by Peter Darman
‘He’s got a lot to learn,’ said squire Paul, earning him a rebuking glance from Sir Richard as the noble followed Conrad. The three other brother knights trailed after him as Conrad’s horse splashed through the ford towards the opposite riverbank.
A group of riders left the Danish knights directly opposite, like the Sword Brothers and Sir Richard bare headed, leaving their lances planted in the ground.
There was a menacing quiet as the two parties slowly made their way towards each other, Conrad and his companions rode from the cold water on to the sandbank that led to the ancient track. The Danish knights, all attired in blue surcoats sporting what Conrad could now see were yellow griffins, halted their mounts around fifty paces from them, resting their hands on their pommels. There were five of them, two in front who both had untidy light brown hair heavily streaked with grey, and three younger men behind. The older ones had a resemblance to each other and as Conrad slowed his horse to a halt he thought that one looked familiar, though he had seen neither of them before.
The older one rubbed his nose as the Sword Brothers and Sir Richard faced them around ten paces away. Conrad noticed that the sword at his hip was in an expensive red scabbard and his sword belt was also red. He took off the mail mitten on his right hand and pointed at the Army of the Wolf.
‘You did not need to assemble such a large reception party, and those stakes could be interpreted as less than friendly.’
‘It is good manners for each party to introduce themselves before negotiations begin,’ remarked Sir Richard sharply.
‘I am Henry, Count of Schwerin,’ stated the older man, ‘and this is my brother, Lord Gunzelin.’
The younger one stared insolently at Sir Richard.
‘I am Sir Richard Bruffingham, commander of Lehola and guardian of Saccalia.’ He held out to Conrad. ‘And this is Brother Conrad of the Order of Sword Brothers and Marshal of Estonia.’
‘Marshal of Estonia?’ said the count in a mocking tone. ‘There must be some mistake because I represent King Valdemar of Denmark, who was granted all Estonia by His Holiness Pope Honorius himself.’
‘I have here my commission signed by Bishop Albert himself,’ said Conrad, fumbling with the leather tube before extracting the document. He nudged his horse forward and handed it to the count.
The count read it, nodded and handed it back to Conrad.
‘A marshal is beneath a king, boy, so move aside and let us pass so that King Valdemar can rest tonight in Lehola.’
‘We serve the king of kings,’ said Anton dismissively.
‘And as such it is your king who will be withdrawing,’ added Hans.
The count appeared undisturbed by the implied threat. ‘Your bishop has a short memory. It was not so long ago that he travelled to Denmark to beg for help against the Estonians, prompting King Valdemar to leave his comfortable bed and attractive young wife to travel across the Baltic with an army to fight the pagans. Well, he has vanquished the heathens and like all kings he desires his reward from what should be a grateful bishop. So I say again: move aside that the king may pass.’
‘The king shall have his reward in heaven,’ stated Conrad defiantly. ‘But he shall take no more of Estonia.’
‘Arrogant little bastard,’ said Gunzelin uncouthly. The count held up his hand to still his brother. He leaned forward to take a good look at Conrad.
‘The king will not be amused by your attitude, boy. Are you sure you wish to incur his royal wrath?’
‘I have fought kings before,’ answered Conrad in an offhand manner.
‘This is Conrad Wolff,’ said Johann, ‘who killed the Estonian king Lembit with his own hands.’
‘And saved the life of the bishop himself,’ stated Anton.
Conrad thought he saw the flicker of admiration in the count’s eyes. ‘So you are Conrad Wolff. Your name is known in the Danish court.’
‘He killed a stinking pagan chief, so what?’ spat Gunzelin.
The count smiled politely at Conrad. ‘My brother is not skilled in the language of diplomacy but very good when it comes to the language of war.’
‘This river marks the southern extent of Danish Estonia,’ stated Conrad, ignoring the threat.
The count smiled once more. ‘Then I shall inform the king so. I will send you his answer in due course. I bid you good day.’
He wheeled his horse away, as did his brother, and the five knights rode back up the track.
‘That could have gone better,’ remarked Sir Richard dryly.
Conrad shrugged. ‘Our position is strong, we outnumber them and I am sure the Danish king does not wish to fight fellow Christians.’
He tugged on his reins and turned his horse around. The others followed as they retraced their steps back across the river. The wind was still blowing, ruffling the multitude of banners among the king’s army. On the right flank where the spearmen with their almond-shaped shields stood the banners displayed the heraldry of Valdemar’s Danish lords: white horses on red backgrounds, the blue lions of the king himself, and banners divided into four parts with alternating yellow and red segments. On the left flank where the axe men were deployed the flags were of an older lineage, the nobles who had brought their men to fight alongside Valdemar being descendants of Viking lords who had lived in Scandinavia for generations. These banners carried old Norse images: an arm with a fist, arrow, axe, bear, bellows, boar, stag and bull.
*****
‘What appears to be the problem?’ enquired Valdemar when Count Henry and his brother presented themselves to the king. He sat on his horse with his bodyguard to the rear of the German lord’s horsemen and foot soldiers, his twin banners featuring blue lions and the red flag with a white cross fluttering immediately behind him.
‘The army on the other side of the river, majesty,’ replied the count, ‘is under the command of a Sword Brother who holds the title Marshal of Estonia.’
The king laughed. ‘The Marshal of Estonia? Surely you are mistaken for Pope Honorius himself gave me all Estonia before I took ship here.’
‘Yes, majesty,’ said the count. ‘But he showed me his commission, which bore the seal of the Bishop of Riga.’
The king looked at the nobles of his bodyguard, the rich lords who owed their positions to his patronage.
‘The Bishop of Riga? The churchmen who came to my court like a beggar pleading for help to vanquish the pagans?’
His lords laughed.
‘Well, my lord,’ he said to Count Henry, ‘I came on crusade to support the Holy Church in its hour of need and God gave me a great victory over the disbelievers. And He sent me a banner so that I could carry it in this land as a sign that I am embarked upon the Lord’s work.’
He waved a hand at the army across the river. ‘I am upon God’s work, count. Disperse them.’
The count looked alarmed. ‘My liege?’
‘Disperse them,’ shouted the king, causing his horse to shift in alarm. Valdemar patted its covered neck. ‘There, there. You see, count, you have caused me to frighten my horse. Please do as you are ordered and scatter that rabble.’
‘You would fight the Sword Brothers, majesty?’ said the count.
The king scowled at him. ‘I would fight all the enemies of God.’
*****
‘Are we to sit here all day?’ said Anton in frustration as the two armies observed each other across the Pala.
‘And all night if necessary,’ replied Conrad, ‘because this is as far as they go.’
‘Have you noticed that just before battle is joined it becomes very quiet,’ remarked Johann, ‘as though all the birds know that there will be bloodshed and fly away, and all the other beasts seek the sanctuary of their holes and dens?’
They all looked up at the sky that was heaped with grey clouds but empty of birds.
‘There will be no battle,’ said Conrad nervously.
‘Are you sure about that?’ said squire Paul behind Sir Richard as a line of crossbowmen suddenl
y began moving from behind the spearmen in the centre of the Danish line to the right and began deploying just forward of the mass of mailed axe men directly opposite Peeter’s Saccalians.
‘They are done with talking,’ confirmed Sir Richard, pointing to Danish archers who were walking to stand before the two groups of Danish spearmen opposite the Army of the Wolf’s left flank.
The English lord turned and pointed to a signaller with a trumpet, who raised the instrument to his lips and blew it. The piercing sound carried through the air and seconds later the chiefs and headmen among the army began barking orders at their men. Then there was a rattling-like sound as two hundred crossbowmen loosed a volley at the Saccalians. Horns sounded among the latter as the quarrels struck shields, mail armour, legs and faces, culling too many before the whole formation retreated to stand behind the mantlets that had been placed immediately behind the rear ranks.
On the left wing there was a loud hissing sound as the Danish archers released their bowstrings to send a volley of arrows high into the air. The deadly missiles arched high into the sky before raining down on the Rotalians, Jerwen and Ungannians. But they arrived more slowly than the crossbow bolts and the warriors had more time to withdraw behind their mantlets and raise their shields to form a wooden roof against the missiles. There was a succession of thuds as the arrows struck shields and mantlets, followed by another series of dull thumps as the second volley of arrows fell on the army’s left wing.
Conrad and the others put on their helmets and plucked their lances from the ground as Sir Richard’s eighty-five knights and squires behind them did likewise. Tonis’ wolf shields to their immediate right had taken cover behind their mantlets but had been ignored by the crossbowmen who were furiously reloading and shooting volley after volley at the Saccalians who were now huddling behind a row of mantlets.
Conrad saw the spearmen directly opposite him and his fellow horsemen run to their left to form up beside the other spearmen arrayed on the Danish left wing that were standing behind the archers. The latter continued to shoot their arrows over the river at the warriors of Kalju, Hillar and Andres. He looked back to the centre of the enemy line where the insolent count he had conversed with sat on his horse with his equally rude brother. He heard a fanfare of trumpets that drowned out all other sounds.
Then the two wings of the Danish army charged.
The axe men on the left wing did so in a mad rush, their shields strapped on their backs so they could wield their large-bladed weapons to maximum effect. They ran through the crossbowmen, shrieking their war cries, swept down the sandbank and splashed through the river. The cool, waist-deep water slowed their momentum as they waded through it, the crossbowman racing forward and continuing to shoot their bolts over their heads from the top of the riverbank. They managed perhaps four volleys before being forced to desist as the first axe men emerged from the river and ran to the stakes, barging them aside as they sought to close the last few yards between them and the Saccalians. They must have heard the horn blasts coming from behind the strange wooden fences that the Estonians had hidden behind, and almost certainly saw the latter suddenly emerge from the spaces between the crossbow bolt covered screens, but whether they were aware of the hundreds of spears that suddenly filled the air before they landed in their midst is unknown.
Lehola’s armoury had been emptied of all its spears and javelins and they had been stacked behind the mantlets. Now they rained down on the Danish axe men whose torsos were struck by the iron-tipped missiles. Scores were cut down as the Saccalians hurled volley after volley of spears until there were none left. But they had achieved their purpose. Among the stakes were dead and dying axe men and the rest were retreating back across the river. Peeter had impressed upon his chiefs that there was to be no pursuit in the event of an enemy withdrawal and so the Estonians stood behind the stakes and cheered as the enemy slunk back across the river. A few manoeuvred themselves between the stakes to kill wounded Danes with their axes and knives but the majority obeyed their commanders.
Conrad saw the Danish left wing withdraw and raised his lance in acclamation, while behind him the knights and squires cheered. But on the right flank things were not going according to plan. The Danish spearmen’s advance was more orderly and disciplined as they left the meadow and descended the riverbank to wade through the water. Behind them the archers maintained their shooting, loosing arrows in ordered volleys that continued to fall on the Estonian warriors across the river. Some fell between the roof of shields to strike shoulders and arms. And all the time the spearmen were wading towards the southern riverbank. They exited the water and dressed their ranks, arrows still falling on and around the mantlets in front of them.
Conrad saw the horsemen opposite suddenly move towards the Danish archers, the count’s griffin banner among them. The inference was clear: if the spearmen attacking his left flank managed to clear a path through the stakes then the enemy knights would cross the river and attempt to punch through the Estonian line. And then he spotted the crossbowmen running from right to left as the Danish king sought to reinforce his advancing right wing.
Conrad pushed up his helmet and turned to Sir Richard. ‘We must support our left, lord, or else all will be lost.’
Sir Richard nodded and pointed to the archers that stood idle either side of the horsemen.
Estonian bows did not have the range of crossbows but they could hit the enemy archers standing in a long line on the far riverbank.
‘Archers!’ shouted Conrad in the native tongue. ‘Shoot at those bowmen across the river.’
The leaders of archers, who were mostly huntsmen from local villages, moved forward to stand behind the stakes and began shooting arrows at their Danish counterparts on their left. Each man nocked an arrow and released his bowstring at his own rate, resulting in a steady rate of arrows flying at the enemy. Conrad watched in frustration as the enemy spearmen began to move the stakes aside or push them down with their shields, and then noticed that the volleys of enemy arrows had all but ceased. He looked across the river to see those archers who had not been struck by Estonian arrows running back out of range, the crossbowmen likewise seeking ground beyond the range of his archers. He clenched his fist and shouted with joy as the Estonian warriors on the left flank broke cover from behind the mantlets and raced forward.
Like their comrades on the right wing they had been supplied with spare spears that they now hurled at the enemy, who managed to raise their shields and deflect many of the missiles. However, outnumbered at least two to one by the combined force of Rotalians, Jerwen and Ungannians and now deprived of their missile support, they withdrew speedily to the river and then back across the water. Their casualties were negligible but like the Danes on the opposite wing they had been forced to withdraw.
Both sides were now back in their original positions and an observer could have been forgiven for thinking that nothing had happened all day were it not for a few bodies floating face-down in the river and a good deal more lying in and among the Estonian stakes to the south of the river. The Danes had been stopped at the Pala and Conrad and his three friends congratulated themselves and Sir Richard on their almost easy victory. They heard the cheers, chants and singing of their Estonian allies and looked at each other like mischievous children as they basked in victory. And then Conrad fell on the ground with a thud.
Count Henry may have received a bloody nose but he was a seasoned soldier. As soon as the Estonian archers ceased shooting he sent forward a detachment of crossbowmen with a party of spearmen in an attempt to kill the arrogant Sword Brothers on their horses. They were among his best foot soldiers and they now sprinted forward and loosed two volleys from behind the shields of their comrades. Conrad’s horse was hit and killed when a bolt went into one of his eyes and Hans’ horse was also slain. Two bolts pierced Anton’s shield and a quarrel went into Sir Richard’s helmet, though miraculously the point stopped half an inch from his eyeball. Five of the archers standing
in front of the horsemen were also killed.
Conrad sprang to his feet. ‘Shoot at them, shoot at them!’ he shouted, pointing at the small group of soldiers across the river.
The archers began directing arrows at Count Henry’s men but they had sprinted back out of range before they struck the ground. Conrad gritted his teeth in frustration, turned and saw the body of Johann lying on the ground, two crossbow bolts in his chest. He ran to his friend’s side, dropping to his knees and pulling off his helmet. He gave an anguished cry as two lifeless eyes stared up at him.
Chapter 8
Outside snow covered the land and the rivers and lakes were frozen over. All traffic had halted on the Dvina now that the winter had arrived, boats being replaced by parties of brave villagers who ventured onto its white surface to try their hand at ice fishing. Some fell through the ice because the thickness varied along its course and was notoriously difficult to estimate, the lucky ones being plucked from the freezing water before they sank into the blackness. It snowed most days, turning the trees white and making travel difficult, isolating many villages whose inhabitants struggled to stay alive as their food supplies dwindled at the same time as their stocks of firewood shrank. And when they did the common folk of Lithuania prayed even harder to the Goddess of Fire.
Vsevolod turned away from the chessboard to look at the raging fire a few feet away. The great stone hearth it sat in was placed in the centre of the main hall of Panemunis, the former home of his father-in-law and now the residence of the former ruler of Gerzika, once an independent principality but now a stronghold of the Sword Brothers. He looked at the two women standing on the other side of the hearth, against the wall, whose task was to place more fuel on the fire and carefully retrieve any stray coals that were spat out by the flames and replace them in the hearth.
What simple-minded fools these pagans were. They called the Goddess of Fire Gabija, a name derived from the word apgaubti, meaning ‘to cover up’. It referred to the process of putting a fire, which was also called Gabija, to bed by carefully banking the coals and ashes for the night and saying prayers to beg her to stay in the home and not wander. They also prayed that the goddess would not burn the house down. Every home, no matter how small or dilapidated, had a hearth where a fire burned. And it was the duty of the mother of the household to care for and safeguard it. The Lithuanians believed that fire was not only a source of warmth and light but also symbolised the unbroken lifeline of a family and its ancestry.