by Peter Darman
*****
‘Ouch!’
Leatherface’s haggard features melted into a grimace as Ilona placed the compress against his injured rib and proceeded to wrap the bandage around his damaged ribcage.
‘Don’t be a baby,’ she admonished him. ‘I thought you were supposed to be Livonia’s most fearsome mercenary.’
‘Fearsome looking, certainly,’ said Conrad, sitting on a stool nearby.
The return to Wenden had been uneventful, the column of riders making good time back to the castle. They were greeted by the happy news that the pox had subsided at Riga and Bishop Albert, who still lived, had lifted the quarantine from the city. Rudolf immediately sent a courier pigeon to Grand Master Volquin, informing him of affairs concerning Oesel, Rotalia, Ungannia and Saccalia, and had sent another pigeon to Treiden to enlist the aid of Fricis and Rameke regarding a relief force to go to the aid of Sir Richard. His plan was to send the Livs and what remained of the Army of the Wolf north. He would stay at Wenden to guard against Ungannian incursions into Livonia.
Ilona tied off the bandage. ‘I have applied an apple cider vinegar compress to assist the healing of the rib, which appears to be bruised rather than broken.’
‘Lucky for me,’ smiled Leatherface as Kaja assisted him in putting on his shirt.
Conrad had called to see how the old mercenary was following the return to the castle, Master Rudolf having ordered him to seek the immediate assistance of Ilona. Now in her mid-thirties, everyone loved the raven-haired Liv who had saved Rudolf’s life years ago at Holm and who had become a famed healer. The brother knights and sergeants adored her for that act, the mercenaries liked her because she provided cures for their tooth and joint aches and the villagers loved her because she was an accomplished mid-wife who had saved many a young woman’s life during the perils of childbirth.
‘Right, that’s me done.’ Leatherface made to rise from his stool but Ilona raised a finger to him.
‘Your treatment is not yet finished.’
She went to the wooden shelves on the wall of her hut, picked out a small earthenware pot and shook a small amount of what looked like powder into a wooden cup. She then poured water into the cup, stirred it and handed it to the mercenary.
‘What is it?’ he asked suspiciously, holding his nose over the cup and sniffing the liquid.
Ilona shook her head. ‘Tell him, Kaja.’
‘It is turmeric, which is derived from an exotic plant called ginger. The plant is grown here at Wenden in a special shed that is kept warm all-year round because it likes humidity and sheltered spots. It cannot be grown outdoors on account of the winter frosts and summer winds.’
‘That’s told you,’ said Conrad.
‘It is very rare and expensive, so drink it and stop complaining.’
Leatherface grimaced and downed the liquid in one.
‘And no ale for at least four weeks,’ she told him.
‘Four weeks?’
‘Eat yoghurt instead.’
Kaja helped to put on his sling that would keep his arm in place so as not to disturb the injured rib.
‘Slit my throat now,’ he muttered.
Ilona placed the container back on the shelf.
‘So you go to Treiden, Conrad.’
‘Yes, lady.’
She smiled. He was now a great warlord yet when he talked to her he was still that nervous young novice who had just arrived from Germany. She looked at Kaja.
‘You wait for Fricis and Rameke to arrive at Wenden?’
She was remarkably well informed. No doubt Rudolf had told her his plans. He confided in her in all things, it seemed.
‘God willing, lady.’
‘You must be disappointed that Kalju has turned against you, Conrad,’ she probed.
‘Master Rudolf was spitting blood over his betrayal,’ interrupted Leatherface. ‘I reckon he’ll have his head on a spear before the summer’s out.’
‘Let us hope that Sir Richard does not suffer the same fate beforehand,’ was all that Conrad would say on the matter. Kaja could hardly contain her excitement at the prospect of Rameke arriving at Wenden. At least someone was happy.
He walked back to the castle in the company of Leatherface, leaving Ilona and Kaja to their mysterious potions.
‘So Kaja is to marry young Rameke,’ he said.
‘I believe so,’ replied Conrad.
‘You’re a cagey one, you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Said Conrad.
‘You know they’ve been besotted with each other ever since they met at the Dvina, just before we crossed the river to slaughter a few Lithuanians. Rameke won’t be happy that you took her to Oesel.’
Conrad sighed. ‘It was Master Rudolf who requested her presence on the expedition.’
‘He might live to regret that as well.’
Conrad frowned at him. ‘As Kaja has returned safe and sound I don’t think Rameke will have angry words with Master Rudolf.’
Leatherface laughed, causing a sharp pain in his side.
‘Not Rameke. Valdemar. You think he will crawl back to Denmark all grateful and forgiving? He’ll be back; you can count on it. Are you a betting man, Brother Conrad?’
‘No.’
The mercenary scratched his nose. ‘Pity. I was going to have a wager with you.’
‘About what?’
‘Who among Kalju, Sir Richard and Master Rudolf will be the first one unfortunate to have his head lopped off and placed on the end of a spear?’
*****
The square was packed with excited citizens, sullen boyars and merchants and grim-faced guards. The white walls and golden domes of Novgorod’s St Sophia Cathedral stood stark and harsh against the brilliant blue sky, the church looming over the unpaved square that was already turning into a mud patch. The boyars and merchants were wrapped in cloaks and furs for despite the sun it was still cool and a northerly wind was adding to the overall gloom that possessed the city’s nobles and richest citizens. They had been ordered to attend this squalid affair on the orders of Prince Mstislav, the ruler they had appointed but now wanted to be rid of.
The prince’s entourage arrived only when all the summoned dignitaries had assembled in the square. Archbishop Mitrofan headed the procession, resplendent in his red and gold vestments and elaborately embroidered mitre. Two young monks swung incense burners in front of him and behind other monks carried flags bearing images of icons of the Orthodox Church. Then came priests dressed in dark brown and dark red mantles. They were followed by Mstislav and his wife, the Cuman Princess Maria. The royal couple were surrounded by guards in lamellar armour, helmets and armed with spears. Among the soldiers were a number wearing green cloaks and carrying shields that were round and carried a strange symbol that resembled the letter ‘c’ according to the heretical Roman Catholic alphabet. Like their Russian counterparts they were rough-looking bearded men whose eyes darted left and right to search for any suspicious movements among the packed throng of citizenry. Their leader, a clean-shaven man with long black hair who also wore a green cloak, stood beside Mstislav as the prince led his wife into the square, towards a row of seats that had been positioned on a wooden platform in front of the scaffold in the centre of the square.
A group of trumpeters wearing the black boar livery of Mstislav placed their instruments to their lips and blew a sharp blast to announce the entry of the city’s ruler, who politely acknowledged the cheers of the citizens and the rather muted applause of the boyars and merchants. He took his seat next to his wife, the man with the clean-shaven face standing behind him.
‘You see how the nobles smile at me with gritted teeth, Vetseke?’ said the prince. ‘After all I have done to increase their wealth they still despise me. If there is one thing that I despise it is ingratitude.’
‘The people love you, lord,’ replied Vetseke.
Vetseke was himself a prince but his straitened circumstances precluded Mstislav from treating him as an equal. He and a
band of loyal followers had fled to Novgorod in the aftermath of the defeat and death of Lembit, seeking sanctuary in the Russian kingdom. Once he had been the ruler of the principality of Kokenhusen, but now the castle that had been his home was in the possession of the Sword Brothers and he was a penniless, landless prince. Mstislav used him and his men to collect the squirrel pelts that brought great wealth to the city. Vetseke was desperate to return to Livonia to fight the Sword Brothers but Mstislav, at first enthusiastic about supporting him, had done nothing to encourage his fight against the Bishop of Riga. He thought he would be destined to remain in the forests and marshes of northern Russia but then the gods had sent a miracle.
He had been escorting the prince from the city’s kremlin, across the bridge over the Volkhov River, when a would-be assassin came out of nowhere brandishing a knife. Vetseke had managed to wrestle him to the ground and was about to kill him with his sword when Mstislav had ordered him to stop. The prince’s guards manhandled the individual away and an angry Mstislav ordered him to be questioned ‘closely’ to discover if he had acted alone or was part of a plot against him. Ever since the loss of his banner to the Sword Brothers and the failure of the attempts to seize it back the prince had been angry, suspicious and volatile. Angry at what he saw as incompetence and treachery all around him, suspicious of the boyars, suspicious of the merchants, suspicious of the mayor of Pskov and in fact almost everyone. But Vetseke went from being something akin to a favourite pet to a valued adviser.
‘The people may love me, simple fools that they are,’ said Mstislav, ‘but there are others who have elevated the vice of ingratitude to an art form.’
He sneered at the ranks of the boyars and merchants congregated opposite as the prisoner was led into the square, surrounded by four huge executioners dressed in leather aprons. Spearmen stood sentry in front of the crowd to keep order though there was little prospect of that. People loved a good execution and today’s spectacle promised to be something special.
‘I have heard news from Ungannia, highness,’ said Vetseke, smiling politely at Princess Maria who appeared bored by all the proceedings.
The prisoner was led on to the scaffold that had been erected in the centre of the square, the burly executioners forcing him down on his knees before Mstislav. The dagger that he had tried to plunge into Mstislav’s heart was chained to his right wrist, though there was no danger of him using it. His ‘close questioning’ had involved him being beaten severely, his face a mass of bruises. But no bones had been broken and he was still fully conscious so he could more fully ‘enjoy’ his punishment.
But the prince was staring at the small, middle-aged man with deep-set eyes who had tried to kill him.
‘He said nothing to the interrogators, swore he was acting alone but I don’t believe him. The boyars were behind it, I would stake my reputation on it.’
‘Highness,’ interrupted the commander of the guards, ‘the executioners are desirous to begin the punishment.’
Mstislav turned away from the condemned. ‘What? Oh, very well.’
He turned his wife. ‘Perhaps you would like to begin this poetic drama, my dear.’
Maria smiled politely and nodded to the commander, who turned and signalled to the chief executioner to begin proceedings. The scaffold was low – no more than four feet – which was unusual as it allowed only the front section of the crowd to see what was going on. On the wooden boards stood a brazier filled with red-hot coals, a table holding metal pincers, knives, hammers and ropes, and a raised, cross-shaped object made of thick oak in the centre. The prisoner, denied the solace of a priest because Mstislav had decreed that parricide was an offence against God and as such the perpetrator’s soul was damned anyway, was stripped naked and tied to the cross by means of leather straps. The contraption had been designed specially so that his right wrist projected beyond the end of the crossbeam, whereupon two of the executioners clasped the brazier with iron tongs and moved it to directly beneath the prisoner’s right hand and wrist.
There was an ear-piercing shriek as the blade of the dagger, the chain and then the man’s wrist and hand melted in the white heat. The crowd broke into delirious cheering and mothers at the back held their babies aloft so they could see the justice of Novgorod being administered. The prisoner squealed ‘Oh God, oh God’ as the brazier was moved away to leave a red stump where his hand had been.
‘As I was saying, highness,’ pressed Vetseke, ‘Ungannia has rebelled against the Sword Brothers.’
Mstislav angrily held up a hand to him. ‘Do not speak to me of Ungannia. My banner was stolen and my brother-in-law was murdered by the Sword Brothers there.’
The prisoner was thrashing around on the horizontal cross as pain shot through his body, his face contorted with agony. One of the executioners threw a bucket of water over him so he did not fall into unconsciousness and miss the next stage of the entertainment. The others, meanwhile, were heating the pincers in the brazier as the prisoner began frantically reciting prayers.
His next sound was a slow, high-pitched whine that grew in volume as the chief executioner took a knife from the table and slowly sliced off his testicles. This brought giggles and bawdy cheers from the crowd, the executioner slowing his movements and grinning to the people as he cut through the flesh.
Mstislav noticed Archbishop Mitrofan with his eyes closed.
‘Archbishop,’ he shouted, ‘is the Lord’s work not to your liking?’
The archbishop, visibly shaken by the horror unfolding a few paces from him, his face pale, tried to smile at the prince.
‘Keep your eyes open,’ Mstislav growled. ‘All of you watch the punishment that awaits those who try to topple me.’
The executioner held up the prisoner’s testicles in a bloody hand and then threw them into the crowd. Loud cheering.
‘The boyars and merchants grow rich, Vetseke,’ continued the prince as the other executioners proceeded to pinch the prisoner’s flesh with red-hit pincers.
‘Because of the rule of law that I have established in and around this city their trade in musk, sable, ermine, squirrel pelts, flax, jewellery and slaves flourishes. And what thanks do I get? A knife in my guts.’
The prisoner was once again thrashing around on the cross as chunks of his flesh were ripped from his body by the pincers. The scaffold was now awash with the victim’s blood and two of the executioners sprawled on the slippery surface, falling heavily on the boards. One screamed as the pincers he was holding seared his leg.
‘Amateurs,’ sneered Mstislav.
Vegetables were hurled from among the poorer citizens at this display of unprofessionalism and the chief executioner rebuked his subordinates. The condemned, meanwhile, was in the throes of a spasm as his body reacted to being torn, seared and having three appendages sliced or burnt off. The chief executioner raised his hand to Mstislav and bowed his head.
‘Ah,’ said the prince, turning to his wife, ‘the finale is for you, my dear, in recognition of your heritage.’
‘You are too kind, my lord,’ she purred, her mood having brightened at the display before her.
The prince nodded at the executioner who barked an order to two filthy urchins who had been loitering by the side of the scaffold. They hurried away into the crowd as the prisoner, now fading, was again doused with water.
‘If only the boyars had your loyalty, Vetseke,’ mused the prince. ‘And what are you? A landless prince who relies only on his wits to survive?’
‘You are too kind, highness,’ said Vetseke through gritted teeth.
‘Loyalty and bravery must be rewarded,’ continued the prince. ‘But how to reward you? That is the question.’
He looked at the prince as four black stallions were brought into the square, through the crowd and next to the scaffold, the stable hands having difficulty controlling the beasts as the smell of gore entered their nostrils and their ears heard the bloodthirsty cheers of the crowd.
‘What would you hav
e, Prince of Kokenhusen? A mansion in the city, an estate beyond its walls, or perhaps one of my wife’s innumerable sisters as a wife?’
Alarm flashed in Vetseke’s eyes. ‘You are too generous, highness. But if I may be so bold as to request that I be allowed to leave the city with my men and a few additional reinforcements so I may join the rebellion against the Sword Brothers.’
Mstislav threw up his hands. ‘We have been over this a hundred times. I wasted hundreds of lives when Domash besieged Odenpah, and a brother-in-law when Gerceslav invaded Livonia. I see no reason to squander any more of my soldiers’ lives in futile expeditions into the west.’
‘A hundred Russians, highness, to retrieve your banner, that is all I ask,’ pleaded Vetseke.
Mstislav’s ears pricked up. ‘My banner?’
‘It was lost at Dorpat, highness, when Ungannia was the friend of the Sword Brothers. But now that kingdom is an enemy of the heretics. The son of Kalju has blamed the deaths of his parents on the Sword Brothers and has vowed vengeance on them. If your banner is still in his possession my arrival in Ungannia with soldiers to aid his cause would make him amenable to returning it to your highness.’
Mstislav stroked his beard thoughtfully as the prisoner was released from his shackles on the cross and leather straps were fixed around his wrists and ankles. The horses were positioned at each corner of the scaffold and the straps secured to the prisoner were then fixed to the beasts’ harnesses. In this way the prisoner was spread-eagled in mid-air above the scaffold as the horses took the strain. But then the strap around the bloody, raw stump at the end of the prisoner’s right arm slipped off the limb and he hung awkwardly in the air, moaning and trying to wriggle free.
The executioner waved his arms frantically at the stable hands who then shouted and pulled at the horses to retreat a few feet. They did, the prisoner crashing on to the boards.
‘What is the problem now?’ bellowed Mstislav, the prince jumping to his feet and pointing to the chief executioner. ‘Get over here!’