As Dust to the Wind

by Peter Darman

  Kristjan scoffed when he was told that it was God’s mercy that the Mongols failed to press their advantage after destroying the Russian army, though he did give thanks that Yaroslav and his two sons, Alexander and Andrey, had survived the slaughter, as had the Mayor of Pskov. They were the lucky ones; the majority of the Druzhina had been surrounded and cut to pieces by Mongol arrows. The more heavily armed Mongolian lancers were used to finish the slaughter. But the onset of night allowed some of the Russians to escape. Kristjan and his men were just some of the survivors who had run, hidden and evaded the eastern heathens.

  A cloud of despondency hung over Novgorod during the summer and into the winter, hysteria gripping the populace when news came that a new Mongol army was approaching the city. Everyone flocked to its many churches and bells rang out every day. Such was the threat facing Novgorod that Kristjan had not gone to Karelia for the winter, the veche begging him to stay.

  ‘They conveniently forget I’m not one of their own when they need me and my men,’ he scoffed, shoving a piece of cheese in his mouth.

  ‘You are the people’s hero,’ said Hoidja, ‘if you fled there would be panic.’

  ‘There will be panic anyway when the Mongols get here,’ replied Kristjan. ‘Good cheese.’

  He sipped at the warm milk. ‘It doesn’t matter. Hella and the children will be in Karelia before they arrive.’

  Hella threw back her long locks. ‘Will she indeed.’

  Kristjan smiled at her. ‘And Dmitriy will be joining you.’

  The older man was appalled. ‘Leave Novgorod? To live in a tent in a frozen wilderness. I will surely perish.’

  Kristjan broke off a large chunk of bread.

  ‘If you stay here you will surely perish.’

  ‘What of our property and wealth?’ asked Hoidja.

  Kristjan finished eating the bread. ‘What of them? They will be no use to you if you are dead.’

  Hoidja pointed at him while looking at Hella.

  ‘Thus speaks a man of royal birth who grew up never having to worry where his next meal would come from.’

  Hella laughed but Kristjan was far from amused.

  ‘There is no fight left in this city.’ He tilted his head towards the peeling bells. ‘Praying to a false god will not help, either.’

  Kristjan’s sons were also eating at the table, though they took no interest in the adult conversation. Kristjan looked at them.

  ‘I do not wish my sons to be slaves of the Mongols.’

  Kalju looked at him. ‘I will fight beside you, father, against these mongrels.’

  ‘Mongols,’ Hoidja corrected him.

  ‘One day you will stand beside me, my son,’ said Kristjan, ‘but not yet.’

  The steward of the mansion entered the chamber, bowed to Hoidja and Kristjan and whispered into the ear of the former.

  ‘Show him in,’ said Hoidja.

  ‘Yaroslav is here,’ he said to Kristjan.

  Novgorod’s Thousandman looked tired, his eyes ringed with black and his face haggard. He kissed Hella’s hands, nodded his head to Kristjan and accepted Hoidja’s offer of a chair at the table. The steward served him beer.

  ‘The veche wants us to arrange a parley with the Mongols,’ he said, ‘they want me to head it.’

  ‘While they quiver behind the city walls,’ sneered Kristjan.

  Yaroslav gave him a wry smile. ‘They want you to go as well, Kristjan.’

  ‘Kristjan is leaving the city,’ announced Hoidja.

  Yaroslav’s worry lines appeared to deepen.

  ‘You cannot, Kristjan, the city is close to panic. If its talisman was to leave then all would be surely lost.’

  ‘All is already lost,’ said Kristjan. ‘The Mongols have sacked city after city and destroyed every army sent against them. Why should Novgorod be spared?’

  Yaroslav was offered and drank more beer. ‘The veche, on the advice of the Council of Lords, has sanctioned me to offer tribute to the Mongols in return for their not sacking the city.’

  Kristjan threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘Slavery by any other name.’

  ‘Better that than Novgorod reduced to ashes,’ said a despondent Yaroslav.

  ‘What use a parley, then,’ teased Kristjan, ‘if the veche has already decided to prostrate themselves before the Mongols?’

  ‘Because,’ replied Yaroslav irritably, ‘appearances are all and we must impress upon the Mongols that we will fight if provoked.’

  ‘A hollow threat,’ said Kristjan dismissively.

  ‘As a friend, Kristjan,’ said Yaroslav, ‘I ask you to accompany me on this expedition. I cannot command you but I would consider it a favour if you would do this for me.’

  Hella and Hoidja looked at the Ungannian who puffed out his cheeks and mumbled something indiscernible under his breath. His wife and business partner were wearing frowns and had the appearance of parents regarding a naughty child.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Kristjan, ‘I will go. But not for this city or its worthless veche but for you, Yaroslav.’

  Hella jumped up, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips. Hoidja clasped his hands together with joy and Yaroslav, utterly relieved, closed his eyes and silently thanked God.

  Kristjan and Yaroslav left two days later at the head of five hundred horsemen, including Alexander and many boyars and their sons. Crowds gathered at the city’s gates to see off the party, priests holding aloft icons from Saint Sophia Cathedral to fortify the sons of the city. Archbishop Spyridon himself, dressed in red and gold vestments, went among the soldiery to bless their weapons, priests swinging incense burners behind him to add to the pomp and ceremony of the occasion. Kristjan’s men, now armed and equipped in the Russian style with lamellar armour, pointed helmets, leather boots and red cloaks, derided the priests. On their shields they carried the golden eagle symbol of Ungannia, but in every other respect they resembled the retinue of a rich boyar, which is what they were.

  Members of the veche were also in attendance, wrapped in furs and fine leatherwear. Yaroslav stood talking to the other members of the Council of Lords, all of them with solemn faces, knowing that the expedition was carrying the hopes of the city. They were all old men now. Kristjan shook his head. Old men sending young men off to die. He himself had ordered Tusk and a score of men to stay behind to ensure that Hella, his children and Hoidja left the city should the Mongols shun the offer of tribute. Tusk had been instructed to manhandle his wife and Hoidja if necessary to get them out of the city before it was torched.

  ‘Stay here,’ he told Boar, dismounting and sauntering over to Yaroslav.

  ‘Well, Kristjan,’ said Pavel Tverdislavich, ‘ready to face the hordes of the Devil once more?’

  ‘If we ever get out of the city. How long will the priests be?’

  ‘The archbishop intends to bless every man marching out of the city,’ Akim Chudin told him, his narrow face encompassed by an enormous fur hat.

  ‘All of them, including me and my men?’ teased Kristjan.

  Pavel, old, his face pale, his nose red from the cold, placed an arm around his shoulder.

  ‘Not you, Kristjan, everyone knows that you are a godless pagan who refuses to see the light.’

  ‘I’m surprised that the archbishop approves of my marching with Lord Nevsky,’ said Kristjan.

  ‘He doesn’t,’ replied Sasha Zavidich, ‘but the common folk, simple creatures that they are, see you as their hero and so it would be foolish not to request your presence on this expedition.’

  ‘I wish I was coming with you,’ said Pavel, his frame wracked by a coughing fit. He looked most unwell.

  The archbishop, his phelonion of damask, adorned with silver and gold thread shining in the bright sunshine, was suddenly among them. Kristjan smirked when he saw the babbling priests behind swinging their incense burners.

  ‘God is with you,’ he told Yaroslav, ‘rest assured it is He who will guide your actions when de
aling with the barbarians.’

  Yaroslav knelt before Spyridon, the archbishop placing a hand on the noble’s head saying a prayer as he did so.

  ‘Are you going to bless me too, priest,’ asked Kristjan mockingly.

  Spyridon’s deep-set eyes regarded the Estonian coolly.

  ‘Will you repent and convert to the true religion?’

  ‘I will not,’ replied Kristjan.

  Yaroslav and the other council members squirmed, though Pavel grinned before another coughing fit seized him.

  ‘Then the pit of hell awaits you,’ said Spyridon.

  ‘Is that before or after I have saved your arse?’ queried Kristjan.

  Spyridon’s gaunt features were aflame with fury but before he could respond Yaroslav bundled the laughing Kristjan away.

  ‘You should not goad the church, Kristjan. It tolerates your pagan beliefs only because Hoidja is a God-fearing man who supports the church.’

  Kristjan stopped laughing. ‘You mean it accepts the donations he gives it; against my advice I may add.’

  ‘One day, my friend, I fear your tongue will talk your head off its shoulders.’

  ‘I worry more about the Mongols cutting it off in the next few days.’

  The snow was deep, flakes filling the air when the column of riders leading packhorses carrying tents and supplies left the city. The latest intelligence to reach Novgorod had told of the Mongols being only sixty miles southeast of the city, with the result that the road to the west was filling with sleds carrying those who had the means to escape Novgorod, mostly boyars and merchants fleeing to their estates outside the city.

  *****

  Dorpat had grown markedly since the last time Conrad had visited it, its streets narrow and dark between wooden, multi-storey houses and businesses. Where once had stood a pagan settlement of huts and workshops there was now a thriving Christian town, wooden churches seemingly on every street corner and a cathedral growing on Toome Hill alongside the stone citadel that had once been commanded by Conrad’s friend.

  ‘This town stinks,’ complained Conrad, screwing up his nose as they rode through the gates flanked by a new stone wall.

  ‘Too many people crammed into too small an area, master,’ said Werner.

  Dorpat was a far cry from the place that Conrad and his friends had stormed during Kristjan’s rebellion. Then it was filled with Ungannians but now in addition to the natives there were Russians, Germans and Danes, with their different languages and characteristics. All of them trading in the goods coming from Novgorod and Pskov, as well as selling the wares from northern Germany. Would Bishop Hermann really risk all this?

  They rode near the market square in the centre of Dorpat, halfway between the castle and riverside docks that always stank of hot tar, slaughterhouses and fish. Werner pulled up his horse at a wide-fronted two-storied inn with an entrance to a stable yard.

  ‘Boy,’ Werner called to an urchin loitering near the entrance to the yard, ‘take our horses to the stable.’

  The boy sprinted over. Werner flicked a coin at him. The urchin grinned.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Is your master in?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  They dismounted to allow the boy to lead the horses into the yard. Werner pointed up at the sign above the inn’s entrance. It showed a grinning man holding a crossbow, above which were the words ‘The Faithful Crossbowman’. Conrad laughed.

  ‘How appropriate.’

  The interior of the inn was dark, the fire in the hearth not lit today due to the heat, most of the light coming from open shutters but they were small and the light did not reach the back of the inn where tallow candles and grease lamps burned. Along the wall near the entrance to the kitchen and storerooms were shelves filled with earthenware mugs and leather drinking vessels. The pungent aroma of ale and sweat filled the interior where patrons were sitting on benches and three-legged stools. Business was certainly booming.

  Serving girls delivered flagons filled with ale to customers, avoiding groping hands with aplomb as they did so. One with blonde hair and a dazzling smile recognised Werner and beckoned him over.

  ‘Sergeant, we have not seen you for a while. The usual?’

  ‘You are a Godsend, Martha, where is your husband?’

  She smiled at Conrad as he sat on a stool next to a small table, Werner sitting opposite along the wall. Conrad saw that she was pregnant.

  She nodded at the other side of the inn. ‘Telling war stories.’

  ‘A tankard for my friend as well, Martha.’

  When she had gone Conrad leaned forward.

  ‘I will be back.’

  He walked through the packed inn to the other side of the room where eager-faced patrons holding tankards were huddled around a man perched on a stool. Conrad moved closer to hear what he was saying.

  ‘So after my men had killed most of the Oeselians, King Valdemar begged us to take him with us. They say he is a great king but I remember him as an ashen-faced beggar who would have sold his kingdom for a place on one of our boats. It was an embarrassment, I can tell you.

  ‘Anyway, Kaja, now Queen Kaja, told Master Conrad not to take Valdemar back to the mainland on account he had pissed his leggings with fear.’

  Those listening guffawed and cheered.

  ‘Surely not?’ said one.

  Leatherface looked most serious. ‘As I live and breathe it was so. So there we were, Kaja pouring scorn on Valdemar who was close to despair, together with his knights who had fallen on their knees and were begging to be taken back to the mainland. So Master Conrad, God rest his soul, having a kind heart, told Kaja to put away her sword.’

  There were gasps.

  ‘She drew her sword in the presence of King Valdemar?’ said a disbelieving voice.

  ‘She’s like a wildcat,’ answered Leatherface, ‘only a few of us could control her. Well two, really, me and Master Conrad. Where was I? Oh, yes. Well, we decided to take the king back to the mainland rather than leave him to the mercy of the Oeselians. He was so grateful he gave me and Master Conrad a pouch full of silver each.’

  ‘What about Kaja?’ asked a rosy cheeked fellow.

  ‘I put her over my knee and spanked her for her insolence to the king.’

  They cheered and applauded, ale spilling over the straw-covered floor. When the commotion had died down Conrad stepped closer.

  ‘That is not quite how I remember it.’

  The innkeeper’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened in surprise. All eyes turned to the strapping soldier in mail standing grinning before them.

  ‘Master Conrad?’ said Leatherface softly.

  ‘I saw Kaja not so long ago and I’m sure she would be interested in your version of the rescue of Valdemar from the Oeselians.’

  But Leatherface was not listening. He sprang to his feet and threw himself at Conrad, embracing him warmly.

  ‘By what devilry do you appear before me? Are you returned from the dead?’

  ‘In a matter of speaking,’ grinned Conrad.

  Leatherface gripped him by the shoulders and stepped back.

  ‘You look well, very well in fact. Being a prisoner of the pagans obviously agreed with you. Clear off you lot and give me some space. Sit down, Conrad. Are you alone?’

  ‘Werner is with me.’

  ‘Werner,’ bellowed Leatherface, ‘get your arse over here.’

  The former mercenary shot questions like he was using his crossbow. They came thick and fast and Conrad answered them as best he could. Martha came over and the old goat grabbed her and forced her on to his lap.

  ‘What do you reckon, Master Conrad? Told you I would get myself a pretty young wife.’

  Conrad raised his tankard to Martha. ‘You are truly blessed, my friend.’

  They reminisced late into the night, getting drunk as the last customers left and Martha and the other serving women shut up the inn. Leatherface was insistent that Conrad and Werner stay at the inn rather tha
n report to the castle.

  ‘I doubt if Lukas will miss you. He has his hands full entertaining the papal legate.’

  ‘Cardinal William is here?’ said Conrad.

  ‘Arrived three days ago, which means trouble, I can smell it in the air.’

  ‘That will be the riverside docks,’ smiled Werner.

  Leatherface was now quite drunk. ‘You two should retire and invest your money like I have.’

  ‘We can’t retire,’ slurred Conrad, ‘we have both taken oaths that are lifelong.’

  ‘Then I grieve for you both.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I could lure you out of retirement?’ joked Conrad. ‘After all, every man has his price.’

  ‘Not this one,’ said Leatherface, ‘this man is determined to die of old age in his bed with his young wife beside him.’

  ‘Poor Martha,’ muttered Werner.

  Dorpat’s bishop’s palace was a sizeable structure but following the arrival of William of Modena it was positively cramped. In accordance with accepted custom the legate had brought a large entourage including stewards, cupbearers, chamberlain, marshals, scribes, pages and chroniclers, even a poet. Now in his mid-fifties William was an accomplished politician and the Pope’s most trusted advisor. Fluent in several languages he was at ease among princes, kings, bishops and knights, in addition to being able to deal with the often prickly temperaments of powerful churchmen. Bishop Hermann was one such individual, a scion of the Buxhoeveden family who had transformed the Bishopric of Dorpat from a backward pagan province into a prospering and wealthy domain. But new cathedrals and castles had an insatiable appetite for money, which William of Modena used to his advantage.

  The audience chamber of the palace was a spacious, grand affair filled with expensive wall tapestries depicting the life of Christ and the fall of the walls of Jericho, as well as the painting of Bishop Albert’s vanquishing of Lembit. But Hermann liked to entertain close associates and important guests in the smaller though no less lavish withdrawing chamber to the rear of the main hall. Novices from the nearby Cistercian monastery provided servants to attend the bishop and his guests. Lukas’ sergeants from the castle provided the guards. When attending the palace the novices were dressed in red, the bishop’s colours, though church rules forbade them from wearing Dorpat’s coat of arms.