Eric Flint
Grantville Gazette.Volume XVII

The Anaconda Project, Episode Five
Eric Flint

As he watched the archer bringing his horse around again for another run at the target, Lukasz Opalinski leaned toward the man standing next to him. "So, tell me, Jozef. Is Grantville as exotic as its reputation?"

Jozef Wojtowicz didn't answer immediately. He was pre-occupied with watching the mounted archer.

"I think he's still the best horseman I've ever seen," he said quietly.

"He's probably the best in Poland, anyway," said Opalinski. "For sure and certain, he's the best archer." The words were spoken in a tone that had more of derision in it than admiration-albeit friendly derision. Then, in the sure tones of man who was still no older than twenty-two: "The archery's a complete waste of time and effort. The horsemanship… Well, not so much. But this is still-"

He waved at the man on horseback, now racing past the target and drawing the bow. With his size and splendid costume, he was a magnificent figure.

"Completely ridiculous. We are not Mongols, after all, nor will we be fighting such. Even the Tatars have outgrown this foolishness, for the most part."

The arrow pierced the target, almost right in the center.

Wojtowicz didn't argue the point. But it was still a mesmerizing sight to watch.

"Grantville," nudged his companion.

Jozef shook his head. "It's complicated, Lukasz. In some ways, it's incredibly exotic. Yes, they can talk with each other at long distance-miles, many miles-using little machines. Yes, they can make moving pictures on glass. Yes, they have flying machines. I watched them many times. Yes, yes, yes-just about every such tale you've heard is either true or is simply an exaggeration of something that is true."

The mounted archer came back around again, still at a full gallop. Jozef, who was an accomplished horseman himself, knew how much skill was required simply to manage that much. The rider's hands, of course, were completely pre-occupied with the bow. Add onto that the skill of the archery-again, the arrow hit the target's center-and add onto that the preposterous pull of the bow being used. Jozef had no idea what it was, precisely, but he was quite sure that he'd have to struggle to draw the bow even standing flat-footed. And while Jozef was not an especially large man, or a tall man, he was quite strong.

He'd broken off his account, watching. Lukasz nudged him again. "Grantville, Grantville. Let's keep our mind on the future, Jozef, not"-he waved again at the mounted archer, with a dismissive gesture-"this flamboyantly absurd display of prehistoric martial skills."

Jozef smiled. "In other respects, no. Leaving aside the machines and marvelous mechanism, Grantville seems much like any other town. People going about their business, that's all."

He was fudging here, but he didn't see any alternative. Not, at least, any alternative suitable for a conversation held under these circumstances. The months that Jozef had spent in Grantville had also made clear to him the more subtle-but in some easy, even more exotic-differences in social custom that lay beneath the surface of the fantastic machines. He'd also come to understand that those subtleties in social custom were inextricably tied to the mechanical skills that were so much more outwardly evident.

It was not complicated, really, if a man was willing to look at things with clear eyes. If you wanted your serfs to build and operate complex equipment for you, in order to enhance your wealth and power, then…

Sooner or later, you'd have to be willing to end their serfdom. The American technology presumed a level of intellect and education even in their so-called "unskilled" laborers that no Polish or Lithuanian or Ruthenian serf could possibly match. And simply instructing them wouldn't work. In the nature of things, education can only be narrowed so far or it becomes useless. And given the necessary breadth, how could a sane man expect an educated serf to keep from being discontented-and, now, far better equipped to struggle against the source of his discontent?

Nor was it simply a matter of education, as such. Another thing had also become clear to Jozef in the time he'd spent in Grantville-and perhaps clearer still, during the months that followed when he'd resided in Magdeburg. The sort of broad-ranging skills that were necessary in a population to create and sustain the technical marvels which the Americans took for granted also presupposed complete mobility of labor. There was no way around it. Not, certainly, in the long run. The needed skills for that sort of advanced technical society were simply too complex, too inter-connected-most of all, too unpredictable. The demand could only be met by a productive population which was free to move about at will, to learn whatever skills and apply themselves to whatever labor they chose. You could no more regulate it than you could regulate it a bonfire.

Put it all together, and the conclusion was obvious. Jozef had come to it long before he left Grantville. If the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania was to have any chance at all of surviving the historical doom so clear and explicit even in Grantville's sketchy historical records of the future of eastern Europe-the Commonwealth had been the one and only major European power which had simply vanished by the end of the eighteenth century-then serfdom had to be destroyed. And Jozef could see only two options. Either the Poles and Lithuanians destroyed serfdom themselves, or someone else would destroy it for them-and, in that second event, might very well destroy the Commonwealth in the process.

But how to explain that, even to the young man standing next to him-much less the mounted archer putting on this impressive display?

The archer was Stanislaw Koniecpolski, who was not only the Grand Hetman of the Commonwealth but also one of its greatest magnates. The Koniecpolski family was one of the mighty families of the realm-not to mention one of its richest. They owned vast estates in Poland and the Ruthenian lands. The hetman himself owned sixteen districts and had a yearly retinue somewhere in excess of half a million zlotys. He'd even founded a complete new town-Brody, which had manufactories as well as serving as a commercial center. Jozef had heard it said that more than one hundred thousand people lived on Stanislaw Koniecpolski's estates, most of them Ruthenians. And most of them serfs, of course.

He was immensely powerful, too, not just wealthy. King Wladislaw allowed Koniecpolski what amounted to the powers of a viceroy in the southwestern area of the Commonwealth. Some foreigners even referred to the hetman as the "vice-king of the Ukraine," although no such title actually existed in Polish law. But the king trusted him-and for good reason. So, the hetman negotiated directly with the Ottoman Empire, and the Tatars, and even signed treaties in his own name. He also had perhaps the most extensive spy network in the Commonwealth, which penetrated Muscovy as well as the Ottoman and Tatar realms.

And now, of course, penetrated the United States of Europe as well. Insofar, at least, as his young nephew Jozef had been able to create a spy network in that newest realm of the continent over the past year and a half.

It was a rather extensive network, actually, given the short time available-and, in Jozef's opinion, quite a good one. It turned out, somewhat to his surprise, that he had a genuine gift for such work.

The young man standing next to Jozef, Lukasz Opalinski, came from the same class of the high nobility. And if the Opalinski family was not as wealthy as the Koniecpolskis and many of the other great magnates, they made up for it by their vigorous involvement in the Commonwealth's political affairs.

They were not stupid men, either of them. Not in the least. Just men so ingrained with generations of unthinking attitudes that Jozef knew how hard it would be for them to even see the problem, much less the solution. He suspected the only reason he'd been able to shed his own szlachta blinders was because he wasn't exactly szlachta to begin with.

"You're smiling, Jozef," said Opalinski. "I don't think I care for that smile."

Jozef chuckled. "I was contemplating the advantages of bastardy."

"What's to contemplate? You get all the advantages of good blood with the added benefit of an excuse whenever you cross someone."

Jozef shook his head. "It seems like an elaborate way to go about the business. Samuel Laszcz manages to cross almost everyone without the benefit of bastardy. Granted, it helps that he has the hetman's favor and protection."

A scowl came to Opalinski. "Laszcz! That shithead." He used the German term, not the Polish equivalent. Like Jozef himself, Lukasz was fluent in several languages. He was particularly fond of German profanity.

So was Wojtowicz, for that matter-although, in recent months, he'd also grown very fond of American vulgarity. He didn't think any other language had a term quite so charming in its own way as motherfucker.

"Finally! He's finished," said Opalinski.

And, indeed, the mounted archer had sheathed his bow and was trotting toward them.

When he drew close, he smiled down at the two young men. "I see from his scowl that Lukasz had not budged from his certainty that I am indulging myself. And what's your opinion, nephew?"

Jozef squinted up at his uncle. And, as he'd known it would, felt his resolve to break with the man if he couldn't bring him to understand the truth crumbling away. Stanislaw Koniecpolski had that effect on people close to him. Say what you would about the narrow views and limitations of the Grand Hetman of the Commonwealth, but Jozef didn't know a single person who wouldn't agree that he was a fair-minded and honorable man.

The simple fact that he referred openly to Jozef himself as his nephew was but one of many illustrations of Koniecpolski's character. Jozef was a bastard, born of a dalliance by Stanislaw Koniecpolski's younger brother Przedbor. After Przedbor died at the siege of Smolensk during the Dymitriad wars with Muscovy, the hetman had taken in the boy and his mother and raised him in his own household at the great family estate in Koniecpol.

"I wouldn't presume to judge, uncle."

Koniecpolski laughed. "Always the diplomat! Well, nephew, I will explain to you the truth, in the hopes that you might see it where stubborn young Opalinski here sees only a pointless melancholy for things past."

He stumbled over the word "melancholy" a bit. The hetman suffered from a speech impediment, and had since he was a boy. He usually avoided long words, in fact, since he tended to stutter on them. That habit of speaking in plain and simple words led some people to assume Koniecpolski was dull-witted, an assumption which was very far from the truth.

Using his bare hands, the hetman mimicked an archer drawing his bow. He twisted sideways in the saddle as he did so, as if aiming at a target off to his left. "Notice, youngster, how the innate demands of using a bow properly while in a saddle almost force the archer to fire to his side, or even"-here he twisted still further in the saddle, imitating a man aiming behind him-"to his rear. In the nature of the thing, it is very difficult to fire a bow straight ahead while sitting in a saddle-and impossible to do it well, even for an excellent archer."

Jozef nodded. "Yes, I can see that."

The hetman beamed. "Well, then! You now understand-should, at least-what somehow still remains a puzzle to young Lukasz. The reason to practice mounted archery is to ingrain intelligent tactics in a soldier. The pike, the musket, the sword-pfah!" His pronounced mustachios wiggled with the sneer. "These teach a man to be stupid. Straight ahead, straight ahead, straight ahead."

Opalinski sniffed. "That may well be. But that will still be the way the Swede comes at us-and not even you think he can be defeated with bows and arrows."

"Well, of course not. But I also know that I have no chance of defeating the Swede-not so mighty as he has become-if I simply try to match him head to head, like two bulls in a field." Koniecpolski gazed down at the young nobleman, very serenely. "This is why I am the Grand Hetman of Poland and Lithuania, and you are not."

Opalinski chuckled. "Point taken." He shivered a little, and drew his cloak around him more closely. "And, now, it's cold. Your poor horse looks half-frozen himself. I propose we retire indoors."

In point of fact, the horse-like the hetman-had been exercising far too vigorously to be chilled. And it wasn't really even that cold, for the time of year. Still, the idea of retiring to a comfortable salon and warming one's innards with a stout beverage appealed to Jozef. So, he too drew his cloak around him more tightly, and faked a shiver.

"Weaklings," jeered Koniecpolski. "And at your age! Just another reason to practice mounted archery."

After Koniecpolski left for the stables, Jozef and Lukasz began walking toward the estate's great manor, some distance away. Fortunately, it had been a sunny and unseasonably warm day, so the ground was fairly dry. Otherwise, with the recent snowmelt, their boots would have been caked with mud by the time they raced their destination.

Still, it was slow going. That suited Jozef well enough, though. He needed the time to compose his thoughts. He wasn't looking forward to the coming discussion.

"So solemn," Opalinski murmured, after a while. "Is it really that bad, Jozef?"

Wojtowicz gave his friend a sideways glance. "Well. Yes, actually. I'm afraid the hetman's not going to like what I have to say. Or you, for that matter."

"Can't be any worse than what my brother tells me. To hear him, I'm the devil's minion, whose life is devoted to the sole and unswerving pursuit of making the lot of serfs as miserable as possible."

Jozef chuckled. "And where is Krzysztof, by the way? I half-expected him to be here along with you."

Opalinski shrugged. "I'm afraid my older brother keeps his own counsel, these days. I haven't seen much of him for the past year, and nothing at all for the past two months or so. At a guess, he's off somewhere with his new radical friends and their American mentor. A man by the name of Red Sybolt."

He spotted Jozef's slight grimace. "Ah. You know the fellow?"

"By reputation only. I've never met him."

"And his reputation is…"

"Depends on who you ask. That of a champion for the downtrodden or that of a detestable troublemaker. Or somewhere in between. But whatever the variations, the one thing all accounts have in common is that everyone agrees the man Sybolt is very good at what he does, whatever you choose to call it." He gave Lukasz another sideways glance. "And you say Krzysztof is associating with him, these days?"

"Oh, yes. Along with that young friend of his. You know, that poor szlachta from somewhere"-he gestured vaguely toward the south-"down there."

"Jakub Zaborowsky."

"Yes. Him."

They walked a little further in silence. Then, Lukasz sighed. "So, I imagine-you'll be much more polite, of course-you'll be telling me the same thing my brother does. We szlachta, especially we magnates, either mend our wicked ways or others will do it for us."

"And do it quite rudely, I'm thinking. Yes, that's the gist of it."

Opalinski sighed again. Then, spread his hands before his face and gazed upon their palms. "Do calluses hurt?"

Jozef laughed. "How should I know? I'm just a bastard, not an honest workingman. But at a guess, I'd say…"

He gave his friend yet another sideways glance, this one quite sly. "I'd say not. After all, you have lots of calluses on your soul and they don't hurt, do they?"

Lukasz called him a very unfavorable term in Lithuanian.

Jozef grinned. "I have the most marvelous American expression."

After he spoke it a few times, Lukasz began practicing the pronunciation. "Modderfooker… mudder-yes, it is nice."

The Anaconda Project, Episode Six

Written by Eric Flint

When Jozef finished with his presentation, the immediate reaction of his two listeners was about what he'd expected.

Silence. Total, complete silence.

After a few seconds, Lukasz Opalinski sighed faintly and leaned back a little further in his heavily-upholstered armchair. He gave the big hetman sitting to his left a glance that was just short of apprehensive.

For his part, Koniecpolski's expression might have been that of a statue. Josef could not detect a trace of whatever thoughts or emotions might be stirring within that large and imposing head. The hetman simply gazed at him, almost serenely.

And… said nothing. Nothing at all.

Eventually, Jozef realized that Koniecpolski didn't plan to say anything, either. The hetman wasn't going to agree, nor was he going to argue.

Instead…

"These are matters for the king and the Sejm to decide," the hetman said heavily. "So there is no point in discussing them further here."

Matters for the king and the Sejm to decide.

Given the current king and the Sejm as it existed, that amounted to saying that nothing would be done. The Vasa dynasty that had come to rule the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania after the Jagiellonian dynasty died out-insofar as any monarch could be said to "rule" that land dominated by noblemen-was a branch of the same dynasty that ruled Sweden. Wladislaw IV, like his father Zygmunt III, was obsessed with gaining the Swedish crown to which he felt he was entitled. He viewed the land he actually ruled as nothing much more than a footstool to reach the land he wished to rule. He'd even said in public that he disliked Poland.

In person, it was true-so Jozef had been told, anyway-the new king was a charming fellow. In that regard, quite unlike his sour and gloomy father. But what difference did that make? Where the Jagiellonian dynasty that had previously ruled the Commonwealth had taken care to ally with the middling classes against the great noblemen-much as the Swedish Vasas had done-the Polish branch of the Vasa family showered favors and largesse on those same magnates. The end result, after Zygmunt's long reign of forty-five years, was that the Commonwealth was now completely under the thumb of the great landowning families. In the real world, once you stripped away the pretensions of the szlachta, it was the magnates who dominated the Sejm.

How likely was it, then, that such a Sejm and such a king would agree to begin dismantling serfdom?

The Americans had a clever saying that applied. A snowball's chance in hell.

But, in truth, Jozef couldn't say he was disappointed. He hadn't really expected the Grand Hetman of the Commonwealth to react any differently. For all of Stanislaw Koniecpolski's undoubted virtues, the man was very much the product of his class. Nor was he a man whose temperament inclined him toward questioning his background and upbringing, or his own attitudes. He was a brilliant soldier, certainly; an upstanding and-by his lights-honest man, just as certainly. But a reflective man? Someone capable of analyzing his own biases objectively?

Not in the least. No more so than a lion. Or a brick wall, for that matter.

So be it. At some point, Jozef would probably have to start making difficult decisions of his own. For the moment, however, his personal loyalty to Koniecpolski remained. The world was an imperfect place, after all.

"Now, another matter," said Koniecpolski. He gave Jozef something in the way of a smile. "Hopefully, a more cheerful one. I keep hearing rumors that the Americans are well-disposed toward Poland, whatever the damn Swede thinks. Is that true, nephew?"

Jozef made a face, and started scratching his head. "Well… It's complicated. On the one hand, yes. They tend to have a favorable attitude toward Poles. Quite favorable, actually."

"Why?" asked Lukasz.

"Two reasons. The first and simplest is that the country they came from was a country created by immigrants. Many of those immigrants were Polish."

The hetman grunted. "So I've heard. But I would assume many of them were Swedes also."

"There were immigrants from Sweden, yes, and other Scandinavian countries. But not so many as there were Poles."

He had to restrain himself from adding: That's because the Scandinavian lands were by and large well-managed, so they did not produce a flood of unhappy emigrants. Which Poland most certainly did, because of the disastrous policies pursued by Poland's rulers in earlier centuries.

Instead, he simply said: "And most of the Scandinavian immigrants settled elsewhere in America. Places called Minnesota and Wisconsin. There were many more Poles in the area from which Grantville came."

He made a little wagging gesture with his hand. "But that's only one reason, and perhaps not the most important. Some Poles-even noblemen!-helped the Americans in their war of independence with England. And, in much more recent times-'recent,' at least, as Americans see it-their principal antagonist was Russia. And since Poland was under Russian control-"

Again, he has to restrain himself from adding: because of idiots like those who control the throne and Sjem-and you, my dear uncle, being honest about it.

"-and Poles were inclined to chafe at the situation, the Americans were favorably disposed toward us."

Koniecpolski nodded. "And on the other hand?"

Jozef shrugged. "Despite their reputation for fanciful notions-what they themselves call 'romanticism'-the Americans are every bit as inclined toward being practical and hard-headed as anyone else. The fact is, whether they are favorably disposed to us or not, they have formed an alliance with the king of Sweden. There are some aspects to that alliance which do not particularly please them, true. Still, by and large, most Americans think their bargain with Gustav Adolf has worked quite well for them. They are not about to jeopardize it because of some favorable sentiments toward us-which, when you come right down to it, are rather vague and nebulous sentiments in the first place."

Koniecpolski nodded again. His eyes never left Jozef's face, though. "And there's something else."

Jozef took a deep breath. "Yes, there is. Whatever favorable sentiments may exist among the Americans toward we Poles as a people, there are no favorable sentiments-not in their leadership, at any rate-toward the Commonwealth as it exists today. I have heard some of their speeches, uncle, and read a great many more of their writings. That includes, for instance, a speech given by Michael Stearns in which he specified that the two great evils which loom before the world today are chattel slavery in the New World and the second serfdom in eastern Europe. Both of which must be destroyed."

"His term?" asked Koniecpolski. "Destroyed?"

"One of his terms," Wojtowicz said harshly. "Others were 'eradicated,' 'crushed,' and 'scrubbed from existence.' He is quite serious about it, uncle. He believes the great evils which afflicted the world he came from were caused, in great part, by the ever-widening divergence between the western and eastern parts of Europe. This, he claims, is what underlay the two great world wars that were fought in the century from which he came, in the course of which tens of millions of people died. And he lays the blame for that divergence upon the fact that, where serfdom vanished in western Europe, it had a resurgence in the eastern lands."

But, again, the hetman's face had closed down.

It was odd, in a way. When it came to martial matters, Stanislaw Koniecpolski had a supple and flexible mind. For all the man's personal devotion to ancient methods of warfare-he probably was the greatest archer in Poland; certainly the greatest mounted archer-he'd proven quite capable all his life of adapting to new realities. He knew how to use modern infantry, artillery and fortifications; the so-called "Dutch style" of warfare. He had proven to be skilled at combining land and naval operations, too, although he was not a naval commander himself. Yet that same adaptability ended abruptly whenever Koniecpolski confronted a problem of a social rather than strictly military nature.

Still, you could not in fairness characterize him as a reactionary-what the Americans would call a "hidebound dinosaur." If Stanislaw Koniecpolski was comfortable with the existing Polish and Lithuanian conditions, he was also famous for being utterly scrupulous in respecting the Commonwealth's laws and legal procedures. As much mutual trust as there was between the hetman and the king, for instance-this had been true with the former monarch also-Koniecpolski would flatly refuse to carry out any royal command or instruction unless it had the Sjem's approval required by law.

So…

Koniecpolski would be no help, certainly, in making the profound changes in the Commonwealth that Jozef knew were necessary if the great realm were to survive. He would even, at times, be an active hindrance. But he wouldn't be a bitter enemy, as such-as would, for instance, such great magnates as Samuel Laszcz, the Sheriff of the Crown, or the Seneschal of Lithuania, Samuel Osinsky.

While Jozef had been ruminating, Koniecpolski's gaze had still never left his face. Eventually, with that same half-serene smile, the hetman said: "I know that you are unhappy with me, nephew. So I need to ask. Can you continue to serve me anyhow?"

Jozef nodded. "Yes, uncle. I can."

"Good. I am very pleased with what you have done so far. And now, I must leave to deal with some other business." He gave Wojtowicz and Opalinski a cheerful grin. "Unlike you youngsters, who have the luxury of obsessing over single matters, we men of maturity and substance must deal with many."

Jozef smiled. "Ah, yes. What the Americans call 'multi-tasking.' But they say only women are really good at it. So perhaps women should be put in charge of the Commonwealth's affairs."

For the first time that day, a trace of alarm came to the hetman's face. "What a dreadful idea!"

After Koniecpolski left, Lukasz rose from his chair and went over to the side table which was heavily laden with many bottles of wine.

"Shall we spend the rest of the day getting drunk?"

Jozef sighed. "May as well, I suppose."

Opalinski filled two large goblets and handed one to Wojtowicz before resuming his seat.

"Be realistic, Jozef. You can't really have expected the hetman to agree with your recommendations."

"No, of course not. I just…"

"Yes, I understand. You felt obligated to raise them with him directly. That way"-he paused to take a long quaff of wine-"you won't feel quite so guilty when you start maneuvering around him."

Jozef made a face. "Maneuvering around him. That sounds… ugly."

Opalinski shrugged. "I suppose it is, if you choose to look at it as a matter of aesthetics. But it's not, you know. It's simply a matter of our political survival."

Wojtowicz gave his friend a somewhat skeptical look. "You didn't exactly seem thrilled yourself, at what I had to say."

"Well, of course not!" Lukasz began to throw up his hands with exasperation. Fortunately, he remembered to stop the gesture before he slopped wine all over the floor. And a very fine floor it was, too. Of course, like the floors of all Polish noblemen, be they never so high and exalted, it would be no stranger to spilled liquor.

Still, it would have been a waste of good wine. What was possibly worse, they would have had to summon a servant to clean up the spill. These were difficult subjects to discuss openly under the best of circumstances. Doing so in the presence of a servant's ears would be impossible.

Jozef smiled slightly, then. He could remember a time when he wouldn't have thought twice about discussing anything in the presence of servants. Servants were like furniture. There for a useful purpose, that was all. The fact that the useful purpose might coincidentally happen to be a human being was not something that registered very clearly or very often.

But if there was one thing he'd learned thoroughly since he'd agreed to organize and lead the hetman's spy network in the United States of Europe, it was that servants did indeed have ears. And what was more, they had brains to process the information they heard and pass it on to others.

Others such as Jozef Wojtowicz himself. And the Lord only knew how many spymasters active in the Polish and Lithuanian Commonwealth on behalf of its enemies. They'd certainly have an easy time of it. What the Americans would call a "field day." Between their arrogance and their drunkenness, Polish and Lithuanian szlachta wouldn't even notice the servants moving about them while they babbled whatever they chose to in the "privacy" of their homes.

"And now you're looking very solemn," Lukasz said. "I'd even say, 'glum,' if I didn't know you for the insouciant sprite that you are."

Jozef smiled at him. "I was just thinking-not with any great pleasure, I assure you-that I'll probably find myself organizing my own spy network soon enough. Here at home, so to speak. And how easy it would be, compared to the relative difficulty of operating among the Germans and Americans. Especially the Americans. Who, as naive as they so often are, almost never forget that servants have ears."

"Servants?" Seeming a bit confused, Lukasz looked around him. Not with the focused eyes of someone trying to spot a well-known object or phenomenon, but with the slightly glazed eyes of someone trying to visualize them in the first place. "Oh, them."

After a moment, he and Jozef shared a chuckle. Then, a quaff of wine. And then, a long moment that was quite a bit more solemn.

Finally, Lukasz said: "No, Jozef, I am certainly not thrilled by your proposals and recommendations. Unlike my rambunctious brother Krzysztof, I am inclined toward a relaxed, pleasant-even sedate-existence. Left to my own devices, the life of a nobleman suits me quite nicely. Alas…"

Jozef nodded. "The Americans have an expression for it, which they say they stole from the Chinese, who viewed it as a curse. 'May you live in interesting times.'"

Opalinski grimaced. "Interesting times, indeed." He drained what was left in his goblet, rose to his feet, and headed back toward the side table with the wine bottles. "So, we're about to get to the real unpleasantness of the day. Let me fortify myself first."

He open another bottle and offered Jozef some more, which he accepted. Then, refilled his own goblet-right up to the very brim. It was a big goblet, too.

"What do you mean, the 'real unpleasantness'?" asked Wojtowicz.

Lukasz sat down, scowling at him. "Oh, stop playing the innocent. What do you want me to do?"

"Oh." In point of fact, Jozef had never really concentrated his thoughts on that subject, prior to this moment. But now that he did. ..

For all his frequent protestations of idleness and dissolution and his natural inclinations and talents thereto, Lukasz Opalinski was actually a very competent and capable man. Even energetic, when he chose to be. And, in Jozef's opinion, quite a bit more thoughtful than his older brother. There was undoubtedly something in the term "brilliant" which applied to Krzysztof Opalinski. But, like many such people, the brightness of the mind left little room for shades and subtleties of thought.

Not so, his younger brother Lukasz. You could even say he was a man made for the shades and subtleties.

"Well. Now that I think about it, Lukasz. We actually should start organizing our own spy network here in the Commonwealth. I can't attend to it myself, you understand. As often as not, I'll need to be somewhere to the west on the hetman's business. So why don't you take on the work?"

Lukasz sipped at his wine. "Well enough. I imagine being a spymaster is usually sedentary sort of work, which certainly suits me."

You might be surprised, thought Jozef, remembering two occasions-one in particular-in which he'd found his fleet footing and good lungs essential to his well-being.

Of course, he saw no reason to say it out loud.

"But first, the critical question," Lukasz continued.

"Yes?"

He gave Wojtowicz a look from beneath lowered brows. "Who-exactly-is this 'we' that needs to start a spy network in the Commonwealth?"

"Ah." Jozef sipped at his own wine. "Good question."

"Yes, I thought so. Somewhat critical, actually."

Jozef considered the problem. It really was a very good question.

"Well, for the moment… I'd say that 'we' is simply you and me, Lukasz. You might think of it as a cabal starting very, very small-but with ties in both the camps of revolution and… you can't say 'reaction,' exactly. That wouldn't be fair to the hetman."

Lukasz smiled. "As fond as you've become of them, surely you can dredge up some appropriate American term."

"I can, as it happens. The Americans would call it 'the establishment.' A rather nice term for the purpose, I think."

Opalinski nodded. "Very well, then. A tiny two-person cabal with ties to both the establishment of the Commonwealth and those-some of those, at any rate-who would undo that same establishment. Now, the second question. What is our goal and purpose?"

"Pretty much the same as those of your brother, I'd say. The truth is, there's not much in my recommendations and proposals that I think Krzysztof would object to. Where we differ is mostly in our chosen methods. I'd really just as soon avoid a revolution if we could, Lukasz-or, what's far more likely, the bloodbath that will accompany a failed revolution."

Opalinski thought about it, and then drained his goblet in one long and practiced swallow. What the Americans in Grantville at the now-famous Thuringian Gardens-Jozef had spent many hours there himself-would call a chug-a-lug.

"Sounds about right to me," he pronounced, wiping his lips. "And now, it's your turn to get up and open another bottle. You know how easily I get fatigued by strenuous labor."