Castellan (43 page)

‘You think he will accept your offer, lord?’

Arturus smirked. ‘Oh, yes. Such will be their gratitude that they will probably run down that hill to thank me.’

Lamekins turned away from the flap. ‘Why waste time on three hundred half-starving men? We could have wiped them out any time.’

‘We could,’ agreed Arturus. ‘But it is time to turn our attention to the Samogitians. It will not have been lost on Ringaudas and his men that Vsevolod has abandoned them and I have embraced them. I give them their lives and fill their bellies and I may, just may, win their allegiance. And if they lead then others will follow.’

Lamekins was sceptical. ‘Can we convince Selonian to fight Selonian, my lord?’

Arturus drained his cup. ‘Why not? Men who feel they have been betrayed desire vengeance.’

He stood and walked to his subordinate’s side, both of them looking at the ruins of Mesoten hill fort.

‘We will leave a force here to ensure that the Selonians don’t get lonely. Oh, and send orders that the local villagers are not to be plundered. My men have amused themselves enough.’

‘What of Tervete, lord?’ asked Lamekins.

‘We will keep a force near it to watch Viesthard, but I have no wish to see Kurs freeze to death conducting useless sieges. Semgallia is finished.’

‘We could organise a strike into Selonia, lord,’ suggested Lamekins, ‘perhaps even threaten Panemunis itself.’

‘We could,’ agreed Arturus. ‘But I want Vsevolod to spend the coming winter besieged by thoughts that a Kur army may appear before his walls without warning. It is the least I can do.’

*****

‘You’re sure this is the place?’

Manfred Nordheim peered through the branches to scan the Liv village nestled at the foot of a small hill and surrounded by woods and freshly harvested fields.

Gunter nodded. Now a captain of the Riga garrison, his normal disposition was dour but today he was more miserable than usual. Nordheim noted his surly manner.

‘My apologies, Gunter, I did not hear you,’

‘Yes, commander, this is the place,’ replied Gunter curtly, ‘Father Arnulf was most precise about its location. He said we must be careful of witchcraft.’

Nordheim laughed. ‘Priests. They wrap themselves in cloaks of superiority and frighten their flocks with tales of magic and superstition so the poor will follow them blindly. I’m certain that there’s more devilry in the deviant mind of Father Arnulf than there is in that village. Still, the church pays our wages and we have a job to do.’

Gunter shifted uneasily in his saddle. ‘I heard that the girl was accused falsely, commander, that is why the Sword Brothers intervened.’

Nordheim nodded. ‘I have no doubt she was. You know how the world works, Gunter. A lonely priest takes a liking to a young girl with shapely hips and large breasts and seduces her, or rapes her depending on your interpretation. Better for her and her people if she had closed her eyes and opened her legs.’

Gunter sat in the saddle and stared at the forest floor. The two had ridden ahead to reconnoitre the ground, leaving behind thirty soldiers of the garrison in a camp around a quarter of a mile away, well hidden among the birch trees.

‘Tell me, Gunter,’ said Nordheim, ‘are your quarters in the city adequate?’

Gunter looked up. ‘Yes, commander, very adequate.’

He and his wife had been given spacious accommodation near the bishop’s palace, away from the packed, foetid streets where plague and sickness were a constant danger.

‘And your wife, she is happy?’ enquired Nordheim.

Gunter managed a smile. ‘Yes, commander, very happy.’

She was heavily pregnant with their first child and he thought himself lucky to be living in a fine, airy house in a good quarter of Riga. It was a good place to bring up a child.

‘Just remember, Gunter, that the uniform you wear, the house you live in and the food that feeds you and your family are all provided by Archdeacon Stefan. Men of the garrison, your comrades, were attacked and killed by the Sword Brothers because of a stupid Liv girl who lives in that village. The archdeacon is unhappy, very unhappy. He feels his honour has been besmirched. And if he is unhappy then I am unhappy and that is a most undesirable state of affairs. You understand?’

‘I understand, commander.’

Nordheim nodded. ‘Consider yourself lucky that you weren’t sent to Wenden to arrest Conrad Wolff. Had I have been here I would have petitioned against it. But as it was I was in Germany.’

He spread his hands as a sign of his helplessness.

‘Conrad Wolff is a formidable soldier,’ said Gunter.

Nordheim noted the admiring tone in his voice. ‘I forgot. You served with his army of pagans in Lithuania, did you not?’

‘I did, commander.’

‘Mm. He has certainly made a name for himself in Livonia,’ admitted Nordheim. ‘Unfortunately he has also made a number of enemies, including the archdeacon. That will be his undoing.’

Gunter was full of doubts. He knew he led a somewhat privileged life as an officer of the garrison of Riga. His duties consisted of little more than inspecting his men, occasionally dealing with trouble in the city’s taverns, especially on market days when crowds gathered, men drank too much and fights broke out, and providing a bodyguard for the Bishop of Riga and Archdeacon Stefan. But the bishop was often away for long periods recruiting crusaders and the archdeacon rarely left the city. So all in all it was a most agreeable existence, notwithstanding the occasional unsavoury task. He had been lost in his thoughts but as his mind returned to the present he became aware of a child, a girl no more than seven or eight years of age, standing a few feet away. She was holding a rag doll in her arms and was staring at the two men in their red surcoats on their well-groomed horses.

‘Commander,’ said Gunter quietly.

Nordheim saw the girl and smiled at her. He slid off his horse and walked towards her.

‘Hello, what is your name?’

‘Agnija,’ she replied, smiling back.

Nordheim pointed at the village in the distance. ‘Do you live in that village?’

She giggled. ‘Yes.’

Nordheim wagged a finger at her. ‘Your parents will be worried about you, straying so far from the village.’

‘I often come here,’ she beamed. ‘Are you visiting the village?’

Nordheim grinned at her. ‘We are. Why don’t you run ahead and tell your parents that we are coming to see them.’

She swayed to and fro excitedly. ‘Do you know my parents?’

‘We are old friends, Agnija. Now off you go as quickly as you can.’

The girl spun round, her long fair hair splaying as she did so. Nordheim whipped the dagger from the sheath hanging from his belt, grabbed her hair and drew the blade across her throat in a lightning-fast movement. He released her locks and wiped the blade on the moss at his feet as the dead girl crumpled to the ground.

‘Ride back and get the others,’ he ordered Gunter, who was staring, wide-eyed at the dead child.

‘Now!’ shouted Nordheim.

Gunter tugged violently on his reins that made his horse cry in pain, turning the beast and digging his spurs into its sides to cause it to rear up and gallop away. Nordheim calmly walked back to his own horse, stroked its head to calm it before retaking his saddle. He shook his head. This was all so unnecessary. In future he would send someone else to Germany when the garrison needed new recruits, perhaps Gunter. Then he could provide solace to his pretty young wife.

Gunter returned with his mounted party of fifteen crossbowmen and fifteen horsemen, the latter being instructed to circle the village while he and the crossbowmen went about their business.

‘And do not fire the buildings,’ he ordered, ‘smoke will be seen for miles.’

He led the crossbowmen as Gunter and the other horsemen cantered across the field to circle the huts and barn, spearing three men on the edge of the village as they did so.

‘Move,’ shouted Nordheim at the crossbowmen as he drew his sword and spurred his horse forward. He recognised the tell-tale noises that he had heard a hundred times before in Germany when he had taken part in assaults on settlements: women and children screaming, men shouting, dogs barking and pigs squealing.

Driving civilians from villages was easy enough – make a lot of noise during an approach that would prompt the inhabitants to flee their homes in an attempt to escape death. Killing everyone inside a settlement was more difficult and entailed first surrounding the village before butchering everyone inside. But desperate, cornered people often find the strength and determination to fight back and that is what now happened. Seven men, all armed with spears, shields and axes, suddenly appeared around a hundred paces in front of Nordheim, levelling their weapons and huddling together so their shields overlapped.

‘Form a line,’ he commanded as he pulled up his horse.

The crossbowmen ran left and right pointing their weapons at the Livs, who began walking forward. There was a hiss and an arrow flashed by Nordheim to hit a crossbowman, who groaned and fell to the ground. The commander spurred his horse to the right before giving the command to shoot. There was a loud thwacking sound as triggers were released and bolts flew through the air. The more satisfying sound of high-pitched screams filled the air as iron-tipped bolts went through thin shields to pierce unarmoured flesh. Out of the corner of his eye Nordheim saw one of his horsemen spear a woman who was attempting to flee the village.

The crossbowmen reloaded and shot another volley that killed the rest of the Liv men. Another arrow hit a crossbowman, this time in the leg, the man limping away in pain.

‘Into the village,’ commanded Nordheim as he searched for the archer.

He saw him standing next to the barn doors, loosing another arrow that knocked one of his horsemen from the saddle. He pointed at the barn where the old, women and children were seeking sanctuary.

‘Kill that archer,’ he screamed at the crossbowmen.

Moments later a volley of bolts hissed through the air to hit the barn doors that were slammed shut.

‘I want that damned archer,’ shouted Nordheim as he rode up and down in front of the barn in the centre of the village. Gunter rode to his side.

‘No one has escaped the village, commander.’

‘Maintain the cordon,’ he told him.

His deputy rode away as the crossbowmen took up position around the barn, taking shelter near walls in case the archer shot another arrow from within.

‘You inside,’ called Nordheim. ‘Your men are dead and you are surrounded. Give up the archer and I swear that you will be allowed to live.’

He dismounted and wrapped his horse’s reins around a wheelbarrow. He drew his sword, walked up to the barn doors and banged the sword’s cross-guard on them.

‘You are surrounded and alone and if you do not give up the archer then I will burn this barn to the ground.’

He walked back a few paces and waited. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later one of the doors creaked open.

‘I am coming out,’ came a voice from inside.

‘The bow first,’ said Nordheim.

Seconds later the bow was thrown onto the ground and a figure wearing a tunic with a hood walked out of the barn with arms raised. The crossbowmen instinctively raised their weapons as the slightly built figure walked towards Nordheim.

‘That’s far enough,’ he said. ‘Take off the hood.’

The archer did so to reveal an attractive fair-haired woman in her early twenties. The crossbowmen leered at each other and lowered their crossbows. Nordheim also relaxed. He waved the girl forward.

‘Who taught you to use a bow so skilfully?’

‘My father,’ she answered.

She was a fair maiden, he had to admit, with piercing green eyes, high cheekbones and a slim figure. Her leggings hugged her thighs and he had a mind to keep her as a slave. But he remembered that he was a professional. He rammed his sword point into her belly and upwards to pierce her heart. She made no sound as he pushed hard on the blade until the point exited her upper back, before whipping it back and kicking the corpse to the ground.

‘He should have taught you to run.’

He pointed the bloody blade at the crossbowmen.

‘Fill your boots, boys.’

They gave a cheer and ran into the barn to begin the killing, first using their crossbows and then going to work with their knives. They murdered the males first, boys and old men, before raping the females of all ages and then either slitting their throats or strangling them, sometimes choking them as they raped them. The infants had their heads dashed against the walls of the barn to silence them.

While this was going on Nordheim ordered the horsemen to collect the Rigan dead, which were loaded on the back of each dead rider’s horse. After the crossbowmen had finished their revelry he told them to use their daggers to dig out the bolts from Liv bodies and any that had embedded themselves in the walls of the barn or huts. He wanted no trace that the garrison of Riga had been in this place.

As Gunter led the soldiers from the village back to camp Nordheim went among the dead to examine them personally, in particular the three women in their twenties, one of whom he assumed was the woman who had been accused of being a witch by the lecherous priest. He knew how sloppy soldiers could be. As the light faded he gathered the reins of his horse and hauled himself into the saddle. He looked at the corpse of the female archer and felt a pang of regret. She would have provided many nights of entertainment. He inhaled deeply and remembered that he was, above all, a professional.