Once a Ing

Once a King

Part 27 Skryba speaks.

Yes, the man, the scribe that Pawel calls "skryba" speaks to you now.

My parents named me Swydeger, but that was a lifetime ago. They are both in the grave, and if the name had any special meaning, it also was in the grave with them. I was always the studious one, the boy with books and pen and paper rather than a ball and field sports.

So as children do, they assign names by attributes, so I was Bücherwurm. First, the monks took advantage of my talents. I learned much from them, my letters, my penmanship, my trade. But I never took vows, that life--the chastity, the rules, the long hours praying--were not for me. And, honestly, I had already tumbled my Hilda in the hay...and knew that she was more than a tumble in the hay, so I married her and set up shop in the village, a day's walk from the monastery.

As a small town, people went by a single name, just as children do for years; I was simply Schreiber. There were few literate people in the town, but it was a prosperous place, with millers, bakers, armorers, blacksmiths, and farriers, all needing someone to do their correspondence.

I was first aware of Pawel, when I was passing the farriers and he, Pawel, was arguing with the farrier. It seemed so unlikely, this small man, though well dressed and armed, was bullying the farrier who was twice his size. And yet, he never threatened with weapons, it was the giant force of his personality and his violent language.

He later confided, "If you get your way with violent language, there is often little need for weapons."

Despite that, he could be gentle. I think the altercation with the farrier came about because the farrier thought he could cheat this little man, and that the weapons were just props for a weak, small person.

For years, he was an occasional presence in the village. Though well-traveled, having seen much of the world, from the land of the Rus to the frozen north, he found something comfortable in this small place. Perhaps, despite the village's size, it had many things that appealed to him--quiet, running waters, surrounding farmland, makers of fine weapons, brewers and distillers.

I spoke of his gentleness without giving an example. There were few beggars in town, and those he ignored, but there were the peasants, and though working hard, were near the end of their tether at the end of the winter. Their larder was inadequate or spoiled. Somehow, he knew who these were, and planned for their welfare. The recipients never knew who their benefactor was. I knew, only because I drew up the correspondence with his bankers, who provided the funds for their survival.

Where the wealth came from, I could only guess. He had the look of a mercenary, but at that time, he never spoke of any martial adventures. Only later...but I get ahead of my story.

I spent most evenings at home with my lover-and-wife, Hilda. Business decreed that a portion of my evenings must be spent in the only inn-tavern in town. There, I met with travelers who needed my pen or my advice...all of which were relatively dear in this little town, although cheap by the standards of the wider world.

It was also where Pawel stayed when he was in town, or at least, where he stayed when he was not at a certain, isolated farmstead, consoling the farmer's wife while the farmer was away delivering produce to the market town, another day's journey down the road. As the market fairs would last a week, Pawel had a comfortable time with a generous woman.

He later confided, and for this, I initially despised him, for he did not keep confidential the secrets between a man and a woman, that he was in no way any better a lover than the absent husband, he was simply a possibility for something exotic. "She tires of me after a week and I tire of being in the same bed for a week...Ha Ha!

As the reader knows, Pawel often punctuates his sentences with laughter.

I suspected he had some long-lost lover that he pined for and could not stay with the same woman too long or the comparison with his lost love brought him too much pain. But that may have been my romantic nature. I loved my Hilda very deeply. She was smart, funny and an excellent cook. She was not beautiful, physically. She was short, heavy, with pendulous breasts, a round tummy and the buttocks of a horse. Her sex was hairy, her armpits a forest, she had long wiry hairs growing from her nipples, and she had a dark mustache.

And here, I broke my own rule--in bed, she was insatiable. She was my first and only, as I was hers. We had remained faithful to each other for twenty years; we were extremely happy. We developed our lovemaking independent of any other examples. I was also far from handsome. Only slightly taller than the average man, but this was not evident, as I had a permanent stoop from being bent over the writing desk many hours a day. My nose was large...my teeth were bad; I had a big soft belly...my balls hung low between my bowed legs. Still, my generative organ stiffened every night that I slept with my beloved, and she also rode me every morning. I produced boundless seed, but it found no place in her womb.

The town assumed things about us as a couple that were not true--that we were childless because we eschewed sex, that we lived as brother and sister. I had heard the whispers in the tavern when they thought I'd had too much to drink to pay attention.

We were a loving couple in all ways that the deity preferred. We did nothing to prevent conception, but we had not been blessed with offspring. And then, we were getting past that age anyway.

My wife professed not to have minded at all and took great pleasure from our couplings. Although, in truth, we should not couple if we were not making babies. What no one knew, they could not gossip. As it was, they had our story exactly wrong.

But I am uninteresting. I have my homey life, loving wife. I have good, steady-but-mostly-boring work--until, I was engaged by Pawel, to write his story.

My employment by Pawel, how it came to be, and how it was almost immediately terminated is the subject of the next part of the story of Pawel, Once a King.

(Thanks to Kenji Sato as my most patient editor.)

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