The new post

Radzimierz walked past the long line of well dressed and groomed gentlemen standing around in the lobby of the the Offices of the Regency Council. Men begging for offices and titles. It wasn't of course how the system worked. The front door was all but closed. However the facade was important to the stability of the state. Giving men a course to run, no matter how hopeless gave them some measure of satisfaction over having done something. It gave them hope, even if it was largely a construct.

Radzimierz wondered briefly how such a similar system might work in his own homeland, who's history was rife with examples of men consolidating and jeliously hoarding power, and their inevitable downfall.

For all their faults the Poles would never tolerate such a sham. They would rather burn the nation to its foundations than accept such indignity. Radzimierz was also worldly enough to understand how people might find such a tradition of sedition and revolt barbaric, but he felt deeply that it at least provided a man with at least the dignity of holding some measure of his fate in his own hands.

Thankfully his father had some experience in "western" political circles and was able to secure him with a sponsor. An officer in the Admiralty who had spent some time in Danzig as a guest of the family. It was at a time in the war where France was hoping to gain the assistance of Charles of Sweden in their war with the Hapsburgs.

Radzimierz never met the Duke himself, but rather he met regularly with some minor functionary of the Council. A pompous yound Count, who took great care in injecting importance into everything he said in a despirate gambit to inflate the status of his own office. This had the effect of making every meeting an exercise in nausiating boredom. Radzimierz found it took great restraint on his part to avoid grabbing him by the necktie in an effort to shake the words out of him.

Most of these meetings went the same way, and they only took place once every couple of months. It helped to maintain the illusion that Radzimierz was actually performing the duties of his office, rather than having been appointed to it as a personal favor.

As a Naval Attache, he spent most of his time in the company of French navy captains as a guest and observer aboard their vessels. He learned a lot over the last year, and he didn't consider it the complete waste of time he had anticipated it would be. He actually found that sometimes he enjoyed being on a ship and wondered how it would be to have a commision as captain himself some day. As it was, the closest he had come was the time he spent on board a grain hauler to Aberdeen for his mother's company.

As Radzimierz approached the door to the office of the man who gave him his letters and posts, a young footman saluted him and pulled open the door to the small waiting room adjacent to main offices of the young Count. How many people they had in France to perform even the most menial tasks!

He wondered where his next assignment would take him, but his thought was interrupted by the abrupt entrance of the Count. Radzimierz could never remember his name, and he wasn't sure that it mattered anyways.

"Seigneur, there have been some rather interesting developments as of late, Your presence is expected at an audience with the Regent himself."

Radzimeirz thought he detected the acid tone of envy in the functionary's voice. He probably hoped every hour of his life for such a calling, and likely had sold his honor and soul for the mere chance at acheiving that end.

Stepping into the office, he wondered to himself if it really was important.