The Sword Brothers (26 page)

When the August
harvest had been collected the chief gave a feast in his hall to
celebrate, which was attended by the whole village. Men and boys
occupied long benches while the womenfolk served the food before
sitting with their families to share in the meal. Thalibald sat on
the top table with his fair-haired wife Helena and flanked by his
two sons, Rameke and Waribule. The latter was older and more severe
looking than his younger sibling, but both had inherited their
father’s stocky frame. Rudolf, Henke and Lukas also sat at the top
table, Conrad and the others sitting on a bench at right angles
directly in front of Rudolf.

The kitchens were
attached to the side of the hall, but before the women served the
food everyone stood in silence while Thalibald offered a prayer of
thanks to God for the good weather that had ripened the crops and
allowed them to be harvested. Then the men and boys took their
seats while the women ferried the food from the kitchens. Despite
the tangible air of happiness and relief in the air the feast was
remarkably quiet and restrained. Rudolf told Conrad afterwards that
this was because before Christianity came to this land the locals
had viewed sitting down to a meal to be a serious business that
demanded calmness and decorum.

Notwithstanding the
earnestness of the occasion the food was excellent both in terms of
quality and quantity. Hans was like a fox that had got into a
chicken coop as he held out his bowl to be filled with roasted
boar, duck and chicken, all flavoured with caraway seeds, onions,
garlic and white mustard.

There was also a
plentiful supply of a drink called
kvass
that was made from
rye bread and flavoured with strawberries. It was thirst quenching
but non-intoxicating, thus ensuring that the feast did not descend
into raucousness.

Johann sat opposite
Hans watching him stuff some
piragi
– bread filled with
diced, fatty bacon and onion – into his mouth.

‘I have thought of a
way of defeating the Estonians.’

Conrad and the others
looked at him.

‘It is true,’ he
continued. ‘All we have to do is send Hans into their territory to
eat up all their food supplies and they will starve to death.’

They laughed as Hans
finished his
piragi
and reached for another. Conrad sensed a
presence beside him and turned to see Daina standing holding a
wooden plate, upon which was a loaf of bread. The room was hot and
stuffy and Conrad felt sweat trickle down his neck as his heart
raced at the sight of her.

She looked at him with
her bright green eyes. ‘My people believe that bread baked from the
first harvest has special powers.’

She offered Conrad a
slice of the bread. He took it eagerly, Hans and the others staring
at Daina.

‘They believe,’ she
continued, ‘that if you make a wish when eating this bread the wish
will be granted.’

Conrad said nothing as
he stuffed the bread into his mouth and swallowed it, wishing that
he could see more of this delightful girl. Daina smiled at him.
‘That is what my people believe.’

Then she turned and
went to another table to serve others. His companions laughed and
pointed at him as they made fun of him. He picked up his cup and
drank some
kvass
, then turned to see Rudolf studying him.
Conrad felt embarrassed and knew that it was wrong to believe in
pagan superstition. But Rudolf smiled and raised his cup to him.
Conrad did not see Daina the next morning as they saddled their
ponies prior to riding back to Wenden but he left Thalibald’s
village with a happy heart. It was now early September and the rich
shades of green were slowly turning into hues of yellow and brown
as the leaves changed colour before they fell to the ground. The
days were still warm and sunny though the nights were now cool and
the sky was filled with flocks of migratory birds heading to warmer
climes, the white stork being the first to leave Livonia.

*****

He had been hunting
the boar all morning, following its trail through the tunnels made
by the animals among the thickets and trees that filled this part
of Oesel. He had caught only fleeting glimpses of the beast but
enough to know it had powerful shoulders and massive jaws, its four
tusks being able to inflict terrible injuries. It was also big,
perhaps weighing around three hundred pounds. Eric crept forward
slowly, being careful not to step on any twigs that might snap and
give him away. He looked behind him at his hunting party – men
armed with spears and bows – and waved them back. He did not want
them blundering forward and making a noise that would scare off his
prey. Not that ‘scare’ was an appropriate word to use when talking
about a wild boar. Every Oeselian knew them to be notoriously bad
tempered and territorial, aggressive when threatened and generally
preferring fight to flight when boxed into a corner.

Eric moved forward
once more, skirting a thicket and stepping into the muddy water of
a small stream. He knew this was ideal boar terrain: moist with
dense cover and near water. Boars love water. They cannot sweat and
so wallowing in a stream cools them down and also protects them
from insects and parasites. And after a good wallowing came a
vigorous rub, usually against a tree.

Eric moved slowly
through the ankle-deep water, keeping a tight grip on his boar
spear. He wore no armour on his body or head and carried only a
knife as a backup, preferring to be as lightly equipped as possible
to spring into the attack and move speedily out of the way of a
charging boar. His spear comprised a six-foot shaft with a broad
steel tip and two lugs on the spear socket, behind the blade. These
lugs prevented a raging boar working its way up the spear shaft
towards the hunter once impaled.

Crouching low, Eric
emerged from the stream and stepped gingerly forward. He heard
grunts and peered around a thicket to see his prey rubbing his
great body against a tree. It was a large male with a red coat, so
totally engrossed in his scratching that he was unaware of Eric’s
presence. He smiled. A startled boar was a very dangerous creature
and not to be underestimated. He knew this as he moved beyond the
thicket to stand out in the open around ten paces from the boar. He
roared a challenge and then levelled his spear.

The boar turned in an
instant and charged. It covered the ground between them in no time,
squealing in rage as it ran at Eric’s legs to slash and rip his
muscles, tendons and arteries with its tusks. He knew that a spear
thrust into the animal’s heart from the front would kill it
quickly, but the red monster had his head down as he charged so
Eric shifted the weight onto his left foot as he leaped aside and
plunged the spear into the boar’s side, right behind its front
legs. The animal squealed in pain and anger and twisted right with
all its strength. Eric’s legs gave way and he fell to the wet earth
with three hundred pounds of enraged boar on top of him. He could
smell its rancid breath, his face covered with foam coming from the
animal’s mouth as it tried to gouge him with its tusks, the spear
sticking in its right side pumping blood on his shirt and leggings.
He heard shouts as his men rushed to assist him but the enraged
boar was thrashing around violently, its tusks ripping his shirt
and cutting his arm. A boar’s upper jaw carries stumpy tusks called
‘whetters’ that are razor sharp. Eric cried out in pain as these
sliced the flesh on his arm. With his right arm he pulled the
dagger from the sheath on his belt and rammed the long blade into
the boar’s side, forcing the point down. It stopped thrashing as
the point of the weapon found its heart and killed it.

His men appeared,
crashing through the undergrowth.

‘Get this stinking
thing off me,’ he shouted as the boar’s bladder involuntarily
opened and it pissed all over him.

It took three men to
haul the beast off their lord while another pulled him to his feet.
He was covered in mud, blood – his own and the animal’s – and urine
but he threw his head back and roared with laughter and triumph at
his victory. He looked at the boar.

‘A fine kill, lord,’
said his deputy.

Eric slapped him on
the arm and then grimaced as the blood-rush of victory subsided and
pain began to lance through his injured left arm. He also rubbed
his ribs.

‘The monster nearly
crushed me to death,’ he grinned.

He heard horn blasts
and horses’ hooves and cries of ‘make way for the king’ and then
his father and brothers were in front of him, the men of the royal
bodyguard behind them. His father brought his light brown mare to a
halt a few paces from him, the hunting party bowing their heads at
him as he looked at his eldest son and then at the dead boar.

‘You will soon have
more challenging foes to kill, Eric. The Estonians have
provisionally agreed to an alliance with us.’

Eric signalled to one
of his party to bandage his arm as he slid his knife back into its
sheath.

‘So we are servants of
the Estonians now?’

‘Allies, Eric,’ said
Sigurd next to Olaf, ‘with whom we shall destroy the Christian
settlers and take their lands.’

The man finished
bandaging Eric’s arm and another handed him his spear that had been
lodged in the boar’s side.

‘The Estonians are
weak,’ he sneered, ‘that is why they agree to our friendship.’

‘Not so weak that they
cannot strike at the enemy’s strongholds,’ said Sigurd smugly.

‘Word has reached us
that Lembit attacked the crusader castle at Wenden,’ said Olaf,
‘one of their strongest citadels.’

Eric was unconvinced.
‘Did he take it?’

Sigurd shook his head.
Eric laughed.

‘That rather proves my
point. The Estonians are a weak people.’

Olaf frowned. ‘That
may be, but combined we stand a better chance of defeating the
crusaders than fighting alone. Next year we will act in unison with
Lembit to strike a fatal blow against the Christians.’

‘Why not now?’ asked
Eric, a glint in his eye.

Olaf shook his head.
‘It is too late in the year. The rivers will soon be iced over and
too dangerous for our boats.’

He nodded approvingly
at the dead boar. ‘Taarapita has smiled on you, my son.’

Taarapita was the god
of the Oeselians, the God of Thunder and War.

‘Let us hope He also
blesses our alliance with the Estonians,’ replied Eric as his men
fastened the boar’s carcass to a length of wood for transportation
back to the island’s capital.

*****

As the autumn drew to
a close Conrad and his companions continued to receive martial
instruction from Lukas. As the days became cooler they were lashed
by wind and rain and the trees turned brown and yellow. At Riga
some of the crusaders returned home following the defeat of the
Kurs, though Bishop Albert persuaded others to stay to provide
security against further raids. He also sent messages of peace to
the Lithuanians but received no reply and so soldiers had to be
despatched to the castles along the Dvina to bolster Livonia’s
southern defence line. At Wenden the mercenaries accompanied the
sergeants and brother knights on great hunting trips to collect
meat for the winter. Hundreds of crossbow bolts were used to
slaughter dozens of elk, deer and wild boar, the carcasses being
taken back to the castle to be skinned and gutted to produce cured
meat for the winter. Conrad and his associates went on these trips
but were not issued with crossbows; rather, they had the unsavoury
task of assisting the crossbowmen in digging their bolts out of the
carcasses of slaughtered animals.

Conrad was kneeling
beside the body of a large elk that had three quarrels lodged in
its side. It was one of a dozen arranged on the ground in the camp,
along with rows of dead deer and wild boars, all of which had been
shot. The stench of blood was nauseating. Conrad turned up his nose
as he dug a bolt out of the elk with his knife. He objected to
being here when he could be sharpening his sword skills, albeit
with a wooden waster. He yanked out the quarrel and handed it to a
crossbowman kneeling beside another elk carcass. The man with his
leathery face nodded in thanks, wiped the blood off the bolt and
slipped it back into his quiver.

‘Waste of time,’
muttered Conrad.

‘When you’re shivering
your balls off and your belly is aching because it’s empty you will
think differently, boy.’

Conrad, who had never
been better fed, thought that unlikely. The man saw his sceptical
expression.

He grinned
maliciously. ‘Winters are long and cold in this land, boy, and
there are many mouths to feed at Wenden. It is good to collect as
much food now rather than starve later.’

‘Are we going to eat
the rabbits too?’ asked Conrad. For weeks traps had been laid
around the castle to trap rabbits, squirrels, martens and
foxes.

‘No, boy. The hides of
all the small animals are shipped south to Riga for sale to fur
merchants to raise money.’

‘Money for what?’
asked Conrad, handing him another bloody quarrel.

The crossbowman
laughed. ‘How do you think the Sword Brothers pay for me and my
comrades, the stonemasons, carpenters and the others who live at
Wenden? Wars and crusades don’t come cheap, boy, and so Master
Berthold sells furs and timber to support his garrison and build
his castle.’

He wiped his nose on
his bloody cloth. ‘Now, the pious knight who arrived at the same
time as you.’

‘Walter,’ said
Conrad.

‘Yes, that’s him. Now
people like him come with a big donation to the holy crusade in
Livonia, which is paid to the bishop in Riga but shared with
whatever castle he ends up in. In his case Wenden. But there’s
never enough money. Even salt has to be imported.’

‘Salt?’