by Harold Lamb
"Discipline!"
Von Prauen knew how to jerk the Swabian out of such a black mood. "Two riddles now we have to solve. Item: This Szary, speaking good Ger man, permits himself to be caught like a blind dog and led into Vorberg. Yea, a belted knight yields his sword after a child's scuffle. Item: A Polish girl who is no peasant's wench strays into our gate two hours later. The answer?"
"Both spies of course."
"Granted. They will be watched. Yet can we find a truer answer."
Friedrich nodded. "The little Yadvi lied. My huntsmen have sighted armed bands in the forest moving toward the river. And on the water the Zmud fisherfolk all seem to be casting their lines just out of sight of our towers."
"Boats."
"Sufficient to ferry a regiment across the river. And yesternoon when I rode after boar beyond the forest I saw the regiment. Polish lances, of armored riders. The sun gleamed on the metal. All this, Komtur, you know well."
"It sums up to this: An attack by the forest folk and Poles."
"A surprise onset-"
"And so, to be expected after dark."
"But where?"
The komtur smiled. "Our two Poles, I think, will tell us that."
"The fools!"
"So we will use them." The demon of anger, stiffed by Szary's boasting, gnawed at von Prauen. "Perhaps that wood is the weak point in our defense-when it is leveled and my cannon are in place-I shall have no more to fear. But now we shall first teach the Poles a lesson. It is necessary."
And he explained what he intended to do. The Swabian, surprised, listened intently. Von Prauen felt reassured. Once the action began, he knew that he could depend on the wayward Friedrich.
Long after the vesper bell, the stars came out in a clear sky. Left to themselves in the courtyard, Szary and the girl watched the posting of the night guard, the closing of the water gate. And Szary whispered his anger while she pulled the cloak around his injured side:
"Why can't you stay where you belong, devilkin?"
"Because it's disgusting to be left, and lonely." Yadvi, in the shadow, pressed close to his good side.
While she could touch him, she felt comforted. Her hands had nursed the lance wounds in his frail body, until he could rise and limp around again, miraculously surviving death in that first battle with the terrible Knights. Her voice came softly to his ear: "Now you can't send me away, Szary. You can't."
He took her chin in his hand, so he could see into her eyes, and he felt her tremble. "Yadvi, if you love me, go to the chapel. Keep away from here."
And he hauled himself up to limp along the stones toward the water gate. The stars were clear now, and he expected to hear the bell any second. Keeping away from the fire, where three men idling on watch inside the gate warmed themselves, he edged himself forward. Across the courtyard a torch flared by the stables where serving brothers moved. He looked up, but could not tell how many eyes might be watching from the dark roofs, behind the inner battlements that commanded the courtyard. And he had a feeling of failure in him-he was taking so slight a chance to open up this dominion of armed power.
Then he heard Yadvi's voice, singing softly: "Kyrie eleison-Kyrie elei- son." The three men by the fire looked that way with interest.
In the glare of the torch, her basket swinging on her arm, the girl was moving toward the chapel's steps. The light glinted on her hair as she sang. Small wonder that these men-at-arms feasted their eyes on her.
Once the bell sounded and began to toll for evening prayer over the chapel, and Yadvi sang louder, gaily, Szary drew himself in the shadow to where he could reach the bar that had been slid into the socket back of the gate. It was heavy, but he could move the end by straining. He shoved it along until the end barely rested in the socket. The guards were still watching Yadvi. He thought he heard a man shout.
Then, leaning close to the gate, he heard a boat grind against the stone step outside. An oar thumped and feet pattered.
"Ho-the watch!" a voice bellowed.
Szary pushed against the end of the bar, and it fell. The three pikemen at the fire turned to stare. And the gate swung open, toward them. Szary thought that the men on the river had been prompt to come at the bell's tolling. They were pushing now at the iron-studded gate.
"Vitsi bratsva!" he called. "Up with the weapon, brothers!"
They came running and leaping through the gate, fur-covered men of the forest, swinging up axes and flails, going for the Germans nimbly. Szary pushed through them, out the gate. Other fishing craft were thrust ing out of the darkness, after the first, to the landing beside the big, empty barges of the Germans.
Out of them climbed wild Zmuds and river men, yelling. They ran into the gate.
Up on the chapel steps, Yadvi, shivering with excitement, watched these weapon bearers rush into the courtyard. And it seemed to her that all the inner space of Vorberg came alive at once. Out of the barrack by the gate, giant pikemen advanced to aid the three fighting by the fire. Torches flashed from the inner battlements, where Genoese crossbowmen began to snap their pieces at the onset. The bolts tore through the running men, sending them sprawling. Out of the Knights' hall ran mailclad armigers and, after them, groups of heavy men in steel caps, their white surcoats with the black crosses filling the courtyard, the Knights.
Then Yadvi understood that Vorberg had been waiting for this attack. She could not see Szary in the rush of men. Crowds of Prussians surged past her steps, moving into the gate. The few men swarming up from the river were knocked down and swept back like straw shapes in the wind. Voices barked commands: "Ropes along the barges! Follow with the boards."
The komtur, with the Swabian beside him, walked out to take command. At the gate, von Prauen saw the fishing smacks pulling away, with the remnants of the attackers. Across the river fires glowed, and bands of the forest men crowded restlessly. By the stone steps, carrying out the orders he had given, his men-at-arms were poling the heavy, empty barges into place. Above his head the crossbowmen were following the retreating smacks with their bolts. The attack had been broken in less time than it took the cresset lights to burn bright. Every detail of it had been foreseen by von Prauen's experience.
Across the gleaming water the bands from the forest bayed their anger. The trained men of Vorberg worked in silence. They laid barge against barge, roping them together, out from the steps, driving poles down between them to hold them against the current. Servants laid down a flooring of heavy boards across the barges. With miraculous speed a bridge thrust across the narrow river toward the attackers.
Crossbowmen on the outermost barge kept up a covering fire, against the seemingly masterless crowd on the far bank. The Prussian infantry began to press over, to the other shore.
Then the mailed Knights, who had mounted their chargers at the stables, moved out at a foot pace over the boards. The Swabian took the lead of the first company. "We'll hunt the boars out of their cover," he cried.
When he had gone off, von Prauen called for his own banner and charger. He climbed into the saddle, still feeling that dull anger against the mob that had challenged his stronghold-Szary's boast still rankled. He called to the master armorer to hold the bridge in place with his castle reserve until the return of the Knights. "So we will not wet our feet at our homecoming."
These men of the forest, he thought, had need of a lesson.
And the Knights cleared the far shore without ceremony. The shaggy Zmuds melted away from the fires into the murk of the fens and the trees while the Knights broke up into small companies to follow. The squads of pikemen kept close to the stirrups of the riders, as they pushed through the forest trails, following the dark bands that slipped through the ferns, pausing to fire their bows among the trees before fleeing on. Only on clear ground could the Knights charge, to scatter the bands. They followed torches dancing like St. Elmo's fire through the trees.
"Faith," said the Swabian, "they light the way to the hunt."
Slowly the disciplined
array of Vorberg drove the pack, their halberds thrusting through the light flails of the forest men, their mail proof against the flying arrows. Few men fell.
Before them the lights danced away, and the chill of the forest closed in on them. Von Prauen would not turn back. "In the open, we will drive them, and make an end of them."
When he emerged from the trees into the plain with its dark oak clumps he waited until the other formations came through on either flank. Then for the first time, he noticed that the lights of the fugitives had been put out. He had to guide himself by the faint starlight.
Then he noticed how the stars had dimmed overhead. A damp breath from the wet plain chilled his hot head. And a pale lantern, low over the plain, flooded silvery into his eyes. An old moon had risen.
And it showed him that a dark mass which he had taken for an oak grove was moving toward him. He looked at it under his hand, and shouted suddenly: "Halt, the riders! Stand, the pikemen!"
The darkness on the plain moved swiftly now, and it howled as it came. Cold exultation touched the komtur. These, coming at him, were riders in shaggy furs, on nimble ponies. Some of their heads glinted with buffalo horns. Dogs snarled in the rush.
"Par dex," he breathed, "what are these animals?"
The voice of the Swabian answered at his shoulder: "Riders of the swamps, Mazovi hunters, Lithuanian bands, boar hounds." And he stood up in his stirrups. "Gott mit uns!"
The war shout of the Knights sounded down the line as they met the rush of the wild horsemen, who howled and struck at the long line of the Germans with javelin and sword blade. Their great hounds leaped at the German chargers, and the line swayed here and there. Von Prauen reined back to a rise to watch and the Swabian kept at his side.
"Faith, Arnold," he grumbled, "your hunt is a long hunt. These were waiting for us. They knew well we would come here."
"They save us the trouble of running after them." Von Prauen's eye ran along the steady line of the Germans. Their pikes and swords held easily against the scramble of such wayward fighters. Some wounded dragged themselves back from the line. Then he thought the savage mob gave back a little. He waited to see if it would drift away.
"Now," said Friedrich "they are lighting candles for us."
Off on either flank stacks of old hay blazed up, glowing red in the thin ground mist. Yes, the Lithuanians were drawing back, punished. Von Prauen waited for the moment when he could launch his horsemen across clear ground, to scatter them and make an end of the night's hunt. Already he was thinking it had been a good sally, giving his Prussian infantry a valuable lesson in night work.
And then he saw the movement on the ground, out from the oak grove off to his flank. The Swabian also looked that way, intent and silent. A disciplined body advanced there at a trot, horsemen who kept an even front. Lances raised-lances longer than any von Prauen had seen before. Strange wings bobbed at the riders' backs, and armor gleamed on them.
Polish knights, von Prauen thought. Szary's brothers. He could make out the red banner of Krakow, and the white eagle standard. So, they had been held back in ambush!
"Get the riders moving!" the Swabian grunted suddenly. "Hide of the devil, are you moonstruck, man? Get into motion!"
"Go, you!" von Prauen shouted. "The first company to the left! The second to follow! Wheel them into column-"
But the Swabian had already left his side, riding fast. The Knights on the left had seen the new attack and were turning. Then von Prauen saw the Poles launch into a gallop. Their horses kept close ranks at incredible speed. He thought: "Those men are riders."
The long lances came down with a clash, leveling just as the Polish charge struck his flank. Bright sparks flew where the steel struck, and a rending roar drowned the komtur's voice. He motioned to the trumpeters behind him, and they blew for a wheel to the left.
"Pikemen form on me," von Prauen shouted, raising his helmet on his sword tip. Only the nearest men heard him, because the smashing of wood and metal on the flank drowned his voice. The blare of his trumpets cut through the tumult. And the disciplined Germans began their wheel by companies.
Through the shrilling of the horns, he heard a new sound, an undertone of voices, rising and falling. It sounded familiar, this slow cadence of prayer. He caught a few words: "Ave Maria gratia plena"-and it seemed strange to him that the voices of the Poles as they prayed should reach his ears. He did not believe at first that they could be so close. Their long swords slashed before their eagles' wings. They were shearing through his moving men, their great horses racing. They picked openings and came through with swinging swords. They were almost at his mound.
The uproar of that charge beat at his ears. Beyond it the red flames leaped in the mist, and von Prauen felt cold sweat on his skin. He had been shouting and no one had heard him. Why, all this was not to be believed. Hay burning and dogs howling, and mad men praying and weeping through the shriek of steel pounding and breaking. Riders speeding like stone balls from his cannon, and horses overthrown like stacks of wheat-
He was watching a nightmare, under the witchery of that lantern in the sky. He was trying to drive away the nightmare by his voice. And all the while his brain reasoned clearly. Item: The long lances of the Poles had overreached the German weapons. Item: The momentum of the Poles had thrown them like stones through his first and second companies. Because, by sheer carelessness he had allowed his Knights to be caught at a foot pace, in the beginning of a wheel, by an unforeseen charge on the flank.
So, the answer of course was to hold the mound with his Prussian pikes. The disciplined Knights would form on the company leaders and fight their way to a new line at the forest, where they must rally on him.
A Knight without a helmet broke from a knot of wheeling horses. Von Prauen saw, for that instant, the face of the Swabian turned toward him. A Polish rider struck him at an angle, and the Swabian's tired horse went over. The Pole swung down with his sword as he passed.
A hand pulled at von Prauen's rein. The white face of his trumpeter peered up at him. The man's voice quavered: "Sir Komtur, what is the order?"
Von Prauen's mind repeated the order clearly: To draw back to the forest. They must cut their way back to Vorberg. Then he heard a man laughing. It was such a jest, this nightmare on the plain, where the damp mist hid his straining, panting men and the white cross of the Poles moved toward him like the wind. His trumpeter tugged, groaning at his rein. And von Prauen knew that he himself was laughing, because no one, now, could hear him give an order.
His clear, orderly mind had betrayed him, and he felt only hot anger. His knees gripped the tired horse under him. His fingers gripped his sword hilt, and he rode down from the mound into that tossing sea of steel.
A blow he took on his shield. His sword smashed out at the buffalo horns on a head, and the head became dark with blood, cracked like a dried melon by the good sword. Something ground into the iron links binding his chest, and he lowered his head. His dry mouth felt damp and sweet, and the red fire before his eyes grew dim. He felt the bones cracking in his chest.
And he looked through half-closed eyes at a clear morning sun. Wet grass cooled his neck, and his empty fingers felt dirt when he moved them.
The heads of two men, unhelmed, looked down at him. Szary's dark face shone with sweat; his eyes blinked wearily. Szary, von Prauen thought, was hurt again, but Szary was alive. Yes, he could smile.
"Sir Komtur," said Szary, "do you hear what I say?"
"Of course."
"Can you ride?"
Von Prauen nodded, and set his teeth against the pain of broken bones grating. The other man spoke. They were waiting for him, if he could sit a horse, to surrender Vorberg to them. By now those of his men who had been fighting their way back through the forest without a leader had yielded themselves in surrender. They had been surrounded in the forest.
"You see," said Szary wearily, "you cannot defend even such a castle as Vorberg without men."
All this, von Pr
auen thought, could not be so. Even when he rode across the bridge of boats, still intact over the river, that noon, and saw the water gate of Vorberg standing open, with the people of the countryside thronging through, staring at the deserted battlements, he did not believe his eyes. The courtyard of Vorberg was silent, and empty except for that foolish girl perched on the chapel steps, waving her head veil at Szary as if such an absurd action could have some meaning.
"It is impossible, this surrender!" von Prauen shouted.
"Perhaps," Szary said. "But it sometimes happens, when a castle is built on a land that will not endure it."
Chapter I
From the Roof of the World we led out our steeds, to follow the wind for a little play.
Where the banners of Islam were unfurled on the ramparts of Sarai.
Not for wall or door did we draw our reins, till the last of the banners were laid away,
And the shout of "Allah" was heard no more on the ramparts of Sarai.
-The Minstrel's Song
It was a year of many omens. Lightning made the sign of the cross in the sky, and meteors fell along the road to Jerusalem. When the dry season began, locusts came and destroyed the vineyards.
In that year, early in the thirteenth century of our Lord, the mailed host of the crusaders was idle. There was a truce between it and the Saracens who had reconquered Jerusalem and all of the cities of Palestine except the seacoast and the rich province of Antioch.
Before the truce the crusaders had suffered heavily in an attempt to take the port of Egypt, Damietta, and its triple wall. And the retreat over the desert to Ascalon had taken its further toll of the lives of peers and men-at-arms alike. Meanwhile, on three sides of the strip of seacoast, the Moslems gathered their power for the blow that would send the Croises back into the sea from which they had come.
So the omens were interpreted as a warning.
The veriest springald of a squire of dames, new come from Venice or Byzantium and gay with curled ringlets and striped hose, knew that the truce would not last. The older men-at-arms who had fought under the banner of Richard of England, a generation ago, shook their heads and spent their days in the taverns.