Conrad Starguard-The Radiant Warrior

by Leo Frankowski

  More than half the knights had squires, almost inevitably a younger relative, since the Polish nobility was very family-oriented. Well over a gross of fighting men lined up outside of Okoitz in the gray dawn, as well as two heralds that Count Lambert must have borrowed from someone. The kitchen help hurriedly handed out packages of field rations, a bag containing a loaf of bread, some cheese, and dried meat. There was little chance of the baron inviting us in for a meal.

  I thought that Count Lambert would make a speech to encourage his men, but he didn't. He just rode to the head of the column and shouted, "Advance!"

  At a walk, we went to Baron Jaraslav's manor.

  The roads were mere trails and we had to go in single file, so there was little chance for light conversation, not that there was much inclination toward it.

  "Shouldn't we have some point men and flankers out?" I called to Sir Miesko, riding behind me.

  "To what purpose, Sir Conrad? No bandit would attack a party as large as ours, and Baron Jaraslav might disobey his liege, but he is not so wholly dishonorable as to attack without warning. Flankers would only slow us down."

  Sir Miesko and Count Lambert were probably right, but my own military training made me feel uncomfortable about it.

  The baron's castle was a large and venerable building made mostly of brick, with some of the cornices made of limestone. It had a moat and a drawbridge and was not the sort of place that men without siege equipment could easily take.

  Count Lambert made no attempt to surround the thing. He simply lined us up in front out of crossbow range and sent the heralds forward. Sir Vladimir was at my left, as a vassal should be, and Sir Miesko was at my right. The heralds rode up to the gate, played a fanfare on their long trumpets, and announced that Count Lambert wished to speak to his vassal, Baron Jaraslav.

  They had to have been waiting for us, for within a few minutes, the drawbridge was lowered and thirty-five armed and armored men rode out. Perhaps another twenty men were on the walls with crossbows, the squires, probably, since a full belted knight wouldn't use one. It made me wish that I'd brought Tadaos along, but I hadn't been asked to and I hadn't wanted to risk any more people than necessary.

  The knights lined up facing us, a few hundred yards away. We outnumbered them four to one, but they looked prepared to let us know that we'd been in a fight.

  One of the heralds stayed with the baron and the other rode back to Count Lambert. With six of his barons, the count rode to the center of the field, to be met by Baron Jaraslav, Sir Stefan, and five other knights.

  I relaxed a bit. At least they were going to talk instead of immediately slugging it out.

  I couldn't hear what Count Lambert said, but Baron Jaraslav was shouting at the top of his lungs, so what came through was half a conversation, or less, since I couldn't hear Sir Stefan either.

  "My ancestors were here for hundreds of years before anybody ever heard of a Piast!"

  Count Lambert said something I couldn't hear.

  "I don't owe fealty to a man whose wits are not his own! Your mind has been addled by that warlock you took in two years ago! Yours and the duke's, too!"

  Baron Jaraslav's face got redder as his blood pressure went up. I could feel my own face flushing as well.

  "It's bad enough, your swiving every wench in the county, turning them into a herd of whores! Now you want to ruin the hunting like you've ruined the women!

  "I was a baron when you were still sucking your mother's tits!"

  The baron's face and hands were as dark red as dried blood. I'd never seen such a thing before, but I'd heard about it. Not good in an old man.

  "That warlock wants to turn the whole duchy into a stinking, dirty factory! I won't stand for it! Better to die fighting than to fall sickened by his poisons!"

  The baron became increasingly incoherent. His hands started shaking, he began gasping and suddenly he toppled from his horse.

  I didn't know if this was a heart attack or a stroke, but it looked to me that he was in bad need of CPR.

  "I'd better go see what I can do for him," I said as I signaled Anna forward.

  "Stay back here you fool!" Sir Miesko shouted, but I ignored him.

  Besides basic humanitarian considerations, my thought was that if I could do Baron Jaraslav a real service, like saving his life, maybe he and Sir Stefan might not hate me as much. Okay, so it was a dumb idea.

  We sprinted to where the baron had fallen. I pulled my gauntlets off as I leaped to the ground and told Anna to go back to the line. I didn't want her to interpret some movement by the baron as an attack on me.

  I tilted the baron's head back, cleared the tongue and checked his breathing. There wasn't any! I started giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as I checked frantically for a pulse. A lot of shouting was going on but I ignored it. I couldn't find a pulse but that didn't mean much, since I couldn't get at most of him what with his armor and all. I started pumping his heart, to be on the safe side, a thing that would have been impossible in my plate armor, but was easy enough with the baron's gold-washed chain mail.

  Then I took a blow to the side of the head that might have killed me if it hadn't been for my new helmet. It didn't much hurt me, but the force of it, transmitted through my collar ring to my chest and back plates, was enough to send me sprawling.

  "Stay away from my father, you filthy witch!" Sir Stefan shouted, sword in hand.

  "You Stupid John!" I swore at him. "He's having a heart attack! Without CPR he's going to die!"

  I started to move back to the baron. Sir Stefan swung again, only to have his blade parried by Count Lambert's.

  "STOP! Both of you!" Count Lambert shouted. "Dog's blood! You have both dishonored yourselves! Sir Conrad, I told you to stay in the line! Get back there, damn you! Sir Stefan, you have drawn steel during a peace parley, a hanging offense anywhere!"

  "My lord," I said, "his heart and breathing have stopped! If I don't—"

  "If his heart's stopped, then he's dead! Get back to the line or I'll put this sword in your face!"

  I could see that Count Lambert meant it, and the baron was probably really dead by this time anyway. I retrieved my gauntlets.

  "Yes, my lord."

  As I walked back to the line, Count Lambert gave Sir Stefan a chewing out the likes of which I hadn't heard since boot camp.

  Maybe I should have just left things alone, but then Sir Stefan would probably have blamed his father's death on my "witchcraft" in any event. It was worth a try, I suppose. I certainly shouldn't have called him a Stupid John. The swear words in one language often don't translate well into another, but that particular phrase is a deadly insult and fighting words in Polish.

  "You're a damn fool," Sir Miesko said as I got back and mounted Anna. "If ever a man's foul words stuck in his throat and killed him, it was Baron Jaraslav's. It looked like a sure Act of God! But when you ran out there, you took everybody's mind off of what had just happened. This sorry mess could have ended right there, but now it's still bobbing afloat. It could still end with fifty good men dead!"

  "Yeah, I guess I screwed it up," I said.

  But the parley went on for another half hour, and we couldn't hear a thing of what was said. Then something happened. Count Lambert and Sir Stefan turned and faced the sun, raised their right arms to it and Sir Stefan swore fealty to Count Lambert.

  Count Lambert and his barons came back to us and he addressed those of us in the line.

  "This matter is ended! Baron Jaraslav is dead! Baron Stefan has sworn fealty to me and will obey me as all of you have done this day! I thank you all for coming as was your duty, but now you may disperse and go home! I will see many of you in a week at the Great Hunt. For the rest of you, good hunting!"

  And so we left, and soon there was no one left on the field but the dead baron and Baron Stefan, standing over his father's body.

  It all worked out as best as could be expected. Having Stefan instead of his father for a neighbor wasn't much of an impr
ovement, but Count Lambert could hardly have interfered with the right of inheritance. His own lofty position was based on that very same right.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The knights and squires broke up into groups as we headed home in our various directions. By late afternoon there was only myself, Sir Vladimir, and Sir Miesko. As we passed Sir Miesko's manor, Lady Richeza invited us in, but there was still time to get to Three Walls before dusk. When we got to the gates, the band was up on the balcony to welcome us home. I wouldn't have given permission for this waste of man-hours, since they must have been waiting up there for half a day, but I had to admit that it felt good. They were playing the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

  I announced at supper what had happened, that Baron Stefan was our new neighbor, and that the Great Hunt was on as scheduled.

  Sir Miesko had set me up as the "Local Hunt Master," using the valley at Three Walls for our killing ground, just as we had last year. Only this year, it would cover not only my lands, but Sir Miesko's as well as those of Baron Stefan and two other knights.

  As Master of the Hunt, I got the wolf skins and any aurochs captured on all of Count Lambert's lands. As Local Hunt Master, I got all the deer skins taken locally. As a landowner, I got a share, about one-fifth, of one-half of the meat taken. My workers would get about one-third of the one-quarter of the meat reserved for the beaters. And since I personally would be participating in the kill, I got a share of the one-quarter of the kill that was divided among the nobility present.

  Complicated, but profitable, especially since the fashion of wearing wolf skin cloaks was taking hold. I had already sold the six hundred wolf skins we had taken last year at very nice prices, and I was looking forward to taking twenty times that number this year.

  But Sir Miesko was in fact handling all of the detail work of a Local Hunt Master for me, except for the feasts, and that was Krystyana's problem.

  My main worry was getting the Moslems' housing completed so we could get them out of Three Walls before more savory company started arriving. We almost made it, and I told them that they had to get out anyway. They could live in the nearly finished buildings until the hunt was over, and no, they couldn't act as beaters alongside Christians, although they were responsible for sweeping all the wild game out of their valley, and taking care of my herd of sheep, now three thousand strong, during the hunt.

  The morning before the hunt, most of the workers walked out to the manors of the knights on the periphery of the hunting district, leaving behind only a skeleton crew to keep the blast furnace fed and a few pregnant women to take care of the small children. To minimize friction, none of my people were sent to Baron Stefan's lands. My own station was at Sir Miesko's.

  The plan was to have a line of peasants and workers backed up by a line of horsemen, mostly knights and squires, to take care of any emergencies, such as an irate bear.

  Since Piotr Kulczynski was spending half of his life on horseback, I assumed that he would be one of the riders. Sir Miesko objected. "All the other horsemen will be of the nobility, their ladies or at least squires. Some might object at having a commoner in their number."

  "But the east line is already low on horsemen," I said. "Pulling Piotr makes it worse."

  "Better a thin line than offended neighbors," Sir Miesko said. "If you really want him on horseback, why not make him your squire? It's a simple formality."

  I didn't see any reason why not. I was entitled to a squire or two, and Piotr was the sort who would get a kick out of that sort of thing. Being my squire needn't change his pay or duties.

  I asked Piotr about it and he was absolutely delighted. No American kid getting his first car on his eighteenth birthday was ever happier.

  The ceremony was a simple swearing in and we did it within the hour. Sir Miesko made Piotr the guest of honor at supper that night. Any reason for a celebration was always welcome.

  The Banki brothers, three knights who were the special friends of three of my ladies, arrived at dusk. Had we known that they were coming, Piotr probably wouldn't have gotten his promotion, but there was no point in telling him that.

  Natasha was managing a field kitchen at a manor where Sir Vladimir and Annastashia were stationed.

  Thus, there were exactly as many men as women at Piotr's feast. Natalia, Yawalda, and Janina naturally paired off with Sir Gregor, Sir Wiktor, and Sir Wojciech Banki, I had Cilicia, and this naturally forced Krystyana on Piotr. He of course made no objection to this, but she took it with poor grace.

  Having a partner at a formal feast required a fair amount of interaction. Among other things, you shared the same spoon, cup, and bowl. Krystyana stayed polite, but was formal and cold. And at the dance, later, she refused to do a waltz with him, new squire or no new squire.

  Why Piotr was so determined to have this one lady was beyond me. There had to be a masochistic streak in the little fellow.

  In the morning, the beaters were fed while it was still dark and were lined up in the dawn around the periphery of the hunting district, paralleling the group from the district to the east and meeting up with the beaters to the north. When all was ready, the signal to advance was given and the day's walk began. People swung sticks at the brush and made as much noise as possible. Wild animals are well fed in the late fall, and aren't particularly aggressive, so there were no real problems throughout the day.

  By evening, the beaters were shoulder to shoulder and the valley at Three Walls was packed with animals. I had to station guards with torches around the blast furnace workers to keep the animals from bothering them. I swore that next year, I would build a killing ground outside the valley, perhaps surrounding the plain at the valley mouth with Japanese roses.

  There were over five thousand people at Three Walls that night, and for the four days thereafter. Somehow, we got them all fed and bedded down, with wall-to-wall people everywhere, even in the church.

  Baron Stefan, in his gold-washed armor and gold-trimmed helmet and sword, was at least trying to stay polite, but he and his knights were somewhat standoffish. He had brought his own servants and had them serve him when everybody else ate cafeteria-style, but I made no objection. It was enough that he was no longer swearing at me on every possible occasion. I gave them my living room to bunk down in and that seemed to satisfy them.

  In the morning the slaughter began and it went on for four days. We were better prepared to process the meat this year than last. More smokehouses had been built and we had vast quantities of barrels and salt, enough to sell to anyone who wanted them, which was almost everybody. A dozen sausage machines worked around the clock, and everyone ate liver and kidneys, the most desirable parts of the animal by medieval standards, until they couldn't hold any more.

  Piotr and Sir Miesko kept a careful accounting of everything and I heard no objections to the final sharing out.

  The one sour point happened when one of the duke's men, Sir Frederick, came over and told me that the duke had liked the wolf skin cloak I'd given him so much that he had decreed that none but a true belted knight might wear one.

  Wonderful. That cut my potential market for wolf skins by a factor of a hundred. My profits were going right down the toilet, but there was nothing I could do about it. One did not argue with the duke.

  I probably had twelve thousand wolf skins coming in and nothing to do with them. Maybe I could dye them another color and pass them off as from some other animal.

  Much later, it turned out that I needn't have worried. Saying that none but a nobleman might wear a wolf skin cloak was almost the same as saying that a nobleman must wear one, at least to the fashion-conscious Polish nobility. The demand for wolf skins went way up and the price of wolf skins tripled by midwinter! And who do you think had the biggest stock of wolf skins in the world? My God, how the money rolled in!

  One evening, the Banki brothers came to my office, which adjoined my bedroom.

  "We have come to formally request the hands of three of your ward
s, Natalia, Yawalda, and Janina, in honorable matrimony," Sir Gregor said.

  This took me completely by surprise. I'd known for a year that the three couples had a thing going, but matrimony just hadn't occurred to me. "Well. This needs some talking," I said. "Sit down and have some mead. Do the girls know that you are here?"

  "It was them that put us up to it," Sir Wiktor said.

  "That's usually the way of it," I said. "First off, I want to say that I like you three. I think that you would make fine husbands, but, well, I'm not their father. I suppose that I can speak for Janina, since her parents are dead, but Natalia's father is alive and well at Okoitz, as are both of Yawalda's parents. It is from them that you must ask the hands of those girls, not me."

  "True," Sir Gregor said. "Yet our loves would do nothing without your permission, and it is not likely that a peasant would object to his daughter marrying a true belted knight."

  "I suppose so," I said. "There is the fact that these three girls all have responsible positions here, and they all earn very good money. I'm really not thrilled about losing them. Then too, I don't know anything about your own financial positions. Can you afford to support them properly?"

  "You touch on a delicate point," Sir Gregor said. "Our parents have both been dead for years, and while their lands were ample to support one knight, they don't do the best job at supporting four. You see, there is a fourth brother that you haven't met. Stanislaw is probably the best farmer in Poland—I swear that he could grow wheat on a stone!—but he's very much of a stay-at-home. We aren't by any means wealthy, but if the dowries were adequate, we could easily support our ladies."

  That took me back a bit. "So you think that I should not only give you three lovely ladies, three of my best managers, but that I should also pay you to take them from me? Women who aren't even my own daughters? Isn't that a bit much?"