Wolf's Cross (4 page)

He slowly drew the blade clear of the scabbard—only a handsbreadth, but enough to see. Apparently the Order wasn’t wealthy enough to forge a whole sword blade out of silver, but the more common steel had been inlaid with the precious metal. The truly odd part of the design was the fact that the inlay was not on the flat, where most decorative engraving would go. It was on the edge. The sword blade was silvered a finger’s width back from the cutting edge on each side.

Perhaps he shouldn’t be talking too lightly of riding through Hell.

T
elek was usually the largest and most intimidating figure in any gathering, except when that gathering included his uncle. Telek’s uncle, the Wojewoda Bolesław, the lord of Gród Narew, was a bull of a man, nearly a head taller than Telek and
probably three stone heavier. He carried a full beard that had gone half silver, and in some places completely white. Telek’s uncle had not shaved in nearly fifteen years—not since, in a skirmish with their Teutonic neighbors, a mace had badly wounded the left side of his jaw. The beard covered the scars and the misshapen hinge of the badly healed bone.

As a consequence, Telek’s uncle always spoke deliberately, and had no love for the German Order.

When Telek entered his uncle’s chambers, Bolesław was standing by a narrow window, eclipsing the afternoon sun and plunging the room into shadow. “Our guests surrendered peaceably?”

“Yes, Uncle,” Telek said.

“Good.” Bolesław turned away from the window and stepped toward him. Suddenly the room brightened, both with the sunlight and with his slight, close-lipped smile. “A lack of drama and intrigue is always appreciated.” He walked over to an ornate chair that had been a gift from the Duke. It was debatable what creaked more when Bolesław sat—the carved oak chair or Bolesław himself. He settled himself with a sigh and asked, “Why are they here?”

“They refused to say.”

Bolesław grunted. “You accepted this?”

“They were willing to surrender their persons and their weapons. It seemed prudent to take them hostage and revisit the issue at a later time.”

“Yes, I am sure. Though, in their state, it seems foolhardy to antagonize us.”

“Unless the truth would be more provocative than their silence.”

“God’s teeth, I do not like this. The duchy might already be at war with the Order.”

“We’re on the frontier here. We would know.”

“But what if Casimir and the Order are at odds again? The Duke is still a vassal of his brother.”

“Uncle, they just signed a peace treaty.”

“Good until some fool gets an itch for more land.”

“I don’t think war’s at hand, Uncle. These men did not approach us as an enemy.”

“They were in no state to.”

“And, while they are currently silent as to their intent within Masovia, they gave conditions for revealing that to us.”

“Indeed? Conditions? I thought arrogance was a sin.”

“They require a bishop to give them leave to talk.”

“A bishop? Are they serious?”

“I have no reason to doubt.”

Bolesław closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, which emitted an ominous creak. “No reason to doubt?”

“Their seriousness,” Telek said.

His uncle opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “Who am I to stand between these Germans and God? They wish a bishop, we shall fetch one. There’s a fine one in Warsaw. You can fetch him back after alerting the Duke of our troublesome guests.”

W
hen Rycerz Telek had summoned her into the midst of the Germans, Maria had been caught off guard. Her initial impulse to help the wounded had been tempered when he had arrived to confront the invaders, to the point where she’d realized that she had overstepped herself. Fortunately, if Telek thought as much, he had kept it to himself.

Within minutes of Telek calling her down the hillside, she was one of a dozen servants of Gród Narew washing and binding wounds. Almost by accident, she became the center of the effort. For, thanks to her stepmother, she was the only servant who had a working knowledge of German.

After tending to the worst of those who still lived, she and the others assisted the recently disarmed Germans into a hay cart to travel up the hill to the fortress.

Sixteen men had crossed the river. Only fourteen had made it alive. Three more survivors were so badly wounded that Maria didn’t expect them to last the day. The old man, Brother Heinrich, was not above treating his men or helping carry them into the wagon. Even so, Maria felt as if he watched the whole process with an uncomfortable coldness.

To Maria, it was overwhelming. She rode back with the wagon, and even if she didn’t look at the wounded young men who filled the cart, the miasma of blood clung to every breath she took. Every time the creaking wheels of the cart found a bump in the muddy trail, it was accompanied by a chorus of groans from the men who were conscious.

She couldn’t help but wonder what had attacked these men so savagely. The wounds were inhuman—flesh torn and bitten. Several men were missing hands or arms, and about half showed wounds to the face that appeared to be claw marks. None of the men spoke of what had happened to them; few spoke at all. The quiet infected the Poles who treated them, so the ride back to the fortress had the mournful character of a funeral procession.

She heard some whispers from her fellow Poles: speculation that the Germans had retreated bloody from some battle and then had had the bad luck to be set upon by a pack of wolves. That explained their horrible state, and their reluctance to talk. Even so, Maria thought that whatever had decimated the Germans was unquestionably evil. Even a wild animal attacked to kill. Many of these men had been maimed, it seemed, simply for the sake of the maiming.

Maria held her cross to her chest and silently prayed to keep the Devil at bay.

T
hrough the afternoon, the population of Gród Narew worked to accommodate the new arrivals. The order from Wojewoda Bolesław was to provide the Germans with accommodations as honored guests. This meant that, instead of being housed in the common barracks meant for visiting knights, the ambulatory Germans were split up into twos and threes and
given lodgings that normally served the residents. The severely injured were placed in a series of rooms by the stables, displacing grooms and other stable hands.

Maria wondered about it until she heard one of the guardsmen comment that Wojewoda Bolesław was not just being a gracious host but was preventing any large group of Germans from assembling to plan mischief. Apparently, their leader, Brother Heinrich, had the honor of staying in the personal guest chambers of the Wojewoda himself—deep inside the central stronghold, far from the stables and the other houses where his men were being kept.

Maria thought that the Wojewoda Bolesław should be more concerned about what had attacked the Germans than the Germans themselves.

Because she was one of the few servants to speak the German tongue, Maria was one of a half dozen who gained additional duties. Along with her normal routine of assisting in the main kitchens, she now had the task of tending to one of the badly injured knights of the Order.

The man’s name was Josef—one of the men Maria hadn’t expected to make it through the day.

The kitchens had been more chaotic than usual, with the extra mouths to feed and too many people—Maria included—coming to their jobs late because of their visitors. The sun was setting by the time she had completed her duties in the kitchens. When she brought a bowl of porridge to the rooms by the stables to attempt to feed her charge, she did not expect to find the man still alive.

She opened the door to the small room, then stood transfixed for several moments, staring at the young man who had been unceremoniously dumped on someone else’s bed. His skin was pale, nearly translucent, in the fading evening light streaming in from the unshuttered window, and his face bore an expression of almost
angelic sadness. Her heart caught and she found herself grieving for this man, cut down too soon—

Then she realized that Josef still breathed.

The sudden revelation struck her like a physical blow. She hastily placed Josef’s porridge on a stool and ran to the side of his bed, more afraid now that his life might slip away as she watched.

Placing a hand on his neck, she bent her ear to his lips. His pulse throbbed strong and steady under her fingers, and while his skin was damp with sweat, he was warm, not chilled or clammy. She listened to his breathing; it was stronger and steadier than she had a right to expect—strong enough that the heat of his breath warmed her ear and brought a flush to the side of her face. It was a flush that deepened to embarrassment when he groaned and turned his head so that his lips brushed the side of her cheek.

She pulled away quickly and looked at the man, briefly convinced that he had feigned unconsciousness to take advantage of her. It was a vile trick worthy of Lukasz.

But one look at Josef showed that he feigned nothing, and Maria felt shamed for thinking ill of him. Even in slumber, this man was of nobler bearing than Lukasz could ever aspire to.

If only the same could be said of his smell.

Maria wrinkled her nose. As the initial panic gave way to relief, she realized that Josef not only lived, but had fouled himself. She looked at the unconscious knight and bit her lip, slowly realizing what her duty to this wounded man would entail.

“It is my duty,” she whispered to herself. Then she retreated to fetch a bucket of water and fresh linens.

When she returned, she faced Josef with some trepidation, afraid that he might awake while she cleaned him. The trepidation vanished when she pulled aside the soiled sheets covering him.

Whoever had brought Josef here must have shared Maria’s thought that he would not make it to nightfall. They hadn’t
bothered to do more than remove his armor. He still had on the torn, gore-stained padding he had worn under his mail, and his legs were still wrapped in hose rank with blood, mud, and waste.

She bit her lip again, holding her tongue for fear she might blaspheme in her anger. The Germans and Poles might not be friends, but there was no excuse for this. Even if Josef wouldn’t make it through the night, it was petty bordering on cruel to allow him to suffer this kind of indignity.

She cast aside her own embarrassment, rolled up the sleeves of her chemise, and worked on stripping the filth from the young man. It helped to think of her father, and of caring for him these past few months. She focused on the mechanics of tending to someone bedridden and too weak and insensible to care for himself.

Thinking of this young man as a frail invalid kept her thoughts on a proper course while she did what needed to be done. At least until he began groaning words in slurred German.

The first time he spoke in his delirium, the washrag in her hand was uncomfortably far up his inner thigh. She snatched the rag away, suddenly realizing that this was no frail old man she tended to. Fortunately, Josef did not regain consciousness.

Maria took a few deep breaths as Josef continued mumbling. She should go and find someone else to attend to this man; she should ask to be relieved of this duty. Rycerz Telek obviously had counted this man as one soon to die, but had misjudged Josef’s strength. Would they have given her this duty otherwise?

But what do I do, leave this poor man naked and half-washed because of my own modesty? What fault of it is his?

She sighed and took a new washrag to hand, doing her best to ignore the sounds Josef made. The only complete sentence he spoke came when she cleaned and replaced the dressing on the massive wound in his abdomen. As she brushed the still-raw edges of the wound, he sucked in a breath and said, “It is here!”

Maria heard the panic in the man’s voice and instinctively turned to look for what had invaded the room. But there was nothing.

She laid the back of her hand against his cheek, and it felt like his flesh was burning from the inside out. Her own embarrassment at tending to him seemed small and petty, and she felt ashamed.

“You poor man,” she whispered. He didn’t know where he was, or who was with him. She made a silent vow not to abandon him, and lightly kissed his forehead. “I’ll pray for you, so you can wake up and know that your nightmare is over.”