The Sword Brothers (31 page)

Lukas pointed at
Johann and Conrad. ‘That goes for you two as well. I have not spent
hundreds of hours training you to use weapons so you can go
swimming under the ice.’

‘Does that mean we
will be getting weapons when we reach our destination, Brother
Lukas?’ asked Conrad hopefully.

‘Certainly not.’

That night another
squire and four crusader horses died of exposure.

The army’s camp was
established a mile north of the river and the next morning Sir
Frederick, his knights and lesser armoured knights, the brother
knights and sergeants of the Sword Brothers rode out of camp to
raid the countryside around Fellin. The spearmen, squires and
crossbowmen remained to escort the sleighs and support personnel
the short distance to Fellin, there to establish siege lines around
the fort and to await the return of the horsemen. Lukas was left
behind to command the foot soldiers and the sleighs. It was a
beautiful winter’s day, the sun bright in a blue, cloudless sky.
There was no wind but Conrad could see his breath misting as he
walked along the track leading to the enemy fort. After an hour the
column of men and sleighs began to skirt the western shore of a
great frozen lake nestling in the middle of a forested valley. This
was an area of rolling hills, valleys, lakes and rivers but as yet
they had seen no villages or farms.

‘That is because
Fellin is on the southern boundary of Saccalia,’ said Lukas when
Conrad had questioned him about the lack of dwellings along their
route. ‘There are villages around Fellin but these are being
cleared as we speak.’

Half an hour later
columns of black smoke began to appear in the distance as the
horsemen that had left earlier raided the Estonians. Conrad and the
other boys nudged each other and pointed at the six smoke columns
in the sky. They were still marching adjacent to the shore of the
lake but the pace slowed as Lukas gave the order for the
crossbowmen and spearmen to stay close to the sleighs. Thalibald
and his scouts had returned. Fellin was now only a mile to the
northwest and Lukas was concerned that there might be a war party
of Estonians in the forest that lay on their left flank, though
Thalibald had seen no signs of the enemy.

The Estonians may have
had scouts out but they used them to shepherd those villagers
living nearest the fort into its confines, for when the army
finally arrived at Fellin the walls of the fort were lined with
warriors. The stronghold stood on a hillock half a mile to the
northwest of the lake that the army had marched alongside. It was a
square-shaped timber fort of some strength, having towers with
shingle roofs in each corner and more roofed shooting positions on
the walls between the corner towers. The walls themselves were over
twenty feet high and at least four hundred feet in length on all
sides. At the base of the hillock, surrounding the fort on all four
sides, was a moat, the main entrance to the stronghold being
located on its eastern side.

When the crusader army
had appeared the warriors on the walls and in the towers had
started to whistle and jeer, though none attempted to shoot any
arrows as it was well out of range. Conrad stood with Hans and the
others watching the commotion as Lukas began talking with a tall,
very thin elderly man with a wispy white beard and deathly pale
skin. The latter was pointing at the fort and then turned to point
at the collection of sleighs and packhorses that stood south of the
stronghold. Lukas nodded and walked back towards the boys. Conrad
had seen the elderly man before at Wenden but had given scant
regard to him.

‘Who is that man you
were talking to, Brother Lukas?’ he said.

‘Master Thaddeus,
chief engineer. We’ll make camp a hundred paces back from this spot
so he can set up his siege engines. Unload the tents.’

He strode off to
converse with Thalibald and the commanders of the foot soldiers as
the garrison of Fellin began cheering and then broke into some sort
of war song, the words of which the boys did not understand but
which nevertheless unnerved them. As the order was relayed
throughout the column to establish camp, sleighs were unloaded and
tents pitched. Conrad kept glancing at the Estonian warriors
observing them, the sun glinting off whetted spear points and axe
blades.

‘Do you think they
will attack us?’ said Bruno.

‘They fear our knights
on horseback,’ answered Anton.

‘Except the knights
are not here,’ said Conrad, looking around anxiously.

‘We should be issued
with swords,’ said Johann.

‘At least we would die
with weapons in our hands,’ added Hans.

They all stopped
working and stared apprehensively at the fort, the garrison of
which was still singing its mournful war song.

‘Is there a religious
holiday I am not aware of?’ Lukas appeared seemingly out of
nowhere.

‘Holiday, Brother
Lukas?’ enquired Anton.

Rudolf folded his arms
in front of him. ‘I was merely wondering why you had stopped
work.’

‘We were watching the
enemy, brother,’ said Conrad, ‘for signs they might attack.’

‘You saw those columns
of smoke in the sky earlier?’ said Lukas. ‘Well that means our
horsemen are burning Estonian villages, which means that the
garrison in that fort knows that there are mail-clad men on
horseback in this area, which means that they will stay behind
their timber walls where they are safe. Now, if that is an adequate
explanation perhaps you could all kindly return to your
duties.’

‘We think that we
should be armed, Brother Lukas,’ said Conrad, looking at the others
who nodded optimistically. ‘So as to be able to defend
ourselves.’

Lukas rubbed his
beard. ‘Mm, I see. I will consider your impudent request.
Meanwhile, get the tents erected.’

It was noon before all
the tents had been pitched, the camp filling the ground between the
lake and forest to the south of the fort to a distance of at least
a quarter of a mile. Lukas established a line of crossbowmen and
spearmen beyond the camp’s northern extent as a precaution against
a sally from the garrison. But the latter grew tired of watching
tents being erected and singing and left the battlements. Two hours
after noon the knights returned.

They returned with
bloodied lances and herding a score of prisoners before them, all
of them men of different ages. Some were wounded and had torn
tunics. They resembled the Livs in appearance with their brown
tunics, white shirts, and grey leggings with gaiters. Many of the
horsemen carried sacks of grain behind them – plundered from the
villages they had burnt.

The appearance of the
knights signalled the reappearance of the garrison on the
battlements, but this time there was no signing or jeering as the
warriors watched the knights dismount and lead their horses and
ponies through the camp to the corrals that were being sited in its
centre. After pitching the tents Lukas took the boys over to where
Thaddeus was organising the positioning of the siege engines. The
engineers were unloading the constituent parts from sleighs prior
to their assembly.

‘These are trainees of
our order,’ Lukas said to Thaddeus, ‘and it will help their
military education if they could observe your machines being
assembled.’

Thaddeus was wrapped
in a great cloak of brown bear and had a fox fur hat on his head
but he was still shaking from the cold. ‘Yes, yes, of course. Most
useful.’

The imposing figure of
Sir Frederick came towards the chief engineer, sword still in his
hand and blood spots on his surcoat bearing a unicorn.

He ignored Lukas.
‘When will the machines be ready?’

Thaddeus was
intimidated by his demeanour and retreated a few steps. ‘Tomorrow
they will be ready, my lord.’

‘Tomorrow? We attack
the fort today, within the hour, and I expect your machines to be
able to support our assault.’

‘An assault now would
be inadvisable,’ said Lukas.

‘We have burnt their
villages and now we take their pile of sticks,’ he spat
dismissively.

Lukas remained calm.
‘If you assault the stronghold you will fail.’

Sir Frederick’s eyes
narrowed as he observed Lukas in his mail and surcoat, his coif
resting on his shoulders and his sword in its scabbard. He wanted
to provoke Lukas so he could display his prowess with a blade but
he had seen the ruthlessness of the Sword Brothers earlier when
they had butchered villagers with abandon. He also knew that Lukas
and his few brother knights at Wenden had defended the castle
against heavy odds last year.

‘I do not need
machines or the Sword Brothers,’ he said contemptuously.

Sir Frederick may have
been arrogant but he did not lack for courage, helping to carry an
assault ladder and leading the attack against the fort’s southern
wall. Despite the efforts of Master Berthold to persuade him
otherwise, he organised assault parties of his knights and
spearmen, covered by the quarrels of crossbowmen. Master Berthold
added the crossbowmen of the Sword Brothers to his force, who
crouched down and shot at the warriors on the walls as the
crusaders, shields held before them, rushed to the moat, scrambled
down and up its sides, up the earth bank and placed their ladders
against the timber wall.

Rudolf had walked over
to speak to Lukas. He kept looking at the fort and the dozens of
crusaders rushing towards the wall and shaking his head. The
crossbowmen had stopped shooting because the walls were empty.

‘You will not need
your machines today, Thaddeus,’ said Rudolf to the chief
engineer.

Lukas looked at him
and then Rudolf. ‘What do you think, Rudolf, one attack or
two?’

‘Only one,’ sighed
Rudolf. He looked at Conrad. ‘Where do you think the Estonians have
gone?’

‘They must have fled,’
declared Conrad with confidence. The other boys nodded in
agreement.

They could see Sir
Frederick ascending his ladder, one of a dozen that had been placed
against the wall. Like ants his men were scrambling up them in a
seemingly irresistible wave. And then the ramparts erupted in a
blast of noise as the Estonians leapt up and hurled stones and
spears down upon the heads of the crusaders. Conrad stared in
horror as men were knocked off their ladders by stones or were
pierced by spear points. The deluge of missiles was overpowering
and stopped the attack dead in its tracks. Sir Frederick managed to
use his shield to deflect stones and spears as he inched back down
his ladder, bellowing orders for those beneath him to move aside,
but in a matter of minutes a score of his men were killed and a
further six wounded. The crossbowmen began shooting as soon as the
Estonians appeared and Conrad thought he saw warriors being hit,
but the attack had been defeated. As quickly as the Estonians had
appeared they vanished and the crossbowmen ceased their shooting.
There were still ladders propped against the wall and limp bodies
of crusaders hung from two of them. The crossbowmen covered the
retreat of Sir Frederick and his men as they trudged disconsolately
back to camp and then there was silence. It was as if the attack
had never happened.

‘Never underestimate
your enemy, Conrad,’ said Rudolf. He pointed at the fort. ‘Those
men died for nothing. A stupid waste.’

‘We will be needing
your machines in the next few days, Master Thaddeus,’ said
Lukas.

The next morning,
following mass and breakfast, Lukas summoned Conrad and the other
boys to his tent. He stood in the entrance as they lined up before
him. The sun was a pale yellow ball hanging low in the eastern sky
and once again there was no wind. It would be another very cold
day. Lukas was wearing boots over his mail chausses to prevent them
rusting in the snow.

‘I have something for
you all,’ he said, grinning. ‘Your weapons.’

They all smiled at him
and each other as they waited to be issued with their swords.

Lukas pointed at
Conrad. ‘Step forward, Conrad.’

He did so, a look of
triumph on his face, as Lukas reached for something behind the tent
flap and handed Conrad an axe.

‘I do not understand,
brother,’ he said, his face etched with disappointment.

‘It is an axe, Conrad,
with which you can cut down trees.’

Lukas ordered the
others to come forward and gave axes to both Anton and Johann,
while Hans and Bruno were given a large saw with a handle at each
end. Lukas saw their disappointed looks.

‘You all saw the
abortive attack yesterday. Well now you will learn how to conduct a
proper siege.’

Conrad looked
dejectedly at his axe. ‘With axes and a saw?’

Lukas slapped him on
the arm. ‘You will see.’

They followed Lukas
into the forest where squires and mercenaries were busy hacking and
sawing at trees. Conrad also saw Rameke and raised his hand to him,
noticing that the son of Thalibald was also engaged in chopping
wood. His father and half the Liv warriors had left the camp just
after dawn to form a defensive screen to the north, west and east
of the fort, both to ensure that nothing and no one entered Fellin
but also to give the crusaders prior warning of the approach of any
relief force. This was thought unlikely because Lembit’s warriors
would be in their winter quarters: the villages that dotted
Saccalia. It would take him weeks to assemble a sizeable army.
Still, his own stronghold of Lehola was relatively close and once
word reached him that there was a crusader army at Fellin he would
no doubt lead some sort of relief effort. If that happened it was
imperative that they had prior knowledge of his whereabouts.

After they had walked
two hundred paces into the forest Lukas halted and ordered the boys
to gather round him.

‘Sieges are not all
about charging heroically at the enemy with scaling ladders.
Yesterday should have taught you that at least. We are here to take
the fort, not to provide easy targets for the garrison. So we
establish defensive lines around it, fill in the moat to allow the
siege tower to approach the wall and manufacture mantlets for the
crossbowmen.’