---Most of my historical work is as accurate as I know how to make it. On this one, I might have stretched the truth, just a little bit.

I remember exactly how I first met the great Tados Wolczynski, even the precise time and place. It was on March 7, 1241 and outside of the little town of Chimielnick, in Poland, north of Cracow and west of Sandomierz.

I was twenty-one then and the captain of the Winged Hussars of Kazimierz, a suburb of Cracow. The Kazimierz Hussars were twenty lances of light cavalry, twenty-one counting me and my squires, and my lieutenant was little Illia Kulczyinski.

Ah, little Illia. It has been a long while since I've thought of him. He was well educated and had good voice; also, in horse archery, he was the best shot in all of Cracow. He talked nice and he shot good. No. Usually, it was that he shot good and then he talked nice, which made him a fine lieutenant.

On morning of seventh, we were on wide array, with one hundred ells between each man, looking for the army of Batu Khan, who was invading us. Just as the tierce bell started ringing, I saw one of Illia's pages riding toward us like the Devil Himself was chasing him with two pitchforks.

Even before he got to me, I called rally, and started both wings wheeling toward Illia's position. The little page was about nine years old, and too excited to talk.

"Tartars?" I said to him, and he nodded 'Yes!'

The comming battle would not be a good place for small boys. Mostly to get them away, I send him with my pages to report the contact to Duke Boleslaw of Mazovia, who commanded our army.

The history books now call that man `Boleslaw the Chaste'. The politest thing we called him was `Boleslaw the Bashful'. I don't think that he was really a homosexual. I think that he was just too stupid to know what to do with an eager peasant girl.

"For God and Saint Mary!" I yelled and the Kazimierz Winged Hussars charged toward the enemy.

Illia was half a mile away. We rode over a hill and saw him across a valley shaped like big bowl of borsch. By the time that day was over, it looked like a bowl of borsch -- wet, and the same color. But now it was covered with a low mist that came up to the stirrups of the riders, and the hundred Mongols across the valley looked like an Armada of strange boats.

Illia did not wait until the rest of squadron joined him. In fact, I think perhaps he did not see us at all, but totally and completely alone with his six squires he rode by himself at the Mongols, followed by the little page who had been ordered to stay behind, but couldn't do that. Polacks do not fight smart like the Germans do. We fight like we make love -- with passion!

So Illia charged at the front of his men, covering himself completely with glory. They all had their bows out, but no one was ever as good as Illia. As fast as the beating of my heart, red feathered arrows flew from his bow. I tell you that there are six of them in the air before first one was stopped in a Tartar's eyeball. With my own eyes I saw thirty Mongols fall there, killed by our Polish arrows!

At the last possible moment, they cased their bows and leveled their lances as they closed on the Tartars. Such a beautiful, terrible sight was Illia, with the red feathers of Cracow flashing high above the iron wings of the Hussars! Seven it was against seventy as they hit that Mongol line. I saw little Illia parry two Tartar javelins at the same time, only they threw three at him, and Illia was first of our men to fall. A few of his squires managed to circle him, protecting his body, but outnumbered ten to one they were cut down like so much barley at harvest time.

All of this time, rest of the Kazimierz Hussars were not idle. The battle before us was too tangled with friends and foes mixed together for us to dare to use our bows, but as silent as ghosts, we charge through a mist that came up to our horses' bellies. So intent were the Mongols on killing Illia's men that they never saw us until first dozen of them died on our lances. We cut through them like a plow going through dry sand!

All of Illia's men were down except for that one little page who stood above his master's body, swinging Illia's saber with both of his little hands. I almost saved that boy. I was almost in time, but a Mongol spear pierced his tiny body just as my long, hollow lance took that Mongol in back of the neck. They fell on top of each other, and died like two old friends in each other's arms.

I think that we killed every man in that Tartar Hundred. I think that not one of those greasy bastards lived to tell of Illia's death.

But just as the last of them died, three hundred more yellow bastards came charging over the lip of the bowl. I get off maybe five arrows before they were on us.

Time to regroup? Hah! We didn't even have time to bleed!

In fifty heartbeats, half of us were wounded, and the rest of us were dead. My shield was gone and my lance was broken. I make the Sign of The Cross with my sword hilt and fought on, ready for death, thinking that if I could just kill another dozen of the yellow shitheads, I will would have a magnificent honor guard to escort me into Hell!

I had an arrow in my left shoulder and sword cut on my left wrist, and just as I knew that we would all be heaped up on top of the bloody Tartars we had just killed, I heard the shouting of the Sandomierz battle cry! I saw the white feathers and the iron wings of the Sandomierz Hussars! And at head of fifty lances I saw for the first time the Great Tados Wolczynski, cutting through those Mongols like a manure fork going through shit!

Like the winter wind he rode, and his hollow lance took the first Mongol in the face, killing the heathen long before he was trampled by our Polish chargers. He took the second Tartar with a spear through the throat, and third bastard, seeing the first two, covered his face with his shield! Tados caught that one between the saddle and the armor, splashing the guts out, but breaking his spear on the cantle of the Tartar's saddle.

Out came his sword, and yellow heads went flying in all directions. They went flying too much! One spiked helmet -- including a head -- hit my horse in eye and she fell like sack of wheat. I jumped just
in time, and managed to climb up onto a horse that used to belong to one of Illia's squires.

Now the Kazimierz and Sandomierz Winged Hussars were chopping those Tartars into such little bits that it would only have been necessary to add salt, raw eggs, and onions to make Tartar Steak. Anyway, that is where the name comes from.

But before we could finish the job, a thousand Mongols came over that hill and it was our turn to get slaughtered again, and to be rescued again, this time by the Gniezno Heavy Cavalry.

The whole day went like that -- no plan, no strategy, just individual units smashing into the enemy wherever they could find the bastards. By end of the day, Boleslaw the Bashful sent twenty-five thousand heroic Polish fighting men charging into battle, covering themselves completely with glory. Unfortunately, during the same time period, Batu Khan sent sixty thousand.

They were yellow shitheads, but they still won.

By nightfall, besides the wounds I mentioned earlier, I had lance wounds in my left thigh and calf. I had stopped a mace with my helmet and blood was running over my eye. I was on my fourth horse of the day, this one a little Mongol pony with bad temper -- probably because of the arrow in his rump.

I was fighting in a tiny band of hussars. Very tiny. Me and Tados. Every one of my beautiful Kazimierz Hussars was dead, and of the White Wings of Sandomierz, only Tados was still alive.

He was bleeding from six places, and I said, "Tados, you ride well for man who is so bloody!"

"Ha, Yashoo! That is because I am the only man in all of Poland who can ride evenly balanced on my saddle!"

I didn't know what he meant and anyway, I was soon busy taking the arm off of a nearby Mongol.

Then Tados looked at me and told me, "Yashoo -- our men are dead, our arrows are spent, our spears are broken, our armor is in shreds, and we are beaten. Already, Duke Boleslaw has fled to the south. Is time for us to run away, too."

I nodded "Yes". I put my saber into the scabbard. It didn't fit well. Once, it had been Illia's, the same one that the little page had used. I rode north into the darkness with Tados.

All of Mazovia was infested with Tartars. We killed them when we had a chance to, but most of time we ran, most of the time we hid.

At end of two weeks we were dressed half in Mongol equipment, and the other half in rags. We had lost thirty pounds each and we had many new wounds. But we made it to Lithuania which was not at war and we went into the first public building we found after the border.

As it turned out, it was a cathouse.

Being bachelors, we were not strangers to such a place, but the ladies here are not like tender svelte sweet whores of Cracow. No! These were strong ladies who could pull a plow for twenty or thirty years, maybe. I saw one take the top off of a beer barrel like it was a pop-top can, seven hundred years early! Her friend just bit off the bung and drank one handed!

You know that I am not afraid of anything, and I had been a huge long time without a woman -- three weeks, maybe. But it took twelve stones of beer before I could get up the nerve to ask one of these ladies up to her room. Even then I picked an old one, one who looked as if she might have been sick lately.

As I went up the stairs with this woman, I saw Tados going up the other staircase with two Lithuanian ladies. I shook my head, but there was nothing else that I could do, since my one Lithuanian lady had a grip on my arm.

Mongol lances do not bother me. I can take three black arrows in the chest and fight on. When my helmet was cracked by a golden mace, I killed the Tartar who was swinging it. But after thirty seconds in sack with that Lithuanian prostitute, I had three ruptured discs, two dislocated femurs, and no fighting spirit left in me whatsoever at all.

It was apparently a very typical problem, because very efficiently I was taken to the Commandery of the Knights Hospitalers, who were eager to try to help me. They were so eager because they had just invented a new machine called "traction", and it seemed much safer to try it out on a poor foreigner like me, rather than on some local boy who could sue them.

After two minutes in their new machine, I confessed to all of the crimes committed in Lithuania from the present back to fall of Gomorrah, inclusive. It did me no good at all. They kept me in that machine for two weeks. It did them great deal of good, however, because they soon sold that machine at a monstrous profit to the Spanish Inquisition.

And all this time, when I was not crying like some poor virgin in a convent, I was worrying about Tados, the last man of the Sandomierz Hussars, who was by now surely bashed into two and a half pieces by those Lithuanian whores. As soon as I got out of the hospital, I limped back to the cathouse, to claim his poor body and see to a proper funeral.

But when I got to the cathouse, Tados was very much alive! He was still drinking, surrounded by whores and certain other ladies from the town. Also, they were buying drinks for him and not other way around! This was unprecedented!

"Tados!" I yelled. "What happened to you? One lady put me into the hospital for weeks, and you went up with two ladies! How is it that you are still alive?"

"Yashoo, it is good to see that you healthy. I will tell you the whole story, but it is not fair for me to talk drunk while you must listen sober. I am forty beers ahead of you, so sit down and drink some of this beer that the nice ladies are buying."

Is good that they were buying, because Hospitalers took all of the money I had and sent the rest of the bill to my father, who is dead. I drank fast, trying to catch up, but first I must tell you of a drinking custom observed by all Winged Hussars. The custom is that the first man who has to get up to go to the garterrobe has to pay for all of the drinking up to that time, and I had regretfully no money whatsoever.

So after nineteen stones of beer, Tados saw my problem. "I tell you, Yashoo, there will be no dishonor for anyone if we both go together at same time." Such a fine man!

Arms on shoulders, we staggered back to the Pissatorium, which was a three holer. I took the hole to right and Tados took the other two..... "It is a big problem," he said. "All of the other men in Poland have the easy job of only having to find one woman at a time. Also, fathers and husbands get more angry with me than with people like you.

It is a hard world."

Soon, Tados and I had to leave because all of the men in town were getting jealous. We signed up and fought with the Lithuanians against Alexander Nevski of Novgorod. Then we signed up with Alexander Nevski to fight the Germans, because many of our Lithuanian ladies had fathers and brothers and uncles who did not approve of our behavior, or of us either. And after we beat the Teutonic Knights in the Battle on the Ice, many of the Novgorod gentry become unhappy with us and it was time for us to leave again.

Oh, how I remember the tears of beautiful Natasha Volumskaya and her two pretty sisters who loved Tados so much when we left. But you can only kill so many male relatives before you start to feel guilty about it.

So Tados and I spend the next ten years on the road, fighting our way from Moscow to Madrid, and from Dublin to Constantinople. Sometimes we were rich and most of the time we were broke, but we didn't care. Anytime we were in trouble, there are always three women there to pay our ransom -- or go our bail.

And I loved that wandering life with so much fighting and frolicking. One day we would sleep with broken weapons and dented armor in the cold mud and the next, we might be clean and naked between satin sheets and warm silken legs. Tados liked it too, but there was something he wanted far more.

Tados wanted a home. He wanted a wife. He wanted children. But for him, these things were impossible. You see, it always took two women to completely satisfy him. One alone was like nothing. And while many young ladies were eager to volunteer to share his bed with their sisters, the Holy Church would never permit such a thing to become permanent. He would have been allowed to find happiness among the heathen Moslem Islamic people, but Tados was too good a Christian to live in their lands.

So we wandered, until one time we were in Romania, going from Paris to the Bosphorus, where we had heard that the Emperor needed some good fighting warriors. In a lonely village, we found a tattered sign that told of a big gypsy circus that had gone through weeks before. It told of jugglers and trained bears and knife throwers. And near the bottom, past the games of chance and the tellers of fortunes, there was an item that glued itself semi-permanently to Tados' eyeballs.

It said that in the freak show there was beautiful young lady who had four legs!

Immediately and without hesitation, all thoughts of service to the Emperor were gone from his head, and what could I do but follow my friend and help him search for this missing gypsy caravan?

Months later, we found them in Moldavia and Tados lost no time introducing himself to this pretty lady with the big skirt. Four minutes from to moment he first saw her, he was already walking her into the bushes, leaving me to explain things politely to her father and brothers and uncles and cousins.

"No, no!" I told them. "He is only talking nice to her, and maybe fornicating a little bit, but I assure you....." Alas, they were a violent people with very little sense of humor on topics such as this.

Oh, how I could have used little Illia Kulczyinski then, with his nice talking and good shooting, but fortunately Tados and his girl soon returned with big smiles, so I didn't have to kill too many of her relatives.

The next day, we had a big gypsy wedding, and everybody got drunk, and the very next day after that, word came to us from Poland. It seems that Boleslaw the Bashful was now King of Poland and rumors said that maybe the Mongols were coming back. Suddenly, Tados and Yashoo were no longer persona non grata, because they needed real fighting men again. So the King wrote us both pardons and Bishop of Cracow made up some special indulgences for us, all because of certain youthful indiscretions that we maybe certainly did.

It was Kismet, no? Soon, Tados and pretty Illushia settled down at his family manor near Sandomierz.

Illushia always wore a big skirt that came all the way down to the floor, and when the other ladies in Poland saw that the Great Tados Wolczynski liked a woman in a big skirt, they all had to have big skirts, too. Only, lacking Illushia's natural equipment they had to make big wooden hoop things inside to hold it out in back, a `bustle' I think they called it. It became a big fad that caught on everywhere for six hundred years, but I tell you that nobody could ever shake a bustle like pretty Illushia!

So Tados and Illushia now have twelve children -- six pairs -- and all of the girls have the regulation two legs and the boys all have one rooster each, so they are happy.

Me? When I saw how happy Tados and Illushia were, I got myself a wife and tried to settle down, too. But for me, it didn't work out, so I killed her and became a monk of the Holy Church. I took Vows of Obedience, Poverty and Chastity. Soon, I prospered, and my Vow of Obedience got me the command of a big monastery with six thousand peasants. My Vow of Poverty got me an income of seven million Zloty a year. Is not wise to talk about my Vow of Chastity, but I am happy.

And Mongols have not come back yet, so Poland is happy, too.

Afterword

This story won me a few verbal story telling contests at the SCA, but this is the first time that it has been professionally published. Among certain circles, my major claims to fame are the four lamps I took out about the time the hero was first drawing his sword. Every time I came to that part of the story, a lamp would go flying. Embarrassing. I suspect that maybe, after a while, somebody was putting those lamps there on purpose.

I wrote this story long after I had heard the excelent Joe Haldeman sing his 'Ballad of Stan Long' at one of Lou Tabbako's Relaxacons in Cincinnati, so the basic plot isn't exactly original. At the same time, I rather doubt if Joe was the first to use it, either. The story of a man with two privy members who finds true love with a woman with four legs had to have been told for the first time around a Paleolithic campfire, if not before.

Another thing. Since this story involves two `physically challenged' people who find a `meaningful completeness' living in an `alternate lifestyle' with each other, it just might qualify as a politically correct piece of writing. A unique Frankowski first, and you got it!

---Leo

Tver, Russia, 2004