“Armor! What do I need with armor?”
“Sir Conrad, I can travel freely and safely because I am protected by the Church and obviously penniless. You lack this protection and will be escorting a wealthy man. Enough said?”
“Oh, whatever you say, Father.”
“Good. He’s waiting in the next room. If he likes you, we'll consider the bargain sealed. His name is Boris Novacek, and he's eager to leave as quickly as possible.”
Novacek looked me up and down, grunted, and said, “Well, he looks to be the type. Sir Conrad, I understand that you are an officer. How many men have you commanded?”
“At one time, Mr. Novacek? The most was a hundred and seven.” I had been in charge of electronics maintenance at an airport, but why complicate matters?
“I see. And the terms are acceptable to you?”
“Eight cents a day, with you to advance my horse and armor. I assume that you will pay traveling expenses, food, and lodging?”
“Of course. But often lodging is not available, and half the time we sleep under a tree.”
“Agreed, then.” And we shook on it.
One of the glories of the thirteenth century is that there are no forms to fill out in triplicate.
Our first stop was at a used armor shop, since new armor was all custom-made, and that could take months. I quickly learned that “used armor” generally meant somebody had died in it, but I was losing my squeamishness.
The armory had a lot in common with a twentiethcentury junkyard, and at first I despaired of finding things tall enough to fit me.
Except for helmets there was no plate armor at all, which was just as well because fit is not so important with chain mail. The stuff stretches better than double-knit. But you have to wear a heavily padded garment, a gambeson, under the mail, and they didn’t have anything close to my size. I decided to trust my thermal underwear; sweater, blue jeans, and windbreaker to protect myself.
I found a mail shirt, a hauberk, that seemed to be of fair quality. It was of a good grade of wrought iron, and each individual link was riveted, not just bent in a circle. It was made for a man as wide as I was but a good deal shorter. The sleeves were intended to be fulllength but went barely past my elbows, and the knee-length skirt barely covered my crotch.
Some long mailed gauntlets took care of my forearms, and I needed gloves anyway. The clerk scrounged up a sort of skirt that went from waist to knees. Some “fulllength” leggings served as shin guards, greaves.
I rejected the full barrel-style helmet-you can’t see out of the thingsand found an open-faced casque that gave some neck protection without having more chainmail jingling around. Under the casque, one wore a thick rope skullcap.
It was a mismatched set, but I wasn’t entering a beauty contest.
When the shopkeeper, a German, totaled up the bill, I felt my testicles tighten, For thirty pounds of wrought iron, this man was asking for two years’ pay!
I said to my new boss, “Mr. Novacek, you are more familiar with shopkeepers than I am. Could I persuade you to see about arriving at a more equitable price?”
“With pleasure, Sir Conrad.” He smiled with delight and then launched into the shopkeeper, who was obviously and hopelessly outclassed. I thought Father Ignacy was a good bargainer, but here I was seeing a genius practice his own special art form. He used an incredible mixture of politeness, bombast, pleading, and outright abuse. He criticized the armor I had selected until I was embarrassed for having picked it out. They started at fifty-five hundred pence. He had gotten the shopkeeper down to fifteen hundred pence when he suddenly screamed in anguish and stomped out of the shop. I had brains enough to follow.
“That was undoubtedly the finest display of commercial persuasion that I have ever encountered.” His floweriness was wearing off on me.
“I thank you, Sir Conrad, and I compliment you on your good judgment in your choice of negotiators. But it’s thirsty work, and a drop of beer is in order.”
“An excellent idea, Mr. Novacek.”
Drinking at 9 A.M. was not uncommon in the thirteenth century. I guess if you can’t have coffee and a proper breakfast, beer is your next best bet. Some of the customers in the tavern were already in their cups.
The waitress was not pretty, but she was prompt, young, and eager.
“No time for that, Sir Conrad. Now that we have your armor selected, there is still the matter of getting you a horse with saddle and bridle, a sword, a lance, and a shield. You will also need a good, warm cloak.”
“But Mr. Novacek, we don’t have the armor. Surely you recall that you left the armor shop shouting at the shopkeeper, criticizing not only his father and mother but his mother's husband as well.”
“I can see that you have much to learn about commercial negotiation. I shall be back in that shop twice more this afternoon, and the final price will be seven hundred and twenty pence.”
He was wrong. I got that armor for seven hundred and eighteen pence.
“Incidentally, Sir Conrad, you have a good eye for steel. You really did pick the best he had, and I quite agree with you on those barrel helmets. They’re fine for a massed battle, where junk is flying from every direction and there isn't much you can do about it. But in the sorts of fights we're likely to see, hearing and eyesight are important. ”
But of course, we weren’t likely to encounter any violence.
I’d been on a horse perhaps two dozen times in my life, always at rental stables, riding calm, tame horses that here would be called palfreys. I liked horses, but I was by no means a horseman. My boss, however, insisted on going to the only stable in Cracow that sold Chargers, exclusively. Chargers are very large, very strong, and very mean. They had eight of the things. As I walked down the line of them, one bit me, two more tried to, and I just missed being kicked. Having to ride one of the brutes for the next few years was not a pleasant prospect.
In the back of the stable was a corral with a single horse, a big red mare as big as any of the stallions. I whistled to her, and damned if she didn’t come. I stroked her nose. “What's the story on this one?”
“Surely you jest, Sir Conrad! A knight in my employ riding a mare? I’d be a laughingstock!”
“And so would I, Mr. Novacek. I only asked!”
“But an excellent mount, good sirs!” the stablemaster said. “That horse has been fully battle-trained and is most intelligent.”
“Battle-trained? Who in his right mind would take a mare into battle? Haw! She’d likely go into heat halfway through the fight! Would you want our good Sir Conrad on her back when a real Charger tries to mount her?”
“But no, my lord. That mare is completely indifferent to stallions. She shuns them, sir.”
“Hah! So she’s not even good for a brood mare. Still, I have a friend who's a horse breeder, and he knows of the Spanish fly. That might get her tail up! Of course, it kills them more often than not. I might give you fifty pence.”
The stablemaster insisted on twelve hundred and off we went for half an hour’s shouting. Actually, twelve hundred didn't seem bad, considering that the worst of the stallions went for four thousand.
This time they did settle on a price, a hundred and sixty-five pence, or at least I thought it was settled.
“Done then, stablemaster, provided that Sir Conrad likes how she handles.”
“Provided? But you said…”
“I said that I’d be taking her to my stock-breeding friend in Wroclaw, didn't I? And how else are we to get her there? We'll be back soon with saddle and bridle. Come, Sir Conrad.”
Novacek seemed to need to follow every bargaining session with a quick beer and a recap of the discussion.
“We really had him there-a hundred and sixty-five pence for a war-horse! I’ve had to pay more for a mule, and an old one at that! But you see, once a horse has been battle-trained, it can't be used for anything else. Put it to a plow and it'll likely kill you. Not many knights would take a fancy to a mare, and he was f
aced with feeding her all winter. We'll know about her soon enough, once you ride her. The sword shop is on the way to the saddlery.”
“Oh, if she does go into heat with a stallion around, jump!”
I knew little about horses and nothing about armor. But I knew quite a bit about swords. I took fencing 0 the way through college and was varsity for three years. Furthermore, I was the only man on the team who used both saber and rapier. Despite the fact that “saber” is a Polish word, I prefer the Spanish rapier.
The sword shop was a comedown. It was a collection of huge hunks of wrought iron that might have been useful for breaking bones, but not much else. They were mostly handand-a-half bastard affairs a meter or more long. I went down the rack, hefting them and not concealing my disgust. I was about to leave and search elsewhere, when something on a back shelf caught my eye. It was a scimitar. It had a loose brass hilt, with cheap glass “jewels” set into it. The sheath was battered, and when I drew the blade, a light powder of rust puffed out. The blade was fully a meter long, much longer and heavier than a fencing saber. There was only a slight curve in the blade so that the point could be used for thrusting. The balance was poor, blade-heavy.
I took it over to the light and rubbed the blade. It was watered steel! The best sword steel is made of thousands of thin layers of hard high-carbon steel welded between layers of flexible low-carbon steel. The high-carbon steel corrodes less quickly, and the result is a surface that looks like ripples on water, hence the name. This was the first good piece of metal I’d seen in the thirteenth century.
I tried not to show my excitement. It was like finding a Stradivarius violin in a junk shop!
“This is a curious thing,” I said to the shopkeeper. “Saracen, isn’t it?” Very few Polish knights went on crusade, since there were plenty of heathen to kill in the immediate neighborhood.
“Aye, sir. Brought back from the Holy Wars by a great knight, sir. A holy relic, that is.”
“A holy relic made by an infidel! That great knight probably gave it to his girl friend, being embarrassed to have it around the house. It’s a piece of junk, and we both know it. It's too light to do any damage, and that's why I want it. I have a young nephew who's ready for his first toy sword. Something cheap that he can bash up and not hurt himself with. Shall we say five silver pennies?”
“Oh, sir, I couldn’t sell that fine antique for less than fifty.”
And so I went at it in the manner of my new boss, and in ten minutes we settled on fourteen, which I paid out of my own pocket.
As we left, I said, “Well, Mr. Novacek, am I learning my lessons?” Actually, they were damn strange lessons for a good socialist to be taking.
“A fair performance, for a beginner. I could have gotten him down to eleven. But what do you want with that silly thing?”
“You really don’t know what I've got here? It's worth not eleven but eleven thousand! Would you lend me your knife even though I might damage it?” Everybody in the thirteenth century carried a knife.
He handed it to me. I drew my new sword and shaved a thin sliver from the edge of his knife. His eyes widened.
“That’s test number one, that it can cut a lesser blade!”
“Lesser blade! This knife is first-quality steel!”
“It’s good-quality wrought iron, which is about all I've seen around here. Test number two is that it can be bent, blade tip to pommel, without breaking or kinking.” I put the tip to the ground and bowed the blade maybe ninety degrees, but after that I lost my nerve.
“There’s a third test?”
“That’ll have to wait until I sharpen it. It must be able to cut a silk scarf that's floating in the air. For now, though, do you know a smith who can tighten this hilt? And fifty grains of brass at the pommel end will improve the balance remarkably.”
Saddles and bridles were sold by two different guilds, so there was no possibility that they would match. The only saddles that could fit a Charger were huge. The saddlebow and cantle came as high as my waist. An opponent could break your back, but he couldn’t knock you out of that thing.
Getting into it was strange. I had to put my right foot in the left stirrup, hoist myself up, put my left foot into a special leather loop, go up higher, and then drop in without getting tangled or squashing my genitals. But I get ahead of myself.
I let Mr. Novacek pick out the saddle and bridle.
Aside from what I’d seen in the movies, I knew nothing of lances or shields. I really didn't want either of them-but the boss insisted. I picked both to be as light as possible.
“And what device on the shield, sir?” All the shields in the shop were white. Used shields were rarely resold, since they usually were destroyed just before their owners were.
“Is there time?” I looked at Novacek. What with our frequent beer stops, it was now past noon. A lot was left to be done, and he wanted to set out before first light.
“Have it done in an hour, sir, if it isn’t too complicated.”
Novacek nodded affirmatively.
Maybe it was the beer and no food, or maybe it was something deep inside me that yelled, “Do it!”
I said, “A white eagle on a red field. Put a crown on the eagle.” The artist didn’t react; I guessed the national insignia wasn't in common use yet.
“Is there a motto?”
“Poland is not yet dead.” He didn’t react to that, either, because it was the first line of the national anthem and wouldn't be written for five and a half centuries.
The saddle and harness had been delivered to the stable and installed on the horse.
I managed to clamber aboard without doing anything too embarrassing.
She was really an excellent horse: mild-mannered, obedient, not at all skittish. She was neck-trained and stirruptrained; you could guide her with your feet alone. Of course, there was nothing at all of the fierce war-horse about her, but that was fine by me.
We hadn’t bought spurs yet-still another guild-and it was obvious that I would not need them.
Eventually, I rode back to the inn by the monastery with my new boss walking beside me. I wore a helmet, a full suit of chain-mail armor, and a huge sheepskin-lined red cloak. I had a horse and a saddle, plus a sword and lance and an audacious shield. I would have made a truly splendid barbaric sight if my blue jeans had not been showing through my wrought-iron overalls.
Also, I was in debt for more than a year’s pay.
Chapter Seven
We were on the road an hour before gray dawn.
The last evening had been a frantic matter of wolfing down a meal, taking a last bath-it might be a while before the next-and collecting my gear.
Father Ignacy came to my cell to wish me good-bye and Godspeed. He gave me a letter of introduction and a list of Franciscan monasteries where I could scrounge a meal if I really got hard up. He also gave me a letter to be delivered to a Count Lambert at Okoitz.
“It’s right on your way, and it will be worth at least a meal and a night's lodging to you. I carried it up from Hungary, but now you must complete its journey. God be with you, and know, my son, that you are always welcome here.” He smiled. “All will be well with you, Sir Conrad. I can smell it.”
The kid was waiting in the hallway with the clothes he’d borrowed. They were washed and folded. Some of them looked as if they'd been beaten between two bricks, but I didn't mention it. He also had a carefully counted pouch of silver pennies.
“I thank you for the loan, Sir Conrad, and return your property. ”
“Thanks, kid. Look, why don’t you keep the tennis shoes. They fit you.”
“Again, thank you, but they wouldn’t go well with my cassock. Have you heard the news of the prostitute Malenka?”
“No, what happened?”
“She has found a most permanent position with the innkeeper.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. They’ve posted banns in the church and are to be married within the month.”
“I’ll be damned!”
“Never that, Sir Conrad. With three pence in the right place, I believe you have saved a soul. Go with God.” There was something in the way he looked at me. Envy? Admiration? But that was impossible.
I reported to Boris Novacek at the inn, where he was still drinking.
In the morning he surprised me by showing up in full armor himself. We ate a cold breakfast and left, taking with us two horses and a mule. I was on my red marel’d named her Anna after my lady of Zakopane-with my backpack serving as one saddlebag and a sack of food as the other. My shield rode on top. My spear fit between a socket at my right toe and a clip on the saddlebow.
Boris—we’d gotten on a first-name basis—when in private, over last night's beer-rode a gray gelding, with a pair of small but very heavy saddlebags behind him. He led a mule loaded with more supplies, a leather bag of beer, and some “luxury” goods, sugar and pepper, each worth about one-fifth of an equivalent weight of silver. Both had been transported up from the Indies.
We followed a trail just north of the Vistula River, heading west. Anna was walking surefootedly on a track I could hardly see. She didn’t shy at strange noises or blowing leaves. A fine animal. The plan was to follow the path until the river turned south and pick up another trail heading west again to the Odra River, then south into Moravia. With luck, and pushing it, we hoped to reach the Moravian Gate, a low pass between the Carpathian and Sudeten mountains, on the evening of the fourth day, December 26.
After that it was to be an easy trip in warmer weather into Hungary, where we would buy 144 barrels of wine for delivery to the Bishop of Cracow in the spring. The purchase was for use in the mass and had nothing to do with the bishop’s fondness for red Hungarian wines, of course.
The sun was fully up when we passed the Benedictine abbey at Tyniec, high on the white rocks across the river, but we saw not a single person from the time we left Cracow until ten o’clock in the morning.
With the sun up, Boris trotted up and rode beside me for a little conversation. Talking in the dark had been difficult because we couldn’t see each other to gesticulate. He wanted to know about Arabic numbers, and I complied.
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