The knights lined up facing us, a few hundred yards away. We outnumbered them four to one, but they looked prepared to let us know that we'd been in a fight.
One of the heralds stayed with the baron and the other rode back to Count Lambert. With six of his barons, the count rode to the center of the field, to be met by Baron Jaraslav, Sir Stefan, and five other knights.
I relaxed a bit. At least they were going to talk instead of immediately slugging it out.
I couldn't hear what Count Lambert said, but Baron Jaraslav was shouting at the top of his lungs, so what came through was half a conversation, or less, since I couldn't hear Sir Stefan either.
"My ancestors were here for hundreds of years before anybody ever heard of a Piast!"
Count Lambert said something I couldn't hear.
"I don't owe fealty to a man whose wits are not his own! Your mind has been addled by that warlock you took in two years ago! Yours and the duke's, too!"
Baron Jaraslav's face got redder as his blood pressure went up. I could feel my own face flushing as well.
"It's bad enough, your swiving every wench in the county, turning them into a herd of whores! Now you want to ruin the hunting like you've ruined the women!"
"I was a baron when you were still sucking your mother's tits!"
The baron's face and hands were as dark red as dried blood. I'd never seen such a thing before, but I'd heard about it. Not good in an old man.
"That warlock wants to turn the whole duchy into a stinking, dirty factory! I won't stand for it! Better to die fighting than to fall sickened by his poisons!"
The baron became increasingly incoherent. His hands started shaking, he began gasping and suddenly he toppled from his horse.
I didn't know if this was a heart attack or a stroke, but it looked to me that he was in bad need of CPR.
"I'd better go see what I can do for him," I said as I signaled Anna forward.
"Stay back here you fool!" Sir Miesko shouted, but I ignored him.
Besides basic humanitarian considerations, my thought was that if I could do Baron Jaraslav a real service, like saving his life, maybe he and Sir Stefan might not hate me as much. Okay, so it was a dumb idea.
We sprinted to where the baron had fallen. I pulled my gauntlets off as I leaped to the ground and told Anna to go back to the line. I didn't want her to interpret some movement by the baron as an attack on me.
I tilted the baron's head back, cleared the tongue and checked his breathing. There wasn't any! I started giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as I checked frantically for a pulse. A lot of shouting was going on but I ignored it. I couldn't find a pulse but that didn't mean much, since I couldn't get at most of him what with his armor and all. I started pumping his heart. to be on the safe side, a thing that would have been impossible in my plate armor, but was easy enough with the baron's gold-washed chain mail.
Then I took a blow to the side of the head that might have killed me if it hadn't been for my new helmet. It didn't much hurt me, but the force of it, transmitted through my collar ring to my chest and back plates, was enough to send me sprawling.
"Stay away from my father, you filthy witch!" Sir Stefan shouted, sword in hand.
"You Stupid John!" I swore at him. "He's having a heart attack! Without CPR he's going to die!"
I started to move back to the baron. Sir Stefan swung again, only to have his blade parried by Count Lambert's.
"STOP! Both of you!" Count Lambert shouted. "Dog's blood! You have both dishonored yourselves! Sir Conrad, I told you to stay in the line! Get back there, damn you! Sir Stefan, you have drawn steel during a peace parley, a hanging offense anywhere!"
"My lord," I said, "his heart and breathing have stopped! If I don't-"
"If his heart's stopped, then he's dead! Get back to the line or I'll put this sword in your face!"
I could see that Count Lambert meant it, and the baron was probably really dead by this time anyway. I retrieved my gauntlets.
"Yes, my lord."
As I walked back to the line, Count Lambert gave Sir Stefan a chewing out the likes of which I hadn't heard since boot camp.
Maybe I should have just left things alone, but then Sir Stefan would probably have blamed his father's death on my "witchcraft" in any event. It was worth a try, I suppose. I certainly shouldn't have called him a Stupid John. The swear words in one language often don't translate well into another, but that particular phrase is a deadly insult and fighting words in Polish.
"You're a damn fool," Sir Miesko said as I got back and mounted Anna. "If ever a man's foul words stuck in his throat and killed him, it was Baron Jaraslav's. It looked like a sure Act of God! But when you ran out there, you took everybody's mind off of what had just happened. This sorry mess could have ended right there, but now it's still bobbing afloat. It could still end with fifty good men dead!"
"Yeah, I guess I screwed it up," I said.
But the parley went on for another half hour, and we couldn't hear a thing of what was said. Then something happened. Count Lambert and Sir Stefan turned and faced the sun, raised their right arms to it and Sir Stefan swore fealty to Count Lambert.
Count Lambert and his barons came back to us and he addressed those of us in the line.
"This matter is ended! Baron Jaraslav is dead! Baron Stefan has sworn fealty to me and will obey me as all of you have done this day! I thank you all for coming as was your duty, but now you may disperse and go home! I will see many of you in a week at the Great Hunt' For the rest of you, good hunting!"
And so we left, and soon there was no one left on the field but the dead baron and Baron Stefan, standing over his father's body.
It all worked out as best as could be expected. Having Stefan instead of his father for a neighbor wasn't much of an improvement, but Count Lambert could hardly have interfered with the right of inheritance. His own lofty position was based on that very same right.
Chapter Fourteen
The knights and squires broke up into groups as we headed home in our various directions. By late afternoon there was only myself, Sir Vladimir, and Sir Miesko. As we passed Sir Miesko's manor, Lady Richeza invited us in, but there was still time to get to Three Walls before dusk. When we got to the gates, the band was up on the balcony to welcome us home. I wouldn't have given permission for this waste of man-hours, since they must have been waiting up there for half a day, but I had to admit that it felt good. They were playing the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
I announced at supper what had happened, that Baron Stefan was our new neighbor, and that the Great Hunt was on as scheduled.
Sir Miesko had set me up as the "Local Hunt Master," using the valley at Three Walls for our killing ground, just as we had last year. Only this year, it would cover not only my lands, but Sir Miesko's as well as those of Baron Stefan and two other knights.
As Master of the Hunt, I got the wolf skins and any aurochs captured on all of Count Lambert's lands. As Local Hunt Master, I got all the deer skins taken locally. As a landowner, I got a share, about one-fifth, of one-half of the meat taken. My workers would get about one-third of the one-quarter of the meat reserved for the beaters. And since I personally would be participating in the kill, I got a share of the one-quarter of the kill that was divided among the nobility present.
Complicated, but profitable, especially since the fashion of wearing wolf skin cloaks was taking hold. I had already sold the six hundred wolf skins we had taken last year at very nice prices, and I was looking forward to taking twenty times that number this year.
But Sir Miesko was in fact handling all of the detail work of a Local Hunt Master for me, except for the feasts, and that was Krystyana's problem.