The Sword Brothers

by Peter Darman

  ‘Make sure they don’t catch you,’ said Rusticus. ‘Kill, burn, destroy and then melt back into the forests.’

  ‘How long are we to remain in Livonia, lord?’ asked one of the warriors.

  ‘Until the autumn,’ answered Lembit. ‘By then the rains will have come and the crusaders will be unable to transport their siege engines through the mud. You will leave in the morning. Rusticus will supply you with details.’

  His men were in good spirits as they filed out of the hall and the guards closed the doors behind them.

  ‘Excellent idea,’ said Rusticus approvingly, ‘should keep the barbarians away.’

  Lembit flopped into his chair. ‘It will buy us time, nothing more. The chiefs of the other tribes will no doubt be demanding a gathering where they can air their grievances concerning the failure at Treiden.’

  ‘They whine like old women,’ sneered Rusticus.

  ‘That may be. But I need their continued allegiance if we are to prevail in this war.’

  ‘What of the Oeselians?’

  Lembit leaned back and closed his eyes. ‘It seems unlikely that they will wish to continue with our alliance following the failure at Treiden. I have no doubt that Eric will be bending his father’s ear and blaming me for the failure to take Caupo’s stronghold.’

  ‘No great loss,’ sniffed Rusticus.

  Lembit opened his eyes and looked at him. ‘On the contrary. If the Oeselians become our enemies it means their longships will be raiding the lands of the Rotalians once more. And if that happens then we will lose their warriors in the war against the crusaders. I will send an envoy to Olaf requesting a meeting.’

  Rusticus looked alarmed. ‘He will kill you.’

  ‘He might, but remember that it was he who made the first approach not the other way round. Hopefully he still sees the merit of an alliance between our two peoples.’

  ‘I do not trust him,’ said Rusticus.

  ‘You are obsessed by the notion of trust. As I told you, trust has nothing to do with it. Olaf knows that if Estonia becomes the domain of the Christians then his island will be next. Self interest, pure and simple.’

  ‘Do you wish me to lead one of the raiding parties?’ inquired Rusticus.

  Lembit shook his head. ‘I need you at Fellin to stiffen the hearts of the garrison. I will remain here and invite my fellow chiefs to a gathering to allay their fears. You may go.’

  Rusticus strolled towards the doors, stopped and turned.

  ‘I forgot something. You remember that boy who gave you the scar on your cheek?’

  ‘How could I forget him?’ said Lembit. ‘I carry a permanent reminder of his existence. What of him?’

  ‘I saw him when the crusaders and Livs rescued the women we had taken near Wenden,’ replied Rusticus.

  Lembit was disinterested. ‘So?’

  ‘So that is the second time we have encountered him. And directly afterwards I heard wolves howling.’

  Lembit rolled his eyes. ‘Wolves?’

  ‘An ill omen, it means war.’

  Lembit sighed. He knew many of his people were superstitious, seeing omens and divine signs in the forests, lakes and rivers. But he had little time for such nonsense and was surprised that his deputy did.

  ‘Wolves howl, Rusticus, and we are already at war so I think you can calm your fears.’

  But Rusticus would not let the matter pass. ‘Twice we have encountered that boy and twice he has lived. It is a sign from the gods. The boy represents ill luck. He needs to be killed to avert disaster.’

  Lembit was growing tired of this nonsense. ‘You speak of things that are inconsequential. Concentrate on the matter to hand.’

  Rusticus was mumbling to himself as he took leave of his lord, leaving the chief alone with his thoughts. It was nearly mid-summer now and the tracks and roads that led north would be dry enough to bear the wagons of the crusaders carrying their infernal siege machines. They had proved at Fellin that they could batter down the timber walls of his hill forts with ease. The only way to protect his strongholds was to keep them away from Estonian soil. And so the next morning a dozen groups left Lehola to lay waste Livonia. They rode on ponies and scattered to take different routes into the bishop’s kingdom, each one numbering no more that twenty warriors. Lembit stood on the battlements and watched them go. Later Rusticus also rode south to assume command of the garrison at Fellin. Lembit stayed on the wall until his deputy was but a small speck on the horizon and then disappeared altogether. Then he returned to his hall to dictate a letter to Olaf.

  *****

  Conrad had never seen such a great collection of soldiers that gathered at Wenden that summer, led by Bishop Albert himself in his mail armour, his great banner of Riga being pitched in the middle of the camp that surrounded the castle like a huge besieging army. This was to be the final campaign that was to subdue Lembit and the Estonians: to create a Christian kingdom from the River Dvina all the way to the Gulf of Finland. The pagans had been defeated at Treiden and now Estonia lay prostrate before the crusaders. Caupo came with five hundred of his Livs, supplemented by Thalibald and a hundred of his warriors. There were knights and squires from Saxony, Thuringia, Franconia and even Swabia and Bavaria. The banners of these lords were planted around the standard of the bishop so that it seemed that a new forest of silk and linen had arisen. There were dozens of gonfalons – standards with streamers flown from a horizontal bar, supported by a vertical pole. Gold-fringed pennons fluttered from lances and banners hung from the trumpets of musicians in the service of the wealthiest lords. The sun shone, the knights feasted and boasted of the coming conquest of the pagans and Theodoric dreamed of his new bishopric.

  And it was all an illusion.

  The first indication that the army would not be marching north was when Caupo led a large party of his warriors east, and then a sizeable number of crusader knights and their squires left Wenden and headed back to Riga. As the days passed the number of knights at Wenden gradually decreased as parties left the castle, including Bishop Albert himself.

  ‘Estonian raiding parties are destroying our farms and villages,’ said Rameke as he helped Conrad place a stone into the back of a cart.

  Now that summer was here Conrad and the other boys were detailed to assist the transportation of stone that was being used in the construction of the castle from the quarry located five miles to the east.

  The stone being quarried was dolostone, a hard limestone that blunted the chisels of the masons and the metal wedges used by the quarrymen to separate the stone blocks from the rock face.

  ‘Estonians?’ Conrad was surprised. ‘I thought they had been defeated at Treiden.’

  ‘They were,’ said Rameke, exhaling loudly as he let go of the stone block. ‘But Lembit has sent others south to raid our lands. My father has been forced to send men back to their villages to protect the women and the old.’

  ‘Including your father’s own village I hope,’ said Conrad with concern.

  Rameke smiled. ‘Do not worry, my friend, my sister is quite safe.’

  Conrad blushed and looked away. ‘I do not know what you mean.’

  ‘She talks of you often,’ Rameke continued. ‘You have a made a great impression on her.’

  ‘And you two talk too much,’ said Lukas, appearing beside the cart as if by magic. ‘There are more stones to load before we head back to the castle. As your father placed you under my command, Rameke, it would be remiss of me to allow you to loiter in idle gossip.’

  Rameke wiped his sweaty brow on his shirtsleeve. ‘No chance of that, Brother Lukas.’

  The brother knight was fully armed and accompanied by a dozen sergeants and a score of Thalibald’s warriors, in addition to the five spearmen and five crossbowmen who guarded the quarrymen during the day. The latter were local Livs who also brought their weapons to work – the quarry would be a very tempting target for an Estonian raiding party.

  The sweating Anton heaved another stone slab
into the wagon. ‘Will they attack Wenden again?’

  Lukas shook his head. ‘It is too strong, but an undefended quarry is easy pickings.’

  Anton looked over at his sword and shield stacked with the weapons of the other boys nearby.

  Lukas laughed. ‘They won’t show their faces while there are so many soldiers here. They prefer to attack weak, undefended targets.’

  ‘Like a village full of children and women,’ said Rameke.

  Lukas nodded his head. ‘Precisely.’

  A line of wagons stood waiting to be loaded with stone, the quarrymen ferrying the varyingly sized stones to them. The quarry had been in operation for three years now, the top layer of stone, called ‘rag’ and being of inferior quality, was used for rubble, for infill to walls or to make lime. It would be functioning for many years yet to provide the materials to complete Wenden, earmarked to be an impregnable stronghold of the Sword Brothers. But it was a laborious, time-consuming business. Every stone had to be first prised from the cliff face and then split into a slab before being broken into usable stone, after which it was transported to the castle and then hauled or dragged to the top of the wall for the masons to move into place. Slowly but inexorably the walls and towers of Wenden were rising from the escarpment upon which the castle was positioned.

  Two days later a large force of crusader horse and foot marched past the quarry to ensure that there were no Estonians in the immediate vicinity. Other parties were sent north into Ungannia and Saccalia to retaliate against Lembit’s audacity, but the Estonian leader had succeeded in nullifying the bishop’s efforts to conquer the pagan kingdom.

  As the crusader force gathered at Wenden slowly dissipated and then disappeared altogether, Conrad continued to hone his weapon skills. His gangly frame had begun to fill out now, though Hans, notwithstanding his attempt to empty the castle’s food stores single handed, still looked skinny. But he was no longer pale and gaunt but rosy cheeked and hale and his sinewy frame possessed a strength that belied his appearance. Johann and Anton likewise grew in strength and stature as they practised day in, day out.

  Conrad enjoyed that summer, though he and the others saw no fighting. The days were long and warm, the forests were full of game and the rivers and lakes teeming with fish. After the cold and misery of the winter everyone ate well from the abundance that was all around them. The fields were planted and the crops grew, watered by frequent summer storms and warmed by the sun. More workers and their families came to Wenden, along with farmers who had been promised plots of land, though when they arrived they were surprised to discover that their new farms had to be carved from the forest first. But Master Berthold provided assistance in the form of Conrad and his companions and sergeants, who helped to fell the trees and extract the stumps from the ground. The farmers used the timber to build their homes and the fences that held their pigs and goats, and slowly the area directly north of Wenden filled with settlers’ homes.

  Patrols were still mounted to the north and east as mid-summer passed but there were no signs of Estonians. Several raiding parties had been intercepted and destroyed by crusader forces but Lembit’s warriors had caused considerable damage to the south and southeast of Wenden, and had also alarmed the citizens of Riga. Thus did the bishop spend the summer at Riga providing protection for his flock instead of smiting the heathen.

  At Wenden Conrad and his companions were taught to use the mace, a three-foot-long piece of iron with protruding edges of sharpened iron on one end. These flanges were fixed all round the mace so that the weapon was radially symmetric, so that a blow could be delivered equally effectively with any side of the head. Lukas had invited Henke to explain to them the subtleties of the mace as he was reckoned to be the most proficient in its use. He stood before them in shirt, leggings and boots, sweat running down his powerful neck for it was a blisteringly hot day.

  ‘The mace is a very simple weapon. It is quick, effective and brutal.’

  ‘A bit like Henke,’ said Rudolf standing nearby.

  Henke ignored him, swinging the mace upwards. ‘It can be used on foot or in the saddle. A forceful blow with a mace will crush bones and armour. If you strike an opponent’s helmet hard enough the force of the blow will break his neck, even if the helmet is undamaged. If you strike an enemy on the arm or leg you will break the bone even if you do not penetrate his armour, such is the power of a mace blow.’

  He pointed the end of his mace at the boys. ‘When you are defending yourselves against a mace you have to keep it away from your body. You cannot rely on your helmet or armour to protect you.’

  He told Conrad to attack him with his waster and shield. ‘Remember,’ he told him, ‘keep it away from your body.’

  Henke swung at Conrad with a downward strike of the mace that Conrad caught on his shield. The force of the blow amazed him. It was like a giant hammer had hit it. Henke jumped aside and aimed a sideways strike at him, which Conrad parried with his shield at the cost of the bottom of the leather and wood being cut and fractured. Henke was amazingly quick for his size, nimbly changing the weight on each foot as he avoided Conrad’s sword blows and then delivering a succession of strikes against him. He could tell that Henke was not trying to kill or hurt him, but after less than two minutes half his shield had been destroyed.

  Henke, his shirt now soaked in sweat, stepped back and nodded at Conrad.

  ‘Well done.’ He turned to the others. ‘You see how effective a mace can be. Powerful blows, that is the key. Anything you hit will either be dented or broken. Don’t waste your energy, though. Like you have been taught: kill quickly and move on.’

  So they learned to use a mace and then in combination with other weapons: the sword and mace, dagger and mace and axe and mace. They were allowed to wear their swords now, both during the day and while on guard duty. But they were not allowed to use them in training.

  ‘Your swords are far too valuable to be blunted or damaged during training sessions,’ Lukas told them. ‘That is why you have your wasters.’

  The days went by in a blur, filled with prayers, training and assisting in the construction of the castle. The walls and towers were draped in wooden scaffolding as they inched ever upwards, workers scurrying around like ants ferrying stone and mortar to the top platforms. And then treadmill cranes were erected to hoist stone onto the walls. These great wooden machines used a treadmill powered by men to drive round the windlass for winding up the lifting ropes attached to loads. And the daylight hours were filled with the sound of men chiselling, hammering, sawing and cursing as Wenden began to take shape.

  In the sparse amount of free time allowed him Conrad sought out the company of Ilona, the raven-haired mysterious beauty who lived in the compound but was free to move around the castle at will. Treated with a degree of respect and awe, she spent her days taking care of the children of the castle workers or collecting herbs in the meadows and forests to enable her to practice her healing arts, always accompanied by guards whenever she ventured out of the castle compound. Conrad wondered if this was because she was a slave of the order, which caused Lukas to smile.

  ‘Slave? More like a queen, boy. Rudolf always makes sure she is well guarded and has everything she wants.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Conrad.

  ‘You know why. She was the one who pulled him out of the fire when the Russians attacked Holm. She was the one who tended his wounds and brought him back to life and she is the one who shares his soul with God. That’s why. She has my gratitude for that, the others as well.’

  ‘Thalibald is her lord?’ said Conrad.

  ‘She is from Holm,’ replied Lukas, ‘on the River Dvina.’

  This lithe beauty who outwardly appeared to be Rudolf’s wife, though he knew that was impossible, intrigued Conrad.

  ‘I would like to learn to speak the language of the Livs,’ he said to Lukas, ‘and was wondering if she might teach me.’

  Lukas shrugged. ‘You will have to ask her yourself. Make sur
e it does not interfere with your duties, mind.’

  ‘No, brother, of course.’

  ‘And behave yourself around her,’ Lukas teased him. ‘No improper thoughts.’

  Conrad was mortified. ‘I would never…’

  Lukas waved a hand at him. ‘I jest with you, Conrad. Now I believe you have an armour-cleaning session before prayers.’

  The next afternoon Conrad searched out Ilona and found her waiting for him, along with four sergeants, outside her hut. She was dressed in a simple brown woollen skirt and a brown tunic with a V-shaped neck, a green sash around her waist and her long black hair hanging freely about her shoulders. She was holding an empty wicker basket in front of her and smiled at Conrad as he approached.

  The sergeants were dressed in short-sleeved mail shirts and kettle helmets and were armed with short axes, swords and daggers, their shields strapped to their backs. Conrad also wore a kettle helmet though only his padded gambeson for armour. He gripped the hilt of his sword as he got nearer to the group, his shield likewise slung on his back. It was a measure of the trust placed in him and the other boys that they were now allowed to carry weapons inside and outside the castle complex. He too carried a dagger in a sheath on his right hip.

  ‘Welcome, Conrad Wolff,’ she smiled, nodding at one of the sergeants before turning on her heels and striding towards the gates. Conrad hurried to catch up, walking a couple of paces behind her. He felt slightly uncomfortable.

  ‘So,’ she said, waving to a group of children who were following their mothers towards their huts, ‘you wish to learn the tongue of my people.’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  She giggled. ‘You make me sound like an old maid. Call me Ilona. Why do you want to learn the language of the Livs?’

  The question puzzled him. ‘To understand the native people more.’

  She turned and smiled at him. ‘The people or just one in particular?’

  He felt his cheeks flush. ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘Oh, I think you do. The young man who saved the life of Brother Rudolf, wounded Lembit and saved the life of Thalibald’s daughter has become famous in these parts, Conrad. How could I resist the request of such a hero?’