1635_ The Eastern Front - Eric Flint [141]
Jozef had considered them, in fact. The problem was that they were in western provinces and he wanted to be as close to the border as he could manage. If he did have to make a desperate attempt to escape back into Polish territory, he'd find that much easier to do from Mecklenburg than places farther west.
Escaping into Poland from Pomerania would be even easier, of course. But to do that, he'd have to be in Pomerania, which he detested. The only city in the miserable province that would be tolerable would be Stettin, and Stettin was crawling with Swedes. Suspicious Swedes, with a nasty turn of mind when it came to Poles and anything Polish, as you'd expect from a pack of bandits in their ill-gotten lair. (The city's proper name was Szczecin. Always had been, always would be, and damn anyone who said otherwise.)
Ideally, he'd have gone to Grantville. Jozef loved Grantville. And with his uncle as his paymaster, he could even afford the outrageous rents.
Alas, it was not to be. He'd spent too much time in Grantville, early in his career as a spy, before he'd learned how to stay invisible. There was too much risk of being spotted.
Where then?
He'd settled on Schwerin because it was the capital of Mecklenburg province. Since the Dreeson Incident just a short time ago, the place had become a hotbed of radicalism, especially its capital. Young firebrands holding forth on every corner.
More importantly for Jozef, such centers of youthful radicalism produced certain cultural developments, almost like a law of nature. For every firebrand spouting ideology on a corner, there would be a poet spouting verses in a tavern.
Jozef wrote poetry, as it happened. Not very good poetry, but that would be all to the good. A mediocre poet would blend in perfectly where a man with literary talent might be noticed.
So it was. His first night in a nearby tavern was uneventful. He made a few acquaintances.
The second night, the same.
The third night, he was urged to recite some of his own poetry. Which he did, to reasonable applause. To fit the crowd's taste, he'd slightly adjusted a poem he'd once written on the subject of sunrise to make it politically appropriate. (Not hard to do. A sun rising, a people rising; the rhymes just had to be tweaked a bit.)
The fourth night, the same, with the added benefit of finding female company. It turned out that for this crowd of people, anything foreign carried a certain romance and panache.
The fifth night, the same again, with the female company more affectionate still.
The sixth day, catastrophe.
"Hey, Mateusz,"—so was he known here; Mateusz Zielinski—"there's somebody you have to meet."
He had no desire to meet anyone, particularly, especially when he was eating a late breakfast. But since the person doing the introduction was the young woman who'd just provided him with another very enjoyable twelve hours, he felt obliged to do as she wished.
The person to whom he was introduced was a young fellow named Karsten Eichel. It took him no more than three minutes to get to the purpose of the introduction.
"You're for the overthrow of serfdom in Poland, I'm sure. I heard your poem about the people rising. Well, I'm in the CoC here and I can introduce you to somebody who knows"—here, a brief intake of breath—"Krzysztof Opalinski. The Krzysztof Opalinski, I mean."
Eichel sat there at the table across from Jozef, looking very pleased with himself. Jozef had had a cat once who had almost the same expression on its face when it plopped a freshly caught rodent at Jozef's feet.
The Krzysztof Opalinski. That would be the same Krzysztof Opalinski whom Jozef had known since he was six and the Opalinski was three. His good friend Lukasz Opalinski was Krzysztof's older brother. Lukasz had set off to become a hussar for Poland's king and Sejm, and with equal vigor and enthusiasm Krzysztof had set off to overthrow that selfsame king and Sejm. Such was the nature of the Opalinski family.
"He's in Poland now, of course, doing his righteous work," continued Eichel. "But my friend can get you across the