The Sword Brothers (78 page)

The garrison had
rejoiced at the news that the bishop had landed with an army at
Riga and Master Berthold gave a special service of thanksgiving in
the chapel, at which he informed the brother knights that they
would be marching south to aid the bishop to destroy the
Lithuanians at Kokenhusen. By God’s grace the enemy had vanished
from before the walls of Holm, Uexkull and Lennewarden without a
fight, and now only a few Lithuanians remained at Kokenhusen. They
were currently being watched by the knights under the command of
Sir Helmold of Plesse, newly arrived from Germany, until the bishop
arrived to launch the decisive attack. Grand Master Volquin had
ordered that the Sword Brothers present themselves at Kokenhusen to
take part in the battle with the Lithuanian pagans.

It was now summer and
the meadows were filled with edible mushrooms and flowering plants
– bilberries, wild strawberries, cloudberries, cornflowers and
blueberries – and the forests echoed to the distinctive ‘creck,
creck’ cry of the corncrake. It was a lush land teeming with life
and difficult to imagine that only a few weeks previously had been
drenched with blood. And now the Sword Brothers of Kremon, Segewold
and Wenden gathered at the latter to march south to the Dvina.

The fighting in the
spring had depleted the garrisons of the respective castles and so
Wenden mustered only nine brother knights, twenty-eight sergeants
and four novices for the journey to the Dvina. Master Bertram
brought ten brother knights and fifteen sergeants from Segewold,
while the men of Kremon numbered only six brother knights and ten
sergeants. Due to the need for haste it had been decided that only
horsemen would make the journey south, the mercenaries remaining at
Wenden under the command of Master Thaddeus to ensure the castle
and its civilian occupants were safe. The brother knights rode
palfreys and led their warhorses and the sergeants and novices led
ponies loaded with spare weapons, armour, fodder and food.

Caupo came with a
hundred of his mounted warriors and Rameke brought a score of his
own men plus half a dozen scouts who would lead the way to the
Dvina. He told Conrad that it would take five or six days to reach
the river. The castle courtyard was crammed with men and horses as
the three masters conferred and brother knights and sergeants
sweated in their armour under a clear blue sky.

‘I hope the
Lithuanians do not flee across the river,’ he said to his friend on
the morning they left Wenden. ‘I have a score to settle with those
who killed my father and brother.’

‘Perhaps we will
invade Lithuania,’ said Conrad hopefully, not really knowing where
Lithuania was.

‘The king has said
that the bishop wishes to complete the conquest of Estonia before
he converts the Lithuanians,’ replied Rameke.

‘How is Daina?’
enquired Conrad casually.

Rameke was unimpressed
by his friend’s interest in his sister. He shrugged. ‘Like all
women, fussing around and getting in the way.’

‘Any suitors?’

‘I will tell you now
what I told you before,’ said Rameke dismissively. ‘Who would want
to marry my sister? She will no doubt be a tiresome burden on my
household. Just one more problem that I have to deal with now I am
chief.’

Conrad was seized by
joy and began whistling as Master Berthold gave the order to mount
up and the Sword Brothers trotted from the courtyard and filed
across the bridge over the moat to descend the track to the
perimeter gatehouse. Conrad was still whistling cheerily as Rameke
left him to ride beside Caupo and the three masters at the head of
the column. The sun was shining and the Lithuanian threat had been
dealt with. All that now remained was to destroy those pagans still
besieging Kokenhusen, after which the bishop would lead a
retributive raid into Lithuania itself to deal the unbelievers a
heavy blow.

But the Lithuanians
were about to spring a nasty surprise.

Chapter 17

Five miles north of
the Dvina the Sword Brothers encountered a patrol of crusaders
riding towards them. They were led by a knight in a full-face
helmet whose horse was covered by a magnificent red caparison and
whose shield bore the emblem of a silver unicorn. Behind him were a
dozen other knights wearing yellow, blue and green surcoats over
their mail armour. They instantly rode up to the head of the column
where the castellans of Wenden, Segewold and Kremon were located.
Rameke, having found their conversation boring, had taken his leave
of the masters to ride beside Conrad and the other novices, finding
their company much more agreeable.

‘Those are crusaders
from Germany,’ remarked Anton, ‘we must be near the river.’

‘And nearer the
Lithuanians,’ said Rameke. ‘I pray that they have not fled back to
their homeland.’

‘It does not matter,’
said Johann. ‘I have heard the brother knights talking of the
bishop leading a crusade against Lithuania to make it
Christian.’

In front of them the
brother knights sat on their horses and chatted to each other as
the crusaders exchanged information with the masters. Conrad saw
Master Berthold gesticulating with his arms before wheeling his
horse around and riding back down the column. He was surprised when
he halted his horse in front of Rameke.

‘Joyous news, Rameke.
I have just been informed that your father and brother are alive
and are but a mile away, in the camp of Sir Helmold of Plesse who
leads the crusaders.’

Rameke said nothing
but closed his eyes and gave thanks to God, while Conrad slapped
him on the back and Anton, Hans and Johann cheered, earning them a
glare from Master Berthold.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘we
shall ride to the camp together so you can see the father and
brother you thought dead and I can greet an old friend.’

News quickly spread
among the Sword Brothers that Thalibald and Waribule were alive and
when the march recommenced everyone was in high spirits. Walter
said that it was truly a miracle and that God had protected the two
Livs just as surely as he had watched over Daniel in the lion’s
den. Conrad was ecstatic, not least because when she heard that her
father and brother were alive Daina would be beside herself with
joy, and if she was happy then he was happy.

It took but a short
ride to reach the crusader camp, a sprawling collection of tents of
varying sizes, a few pavilions and a myriad of carts. Squires as
young as ten sat by tents cleaning helmets and armour, while others
came carrying firewood from the forest next to which the camp had
been sited. Horses stood flicking their tails as farriers examined
their hooves and knights practised with their swords. The camp had
been pitched in a large meadow between the forest and a lake that
was used for watering the horses of the knights and their squires
and the oxen and mules that hauled the wagons and carts. Though the
camp was relatively small and contained none of the usual whores,
women and children who followed armies like a plague of rats, the
air already stank of horse dung, leather and sweat and a permanent
pall of smoke hung in the air from the multitude of campfires that
burned day and night.

The track that the
Sword Brothers had ridden along continued to wend its way south
through the trees and by the sides of lakes until it eventually
reached the Dvina. It was an ancient route, perhaps hundreds of
years old, that had linked the settlement of Kokenhusen with those
in the north near the Gauja, but was now used to link the crusader
castles in the north and south of Livonia. Master Berthold,
following discussions with Bertram and Mathias, decided to pitch
their tents directly south of the crusader camp, on the eastern
side of the track where the trees were less dense and where there
was access to the fresh water of a stream. The order was given –
‘Make camp, lord brothers, on God’s behalf’ – and then the novices
and sergeants went to work erecting the tents while the masters and
Rameke rode away to the pavilion of Sir Helmold to pay their
respects to the commander of the army and embrace Thalibald and
Waribule. Conrad would have liked to have accompanied them but he
and the other novices had much to do: erecting the chapel tent in
the middle of the camp, together with the tents of the masters and
the tent where the meals would be served. The tents of the brother
knights were pitched around these, with those of the sergeants and
novices forming a third, outer circle. Then the horses had to be
unsaddled, fed and watered, after which they were groomed and
examined for any wounds. To be fair the brother knights assisted
the sergeants in their tasks and soon the camp was assembled and
the banner of the Sword Brothers was flying from a flagpole erected
outside the chapel tent.

It was late afternoon
by the time they had finished. Conrad lay on the ground outside the
small tent he would share with Hans, Anton and Johann, the other
three also resting on the ground and staring up at the puffy white
clouds in the sky.

‘What’s this? Don’t
you know that the devil makes work for idle hands?’

Conrad groaned when he
heard Henke’s voice, and his heart sank when he saw the grinning
brother knight carrying shovels.

‘On your feet,’ he
smirked, throwing the shovels on the ground, ‘there are latrine
pits that need digging. Shouldn’t take you more than two
hours.’

Conrad jumped to his
feet and picked up one of the tools.

‘Have you heard
anything about Thalibald, Brother Henke?’ he enquired.

‘Your future
father-in-law, you mean?’ replied Henke with an evil glint in his
eye. ‘He is well, which is a minor miracle considering he was a
guest of the Lithuanians. He was lucky they didn’t slice his balls
off.’

‘Why would they do
that?’ said Hans, horrified.

Henke threw him a
spade as Anton and Johann picked up their shovels.

‘Why?’ replied Henke,
‘because that is what pagans do, though to be fair the armies in
Germany I fought in did much the same and worse.’

‘Surely Christian
armies would not do such things?’ said Johann.

Henke laughed.
‘Christian, pagan or Saracen, it doesn’t matter once the killing
starts. When we get back to Wenden ask Master Thaddeus to tell you
about the antics of King Richard of England in the Holy Land. Now
there was a godly monarch, had over two thousand Saracen women and
children executed at a place called Acre.’

Conrad was shocked.
‘Surely not?’

‘King Richard wasn’t
like you, Conrad,’ said Henke, ‘he didn’t object to killing women
and children or selling them as slaves for the greater good.’

‘Which was what?’
asked Conrad.

‘To take Jerusalem
back from the Saracens, of course,’ said Henke.

‘But Jerusalem is
still held by the Saracens,’ replied Conrad, ‘Master Thaddeus told
me.’

A wicked smile crept
over Henke’s face. ‘King Richard obviously didn’t kill enough
Saracens otherwise God would have given him victory.’

‘Where is King Richard
now?’ asked Hans.

‘Dead,’ answered
Henke, ‘stupid bastard got himself killed in a siege in France, or
so I heard.’

‘God rest his soul,’
said Anton.

‘Had the Sword
Brothers been in the Holy Land with Richard,’ said Henke, ‘then he
would have taken Jerusalem because God loves the Sword Brothers.
And do you know why that is?’

They looked at him
with blank expressions. Henke shook his head and tutted.

‘Because the Sword
Brothers fill hell with the souls of dead pagans. Now get digging
those latrine pits, and not too close to the stream. We don’t want
half the brethren falling ill with bad guts before the rout of the
Lithuanians.’

He sauntered away to
leave the novices to their burdensome task. Conrad began walking
towards where they would dig the latrines. They had dug so many in
their short time with the order that they knew the rules off by
heart: latrines should be dug downhill of the camp, away from the
water supply to avoid drinking filthy water and downwind if
possible.

‘Henke is in an
unusually good mood,’ commented Hans.

‘The prospect of
imminent slaughter always seems to cheer him,’ remarked Conrad
dryly.

‘Next year we will be
brother knights,’ said Anton.

‘And then no more
digging latrine pits,’ opined Johann.

They all laughed but
Conrad did not believe that he would ever wear the white surcoat of
the Sword Brothers. He believed more than ever that his destiny was
to be with Daina and he began to whistle as he waded through the
stream with the others to dig the pits a safe distance from it.

Later, after they had
finished their back-breaking work and lay, exhausted on the ground,
Rameke visited them. He looked as if a great weight had been lifted
from his shoulders and he kept grinning like a small child so happy
was he.

‘My father and brother
are well,’ he told them. ‘They were unharmed by the Lithuanians
though nearly killed by Sir Helmold’s men.’

‘Where is the bishop?’
said Conrad.

Rameke crouched down
beside him. ‘He marches east along the Dvina with the bulk of the
crusader army, relieving the besieged castles as he does so. When
he has relieved Kokenhusen he will send word to Sir Helmold and
then we will strike south at the same time as the bishop attacks
from the west. The Lithuanians will be crushed.’

‘When will the bishop
arrive?’ queried Hans.

Rameke shrugged. ‘I do
not know, but Sir Helmold says that a great number of knights and
foot accompanies him.’ He looked sheepishly at them. ‘He is giving
a great feast in his pavilion tonight in celebration of my father’s
deliverance. I wish you could all attend.’

‘We are but lowly
novices,’ said Johann.

‘Fit only to dig
latrine pits,’ added Conrad, stretching his back.