The Sword Brothers (39 page)

‘My gallant knight,’
she cried, throwing her arms around him and hugging him. He held
her close, smelling her hair and feeling her arms around him. So
this was how it felt to be a hero.

‘Put her down,
Conrad.’ The words of Lukas broke his dream.

He could barely
contain his joy and he reluctantly stepped back and looked into the
eyes of the most beautiful creature he had ever met.

‘I take it from your
demeanour that you are unhurt,’ queried the brother knight.

‘Yes, Brother Lukas,’
said Conrad, not taking his eyes off Daina’s. Her face was a little
pale but she seemed none the worse for her ordeal.

‘And you, young
princess,’ Lukas asked her, ‘are you hurt?’

She smiled at him. ‘I
am very well, Lukas, thank you.’

Lukas frowned as she
reached out to take Conrad’s hands and gave her champion a dazzling
smile.

‘Brother Lukas.’

Conrad heard Hans’
voice and knew something was wrong. ‘I must go,’ he told Daina and
followed Lukas to where a group was gathered round something. Lukas
dismounted as the men parted to allow him access. Conrad followed
and saw with horror the body of Bruno lying on the ground. Lukas
knelt beside it as Hans, Anton and Johann looked on with anguished
faces.

‘He is dead,’ said
Lukas. ‘He is in God’s keeping now.’

Conrad could not
believe it and stood in stunned silence. Their comrade had been
killed by a stab to the stomach that had gone through his gambeson,
which was now stained with blood. Lukas began to pray over the body
of Bruno and Conrad and the other boys went down on their knees and
joined him in worship, tears coming to their eyes.

They wrapped Bruno in
a sheet and took him back to Wenden strapped on the back of a pony.
The women captives were given ponies to ride back to their
villages, Conrad walking beside the ones carrying Daina and her
mother. The Liv dead – seven men – were likewise taken back to
their villages. The score of dead Estonians was left to the wolves.
Conrad walked in silence, thinking of his dead friend. He would
never see him again and though he had not known him for long, the
year they had spent at Wenden had created a special bond between
them. He had done well in his first real battle, had helped to
rescue his beautiful Daina and should have felt the happiest young
man in Christendom. But he was utterly miserable.

*****

Treiden hill fort was
a great sprawling timber structure built upon a great earth mound a
third of a mile inland from the River Gauja. The stronghold of
Caupo, King of the Livs, it was surrounded by dozens of wooden huts
of varying size interspersed with animals pens containing pigs and
goats, with fenced-off fields further out holding cattle and oxen.
In these dwellings lived Caupo’s subjects: men, women and children
who farmed the land, hunted in the forests and caught fish on the
river. For the past twenty years they had, like their lord,
worshipped the Christian God and counted the Bishop of Riga as
their friend. It was to this god that they now prayed as the
Oeselians flooded ashore from their riverboats, butchering all in
their path.

Eric heard the horns
of the enemy and the screams of their women as he ran across the
sandy strip his boat had run aground on to head inland. The forest
had been cleared from this area long ago to provide the building
materials for Caupo’s stronghold and the huts of his people. He
could see the hill fort on the hill ahead and below it the
settlement. He ran past small fishing boats that littered the sandy
beach and earth riverbank, slashing at fleeing men and boys who had
watched in stunned silence as the Oeselian fleet had appeared on
the river. Then they ran for their lives when the boats disgorged
hundreds of heavily armed warriors.

A fisherman attempted
to skewer Eric with a spear but a shield brushed his clumsy thrust
aside and then the Oeselian chief swung his sword that chopped into
the side of the man’s skull, knocking him unconscious. Eric
sprinted forward, ducking an axe swing from a Liv warrior before
thrusting his sword into the man’s belly. He was at the settlement
now, running along dirt paths between huts to reach the
stronghold.

His men were under
strict orders not to indulge in rape and plunder until they had
taken the stronghold. A man ran from a hut with a spear levelled at
his belly. Eric saw him, moved his shield around to deflect the
blow and then swung his sword down on top of the man’s bare head. A
woman came from the same hut, screaming in despair at seeing her
man on the ground with his head split open. Magnus stabbed her with
his sword and ran after his chief, who seemed determined to capture
Treiden single-handedly.

‘On, on!’ screamed
Eric as his men smashed down fences and cut down women and children
as they advanced towards the fort. Dozens of women and wailing
children were running up the hill to the fort’s entrance: twin
wooden gates that led to the compound that held the king’s
warehouses, armoury, barracks and stables, while in front of the
fort a ragged line of warriors was forming up to meet the invaders.
Some of the people headed towards a wooden church that had been
built by Caupo when he had returned from Rome eight years
previously. So impressed had Pope Innocent III been by this former
pagan’s piety that he had given him a bible to take back to his
homeland. Caupo had laid a hand on this book moments before rushing
from his hall to lead the fight against the pagan invaders.

His bodyguard – a
hundred men in mail armour, helmets and armed with spears and
swords – grouped round him as he raced from the compound, through
the gates, across the bridge spanning the moat and joined the
warriors forming up a hundred yards down the hill. His people were
still desperately attempting to reach refuge in the fort but now a
great swarm of Oeselians was emerging from the settlement.

Eric halted and looked
right and left. He had failed to take the fort by surprise, the
defenders now forming a line to bar his entry. He raised his hand
to signal a stop. He saw men, women and children running into the
trees or attempting to scale the hill around the fort.

‘Send men to bring
those wretches to me,’ he ordered Magnus.

From behind he heard
the sound of some sort of dreadful singing, mournful and imploring.
His men were now forming a great shield wall behind him, around two
hundred paces from the Liv warriors further up the hill. He called
forward one of his men.

‘What is that
noise?’

The bearded warrior
looked behind at the church with its slanted roof and single bell
hanging over the entrance, a cross mounted above it.

‘Some sort of church,
lord. Christian, I think.’

‘Take ten men and burn
it and all inside. I do not want to hear Christian singing. It
offends my ears.’

The warrior grinned
and paced away.

The Oeselian shield
wall was now formed – a great phalanx of mail-clad warriors in five
ranks, their large round shields overlapping in a defensive posture
to await their lord’s orders. Magnus returned with two score of men
dragging sobbing and frightened women and children, striking them
across the face when they tried to resist their captors. The
terrified Livs were shoved in front of the Oeselian ranks.

Magnus stood beside
Eric. ‘Boar’s head?’

Eric nodded. Magnus
turned and screamed his order. ‘Boar’s head!’

A boar’s head was a
wedge-shaped formation that concentrated the shock impact of an
assault on a small frontage aimed at smashing through an enemy
line. The Oeselians began hurling abuse and jeering at the three
hundred or so Livs standing in their own shield wall, archers
lining the walls of the fort behind them.

Eric and Magnus would
fight at the tip of the wedge, their best men immediately behind
them gripping axes with which they would hack their way through the
Livs. Eric walked forward directly towards the figure of Caupo in
his gilded helmet standing in the middle of the enemy line. The
hostages were herded forward as the archers began shooting at the
Oeselians, their arrows striking raised shields but also the women
and children. The Livs groaned and cried in anguish as the last of
hostages were felled and trampled upon by the Oeselian warriors.
Then Eric and his men charged.

Even though the
Oeselians were charging uphill the force of their assault buckled
and then shattered the outnumbered Liv line. Eric failed to reach
Caupo, who was bundled to the rear by his bodyguard as Oeselian
axes and swords hacked and slashed at them. Eric barged his shield
into a warrior directly in front of him, the force of the impact
knocking him off balance and leaving him helpless as Eric drove the
sword into his belly. There was a plethora of sickening thuds as
Oeselian axes and swords hacked into the Liv line, which had now
been splintered into dozens of individual mêlées, men yelping and
groaning as blades inflicted horrendous injuries on their bodies.
Eric was consumed by bloodlust as he cut down anyone in his path,
but screamed in rage when he saw the gates of the fort being
slammed shut.

He began hacking with
his sword at a dead Liv at his feet, reducing the head to a bloody
pulp as he vented his frustration. Magnus grasped his arm.

‘We must withdraw
immediately, lord.’

Eric snarled at him
but then regained his senses as the fighting platforms on the walls
above began to fill with Liv soldiers.

‘Back, back!’ screamed
Magnus, retaining the grip on his lord’s sleeve as he hauled him
back, as a deluge of spears and arrows fell among the
Oeselians.

Eric was unharmed as
he and Magnus withdrew down the hill, their warriors forming a
shield wall once more, holding their shields above their heads as
they shuffled back. A tideline of over two hundred dead marked the
spot where the battle had taken place. The screams of those being
incinerated inside the church had stopped by the time Magnus had
organised patrols to scour the countryside for Livs, the rounding
up of livestock to feed the raiders and the allocation of huts to
house warriors. Siege lines were also established around the base
of the hill upon which the fort was built, not that they had any
siege engines. Two days later Lembit and his Estonians arrived at
Treiden. But unknown to either him or Eric a crusader army was
already approaching their position.

Chapter 9

The Oeselian boats had
been spotted as soon as they had entered the Gauja estuary, the
news being conveyed immediately to the bishop’s palace in Riga and
the office of Grand Master Volquin in the town’s castle. With the
bishop still away in Germany the threat to the crusader kingdom was
severe, especially as the garrisons along the Dvina could not be
stripped out of fear that the uneasy peace with the Lithuanians
might not hold. Nevertheless, Volquin decided that the brother
knights and sergeants from the castle of Holm must be sent north to
join the relief force being assembled at Segewold that would
attempt to save Treiden. If the stronghold fell and Caupo was
killed such a calamity might spark a general revolt of the whole
Liv people, with catastrophic consequences for Livonia.

Volquin tried to
impress the gravity of the situation upon Archdeacon Stefan, to no
avail. He stubbornly refused to release any soldiers for the relief
of Treiden, declaring that Riga itself was in peril. He kept
babbling on about the Kurs returning and said that the knights,
sergeants, spearmen and crossbowmen must remain to defend the town.
But he was also most insistent that the native warriors who lived
in and around the town should go with Volquin as he suspected their
loyalty, the more so if Caupo was killed. Volquin despised the
archdeacon but as long as he held the favour of the bishop there
was nothing to be done. So Volquin called for a muster at Segewold
of the brother knights and sergeants from Wenden, Segewold itself
and Holm, together with their respective foot soldiers. In this way
he hoped to raise thirty brother knights, over a hundred mounted
sergeants and two hundred foot soldiers. He hoped this would be
enough to raise the siege of Treiden.

Two things raised the
grand master’s spirits as he prepared to ride to Segewold, which
came as a welcome relief following the news that the small castle
of Kremon was also under siege. The first was a visit from the
stern Theodoric, who declared that he was coming with Volquin to
Segewold rather than sitting in his monastery waiting for news. The
second was the arrival at Riga of two ships carrying a contingent
of crusaders.

Sir Helmold was a
quarrelsome, fearsome lord from Saxony, a man who had devoted his
life to war and fathering sons. Now in his fifties, he had managed
to sire four strapping sons who had followed their father into the
martial life, sallying forth from Sir Helmold’s great castle at
Plesse to raid neighbouring towns and districts. He loved nothing
more than engaging in battle with anyone who dared to cross him,
taking particular delight in hanging priests who berated him for
his bloodthirsty ways. Feared and loathed in equal measure, Sir
Helmold of Plesse was totally unrepentant of his ways. Until his
wife was taken ill.

In descending order
Sir Helmold loved his wife, Agnes, his pack of hunting dogs, his
falcon and his sons. So when the pestilence visited Saxony and his
wife was stricken he was distraught. He railed against God and
offered his own life in exchange for that of his true love. But God
did not listen and Agnes became more sick and frail by the day.
Physicians and old hags who supposedly had healing talents came to
the castle and failed in their attempts to cure her and Sir
Helmold, bereft of hope, resigned himself to his wife’s death,
vowing to kill himself the moment she closed her eyes for the last
time, though this was a sin in the church’s eyes.