly as the air went up from the appreciative seľáne, he caught his wife’s eye. Katarína stood quietly and made her way toward the door at the rear of the hall, flashing her husband one firm look of gratitude as she made her exit gracefully and mostly unnoticed.

Radomír spent the rest of the evening conversing in Russian with the seľáne whose language it was. The spiced wine hadn’t gone to his head, and he managed to pick up more than a few constructions and idiomatic phrases from his discourse with them. He hadn’t put his spoken Russian truly to the test until now, despite his diplomatic upbringing and his contacts with the court in Kiev. But now he felt confident enough to hold his own in mixed company, and that would be a true beginning.

By the time the feast was over, a couple of weeks into the season of Pentecost, whether by the workings of the Holy Spirit or by the labour of his wife’s tutelage (or why not both? or why not the former through the latter?), Radomír acquired a basic grasp of the Russian language. He continued his studies with the same zeal and ambition that he had brought to his rule.

 

[Revan86]

THIRTY-SIX
Bitter Prong
23 July 1359 – 15 July 1362

I.
23 July 1359​

The twenty-third of July, in the Year of the World 6868, was to be—without exception—the very worst day of Kráľ Radomír’s entire life.

It did not start out that way. In fact, it started out remarkably well.

Radomír awoke in the lodge in which he and Katarína had conceived Radko. That lodge had since been converted into a semi-permanent residence for the gamekeeper, who was there to prevent or at least discourage the sorts of poaching that Radomír had had the chance to observe on his prior hunting trip.

The lodge brought back pleasant memories for the Kráľ. Not only those sweet and passionate evenings in private bliss with his Kaťuša, but also the fresh and heady smells of the woods, the cries of the birds, the rustle of the leaves. These hunts were Radomír’s true joy in life; although as a faithful son of the Church he went regularly to the Liturgy, this was the place where he felt closest to God.

He arose from his bed and went to the doorway, taking in a long breath and admiring the dappling early sunlight on the green summer treetops, feeling the sweetness of the warm morning air on his skin. Soon he would rouse his sons and have them accompany him out into the woods in the hunting-party. Their horses were already standing waiting with the grooms, as were the hounds.

Kulin was fresh and ready, even eager, to start. Even though his last hunting-trip had been somewhat traumatic, he was determined not to let his father down again. He would spare where he could, or if called upon to do so, he would shoot well, and land the killing blow swiftly and cleanly. The boy had, it seemed, left his cruel streak far behind him. That was heartening for his father to see.

Prisnec, on the other hand, was surly that morning. With only dried meat and bread for food, his stomach was grumbling. He also resented the fact that he had to get up early, and also that he had to be out-of-doors. Radomír couldn’t help looking at his eldest son with a twinge of annoyance.

‘Watch where you’re going, churl!’ he snarled at one of the grooms: a thin youth with a blond beard.

‘I—I beg your pardon, milord,’ the groom shrank out of Prisnec’s path. ‘I was only trying to keep the hounds heeled.’

‘Do it somewhere away from me,’ Prisnec grumbled.

The hunting party set out from Opava, and very soon near one track in the woods they came across the flit of movement, and the bobbing movement of an animal head. The animal had antlers. With many prongs. The animal locked eyes with Kulin for a brief moment, and then—correctly guessing the intention of these humans that had intruded on its territory—bolted into the trees.

The hue and cry went up. Surprisingly, it was Prisnec along with two of the king’s grooms who took the lead in the chase. Radomír followed quickly behind them, with Kulin not far behind.

Eventually, however, Radomír lost sight of both the hart and his eldest son. A hillock rose up between them, and Radomír decided to take the opposite side from the one Prisnec had taken, in order to head the beast off. With hounds baying and horns blaring behind him, Radomír surged forward. He watched as the slope of the hillock tapered downward and the trees began to thin. The hart was surely close by now! He led his hounds through one last patch of undergrowth.

And then time stopped.

At the edge of a lea, Radomír beheld his son kneeling over a fallen shape. But it was not the shape of a hart, for it had clothes on. It was that of a man.

Indeed—it was the same poor groom who had suffered the misfortune of crossing Prisnec’s path that morning while heeling the hounds. Radomír knew him by the thin sinew of his shoulders and the yellow of his beard. The look on the poor man’s face was frozen in shock and dismay.

And Prisnec wrenched the guilty arrow out of the man’s chest, the tip slick and bright red with fresh blood. It was clear by whom the arrow had been launched. The bow was still in the hands of Radomír’s son.

For a brief moment, Radomír couldn’t believe his eyes. His eldest son was many things: a malingerer, a glutton and a drunk. But even now he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that his son had become a murderer before his very eyes.

Prisnec looked up when he heard one of the hounds at his father’s side whine. With haste he tried to hide the arrow behind his back.

‘Father—!’

Radomír’s voice came out in a strangled whisper. ‘What—what have you done?’

‘It wasn’t me,’ Prisnec lied. ‘It was the hart!’

The rage that had been building in Radomír’s chest exploded. The degradation of his house, of his blood, of his honour, which he had witnessed in the past few seconds, had been topped off by a bald-faced lie. It was too much to bear. The hand which gripped the shaft of the boar-spear clenched down. Radomír took one step forward, then another. Then another.

Then he let out a blood-curdling yell and hurled himself like a wild man at Prisnec—the fruit of his own loins. Prisnec was too shocked even to run. The boar-spear struck straight through him.

‘Father—’ Prisnec choked. ‘I’m… sorry—’

But the greater sorrow was Radomír’s.

As the light left Prisnec’s eyes, Radomír let up a howl of rage and grief.

~~~

Radomír would neither sleep, nor eat, nor speak, for days. Both Prisnec and the groom he had killed were shrouded and laid side-by-side together in a cart bound for Olomouc. When the other grooms had come upon the scene, they found the Kráľ sobbing over the body of his son, and the groom lying some distance off. There was by then no trace either of a guilty arrow or a guilty spear nearby. The whole tragedy was chalked up to an accident involving the hart which had run off free.

Radomír would never see fit to disabuse anyone of this impression. It wasn’t for his own sake that he thus did not speak the truth. It was for the honour of the son he had lost. Let him go to his grave still innocent in the eyes of the world, innocent of the wrath and lies and murder that had driven his father to madness. And if God had any justice in Him, let Radomír himself bear the weight of his son’s sins, in his stead! The first words that came back to Radomír were those of David:

‘O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!’

Thus it was that Kulin, the king’s second-oldest male offspring, became heir in his unfortunate brother’s stead.