Gedymin Jagiello
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Captain Gedymin Jagiello is a fictional Lithuanian cavalry officer in the Swedish service.
| SPOILER WARNING: Plot or ending details for "The Surgeon's Mate, The Ionian Mission, Treason's Harbor, The Far Side of the World, The Reverse of the Medal, The Letter of Marque" follow. |
Jagiello makes his first appearance in the Aubrey-Maturin series in The Surgeon's Mate, when he accompanies Aubrey and Maturin aboard HMS Ariel on a mission to dislodge the French from Grimsholm, a fictional island in the Baltic Sea occupied by Catalan troops allied with the French. Jagiello is a gifted linguist, fluent in all the Baltic languages, as well as English and French. He acts as interpreter during the mission, and his local knowledge proves useful during the Baltic operation. For example, Jagiello arranges with local military acquaintences for Ariel to be resupplied with gunpowder. Jagiello's connection and friendship with Aubrey and Maturin becomes stronger when he is imprisoned toghether with them in Paris following the wreck of the Ariel.
Jagiello is described as young, handsome, and nearly always cheerful. He is universally admired by nearly every young woman with whom he comes into contact, although through his simple naiveté, he does not always notice the female attention that he receives.
Following The Surgeon's Mate, Jagiello makes a brief appearance near the beginning of The Ionian Mission, before Aubrey and Maturin depart for the Mediterranean aboard HMS Worchester. Jagiello does not directly appear again in the series until the latter stages of The Letter of Marque. However, in the intervening O'Brian novels, Jagiello's character is alluded to several times, as he is rumored to have carried on an affair with Maturin's wife Diana Villiers during Maturin's long absence. These rumors are transmitted to Maturin on multiple occasions by an unknown and anonymous correspondent with apparently malignant motives. The rumors initally appear to have had some foundation when, upon returning to England in The Reverse of the Medal, Maturin finds that Diana has left England to live with Jagiello in Stockholm, Sweden.
Jagiello reappears for the last time in the latter stages of The Letter of Marque when Maturin visits Sweden in an attempt to reconcile with Diana. It is then that Maturin learns that the relationship between Jagiello and Diana was truly innocent, the rumors of their affair were false, and that Jagiello is in fact engaged to be married to a young Swedish woman.
