by Peter Darman
Like all Druzhina their primary weapon was a lance, though many of those from Suzdal also carried javelins called sulitsa. These had light, thin shafts some five feet in length and were carried in a small quiver called a dzhid that was attached to the belt on the left side. Also attached to the belt was a short, double-bladed knife known as a poyasnie, and a sword in an iron scabbard bound with leather and decorated with silver inlay. It was hung on the belt by two rings at the mouth of the scabbard.
The grand prince had also brought with him eight thousand horse archers, missile troops equipped with recurve bows made from sinew, horn and wood similar to the weapons employed by the heathen Tartars. The horse archers were used to mount raids and conduct reconnaissance and had the army been carrying out a mobile campaign into enemy territory they would have been most effective. As it was, of the over twenty thousand men that gathered on the northern shore of Lake Peipus, only nine and half thousand were foot soldiers more suited to assaulting strongholds.
But Mstislav was in a buoyant mood, embracing Yaroslav warmly when he and Domash visited him in the prince’s huge pavilion pitched in a fenced-off area half a mile from the stench and dung of the main camp. He invited both of them to a sumptuous feast to be held that evening to cement the fraternal bonds between Novgorod and Suzdal.
The small city of tents, wagons, ponies and horses was swathed in a permanent cloud of smoke as hundreds of campfires were lit. Large swathes of a nearby forest were felled for firewood and to construct rudimentary shelters for those members of the Voi that had no tents. Quartermasters visited villages near the lake to purchase fish and boyars and their retainers went into the forests in search of game. And on the western perimeter of the camp sentries halted a small party of horsemen intent on seeing Prince Mstislav.
In camp black-robed monks engaged brightly attired Skomorokhs in fierce arguments, while in the prince’s pavilion great quantities of beer and stavlenniy myod were consumed as the leaders of Novgorod and Suzdal toasted their coming victory. Mstislav promised that every Dane captured at Reval would be given to Grand Prince George as a gift to take back to his city. George thanked the prince but stated that he would also empty northern Estonia of the fair-skinned, blue-eyed women and children that were highly prized as slaves in the Asiatic lands to the south. Mstislav readily agreed – a land devoid of pagans would make his rule in Reval much easier.
Mstislav stripped a chicken thigh with his teeth and tossed the bones onto the floor in front of the table. He started to gulp down a large cup of beer while his eyes watched a guard enter the pavilion and make his way around the walls towards the top table. He stopped drinking, belched and listened as the guard stooped and whispered into his ear. He gave a raucous laugh.
‘Show him in.’
The loud chatter began to ebb as two figures were escorted into the pavilion, the lords of Suzdal looking quizzically as the men, both tall and wearing mail armour, walked between the spear-armed guards. One was young with long fair hair, the other older, clean-shaven whose hair was as black as night.
‘Well, Vetseke,’ said Mstislav to the dark-haired individual, ‘I did not think to see you again.’
Vetseke bowed to the prince. ‘I bring aid, highness.’
Mstislav wiped his mouth on his sleeve and peered at the angry looking young man beside him.
‘Who’s this?’
‘This is Lord Kristjan, highness, son of the late Kalju,’ said Vetseke in Russian, ‘and appointed Lord of all Estonia.’
‘Appointed by whom?’ asked the prince.
‘By the gods, apparently, highness.’
Those within hearing distance laughed at Kristjan who gave them a murderous stare.
‘Why do they laugh?’ he said to Vetseke.
The Liv shrugged. ‘I do not know, Kristjan, these Russians have a curious sense of humour.’
Kristjan pointed at Mstislav. ‘He is the leader here?’
Vetseke looked at the large, bearded man next to Mstislav who was dressed in a rich red shirt and wore gold rings on his fingers.
‘He asks if you are commander here, highness,’ Vetseke said to Mstislav.
The prince smiled at Grand Prince George. ‘We are joint commanders of this great campaign. But so this pagan simpleton may understand, tell him to speak to me.’
George roared with laughter, as did his commanders, which did nothing to appease the rising temper of Kristjan.
‘Tell him I am beloved of Taara and bring three thousand men to assist him take Reval,’ he snapped to Vetseke.
The latter nodded. ‘Kristjan offers the three thousand men he leads to your service, highness.’
Mstislav was impressed. ‘Three thousand? How can a boy muster such a number?’
‘The mystics and priests who govern the minds of the Estonians believe he is chosen by the gods to be the liberator of their lands from foreigners,’ replied Vetseke.
‘Does he know that we go to take Reval and then northern Estonia, to make it Russian?’ asked Mstislav.
Vetseke shook his head. ‘No, highness, he believes that you have come to assist him free Estonia from the Danes.’
Mstislav pointed at two of his men sitting at a table at right angles to the top table.
‘Get up and let our two guests take the weight off their feet and enjoy our hospitality.’
He smiled at Kristjan. ‘He will prove a useful idiot.’
‘What did he say?’ demanded Kristjan.
‘He is honoured to have a man chosen by the gods to free his people as an ally,’ Vetseke told him.
*****
The strong jaw of Rolf, Count of Roskilde and Governor of Reval, looked like it had been set in stone as he gripped the timber ramparts of Toompea Castle and looked down on the army that ringed the town. He had been given prior warning of the approach of the Russians, who had conducted a leisurely march through Wierland, no doubt looting along the way. He was slightly surprised to see a sizeable Estonian contingent as part of the Russian army and did not know why this should be. He shrugged. In the great scheme of things it did not matter. The enemy had appeared mid-morning and began a slow and methodical encirclement of Reval: to the west the Estonians mustered into their tribal groups. He recognised the boar standard of Wierland, the golden eagle of Ungannia, the lynx of Harrien and the bear of Jerwen. They took up position on the western side of the town’s defences, between Toompea Hill and the coast – a relatively short section of the perimeter wall.
The Russians, who comprised the overwhelming majority of the enemy army, were drawn up in front of the southern wall and the eastern ramparts. Two things struck Rolf as odd: there was a disproportionate number of horsemen among the enemy and there were no siege engines.
‘How many do you think they have?’ he asked the young Count Albert who stood beside him.
Albert’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the enemy from left to right.
‘At least fifteen thousand, probably more, not counting the Estonians.’
Rolf raised an eyebrow. ‘Not counting the Estonians?’
‘Ill-armed pagans do not count,’ Albert replied loudly enough for others on the battlements to hear him. They laughed at his disparaging of the pagans. Rolf also smiled. His deputy was hot-headed and could be reckless, but he was just the type of commander to hold the hill against this Russian horde. He turned to face the younger man.
‘Hold the castle as long as you can. If the enemy breach the defences then fall back with your men. Do not sacrifice yourself needlessly.’
He offered the Count of Orlamunde and Holstein his hand. Albert took it.
‘I will not fail you.’
Rolf turned and walked to the wooden steps that led down to the ground. He would direct the defence of the town itself while Valdemar’s nephew and his knights, squires and lesser knights – fifty-four men and youths – would hold the castle. It was a paltry number but Rolf had given him fifty crossbowmen to stiffen the garrison. And before the enemy could scale the
hill to assault the castle they would have to breach the ramparts around the foot of the hill. To man those defences and the perimeter wall that defended Reval he had seven hundred men. A hundred sergeants, two hundred spearmen and a hundred of his own foot knights would give a good account of themselves if the enemy broke through his defences. But the fate of Reval would rest on the three hundred crossbowmen that occupied the twelve towers along the wall and the parapets between them.
One of the last acts of King Valdemar before he had been basely betrayed had been to despatch an additional two hundred mercenary crossbowmen to Reval to stiffen the defences. Rolf had vowed in the wooden church that had been built in the middle of the town that he would not let the port fall. Valdemar had also sent him a small number of engineers, men who had travelled throughout Europe designing and building castle defences. They were mostly Italian, though one olive-skinned individual said that he had been the personal adviser of the ruler of Constantinople. Aside from constantly complaining about northern Estonia’s climate he had been instrumental in laying out the defences beyond the walls.
‘Invite the enemy into killing grounds, lord,’ he had said to Rolf.
‘Invite them into ground where they can be killed? What sort of enemy would do that?’
The man had tapped his nose and smiled, his teeth flawlessly white against his tanned skin.
‘The type that has no choice, lord.’
He had the town’s smiths produce thousands of caltrops that were laid around the rampart at the base of Toompea Hill in a thick belt that would cripple any horse that ventured too near them. In front of the ditch before the rampart there was a row of trenches five feet deep, in the bottom of which were rows of sharpened stakes with fire-hardened points. Beyond the trenches were three rows of round pits, each one three feet deep and tapering towards the bottom. In each pit was a sharpened stake that was fixed in a clay base so it could not be easily pulled out. Beyond the trenches and pits were rows of round holes some two feet in depth. They were designed to break the leg of a man or horse that fell in them.
The track leading to the town’s gates had been altered so that now it approached the entrance in a zigzag fashion. This was designed to not only slow the approach of an attacking force but also expose its flanks to missiles shot from the walls and towers. The rows of round holes dug each side of the track would deter attackers from straying from the road. And if an attacker had any time between negotiating the holes, pits, trenches and caltrops he would also notice the white-painted stones arranged in front of the walls denoting ranges of one hundred yards, two hundred yards and three hundred yards from where crossbowmen would shoot from the parapets. When they were finished the extensive defences that ringed Reval were nicknamed the ‘Devil’s garden’ by the garrison.
It took the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon before the Russian army and Kristjan’s forces were ready to mount their assault. Not because it took an excessive amount of time for the troops to be marshalled into position but because of the positioning of the viewing platform. So sure were Mstislav and Grand Prince George that the town would fall easily they had decided to watch the spectacle from a specially constructed platform. They decided that the best position was directly opposite the town gates, so a small army of men were detached from Novgorod’s Voi to fell trees so a platform could be erected. During the hours it took to fashion a structure raised off the ground three times the height of a man Russians and Estonians stood and sweated in the summer heat. From the brooding walls came no hint of life: no movement, no sun glinting off whetted spear points or burnished helmets. Nothing. The banners above the gates and on the battlements of Toompea Castle hung limply in the still air. It was as if Reval had been deserted.
The attackers were disabused of that fantasy when the attack finally got under way, a hundred trumpets blaring, accompanied by hundreds more drums being banged to signal the great assault. Six thousand Voi approached the southern and eastern walls of Reval, while in the west Kristjan’s warriors swarmed forward to traverse the ‘Devil’s garden’, cross the ditch and get to grips with the town’s timber walls. As the attackers had no siege engines the front ranks carried bundles of branches tied together to fill the ditch to create makeshift bridges. Behind them were warriors hauling ropes and grappling hooks, which would be used to pull down parts of the wall, Suzdal’s horse archers riding forward so the ropes could be attached to the saddles of their mounts to make the task easier. On the track that led to the town’s gates, meanwhile, a battering ram fashioned from the trunk of an oak tree and mounted on two four-wheeled wagons was pushed forward.
Suzdal’s horse archers had unleashed a hail of arrows against the walls, loosing volley after volley which did little save give the foot soldiers some heart as they rushed ahead and then slowed almost to a halt as they encountered the belt of holes. Some of the horse archers got too close to the walls, their mounts stepping into the holes and breaking their legs. Men also stepped into them, twisting ankles and also breaking limbs.
The pits filled with single stakes were easier to spot and avoid but it slowed the advance down to a crawl. And then the crossbowmen began shooting. Among the pits it was impossible for the Voi and Estonians to lock their shields to their front or above their heads as a defence against the iron-tipped bolts that hissed through the air. The crossbowmen took their time, shooting no more than two bolts a minute, but after five minutes they had loosed three thousand missiles. The Voi never reached the ditch in front of the ramparts, losing heart as hundreds of their comrades were killed or wounded. They fell back more quickly than they had advanced.
To the west Kristjan sent a thousand Wierlanders to assault the walls. Bolts killed three hundred before the rest limped back out of range. Murk was not amused.
‘You see how easily their courage fails,’ he said to Vetseke as both watched the Wierlanders recoil from the walls. Behind them the prince’s Russians and Livs sat on their horses, a mounted body of Ungannians acting as Kristjan’s bodyguard.
‘Men thrown against well-planned defences will always suffer high casualties,’ replied Vetseke.
‘Not if they truly believed in the gods,’ Kristjan corrected him, touching his silver torc. ‘Yet another example of why only Ungannia among the Estonian kingdoms remains free. The other tribes have forsaken the gods and so the gods have forsaken them.’
Vetseke saw injured warriors, crossbow bolts lodged in their shoulders or limbs, hobbling back to their camp, or being assisted by their comrades if their wounds were serious. At that moment he also became aware of Kristjan’s total indifference to the suffering around him.
‘There is one thing that needs addressing,’ the prince said as the crossbowmen on the walls ceased their shooting, the low moans of injured men lying among the ‘Devil’s garden’ drifting into his ears.
‘Mm?’
‘Fellin, Kristjan. It should be reinforced.’
‘Fellin is adequately garrisoned,’ Kristjan told him. ‘After Reval has fallen I intend to march south and resume my conquest of Livonia.’
‘The Sword Brothers will attempt to recapture it this summer,’ said Vetseke.
Kristjan waved a hand at him as a Wierlander, bleeding profusely from his neck that had a crossbow bolt embedded in it, pitched forward to hit the earth face first.
‘After the losses they suffered at the Sedde, Prince Vetseke, I doubt the Sword Brothers will venture from their castles for the foreseeable future.’
Vetseke stared at him in disbelief. He may have recovered physically from the hornet stings but the poison had obviously affected his senses. Perhaps it was time to think about shifting for himself.
Chapter 9
Conrad stared in disbelief at the cluster of crosses and the rotting corpses and skeletons fixed to them. The copse of death was sited on the eastern side of the lake just south of the hill fort of Fellin, which was being closely invested.
‘How many do you think there are?’ queried Rudolf.
‘Forty, maybe more,’ replied Henke, swatting away a fly, one of the hundreds buzzing around the grisly scene. ‘Someone has been busy.’
Grand Master Volquin wore a look that was as black as his beard.
‘I want an example made of the garrison. In all my time in Livonia I have never seen such an outrage.’
‘What about in Germany, grand master?’ smiled Henke.
‘That was different,’ reflected Volquin, tilting his head as he remembered the many atrocities he had seen in northern Europe and perhaps had himself committed.
Walter’s face registered horror and distress in equal measure.
‘We should cut them down, give the bodies a Christian burial and then dismantle this modern Golgotha.’
With that he jumped down from his horse and went down on his knees in prayer.
‘Your words encapsulate what we all think, Brother Walter,’ said Volquin solemnly. ‘It shall be done immediately.’
‘Is that a good idea, grand master?’ said Henke.
They all looked at him in puzzlement. Henke swatted a fly on his arm.
‘If you want to make an example of the garrison then you could always nail a few to these crosses after they have surrendered.’
He looked very pleased with himself but Volquin sighed and wheeled his horse away.
‘Take the bodies down and burn the crosses,’ he ordered.
‘He’s going soft,’ muttered Henke, turning on Conrad.
‘I thought you were supposed to be Marshal of Estonia and ruler of all those that live in it. Looks like Bishop Albert made a mistake in appointing you, baker’s boy.’
‘One day, Henke,’ growled Conrad, ‘that tongue of yours will talk your head off its shoulders. Perhaps today.’