CONRADS QUEST FOR RUBBER - Leo Frankowski

"Quite so, your grace. May we offer you our parole and our promise of our good conduct, until such time as we can pay our ransoms?"

"You may offer, but I will not accept. You men are all under arrest. The charges are rape, murder, arson, assault, battery, breaking and entering, robbery, disorderly conduct, and such other crimes as I may later think up. Komander Wladyclaw! Strip-search these men, and once they're naked, tie their hands behind their backs and march them, under strict guard, back to Lubusz for trial."

While the herald was busily translating to the increasingly horrified margrave, Komander Wladyclaw said, "Yes, sir. What about these ladies, here?"

"Put them with the other noncombatants. Tell all those people that we are going to let them live, providing they obey orders, and that we will release them after they have done their Christian duty to their own dead. Then put that whole crowd to work, cleaning up this mess. Have them strip and bury the dead men and horses along the side of the road."

"Do you want the heads up on pikes, sir?"

"What I want really doesn't matter here, I'm afraid. This army was Christian, and the Church would have a fit if we decapitated them all. But see to it that every grave has a big cross over it. That should have a sufficient psychological effect. Oh, and send a rider back to Lubusz with the news, and have them send up the infantry as soon as possible to help out here. Send other riders with spare Big People to the villages that were burned by the Germans. Try to bring some witnesses to Lubusz."

"Yes, sir. What would you think of putting the dead warhorses' heads up on pikes?"

"An excellent suggestion, Komander. Act on it."

"Thank you, sir. What if any of the Germans are still alive?"

"Give them medical attention, by all means. What we want here is as many people as possible telling how just one of our companies ripped up an entire invading army," Lord Conrad said.

By this time the herald and the margrave had finished being astounded at Lord Conrad's pronouncement, and the troops were carrying out their orders over loud protests in German.

The herald said, "But Lord Conrad, this is madness! How can you accuse us of such crimes?"

"While you were invading my country, your troops sacked and burned at least eleven villages. That's enough arson to get you all hanged. I don't have proof of the murders, rapes, and the rest of it just yet, but I'm sure that we'll have it by tomorrow."

"But that was a simple act of war! Who cares about the damned peasants?"

"I do."

"But it was the soldiers who killed those peasants, not us!"

"You ordered them to come here, so the responsibility is yours. If it makes you feel any better, we've already killed all of your soldiers."

"But surely, Lord Conrad, when you consider the size of the ransom that the margrave could pay, well, he's one of the richest men in all of Christendom! Surely that can convince you of the folly of your path!"

"I just had six thousand men butchered. Do you think that I did it for money? No, I don't want the margrave's money. I have plenty of my own. Actually, it's possible that I'm the richest man in Christendom."

"But the emperor, Frederick the Great, will never stand for this!"

"All Frederick can do is send in another army just like this one. If he does, it will meet the same fate. I don't think he is as much of a fool as the margrave is. Was."

"But you can't go killing a margrave! It's unheard of!"

"I can kill him, and I will. What's more, I want as many people as possible to hear about it. Your class of 'noblemen' seems to think that war is just an amusing game, a pleasant way to spend a summer. Well, it is not, not anymore. I need to communicate to people like you, in a meaningful way, the idea that murdering a lot of peaceful, innocent people wholesale, in war, is just as evil as killing them one at a time, in peacetime."

"But it's always been done that way."

"You just don't listen very good. It's not done that way anymore. But enough of this. It doesn't matter if you understand or not, because you are not the recipient of my message. You are part of the message itself. Guards, march these men away."

"But you can't do this to me! I'm a herald!"

"Bet?"

I watched seven naked old men walk barefoot back along the length of their slaughtered army, thinking — I'm sure— that this couldn't possibly be happening to high and wonderful noblemen like them.

Already, some of the people from the baggage train were stripping the dead, putting valuables, weapons, and clothing in separate piles. The dead were being laid out neatly by the side of the road. Chaplains from both armies were going down the rows, giving extreme unction. Behind them, men were digging graves.

Komander Wladyclaw came over and reported in to Lord Conrad.

"Your orders are being carried out, sir. I notice that some of the prisoners are stealing money and jewels from their own dead, sir."

"Let them. When the job is all done, probably sometime tomorrow, I want you to strip-search all of the noncombatants. Then I want you to give each of them five days' food from the captured supply wagons, and march them to the border, naked. The idea is, I want them to have some very vivid memories of what happened here. I want them to tell everybody who sees them that attacking Poland and the rest of the Christian Federation is a bad idea. Stripping them naked will force them to explain themselves, as well as let us recover our booty."

Chapter Twenty-One

From the Journal of Josip Sobieski

WRITTEN JANUARY 15, 1250, CONCERNING JUNE 3, 1249

THAT EVENING, when the last of the petty details had been handled, I was still in Lord Conrad's tent, because no one had thought to dismiss me. He was sitting on a camp chair, slumped over and looking very tired.

I asked him if he knew that Maude could give a most refreshing back rub.

"That is an excellent idea, Josip. A truly wonderful idea. Yes. Maude, would you please oblige me?"

He was soon stretched out on his back on the carpet, enjoying Maude's calm ministrations. Maude had removed her skirt as soon as the last visitor had left, and I wondered at this strange preoccupation of hers. Still, it improved the view.

"Sir Josip, tell me, what are your thoughts on this day's events? Was I too brutal?"

Lord Conrad wanted my thoughts? I said that I was mostly impressed with the new armaments, especially those submachine guns. I had heard that in ten years' time every man in the army would be paired with a Big Person, and when that happened, we would be truly invincible. No one would dare to bother us.

"It's actually more like five years from now, not ten," he said. When he saw my surprised expression, he continued, "Just now, there are almost five thousand Big People. Most of them are involved with civilian occupations. More than four thousand of them are used to carry the mails, throughout Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ruthenias. We have a school with a post office in almost every village in the Federation, and almost every one of them is visited by a Big Person five times a week. King Henryk has four dozen Big People for his entourage, so Prince Daniel, King Bella, and Tzar Ivan all have to have the same, or they pout.

"Very few Big People are involved with the military. Too few, as it turns out, but I never thought that the margrave would pull a stunt like this. There are about two thousand new Big People coming on line in the next few months, and they will all go to the Wolves, or similar groups.

"In a few years we'll be invincible, all right. That's what an army is really for, Josip. To be so big and so strong that it never has to hurt anyone. What happened today was an aberration. One noble fool, who didn't believe what people had told him about us, and was too proud to visit us peacefully, decided to attack us without warning. You see, I've often invited the margrave to visit us, to see what we've got, and he wouldn't do it. But I asked you about the brutality."

I said that once the attack had started, I didn't see how he could possibly have called it off. And if we killed all of them, well, wasn't it their idea to kill all of us? Wasn't that why the Germans crossed our borders in the first place?

"True. The attack went better than I expected. But I was referring to what I did later, to the margrave himself and his staff."

I said that I was a commoner. My knighthood notwithstanding, I was still just a baker's son. It always troubled me that the rich and the powerful people in this world could do unpleasant things to the likes of me and not be held respon-sible for it. They were not punished for the crimes they committed, if they were committed on some peasant. I said that I was glad at what he did to those fat old men! And that I'd be even gladder when I saw them all hung up by their necks on the scaffold.

I was just as glad when I found that our troops hadn't hurt those people on the baggage train. And I said I was gladder yet that he was going to let the noncombatants all go free, the next day. I said I would have done just the same things he had, if I had been in charge, and if I'd been smart enough to think fast on my feet, the way he always does.

"Thank you. You've relieved my mind, a bit. So tell me, what will you be doing next, Josip?"

I was surprised, and said that it was up to him, or maybe some assignment clerk somewhere. I guessed that I'd spend some time at the Explorer's School, and then go out with my lance to some strange new place or other.

"Where would you like to go?" He closed his eyes and smiled as Maude worked her magic on his body.

I said that I didn't really know, but that when we were spending last winter near the Arctic Circle, my lance made itself — well, I couldn't call it a vow, but a promise. We wanted our next job to be somewhere where it was warm! And after that, we wanted it to be a place where a man could find a drink and a willing young lady on occasion!

Lord Conrad laughed and rolled over so Maude could do his back. "Josip, you are truly the salt of the earth. But yes, there is just such an assignment in the offing. I don't know if you'll like the native brew, but I don't object to your bringing in your own supply, within reason, of course. I guarantee that the climate will be warm, maybe too warm, and while I can't make any promises about the quality of the ladies you'll find there, I will warrant that they do exist in quantity. And, as a bonus, none of them wear any more clothes than our lovely Maude, here."

I said, "Then in the name of Sir Odon's lance, sir, we hereby volunteer for duty."

"You'll get the assignment, especially since you all are very experienced with riverboats. I'm going to send Captain Odon up the biggest river in the world. Along with Knight Banner Josip, and certain others. But you'll hear more about it once all the plans are solidified. For now, well, I noticed that you were taking a certain interest in Maude, here."

Maude continued at her work as though nothing had been said about her.

I said that it was more than just that. I said that I loved her.

Which, of course, is a hell of a thing to say right in front of a woman, when you haven't ever said it to her in private up till then. But it just sort of blurted itself out! And Maude still showed no reaction!

"I thought so. You have all the symptoms. First off, I want to say that whatever the two of you want to do, it's fine by me. But. And it's a very big but. I want you both to go as slowly as possible on this. There is a lot that you both don't know about each other, and if you get your emotions too involved before your heads are properly in gear, you will cause each other a lot of agony. I'm going to get some of those things out in the open right now, hopefully, to save you both a lot of future confusion and pain."

He sat up on the carpet and gestured for me to sit in the chair. Taking the only chair while he was on the floor seemed improper, but not as improper as disobeying a direct order. Maude kneeled down to form a circle with us, and waited silently.

"Maude, as you have no doubt noticed by now, this culture is far more complicated than the one that you are used to. I heard the two of you talking about religion yesterday, and that's good, but religion is actually one of the simpler things that you will be learning about. Where you were before, all you had to do was to obey one man, and everything would be all right. Here, you have to run your own life, and while that can be very rewarding, it can also be very complicated, confusing, and even frightening.

"There, much of the time, you were treated as though you were a simple machine. Here, we have many convoluted interrelationships with each other. Some of them are awkward. Some of them are very warm, very close, and very wonderful.

"Josip here is saying that he wishes to explore having such a relationship with you. He thinks perhaps that he would like to bond with you. That's something that I think you might not know anything about, but it could involve his living with you for the rest of his life, if you were willing. Sharing his whole life with you. It's very important, so take your time with it."

Maude nodded.

He turned to me.

"Your turn. The big shock for you, Josip, is that Maude here is not human. Her species is a bioengineered creation, much like Anna and her children. She looks like a human and talks like a human, but her mental processes are a lot like Anna's. Honest, noble, and trustworthy to the extreme in many ways, but astoundingly strange to us in others.

"Accordingly, she is stronger and faster than any mere human like you can ever hope to be. Will that hurt your masculine pride? Think about it.

"Then there is the fact that she is essentially immortal. She is so different from us that there aren't any diseases that can bother her. Her wounds heal quickly, and she can even regrow a severed limb, in time.

"Oh, if someone could tie her down and spend enough time on her with an axe, she'd die, but it would take a lot to kill her.

"Aside from something like that, she'll likely live forever. If you're looking for someone to grow old with, this is not the girl for you. If what you want is someone who will stay young and sexy, hang in there, but think it out first.

"Another thing is that this pretty girl cannot give you children. She has children just like Anna does, four at a time, and identical twins of their mother. They'll all be girls. In four years they'll be adults and remember everything she knows.

"They won't remember much about their childhood, and whether you give them loving care or ignore them completely won't make any difference. But they won't be your children, not biologically. Worse, I worry that they might seem to you to be less like daughters, and more like your wife's twin sisters, which could cause you a whole bale of emotional troubles.

"Add all that to the fact that you are dealing with someone who still has no idea of what human love is all about.