The same was true at the Battle of Sandomierz, where we had all fought, but were stationed five miles apart.
They were impressed by the fact that I had served in the River Battalion, for the stories about what we had done were told again and again throughout the rest of the army.
For my part, I was eager to hear once more about what had happened at Cracow and at the Battle of Three Walls, where my father and brother fought, side by side, and had taken part in the annihilation of the second Mongol army. In truth, I envied my brother for being able to serve with his own father by his side, and I told him so.
Late in the afternoon, my father suggested that I might want to take a few days off, to rest, before I resumed my job at the bakery.
At that point I had to tell them about how the River Battalion was being sent through the rest of the course at the Warrior's School, and how I was signed up to start there in three weeks.
My father's reaction was about what I had expected, or perhaps I should say, what I had feared. He became angry, and told me I was being a fool.
"You have the right to leave the army, and that is exactly what you should do. It is what you will do!" He said, "Why should you want to go and spend eight more months in stupid training when the Mongols have been totally defeated. Training to kill who? After what has happened to all the Mongols, nobody will ever again dare to molest Poland!"
I had to tell him I could not answer his questions, and that I wasn't really sure what I should do.
He said, "If you are not sure, well then, I am! You should obey me, as a good boy should always obey his parents."
He walked away then, which was just as well. I didn't want to confront him, but I didn't want to lie to him, either.
My brother just told me to take some time and think it all over carefully. Together, we went over to the Pink Dragon Inn, got roaring drunk, and tipped the lovely waitresses there more than they were used to, since he had as much surplus cash as I did.
Later, we found two willing girls from the cloth factory, and eventually spent the night with them in their room in the castle. In the arms of a lovely woman, I went to sleep that night thinking that being a baker at Okoitz might not be such a bad life after all.
After spending two weeks working in the bakery, I was no longer sure. In truth, doing again and again the same dull things that I had done for most of my life, I was bored, bored almost to death.
When I thought on the things I had done in the war, the friends I had known, and the things I had seen, there seemed to me to have been a certain… greatness about them. It seemed that somehow the army and the war had lifted me up to a higher level of being. That I had, for a short while, been like one of the heroes they told about in the old fireside tales or even like one of the ancient pagan gods!
When I thought of the friends I had made in those few months, I was amazed at the closeness I felt for them, and how much I truly missed them all, even Taurus's craziness and Kiejstut's sullen quietness.
I stood there, my face and hair dusted with rye and wheat flour, my arms buried up to the elbows in sticky bread dough, trying to be polite to Mrs. Galinski, an annoying lady customer.
Was this the way I wanted to spend the rest of my entire life? The only life God would ever give me?
No.
Better to live the full life for a year and have it end with my breast pierced through by a Mongol spear, than to have it slowly ground away to nothingness by the bitchy Mrs. Galinski!
I would not be a baker. I would go to the Warrior's School and see where life would lead me.
And perhaps my father would forgive me.
I talked it over first with my brother. He said if this was truly my wish, then he would do everything in his power to smooth the way for me with the family, and especially with our father.
He also said he was not being entirely altruistic in all of this, because it would probably mean that he would one day inherit the bakery alone, rather than having to share it with me.
I said that if he stayed here, working in the bakery, then he would have earned his inheritance, and he should enjoy it with my blessings. Furthermore, if he ever needed help taking care of our parents once they got old, he should feel free to call on me to help out with the expenses. We shook hands on it, and I've never regretted the decision we made that night.
I told my mother about our agreement, and I could see we had made her very sad. She left for a while and came back tearstained, but she said that if this was what I wanted to do, well, I was no longer a boy and must make up my own mind about what was right for me. She said she would miss me, but that I had her blessings. I could tell she dreaded breaking the news to my father as much as I did.
Indeed, I dreaded telling him so much that every day for a week I kept putting it off. I procrastinated.
I kept on procrastinating until the morning of the last day possible for my departure. Then I simply showed up at the bakery wearing my uniform.
My father looked at me, shook his head, and walked away without speaking to me. I looked for him for hours, but I couldn't find him.
I had to leave home without his blessing.
Chapter Nine
From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
WRITTEN JANUARY 25, 1249, CONCERNING JUNE 4, 1241
AS I suspected would happen, my entire lance showed up for the second part of our training, and Sir Odon didn't even say "I told you so" when I arrived at the last possible moment. We all looked at each other and smiled. Even Taurus smiled, the first time I ever saw such a thing. We all had the warm feeling that our family was together again.
The course of study in Hell was much different from the one we'd gone through a few months before. Then, there had been very little in the way of classroom work. Everything we had learned was to teach us how to kill Mongols and how to stop them from killing us.
Now things were different. Fully half of our waking hours were spent in the classroom. Many of the courses were on expected subjects, that is to say, military in nature. How to plan an ambush, how to arrange for supplies, how to take care of and repair weapons, clothing, and armor.
Some subjects were less concerned with immediate military operations, like military law and what constituted a legal order.
I was surprised to find that there are some orders that are actually illegal to obey, such as an order to kill an unarmed and nonviolent noncombatant.
If your commanding officer ordered you to do an illegal act, you were required to disobey, and if you were not actually in combat with the enemy, you were required to arrest your own officer!
You had to be deadly careful with that law, however, because if you invoked it, there would be a mandatory military court-martial that would be the end of someone's career, and quite possibly the end of somebody's life. Maybe yours, if you were wrong!
Other courses included map reading and mapmaking, mathematics, the operation and repair of steam engines, the operation and repair of radios, the construction of roads and bridges, and other suchlike things. They weren't trying to make us masters of all of these arts, but to teach us enough to get started and to know which manual to get to teach you all the fine points when you needed them.
But then there were a group of subjects I never thought would be important to a warrior. We took courses on both military courtesy and social courtesy. If you were invited to dine with the local baron, your manners had better not embarrass the Christian Army! We took courses in playing musical instruments and even in dancing, since a true warrior was expected to be as competent with the ladies as he was with the enemy!