A Dangerous Climate Read Free Page A

entertained in any way that does not compromise her mission. She also requires that she not know your identity beyond your rank and that you, like her husband, are Hungarian. If you decide to tell her more than your title and origin, she will immediately order your departure. She believes the necessary deception will be less hazardous for both of you with this precaution.
     
Travel will require the same conduct from you as being at Sankt Piterburkh. Zozia, Ksiezna Nisko, herself will have three carriages, two sleighs, four coachmen, six postilions, four maids, a footman, a steward for your household in the new city, and an escort of nine guards. She has also said she will want to engage only trained servants once you arrive there. You will be provided two couriers to carry your messages to me, both of whom will reside with Royal Augustus' Envoy, not as part of your household, so as not to be a charge on you.
     
Given that you will have to wait until the roads are clear before you depart, Augustus II asks that you not travel far from your current retreat at Ciemny Zamek, for if your dissembling is to be successful, the less you are seen as yourself, the less likely it is that you will be unmasked. Arpad, Hercegek Gyor, is known to be reclusive and studious, so it would be well for you to adopt his habits before you assume his identity. Most Royal Augustus has recommended that you depart no earlier than the beginning of April, at which time you will travel from Warsaw to Grodno, and from there to Pskov, and then on to the Neva and Sankt Piterburkh, which should put you there in mid-May. The escort from Royal Augustus' household cavalry that will accompany you will return by ship at the first opportunity, leaving their horses and any remaining supplies with you, so that you will not have to wait on the pleasure of the Czar for the necessities of life.
     
With the Neva free of ice for summer, you should be able to send your reports on Polish ships rather than with couriers, which I most stringently recommend. Once the snows come, neither ship normessenger will be able to leave safely, and any notification you will have for Royal Augustus will be delayed until the weather allows the use of the roads again. If the Neva River did not carry all the ice from Lake Ladoga, it would be a much more convenient port, which I fear the Czar will learn for himself. He may also discover that the islands often flood, for the Swedes complained that their fortress was more a lake than a haven.
     
Through our friends already at Sankt Piterburkh, Royal Augustus has let it be known that Hercegek Gyor does not eat or drink in company, which may protect you from some of the more onerous demands of Russian hospitality. On most grand occasions, guests are urged to excesses in drink and food that have sent many a guest home ill with over-indulgence, yet to refuse such surfeit can give inexcusable offense. It would behoove you to leave such lenience to the Ksiezna, who has participated in Russian entertainments in the past. In regard to your abstemious practices, you may claim a religious reason for your reticence; it may be respected, but as high officials of the Russian Church are expected to sate themselves on many occasions, the ploy may not succeed. You may need to come up with some other explanation for your unwillingness to participate in the required gorging, or you will offend the Czar, which will be against the wishes of Royal Augustus as well as King Jozef. Bear in mind that once you gain the Czar's enmity, your usefulness to the Ksiezna and Royal Augustus are at an end.
     
In addition, you have sworn to Royal Augustus that you are not in any way involved in the uprising in Hungary against the Hapsburgs led by Rakoczi II Ferenc, as you have informed me that the Hungarians style their order of their rulers, with the number before the personal name; do not expect many of the foreigners in Sankt Piterburkh to observe this practice. You