Mariana swallows; her mouth and throat are dried-out from the night's wine. She looks to it for courage, facing down the most powerful woman she's ever met. "Whatever my husband told you," she says, "not that." Stanisław told her about his meeting with Anna, how he tried and failed to convince her, and made it into a mere point of propaganda that she would be a legitimizing factor. She wants to hear of a realm her late brother, the King, would be glad to pass down, thinks Mariana.
The Infanta lets out a little chuckle and raises her eyebrows. The other princess presses on: "because… Because the Archduke is young, and healthy, and from a family healthy enough to marry into half the titles in Christendom, Your Highness" she says. "Because the right pacts and bargains made now, God willing, would serve the Twin Nations for fifty years, a hundred years – all of Maciej's natural life and beyond." Which will, of course, be longer than yours, Your Highness. "The throne would be occupied for decades, by a young man who will be made a Pole by absorption, keeping the realm stable for years to come." She feels like an orator. She is. She hopes. "Your Highness, How long may we expect Prince Batory to live; how long would it really be after his crowning that we would be met with yet another Sejm? Yet more instability?" she asks. Rhetoric! Like a man! Mariana would be excited to try her hand at this were she also not so nervous. But she's doing it because she has to, perhaps just like her husband.
Infanta Anna smiles, eyes downcast with thought – she nodded along all the while through Mariana's first ever little speech, and continues to do so. A moment passes before she looks up to meet Mariana's gaze. "Lady princess, you seem to not understand that I have no desire for real power. Personal power, that is. A queen-consort will always wield half a scepter, of course, whether her husband wills it or not."
"Indeed," says Mariana. "The higher a man is, the higher his wife. A little landlord's lady has very little to do, I'd imagine."
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure," replies the Infanta, "once your husband comes into some land, some wealth of his own, you'd be shocked to see the amount of work a wife must pick up when he's not on his estates. I've been around for a long while. We can always be more than ornaments and bargaining chips."
"It's awfully difficult."
"Awfully," Anna agrees. "I'm unwed at fifty-two because they could never sell me to just the right man. I'm used to sitting and waiting. You – you're young, you're powerfully-wed; you'll have your chance." She waves her hand. "But that's all digression, forgive me."
Well, this is perplexing. "Your Highness says all this, but still isn't desirous of real power? I could never bear being a plaything for decades," says Mariana, hoping that she didn't offend just now – it sort of just slipped out.
"No, no, you misunderstand me, lady princess," replies the Infanta, looking almost shocked. "I hated it, but now? I'm a little tired of it all. I am content to weave and play cards, or, at least, I am resigned to such a prison. Though I make my presence known," she adds with a hint of pride. "The prospect of co-ruling intrigues, I'll confess, but it does not excite." Mariana stares. "You still seem confused: I'm much more interested in preserving the legacy of my family. I said I care not for personal power."
"Your Highness wishes to uphold the legacy of His Royal Majesty the King Zygmunt August and his august father?"
"Yes. Why, lady princess, do you think that I committed so much of my inheritance to the Royal Castle, to the great bridge at Warszawa, and to the mausoleum of my dear brother?" she asks, from her tone not expecting an answer. "I will be the last of the direct line of Władysław Jagiełło and Jadwiga to reside in their ancestral homelands. My sisters are far away. I must act as my brother and father would."
Perhaps Infanta is to Anna as Mariana is to Maryna, thinks the younger princess. Everything here is family, blood, and the honor and dignity of menfolk. But this is the position Anna has staked for herself, it seems. Is this what noble spinsters are like? No, thinks Mariana, they are all different. Like anybody.
"I cannot and will not speak for the dead, especially not those so noble as our departed monarchs," says Mariana diplomatically. "But stability, a guiding hand – Your Highness could help mold one of the finest kings the land has ever known, in the image of Your Highness' family."
"But does the Prince Batory not possess the experience of rulership and leadership, on the battlefield and in a court?"
"He does," Mariana concedes, "he does. But such men are set in their ways, are they not? He will rule this place as he rules Transylvania, for better or for worse. In the Archduke we have a clean slate, who can reliably live for forty, fifty, sixty years. His will have for himself an entire era, rather than a singular generation."
"And he is, what, eighteen years of age? He is hardly grown; how may he turn out by the time he's thirty? We know Prince Batory to be fully-formed."
"But that is where Your Highness will become the mother of the nation."
The Infanta snorts. "The rumors of my fertility are untrue," she says. "I don't know why I confide this in you. I will mother nothing."
"But Your Highness will mother him," says Mariana. She smiles. "Your Highness knows how young men crave mothers."
Anna looks toward her notes, and takes a sip from a goblet resting on the table. "I will be wed to whoever the Sejm deems fit. And call me Anna, may I refer to you as…"
"And let that man be Matthias Habsburgiensis, Archidux Austriae," Mariana nearly interrupts. "...Anna," she adds furtively. "And 'Maryna.' It's my Ruthenian name, my birth name."
"Well, Maryna, your proposal intrigues me. You're wiser than your husband, I dare say."
Princess Sapieha grins, almost grimaces at what may well be the truth of it. Anna goes on: "I cannot make a public declaration, it would throw the Sejm into chaos, and undo the honor of my male protectors."
"Of course." That is the truth of it. Maryna thinks back to the day her father told her that it would be Stanisław. A mix of dread and elation that it would be the one she -- however vaguely -- fancied. A fine family, power for her own people; she felt like a queen. A powerless, powerful queen.
"Tell me, do you weave?" asks Anna.
"On occasion," replies Maryna, honest. "I've made a tapestry or two. I did it more of it when I was a virgo."
"Do not give up on it," says Anna. You sound like an aunt, a grandmother. Not a bad thing. "It is a valuable skill. It teaches one discretion, patience, and the importance of laying each thread slowly, carefully. Tell me, what do you know of the Archduke's character?"
"Well," thinks Maryna, "he's no weaver. He's fiery, hungry – a third son. Did you hear of his remarks at Stężyca? Third sons are always a little adrift, wanting to grab on to something and hold; I married one," she chuckles.
Anna returns the laugh. "Oh, Maryna, you should have been born a man. Astute," she says. "Astute. You'd do well in a Sejm. Reading them is half the battle."
"I don't wish to imply that Your High– that you would need to make a decision, Lady Anna."
"Perhaps he will be domineering, though; you overlook that. The relative meekness, if I may say so, of your husband…"
"But what if he's scared? Acting as a peacock does," says Maryna. She loves to call them peacocks – that's all they are, sometimes, vibrant colors and great feathers hiding the fact that they are merely birds. And only little different from a peahen in behavior, manners, flesh, the Gospels, Mariana dares to think, be damned. This is life.
"He will surely take mistresses. You know what peacocks are like, Maryna. And that's where his ear will truly lie."
"My lady Anna, you will be queen nevertheless."
"Maybe so. And, again," she sighs, "I don't know why I feel the need to be so honest: your proposal has interested me. What of the Turks?"
This woman is smart. She must have time to read – like Maryna used to; the life of an unwed woman allows for much time-biding. She is speaking for the dead. "The Sejm will take care of that," replies Maryna. "They would never allow for such a foreign entanglement."
"But, I am confused, Maryna," she says, enunciating the words just a bit too hard; Maryna reads this confusion as mock in nature. "Will the Sejm govern, will I govern, will the Archduke govern? Who shall it be?"
"All three," says Maryna. "Such is the nature of our government, the men's liberty." For it is the men's, after all. Ah-ha. "It shall be a matter of weaving. We women must be quiet."
Anna nods. "We must be, and it shall be a difficult tapestry to tackle. This is a strange pair of countries, unlike any other in Christendom, any other in the world."
"Lady Anna, you will always have one ear of the Archduke. I don't know if the same could be said of Prince Batory." She feels courage in her breast, a willingness to speak plainly now. "I have advised my lord Stanisław more than once, done work for him that should be a man's. If I was wedded off to some old bachelor – he wouldn't listen."
"Maybe so, maybe so."
"Young men need mothers," Maryna reemphasizes. "Whether they have one or not. He will cling to his bedfellow, even if he takes on other ones. Mater Archiducis, Mater Poloniae."
"You sound regal speaking Latin, Maryna," smiles Anna. "Surely your husband will have the ear of the Archduke, should he win?"
"He would." Boldness, boldness, boldness – say it! "And may I have yours. I swear by the Trinity that you will have me for a friend, Anna, no matter what happens. With our husbands' help, we may form a faction together."
"You are a brave young lady, Maryna, and smart, too," she says. "But do not try to tempt me on such matters. Shall I repeat myself as to where my interests lie?"
"I… I'm sorry, Your Highness."
"My name is Anna," she says flatly. "We have established that. But, perhaps I shall be a link between the old and new, the aged and the young. This youthful clique that would form – the young Ostrogski lads, your husband, Jan Firlej's sons, still at their studies in the Empire." She's swaying! "They will need good women."
"There has been talk of the marriage between Jan Zamoyski and the sister of Prince Mikołaj Kryzsztof – the one they call Sierotka," divulges Maryna. It's a gamble; even Stanisław is tight-lipped on the matter. "Anna – we are poised to form a strong new order. An order of young men, ruled by law, custom, tolerance, their consciences and the liberty so newly established. They are scions that would make His late Royal Majesty proud," she is at last willing to say.
"The Radziwiłłowie dream of undoing the Union of Lublin."
"But will that ever come to pass?" asks Maryna. Surely she must know that the Sapiehowie straddle that line. "I'm not so sure. The Crownlanders in government will form a counterweight to my husband and his father and brothers. There will be unity between the Crown and Grand Duchy," she says, feeling bullish, mannish, steel-strong. A good feeling. "And it will be the Archduke and yourself that will form the glue. Prince Batory wields a mace against his foes; he would treat his opponents here as he would his foes in Transylvania. Just because his estates elected him doesn't mean that he will rule as an elected man."
"And the Habsburgs are such models of consensus and liberty?" snorts Anna.
"They are not. But the Archduke knows not of such things. He wishes to become a Polonian."
"We shall see, Maryna," is all the older woman says. She reaches for her goblet again.
"We shall, Lady Anna. And you will be there in any case."
"I will be."
"And let you be there as your own woman," says Maryna. "As a true Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania. Not as some man's lynchpin of legitimacy."
Anna scratches at the corner of her lip. "We shall see," she repeats.
Maryna, becoming Princess Mariana once more, knows that Anna would be a fool to divulge her intentions. But she also knows that the realm will hear of it, in whispers and rumors, in servants' halls spreading to the lesser courtiers to the greater ones and then onward to the Sejm. And may the young Lady Radziwiłłowa be the one to have convinced her.
"You may take your leave, Maryna," says the Infanta. She looks warm. "You are a formidable young lady. And persuasive."
[] One last push, one last push.
Perhaps it's pride, thinks Mariana, but I want to hear her say it.
[] Disengage.
Leave her to her decision.
