The Sword Brothers (89 page)

‘They are all dead,
lord,’ reported his deputy.

He nodded but said
nothing.

‘Will we take a war
party south, lord?’

‘My first
responsibility is to my people,’ said Nigul. ‘The crusaders might
return and until I am certain that they will not then my warriors
will stay in Rotalia to guard them.’

He looked around at
the corpses on the beach. ‘I should have been here instead of
drinking ale with Lembit.’

In the aftermath of
the execution of the Christian missionaries and the return of their
leader to the bishop’s territory, Lembit had requested the presence
of the Estonian chiefs at Lehola. There, amid great festivities, he
had informed them that the final war against the Christians was
about to begin and that in the spring they should bring their
warriors to his stronghold so they could march south in a great
army that would rid the world of the bishop and his followers once
and for all. He had told them that the crusader kingdom was on its
knees, having suffered a Lithuanian invasion that had only been
defeated with difficulty. Their Oeselian allies would attack Riga
from the sea while the Estonians would sweep through Livonia like a
plague.

Nigul and the other
chiefs had toasted their host and saluted his plan, getting drunk
on copious amounts of ale in a smoke-filled hall that smelt of
roasted meat and sweat. It had all seemed so simple then. He and
the other chiefs had known that the bishop had begged Lembit for
peace, and only weak men begged. And so they drank themselves into
oblivion and dreamed of driving the Christians into the sea along
with their Liv allies. And then the crusaders had attacked.

The survivors, those
who had managed to hide in the woods or flee north to other
villages through the snow, had told of hundreds of soldiers on
ponies and on foot, of Caupo leading hundreds more Livs who razed
villages to the ground after stealing food and livestock,
butchering any who protested. Near the coast Rotalian settlements
had always built and maintained watchtowers to warn of the approach
of raiders, usually Oeselian longships. They had lit their beacons
to warn of the approach of the crusaders but they had availed them
little, the Christians shooting the tiny shield walls to pieces
with their crossbows before the men of iron finished off the
survivors. By the time Nigul had collected his army it had been too
late.

‘Too late,’ he said to
himself.

‘Lord?’

He turned his back to
the bitter wind and faced his subordinate. ‘Evacuate the villages
south of here and take their inhabitants to those settlements in
the north, together with their food and livestock.’

His subordinate looked
troubled. ‘In these conditions, lord, many will die.’

‘If they remain here
and the crusaders return all will die,’ snapped Nigul. ‘Obey my
orders.’

The man saluted and
walked away, barking orders to his men to collect the bodies on the
beach. Nigul’s stag banner fluttered in the wind at the head of his
bodyguard as he walked to his pony. He heard the voice of Lembit in
his mind and his anger rose. Like a love-struck young boy he had
been seduced by the Saccalian’s honeyed words and had allowed
himself to be deluded into thinking that the crusaders could be
brushed aside with ease. This corpse-littered beach had disabused
him of that notion. He would not be taking his warriors south to
fight beside Lembit in the spring. Let the Saccalians and the other
tribes shed their blood for once. He would rather have the old
times back when his enemy was the Oeselians and no one had even
heard of the Bishop of Riga and his crusaders.

Nigul spurred his pony
forward back to the track that had led to the beach. His men were
piling bodies onto carts for cremation on the pyre that was being
built by the survivors from the nearby village. Flecks of snow
swirled around in the air as the breeze continued to buffet the
living and the dead on the beach. Nigul scowled; if anything it was
getting colder. The sooner this dreadful winter ended the better
for in the spring and summer the rivers, bogs and flood plain
grasslands of southern Rotalia and western Saccalia created an
excellent impediment to the movement of armies. Wagons, carts and
horses sunk in the bogs and even the forests filled with four or
five feet of floodwater every spring. But at present the area was
frozen solid and gave easy access to his people’s heartland. At
least in two months’ time the weather would get warm and the ice
and snow would melt, as would his alliance with Lembit.

Chapter 19

At the beginning of
May in the new year an army camped in the lush meadows around
Wenden. The bishop had returned from Germany the previous month,
bringing with him two hundred knights and the same number of
squires to fight for his cause, plus four hundred lesser knights
that were under obligation to serve their masters. In addition, the
burghers of the city of Lübeck had paid for the raising and
equipping of five hundred foot soldiers for the bishop to take back
with him to Livonia. These men wore tan coloured brigandines –
jackets with protective metal plates underneath that covered their
torsos and groins – with the shield of the city of Lübeck sewn on
the left-hand side of the chest. The design was a simple shield,
the top half white, the bottom half red, but it awakened long
dormant feelings within Conrad when he first saw it as the soldiers
from his home city pitched their camp to the east of the castle,
towards the quarry.

The Bishop of Riga
arrived at the head of the army accompanied by Theodoric, a mounted
bodyguard of twenty men, a hundred of his spearmen and an
equivalent number of his crossbowmen. The two bishops were housed
in the master’s hall, which meant that Conrad and the other novices
were ejected from their dormitory to make room for the priests
attending the bishop, in addition to Master Berthold.

Two hundred knights,
three hundred mounted retainers and two hundred squires accompanied
Sir Helmold. Count Horton mustered a hundred knights, the same
number of squires and two hundred mounted retainers. Their foot
soldiers had been distributed among the castles along the Dvina to
counter any new Lithuanian incursions into the crusader kingdom.
Because of this threat the garrisons of Holm, Uexkull, Lennewarden
and Kokenhusen remained at their castles, but the Sword Brothers
from Segewold, Kremon and Wenden gathered at the latter place prior
to marching north. It had been nearly a year since the Lithuanian
invasion and during that time the order had replenished their
garrisons with new recruits. This meant that there was a full
complement of brother knights and sergeants, new members having
come from among the crusaders who had arrived the previous year.
Many of the knights had also donated funds to the order, which had
helped to alleviate its parlous financial state. Together with
those men Grand Master Volquin brought with him from Riga, the
Sword Brothers at Wenden mustered forty-one brother knights, a
hundred and fifty sergeants, one hundred and ten crossbowmen and an
equal number of spearmen.

The final contingent
of the army comprised Caupo, Thalibald and a thousand Liv warriors
who camped around the latter’s village, being eager to avoid the
smell and filth of the three thousand men camped around the castle,
together with their horses, mules and oxen. Dozens of two- and
four-wheeled wagons littered the camp, draught animals held in
corrals nearby. Squires and foot soldiers were sent into the forest
to bring back firewood and materials to build animal pens to hold
the cattle, goats, and chickens that provided a mobile source of
milk and meat for the army. It was fortunate that Livonia was
filled with lush meadows where animals could graze.

Nevertheless, Grand
Master Volquin had planned this campaign very carefully, and so as
well as living off the land the wagons contained barrels of salted
fish and meat as well as thousands of crackers – twice-baked bread
– that had been prepared in Riga’s ovens and which reportedly
lasted a hundred years if stored correctly. There were also barrels
of mead made from the honey of the beehives that littered Livonia,
though the knights from Germany had reportedly brought with them a
cog filled with nothing but wine casks.

Though there were
women with the army – mostly the wives of Lübeck’s foot soldiers
but also some whores – Master Berthold was very aware that the
wives of Wenden’s civilian workers and the females of the settlers
might be vulnerable to assault and so he forbade anyone entering
the castle grounds without permission and placed guards around the
small village. He was also eager for the army to commence its march
from Wenden as soon as possible to prevent pestilence breaking out,
especially as the temperature was rising, as was the stench that he
believed carried disease.

Conrad could not hear
his friend’s words.

‘What did you
say?’

Hans pulled down the
mask covering the lower half of his face. ‘I said you should wear a
mask.’

Conrad laughed.
‘Why?’

Hans, who had replaced
his mask, pulled it down again. ‘Because everyone knows that bad
air carries pestilence.’

‘You look ridiculous,’
was all that Conrad said.

They had been
instructed to go to the forest to chop some firewood, Conrad
leading the mule that pulled the two-wheeled cart on which had been
loaded the axes.

‘Are you really going
to leave the order?’

Conrad looked down. ‘I
don’t want to, but I cannot marry Daina and become a brother
knight.’

‘It is a great honour
to become a brother knight,’ said Hans, who had forgotten about his
mask. ‘When I stood before the judge in Lübeck accused of theft I
did not expect to end up here and about to become a brother knight.
Who would have thought it, a lowly thief becoming a knight.’

Conrad halted and
placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I can think of no one more worthy
of the white surcoat, my friend.’

They heard a shout and
men cursing and looked towards the trees fifty paces away. They had
threaded their way through the sprawling camp to head for the woods
to the northeast of the castle, leaving the tents and campfires
behind as they led the mule across a meadow filled with grazing
cows. They heard a woman’s scream, then evil laughs and knew
something was awry.

Conrad released the
mule’s reins and drew his sword. ‘Come on.’

They ran to the trees
and entered the forest, to see four men bent over a struggling
figure on the ground. Conrad noticed an empty wicker basket nearby
and knew that it was Ilona the men had pinned to the earth, who had
foolishly left the castle without any guards. Two were holding her
wrists, a third was holding her legs and attempting to lift up her
dress while a fourth was standing over here, licking his lips. He
tossed a rag on the ground.

‘Put this in her mouth
to shut the bitch up.’

One of the men,
wearing the shield of Lübeck on his brigandine, took the cloth and
shoved it into Ilona’s mouth. She was struggling like a woman
possessed but they were four soldiers against one woman and she
probably knew that she would be raped at the very least.

‘Let her go,’ said
Conrad.

‘Piss off,’ sneered
the standing man.

Perhaps he thought the
two young men, attired only in shirts, leggings and boots, were no
match for him and his comrades, or perhaps he was so preoccupied
with the idea of raping his victim that he gave them no thought at
all.

‘Forgive me, Brother
Lukas,’ said Conrad, who tossed his sword into his left hand,
pulled his dagger from its sheath and then hurled it at the
standing man. The long, thin blade plunged into his neck, a
fountain of blood spurting from the wound as Conrad transferred the
sword back to his right hand and thrust the point into the chest of
one of the men who had been holding Ilona’s wrists, the blade going
through the brigandine, between the metal plates and between his
ribs. His spluttered and tried to say something but though his
mouth opened no words came out as Conrad pulled back the blade and
stood facing the other two soldiers.

‘Safeguard Ilona,’ he
said to Hans as he circled them, who kept glancing at their two
dead comrades.

They were both armed
with swords – the burghers of Lübeck had been generous – and they
thought they were more than a match for him.

Conrad smiled, glanced
behind him to ensure that Ilona was safe, and then focused on the
task in hand.

‘Do you want any
assistance, Conrad?’ queried Hans.

‘That will not be
necessary,’ replied his friend as the first man lunged at him with
his sword.

It was a clumsy,
predictable strike that might have caught him three years ago, but
Conrad could now wield a sword with dexterity and, more
importantly, could anticipate what an adversary was going to do. He
had already leapt to the left as the man was about to strike and so
his thrust struck air. Conrad brought up his sword and slashed it
down it a blur, severing the man’s right hand at the wrist. He
emitted a scream that was loud enough to waken the dead as the
hand, still holding the sword, fell to the ground and blood gushed
from the bloody stump. The man collapsed to his knees and moaned as
he stared in disbelief at his severed hand.

Conrad spread his arms
wide to present his torso as a target to the last would-be rapist,
a portly, middle aged man who had no doubt spent many an afternoon
in the ale house following a morning spent on the training field as
part of Lübeck’s city militia. There were beads of sweat on his
forehead as he held his sword towards Conrad. The latter turned to
Hans.

‘Take Ilona back to
the castle on the cart, Hans, I will finish affairs here.’