52 52 Hero

My personal life, however, was far from ideal, although on the surface the relationship of Sveta and Teofila was correct, but the reality was completely different. Teofila was jealous that despite Sveta's low background, she occupied a similar, if not better, position in my house than Teofila... the situation was not improved either by the presence of my illegitimate son. Several times I had to calm Teofila and warn her not to exceed certain limits, because although I can tolerate a lot, I will not let anyone dictate me what, when and with whom I can do... but I was sure that this was not the end of their arguments and I would have to intervene more than once.

I also managed to finish a book about the Habsburgs, in addition to the story about the Countess of Bathory, the Fugger Family and their allegedly Jewish origins, I also added some true, almost true and false rumors about the Emperor's private life, about sex.ual contacts with members of his own family, about his taste for young boys. I have given it the title "Secrets of the Imperial Throne." and as I intended, I published it only in German, under the pseudonym Voltiare, I even had to pay extra for the printing house so that it would not put its logo and other things anywhere that would make it easier to discover the origin of the book.

The book was to be delivered to the territory of the Holy Roman Empire by merchants related to Jankiel and discreetly delivered to important personalities from the Protestant Union.

"Lord, this is the information you asked for." (Secretary Smith)

"Thank you ... this report shows that all or nearly all will be ready by the end of April 1625." (MC)

"Yes, Lord. 700 grenades, 50 barrels of gunpowder, 500 muskets, 5,000 bullets and 10 barrels of that strange goo..." (Secretary Kowalski)

"Greek fire ... good. It will also take 15 wagons and 60 strongest horses." (MC)

"I will write a letter to the people in charge of horse breeding in Lesser Poland. There will be suitable animals on Lord's horse farm." (Secretary Kowalski)

I know that the Swedes will land in Livonia at the end of June 1625, with a force of 20,000 soldiers ... and I had to consider whether to attack them in Livonia or wait when the Swedes attacked Pomerania in July 1626. Both options had their advantages and disadvantages.

An earlier attack and defeat of the enemy will certainly be better from the perspective of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. War damage, civil and military losses, shorter war, lower costs ... but was it good for me?

Not necessarily ... When the country is in need, and Hetman Sapieha and Hetman Radzwiłł could not communicate and forget about private conflicts, and each of them attacked the Swedes on their own, in such a situation, someone special will be needed ... A hero. Someone who, despite the overwhelming enemy forces, will take up the fight and bring victory... Someone like me... a year of difficult war, thousands of dead, destruction ... that's the price I'm willing to pay, and if I attack in 1626 it will mean an extra year of preparation, which is also very important.

(Khan Mehmed III Giray / Shahin Giray Mirza POV)

"What do you think, brother, about what we heard?" (Khan Mehmed)

"I have always told you that we cannot trust the Turks, about the proposal. I would prefer that Prince Jazłowiecki attacked the Ottomans with us ..." (Shahin Mirza)

"A long way is a safe way ... The Sultan is strong, we cannot make it by ourselves, we will not defeat his army." (Khan Mehmed)

"So we are to continue serving him like dogs?" (Shahin Mirza)

"If the messenger's words were true, we can send merchants to this city and see if it is true or false, we risk nothing ... but if it is true, gold, gunpowder and muskets will be of great help to us." (Khan Mehmed)

"We can do one more thing, Khan Temir is dead, his two sons too, Budzhak Horde lost 10,000 warriors. Time to remind them that You are the Khan of Khans." (Shahin Mirza)

"And so we will do, gather the warriors and you will go there to establish my dominion over them ... Get rid of the high families, especially those associated with Temir." (Khan Mehmed)

(End POV)

Another thing I had to do was my galleon, one ship is not enough to do something, especially since Gustav Adolf will use 125 ships to attack in Pomerania ... I did not intend to send my fleet to America, India, Africa or Japan. In Europe I had enough enemies, so why should I look for new ones. Especially that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was not a colonial state, one of our vassals had a colony on the Tobago island, but it was quickly taken over by the Dutch.

It was our first, but not the last, relationship with the colonies. The second contact was in Haiti, when the French authorities sent the Polish Legions there to suppress black rebels, after a few weeks of staying in Haiti and finding out with their own eyes about the French rule, the Poles switched to the side of the rebels ... the colonies were not our specialty.

However, the ship had to sail, it needed a crew, it had to earn money, so I wrote a letter to the Ferber family from Gdańsk with a proposal to rent a ship to them... Thanks to this, I also had an excuse to get to know them, and they were to play a significant role in my future plans.

The year 1624 is over... Days turned to weeks and weeks to months. I hardly left Jazłowiec, the only exception was the performance of my duties as a castellan ... unfortunately not everything went according to my expectations... Sveta's belly was getting bigger again ... and I was hoping that she was only getting fat.

Unfortunately, she was pregnant again.