The Sword Brothers (34 page)

‘They have run out of
ammunition, see?’ said the quartermaster. ‘Here, take these and
give them to the crossbowmen.’

He held out four
quivers to Conrad, who took them in his arms. ‘And don’t drop them.
Off you go.’

Conrad clutched the
quivers close to his chest and ran towards two crossbowmen crouched
behind their mantlet. Fierce fighting was still raging on the walls
and occasionally the body of an Estonian or crusader would fall to
the ground to add to the piles of bodies that were collecting at
the foot of the wall. Thick black smoke was now billowing into the
sky from burning buildings inside the fort.

Conrad threw himself
behind the mantlet, between the two crossbowmen, who looked at him
with amusement.

‘A wasted trip, lad.’
Conrad recognised the distinctive features of leather face who
cocked his head towards the fort. ‘Too many of each side mixed up
to get a clear shot.’ He took two of the quivers. ‘Still, these
might come in useful if our soldiers have to retreat.’

Conrad handed the
other two quivers to leather face’s companion. ‘You think that is
likely?’

‘Not now we are on the
walls,’ said leather face, ‘just a matter of time now.’

But he was wrong, and
after two hours of battling on the walls, in which dozens of
Estonians were killed along with thirty spearmen, four knights and
three brother knights and eight sergeants of the Sword Brothers,
the fort had still not fallen. The defenders eventually abandoned
the southern wall and retreated to another inner wall that was set
back twenty paces from the outer wall. It was shorter and had no
towers but the defenders gathered behind it and prepared to repel
the crusaders. But the latter consolidated their hold on the outer
wall and did not launch any more attacks. Night fell and Fellin
still defied the crusaders.

Sir Frederick had
suffered numerous wounds during the fighting, though none appeared
to be serious. Nevertheless, an axe blow had cut through his mail
hauberk and inflicted a nasty arm wound and a spear thrust had
pierced his mail chausses. He would not be taking part in the next
day’s fighting. Rudolf, Henke and Lukas were still capable of
fighting, though Henke was most upset that an axe had dented the
face mask of his helmet, a blow that had broken his nose. Conrad
and the other boys had been ordered to attend the surgeons in the
medical tent after the battle where Henke sat on a bench holding a
bloody cloth over his nose. Conrad and Hans carried in a charcoal
brazier using long metal handles.

‘Over here and quick
about it,’ snapped one of the surgeons who was extracting pieces of
chain mail from Sir Frederick’s arm wound. The knight sat in a
chair near Henke and winced as the surgeon yanked a shard of metal
out of his flesh with pliers.

‘Apologies, my
lord.’

Conrad and Hans set
down the brazier. Sir Frederick looked at Conrad.

‘What is your name,
boy?’

‘Conrad Wolff,
sir.’

The surgeon placed one
of his cauterising irons, which had a wedge-shaped end like a
ship’s prow designed for treating wounds inflicted by spear
thrusts, in the coals of the brazier.

‘Are you a
squire?’

‘No, sir, a novice of
the Sword Brothers.’

Henke removed his
bloody bandage. ‘In his short time with us Conrad has saved the
life of one of our brother knights and wounded Lembit himself, my
lord.’

Sir Frederick was most
impressed. ‘Excellent! Give him a sword and he can stand beside me
tomorrow when we finish off the enemy. Would you like that, young
Conrad?’

‘Yes, lord,’ beamed
Conrad as the surgeon took the red-hot iron out of the fire and
used the head to burn the raw edges of the wound. Beads of sweat
formed on Sir Frederick’s forehead and he shook to contain his
emotions as intense pain shot through him. He waved Conrad away as
the surgeon looked with satisfaction at his handiwork.

The next morning the
Estonians surrendered.

The deluge of
quarrels, stones and barrels of pitch, in addition to the heavy
fighting on the walls, had thinned the numbers of the garrison to
such an extent that the fort’s commander thought it futile to
continue. He sent an emissary to Master Berthold as the crusader
army once more deployed to assault the fort. A sizeable number of
soldiers had been left in the siege tower during the night to
prevent it from being burnt by Fellin’s occupants but also to shoot
at any Estonians that showed themselves. This meant that the fires
inside the fort could not be extinguished and so half of its
shelters and stores went up in flames.

The morning dawned
cold and grey, the sky heaped with leaden clouds that blocked out
the sun and promised snow. After a brief meeting to discuss the
situation Master Berthold sent the emissary back to the fort with
his terms. They were generous: the garrison was to accept baptism
and promise not to take up arms against Christians in the future.
The survivors would be allowed to remain at Fellin rather than
being taken south as captives; they would also keep what was left
of their food supplies. Sir Frederick thought this over-charitable
but his wound was still painful and so he and the other crusaders
grumbled but did not protest.

Priests were sent into
the fort to sprinkle the buildings and occupants with holy water by
way of baptism, after which the bodies of those killed were
collected. The Estonians cremated their dead but Master Berthold
ordered that the Christian slain be taken south. Thus Conrad was
one of those detailed to collect frozen corpses, wrap them in
winding sheets and place them on the backs of sleighs.

‘I do not understand,’
he said to Lukas as he and Hans hauled another dead spearman onto a
sleigh. They had already stripped the corpse and taken the man’s
armour and weapons to the quartermaster.

‘What don’t you
understand?’ said Lukas.

‘Why can’t the dead be
buried here, where they fell?’

Lukas wrapped his
cloak around him as the first flecks of snow began to fall.
‘Because Master Berthold wants the dead to be buried in consecrated
ground, not left here to be dug up and burnt by the Estonians.’

Hans was appalled.
‘Dug up?’

Lukas nodded. ‘Yes,
Hans. The Estonians consign their own dead to the fires and would
not think twice about exhuming our dead once we have left and
throwing them onto a fire. An act of desecration that we are not
prepared to allow to happen.’

The flecks of snow had
now turned to large flakes that were falling at a steady rate.
Lukas looked up into the sky.

‘If this carries on it
will be a hard journey back to Wenden.’

And so it was.

The trebuchet and
mangonels were dismantled and their constituent parts stowed on
sleighs, the siege tower was set on fire, and by midday the camp
had been dismantled and the journey south commenced. The army only
managed three hours of travel the first day and covered only five
miles, but Master Berthold, having achieved what he set out to
accomplish, was eager to be away before a relief army appeared. The
crusaders had eaten half their food supplies, half their horses had
died and their numbers had been depleted by deaths in battle,
frostbite and injuries inflicted by the enemy. This meant that of
the three hundred and fifty fighting men who had set out from
Wenden only two hundred were fit for duty. The men of the Sword
Brothers were well provided with warm clothing but those crusaders
who had come from Germany suffered terribly in the cold, their
fingers turning black as the column made slow progress south.

The snow fall got
heavier by the hour so that the rate of advance barely exceeded
five miles a day, Conrad and the other boys assisting in digging
through high snow drifts that had to be cleared before the column
could move forward. Thalibald still sent out patrols, his men
fashioning snowshoes from branches interwoven with cords to allow
them to walk across the thick snow. After three days he ordered
that his men cease their patrols and help with clearing paths for
the sleighs. And still it snowed.

On the fourth day from
Fellin Lukas ordered Conrad to attend Sir Frederick, whose wound
had worsened and who now sat on a sleigh wrapped in furs shivering.
His eyes were black-ringed and sunken and he had developed a
hacking cough that shook his whole body. His squire was dead, he
had lost his horse and, it seemed to Conrad, all hope. That night
Conrad took hot porridge to his tent after ensuring the noble was
wrapped in dry furs. His shaking had abated somewhat and there was
a semblance of colour in his cheeks but he now had difficulty
moving his wounded arm. After he had finished eating the surgeon
came and examined and dressed his wound. Sir Frederick asked him
how it was healing and was informed as well as inspected. After the
man had left Sir Frederick told Conrad to fetch him some wine.

‘He’s lying, of
course,’ he said, draining his cup and holding it out for Conrad to
fill. ‘I could see it in his eyes. Bloody butchers. All they can do
is cut and saw in the hope that they can cure you. Useless
idiots.’

Conrad stood holding
the flask of wine, ready to fill the knight’s cup again.

‘Where are you from,
Conrad?’ said Sir Frederick, squirming uncomfortably in his
chair.

‘Lübeck, lord.’

‘A most prosperous
city. Why would you leave it to come to this bleak land of ice and
pagans?’

Conrad felt reluctant
to speak of his misfortune. ‘It is a long story, lord.’

Sir Frederick held out
his cup. ‘Fill it up and get another flask. As I am in pain and
cannot sleep your tale can make me forget about my miserable
condition, unless you want me to inform Brother Lukas that you have
been insubordinate.’

So Conrad stood and
told the knight about the death of his family, how fate had brought
him into contact with Rudolf and Henke and how he had travelled
back with them to Livonia. Sir Frederick sat in his chair, drank
and nodded his head as Conrad relayed his tale. When he had
finished the knight did not speak but sat with his head down,
running a finger around the rim of his cup. At last he spoke.

‘I have done the
things that were committed against your family. I have raped,
killed and robbed with impunity because I am a lord and those I
wronged were poor and uneducated.’

He looked at Conrad.
‘How many sons who have lost their parents and siblings now curse
the name Sir Frederick of Tangermünde?’

He now looked deathly
pale in the ghostly glow cast by the thin candles on the small
table beside him.

‘Do you know why I
took the cross and came on crusade in Livonia?’

‘No, lord.’

He winced as pain shot
through his arm. ‘To cleanse my soul. To atone for my sins. To kill
pagans is a great deed in God’s eyes and to fall while on crusade
is to guarantee a place in heaven. Or so the priests tell me.’

He looked at Conrad.
‘What do you think?’

‘The Sword Brothers
teach that it is so, lord.’

Sir Frederick emitted
a low laugh. ‘Let me tell you about the Sword Brothers, young
Conrad. They may wear the mantle of Christian knights but for the
most part they are ruthless killers who learned their trade as
mercenaries in Germany. Rudolf Kassel was known in northern Germany
for being the brutal leader of a mercenary band before he became
deputy commander at Wenden. Did you know that?’

Conrad shook his head.
Sir Frederick waved a hand at him.

‘It matters not now.
But he will have to slay many pagans before God looks favourably on
him, that much is certain.’

The next day, after he
had packed away Sir Frederick’s tent and belongings and assisted
him into the sleigh next to the driver, Conrad once more joined his
young companions as they shovelled snow aside to clear a path for
the column. Even though they were now travelling through a large
forest it was still snowing and the drifts were long and deep. It
was exhausting work and reduced the rate of advance to a snail’s
pace. Horses were collapsing from exhaustion and could not rise, so
had their throats cut for a merciful end. Even a few of the ponies
expired and some of the sleighs had to be abandoned. Conrad and the
others resembled snowmen as they toiled in their white capes and
hoods. He was delighted to have the company of Rameke one morning,
both of them heaping snow from the track onto the verges. His
friend was in a sombre mood.

‘This has been a
wasted trip,’ he complained.

‘We captured the
fort,’ said Conrad.

‘I did not dip my
sword in the blood of my enemies. The son of a chief should have
battle scars otherwise his warriors will not respect him.’

‘The brothers teach us
that impatience is a vice,’ said Conrad, ‘and that patience is a
virtue.’

Rameke was
unconvinced. ‘My brother killed his first enemy when he was
thirteen, Conrad, so you will appreciate my haste.’

Conrad wondered how
long he would have to wait before he was trusted to carry a sword
and fight beside the order’s brother knights and sergeants. At
least Rameke had a sword.

He looked around.
‘It’s stopped snowing.’

Sixteen days after
leaving Fellin the tired and hungry crusaders at last saw the
welcome sight of Wenden Castle, its partially built towers framed
against a clear blue sky.

Chapter 8

Lembit stood next to
the charred and battered southern wall of Fellin, studying the
blackened remains of the siege tower that the crusaders had used to
assault the stronghold. Word had reached him that Fellin was under
siege but he had been helpless to intervene, being on a visit to
the elders of Wierland at the time. Though his wolf shields were at
Lehola, a mere ten miles to the north, he had sent an urgent
despatch forbidding them from making a relief attempt. Rusticus had
been left in command at Lehola and the last thing he wanted was his
best soldiers being killed in vain. It was now February and the
crusaders were long gone. What had not disappeared was the damage
to his reputation, which would have to be rebuilt in the coming
year. The damage to the fort could be repaired easily enough; his
prestige would take longer to restore.