The Radiant Warrior
Book 3 of the Adventures of Conrad Starguard
Prologue
She unloaded the temporal canister, glanced quickly at her new subordinate, loaded it with her last superior, and sent it two and a half million years uptime. One contact every fifty years and that for only a few seconds. Life this far back was a bitch.
The new arrival was biosculpted into a male version of herself, a type twenty-seven protohuman. He was barely four feet tall, skinny and with dark brown skin. He was also naked, since clothing wouldn't be invented for millions of years.
She switched off his stasis field.
He looked up at the stalactites hanging above him from the cave roof. Confused, he looked over at her.
"Surprise! You son of a bitch!" she shouted. "Welcome to two and a half million B.C.! Welcome to a hundred years of dodging leopards and eating grubs and shivering up in a tree all night, you bastard, because it's all your fault!"
"What? Where am I?"
"The where is eastern Africa, you lucky boy, but the fun part is the when! You're in the Anthropological Corps now and you get to do the exciting work of tracking protohuman migration patterns!"
"This must be some sort of a joke! And you are the rudest and the ugliest woman I've ever seen!"
"Watch your language, buster! I'm your boss and will be for the next fifty years. And if you think I'm ugly, just wait until you see yourself in a mirror, not that we have one."
"What is going on here? None of this makes sense! I was in twentieth-century Poland, doing my paperwork, when the monitors came in and I woke up here. And I look like you?"
"Yeah, minus the floppy tits, ugly."
"But… why?"
"Your file says it's a punishment detail for gross incompetence. You completely failed to brief a new subordinate on security procedures! She left the wrong door open. And the Owner's own cousin, who had never heard of time travel, got transported back to Poland's thirteenth century, ten years before the Mongol invasions. Then the Owner himself found his cousin in the battle lines during the invasion. The man had been there for ten years before he was discovered! There was nothing they could do about it without violating causality. When you screw up, you don't fart around!"
"But… without notification, without trial?"
"You mess with the Owner's family, you're in deep shit, boy!"
"Well… what are you doing here, then?"
"You don't recognize me? I suppose I should be crushed, you bastard, but I'm not. I'm the woman that you failed to brief, you shithead! I've been in this lousy pest hole for fifty years because of you, and now I've got fifty more to get you back for it!"
"Surely, madam, there's no reason to be vindictive about it. After all, if we're both in the same boat-"
"A boat wouldn't be this bad, bastard! We are in the middle of a bloody wilderness with nothing to eat but carrion and grubs! There's nothing to do but wander around after a tribe with less brains than a bunch of morons, and nobody to talk to that has a vocabulary of over forty words except each other."
"Hell yes, I'm vindictive! And I'm going to stay that way for the next fifty years!"
He rolled over and groaned.
She looked at him. "Well, in fifty years, my replacement will be the dolt at the thirteenth-century portal who should have caught your screw-up. Then you get to be his boss. It gives you something to look forward to." He groaned again.
Chapter One
FROM THE DIARY OF PIOTR KULCZYNSKI
My name is Piotr Kulczynski. I am an accountant. I was taught my craft by the lord I serve, Sir Conrad Stargard.
He is a good lord, and well loved by his people, for he is a giant in mind, body, and soul.
His learning is renowned above that of all other men, and scarce half a day passes when he does not create some useful device or demonstrate some new technique or sing some new song. He has built great mills and efficient factories for his lord Count Lambert and on his own lands, gifted to him by that count, he has thrown up huge buildings in but a few months. Our Church of Christ the Carpenter at Three Walls is reputed to be the biggest in Poland. Sir Conrad says that soon we will be making iron and steel in vast quantities, as well as a sort of mortar called cement.
He is vastly tall, and must bend his head to pass through any normal doorway. For his buildings at Three Walls, he decreed that the doors be tall enough to let him pass with his helmet on. He claims that the next generation of children will be, some of them, as tall as he, because they will be eating properly. The carpenters built as he required, but they laughed that any children of his size must be of his get.
His prowess in battle is above that of all others, and but three days agone he defeated one of the greatest champions in Poland, the Crossman Sir Adolf, in Trial by
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Combat. He not only destroyed that Knight of the Cross easily, he actually played with the man while he did it, first throwing away his shield and then his sword, winning the fight with his bare hands to show that God was truly on his side.
And he is a saintly man, kind to those in need and always ready to help the poor, the aged, the oppressed. The very Trial I mentioned was caused when, out of pity for a gross of Pruthenian slaves, he beat seven Crossmen in fair combat, killing five and wounding a sixth almost to the death, then saving that man's life with his surgical skill. He met that caravan of slaves when he was traveling a great distance to ransom a casual acquaintance with a vast sum, to keep that man from being hung.
And he has been blessed by God. At the Trial, after he had defeated his opponent so easily, he was foully attacked by four other Crossmen. With my own eyes, I saw four golden arrows fall from the sky, killing the. men who would have harmed the Lord's Anointed.
Yet he is my enemy.
Never would I do harm to my lord, nor even think evil of him, for evil is far from all his words and deeds. But since I was a small child I have loved Krystyana.
Before I dared profess my love to her, she was chosen by Count Lambert to be one of his ladies-in-waiting. I could do nothing while she warmed Count Lambert's bed, and those of his knights, for she went to this task willingly. Yet I was consoled, for it is the custom of that lord, once one of his ladies was with child, to marry her to one of the commoners of his village. My father promised to talk to Count Lambert and to Krystyana's parents when the time was right, and I thought that one day within the year I would have my love by my side.
But then Sir Conrad came to Okoitz. He came from someplace to the east, though from exactly where is a mystery, for a priest laid a geas on him that he may not speak of his origins.
I was among those to whom he taught mathematics, and he paid the priest to teach us our letters. He gave me a responsible position, keeping the books of his inn, his brass works, and now the city he was building at Three Walls. This made me a man of some substance, which bolstered my claim to Krystyana's hand.
Then Count Lambert sent my love, along with four others, with Sir Conrad to the vast lands awarded him.
Sir Conrad gave all five ladies positions of considerable importance, and it is his custom that no woman may be forced into marriage, nor even strongly encouraged, but that each may marry the man of her own choosing, or even not marry at all.
My love Krystyana has never looked kindly on me. Even when our positions force us to work together-for she manages the kitchens that feed Sir Conrad's nine hundred people, and I must account for every penny spent-she treats me coldly.
Long have I been convinced that could she but lay by my side for a single night, her love would come to me. Yet I see no way that this could happen.
Today at Count Lambert's town of Okoitz, Annastashia-one of Sir Conrad's five ladies-was married to that fine young knight Sir Vladimir. It was a beautiful ceremony, with Sir Conrad giving the bride away and all the ladies crying. But Krystyana's thoughts were plain on her face, and I knew that she would not be content to marry anyone less than a true belted knight, and that knight, Sir Conrad.