131 Beginning

With the end of winter, I published the last issue of the newspaper and suspended it for the duration of the war. It was not understood by the fans of my novel heroes, but I did not find anyone who I could entrust with running this venture. Before returning to Jazłowiec, I had several meetings with Hetman Potocki and other ministers, the Seym established taxes for the war... and a week later we went to Podolia. I have traveled this route so many times in my life that I knew every tree and every stone by heart... fourteen days later I was home.

I was standing on one of the balconies in the Jazłowiec Castle and I was looking at the night sky and felt a rose fragrance.

"I'll come in a moment." (MC)

Sveta hugged me.

"Are you thinking about war?" (Sveta)

"No, I remembered one sentence... Astra inclinant, sed non obligant." (MC)

I didn't want to tell her that the second sentence I remembered was a fragment of one of Metallica's songs "Take a look to the sky just before you die It's the last time you will."

"What does it mean?" (Sveta)

"The stars incline us, they do not bind us... It means that although fate or a higher power pushes us in some direction, ultimately we decide, because we have free will... Sometimes all kinds of strange things come to my mind, so there's nothing to talk about. Better tell me how is Galina doing? It seems to me that she is more calm and at peace with her fate." (MC)

"Are you really interested in this? I had a few conversations with her. You are right that she accepted her fate, especially that something worse could not have happened to her?" (Sveta)

"You know me a little, I'm not an emotional person, but only you and she have access to me when I'm naked and defenseless... should I fear the sword of Damocles hanging over me?" (MC)

"I don't know what that means, but you are in no danger." (Sveta)

Sometimes I forgot that Sveta has only recently learned to read and does not understand many things yet... and the history of Greece and Rome is completely unknown to her.

"Let's go back to the bedroom, Galina is already waiting for us." (MC)

I woke up in the morning with the weight of two heads resting on my chest... I also felt a pain in my back. With each night spent together, Galina was opening up to new things... at first she was obedient, but now she was showing her claws... and that's what I felt now on my back, although I couldn't see it, I was sure that Galina had played a dozen tic-tac-toe games on my skin.

"It's nice to lie down and do nothing, but ladies, it's time to get up." (MC)

Sveta got up almost immediately, but my other lover, she just stretched herself on the bed and turned over to the other side, only after I slapped her bare ass she jumped out of bed.

A few days later I ordered to load the supplies of food, gunpowder and other necessary things on the carts and travel with them to Sich... but I was going to leave Jazłowiec in two weeks at the earliest with the rest of my private troops.

The day before my departure, I was sitting in my office tidying up the papers and adding a few extra bequests to my will. As I was finishing, there was a knock. I knew it wasn't Sveta or Galina.

"Enter" (MC)

My son Piotr was standing in the doorway. It surprised me a bit, because he doesn't visit me too often, in order to be fair, I don't visit him too often either.

"Something happened?" (MC)

"No... I wanted to say goodbye and tell you to take care of yourself, Father." (Piotr)

"Don't worry, it's not my first or last war... I'll be back, aut cum scuto, aut in scuto, but don't tell your mother that. I don't want her to worry before I leave." (MC)

"I wanted to ask you something else..." (Piotr)

"So ask, though I don't know if I know the answer." (MC)

"Why do you want me to be a priest and not a soldier like you?" (Piotr)

I couldn't tell him the truth that he would be more useful to me as a priest than cannon fodder. I had to put it into nice words.

"Because it is safer, I am not a good father and I know it... nemo sine vitiis est. However, I am your father and I do not want you to be hurt... I did not get princely titles for you and your sister, so that you would die somewhere in the field, and the ravens would feast on you... this country needs someone like me now, but it will need someone like you in the future." (MC)

(Tomasz Zamoyski / Hetman Potocki POV)

"Wilkomir will not be pleased..." (Tomasz Zamoyski)

"Re vera... He won't, but we can't help it." (Hetman Potocki)

"You know this means the start of new problems... and knowing my nephew won't end well." (Tomasz Zamoyski)

"I wanted to write him a letter re vera, but he has probably already left for the Crimea..." (Hetman Potocki)

"Fortunately you didn't. If he found out... there would be a whole Cossack army within our borders, along with the Tatars..." (Tomasz Zamoyski)

"He wouldn't do that..." (Hetman Potocki)

"You know Gosiewski's stories, you've probably heard rumors from various wars. Wilkomir is a good friend, but an even worse enemy." (Tomasz Zamoyski)

"...Re vera." (Hetman Potocki)

(End POV)

It took us over a month to reach Sich, on the way we caught up with supply carts that had left Jazłowiec two weeks earlier and since then we have traveled together... Sich was teeming with life, I was here already, but there were no more than a few thousand people here then, now there could be forty thousand Cossacks here... maybe even more, of course, my first steps were directed to the headquarters of Ataman Koszowy, Michał Doroszenko.