Army of the Wolf (4 page)

Domash smiled back, though at his wife. ‘You honour me.’

He waved forward the chief steward. ‘Prepare quarters for our guests. They must be tired by their journey. Your people have all they need, Lord Gerceslav?’

‘Yes, thank you. We are camped just south of the city.’

Domash, whose eyes had settled on the outline of the wife’s breasts, brought his hands together. ‘Most excellent.’

After they had left Domash ordered the doors closed, the guards dismissed and began pacing up and down, Gleb observing him as he did so.

‘You must leave her alone,’ the mystic told him.

Domash stopped pacing and looked at him with an innocent expression. ‘I do not know what you mean.’

‘Yes you do. Confine yourself to whores and the wives of young boyars you can intimidate and threaten. If you toy with this Cuman no good will come of it.’

Domash flicked a hand at him. ‘What does a
Skomorokh
know of women and desire?’

‘Enough to know that both can be the source of much trouble. I saw the lust in your eyes but I tell you that if you pursue her it will lead to bloodshed.’

Domash laughed. ‘You think that I cannot deal with two hundred Cumans?’

Gleb stood and walked towards the doors. ‘I did not say that the Cumans would instigate the bloodshed, but I tell you now that if you seduce that woman you will come to regret it.’

But a dog cannot change its habits and though Domash was the scion of a powerful Novgorodian family he was sadly lacking in manners and common sense. He had spent years raiding the pagan lands to the west, burning and raping with impunity, even to the shores of the Baltic itself. His reputation and exploits had earned him the rule of Pskov but as his power had increased so had his arrogance. He let Gleb lecture him because the
Skomorokh
was useful in maintaining the allegiance of the population of the city and the surrounding countryside, but he rarely listened to advice. It was so now as he feasted his guests, accompanied them on tours of the city defences and took Gerceslav hunting. And it was all for one purpose: to separate husband and wife.

Domash flattered Gerceslav and won his trust. He told the Cuman commander of the Sword Brothers and their treachery at Odenpah, how the heretics had used sorcery to win the support of Kalju and the Ungannians and how the soldiers of the Bishop of Riga now threatened his city from their base in Ungannia. And as Domash hung his head and muttered that he worried about the safety of his people in the face of such danger, the Cuman offered to take his men west to safeguard against an attack by the bishop’s soldiers. Domash readily accepted his offer and said that Yaroslav and five hundred of Pskov’s horsemen would accompany him as reinforcements. It was now summer and the Bishop of Riga would soon be leading a crusader army to complete the conquest of Estonia. The combined Cuman-Russian force would act as a deterrent to prevent the crusaders raiding Russian territory. And Afanasy would stay in Pskov for her own safety.

Yaroslav was confused. ‘I do not understand, lord.’

He was walking with Domash from the mayor’s palace in the Dovmont area of the city, Pskov’s administrative heart, to the Kremlin, or
Krom
as the locals called it, meaning ‘the edge of the cape’. Guards snapped to attention as they passed through the gates that gave access to it.

‘It is quite simple,’ said Domash irritably. ‘The boyars and their wives want the Cumans away from the city and frankly so do I. Take them north and then into Jerwen to let the Bishop of Riga know that the Principality of Novgorod is not to be toyed with.’

Yaroslav was even more confused. ‘Jerwen?’

Domash stopped and faced him. ‘Since the defeat and death of Lembit the crusaders raid Jerwen and further north but have not occupied it. Therefore I see no reason why we cannot seize some territory to the west and north of Lake Peipus. Take some banners and make a lot of noise but do not provoke the crusaders.

‘In any case, now Russian merchants are taking their goods across the lake into Ungannia we should have our soldiers nearby to offer protection.’

‘Protection from whom, lord?’

Domash rolled his eyes. ‘Just accompany our Cuman friends and pitch your camp north of the River Emajogi.’

‘For how long?’ asked Yaroslav.

Domash thought for a moment. How long would it take to seduce the delightful Afanasy after she had been separated from her boorish oaf of a husband?

‘Three months should suffice.’

‘Hardly seems worth it,’ thought Yaroslav.

Domash smiled maliciously. ‘Oh, it will be worth it.’

The horsemen left the next morning, the banners of Pskov, Novgorod and a host of garishly coloured flags and pennants fluttering among the Cuman ranks. The latter wore metal masks moulded to look like a face; their bows carried in hide cases fixed to their saddles. Behind the column lumbered the wagons carrying their tents, children and wives, though not all of the latter. Domash could not prevent himself from grinning as he stood above one of Pskov’s gates and watched them go. He never gave a thought to what would happen when the Cumans returned and Gerceslav discovered that his wife had been unfaithful. He shrugged. A warlord did not concern himself with the aftermath of his raids.

*****

While the mayor of Pskov was busying himself with satisfying his base instincts, Kalju was informed by his chief at Dorpat that a large group of Russian horsemen had suddenly appeared north of the Emajogi River. He alerted Henke and the Sword Brother gave the order to strike camp to march with Kalju to accompany the Ungannian leader as he rode north with his eldest son Villem, and a hundred warriors. Henke sent a sergeant to Wenden to report to Master Rudolf that Russians were in Jerwen and that he was going to see them for himself. It was only twenty miles form Odenpah to Dorpat and so the journey could be completed in less than a day.

‘What does it matter if the Russians are in Jerwen?’ asked Hans, chewing on a small pie that Eha had given him before they had set out.

‘Because Jerwen belongs to the Sword Brothers,’ replied Henke. ‘Its warriors fought with Lembit on St Matthew’s Day and now the kingdom belongs to us. The Russians must have heard that the bishop isn’t coming to Riga this year.’

‘To what end?’ asked Conrad.

‘To take advantage of our weakness, no doubt,’ answered Henke. ‘You all know that only a few crusaders landed at Riga this spring. Too few to conquer the rest of Estonia.’

‘The Russians desire all of Estonia,’ remarked Kalju, his powerful frame making the grey pony he was riding on appear small and puny.

‘Did the Russians try to conquer your kingdom before we came, lord?’ asked Conrad.

Kalju spat on the ground. ‘They raided our lands to take slaves, cattle and to rape and pillage, but they were not interested in conquest. They viewed Estonia as their hunting ground.’

‘Don’t you worry, sir,’ said Henke, ‘we’ll make sure that they don’t set foot in your kingdom again.’

Conrad looked at his three friends and the ten sergeants to the rear of the column leading ponies loaded with supplies. Even with the Ungannians he wondered how so few men could halt the Russian if they intended to fight.

They sweated in their mail armour as they made their way north through woods of spruce and pine and across meadows filled with bilberries, wild strawberries, mushrooms, cornflower and blueberries. They marched through villages filled with laughing, rosy cheeked children who had the blue eyes and fair hair of their race. They in turn waved at Kalju and his warriors and laughed and stared at the Christian warriors in their white surcoats bearing a red cross and sword insignia. Conrad noticed that some of their parents ushered their children away when they spotted the Sword Brothers. It was not only the Russians who raided Estonia and he wondered how many of these people had lost sons or fathers to the swords of his order.

On the journey Kalju had told the Sword Brothers that Dorpat was over seven hundred years old, and two hundred years previously had actually been under Russian control during the reign of a king named Yaroslav the Wise.

‘Well if these Russians are wise they will clear off home,’ was Henke’s only comment after the history lesson.

Half a mile from Dorpat the column was greeted by the local chief and a dozen of his warriors, all mounted on chestnut ponies. The chief was a ruddy faced individual with a bushy beard who jumped from his saddle when he spotted Kalju, as did his men. Kalju dismounted and embraced him warmly, slapping him on the back and sharing a joke with him before they both regained their saddles.

They first rode into the sprawling settlement itself so the people would know that their lord was among them. They stopped their daily routines and cheered him and his son as he dismounted and walked among them. Kalju ordered the majority of his men to report to the local chief whose home was the timber fort sited on a hill, a thousand paces south of the river, while he and half a dozen of his men walked to the docks. Henke ordered the sergeants to take themselves, the supplies and the horses of the brother knights to the fort after he had dismounted and ordered Conrad and his companions to do likewise. Conrad slung his shield on his back and carried his helmet in the crook of his arm. It was now very warm and he had no desire to roast his head while they ambled around Dorpat.

Odenpah was Kalju’s capital, a mighty hill fort that was a refuge in times of war, but Dorpat was a bustling, thriving centre of commerce. Conrad had grown up in the city of Lübeck and although the wooden huts, animal pens and markets of Dorpat were greatly inferior in comparison, the haggling, stalls filled with wares, colours and smells were remarkably similar. As he walked behind Kalju, his son and the town chief, Conrad was taken back to the happy days of his youth, when he had accompanied his mother to market and his father to the miller who supplied their bakery with flour. A wave of sadness swept over him at the thought of how their lives had been cruelly ended by the avarice of a wealthy merchant. And then anger replaced sorrow as he gripped the black leather of his sword’s hilt and forgot about his past life to concentrate on the present.

He followed Henke and Kalju to the riverside docks, an area where the air was thick with the smell produced by tar-making shops and the noises coming from carpenters’ workshops and blacksmiths’ forges. Men stripped to the waist sweated in barge yards working on new vessels. The riverside for at least two hundred yards in each direction was filled with jetties where crews were unloading or loading cargoes from flat-bottomed barges and oared riverboats with square sails. The chatter competed with the sounds of metal being worked on anvils, wood being sawed and chiselled and supervisors bellowing orders to create a mighty din that sounded like a battle.

Kalju and his chief pushed their way through the crowd and walked along a wooden jetty that protruded into the river. The water was blue and slow moving, Conrad estimated that the width of the waterway at this point was around two hundred paces. Russians in filthy tunics and bare feet, who were in a riverboat next to the jetty, pointed at Kalju and his entourage as they covered a pallet of black fox fur with canvas. The Ungannian leader looked at them and then across the river.

‘Where are they?’ he asked the chief.

‘Across the river, lord, around two miles north.’

‘How many?’

The chief squinted in the sunlight. ‘Five hundred, lord, maybe more.’

Kalju shook his head and watched as a riverboat with an Ungannian crew glided towards the other side of the jetty, its baskets filled with fish.

Kalju turned to face Henke. ‘My people call this river the Mother of Waters because it is so well stocked with fish and the land on either side is full of game. For centuries it has also marked the boundary between Ungannia and Jerwen. As long as the Russian soldiers stay on the other side of the river then I will do nothing to provoke them.’

Henke looked at the dozens of boats of varying sizes moored to the jetties and on the river itself.

‘There has been no trouble, between your people and the Russians?’

Kalju shook his head. ‘The Russians bring their goods here, further west to Lake Vortsjarv and then on to the Gauja.’ He looked at his chief. ‘Has there been any trouble?’

‘Aside from the usual fights that come about when men have had too much to drink, none at all, lord,’ answered his subordinate.

Henke stroked his beard. ‘Well, if they stay where they are then there’s no point in provoking a fight.’

‘What if they cross the river, Brother Henke?’ asked Conrad, pointing at two boats filled with soldiers that were approaching the docks.

‘Well,’ said Henke, slipping the leather strap attached to his shield over his head and pushing his left hand through its inner straps, ‘we are about to find out if the Russians have come to fight or talk.’

Kalju looked around at the narrow, packed jetty. ‘Back to the riverbank,’ he barked at his men, ‘there is no room on these boards.’

The Ungannians and Sword Brothers walked briskly back to the harbour side to await the Russians, though Conrad did not think they were like any he had seen before. Each boat contained around a score of soldiers, all of them wearing brightly coloured coats and baggy trousers, in addition to gleaming lamellar cuirasses, pointed helmets and small round shields. One of the soldiers in the first boat carried a great banner, though it hung limply in the windless air so he could not identify it.