by Harold Lamb
Mark looked once into the tomb, seeing no grave, but an open passage leading down, crowded with the garrison of the castle pushing out after Kmita. He went with them.
To the Mongols it seemed as if an army, hidden in the ground, had been lying in wait until now. They hurried away with their horses and wounded, down to the road through the mountains ...
"It was," said Parma Marya, "a thought of my father, who was castellan of these mountains. He said we should have two gates here-one seen and one unseen. We called it the dragon's lair."
Reflectively, Mark rubbed his lame arm, sitting on the doorstep of the hall beside this girl.
"Now it is clear to me, lady," he said, "that you have met pagan fighters before."
"We have so," she nodded, "for a hundred years." She looked at him, pleased.
Sitting there in her gleaming gown, she thrust the dark hair back from her slender throat. The scent of the hair was in his nostrils, and the light of her in his eyes. She will never be afraid, he thought.
"They come over the road because it is the road through these mountains," she said. "The black road, we call it." And she hesitated, turning her face from him. "You will not be taking to the road now, Sir Mark?" she asked.
He thought about that. Through the courtyard he saw Kmita pushing by the cattle and carts, past the peasant women who were milking cows and piling hay for the wounded to lie on. Through all this bedlam of a farmyard with its folk, Kmita was carrying a cloak which Mark recognized as his own.
When Kmita reached the steps he held it out in his great paw. Bowing to the belt he shouted angrily, his eyes gleaming.
"He is saying," Panna Marya explained, "how he wanted to go out and rescue you when the pagans made their surprise attack. He is saying that if harm had come to a Knight of the Cross at our gate, it would have been a shame to us forever."
Mark took back the cloak which the Polish captain of men-at-arms had found along the road and he thanked Kmita. He smiled and Kmita grinned.
Here he was, with the cross again, with his wealth gone galloping off. Here he was, not in a palazzo of Venice but shut up in a frontier castle with hordes of pagans roving the countryside.
Panna Marya looked up at him, troubled, trying to read his mind. "Last night," she whispered, "when you rode away, I was frightened."
"You?"
"Yes, of the night and being left alone. I-I wanted so to go away with you to Venice and to live."
Mark, late lord of Kerak, swore silently at himself, understanding now for the first time how frightened this girl was and how she had made a feast of supper, the evening before, thinking it might be her last. He shoved away a bawling calf, put his good arm around her, and laughed.
"Panna Marya, the devil take Venice! This is where we belong, both of us!"
That morning began when the sun came through the mist. It was the warm sun of early spring, and when it struck through the pines and into the ferns of the forest it warmed the heart of the Pole named Szary, and the girl lying beside him-close beside him for warmth.
They were lying there shivering, and they heard the melting ice trickling into the hollows of this Baltic forest. They were looking out between the ferns, across the ribbon of river toward the black castle, secure on that far bank.
"It looks," she whispered, "like a buffalo lying down, very comfortably."
"No, it doesn't," Szary objected. "A buffalo gets up after a while, and goes to some place, to fill his belly with grass or with water or with whatever a buffalo likes. This stronghold of Vorberg will not move itself away. No, it has bedded itself down to stay there by the river."
She smiled, while her teeth chattered from cold and excitement. "Vorberg hath no need to go away, Szary" she objected, "to fill its belly. Nay, it sits there atop the river, and it eats our countryside."
"Hush you, chatter bird," he growled. He thought he heard a hunting horn. And he moved his hand stiffly toward the damp, broken branches, putting them on the steaming embers of last night's fire. She did not try to help him, knowing that she might hurt him by that. For this chattering girl, this Yadvi of Krakow, knew Szary's mind, and she wondered often how she might ease that black temper of his until it would not hurt him.
White smoke swirled up from the wet pine branches, making, Yadvi thought, a new white giant's plume in the forest. She knew that Szary wanted this. Careful had he been to make an eye of light by night where the watchers on Vorberg's keep could see it-and now a heavy smoke for the huntsmen to observe.
"They ride this way," said Szary, his head close to the ground. Here, in the ravine, sounds carried far, and he thought that stones rattled down below them.
And Yadvi's head, with its disordered, straw-like hair, pressed close beside his. The devilkin of a girl was lying on her back, her gray eyes half closed. She was hiding the chill and the fear that tore at her; but she could not hide the pulse throbbing in her throat. And she begged something of him, quickly, while the telltale smoke rose over the two of them like a tent. "Szary, do not be angry again. When you feel hot rage, say to yourself it doesn't matter. I want you to think of me, and say that to yourself. Do it."
Her gray eyes, close to his, held him as if her bare arms were around his neck. He looked over her, through the ferns, without seeing anything.
"Do it!"
"Certainly," he grunted.
"Swear it!"
"Yea-by Our Lady."
But his eyes were questing among the ferns for sight of the riders. "Yadvi-you are like a burr under the saddle-you are always sticking close where I have to feel you. Now, please, get on that pony, and get you gone-"
"Swear," her eyes never blinked, "by the bratsva Polskiego. Or I will not go because you will need me to watch after you like a footless child-"
He could hear brush crackling below him, and the echo of a man's shout, and quick anger ran like fire through his blood. "By the hide and horns of the Lord of-"
"Hush, Szary!"
He slapped her face and thrust her away, toward the tethered horses.
Years before this, Szary had been able to ride with the bratsva Pol- skiego-the winged knights of Poland. Then he could toss the twelvefoot lance in one hand, or slide himself under the neck of a running horse. Now he lived with a stiff right shoulder, and the bones of his hip so knit that he could not grip a horse with his knees again. He could still ride, but not in the rank of the armored fighters that were the best of Poland. And at times black anger made him drunk as with wine. It did not seem to matter to this madcap girl, who laughed at him, and said that now she must be wise for both of them, so that both should live. She wanted to bear the children that would one day climb over his knees.
"Now I think you will remember," she said, as he stared at her. "And that will be well." Then tears gleamed in the gray eyes. "Oh, Szary, I have seen you die once, foolish and headstrong. Now are you something else because you are part of me, so be wary as a wolf-be careful, and live. Here!"
She threw her arms around his neck and her lips touched his mouth. Then because he had to move so slowly-she seized the bundle by him, and shook out his bright blue-and-white cloak, clasping it over his shoulders, which had already begun to grow thin. She lowered his battle sword of gray steel into the sheath at his belt. Then she ran to her shaggy pony, and waved to him, before trotting away through the trees.
"Keep out of sight," he called to her: "Stay with the regiment until tomorrow's night hath passed."
She did not call back to him. He waited until he could see the huntsmen in their green tunics coming up the ravine as if after boar before he hurried toward his mare tied by the fire. He moved slowly, because he limped. He reached the gray mare, set his foot in the stirrup, and hoisted himself into the saddle. He slapped the mare with the end of the reins and turned her up the bank, among the wet ferns. He heard a shout close behind him, and he looked back to see that the huntsmen had spears, and not crossbows. For he did not want to be hit by a crossbow bolt. They were spreading out t
hrough the ferns behind him. By now, Yadvi would be clear away.
Szary forced the mare up the slope, but unseen by the huntsmen he pulled hard on the rein. The mare labored and slipped back.
So Szary was caught by the half ring of riders. A dozen of them closed around him, while he turned the mare on her haunches to face them. When he drew his sword and slashed awkwardly to one side, the boar spears of the huntsmen thrust at him. He saved his body from the points, but he could not get through the ring of riders.
The mare staggered from the shock of a heavier charger, and Szary thought his fight was about over. He saw a man over him, massive as a bear-a spear's point held in check.
"Yield you," this rider grunted.
"Tell me your name," cried Szary.
"Arnold of Prauen, Korntur of Vorberg."
Szary let fall his sword and sat back in the saddle, rubbing his side where a steel edge had hacked along his ribs. The fight, he thought, had been just long enough.
Von Prauen motioned for one of his men to pick up the sword, and his blue eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he surveyed it. A gold cross shone on the hilt, and he could make out letters in the worn steel. Pro patria ad mortem.
"We have caught," he said to his men, "what is better than a boar. Bind up his side; take the mare's rein."
"To go where?" Szary asked quickly.
"To Vorberg's gate, where no Pole has been before you." Von Prauen smiled. "Does that please you, my Pole?"
Szary hid his gladness. He would get inside Vorberg's gate. "Faith," he lied, "I have heard that the Lord Devil who was accustomed to dwell within Vorberg's halls now seats himself in the nether regions because he finds it pleasanter. I shall see for myself if this be true."
At the hour of pones the chimes sounded in Vorberg's chapel.
To the workers in the fields the castle looked like a dark mountain rising from the plain. A man-made mountain of stone, overlooking the river and the highway to the Baltic. The easternmost castle of the Deutsche Ritter, the Teutonic Knights, who had come up from the south of the German empire to build a chain of such castles into the eastern lands among the pagans of the Baltic. The Knights had built a citadel of their Order at Prague, among the mountain highways, and at the port of free Danzig where the traffic of the Vistula met the sea.
These castles, stretching eastward, had the center of their chain at Marienberg, where dwelt the Meister of the Order. For long, they had been advancing step by step through the forests of the pagan Prussians. With their swords the Knights had overthrown these stubborn pagans, and had baptized the survivors. And now, toward the end of the fifteenth century of grace, they had taken another step toward the East, and Vorberg had risen within the Pole, on the plain itself.
At noon this day as always, von Prauen made his rounds. But this time he took Szary, his prisoner, with him. It suited him that Szary should see the strength of Vorberg.
"What have you equal to this? " he asked curiously, when they climbed to the summit of the keep, where two men-at-arms paced, watching the distant signal towers on the highroad.
Squinting down an arrow slot, Szary shrugged his good shoulder. "Nothing so high," he said, "nothing so big. We have, however, some good horses and women."
Horses, thought the kolntur, were desirable to carry the weight of armored men to battle, women to breed sons to bear arms. The sounds from the courtyard below made an orderly hum, each particle of which carried its message to him-like the instrument of an orchestra. A clank sang of a smith's hammer on anvil; a heavy rustling, of hay being thrown out in the stables for the horses of the afternoon patrol. A curious thudding meant that the armigers were rounding out the stone cannonballs. The dry voice of the drillmaster echoed faintly: "Cut ... cut!"
"Yes, my sir," von Prauen admitted, "you warfarers of the plain have good horses; and you can ride like centaurs. But you cannot ride your chargers through these walls, nor leap over them."
"As to that," Szary objected, "I am not so sure. I am thinking, brother Knight, I can ride with my war band into your gate before the morrow's nightfall."
"Why not to the moon also?" von Prauen asked.
"Some other day for that." Szary looked amused and kept a rein on his temper. "But I say truly, my lord brother. Yea, now I can see a way into this stronghold of yours, and I must say that you are kind and well disposed to bring me hither to this eyrie that I might see it plain."
Von Prauen smiled. And anger stirred in him slowly, for he thought the Pole was mocking the strength of Vorberg. With his eye he measured for the thousandth time the distance between the double walls below him-the nicely calculated flight of a crossbow bolt down, so that the defenders could always command the outer works. He checked over the flame-pourers on the battlements, the stone curtains over the two gates. The walls themselves had been built too massive to be shattered by siege engines, even if the Poles had engines. And their height had been calculated to exceed the length of ladders that could be raised by human strength.
As to mining-the barrier of the river and the moat prevented that. No, the keen intelligence of the experts in the Order, versed in the arts of fortification and siege, had built Vorberg's walls to be impregnable; von Prauen knew that so long as a garrison of any skill held Vorberg's walls, the castle could not be taken.
"That was a senseless boast," he said coldly.
"Nay," Szary laughed, "I have the gift of foresight. I am seeing what is to be, on tomorrow's night."
The smoldering anger flamed up in the German.
"Remember," said Szary, watching him, "I speak as a prisoner, not as a guest. I ask you to surrender Vorberg, to save men's lives."
"To you?"
"While there is time."
Then, even while the hot blood surged into his brain, the komtur saw something below him out of the usual. He heard the chime of a woman's laugh. A girl with unbraided hair had edged herself through the men-atarms loitering in the water gate. With a basket on her arm, she was chaffing a leather-clad armorer.
"Remain here," the German told Szary. As he turned to descend the stair, he noticed that his prisoner was watching the gate intently.
Her name, she explained to the Germans, was Yadvi and she had come to sell cherries, the first picking of the trees. The Swabian questioned her before von Prauen. The Swabian, who could talk to a mule, understood the chattering Polish tongue.
"The little Yadvi knows it is forbidden to set foot inside our monastic military burg," he said. "But she wanted some coppers, and we have pence-"
"Ask her how she came over the river."
Von Prauen could remember no cherry orchards on this side of the river, and he thought that Yadvi had come far for her pence. A fisher's boat, it seemed, had brought her.
Were many such boats along the far shore?
Yadvi, thoughtfully, admitted seeing only the one.
Had she seen any Poles riding toward the river?
Her gray eyes met von Prauen's stare, and words tumbled out of her, laughing and indignant.
"She says no." The Swabian stretched his long body, enjoying himself. A white scar ran from his brow to chin, and his clipped hair gleamed gray. "She says, what are we getting at? There were Zmud charcoal burners and hunters in the wald. Not a wight with arms. She says, what next?"
"Hold her. Let her wait in the stable yard with the Polish prisoner."
The yard was close to the water gate. Von Prauen watched the girl, while the Swabian translated, and he thought the arrest did not frighten her. She grew quiet, and when he motioned her away under guard, she curtsied to the two Knights.
"A sweet mouthful," the Swabian sighed, when she was gone. "Why not let her go without harm?"
Von Prauen shook his head impatiently, and the Swabian drank wine from the cup in his fist, grumbling, "Faith, she is no witch."
"I think I know," the korntur reflected, "what she is."
"Cross yourself and spit thrice, Brother Arnold, when you think you understand a woman. I
never could."
His great body rigid, hardened by the weight of armor, von Prauen kept his temper with an effort. The demon of anger still irked him, and he felt the need of a cool head. Wine he never touched, nor had he looked twice at any woman since he took the vows of the Order. But this Swabian, who led Vorberg's spearmen and had fought from Toledo to Danzig, had a wild manner of jesting. Nay, in that moment von Prauen felt that this other brother was more like the dreaming Szary than a servant of the Order.
Before he took the vows, this Swabian, Friedrich, had been a baron. It was whispered in the halls of Marienberg that Friedrich alone had spoken against the Polish war, asking what was the use of it, when the minds of the leaders had understood the need of a new war clearly. For the Deutsche Ritter had come into being as an order of knighthood to rescue that holy place Jerusalem from the pagans; and now that the crusades had ended long since, how was the Order to continue its growth, unless it made itself necessary to the new Germany by involving the Baltic in war. Without war, the military order would have no just claim to exist longer. Even the Hansa merchants, sitting in the council at Marienberg, had understood the necessity for a major war. Brother Friedrich alone had spoken against it, saying that now the pagan Prussians had all been put to the sword or converted to Christ, and the savage Lithuaniani had turned Christian overnight, baptizing themselves in a mass, and the Poles certainly were worshipers of this same Cross the Knights carried-what reason had the Knights to bring a new war to the Baltic?
"Friedrich!" he said abruptly. "What devil of doubt plagues you?"
The Swabian twisted the cup in his heavy fingers. "No devil, Komtur. I have felt too many of my bones break apart." Suddenly he looked up. "No, not that. That was a lie. Only, sometimes I think of those two other men, you and I, who might have been."
"We have Vorberg in our charge!"
"Admitted!" The Swabian smiled. "I was thinking how that other Friedrich could walk in his cherry orchard with his sons. I will never know who my children are-"