Castellan (25 page)

‘Do you think we will be invited to Rameke’s wedding?’ asked Anton.

‘Of course,’ answered Conrad. ‘We are his brothers and friends. And Kaja would be mortified if we were omitted from the guest list.’

‘I think you boys have more pressing things to worry about than wedding invitations,’ said Leatherface. ‘This year is going to be a bloody one, you mark my words.’

*****

‘I want that wretch’s head.’

Valdemar had recovered much of his vim following his defeat and humiliation on Oesel. He had been forced to march overland with the remnants of his army from Matsalu Bay to Varbola and then on to Reval. Once at the port he had ordered Count Albert and Count Rolf to hold it at all costs while he returned to Denmark to raise a new army. There had been some concern that the Oeselians might capture the king during his journey across the Baltic. But his flotilla of four cogs had reached Roskilde safely and he had immediately issued a summons to his lords to prepare for a new campaign in Estonia in the new year.

‘Henry the Black’, Count of Schwerin and the father of Rudolf Kassel, stood impassively before the royal dais as the king ranted. The throne room of Dronningholm Castle was packed with prelates, soldiers, ladies in their finery and their noble husbands, though the throne next to the king’s was empty after the death of Queen Berengaria, which had been met with almost universal relief throughout Denmark. Nevertheless, the king had his eldest son, Valdemar the Young, by his side today, the boy having inherited his father’s narrow face. He was thirteen years old now and Henry wondered if he had inherited his mother’s vindictive character. He hoped not.

‘Master Rudolf of Wenden,’ continued the king, not knowing that he was talking about Henry’s son, ‘dictated terms to me. To me! A king appointed by God himself.’

‘Shameful,’ said Andrew, Archbishop of Lund.

Nicholas, Bishop of Schleswig, and Peter, Bishop of Roskilde, standing next to him nodded like the compliant sheep they were. Henry tried hard not to laugh. His brother Gunzelin beside him made no attempt to hide his feelings and smiled. Valdemar saw it.

‘You think that showing disrespect to a king is a matter for mirth, Lord Gunzelin?’

‘No, majesty,’ sighed Gunzelin.

‘I have written to His Holiness the Pope to demand that he disbands the Sword Brothers,’ continued Valdemar, ‘though after I had sent it I realised that there will be no need for that.’

‘Really, your majesty?’ queried Archbishop Andrew.

Valdemar looked at him knowingly. ‘They will soon not exist now that our brave Count Henry is back with us. Ere long I will take ship with a great army to destroy the Sword Brothers and tear down their heretical castles. What say you, Count Henry, are your men hungry to serve their liege lord? Will you and your men unsheathe the blade of vengeance against the Sword Bothers?’

All eyes turned expectantly towards the count and his brother. But ‘Black Henry’ was not the same man that had taken thousands of crusaders south two years before. He was still a formidable warlord but his powerful frame seemed diminished and his face bore a world-weary look. His skin had been browned by a bright Mediterranean sun but the fire in his eyes was greatly diminished.

‘My men?’ he replied at length. ‘Let me tell you about my men, your majesty.’

The throne room tingled with anticipation as the lords and ladies expected to hear a tale of heroism about smiting the ungodly.

‘When we finally reached what we thought was the Holy Land a third of them had either died of disease or had deserted. We took ship in Italy and landed not in the Holy Land but in Egypt, a godforsaken land inhabited by flies and pestilence. When we finally arrived at the main crusader city, a shit-hole called Damietta that you can smell hours before you actually see it, a few more hundred had died of disease and exhaustion. We were housed in a filthy collection of tents outside the city along with thousands of idiots who had believed the preachings of the church to go on crusade.’

The archbishop and bishops became uncomfortable and then angry as the count continued to lambast the Holy Church.

‘For the first few weeks we forgot about soldiering and concentrated on staying alive on the maggot-infested food that the city authorities agreed to feed my men on.’

He scowled at the prelates. ‘Of course the bishops, archbishops and other priests lived well off the backs of their Egyptian slaves, none more so than the leader of the crusade, Cardinal-Legate Palagius, the self-appointed commander-in-chief of the army. A man who had become so fat on rich living that he had to be carried around in a golden litter by eight black slaves. No doubt he had one for every day of the week and two on Sundays.’

There were gasps in the throne room. Archbishop Andrew pointed a ring-adorned finger at the count.

‘You blaspheme, Count Henry.’

Henry chuckled. ‘Indeed I do, archbishop. But then you have not seen good men who have fought beside you for years die before your eyes as their guts turn to liquid and then pour out of every orifice. You have not heard the unceasing moans and pitiful whimpering of men eaten away by maggots and disease, begging for death as they lay in stinking cots in their own filth.’

‘Enough,’ commanded Valdemar, ‘I did not order you here so you could upset the ladies of my court.’

‘Upset, majesty?’ said Henry mockingly. ‘Surely as good Christians they would want to know that men died heroically on crusade, fighting to regain Jerusalem from the Saracens.’

‘You recovered Jerusalem?’ enquired Bishop Nicholas naively.

Gunzelin laughed mockingly. ‘Jerusalem? It might as well have been on the other side of the world.’

‘The great Palagius,’ interrupted Count Henry, ‘marched us into a swamp by a river called the Nile that became flooded when the commander of the Saracen army, a sultan named Al-Malik al-Kamil, opened the sluice gates. The cardinal was forced to crawl on his knees and beg for his and our lives.’

‘Shameful,’ someone called.

The count spun round. ‘Shameful? Perhaps it was, but more so was the cardinal surrendering Damietta and agreeing that the crusader army, what was left of it, would evacuate Egypt.’

The room was silent as the count conveyed this dreadful news.

‘But you will be pleased to know,’ said Gunzelin loudly, ‘that Palagius managed to escape unharmed, along with his black catamites.’

Henry looked at the annoyed Valdemar. ‘I returned to my lands with less than a thousand men, most of them shadows of their former selves.’

‘God will not forget their sacrifices,’ commented Archbishop Andrew, ‘and will keep the souls of those who fell in His service safe.’

‘A great comfort to their families, I’m sure,’ remarked Gunzelin.

‘Have a care,’ the king warned him. ‘You could get your tongue bored for such a comment.’

Gunzelin met the king’s iron stare with indifference. Valdemar stood.

‘Count Henry, in two months I sail to Reval. You will muster five thousand men and bring them to Roskilde where you and they will board ships to accompany me to Estonia.’

The room broke into applause and Valdemar smiled. His son gave the count and his brother a disdainful glare and smiled at his father. Henry gave the king a lukewarm bow, turned and marched from the room in the company of his brother, the haughty ladies of the court looking down their noses at them.

‘I am finished with crusading, be it in the Mediterranean or the Baltic,’ remarked Henry to Gunzelin as they left the throne room.

*****

Kristjan and Vetseke did not travel directly to northern Estonia. Instead they journeyed back to Dorpat where Indrek, Kalju’s former deputy, was in command. There they waited for the snows to melt and then emptied the armoury of axes, spears, shields, armour, helmets, bows and arrows. It had been six years since the Oeselians, Russians and Estonians had been defeated in the snow before the walls of Odenpah, when the Sword Brothers had aided Kristjan’s father. The hundreds of dead had yielded a rich harvest in weapons, helmets and armour, which had been distributed between Odenpah and Dorpat. And now Kristjan plundered the latter.

‘Might I ask why, lord?’ enquired Indrek as his warriors loaded the weapons and armour on two-wheeled carts.

‘I am taking them north as a gift,’ replied Kristjan.

‘A gift for whom, lord?’

‘For our allies,’ replied Vetseke, smiling.

Indrek had known the Liv prince for only a short time but already disliked him. He disliked the way he had wormed his way into the affections of Kristjan and disliked the fact that he had the support of Novgorod. From bitter experience he knew that Mstislav was no friend of Ungannia.

Indrek ignored Vetseke. ‘We may need all the weapons and armour we can get our hands on, lord, if the Sword Brothers mount an offensive against Ungannia this year.’

Kristjan smiled. ‘I have thought of that. The Sword Brothers will not be troubling Ungannia this year, or the next or indeed any year. They will be too busy defending Livonia from invasion.’

He looked at the carts with canvas covers over their cargoes filling the courtyard of Toome hill fort. Below was the bustling town of Dorpat that stretched from the hill to the River Emajogi a quarter of a mile to the north.

‘You have arranged the barges?’ asked Kristjan.

Indrek nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

‘Then we will be away. I want to reach the grove as quickly as possible.’

Kristjan and Vetseke walked towards their horses held by soldiers.

‘Your people miss you, lord,’ Indrek said to Kristjan.

Kristjan hauled himself into the saddle. ‘I miss my parents, brother and sisters, Indrek. What would you have me do? Sit here shedding tears of bitterness or avenging their loss?’

He told Vetseke to escort the carts down the hill to the docks on the riverside where the barges were moored. He turned his horse towards the gate but then wheeled it around and nudged it to where Indrek stood before the entrance to the ancient wooden hall.

‘My sister is well?’

‘She would prefer her brother to be by her side, lord.’

‘I leave her in your care, Indrek, and I leave Ungannia in your care.’

He turned his horse and trotted from the courtyard. At the docks two hundred Ungannian warriors on ponies waited for their lord, as did over a hundred Livs and Russians.

The Emajogi, the great ‘Mother of Waters’, was swollen with melt water though fortunately its current was not raging. Nevertheless, it took the rest of the day to transport the carts, ponies and horses to the northern bank over two hundred yards from the southern shore. Fisherman in flat-bottomed boats cheered the lord of Ungannia and stared silently at the Russians as the barges were towed across the waterway. Other barges bringing goods from Pskov and Novgorod were moored at jetties and the smell of hot tar drifted across the water from the barge yards dotted along the dockside.

Kristjan closed his eyes and breathed in the cool, fresh air after they had crossed the river. The patchwork of peat bogs, rivers and floodplains interwoven with forests of pine, spruce and fir produced an aroma that was unique to northern Ungannia and southern Jerwen. At once both calming and invigorating. Sometimes he wished that he could close his eyes and keep on riding until the end of time.

‘Where are we heading, lord?’

Vetseke’s voice snapped him out of his pleasant dream.

‘To see someone who can magic up an army,’ replied Kristjan.

‘I thought we were going to see the leaders of those who have been laying siege to Reval.’

Kristjan smiled. ‘I may be young, prince, but I know my race. Ungannia has been no friend of the Jerwen, Harrien and Wierlanders of late. If we appear suddenly and without notice they are likely to slit our throats.’

Vetseke shrugged off his concern. ‘Surely not, lord. You are Kalju’s son, a man who has…’

‘My father did not fight at Wolf Rock, prince,’ said Kristjan, cutting him off. ‘There are many among the Estonians who still see Ungannia as a friend of the Bishop of Riga. Their memory is long. I therefore need the support of someone whose word they trust without question. Whom many believe to be the embodiment of the soul of Estonia itself.’

‘Who?’ asked Vetseke.

‘Rustic.’

No one knew where he came from or how old he was. Some said that he was the father of Rusticus, the brutal deputy of Lembit who had been killed at Wolf Rock with his master. But others dismissed the theory. He had lived in the sacred grove at Kassinurme for as long as anyone could remember, a fat old man wrapped in rags who had the ear of the gods. Kristjan had grown up hearing stories about Rustic. How he prophesised the future, made barren women fertile and imparted wise words to warlords. He had been a part of the fabric of Jerwen for so long that people presumed him to be immortal, which only added to his mystique.

The sacred grove, actually an oblong mound surrounded by ancient trees, was only twenty miles north of Dorpat as the crow flies, though it took the column of carts and riders two days to reach it, being forcing to thread a path through peat bogs and flooded meadows. They passed through a number of villages along the way, women rushing indoors with children clinging to their skirts. At one settlement the men rushed to the track to bar Kristjan’s way, forming a ragged shield wall of old men and young boys. But Kristjan rode forward alone and explained who he was and that he was journeying to see Rustic, whereupon the villagers stood aside and let him and his men pass. Many gave the Russians hostile looks for Jerwen bordered Novgorod and many of the old men remembered times when Russian soldiers had raided their villages for slaves and plunder.