Chapter Text
The summer evening by the creek in Dvorce was thick and stifling. The air smelled of Sun baked earth, sweet flag, and the cloying, sugary scent of blooming linden trees. In this corner of Moravia, hidden behind a dense wall of weeping willows, the world of grand politics, family ambitions, and noble duties felt distant, almost imaginary.
The village was slowly settling in for the night. From the direction of the manor buildings looming in the dark, no troubling sounds could be heard. Old Lord Kobyla, the stern and proud overseer of these lands, was resting after a long day of managing the estate, utterly clueless about what was happening beyond his walls. To him, as to the entire countryside, Radzig was still just the obedient, perfect heir who would one day inherit the family lands and marry a lady from a proper, wealthy house.
Jana sat on a mossy, fallen log, her fingers gripping the rough linen of her skirt. Her heart was hammering against her ribs so violently it caused her physical pain.
Even though no one had followed them, and their meetings had remained a deep secret for months, every rustle of leaves, every snapping twig, or the splash of a fish in the water made her flinch with fear. The burden she had been carrying inside for the past few weeks had become unbearable.
Finally, she heard footsteps. Heavy, resolute, yet planted with practiced caution. She would have recognized that step among a thousand others.
Radzig emerged from the thicket. He wasn't wearing armor, a heavy collar, or a wealthy belt. He wore a simple, light shirt, unbuttoned deep at the chest, with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Despite this plain attire, his silhouette tall, naturally erect and the way he moved instantly gave away a man used to giving orders.
His face showed the exhaustion of a whole day spent by his father's side, but the moment his eyes landed on Jana, his features softened, and that rare, warm smile he reserved only for her appeared at the corners of his mouth.
"Jana," he spoke softly, and his deep, calm voice had its usual soothing effect on her.
He stepped closer and sat beside her on the damp wood. She felt the heat radiating from his body. Radzig reached out immediately to take her hands, but she pulled them back sharply, clutching her stomach and hiding her fingers in the folds of her skirt. The man frowned, and anxiety immediately clouded his dark eyes.
"What is happening? Your letter... the mill boy brought it to me this morning. You wrote just one sentence, asking me to meet you here by the creek. Your hand was shaking, Jana. What happened? Tell me, for God's sake, did one of my father's men insult you? Did someone threaten you? Say the word, and I swear that man will bitterly regret ever coming into this world."
Jana couldn't bring herself to look at him. She fixed her gaze on the ground, staring at the tips of her worn-out shoes. She was terrified that if she met those wise, loving eyes, she would lose what little composure she had left and just burst into tears.
No one knew about them; no one suspected a thing. They were safe in their deceptive idyll, but she knew that the words about to be spoken would shatter this world once and for all.
"It's worse, Radzig," she whispered, her voice cracking dangerously. "For you... for your father, and for everything that old man has built, it is the worst thing that could have happened."
Radzig had no intention of tolerating this distance any longer. He moved closer, took her chin gently but firmly in his hand, and forced her to lift her head. With his thumb, he wiped away a single, hot tear that had just rolled down her cheek.
"Speak to me plainly," he demanded softly, a boundless tenderness accompanying the anxiety in his voice. "You know there is nothing in this world we cannot face together. My father may rule in Dvorce, he may plan my marriages and my future, but he has no power over my heart. And it belongs to you. Nothing will change that."
Jana took a deep, shaky breath. She loved him so much it hurt. She loved his strength, his protectiveness, and the fact that around him, she never felt like just some village girl a young lord plays with in a haystack. He treated her as his equal. And that was exactly why she felt this situation would ruin him.
"I am pregnant, Radzig," she finally choked out, and the words sounded like a death sentence in the silence of the night. "I am carrying your child."
As she said it, she grabbed his large hand calloused from the reins and the sword and desperately pressed it against her stomach, right beneath the linen shirt.
The silence that fell between them seemed endless. The only sound was the monotonous rush of water scraping against the rocks and the steady chirping of crickets in the grass.
Jana closed her eyes, bracing herself for the worst. She knew the realities of this world. She knew how these stories ended.
A nobleman does not marry a blacksmith's daughter, a simple girl from a working-class family. Old Lord Kobyla, if he found out, would have a stroke from pure rage. He would banish her from Dvorce, perhaps have her beaten, and send his son to a monastery or to war, just to wash away the stain on the family honor.
She expected Radzig, even if he loved her, to yield to the harsh logic of his station. She expected him to press a purse full of silver into her hand, shed a tear, and tell her to run somewhere where no one knew her, promising that someday, in secret, he would send support.
However, Radzig's hand, which she held against her belly, did not pull away. On the contrary she felt his fingers spread wide, as if he wanted to shield this unborn life from all the evil in the world. His grip grew firm, almost possessive.
Jana opened her eyes and froze in astonishment. Radzig was smiling.
There wasn't an ounce of fear in his gaze, not a shred of cold calculation or disgust. Instead, it held a fierce, untamed pride and a pure joy so powerful it struck her dumb. In his eyes, usually so hard and focused, rare tears glistened.
"My child..." he repeated in a whisper, his voice trembling with an emotion she had never heard from him before. "Our child, Jana."
"Radzig, you don't understand, come to your senses!" Jana began to panic, terrified by his reaction. "We have to... you have to think reasonably! If your father finds out, he will kill us both! He will curse you, disinherit you, kick you out of the house in nothing but your shirt! You have duties to this house, to your name! You have a great future ahead of you at the court in Prague; the king has already noticed you, you'll get your own lands! And I... I will disappear. Since no one suspects anything, we can still fix this. I'll leave tonight, run far away, tell people my husband died... I won't ruin your life!"
"Silence, Jana," he interrupted her suddenly, and his voice rang with the same steel he used to cut down enemies in skirmishes. Yet, the look he gave her remained soft, overflowing with boundless love. "You are not disappearing anywhere. And you will not lie to anyone."
"Radzig, I beg of you!" Tears were now streaming freely down her cheeks, wetting his hand which he still held against her face. "Your father will never forgive you for this! You will lose everything you are! You will become a nobody!"
The man moved so close she could feel the violent thumping of his heart and his hot breath on her lips.
"You are wrong," he said slowly, deliberately, as if making a vow before God himself at an altar. "I would lose everything I am if I abandoned you now. Who would I be in my own eyes, Jana? A coward hiding behind his old father's back and a family coat of arms? A man who trades the life of his own child for the price of Moravian estates and a noble title? I love you. Do you hear me? I love you more than life itself. And I love this unborn child growing inside you. I will not trade you for Dvorce, nor for any castle in Bohemia, nor for any office, nor for all my father's gold."
Jana stared at him, stunned. The world around them ceased to exist. She saw in his eyes an absolute, unshakeable, and almost terrifying certainty. Radzig Kobyla, the great hope of his lineage, was ready to burn his world to its very foundations. For her. For a village girl he had fallen in love with, defying all the laws of this land.
"So... what do you want to do?" she asked in a barely audible whisper, suspended between utter terror and a wild hope dawning in her heart.
"We run. Tonight," he answered without a second's hesitation, glancing toward his family manor with open contempt. "I will leave it all behind. I'll pack only the essentials and take two of the best horses from my stable. Since no one suspects a thing, we have until dawn before anyone notices my absence. We will ride out of here, leave Moravia. I've heard of wealthy lands in Bohemia, near the Sassau... there is a settlement there, Skalitz. They have silver mines, they are building a castle. No one knows us there, no one asks about the lineage of those looking for honest work. I will shed these robes. I will work with my hands. You know how to manage a household, I will enlist in the guard or learn blacksmithing. Anything. As long as we are together. As long as our son... or our daughter grows up seeing their father at the table every day, not as some stranger lord tossing them alms from high up in his saddle because he's ashamed to admit his own blood."
Jana pressed her forehead against his chest, finally letting the sobs rack her body. But it was no longer a sob of despair. It was relief, massive and overwhelming. These weren't the pipe dreams of a lovesick boy. This was the plan of a mature, resolute man who had just made the most important choice of his life.
"It's madness..." she whispered, nesting into his shoulder and finally giving in to the wave of love and security he offered. "Your father will send a hunting party after us the moment he notices you're gone in the morning. He will be furious. He will search all of Moravia."
"Let him. By the time he realizes my bed is empty, we will be far beyond the borders of his lands." Radzig cupped her face, forcing her to look at him again, then pressed his forehead against hers, closing his eyes and inhaling the scent of her hair. "It's our madness, Jana. Yours and mine. And I swear to you on Christ's wounds, no one will take it from us."
He pulled her close and kissed her hard, deep, almost fiercely, sealing the verdict they had just passed on themselves. Yet, despite everything, Jana still possessed a bit of sense.
"The coins will run out, Radzig," Jana whispered suddenly, pulling back an arm's length so she could look straight into his eyes. Her voice, though quiet, was now frighteningly sober. "You'll take a purse, maybe two. How long will that last? A year? Two? Silver melts away faster than it seems when you have to pay for a roof over your head in a strange place, buy flour, winter clothes... And then? What will you do when the silver is gone?"
Radzig wanted to say something, but she placed a finger on his lips, refusing to let him interrupt. Tears still lingered in her eyes, but behind them peered the harsh pragmatism of a girl who had known since childhood exactly how much a loaf of bread cost.
"You don't understand what ordinary life is," she continued, her hand sliding down onto his broad chest. "You weren't born for this. Your hands... yes, they are rough from the sword and the reins, but you've never held a scythe for hours on end in the blazing sun. You've never starved because winter came too early and the provisions spoiled. You don't know what it means to wake up with your hands rubbed raw and bleeding, knowing that tomorrow you have to do the exact same thing just to have a handful of food. You are a lord, Radzig. You have a proud soul. What will you do when some strange bailiff in Skalitz yells at you? When he treats you like a dog because to him, you'll just be another penniless drifter? I'm afraid... I'm afraid you won't bear it. That this love will turn to resentment when exhaustion and poverty begin to choke us."
Radzig listened to her in silence, not interrupting with a single gesture. His face, illuminated only by the faint moonlight filtering through the willow leaves, seemed carved from stone. Only when she finished did he take a deep breath. He raised his hands the very ones she had spoken of and turned them palms up.
"You are right, Jana. I don't know what hunger is, and I don't know true squalor," he spoke, his voice calm, stripped of any noble arrogance. "But I know one thing. I have strong arms, common sense, and a will my father failed to break, though he tried all my life. You think I will break because someone yells at me? I will endure it. If the price for your safety and our child's is working in dirt and sweat, I will pay it without blinking an eye. I will learn blacksmithing. Your father said more than once that I have a good eye for iron. I will pound that damn metal until my arms fall off, just so you two have food to eat."
He paused for a moment, then took both of her hands, squeezing them tightly.
"And we will not live in sin, Darling. I am not running away with you to keep you in a corner as my concubine. The moment we cross the Moravian border and reach the first safe church where the priest won't ask for old Lord Kobyla's permission... I am marrying you."
Jana caught her breath. Her heart leaped into her throat.
"Radzig... you can't. A nobleman and..."
"Nobleman Radzig Kobyla disappears tonight," he cut her off firmly, putting an end to her doubts. "Before the altar, it will just be Radzig. A man taking the woman he loves more than his own life as his wife. You will become my wife before God and men. Our child will be born wedlock, with a father who wears the same ring on his finger as his mother. Even if it has to be a simple iron band, and not gold with a coat of arms."
He drew her closer, wrapping his arms around her so tightly as if he wanted to wall her off from the entire world they were leaving behind.
"I don't promise you palaces, because we won't have them," he whispered into her hair. "But I promise you that you will never have to feel ashamed of me, or of what we decided today. I can do this, Jana. Because as long as you believe in me, I am stronger than my father's entire army."
Jana closed her eyes, letting the last of her resistance wash away with her final tears. Hearing the determination in his voice, for the first time, she believed that this crazy plan might actually work.