Army of the Wolf (27 page)

Nordheim nudged his horse forward when the Lithuanian boat was in midstream.

‘With your permission, lord bishop.’

Albert smiled at Stefan’s deputy and waved him forward.

‘Your Lithuanian allies, Nordheim?’ said Volquin caustically.

Nordheim smiled. ‘
Our
allies, grand master.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ muttered Volquin as Nordheim rode to the water’s edge and slid off his horse’s back to await the Semgallian delegation.

‘You do not trust our new allies, grand master?’ enquired Bishop Albert.

‘We shall see whether they are allies, lord bishop,’ replied Volquin.

‘Archdeacon Stefan trusts them, grand master,’ said the bishop.

‘But not enough to greet them in person, it would seem,’ replied Volquin.

The bishop ignored the insult to his nephew but there was an uncomfortable silence while Nordheim conferred with the bearded Lithuanian warriors on the riverbank and then returned to the bishop.

The commander of Riga’s garrison grinned at Albert. ‘Duke Vincentas awaits you on the opposite bank, lord bishop, and will ride with you to his stronghold at Mesoten.’

‘He did not think to present himself to the bishop in person?’ said Volquin.

Nordheim’s grin disappeared. ‘He waits to greet the bishop as a guest into his kingdom, grand master.’

Volquin examined the far riverbank that was empty of life; beyond it the endless expanse of forest that filled Semgallia.

‘I would advise you to wait here until the army has crossed, lord bishop.’

Nordheim looked annoyed but the bishop laid a hand on the grand master’s arm.

‘I think I should demonstrate faith in the good intentions of Duke Vincentas, grand master. I will cross in the vanguard of the army. Please give the order to commence the crossing of the river.’

Moments later trumpets and drums sounded among the ranks of the crusaders to signal the start of the great logistical exercise of crossing the Dvina. The first to cross were the foot soldiers of the Sword Brothers – the mercenary spearmen and crossbowmen – who boarded oar-powered riverboats that took them across the river. This first contingent numbered two hundred and eighty men.

The second wave was made up of the order’s brother knights, who left their warhorses in the care of the sergeants. Each of the order’s castles had supplied a full contingent of twelve brother knights, to which was added the five knights of the grand master’s office in Riga and the grand master himself. Once on the opposite bank each garrison formed up and began to move into the trees that began less than a hundred paces from the water, only to be met by a host of Semgallians.

‘Ready!’ shouted Henke as fifty or more Lithuanians emerged from the trees, all wearing helmets and long tunics beneath their mail armour. The brother knights formed a long line and drew their swords as the enemy walked towards them.

‘They have crossbowmen,’ said Conrad as he gripped the straps of his shield.

Behind him the crossbowmen loaded their weapons as the spearmen levelled their lances.

‘Do not shoot,’ shouted one of the Lithuanian crossbowmen in German. ‘We are Germans.’

The brother knights looked at each other through their helmet’s vision slits in confusion. One of the Lithuanians came forward, holding his crossbow and other arm aloft.

‘I serve Manfred Nordheim, commander of the garrison of Riga.’

He barked an order in Lithuanian at the other crossbowmen and they likewise raised their crossbows in an act of submission. Grand Master Volquin took the helmet off of his head.

‘Since when has the garrison of Riga been operating south of the Dvina?’

The German-speaking man was wearing a thickly quilted gambeson and a helmet with a nasal guard. He grinned as he too took off his helmet with his left hand.

‘For months. I and a few others have been training the locals in the use of the crossbow. I reckon that now they are as good as any in this land.’

Volquin wore a deep frown. ‘Stand down!’ he shouted to the brother knights.

The ninety Sword Brothers sheathed their weapons and took off their helmets for the day was getting warm and it could get very hot inside a helmet, especially when also wearing a mail coif. Many of the brother knights also pulled down the latter as they stood staring at the Lithuanian crossbowmen.

Volquin called his masters to him as the crossbowman rested the metal stirrup of his weapon on the ground. When his castellans had assembled he pointed at the German mercenary.

‘Behold, the schemes of Archdeacon Stefan made flesh.’

The masters looked at each other in confusion.

‘How many crossbowmen have you trained?’ Volquin asked the mercenary.

‘Two hundred,’ came the reply.

‘So that’s where the consignment of crossbows went,’ remarked Rudolf.

Volquin nodded. ‘Exactly. Where are you from?’

‘Thuringia,’ replied the mercenary. ‘We were recruited by Commander Nordheim.’

‘To do what?’ enquired Master Godfrey of Holm.

‘To train the Semgallians in the use of the crossbow,’ smiled the mercenary.

‘And so Duke Vincentas now has two hundred highly trained crossbowmen,’ remarked Master Arnold of Lennewarden dryly.

The mercenary nodded. ‘None better.’

‘Marvellous,’ seethed Volquin.

As the pagan and Christian soldiers mingled the grand master sent a message to those waiting on the other side of the river that it was safe to cross. Thus began a major logistical exercise to transport over three thousand men, hundreds of horses and dozens of carts and wagons across the waterway. Master Thaddeus stood at the water’s edge, issuing orders and overseeing the shipment of the army to the southern riverbank. His engineers and quartermasters oversaw the loading of the warhorses onto great wooden rafts that had been specially constructed for this day. Local Livs had been employed to fell trees to provide materials for the rafts, which were covered with soil so the warhorses, which could be tetchy and stubborn, could be enticed onto them more easily. Then the rafts were towed to the other side by teams of riverboats, their oars pulled by Liv rowers.

Priests went up and down the riverbank, blessing each raft and vessel before it began its journey. This caused innumerable delays because although there were many priests accompanying the crusader army there were far more boats and rafts. And so the morning passed and still only half the army had crossed the river. Thaddeus grew more exasperated as priests stood in the water reciting prayers and blessing vessels as riverboats loaded with soldiers and rafts loaded with horses or waggons stood stationary. He became particularly annoyed with one priest wearing the undyed habit of the Cistercian Order who stood waist-deep in water in front of a boat filled with spearmen, the bemused Liv rowers looking over their shoulders at the tonsured individual who had his eyes closed as he recited a prayer. Thaddeus stood near the stern of the boat, shaking his head.

‘Father,’ he called to the priest, ‘this boat has to move to the other side of the river.’

The priest finished his praying and opened his eyes. ‘I am about God’s work, sir.’

‘My congratulations,’ replied Thaddeus, ‘but God only placed so many hours in a day and we are using them up at an alarming rate. So I would appreciate it if you could get out of the water and let this boat cross.’

The priest made the sign of the cross in front of the prow and then waded ashore. The captain of the vessel ordered his men to start rowing and the boat began to move into the river. The priest’s habit was soaked from the waist down as he waded ashore, his bare feet deathly white from the cold water.

‘It may be spring, father,’ said Thaddeus, ‘but the water is still cold. I would advise staying out of the water otherwise you might catch a nasty cold.’

‘I am Father Segehard, sir,’ said the priest as a horse on a nearby raft reared up and then sprang into the water.

‘Get in after it,’ shouted Thaddeus at two farriers on the raft as the horse thrashed around in the water. He shook his head. ‘Idiots.’

‘The work of the Lord is never easy,’ smiled Segehard.

‘I am Master Thaddeus, Father Segehard, and I have the unenviable position of quartermaster general in this rabble that masquerades as an army.’ He looked into the sky. ‘I doubt we will get everyone over before the day’s out.’

He raised his eyes as he caught sight of another priest in the water blessing a stationary boat loaded with crossbowmen.

‘I feel privileged to be a witness to this mighty venture,’ said Segehard with glee. ‘I have been promised a church among the pagans by the Bishop of Semgallia himself.’

Thaddeus was perplexed. ‘The Bishop of Semgallia?’

‘Abbot Bernhard,’ replied Segehard. ‘On the advice of the Bishop of Riga His Holiness the Pope has created the Bishopric of Semgallia and Abbot Bernhard has been confirmed as its first bishop.’

Thaddeus looked across the river at the tree-lined shore of Semgallia and the dozens of boats disgorging their contents on the bank before returning to ferry more crusaders across the Dvina.

‘Has anyone informed the Semgallians?’ remarked Thaddeus.

Despite the quartermaster’s fears the whole of the army was transported across the river by the time the sun dipped below the western horizon four hours before midnight. The six hundred members of the Sword Brothers, having crossed the Dvina first, had moved two miles inland accompanied by Nordheim’s German mercenaries and their Lithuanian crossbowmen. At the river meanwhile, the two and a half thousand soldiers whom the Duke of Saxony had brought to Livonia and the five hundred followers of Rudolph of Stotel chopped down trees for firewood and churned up the ground as they established a vast camp that spread for at least a mile along the river and extended five hundred paces inland from the water’s edge.

It took five days to reach Mesoten, Duke Vincentas’ German mercenaries guiding the crusaders through thick pine forests where the floor was covered with the needles and leaves that had dropped the previous autumn to produce a wet, damp carpet. It rained almost every day, which added to the dampness in the air, though because the army had been delayed a month before it crossed the Dvina at least the meadows were not filled with spring meltwater. Instead they were filled with snowdrops and buttercups. Though Lithuania contained no mountains there were many hillocks and ravines that had to be skirted and travelled through. But above all there was water: lakes, streams and rivers that had to be crossed. Most could be forded but invariably some of the wagons got stuck in the water and all were reduced to a snail’s pace when the rain that fell almost every day reduced the mud tracks to rivers of mud. The result was that the army never travelled more than five miles a day.

Conrad and the other brother knights rode their palfreys on the march, the expensive warhorses being led by their reins behind them. Grand Master Volquin sent scouting parties ahead to reconnoitre the route and had other parties acting as flank guards, but the mood was relaxed and thoughts of war and battle were far away.

‘Who are we marching to fight, Master Rudolf?’ asked Conrad.

‘I have no idea, Conrad,’ Rudolf answered, ‘only that we are marching to a stronghold called Mesoten where Duke Vincentas waits to greet the bishop.’

‘The Northern Kurs,’ said Thaddeus, who most days elected to ride among the soldiers of Wenden rather than with the bishop and crusader lords. ‘Commander Nordheim was explaining to Bishop Albert and Bishop Bernhard that the leader of the Northern Kurs, Duke Arturus, has been vary hard on the Semgallians.’

‘Bishop Bernhard?’ said Rudolf in surprise.

Thaddeus nodded. ‘Apparently Abbot Bernhard has been created Bishop of Semgallia. We currently travel through his bishopric.’

‘I am amazed that the Semgallians have agreed to that,’ said Rudolf.

‘From what I can gather they have not,’ replied Thaddeus, ‘and have yet to be informed of this wondrous development.’

‘When they find out there will be trouble,’ stated Henke bluntly.

‘For once I am in agreement with Henke,’ said Rudolf.

But when the army arrived at Mesoten they found Duke Vincentas the perfect host, riding from his great timber citadel to greet the bishop and the nobles at the head of a great number of horsemen. Nordheim had ridden ahead to inform the duke of the imminent arrival of the bishop’s army and rode back with Vincentas to act as his interpreter. Volquin ordered all the order’s brother knights, mounted on their warhorses in their full war gear, to attend the bishop. Nordheim’s horsemen objected but the grand master tersely informed them that the Sword Brothers were the guardians of the bishop’s safety rather than Archdeacon Stefan’s private army.

The hill fort of Mesoten was an impressive structure, built on a great grass mound with gentle slopes and a level summit that was surrounded by a high timber wall with roofed towers at regular intervals. The main gates were on the northern side and were reached by a narrow track cut into the slope. The eastern side of the mound sloped down to the banks of the River Lielupe and on the western side of the fort was a sprawling town of wooden huts, barns, animal pens, smiths and stables. Its population lined the route taken by their duke and the bishop as they trotted past on their horses, followed by the fearsome white knights in their helmets, white surcoats, their great horses covered by white caparisons bearing the strange insignia of a red sword below a red cross. A standard bearer also held a huge flag carrying the same design, fluttering beside the Iron Wolf banner of Semgallia. The Semgallians cheered their young, handsome duke but the faceless soldiers from across the great Dvina alarmed many.