1637 The Polish Maelstrom Read online

  There came a soft knock at the door. James turned and gave it a frown. The door was visible through the wide entryway connecting the salon with the bedchamber.

  “Who…?”

  Melissa was already moving through the entryway toward the door. “That’ll be Red, I imagine. At least, if I interpreted a look he gave me at the end of the meal correctly.”

  “Why would…”

  Melissa paused at the door. As thick as it was, she wasn’t worried about anyone standing outside hearing their conversation.

  “Why? Because, knowing Red, I’m sure there are things he’s not prepared to ask or say in front of anybody. Especially not someone like the Roths, whom he likes personally but are for all practical purposes in Wallenstein’s camp.”

  The frown on James’ forehead faded. “Ah.” Then he grinned. “You don’t seriously mean to suggest that a flaming commie like Red Sybolt isn’t entirely trustful of the intentions of Albrecht von Wallenstein, mercenary-captain-in-the-service-of-reaction-par-excellance and nowadays a crowned king in his own right?”

  Melissa smiled. “Not hardly.”

  She opened the door. Sure enough, Red Sybolt was standing there. To her surprise, though, he was accompanied by Jakub Zaborowsky. She’d expected him to come alone.

  As she ushered them into the salon, Melissa pondered that for a moment. Why Zaborowsky and not Opalinski? She was quite sure there wasn’t any mistrust involved. Having spent a very long dinner in conversation, much of it with the two Poles, she felt confident she had the measure of Krzysztof Opalinski. Allowing for the inevitable cultural variations you’d expect from the gap in time and place, Krzysztof reminded her of any number of student radicals she’d known in the 1960s. Sincere; earnest; filled with a genuine desire to Do The Right Thing. Whatever faults such people had, treachery was rarely one of them.

  On the other hand…

  As a rule, they did have faults. The biggest of them—which Krzysztof Opalinski certainly shared, from what she’d seen—was a tendency toward certainties. And, still worse, simplicities. Revolution was not a complex and turbulent episode in human affairs, filled with contradictions and confusion. It was spelled with a capital R.

  Such people could be trusted not to be treacherous, sure enough. But they could usually be trusted to screw up, too, sooner or later.

  Red Sybolt was a different sort of person altogether. He had the same strength of convictions—probably even stronger, in fact. But he was a man in his mid-forties, born and raised in a working-class family, who’d developed his opinions and his political tactics dealing with his fellow coal miners in the gritty reality of working lives. Not from speeches spouted on college campuses, or late-night talk sessions. And he’d held those convictions for many years, solid as a rock, where most student radicals shaded into comfortable liberalism within a short time after leaving the ivory halls.

  So. If she was right, that meant that Red thought there was a lot more substance to Zaborowsky than to his companion. Which wouldn’t surprise Melissa at all, since that was her assessment also.

  Those calculations didn’t take more than a few seconds, by which time they were all seated in the comfortable chairs and divans in the salon.

  All except James, that is. He was still standing in the entryway that connected the salon with the bedchamber.

  Red flashed him a grin. “Hey, you’re welcome to join us, James.”

  “Just a country doctor, remember?”

  “Oh, cut it out.” Red jabbed a thumb at Melissa. “I know damn well she’ll tell you anything important, anyway. And leaving aside the ‘country’ bullshit, you’re a black doctor from one of Chicago’s ghettos, not some jerk MD who grew up in a gated community and thinks manicured lawns are a natural growth.”

  James smiled thinly. “True. But I spent no time at all meddling with black-power ghetto politics in my youth, neither. Went straight from honest crime into the military.” He waggled a finger at the three people sitting on the couch. “This sort of revolutionist caballing and cavorting is not my forte.”

  “Yeah, sure. But you’re not given to blind trust in the good intentions of the high and mighty, either.”

  Nichols’ smile grew even thinner. “True again. In those days, my opinion of Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara was unprintable. To say nothing of my opinion of Nixon and Kissinger after they took over.” His shrug was as minimal as his smile. “You could print them today, but only because I picked up an education afterward. So, these days, I know there are alternative terms for ‘lying motherfuckers.’”

  After a pause, he said: “Well, okay. Why not?” And took a seat next to Melissa.

  Red now looked at her. And then jabbed a thumb at Zaborowsky.

  “I want to know if you agree with him. About the Ruthenians, I mean. We’ve been arguing about it. Well…maybe ‘arguing’ is too strong a word.”

  Melissa looked at Jakub. He was giving her a look that was far more placid than anything that really belonged on such a young man’s face. “Placid,” not in the sense of uncaring, but in the sense that he was quite willing to entertain notions that he suspected were wrong, but wasn’t sure.

  Impressive. Most political radicals that age were sure of everything.

  “Well…”

  She thought about the problem. It was quite a tricky one, actually.

  “The thing is, Red, I think Jakub’s attitude is the right one to take.” She made a little face. “Although I’d recommend keeping the wisecracks about illiteracy and drunkenness to a minimum. The reason being, that any Polish revolutionary movement that isn’t prepared to let Ruthenia go if that’s what the Ruthenians want, won’t be worth a damn. Sooner or later it’ll most likely collapse. It’s like…”

  Jakub spoke up, for the first time since entering the room. “Here is what they would do. The leadership of the Cossacks, except perhaps the Zaporozhian Host, is not at all interested in eliminating serfdom. Their grievance is simply that the Polish and Lithuanian szlachta won’t accept the Cossack starytsa as their social and political equals. But if they do so, the starytsa will be satisfied. And even stupid, stubborn Polish noblemen—even Lithuanians, who are more stupid and stubborn still—can face reality if their backs are against the wall.”

  He shook his head. “Besides, they wouldn’t even have to carry it out. Those registered Cossack colonels and atamans are every bit as stupid. All the Poles and Lithuanians have to do is promise them they’ll give them equality. And then we’ll have thousands of Cossacks to deal with as well as the great magnates and their private armies. Whereas if we make clear from the beginning that we will let the Ruthenians decide their own fate, when we take the state power, we’ll gain the support of many Ruthenians and the Cossacks will most likely spend all their time quarreling.”

  He jeered. “They’re very good at that.”

  The sarcastic jeer bothered Melissa a little. There was a hard edge to Jakub Zaborowsky that she hadn’t detected in his companion Krzysztof. It was understandable, of course. Unlike Opalinski, who’d been born into wealth and privilege and had the relaxed cheeriness that often came with such a background, Jakub had been born into a hardscrabble szlachta family. There was no way he could have arrived at the conclusions he’d come to if, probably at a very early age, he hadn’t come to loathe and detest the bigotry and narrow-mindedness he saw around him.

  In most ways, in fact, that hard edge would be necessary. In the years to come, if he survived, Jakub Zaborowsky would have to deal with Polish and Lithuanian magnates who were as savage and ruthless as any rulers in history. Their standard response to rebellion was a bloodbath. Treachery and double-dealing came as naturally to them as venom to a viper. No revolutionary leader who was soft and sweet could possibly defeat them.

  Still, a revolution could turn very ugly, if the people leading it started crossing certain lines.

  She shook her head, slightly. Such worries were very premature, after all. So far, from what she could see, the �
��Polish revolution” amounted to a small number of young szlachta radicals organized by an up-time labor agitator and allied only with a small sect of radical Christians and—maybe, down the road—with eastern Europe’s Jewry, or at least a part of it. They were hardly on the verge of having to deal with the problems and temptations of triumph.

  Red cleared his throat. “To get back to the point. Leaving all that aside—yeah, sure, I agree nobody should try to force the Ruthenians to do anything—what do you think about the rest of it? What I mean is, do you think Ruthenians would be better off if they were part of Wallenstein’s empire in the making?”

  Melissa hesitated. Partly, just to ponder the question. Mostly, though, because she was feeling a little guilty. Morris Roth had asked her to come here in order to help him figure out how to do precisely that—absorb the Ruthenian lands and peoples into Bohemia’s realm.

  Which she would do, and do faithfully, because anything was better than the situation that existed. But…

  “Well, no, actually,” she said. “Or, it’d be better to say, it depends. If the Poles straightened out their act, then I think the Ruthenians would probably be better off as part of the Commonwealth than as subjects of Wallenstein.”

  Zaborowsky was peering at her intently. “Why?”

  “Because…”

  She tried to figure out how to explain it, in a way that would make sense to a young man who came from this era and didn’t have the benefit of being able to look back on it from her vantage point centuries later.

  “Because the worst thing about Polish history is that it was such a tragedy, what happened. It could have turned out completely differently. The potential that was destroyed was incredible. In the Middle Ages, Poland was as advanced as any European country, at least in most respects. And much further advanced, in some. No other European country developed Poland’s traditions of religious toleration and multi-nationalism, for instance.”

  Jakub grunted. “That was under the Jagiellonian dynasty. During the reign of Stefan Batory also. Those kings always favored the lower classes and the burghers, against the great lords. Just like the Vasas do in Sweden. But our branch of the Vasas, when they became Poland’s ruling dynasty, did the exact opposite. Since they really only care about regaining the Swedish crown which they think belongs to them, they allied with the great magnates. It is ruining our country. Everything is now subordinated to the grain trade. The conditions for the peasants get worse every year, and the towns are shrinking. Even the richest burghers have no favor at all, any more, and while most of the szlachta—stupid bastards—bask in their official status as the equals of the magnates, the fact is they are becoming nothing more than lowly vassals.”

  That…was a pretty damn good summation of what had happened to the Commonwealth in the half century since the Poles and Lithuanians made the mistake of electing Zygmunt III Vasa to the crown.

  The question was, could the situation still be turned around?

  She returned Zaborowsky’s gaze with one that was every bit as intense. And reminded herself, not for the first time since the Ring of Fire, what a terrible mistake it could be to underestimate the people of the seventeenth century.

  “Yes,” she murmured. “Hell, yes.”

  * * *

  The next morning, when Melissa and James came down to the dining hall for breakfast, they found Morris Roth standing at the window with a letter in his hand. He had a very peculiar expression on his face.

  “What’s up, Morris?” asked James.

  “Huh?” Roth looked at them, a bit startled. Then, looked down at the letter.

  “I just got some news from Uriel. And I’m trying to sort out how I feel about it.”

  His eyes went back to the window and his gaze seemed out of focus. “He’s one of the great arch-villains of Jewish history, you know. Not up there with Hitler and Himmler, of course. No one is. But he’s solidly in the second rank. So I’m wondering why I’m not dancing with glee.”

  “What are you talking about?” Melissa asked, a bit exasperated.

  Morris lifted the letter. “Bohdan Chmielnicki. Today, of course, still a relatively young man and just a minor officer among the registered Cossacks.”

  “And…”

  “He’s dead. He was assassinated two weeks ago, at his estate in Subotiv. Three men appear to have done it. None of them were apprehended, because he was just a minor officer and wasn’t surrounded by guards. The suspicion is that they were Polish, but no one really knows.”

  He gave James a wry little smile. “What was it you said last night? ‘No virus or bacillus which ever lived is as contagious a vector as those fricking books in Grantville.’ You sure had the right of it. Someone must have read the future history and figured they’d take out the leader of the 1648 rebellion before he got any further.” He shook his head. “As if that’ll really change anything.”

  Melissa took in a long, slow breath. “So. That means there’s already at least one conspiracy afoot.” She smiled wryly herself. “One other, I guess I should say.”

  Morris nodded. “Yes. It’s starting.”

  December 1634

  Red Sybolt, the two Poles and the Cossack Fedorovych left a few days later. Their destination: the Zaporozhian Sich, the great Cossack fortress on an island in the Dnieper. It would take them weeks to get there, in mid-winter, but Red didn’t want to lose any time—and Dmytro Fedorovych was practically champing at the bit.

  “You’re sure about this, Red?” Judith Roth asked.

  “Oh, hell, yes. In politics just like in war, Nathan Bedford Forrest’s maxim applies, even if he was a stinking murderous racist bastard they shoulda hung after the Civil War. ‘Get there firstest with the mostest.’”

  Judith looked at him, then at his companions. “I count four of you. As in, ‘fewer than the fingers of one hand.’”

  Red grinned. “So we’ll make do. Get there firstest.’” He shrugged. “Look, the Cossacks will be boiling mad. By now, even the Cossacks—well, some of them, anyway, even if Chmielnicki himself seems to have been in the dark—will know the gist of that future history too. They’ll figure it just like we do. This was ordered by one of the Polish magnates. Or, most likely, a cabal of Polish magnates. And if they don’t know, by some odd chance…”

  He bestowed the grin on Melissa, now. “I just so happen to have some copies of the relevant passages, from those books of yours I borrowed for a time.”

  “Swiped for a time,” she growled.

  “Whatever.”

  Melissa was just as dubious about Red’s project as Judith was. “Fine, fine. But…”

  She looked at Jakub and Krzysztof. “They’re Polish. And while nobody is ever going to confuse you with a nobleman, Red, you’re not exactly going to blend right in with Cossacks. Has it occurred to you they’re likely to chop first and ask questions later?”

  “I figure Dmytro can run interference for us. If we even need it at all. Cossacks aren’t actually mindless, you know. They’re also not going to confuse any of us with great magnates, either. And there really isn’t that big an ethnic issue, in the first place. A hell of a lot of Cossacks are former Poles, and a good chunk of their officers are former szlachta.”

  James’ eyebrows lifted. “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah.” His grin seemed insuppressible this morning. Red always did love a fight. “It’s a complicated world, you know. Or hadn’t you noticed already?”

  “Be off, then, Red,” Melissa said softly. “I’d add ‘Godspeed,’ but I’m an atheist. Still, the sentiment’s the same.”

  * * *

  After they left, Morris shook his head. “Do you think we’ll ever see the rascal again?”

  Melissa had been wondering the same thing. After a pause, she said: “Yes, actually. Up-time American coal companies have—had, will have, whatever—the same mindset as great Polish magnates.”

  “And…your point is?”

  She nodded in the direction Red and his companions had gon
e. “They really hated that man, Morris. But he’s still here, isn’t he?” She burst into laughter. “Three and a half centuries earlier!”

  Part One

  October 1636

  From the east falls, from poison valleys,

  A river of knives and swords

  “The Seeress’s Prophecy,” The Poetic Edda

  Chapter 1

  Linz, provisional capital of Austria-Hungary

  “Interesting idea,” said Gustav II Adolf. The emperor of the United States of Europe—also the king of Sweden and the High King of the Union of Kalmar—rose up from his study of the map spread across a table in the chamber he used for private meetings. He looked at the two people standing on the opposite side of table.

  “Which one of you thought of it?” he asked, smiling a bit slyly.

  “Oh, Michael did, of course,” said Rebecca Abrabanel. “I am a diplomat, not someone versed in military—”

  “She did,” said Mike Stearns. With a grin on his face, he pointed with a thumb to his wife standing next to him. “The basic political ingredients that are the heart of the scheme, anyway. I just came along afterward and fleshed out the military details.”

  “That is not true, Michael,” protested Rebecca. “What you dismissively call ‘the military details’ are in fact the essence of the plan.” She sniffed. “Plan, not a ‘scheme.’”

  Mike’s grin never wavered. Gustav Adolf’s smile widened until he was grinning also. “Oh, come, Rebecca. Of course it’s a scheme. Quite a charming one, though. I’m taken by it.”

  He turned his head to look at his future son-in-law, Prince Ulrik of Denmark. Looked down, as well. Gustav Adolf was a big man and the prince was no more than average size. “What do you think?”

  Ulrik gave his shoulders a little heave; not quite a shrug. “Like Rebecca, I am in no position to gauge the military aspects of the plan—scheme, if you prefer. But I think the political possibilities are…intriguing, certainly.”