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armed and armored men rode out. Perhaps another twenty men were on the walls with crossbows, the
squires, probably, since a full belted knight wouldn't use one. It made me wish that I'd brought Tadaos
along, but I hadn't been asked to and I hadn't wanted to risk any more people than necessary.
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.
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