by Peter Darman
‘I would speak to Master Conrad,’ he shouted at the line of knights holding lances and wearing full-face helms hiding their faces.
Conrad removed his helmet. ‘I am Master Conrad.’
‘His grace the duke sends his compliments and requests that you attend him.’
Conrad glanced at the iron bar tucked into the sheath fixed to his saddle holding his axe. He used his spurs to nudge his horse forward, a sergeant in the second rank taking his place. Behind the horsemen, around a quarter of a mile away, was the crusader camp from where the mercenary spearmen and crossbowmen were marching. They would take up a position on the left of the crusader army – four hundred men to anchor its left flank.
Volquin and his standard bearer joined Conrad on the summit of the hill where the Duke of Holstein was enjoying warm wine infused with spices courtesy of a brazier that had been manhandled to the hill by a bevy of servants in the duke’s livery. The standards of Holstein, Lübeck, the Sword Brothers and Riga fluttered in the wind behind him as he sipped his wine from a silver chalice.
‘Wine for Grand Master Volquin and Master Conrad,’ he commanded.
Conrad rammed the end of his lance into the soft earth and took the wine. He had a magnificent view of the battlefield. Directly in front were the lesser knights and in front of them the cream of Holstein’s nobility, lance points glinting in the morning sun. To their left stood eight hundred militiamen and then the five hundred mercenaries gifted to the duke by the Bishop of Lübeck. On the far left of the line the foot soldiers of the Sword Brothers were finally in position. Files of crossbowmen stepped forward to form a screen of missile troops in front of the crusader army.
‘We hold an advantageous position on this hill, your grace,’ said Volquin, ‘I would recommended allowing the pagans to attack so we may blunt their offensive power.’
Braune looked aghast. ‘Let them attack? I think not, grand master. My knights are eager to prove themselves in the eyes of God. Master Conrad, you have fought these pagans before, I believe.’
Conrad finished his wine and pointed at the Samogitian army, from which was coming an annoying racket. Warriors banged their spear shafts on the insides of their shields, hurling insults at the crusaders. White-robed Kriviai raised their arms to the heavens to call on the gods to aid their duke in his fight against the invaders.
‘I have, your grace.’
‘Who are those dressed in white?’
‘Priests, your grace. They are calling on Perkunas, their God of Warriors, to help their army.’
‘Fascinating. You think their leader is here?’
Conrad saw a huge banner behind the Samogitian shield wall, surrounded by horsemen.
‘Duke Ykintas is here,’ he pointed at the banner, ‘near that large banner in the centre of their battle line.’
Braune turned in his saddle. ‘Artur.’
His henchmen looked up. ‘Lord?’
‘Ride forward and instruct the crossbowmen to advance.’
‘Yes, lord.’
He dug his spurs into the sides of his horse and rode down the slope.
‘Your grace,’ there was concern in Volquin’s voice.
‘No grand master,’ said Braune angrily, ‘I will not be deprived of my victory.’
Artur’s mission resulted in the mercenary crossbowmen walking forward, followed by the crusader spearmen. True to their orders the foot soldiers of the Sword Brothers did not move. The duke’s two hundred crossbowmen began shooting their weapons at a range of just over two hundred paces, loosing their missiles on an upward trajectory because shooting level at that range they would hit the ground before they reached the enemy. Like the professionals they were they shot and reloaded while advancing, every twenty seconds producing a discernible crack as they loosed a volley. But then a new sound echoed across the battlefield: a fanfare of trumpets to herald the advance of the duke’s knights. Jurgen’s impatience had reached its limits and so he led his fellow knights forward.
Conrad watched in admiration as the lines of mail and horseflesh rode down the slope, lances levelling as the knights reached the bottom of the hill but showing no signs of quickening their pace. The warhorses struggled to traverse the marshy ground as their legs sank into the mud and their pace slowed. Their advance was agonisingly slow and the crossbowmen halted as the knights began to ride across their front so they could hit the Samogitian shield wall at its mid-point, where the banner of Duke Ykintas was flying.
Braune was offered and took another chalice of wine. ‘On, on, ride them down.’
Conrad turned to look at Volquin who wore an expression of utter helplessness.
The reason for his despair was because the charge of the knights had petered out at the enemy shield wall, the nobles thrusting their lances through wooden shields before going to work with their maces and swords. They chopped and thrust and the Samogitians began to give ground, the warhorses of the knights constantly moving to avoid enemy spears, axes and clubs. The sounds of battle reached Braune’s ears and he began to clap and chuckle like a little girl.
‘Oh how marvellous.’
But it was far from marvellous and as the knights hacked at their enemies Duke Ykintas’ banner left the centre of the Samogitian line and moved right. Following it were the duke’s horsemen who wheeled left once they had moved beyond the end of the shield wall. They then halted, formed into line and advanced towards the right flank of the mêléeing knights.
‘No,’ wailed Volquin.
Conrad watched with sombre fascination as the duke’s horsemen began unleashing their missiles.
They were called spisas and were around eight feet in length. They were lighter and shorter than the lances used by Christian knights but their advantage lay in the fact that they could be thrown as well as used in close combat. Each Lithuanian horseman carried two spisas and they began hurling them at the densely packed knights. Dozens of spears flew through the air to strike men and horses. Horses skewered by spisas collapsed to the ground or bolted away as they were wounded.
The Duke of Holstein watched in horror as some of the Samogitian horsemen charged into the right flank of his knights while others, led by Duke Ykintas himself, lapped round them to attack the duke’s nobles in the rear. Soon Braune’s horsemen were surrounded and fighting for their lives.
‘You are with me, Nordheim,’ shouted Volquin as he turned his horse and rode to his own horsemen, who now would have to ride to the rescue of the crusader horsemen. But he pulled up his horse when a thunderous noise suddenly erupted on the left, beyond where the mercenary foot soldiers of the Sword Brothers stood. Conrad heard it too and averted his gaze from the battle raging in front to see a mass of horse and foot approaching from the east.
A new army had come to the field of battle.
It was led by Mindaugas, the new Duke of Aukstaitija at the head of hundreds of horsemen and thousands of foot soldiers. The symbol of the black axe was imprinted on the great banner carried behind him and was painted on the round shields of his warriors on foot trudging through the waterlogged ground towards the block of Sword Brother mercenaries. Like the professional they were as one they smartly faced right and reformed their lines to face the new threat. There was a succession of cracks as the crossbowmen shot their quarrels. Each man could shoot up to four bolts a minute, meticulously loading, shooting and reloading as the Lithuanians came at them. Eight hundred bolts a minute took a fearful toll of Mindaugas’ foot soldiers, dozens falling as the crossbowmen reaped a fearful harvest. But the Sword Brother foot soldiers numbered only four hundred and though the crossbowmen did terrible murder among those attacking them frontally, they were unable to prevent the pagans from outflanking them. The white-uniformed spearmen assumed an all-round defence with the crossbowmen immediately behind as the Lithuanians swarmed round them and a ferocious mêlée began.
‘God with us!’
A helmetless Grand Master Volquin led the charge of sixty brother knights, a hundred sergeants an
d the fifty horsemen of Riga’s garrison, men who had never fought in a battle before. Volquin charged straight at Mindaugas’ banner, his men forming a wedge shape behind him as they lowered their lances and rode knee-to-knee to skewer everything in their path. There was an excruciating grinding noise as the two sides collided at the foot of the hill, every Sword Brother lance finding a target. It was a brave and magnificent charge and one that was doomed from the start.
Just as Lithuanian warriors surrounded the order’s foot soldiers so were Volquin’s horsemen swallowed by hundreds of pagan riders. One by one the banners of the Sword Brother garrisons disappeared from sight: Holm, Uexkull, Lennewarden, Kokenhusen and Gerzika. Finally the great standard of Volquin himself was surrounded and disappeared from view. Manfred Nordheim tried to escape but was too slow, likewise surrounded and skewered like a wild boar.
‘Time to go, lord.’
Conrad, sick to his stomach, heard the voice of Artur and spun in his saddle. The Duke of Holstein’s henchman was no fool and could smell defeat in the air as the mercenary foot and militias that Braune had brought from Germany were advancing to assist the duke’s knights who were surrounded and dying.
The duke’s servants that had been serving wine looked distraught as Artur pointed at the battle raging around the hill.
‘The battle is lost, lord. We must make haste otherwise we will be killed by the heathens.’
Braune, his eyes bulging in fear, was nodding like a madman.
‘Yes, yes, we must away.’
Artur pointed at his men. ‘Shield the duke, two of you ride ahead to…’
His face contorted in agony as Conrad rammed his lance into his back, twisting it to make it easier to force the point through his mail armour. He released the shaft, dug his spurs into his horse, pulled his sword from its sheath and slashed it across the windpipe of the nearest rider. The man clutched at his bleeding throat and made a gurgling noise but Conrad left him to attack the man behind him, who tried to draw his sword. But he was too slow and Conrad was able to hack down with his own sword to shatter his right wrist. The man gave a high-pitched yelp and tumbled from his saddle.
Conrad wasn’t worried about Braune who was frozen in terror but he had to act fast as the other three riders came at him, all of them with swords held high, shields protecting their torsos. They broke left and right to attack him from both sides, swinging their swords against his exposed face. Conrad, his reins wrapped around his left wrist and his left forearm thrust through the straps on the inner side of his shield, tugged hard on the reins to make his horse turn left, into the mount of one of his adversaries. The blow threw the man off-guard, allowing Conrad to jab the point of his sword under his enemy’s armpit. He left the wounded man slumped in the saddle as he pulled on the reins again to bring his horse about to face the two remaining foes. He laughed when he saw their worried expressions and uncertainty.
He rammed his sword back in its scabbard, pulled his dagger and hurled it at one of the men. Lukas would have been mortified but Conrad smirked as the blade flashed in the sun before burying itself in the shoulder of his target. The other man had had enough. He turned his horse and rode off north, towards the crusader camp being infiltrated by the enemy.
Conrad looked at the bewildered, terrified servants standing seemingly rooted to the spot.
‘Run,’ he told them, ‘save yourselves.’
They did so, as did the Duke of Holstein who had recovered some of his composure and decided that he too would flee. Conrad dug his spurs into his horse and caught up with him before he had ridden fifty paces.
‘Not so fast, your grace.’
He reached over and grabbed the duke’s reins before smashing his shield into Braune’s face, toppling him from his saddle. He jumped down from his horse, took the iron bar and tossed his shield aside.
Braune picked himself up. ‘What are you doing? I will have your head for this.’
Conrad smashed his right fist into the duke’s ugly visage, knocking him to the ground.
‘Let me take you back a score of years, your grace, to a backstreet bakery in Lübeck.’
Braune was on all fours, trying to get up, but Conrad kicked him in the stomach. The duke collapsed again and groaned in pain.
‘The bakery was run by Dietmar and Agnete Wolff. Do you remember them?’
The duke, barely able to speak, mumbled something indecipherable.
‘No? Let me provide details then. You took a fancy to my mother and decided to rape her. Only on the night when you carried out your foul deed she fought back and you killed her. And then you had the blame placed on my father, who was condemned to death.’
He bent down and grabbed Braune’s hauberk, hauling him up so their faces were only inches apart.
‘You killed my mother, you killed my father, you killed my family!’
He threw the duke to the ground gripping the iron bar.
‘The sentence of the court is that you be broken on the wheel.
He struck the duke’s right forearm with the iron bar. There was a sharp crack when the bone was broken followed by a high-pitched scream.
‘One!’ shouted Conrad.
He placed a foot on the duke’s left wrist, the noble’s pain-filled eyes pleading that he be subjected to no more torment.
‘What? Have you not seen many people broken on the wheel? It is only fitting that you should experience what you have inflicted on countless hapless victims.’
The bar came down again, this time smashing the duke’s upper left arm. The noble emitted a loud scream followed by a pitiful wail. He lay helplessly on his back, unable to move, as Conrad walked around him.
‘Two! Isn’t that what the crowd shout as the second bone is broken?
Three!’
He used all his strength to break the duke’s right shin, blood showing almost immediately as the iron reduced skin and bone to pulp. Once again the duke screamed loudly.
His surcoat, right arm and the bar he was holding were splattered with blood, with more blood flowing as Conrad chopped down to smash the left shin, smashing the leg again and again as the duke’s broken body convulsed with the pain shooting through it. Conrad knelt beside the whimpering noble.
‘You will forgive me, your grace, but I do not have a wheel to affix you to so the crows may gorge themselves on your broken body. How can I make amends? I know.’
He walked over to his horse and took the axe from its leather scabbard. He swung it in the air and stood over the duke.
‘Are you right or left-handed, your grace?’
Terrified eyes looked up at him but no answer came from Braune’s mouth.
‘Then let us say right-handed.’
The axe came down to sever the duke’s right hand. But the noble had lost much blood by now and only a low groan came from his mouth.
‘Best to hedge our bets,’ smiled Conrad as he repositioned himself and then hacked down the axe once more to sever the left hand.
The Duke of Holstein was unconscious and hardly breathing when Conrad gripped the axe with both hands and brought it down on the noble’s forehead, the blade biting deep into the skull. Conrad left it embedded in the head, stepping back and spitting on the lifeless body.
‘Dietmar and Agnete Wolff. Two names to remember while you burn in hell, your grace.’
He exhaled and looked into the sky. It was still sunny though he could hear no sounds of battle. He had been so absorbed in inflicting pain on Adolfus Braune that he had been oblivious to what was happening around him. But he became very aware when he turned and saw a great number of horsemen staring at him, men with long hair and beards wearing mail and lamellar armour and carrying swords and axes covered on blood. He saw two banners fluttering in the breeze, one bearing elk antlers, the other a black axe. He knew that the battle had been lost and that he would soon be following his fellow Sword Brothers to the next life.
That was his last thought as a sharp blow to the back of his head knocked him into
unconsciousness.
*****
‘He must die.’
Ykintas did not wear the expression of a man who had just won a battle. And not just any battle but a triumph over the Sword Brothers, the hated crusaders who had inflicted destruction and misery on Lithuania for over ten years. Perhaps it was the realisation that his Samogitians had incurred hundreds of casualties achieving victory, losses adding to the many more his kingdom had suffered these past few years. More probably it was the knowledge that it had been the arrival of Duke Mindaugas that had tipped the scales in his favour. No warlord likes to share victory even if it is with his brother-in-law.
Mindaugas wore a scowl. ‘He cannot die. He saved my life many years ago when I was a boy. I remember that day as if it was yesterday.’
Ykintas sniffed dismissively. ‘He let you live then but now he must die. It is what the gods want.’
They were walking through the debris of battle and its ghastly aftermath. Priests were comforting the dying, warriors were stripping the dead of anything useful and slitting the throats of Christian wounded. Healers were attending to the pagan injured. The afternoon air was filled with the groans and cries of those whose bodies had been smashed and lacerated by iron and steel. Occasionally Ykintas would kneel beside a man he recognised, or at least thought he recognised because half his face had been mangled and smashed by blows from either an axe or mace. He laid a hand on the corpse and shook his head. There were too many Samogitian dead.
The piercing blue eyes of the Kriviu Krivaitis surveyed the scene of carnage. His white robes were splattered with mud and blood. He looked at the waterlogged ground soaked with blood.
‘Duke Mindaugas is correct. The Sword Brother cannot be killed in cold blood. It would offend the gods.’
Ykintas stood and looked at the stick-thin high priest.
‘You would release him so that he may go back to his bishop and return with more crusaders?’
The priest’s nostrils flared. ‘He shall not be harmed, that is my wish. But as long as you do not kill him you may do with him as you wish. The gods gift him to you, Duke Ykintas.’