You were closing in on Orsza by late March.
Marszowski, van Gistel, Friar Gosiewski, dear Mariana, and just short of a hundred attendants, bodyguards, and ladies-in-waiting. Your little village is on the move; the baggage train is loaded-down with bedframes and tables, a kitchen's worth of cookware, gingerly-handled paintings and tapestries. All are aware that they are going home, a near-punishment to last until the King finds satisfaction. There's no telling how he feels about the outcome of the duel – or maybe it doesn't need to be told. After all, alive and (relatively) unscathed or not, you're still bound for a frontier town where a man named Kmita – probably a minder – awaits you.
The forests and marshes of the west give way to the scrublands, birch forests, and rolling hills of the east. Of course, given the season, everywhere has turned to mud, and the beauty of the land lies dormant behind gray skies. But there is always some excitement to see lands undiscovered.
You couldn't find any suitable high ground to view the city from afar, but its stone castle rose above it – your new home for the time being. A good deal smaller than Dubinki and rather unimposing, yet shining-clean and well-maintained on account of its relative youth and proximity to the hated Muscovite. At the intersection of the little Orszica and the mighty Dniepr, it holds a defensible position and hangs over the city as a symbol of Grand Ducal authority, to be executed by your hand.
It's weighty, to be sure, but at least the town is small. A few thousand cramped into muddy lanes and hugging the twin rivers behind half-wood half-stone city walls. They're a diverse bunch: like a microcosm of Kijów, one could find as many Jews, Armenians, and Calvinist transplants from the Crownlands and Lithuania proper as they could Ruthenians. Things seem harmonious enough, with only a few rabble-rousers and gangs bothering the townsfolk, the threads of the quilt holding, praise God.
You quickly come to understand that this is a river city. Despite its upstream position on Dniepr, Orsza bears the distinction of being great Smolensk's only downstream neighbor – everything that city produces, bound for Kijów and beyond, must pass through Orsza.
As your servants get to work unpacking a new life into Orsza Castle, the local officials begin to file through, introducing themselves: the military tribune, the magistrate, the steward, the standard-bearer. It's the Starost, this Kmita fellow who so intrigues and frightens you, who comes last.
He looks like a damned Zaporozhian! A fantastically drooping mustache adorns his weathered face, and it seems like there may be very little hair under his cap. He bows with a flourish. "Your Serene Highness: your starost, sir, Filon Kmita of my family's Radwan banner. I have been most eager to meet you."
"Likewise, Lord Kmita." He seems more like a hussar than a web-weaver. "Your reputation precedes you!"
"Does it now?" he grins. "Dashing or duplicitous, Your Serene Highness?"
"Well, they frequently come tied together, no?" you joke; he laughs. "A courageous horseman is a cunning one."
Kmita brushes off his shoulders, feigning modesty. "Well, I am good with the cavalry…" he looks to you for a laugh which you willingly provide. Even if he's a threat.
"I'm told you're most capable, Lord Kmita," you emphasize. "In subterfuge and in battle; I'm glad to have you on our side, sir."
Nothing wrong with buttering him up. "And it is good to make the acquaintance of Your Serene Highness!" he points and chuckles like an uncle. "Look at that ear! That's fresh."
"Indeed. I'm learning fast," you say with some weariness.
"Clearly! Well, Your Serene Highness, if I may get down to business?"
"Please."
"Well," he begins, looking to the ceiling in a search for words. "Well… It's been a long while since we've had a castellan here. Really doing castellan's work, that is. So, well…"
"Yes?"
"Well, the Voivode — you've met him?"
Lord Stanisław Pac, in Witebsk. No, you haven't. Perhaps he's waiting for you to come to him. "I have not."
"He reckons me to be the authority around here and, to be frank, I agree," Kmita says. "I've done eight years here now, and have done and seen a very good deal against Iwan; the soldiers, the spies, I even manage the courts."
You decide to answer directness with directness. "So you're saying I'm in your house, sir?"
"In a word — yes, Your Serene Highness. But I know your superior rank and title and so I very much hope to work closely with you."
"That can be done. Well, so, the first thing you can do is tell me of this place, as one who truly lives here." You want to let him know here and now that there isn't an imperious bone in your body, such is a man born under Cancer. So say those apostates, that is.
And Lord Kmita does: it's a proud diatribe about his spies in the high halls of Moskwa, his crack squadrons of Zaporozhian riders and noble hussars, capable of stopping any raid by Tatar or "Caesar" alike. He points a thumb at himself: "and the taxmen hardly dare skim off the top anymore!"
After a few weeks, it's apparent that it wasn't bluster: this section of Witebsk Voivodeship runs like clockwork. The peasants leave each other be, the taxes are paid, the ferries come and go on time and do so unmolested. Muscovite riders dare not cross the border, but are taken care of when they do — the hanging trees your brother Krzysztof once boasted of are scattered across the scrublands.
This is a predicament. Are your hands bound?
[] Let's to Witebsk to meet with Voivode Pac.
While not necessarily coming in appeal, showing some deference in spite of your princely rank to your colleague and pseudo-superior could open doors, unfog some stunned eyes. Kmita would accompany and there would likely be the tone of a summit.
[] Begin working with Kmita closely.
Attempt to learn more about this character of a man from the source itself; he'd be spying on you in any event should he indeed be a spy, you figure. This is his little fiefdom and, while refusing open deference, you're sending a clear message of cooperation and consensus, however naïve you may wind up being.
[] Investigate Kmita.
A spy is a spy and may just be a *spy.* But where to begin? Who to find out from? As far as you're aware, there's no French liaisons in town. Right? Embedding some of your men amongst Kmita's riders — framed as an act of good faith — could yield answers. Or is this paranoia for nothing, risking angering a true spy's spy?
[] Kick back and relax.
This is a gilded cage. Or maybe a bronze cage or some such. Maybe just a cage. Why not make the best of it? After all, you have your own little castle, Mariana, your retainers, and most importantly God. Focus on personal ties, spirituality, and sport as you wait out the Frenchman.
