The Sword Brothers (79 page)

Rameke stood. ‘It will
not always be so. Soon you too will be knights and then we shall
have great feasts together where we shall boast of our victories
over the pagans.’

Conrad hauled himself
up and offered his hand to Rameke. ‘Enjoy the feast.’

They all shook his
hand before he regained his saddle and rode back to the crusader
camp.

‘What are we eating
tonight?’ asked Hans, the talk of food arousing his ever-present
hunger.

‘Deer if Brother Lukas
allows me to take a crossbow into the woods,’ said Anton.

‘Well, then,’ said
Conrad, ‘let us go and find him so we can fill the great space that
is Hans’ belly.’

Lukas gave his
permission for the boys to mount a hunting party and that night
they ate well after killing a roe deer that they skinned and
butchered, roasting its flesh over a fire as darkness descended
over the land. Their meal was not as grand as the feast given by
Sir Helmold where squires in his livery served guests game that the
crusader knights had hunted – wild boar, deer, elk and black grouse
– washed down by copious quantities of wine that the lord had
brought from his estates in Germany. It was a most enjoyable
banquet and went on long into the night, becoming noisier as the
guests became more inebriated.

*****

In Livonia in spring
darkness came four hours before midnight. Sir Helmold’s feast had
begun just as the sun was sinking in the west and two hours later
the noise coming from his pavilion could be heard hundreds of paces
away. Stecse knelt beside Vetseke among the trees and observed the
flicker of campfires between the trunks. He had decided to trust
the Liv prince who had agreed to lead him into the forest that
stretched from the Dvina for miles inland, the green canopy only
being interrupted by lakes, meadows, settlements and smaller rivers
that dotted the landscape.

He had brought a
hundred of his most trusted men with him, which, together with the
equal number of Vetseke’s soldiers, made for a raiding party that
was both manageable but also strong enough to inflict damage on the
crusaders. Vetseke had reported that the crusaders had made camp
and shown no indication that they would move until the bishop
arrived. Stecse had decided that if they would not visit him then
he would call upon them.

The hands and faces of
the raiders were blackened with soot, they wore no mail or metal
armour or helmets, being equipped with leather breastplates, caps
and boots. They carried blackened shields and spears and axes in
their hands so there were no jangling belts or scabbards. Not that
it mattered: the noise coming from the pavilion in the centre of
the camp was enough to wake the dead.

‘The crusaders are
celebrating their victory already,’ hissed Vetseke.

‘Then we should avail
ourselves of their hospitality,’ whispered Stecse. ‘The gods be
with you.’

‘And you,’ replied
Vetseke.

Stecse tapped his
subordinate next to him on the arm and got to his feet. He and
Vetseke then began moving slowly towards the fires and noise ahead,
carefully feeling their way in the blackness of the forest. Their
men had been ordered to remain silent until they reached the enemy
camp, after which they were to kill and burn quickly before
withdrawing back into the forest. They had also been told that the
wounded would be left behind and the same went for those who were
foolish enough to be captured. As the volume of noise coming from
Sir Helmold’s pavilion increased, two hundred men silently crept
towards the crusader camp.

*****

The riotous laughter
coming from the pavilion seemed louder as night fell and quiet
descended over the land. Guards had been posted around the Sword
Brother camp and sergeants and brother knights gathered round
campfires to talk in muted conversations. Conrad, tired from the
exertions of pitching the tents, tending to the horses and digging
the latrine trenches, tried to get some sleep but the noise of the
celebrations kept him awake.

‘Are you awake,
Conrad?’ said Hans.

‘Yes.’

‘Sounds as though the
feast is going well.’

‘Indeed.’

There was a great
cheer from the pavilion.

Anton sat up. ‘This is
no good. I’m on guard duty in an hour anyway.’

He reached over to his
boots, a single candle burning in a lantern hanging on the tent
pole providing illumination. He looked at Johann beside him who was
snoring soundly.

‘I sometimes think
that a herd of elk could stampede through camp and Johann would
sleep through it all.’

Conrad and Hans
laughed as another bout of riotous laughter came from Sir Helmold’s
tent. Then Conrad heard a different sound, a high-pitched scream
that he had heard many times on the battlefield. The hairs on the
back of his neck pricked up and a shiver went down his spine.

‘Did you hear that?’
he said.

Anton pulled on his
boots. ‘Hear what?’

There was another
scream, fainter but still discernible.

Hans jumped up. ‘I
heard that.’

Conrad did likewise
and kicked Johann.

‘Get up, Johann, we
are under attack.’

They pulled on their
boots, grabbed their swords, shields and helmets and rushed
outside. Henke stood beside the campfire outside their tent, along
with Rudolf and Lukas. Henke saw them.

‘We heard it too.’

He and the others had
drawn their swords and were looking towards the crusader camp.
Suddenly the alarm bell outside the chapel tent began ringing and
men began running from their tents or racing to their shelters to
gather their weapons. And in the crusader camp there was a plethora
of shouts and screams. Instead of racing wildly towards the source
of the tumult the brethren and sergeants were trained to rally at
the chapel tent to receive their orders. They did so now where
Rudolf, in the absence of the castellans of Wenden, Segewold and
Kremon, who were at the feast and perhaps already dead, bellowed
orders.

‘We march to save the
masters of our order. Secure Sir Helmold’s pavilion. God with
us!’

Eighty voices shouted
‘God with us’ and followed Rudolf as he ran through the Sword
Brother camp and then stood at its northern end as shouts and war
cries came from the crusader tents immediately to the north. Some
of the tents were on fire, illuminating figures running and
fighting and horses and mules bolting. It was chaos.

Just as they did when
mounted on the battlefield the brethren formed into line, the
brother knights in the first rank, the sergeants behind and in the
rear the novices, much to their consternation. Only half the
brother knights wore their mail armour and less than that had
helmets, so great had been the rush to the chapel tent. But all had
their shields and swords, though most preferred maces or axes for
close-quarter work on foot. The sergeants were in a similar state,
some being bare footed but all having one or more weapons. Conrad
and the other novices had strapped on their sword belts but like
the others preferred bludgeoning weapons for the fight with the
night raiders.

Rudolf raised his mace
and the whole formation moved forward at speed, crossing the
hundred paces of open ground between the two camps in less than a
minute. Small groups of crusaders and their squires were attempting
to fend off black-clad warriors armed with axes and spears and
carrying square-like shields. The raiders did not stop to fight but
threw their spears and then moved past the Christian knights,
cutting down individuals they came across and throwing burning
firewood into tents and on carts.

The Sword Brothers
moved as one through the camp, parting to sweep around any tents in
their way, reforming their line and then continuing the advance
into the heart of the camp. Men screamed as they ran from burning
tents with their clothes on fire and others, severely wounded by
axe blows and spear thrusts, crawled on the ground as their
lifeblood seeped from their bodies. On either flank of the Sword
Brothers men had to fend off darting attacks by raiders who ran at
them screaming their war cries and attempting to cave in their
skulls with axes. The pace slowed as these irritant attacks came
from all directions.

‘Look to the sides and
rear!’ screamed Rudolf.

Conrad and the other
novices turned and began walking backwards, as did sergeants in the
second line, who pulled the boys back into their ranks. A spear
came from nowhere to land in the chest of the sergeant next to
Conrad. He groaned and fell forward on the ground. Conrad knelt
down to tend to him but then heard Hans’ voice.

‘Conrad!’

He leapt up to see a
black-faced demon coming at him with a spear levelled at his belly.
He could not duck out of the way for that would mean the brother
knight in the front rank behind him would be skewered in the back,
so he jumped forward and caught the spear point on his shield, the
iron head going through the wood and leather and stopping a few
inches from his body. In a split-second he turned the axe in his
hand and swung down on the helmet of the enemy warrior. He thought
the man was wearing a helmet but it turned out he wore only leather
on his head and so the spike easily went through the covering and
deep into his skull. In fact it went so deep that when he crumpled
in a heap on the ground Conrad could not pull the spike out of the
man’s head. And to make matters worse the warrior’s spear was still
embedded in his shield.

‘Hans,’ he called,
‘hack his head off.’

Hans next to him
looked at his predicament and began chopping at the dead man’s neck
with his own axe. After half a dozen blows he had severed the head
to allow Conrad to retrieve his axe.

‘And the spear shaft,’
Conrad requested.

Hans cut through the
haft with a single blow and they continued their advance to the Sir
Helmold’s pavilion, Conrad having a spear point lodged in his
shield and an enemy head impaled on his axe.

They stepped over dead
knights and squires, avoiding maddened, wounded horses that
galloped past them as they finally closed upon the great pavilion.
They gave a great cheer as they discovered that Sir Helmold was
still alive, fighting sword in hand beside Thalibald, the latter’s
two sons also standing beside their father outside the tent. At
least fifty other knights were also standing with their lord, dead
enemy warriors at their feet along with a score of crusaders who
had also been slain. And also there were masters Berthold, Bertram
and Mathias, bloodied but unbowed as they stood with eyes full of
fire and swords dipped in the blood of the enemy. They smiled when
they saw the phalanx of Sword Brothers arrive.

Horns were sounding to
signal the withdrawal of the raiders, who melted back into the
forest.

Sir Helmold, still
roaring drunk, was enraged at their cowardice. ‘Rally to me,
warriors of Christ! We will chase these devils back to hell where
they belong.’

With that he bent
down, picked up a large silver goblet, drained it and threw it
aside. He then rested his sword on his shoulder and began walking
from the tent’s entrance in a westerly direction towards the
forest. The crusaders, equally drunk with both drink and bloodlust,
cheered and followed him. Berthold looked alarmed and chased after
Sir Helmold, followed by Bertram, Mathias and Thalibald. A great
argument ensued in which Thalibald prevailed upon his friend not to
lead an expedition into the forest at night, the result of which
would be more crusader casualties. He was advised by the castellans
to secure the camp first and wait for the dawn when a more sober
assessment of the situation could be made.

While this was going
on Rameke joined Conrad and the other novices and told them what
had happened.

‘The raiders tried to
kill us all but Sir Helmold’s knights rallied to their lord and
fought them off. The rest of the camp was not so lucky, it
seems.

He saw Conrad holding
down the severed head with one foot while he tugged at his axe to
remove the spike from its bloody holder.

‘A souvenir,
Conrad?’

‘He’s going to take it
back to Wenden to give it as a present to Daina,’ said Hans,
grinning.

‘A betrothal gift,’
added Anton.

‘Meet your new
brother,’ said Johann.

Conrad blushed. ‘Shut
up.’

Rameke shook his head.
‘I don’t think my sister would appreciate such a gift, Conrad.’

Conrad gave one great
tug and freed his axe spike. ‘Just ignore them, Rameke.’

‘Everyone knows that
Conrad loves your sister, Rameke,’ said Hans, ‘though Conrad thinks
that it is a great secret.’

Rameke looked at
Conrad. ‘Really? You love my sister? Most odd. My father will be
delighted.’

‘You must not say
anything to him,’ said Conrad in alarm, forgetting that Daina had
already informed her father of her love for the novice. ‘It will
lead to much trouble.’

‘Much merriment, more
like,’ quipped Anton.

Conrad kicked away the
bloody head, which landed at Henke’s feet.

‘A gift, for me, you
are too kind?’ He pointed at Conrad and the others. ‘No sleep for
you four. Scour the camp to see if there are any wounded. Take the
Christians to the surgeon’s tent and bring any pagans here.’

Parties of sergeants
and crusaders were already conducting a search of the ransacked
camp, while the squires attended to the burning tents and carts and
tried to round up the horses and mules. In the dark it was a
hopeless task but the coming of the dawn made their work easier. It
also revealed the extent of the damage and loss of life.

Sir Helmold’s face was
purple with fury as his commanders reported the casualties: ten
knights, twenty-three of their men-at-arms and fifty squires slain
and sixty others wounded. Fifty tents, a score of carts and twelve
wagons wrecked and thirty mules killed. It was a miracle that the
main stabling area had been positioned to the west of the camp and
had thus escaped any loss. Nevertheless, the raiders had inflicted
much damage, not least to Sir Helmold’s reputation. He bristled
with rage and he and his fellow knights thirsted for revenge.