The Sword Brothers (32 page)

Hans was confused.
‘Mantlets?’

‘Mobile defensive
screens,’ answered Lukas, ‘behind which the crossbowmen can get
close to the walls without being shot down and there to provide
covering missile volleys for the attackers. Your task is to cut the
wood so that they can be created.’

And so they spent the
whole morning cutting down trees to provide the materials to create
wooden screens for the crossbowmen. Some of the carpenters were on
hand to organise the different categories of timber that were
required: the lower trunks to fill in the moat, the thicker
branches and tops of the trunks for the mantlets. Fir boughs were
also collected so that the horses and ponies could be bedded down
during the siege.

Conrad and the others
stood beside a pine as Lukas pointed to the other teams cutting
down trees at widely spaced intervals.

‘You may think that
felling a tree is easy but as with all things there is a right way
and a wrong way to go about it. Hans and Bruno step forward.’

Conrad had to admit,
notwithstanding his disappointment at not having been issued with a
sword, he found the tree cutting interesting as Lukas explained to
them how it should be done.

‘First of all you must
know the height of the tree to discern the spot where the top will
fall when it is felled. Now this pine is about fifty feet so we’ll
say seventeen footsteps. Anton, mark it out. Walk from the trunk
that distance into the forest.’

Anton did as he was
told and then stood and turned when he had walked seventeen
paces.

‘So,’ said Lukas,
‘that is where the top of the tree will fall. We want the tree to
fall in the direction that Anton walked, which is the safest
direction for it to fall so it won’t kill anyone working to the
left or right of us.’

‘What about Anton?’
asked a concerned Hans.

‘Oh, he will stand
where he is and be killed when the tree falls,’ replied Lukas.

Johann was appalled.
‘Really?’

‘No, not really,’ said
Lukas. ‘Hans and Bruno, stand either side of the tree and with your
saw notch the tree on the side facing the direction in which you
want it to fall. That is, towards Anton.’

They did as they were
told and began to make a straight cut into the tree at waist height
with the saw. Lukas recalled Anton as the two cut into the tree,
beads of sweat forming on their foreheads from the exertion. When
they had sawed halfway through Lukas instructed them to make a
downward cut at a forty-five degree angle that went to the centre
of the tree and hit the first cut. This created a large wedge that
Johann knocked out with Lukas’ hammer.

‘Note how the space
you have created is open in the direction you want the tree to
fall,’ he said. ‘Now, take the saw out and begin to saw on the
other side of the tree, level with your first cut.’

Hans and Bruno took
the saw and began moving it back and forth until the teeth were
inches from the first horizontal cut on the other side.

‘Stop!’ said Lukas.
‘Have a care!’ he shouted and then looked at the tree. There was a
creaking sound and then a splintering noise and the trunk began to
tilt in the direction where Anton had been standing. There was a
loud crack and then the tree crashed to the ground. Lukas told
Conrad, Johann and Anton to use their axes to cut it into
manageable pieces while Hans and Bruno rested.

They spent the whole
morning felling trees while Thaddeus and his engineers assembled
their machines covered by a screen of spearmen. The small number of
Estonians manning the walls watched in silence as three mangonels
were sited against the fort’s western wall and the other three were
placed to face the southern wall. After a midday meal Lukas took
his young charges back to see Thaddeus who was setting up his
trebuchet.

The camp behind them
was filled with feverish activity as the crossbowmen completed
their mantlets and positioned them in front of the siege engines.
The trebuchet was a wondrous thing: a long beam that pivoted around
an axle positioned on a wooden structure. The axle divided the beam
into a long and short arm. At the end of the short arm hung a
hinged counterweight; at the end of the long arm a sling. Conrad
and the others stood admiring this machine, not really
understanding how it worked. Some two hundred paces behind the
trebuchet stood the assembled siege tower: three storeys high and
open at the rear where there was a climbing frame to allow access
to the top platform. A drawbridge mounted at the top of the tower
gave access to enemy battlements when lowered. The other three
sides were protected by wooden planks covered with animal hides as
a precaution against the threat of fire.

‘We will soon be
ready, Brother Lukas,’ said Thaddeus, his face framed by his
fox-fur hat with earflaps that he had tied under his chin. ‘Will
there be an assault today?’

Lukas looked at the
sun that was now descending in the west. ‘Not today, Master
Thaddeus.’

There were now more
Estonian warriors on the battlements, some of them wearing the
helmets they had taken from the corpses of the dead crusaders
hanging from the assault ladders that still leaned against the
walls.

‘Why does the enemy
not attack to destroy the siege engines?’ asked Conrad.

‘Because they have
never seen them before,’ remarked Thaddeus, ‘and though they may
guess at their purpose they cannot be sure.’

He pointed at the
siege tower. ‘Now they have probably guessed that the tower is
designed to be placed against their wall, what with its wheels and
top platform. But they believe that their moat will keep it away
from their ramparts.’

‘Which it will,’ said
Anton, thinking out loud.

Thaddeus tapped his
beak-like nose and smiled. ‘Not if we fill it in.’

‘How can it be filled
in?’ said Bruno.

‘Some of those logs
you cut this morning,’ said Lukas, ‘will be used to fill in the
moat and create a bridge, over which the tower will be pushed.’

‘Won’t the pagans
launch their missiles at it when it gets near?’ asked Conrad.

Thaddeus brought his
hands together. ‘What inquiring minds they have, Brother
Lukas.’

‘Indeed, if a little
over-active at times.’

After assisting the
mucking out and feeding of the horses and ponies and cleaning the
brother knights’ weapons and armour, that night the boys stood
outside their tent warming their hands at the fire. They were all
tired from their exertions but the prospect of the next day’s
assault against the fort filled them with excitement and blocked
out all thoughts of sleep.

‘How long do you think
it will take to storm the fort?’ said Anton.

‘With all the machines
we have it will fall in less than a day,’ offered Johann.

‘Perhaps the defenders
will surrender tomorrow,’ said Bruno.

‘No they won’t,’ said
Conrad, ‘they will fight.’

‘Of course they will,’
Henke appeared from between the tents, wrapped in a great white
cloak sporting a red cross and sword, a hood pulled over his head.
He walked up to the fire and warmed his hands on the flames. Hans
placed more logs on it.

Henke pulled the hood
off his head, his eyes black and cold in the glow of the fire. ‘The
Estonians are good fighters and the ones in Fellin are Lembit’s
men. It will be a hard fight.’

‘Is this Lembit a
king?’ asked Hans.

Henke rubbed his
hands. ‘He is a chief who leads a tribe called the Saccalians. We
are standing on part of his land. He has managed to unite all the
other Estonian tribes against us by swearing to kill all the
Christians in Livonia and destroy their towns and castles.’

‘Is he in the fort?’
asked Conrad.

Henke shook his head.
‘No. He would have showed his face on the battlements yesterday if
he was. Pity you didn’t kill him at Wenden, Conrad, because that is
the only way this war is going to end – with his death.’

‘Won’t the Estonians
find another leader after his death?’ said Anton.

‘Not if we defeat his
army at the same time we kill him,’ replied Henke. ‘That will break
the fighting spirit of the Estonians and will leave us as masters
of their lands.’

‘If he is not in the
fort why then are we here?’ asked Johann.

Henke smiled
mischievously. ‘To goad him and to show his people that we can
enter his land and burn his villages at will. He will have no
choice but to retaliate and lead his army south, and then we can
engage him in battle and destroy him.’

He slapped Conrad on
the arm. ‘Who knows, perhaps young Conrad here will put a bolt into
his brain next time. Now you should all get some sleep. It will be
a long day tomorrow.’

But though they
retired to their tent Conrad could not sleep. He lay awake thinking
about Lembit and the day he had faced him at Wenden. Perhaps he
would be given a crossbow tomorrow with which to shoot at the
enemy. His last thoughts before dozing off were of his family and
the sweet smiling face of Daina.

The new day dawned icy
and misty. A great fog hung over the frozen lake and crept over the
crusader camp to make everyone feel cold and miserable. Conrad
shivered as he pulled on his cool boots then put on his padded
gambeson over his shirt and tunic. Everything felt cold and damp
and in the half-light of the tent and no one spoke as they dressed
and then stumbled out into the freezing early morning gloom. Mist
hung all around, visibility was less than fifty feet and the only
sounds were men coughing, spitting and complaining.

The boys hurried to
the centre of the camp to attend mass at the chapel tent, which was
full of brother knights plus Sir Frederick and his knights, and so
Conrad and the others knelt on the cold, damp ground as the priests
recited prayers and asked God to bless the forthcoming attack on
the fort. They then reported to Lukas who informed them of their
duties to be performed before breakfast: help muck out, groom and
feed the horses and ponies and cut down fresh fir boughs for the
beasts to sleep on. The ponies were doing well but another warhorse
and three packhorses had died during the night. It looked as though
Rudolf’s prediction would come true. They also heard that another
squire had been found dead that morning, curled up in a ball by the
side of a sleigh, his body frozen solid.

Conrad felt sorry for
the squires. They shivered in inadequate clothing and ran around
after their masters all day long. Lukas said each one served a
master for seven years in the hope that they too would become
knights. But they were treated more like slaves than apprentices
and some did not even become knights, accepting the life of a
squire into their adult years. Not to say that the daily routine in
the Sword Brothers was not onerous; it was. But the boys had ample
clothing and the food was filling and plentiful. Lukas had informed
Conrad that the Sword Brothers had been founded by Bishop Albert to
resemble another religious order called the Templars that fought
the infidels in the Holy Land. Hans had been appalled when Lukas
had also told them that the brother knights in the Templars often
fasted to purify their bodies and bring them closer to God.

‘Do not worry, Hans,’
Lukas had told him, ‘the Templars fight in a land that is always
hot and so they do not need as much food as you. In the cold of
Livonia Grand Master Volquin is of the opinion that his fighters
need ample food so they can battle the pagans to maximum effect,
thereby spreading the word of God more quickly among the
unbelievers.’

Hans loved his life in
the Sword Brothers, even on this chilly, misty morning in the
depths of an Estonian winter. He sat opposite Conrad at breakfast
shovelling heaped spoonfuls of hot porridge into his mouth into the
cavernous hole that was his stomach. For someone whose only friend
had been starvation the regular meals of the order were worth the
minor discomfort of sleeping in a freezing tent, shovelling horse
dung and cleaning the weapons and armour of the brother
knights.

Lukas collected them
after they had filled their bellies and took them to where Thaddeus
was overseeing the operation of his trebuchet.

‘You are all under the
command of Master Thaddeus today,’ he told them, ‘I have more
important matters to attend to.’

‘You will take part in
the assault, Brother Lukas?’ Conrad asked him.

Lukas nodded. ‘After
Master Thaddeus’ machines have softened up the enemy first.’

‘May God go with you,
brother,’ said Thaddeus.

‘And you,’ replied
Lukas. ‘And don’t cause any trouble,’ he told the boys, raising his
hand and then walking forward to where the army was assembling
before the fort.

The crusaders and
Sword Brother knights and sergeants formed up in groups behind the
lines of spearmen that faced the southern and western ramparts of
the fort. The crossbowmen inched forward under cover of their
mantlets, two men taking position behind each sloping wood shelter,
until they were within one hundred paces of the moat. But the
freezing fog was refusing to dissipate and was covering everything
with a thin coating of ice. Visibility was poor and Conrad could
barely see the fort’s southern side, but he could hear it. The
warriors were shouting, whistling and jeering at the crusaders,
taunting them to launch another attack. But their noise abated as
the prisoners that had been taken in the raids on the villages were
shoved forward towards the moat. They were cold and filthy, several
of them glancing left and right at the soldiers arrayed before the
fort.

Conrad saw Rudolf,
Henke and a score of sergeants from Wenden herding the prisoners
forward, using the points of their swords to keep them moving as
they stood behind them. Eventually they formed the prisoners into a
line in front of the moat and Rudolf began shouting up at the now
silent warriors lining the battlements. He was speaking a coarse
language that Conrad did not understand.