The Sword Brothers (21 page)

His deputy cleared his
throat behind him. Stecse snapped out of his staring and turned to
face him.

‘Seventy-five dead and
eighty wounded, twenty-five fatally, lord.’

‘We will rest for an
hour and then row east to get well away from this place,’ said
Stecse.

‘Where were the
Russians, lord?’ asked his deputy.

‘Where indeed?’
replied Stecse.

‘Perhaps they were
ambushed,’ suggested his deputy.

Stecse shook his head.
‘There are no other crusader forces in this area aside from those
in that castle across the water. There was no ambush.’

He was going to say
that treachery was a more likely explanation but stopped himself.
He would wait until he was back at Grand Duke Daugerutis’
stronghold before giving his opinion on the matter.

Chapter 5

Lembit sat crouched
beside an aged oak on the edge of the forest, observing the castle.
Rusticus was kneeling beside him and behind him over fifty wolf
shields crouched low among the foliage to prevent them being
spotted. They were in the trees to the north of the castle and
could see workmen on the scaffolding labouring on the castle’s
towers. Lembit had never seen Wenden before; indeed had never been
this far south outside of his own lands. The scouts that he had
despatched to keep an eye on the crusaders’ movements had returned
with news that the great army at Wenden had left to return south.
The Kurs had kept their word, then, and had attacked Riga. His own
army was camped ten miles to the north, well away from the eyes of
the locals who were the slaves of the crusaders.

Wenden was strong,
that much was certain. The steep sides of the ground on its
northern and western sides made an assault from those directions
out of the question. Even the slope leading to its eastern ramparts
was formidable. Any assault would have to be directed against its
southern side.

‘What are we waiting
for?’ complained Rusticus.

‘For the crusaders to
depart the castle so we can take possession of it,’ Lembit
replied.

‘Well they had better
get a move on,’ said Rusticus, ‘my knees are aching.’

Lembit looked at him
in disbelief. The two were contrasting in appearance: Lembit short
in stature with quick reflexes, broad shouldered with long, thick
hair; Rusticus large, lumbering with shorter hair and a great thick
beard. In intellect they were opposites as well: Lembit cunning,
intelligent and calculating; Rusticus stupid and cruel but very
useful with a weapon in his hands.

‘I have seen enough,’
said Lembit, ‘let us return to camp.’

He and his men moved
slowly and stealthily among the trees until they were a safe
distance from any of the villages that ringed Wenden. These were
the original settlements that had been in existence when Wenden had
been a hill fort of a pagan lord, but Lembit knew that the
crusaders often sent their priests to live among the locals to
poison their minds with their religion. He also knew that the
presence of a large body of warriors, if spotted, would be
immediately reported to the commander at Wenden.

Camp was deep in the
forest. On the way back Lembit walked in silence, deep in thought,
his men in single file behind him and scouts ahead and on each
flank. He had left nothing to chance. His men had crafted scaling
ladders in Estonia and had brought them south with them so they did
not have to cut down any trees and thus make a lot of noise. They
had moved during the hours of darkness and in the pre-dawn light of
the early morning before resting during the day so as to remain
unobserved. Even so, despite the crusader army having moved back
south, Wenden was still a formidable fortress notwithstanding that
it had a small garrison and was only partially built. But if he and
his men could breach the outer perimeter wall than surely it would
fall.

Later, when dusk was
falling and he had rejoined his men at camp, the scouts reported to
Lembit regarding the perimeter wall. No campfires were allowed so
the men chewed on cured meat and salted fish and drank water. The
scouts told him that a ditch surrounded the southern and eastern
sides of the castle, behind which was an earth bank with a glacis
slope, on top of which was a timber palisade of horizontally laid
logs. There was one entrance, on the southern side, with a wooden
bridge over the ditch leading to two wooden gates.

‘How many guards did
you see on the wall?’ asked Lembit.

‘Six or seven above
and each side of the gates,’ replied a gangly, bearded man.

‘Perhaps another half
dozen along the rest of the wall,’ added another, shorter one.

‘That few?’ said
Rusticus dismissively, rubbing his hands. ‘This will be easy.’

Lembit threw him an
angry glance. ‘It will be easy only if we get over that wall
quickly.’

He dismissed the
scouts and assembled his subordinates, who sat cross-legged in a
circle in front of him. The light was fading fast now and their
faces were difficult to make out in the dimness. The warm air was
thick with the smell of pine needles and the aroma of sun-heated
moss and russulas. He had brought only professional warriors with
him, men whose lives were dedicated to the military arts, not
farmers who played at being soldiers. He now addressed them.

‘We attack at dawn.
Each of you will lead your men against a section of the wall. You
must cross the ditch and get over the palisade as quickly as
possible. The enemy are few and cannot defend all the
perimeter.’

‘What about their men
of iron on horseback?’ enquired one.

The ironclad knights
on horseback were feared throughout Estonia, and with good reason.
They attacked in densely packed ranks – big men on huge warhorses
whose charge was irresistible.

‘We will be over the
walls before they can sally forth and get among us,’ said Lembit.
‘Once we are inside the perimeter our superiority in numbers will
decide things in our favour.’

The men moved out just
after midnight, cloth wrapped around their boots to muffle the
sound of their footsteps. They moved slowly in long files, each man
trailing his spear so the warrior behind could hold the shaft and
follow in his footsteps in the darkness. They sweated as they
carried their weapons, the scaling ladders and the logs lashed
together to be thrown across the ditch, their shields strapped to
their backs. Excitement infused Lembit’s body. If he took the
castle at Wenden it would be a devastating, perhaps fatal, blow to
the crusader kingdom and would give heart to the oppressed people
of Livonia. They would rally to his side instead of the traitor
Caupo’s.

*****

Conrad was already
awake when the bell began to ring. In his previous life he had been
used to rising before dawn and so found the Sword Brothers’ hour of
rising easy to get used to, unlike Hans, though now even his slim
friend had grown accustomed to rising at an early hour. He heard
the bell and rose from his bed, only this morning the sound was
different. It was not a calm sequence of sounds to signal the new
day’s beginning and the first set of prayers; rather, it was
frantic ringing.

Rudolf burst into the
room, dressed in his mail armour and white surcoat and carrying his
helmet.

‘Up, up!’ he shouted,
‘the castle is under attack.’

The guards at the
gates had first spotted the groups of warriors beyond the ditch and
had rung the alarm bell on the perimeter wall, the bell in the
castle responding in a similar fashion. Beyond the dry moat bleary
eyed mercenaries were coming from their huts putting on their
clothes, while from other cabins came crying children, frightened
women in their bedclothes and their artisan husbands. Henke and
Otto had rushed down to the dwellings and now stood, swords in
hands, shouting at the workers and their families to get to the
castle as quickly as possible.

Conrad and the others
hastily put on their clothes, pulled on their boots and rushed out
of the dormitory into the courtyard to meet a scene of chaos.
Sergeants in their gambesons and kettle helmets were shepherding
the civilians running across the drawbridge towards the chapel.
Master Berthold stood in the middle of the courtyard with his arms
by his side calling for calm, his booming voice instructing people
not to run and to trust in the protection of the Lord. Rudolf and
Lucas were standing by the armoury as mercenaries came to collect
quivers of bolts, weapons, shields and armour before making their
way to the perimeter wall. Conrad and his companions remained
outside their dormitory, unsure what to do. Lukas saw them and
ordered them over to him. Conrad noticed that some of the brother
knights were leading their horses from the stables, both rider and
beast fully equipped for war.

Lukas pointed at them.
‘Get yourselves in the chapel.’

Hans looked at Conrad
and then the others.

‘We want to fight,’
declared Conrad before blushing intensely and staring down at the
ground, mortified that he had spoken so.

He did not know why he
had said the words and expected to be flogged for his
insolence.

‘If we could, sir,’
said Anton. The others nodded their agreement at Lukas. Conrad
looked at Hans who nodded at him determinedly. Lukas laughed and
pointed towards the groups of men forming up beyond the perimeter
wall in the post-dawn light.

‘Do you know what they
are?’ he said. The youths looked at him blankly. ‘I will tell you,’
he continued. ‘They are Estonians and they want to get inside these
walls, butcher all the men and carry off the women and children as
slaves.’

Conrad stared at the
Estonians. He counted ten widely spread enemy groups moving towards
the wall, which was now filling with spearmen and crossbowmen,
though not along its entire length. He also saw the engineers who
had arrived with the bishop’s army frantically assembling what
looked like wooden frames on wheels.

‘What use is learning
to use weapons if we are not allowed to fight with them to defend
ourselves?’ said Conrad, who this time looked directly at
Lukas.

The instructor moved
to stand before Conrad, his face inches from the boy’s. ‘You have a
lot to say for yourself all of a sudden.’

Conrad stepped back.
‘My apologies, Brother Lukas. I do not want to be a slave.’

‘Time is pressing,
Lukas,’ said Rudolf as the last of the civilians scurried past to
disappear into the now very crowded chapel. ‘Let them fight if they
wish then we shall see how good an instructor you are.’

Lukas turned and
looked at Rudolf with concern. ‘They are not ready.’

Rudolf smiled. ‘No,
but they can still shoot a crossbow and we need every pair of
hands.’

Lukas shrugged and
turned back to face Conrad. ‘Very well. You all want to fight?’

He smiled and the
others said they did. Lukas sighed.

‘Come with me.’

Minutes later they
were all eagerly following him across the drawbridge armed with
crossbows. Attached to their belts were black leather quivers
shaped like an hourglass with wooden backs and bottoms and that
held twenty quarrels, points up. At the armoury they had been
issued with gambesons that were white but carried no insignia.
Conrad felt a surge of pride as he marched behind Lukas, who was
carrying his helmet in the crook of his arm. The mercenaries were
at the wall now and Conrad’s heart raced as he heard the snapping
sound of crossbows being shot at the enemy. His mouth was dry and
he suddenly felt afraid. All the bravado he had displayed at the
castle had disappeared by the time Lukas called a halt and arranged
him and the others in a line facing the gates. He glanced behind
him, at the castle that seemed a hundred miles away.

He had forgotten about
the strange frames on wheels that he had spied earlier but now
there was a loud bang to his left that made him jump.

‘Easy,’ said Lukas,
‘it is only a mangonel.’

Conrad and his
pale-faced companions glanced at the machine as it launched a rock
that arched into the sky and disappeared on the other side of the
wall. Then there was another bang, and another and another as the
other mangonels launched their missiles. These one-armed throwing
machines used a bundle of twisted hair or sinew called a skein that
was strung across a frame. In the middle of the skein the wooden
throwing arm was inserted upright. At the end of this arm was a
sling.

Conrad watched as the
four-man crew lowered the arm and secured it in the horizontal
position, then lifted one of the stones from the two-wheeled cart
pulled by a horse positioned behind it and placed it in the sling.
The chief engineer released a handle and the arm flew forward to
release the stone, hitting a padded buffer attached to an upright
frame that acted as a stopper. The mangonels had been set up around
fifty yards back from the perimeter ramparts, allowing their
missiles to land some sixty yards beyond the wall.

Arrows came from the
ranks of the Estonians, most being shot at the defenders on the
walls but a few arching high into the sky to land a few yards in
front of Conrad and his companions.

‘Keep your eyes out
for those arrows. Load!’ shouted Lukas, putting on his helmet and
drawing his sword.

Despite being
frightened Conrad instinctively hooked the double-pronged metal
claw that was attached to the front of his belt over the centre of
the bowstring. He raised his right foot and placed it in the metal
stirrup attached to the fore-end of the crossbow’s stock. He
straightened his bent leg and in this way forced the crossbow
downwards. The bowstring, attached to the claw, was restrained from
following the movement of the weapon and was thus forcibly drawn
along the stock of the crossbow until it slipped over the catch of
the lock. His training was paying off.