The Sword Brothers (45 page)

Conrad enjoyed that
summer, though he and the others saw no fighting. The days were
long and warm, the forests were full of game and the rivers and
lakes teeming with fish. After the cold and misery of the winter
everyone ate well from the abundance that was all around them. The
fields were planted and the crops grew, watered by frequent summer
storms and warmed by the sun. More workers and their families came
to Wenden, along with farmers who had been promised plots of land,
though when they arrived they were surprised to discover that their
new farms had to be carved from the forest first. But Master
Berthold provided assistance in the form of Conrad and his
companions and sergeants, who helped to fell the trees and extract
the stumps from the ground. The farmers used the timber to build
their homes and the fences that held their pigs and goats, and
slowly the area directly north of Wenden filled with settlers’
homes.

Patrols were still
mounted to the north and east as mid-summer passed but there were
no signs of Estonians. Several raiding parties had been intercepted
and destroyed by crusader forces but Lembit’s warriors had caused
considerable damage to the south and southeast of Wenden, and had
also alarmed the citizens of Riga. Thus did the bishop spend the
summer at Riga providing protection for his flock instead of
smiting the heathen.

At Wenden Conrad and
his companions were taught to use the mace, a three-foot-long piece
of iron with protruding edges of sharpened iron on one end. These
flanges were fixed all round the mace so that the weapon was
radially symmetric, so that a blow could be delivered equally
effectively with any side of the head. Lukas had invited Henke to
explain to them the subtleties of the mace as he was reckoned to be
the most proficient in its use. He stood before them in shirt,
leggings and boots, sweat running down his powerful neck for it was
a blisteringly hot day.

‘The mace is a very
simple weapon. It is quick, effective and brutal.’

‘A bit like Henke,’
said Rudolf standing nearby.

Henke ignored him,
swinging the mace upwards. ‘It can be used on foot or in the
saddle. A forceful blow with a mace will crush bones and armour. If
you strike an opponent’s helmet hard enough the force of the blow
will break his neck, even if the helmet is undamaged. If you strike
an enemy on the arm or leg you will break the bone even if you do
not penetrate his armour, such is the power of a mace blow.’

He pointed the end of
his mace at the boys. ‘When you are defending yourselves against a
mace you have to keep it away from your body. You cannot rely on
your helmet or armour to protect you.’

He told Conrad to
attack him with his waster and shield. ‘Remember,’ he told him,
‘keep it away from your body.’

Henke swung at Conrad
with a downward strike of the mace that Conrad caught on his
shield. The force of the blow amazed him. It was like a giant
hammer had hit it. Henke jumped aside and aimed a sideways strike
at him, which Conrad parried with his shield at the cost of the
bottom of the leather and wood being cut and fractured. Henke was
amazingly quick for his size, nimbly changing the weight on each
foot as he avoided Conrad’s sword blows and then delivering a
succession of strikes against him. He could tell that Henke was not
trying to kill or hurt him, but after less than two minutes half
his shield had been destroyed.

Henke, his shirt now
soaked in sweat, stepped back and nodded at Conrad.

‘Well done.’ He turned
to the others. ‘You see how effective a mace can be. Powerful
blows, that is the key. Anything you hit will either be dented or
broken. Don’t waste your energy, though. Like you have been taught:
kill quickly and move on.’

So they learned to use
a mace and then in combination with other weapons: the sword and
mace, dagger and mace and axe and mace. They were allowed to wear
their swords now, both during the day and while on guard duty. But
they were not allowed to use them in training.

‘Your swords are far
too valuable to be blunted or damaged during training sessions,’
Lukas told them. ‘That is why you have your wasters.’

The days went by in a
blur, filled with prayers, training and assisting in the
construction of the castle. The walls and towers were draped in
wooden scaffolding as they inched ever upwards, workers scurrying
around like ants ferrying stone and mortar to the top platforms.
And then treadmill cranes were erected to hoist stone onto the
walls. These great wooden machines used a treadmill powered by men
to drive round the windlass for winding up the lifting ropes
attached to loads. And the daylight hours were filled with the
sound of men chiselling, hammering, sawing and cursing as Wenden
began to take shape.

In the sparse amount
of free time allowed him Conrad sought out the company of Ilona,
the raven-haired mysterious beauty who lived in the compound but
was free to move around the castle at will. Treated with a degree
of respect and awe, she spent her days taking care of the children
of the castle workers or collecting herbs in the meadows and
forests to enable her to practice her healing arts, always
accompanied by guards whenever she ventured out of the castle
compound. Conrad wondered if this was because she was a slave of
the order, which caused Lukas to smile.

‘Slave? More like a
queen, boy. Rudolf always makes sure she is well guarded and has
everything she wants.’

‘Why?’ asked
Conrad.

‘You know why. She was
the one who pulled him out of the fire when the Russians attacked
Holm. She was the one who tended his wounds and brought him back to
life and she is the one who shares his soul with God. That’s why.
She has my gratitude for that, the others as well.’

‘Thalibald is her
lord?’ said Conrad.

‘She is from Holm,’
replied Lukas, ‘on the River Dvina.’

This lithe beauty who
outwardly appeared to be Rudolf’s wife, though he knew that was
impossible, intrigued Conrad.

‘I would like to learn
to speak the language of the Livs,’ he said to Lukas, ‘and was
wondering if she might teach me.’

Lukas shrugged. ‘You
will have to ask her yourself. Make sure it does not interfere with
your duties, mind.’

‘No, brother, of
course.’

‘And behave yourself
around her,’ Lukas teased him. ‘No improper thoughts.’

Conrad was mortified.
‘I would never…’

Lukas waved a hand at
him. ‘I jest with you, Conrad. Now I believe you have an
armour-cleaning session before prayers.’

The next afternoon
Conrad searched out Ilona and found her waiting for him, along with
four sergeants, outside her hut. She was dressed in a simple brown
woollen skirt and a brown tunic with a V-shaped neck, a green sash
around her waist and her long black hair hanging freely about her
shoulders. She was holding an empty wicker basket in front of her
and smiled at Conrad as he approached.

The sergeants were
dressed in short-sleeved mail shirts and kettle helmets and were
armed with short axes, swords and daggers, their shields strapped
to their backs. Conrad also wore a kettle helmet though only his
padded gambeson for armour. He gripped the hilt of his sword as he
got nearer to the group, his shield likewise slung on his back. It
was a measure of the trust placed in him and the other boys that
they were now allowed to carry weapons inside and outside the
castle complex. He too carried a dagger in a sheath on his right
hip.

‘Welcome, Conrad
Wolff,’ she smiled, nodding at one of the sergeants before turning
on her heels and striding towards the gates. Conrad hurried to
catch up, walking a couple of paces behind her. He felt slightly
uncomfortable.

‘So,’ she said, waving
to a group of children who were following their mothers towards
their huts, ‘you wish to learn the tongue of my people.’

‘Yes, madam.’

She giggled. ‘You make
me sound like an old maid. Call me Ilona. Why do you want to learn
the language of the Livs?’

The question puzzled
him. ‘To understand the native people more.’

She turned and smiled
at him. ‘The people or just one in particular?’

He felt his cheeks
flush. ‘I do not understand.’

‘Oh, I think you do.
The young man who saved the life of Brother Rudolf, wounded Lembit
and saved the life of Thalibald’s daughter has become famous in
these parts, Conrad. How could I resist the request of such a
hero?’

Conrad was embarrassed
and delighted in equal measure and the sergeants smiled at his
discomfiture.

‘Daina will be
enchanted that you take an interest in her ways.’

Conrad tried to be
clever. ‘Daina?’

Ilona stopped and
faced him. ‘If we are to get along then I think we should be honest
with each other. You know Daina, do you not?’

Conrad, crestfallen,
nodded.

‘And you like
her?’

He nodded again.

‘And you thought it
would be courteous to learn her language so that you may converse
with her in her native tongue?’

He nodded a third
time.

She resumed her walk.
‘There, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?’

They went only a short
distance from the castle, to the edge of the trees that filled the
area from the banks of the Gauja extending east.

‘Wild raspberries,’
said Ilona, ‘that is what we are here to pick.’

Two of the sergeants
stood guard while Conrad and the other two helped her fill her
basket with the black berries.

‘I shall be delighted
to teach you,’ she said to Conrad. ‘Rudolf holds you in high
regard.’

She told him that the
berries were used to make a drink that could cure colds, headaches
and high fevers, telling him that the Liv word for raspberry was
skaidrojumi
. Thereafter Ilona taught Conrad the words for
the things he saw every day: horse, wagon, hill, forest, meadow and
so on. He found it difficult at first. He had never learned to read
or write and so did not know how his own language was constructed.
But as the weeks passed the constant repetition of words gradually
implanted themselves in his mind and he found that he could repeat
them with ease. The next phase was learning basic sentences, which
again he first found difficult but with great patience and tenacity
on the part of Ilona he began to master.

The summer waned, the
raiding parties that Lembit had sent south were either hunted down
and destroyed or pursued back into their own lands where the
crusaders laid waste a great number of villages. The knights who
had journeyed from Germany prepared to spend a winter in Livonia.
The bishop, encouraged by the earlier attack on Fellin, was
determined to mount another winter campaign against the pagans. The
walls of Wenden continued to slowly increase in height as stone was
ferried from the quarry on a daily basis. The Sword Brothers were
determined that the castle would be the strongest in all Livonia, a
lasting testament to the power of the Holy Church and the might of
the military order based there.

‘We are running short
of funds,’ said Master Berthold, his swarthy features illuminated
in the half-light of his hall’s candles.

He sat opposite Rudolf
in the dimness, a sheaf of parchments on the table between them.
Berthold picked up one of the papers.

‘We are fortunate that
this land is rich in wildlife and fish that we can eat, not to
mention the fertile soil that allows us to grow our crops.
Nevertheless, the costs of constructing the castle and maintaining
the garrison are proving exorbitant.’

‘I did not realise
things were that bad,’ said Rudolf.

Berthold held up the
parchment. ‘This is the list of costs pertaining to just one month
of work carried out on the castle.’

He handed it to Rudolf
who perused it. There was a long list of artisans in the left-hand
column and their respective wages in the right-hand column. There
were carters – men who brought wood and stone to the castle from
the quarry – carpenters who built flooring, roofing, furniture,
panelling and scaffolding, masons who worked the stone and
woodworkers who worked in the forest to cut the wood for joists and
beams.

Berthold picked up
another parchment. ‘Wages for cooks, blacksmiths and clerks. The
list is almost endless.’

Rudolf also knew that
mail armour, helmets, swords, maces, axes, daggers and horse
furniture, as well as the horses themselves, had to be imported
from Germany, adding a further drain on Wenden’s expenses. Then
there were the armourers who maintained the weapons and armour, in
addition to the atilliators – the skilled workers who made and
maintained crossbows.

Master Berthold picked
up another parchment and shook his head, the weight of the world
seemingly on his shoulders. ‘And lest we forget, the not
inconsiderable sums paid to our resident mercenaries. Ruinous.’

Rudolf studied the
figures again, vainly thinking that if he stared at them hard
enough they would seem less daunting.

‘By the end of the
year the treasury will be empty and all work will grind to a halt,’
lamented Berthold.

‘Winter brings a halt
to all construction anyway,’ said Rudolf.

‘Though not, alas, the
need to pay those engaged in it,’ added Berthold.

Rudolf put the
parchment back on the table. ‘What is to be done?’

Berthold ran a hand
over his crown. ‘We will have to go to the bishop and beg for more
money.’

Rudolf toyed with the
parchments in front of him. He knew that among the brother knights
and sergeants only he and Master Berthold could read and write. And
Brother Walter, of course.

‘Walter, yes,’ said
Rudolf.

‘Walter?’ Berthold was
perplexed.

‘Walter gave all his
fortune to the Sword Brothers,’ said Rudolf, ‘as did Sir Frederick.
Have we exhausted all those funds already?’