Swords From the West (56 page)

Her name, she explained to the Germans, was Yadvi and she had come to sell cherries, the first picking of the trees. The Swabian questioned her before von Prauen. The Swabian, who could talk to a mule, understood the chattering Polish tongue.

"The little Yadvi knows it is forbidden to set foot inside our monastic military burg," he said. "But she wanted some coppers, and we have pence-"

"Ask her how she came over the river."

Von Prauen could remember no cherry orchards on this side of the river, and he thought that Yadvi had come far for her pence. A fisher's boat, it seemed, had brought her.

Were many such boats along the far shore?

Yadvi, thoughtfully, admitted seeing only the one.

Had she seen any Poles riding toward the river?

Her gray eyes met von Prauen's stare, and words tumbled out of her, laughing and indignant.

"She says no." The Swabian stretched his long body, enjoying himself. A white scar ran from his brow to chin, and his clipped hair gleamed gray. "She says, what are we getting at? There were Zmud charcoal burners and hunters in the wald. Not a wight with arms. She says, what next?"

"Hold her. Let her wait in the stable yard with the Polish prisoner."

The yard was close to the water gate. Von Prauen watched the girl, while the Swabian translated, and he thought the arrest did not frighten her. She grew quiet, and when he motioned her away under guard, she curtsied to the two Knights.

"A sweet mouthful," the Swabian sighed, when she was gone. "Why not let her go without harm?"

Von Prauen shook his head impatiently, and the Swabian drank wine from the cup in his fist, grumbling, "Faith, she is no witch."

"I think I know," the korntur reflected, "what she is."

"Cross yourself and spit thrice, Brother Arnold, when you think you understand a woman. I never could."

His great body rigid, hardened by the weight of armor, von Prauen kept his temper with an effort. The demon of anger still irked him, and he felt the need of a cool head. Wine he never touched, nor had he looked twice at any woman since he took the vows of the Order. But this Swabian, who led Vorberg's spearmen and had fought from Toledo to Danzig, had a wild manner of jesting. Nay, in that moment von Prauen felt that this other brother was more like the dreaming Szary than a servant of the Order.

Before he took the vows, this Swabian, Friedrich, had been a baron. It was whispered in the halls of Marienberg that Friedrich alone had spoken against the Polish war, asking what was the use of it, when the minds of the leaders had understood the need of a new war clearly. For the Deutsche Ritter had come into being as an order of knighthood to rescue that holy place Jerusalem from the pagans; and now that the crusades had ended long since, how was the Order to continue its growth, unless it made itself necessary to the new Germany by involving the Baltic in war. Without war, the military order would have no just claim to exist longer. Even the Hansa merchants, sitting in the council at Marienberg, had understood the necessity for a major war. Brother Friedrich alone had spoken against it, saying that now the pagan Prussians had all been put to the sword or converted to Christ, and the savage Lithuaniani had turned Christian overnight, baptizing themselves in a mass, and the Poles certainly were worshipers of this same Cross the Knights carried-what reason had the Knights to bring a new war to the Baltic?

"Friedrich!" he said abruptly. "What devil of doubt plagues you?"

The Swabian twisted the cup in his heavy fingers. "No devil, Komtur. I have felt too many of my bones break apart." Suddenly he looked up. "No, not that. That was a lie. Only, sometimes I think of those two other men, you and I, who might have been."

"We have Vorberg in our charge!"

"Admitted!" The Swabian smiled. "I was thinking how that other Friedrich could walk in his cherry orchard with his sons. I will never know who my children are-"

"Discipline!"

Von Prauen knew how to jerk the Swabian out of such a black mood. "Two riddles now we have to solve. Item: This Szary, speaking good Ger man, permits himself to be caught like a blind dog and led into Vorberg. Yea, a belted knight yields his sword after a child's scuffle. Item: A Polish girl who is no peasant's wench strays into our gate two hours later. The answer?"

"Both spies of course."

"Granted. They will be watched. Yet can we find a truer answer."

Friedrich nodded. "The little Yadvi lied. My huntsmen have sighted armed bands in the forest moving toward the river. And on the water the Zmud fisherfolk all seem to be casting their lines just out of sight of our towers."

"Boats."

"Sufficient to ferry a regiment across the river. And yesternoon when I rode after boar beyond the forest I saw the regiment. Polish lances, of armored riders. The sun gleamed on the metal. All this, Komtur, you know well."

"It sums up to this: An attack by the forest folk and Poles."

"A surprise onset-"

"And so, to be expected after dark."

"But where?"

The komtur smiled. "Our two Poles, I think, will tell us that."

"The fools!"

"So we will use them." The demon of anger, stiffed by Szary's boasting, gnawed at von Prauen. "Perhaps that wood is the weak point in our defense-when it is leveled and my cannon are in place-I shall have no more to fear. But now we shall first teach the Poles a lesson. It is necessary."

And he explained what he intended to do. The Swabian, surprised, listened intently. Von Prauen felt reassured. Once the action began, he knew that he could depend on the wayward Friedrich.

Long after the vesper bell, the stars came out in a clear sky. Left to themselves in the courtyard, Szary and the girl watched the posting of the night guard, the closing of the water gate. And Szary whispered his anger while she pulled the cloak around his injured side:

"Why can't you stay where you belong, devilkin?"

"Because it's disgusting to be left, and lonely." Yadvi, in the shadow, pressed close to his good side.

While she could touch him, she felt comforted. Her hands had nursed the lance wounds in his frail body, until he could rise and limp around again, miraculously surviving death in that first battle with the terrible Knights. Her voice came softly to his ear: "Now you can't send me away, Szary. You can't."

He took her chin in his hand, so he could see into her eyes, and he felt her tremble. "Yadvi, if you love me, go to the chapel. Keep away from here."

And he hauled himself up to limp along the stones toward the water gate. The stars were clear now, and he expected to hear the bell any second. Keeping away from the fire, where three men idling on watch inside the gate warmed themselves, he edged himself forward. Across the courtyard a torch flared by the stables where serving brothers moved. He looked up, but could not tell how many eyes might be watching from the dark roofs, behind the inner battlements that commanded the courtyard. And he had a feeling of failure in him-he was taking so slight a chance to open up this dominion of armed power.

Then he heard Yadvi's voice, singing softly: "Kyrie eleison-Kyrie elei- son." The three men by the fire looked that way with interest.

In the glare of the torch, her basket swinging on her arm, the girl was moving toward the chapel's steps. The light glinted on her hair as she sang. Small wonder that these men-at-arms feasted their eyes on her.

Once the bell sounded and began to toll for evening prayer over the chapel, and Yadvi sang louder, gaily, Szary drew himself in the shadow to where he could reach the bar that had been slid into the socket back of the gate. It was heavy, but he could move the end by straining. He shoved it along until the end barely rested in the socket. The guards were still watching Yadvi. He thought he heard a man shout.

Then, leaning close to the gate, he heard a boat grind against the stone step outside. An oar thumped and feet pattered.

"Ho-the watch!" a voice bellowed.

Szary pushed against the end of the bar, and it fell. The three pikemen at the fire turned to stare. And the gate swung open, toward them. Szary thought that the men on the river had been prompt to come at the bell's tolling. They were pushing now at the iron-studded gate.

"Vitsi bratsva!" he called. "Up with the weapon, brothers!"

They came running and leaping through the gate, fur-covered men of the forest, swinging up axes and flails, going for the Germans nimbly. Szary pushed through them, out the gate. Other fishing craft were thrust ing out of the darkness, after the first, to the landing beside the big, empty barges of the Germans.

Out of them climbed wild Zmuds and river men, yelling. They ran into the gate.

Up on the chapel steps, Yadvi, shivering with excitement, watched these weapon bearers rush into the courtyard. And it seemed to her that all the inner space of Vorberg came alive at once. Out of the barrack by the gate, giant pikemen advanced to aid the three fighting by the fire. Torches flashed from the inner battlements, where Genoese crossbowmen began to snap their pieces at the onset. The bolts tore through the running men, sending them sprawling. Out of the Knights' hall ran mailclad armigers and, after them, groups of heavy men in steel caps, their white surcoats with the black crosses filling the courtyard, the Knights.

Then Yadvi understood that Vorberg had been waiting for this attack. She could not see Szary in the rush of men. Crowds of Prussians surged past her steps, moving into the gate. The few men swarming up from the river were knocked down and swept back like straw shapes in the wind. Voices barked commands: "Ropes along the barges! Follow with the boards."

The komtur, with the Swabian beside him, walked out to take command. At the gate, von Prauen saw the fishing smacks pulling away, with the remnants of the attackers. Across the river fires glowed, and bands of the forest men crowded restlessly. By the stone steps, carrying out the orders he had given, his men-at-arms were poling the heavy, empty barges into place. Above his head the crossbowmen were following the retreating smacks with their bolts. The attack had been broken in less time than it took the cresset lights to burn bright. Every detail of it had been foreseen by von Prauen's experience.

Across the gleaming water the bands from the forest bayed their anger. The trained men of Vorberg worked in silence. They laid barge against barge, roping them together, out from the steps, driving poles down between them to hold them against the current. Servants laid down a flooring of heavy boards across the barges. With miraculous speed a bridge thrust across the narrow river toward the attackers.

Crossbowmen on the outermost barge kept up a covering fire, against the seemingly masterless crowd on the far bank. The Prussian infantry began to press over, to the other shore.

Then the mailed Knights, who had mounted their chargers at the stables, moved out at a foot pace over the boards. The Swabian took the lead of the first company. "We'll hunt the boars out of their cover," he cried.

When he had gone off, von Prauen called for his own banner and charger. He climbed into the saddle, still feeling that dull anger against the mob that had challenged his stronghold-Szary's boast still rankled. He called to the master armorer to hold the bridge in place with his castle reserve until the return of the Knights. "So we will not wet our feet at our homecoming."

These men of the forest, he thought, had need of a lesson.

And the Knights cleared the far shore without ceremony. The shaggy Zmuds melted away from the fires into the murk of the fens and the trees while the Knights broke up into small companies to follow. The squads of pikemen kept close to the stirrups of the riders, as they pushed through the forest trails, following the dark bands that slipped through the ferns, pausing to fire their bows among the trees before fleeing on. Only on clear ground could the Knights charge, to scatter the bands. They followed torches dancing like St. Elmo's fire through the trees.

"Faith," said the Swabian, "they light the way to the hunt."

Slowly the disciplined array of Vorberg drove the pack, their halberds thrusting through the light flails of the forest men, their mail proof against the flying arrows. Few men fell.

Before them the lights danced away, and the chill of the forest closed in on them. Von Prauen would not turn back. "In the open, we will drive them, and make an end of them."

When he emerged from the trees into the plain with its dark oak clumps he waited until the other formations came through on either flank. Then for the first time, he noticed that the lights of the fugitives had been put out. He had to guide himself by the faint starlight.

Then he noticed how the stars had dimmed overhead. A damp breath from the wet plain chilled his hot head. And a pale lantern, low over the plain, flooded silvery into his eyes. An old moon had risen.

And it showed him that a dark mass which he had taken for an oak grove was moving toward him. He looked at it under his hand, and shouted suddenly: "Halt, the riders! Stand, the pikemen!"

The darkness on the plain moved swiftly now, and it howled as it came. Cold exultation touched the komtur. These, coming at him, were riders in shaggy furs, on nimble ponies. Some of their heads glinted with buffalo horns. Dogs snarled in the rush.

"Par dex," he breathed, "what are these animals?"

The voice of the Swabian answered at his shoulder: "Riders of the swamps, Mazovi hunters, Lithuanian bands, boar hounds." And he stood up in his stirrups. "Gott mit uns!"

The war shout of the Knights sounded down the line as they met the rush of the wild horsemen, who howled and struck at the long line of the Germans with javelin and sword blade. Their great hounds leaped at the German chargers, and the line swayed here and there. Von Prauen reined back to a rise to watch and the Swabian kept at his side.

"Faith, Arnold," he grumbled, "your hunt is a long hunt. These were waiting for us. They knew well we would come here."

"They save us the trouble of running after them." Von Prauen's eye ran along the steady line of the Germans. Their pikes and swords held easily against the scramble of such wayward fighters. Some wounded dragged themselves back from the line. Then he thought the savage mob gave back a little. He waited to see if it would drift away.