"That's certainly fine, Christian thinking, my lord, but why discuss it with an old, confirmed bachelor like me? Better you should go talk to all of your female relatives and have them be on the lookout for a suitable young man."
"You know that most of those old bitches don't like me, Conrad, and anyway, I know the man I'd want for my heir."
That was the first time in nine years that he had called me just "Conrad." I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about this conversation.
"What's this talk about an heir, my lord? You're barely over forty and you come from a long-lived family. Why, you'll probably live longer than your uncle the old duke did!"
"Lately, I have had a premonition of death. I feel it strongly, and I am worried." He shook his head.
"We're all concerned about the invasion, my lord. Any of us could fall in battle, but a knight doesn't worry about that sort of thing, does he? Anyway, if you've come for my advice about your daughter, it's to let the girl pick her own future husband. She'll be a lot happier that way, and it will vastly increase your domestic tranquility."
"But I didn't come for your advice, Conrad. I came for your consent!"
"My consent, my lord?"
"To marriage, of course!"
"To marriage!" I stood. For the first time in twenty years, my voice broke and it came out like a squeak.
"Of course! What do you think I'm talking about? I want you to be my son-in-law! I want you to marry my only child and be my heir."
"But, but I'm just not the marrying kind! The whole institution frightens me! No, no, my lord. I would never make a decent son-in-law! You'd learn to hate me. So would she!"
"Nonsense, my boy. Why, you and I have gotten along for years with never a cross word. All the women around seem to love you. Why should my daughter be any different?"
"What's this 'my boy' business? I'm only two years younger than you! I'm an old man! You shouldn't saddle your daughter with an old man! She'll end up being a young widow, and you know all the trouble they get into!"
"Again, nonsense! You're as healthy a man as I've ever met, and any woman with any brains about her prefers a mature man to a young stripling."
"They didn't when I was a stripling!"
"Well, that simply proves your prowess! None of your ladies are complaining, are they?"
"It's not a matter of my ladies, my lord. For years now, I've been satisfied with just one, Cilicia. She's heavy with our second child now. I couldn't possibly leave her."
"Well, you wouldn't have to leave her, just sort of get her out of the way for a while. Anyway, I know full well that you haven't been absolutely faithful to her. You manage to get to Countess Francine's, manor at least once a month."
"She's an old friend."
"And a close one, no doubt. But that's all one to me. Just keep up appearances, and you'll hear no complaints from your father-in-law."
"My lord, I've never even met your daughter."
"So? She's a normal, healthy girl. She has all the standard features. What more can be said? And she'll learn Polish soon enough, so that's no problem."
"She doesn't even speak Polish! Well, I don't speak any Hungarian! What do we do? Invite an interpreter to bed with us?"
"Mind your manners, Conrad. This is my own flesh and blood we're talking about."
"There are hundreds of girls that are your own flesh and blood! And all the rest of them can at least speak the language! Why don't you make me marry one of them?"
"Conrad! Control yourself! If this goes on, you shall anger me."
"See what a lousy son-in-law I'd make? We had an excellent relationship until it was torn asunder by the mere mention of marriage! Find another man, my lord. I don't want to get married!"
"That's your final word, then?"
"Yes, my lord, it is."
"Well then. It has certainly been a pleasure having you for a vassal, and the experience has been vastly profitable. Tell me, where were you planning to go next?"
"My lord, what are you talking about? You can't fire me like a bricklayer who's finished his job! We made an oath together, and that oath gives you no right to force me into marriage."
"True. We made an oath. Do you remember it? It was Christmas time, almost nine years ago. True, I don't have the fight to force marriage on you, but you made one strange addition to the standard oath, which at the time I thought inconsequential, but now it comes into the fore. You swore fealty to me for only nine years! Those nine years will be up in three weeks, at which time our agreement is off! So I wish you well. Be sure and fill your saddlebags before you leave. Take a few carts of gold with you if you wish. But I am not minded to renew my oath with one who would so crassly insult my own daughter as to refuse her hand in marriage."
I was dumbstruck. I had put that in my oath! At the time, I wasn't sure whether I could get technology going in this century or not, and if I couldn't I wanted to have the right to be somewhere else than in the middle of a Mongol massacre, where one more dead body wouldn't have done Poland much good. I had left myself a coward's way out and now I was paying for it!
"But-but the army, the boats, the aircraft! I'm needed here now more than ever! You can't do this! Not to me nor to Poland."
"Wrong, Baron. Or at least 'baron' for the next three weeks. I can do it and I intend to do it. Sir Vladimir can handle the army properly, I'm sure, and Sir Tadaos can do what's right with the steamboats. And the aircraft? Well, I'm already in charge there!"
"Well, I won't stand for it! I'll go talk to the duke about this!"
"Feel free, but I've already discussed the matter with him. You know that he has long been displeased with you concerning the way that you have consistently lived in sin since coming here. He thinks that you should get married and that my daughter would be an excellent match. He has already given his blessings on the union!"
"But my lifestyle is a good deal more moral than yours!"
"True, at least by any sensible standard. But I am a mere backwoods count, whereas you have made yourself into a hero. Heroes have to live upright lives! After all, the youth of Poland looks to you for guidance! Myself, I think where you went wrong was all the charity work. You should have left those wretches alone,"
"But this is filthy, rotten blackmail!"
"Yes, it is, isn't it. Shall we say the day after Christmas for the wedding? The Bishop of Wroclaw has already given dispensation for the posting of the banns."
"Damn you, Lambert! God damn you straight to hell and the devil!"
I stormed out of my office, pushing aside a startled secretary who was standing in the doorway. I went down to the stables, threw a saddle on Anna and charged back to Three Walls. I told the stable girl, Kotcha, to put Anna's best saddle and barding on her and went up to my room.
I put on my best armor, not my efficient Night-Fighter suit, but the fancy, engraved, gold-plated stuff they'd given me for Christmas a few years back. I threw my wolfskin cloak over my shoulders and went down to the strong room. I came back up with my saddlebags filled with gold. To hell with the silver, the gold would do. It was all that I could carry, anyhow.
Then I headed down the trail, or railroad track now, and at the first intersection I headed not east, toward the Mongols, but west, toward France! I'd heard a lot of nice things about France. Maybe I could even learn the language.
Nine years in a country that punishes a man for helping the poor! Well, to hell with them! To hell with them all.
We rode like thunder for hours and Anna never let up. She didn't know where we were going or why, but I wanted to go and that was enough for her. The one good friend I had.
Darkness was closing in as we rode by the trail to Countess Francine's manor. Well, it was a bit cold for camping out, and I hadn't brought my old camping gear along, anyway. Maybe Francine would like a lift back to France.
She was a countess while I was only a baron, despite the fact that her county was much smaller than my barony. She only had six knights subordinate to her, yet she was my superior in status. Because of this, she absolutely refused to use my title or her own when we were together, and got unhappy when I used them myself. I think she thought I really gave a damn about that sort of thing.