The Sword Brothers (99 page)

After their great
victory Count Horton and Sir Jordan had dismissed the Liv scouts.
They did not share the bishop’s or Sir Helmold’s fondness for these
heathens who dressed and looked like the pagans they had come to
butcher. They did not need them to show them the fifty miles
downstream to Kokenhusen, which was unfortunate because had the
Livs remained they most probably would have learned that over three
thousand Lithuanian warriors crossed the Dvina one night to set an
ambush for the crusaders. Sprung equidistance between Gerzika and
Kokenhusen, it had been spectacularly successful.

Aras stopped and
turned to look at Mindaugas. ‘Repayment for your father’s
death.’

Mindaugas said nothing
as he looked down at a man lying face up whose legs had been
crushed under a collapsed wagon. He was groaning faintly, his eyes
full of pleading.

‘He would have been
pleased with you, Aras.’

The latter picked up a
mace at his feet and walked over the injured man, the wagon’s
driver probably on account of his poor quality clothing and lack of
armour.

‘It was Vsevolod who
gave permission for the ambush.’ Aras stood over the wounded man
and proceeded to smash in his head with the mace, reducing it to a
disgusting bloody pulp that made Mindaugas grimace.

‘My father believed he
was a coward.’

Aras tossed the mace
aside and continued walking among the crusader dead. He had
launched his attack when the Christians were strung out along the
track for miles, only a few of the knights wearing their armour in
the summer heat. The attack achieved total surprise and overwhelmed
the enemy before they had a chance to respond.

‘I admit he’s no
warrior,’ agreed Aras, skirting a heap of Christian dead, ‘but he
has a keen mind and is nobody’s fool.’

Mindaugas caught up
with him. ‘He wants me to marry his daughter.’

They came to a wagon
piled high with silver trays, cups and ornaments.

‘Have this transported
back to the river,’ Aras ordered one of his subordinates who was
guarding the plunder. ‘Prince Vsevolod should have his cutlery
returned to him.’

He took off his helmet
and wiped his brow on his sleeve. It was unbearably hot.

‘Is she pretty, his
daughter?’

Mindaugas smirked.
‘Yes.’

Aras replaced his
helmet. ‘Child-bearing hips?’

Mindaugas looked
embarrassed. ‘I suppose.’

‘Well then, sounds
like a decent proposition. You like her?’

Mindaugas shrugged. ‘I
don’t dislike her.’

Aras nodded. ‘That’s a
good start. Get the men back to the river!’ he bellowed at a group
of his officers examining a crusader banner. ‘And leave those
barbarian flags behind. They are probably bewitched.’

‘My father warned me
not to trust Vsevolod,’ said Mindaugas.

Aras turned back to
the boy. ‘At the moment Vsevolod’s interests are the same as yours.
He wants to preserve the grand duke’s territories, defeat the other
dukes and keep the Christians this side of the river. I’d say you
have nothing to worry about for the moment.

‘Come on, let’s get
back across the river before the garrison at Kokenhusen sends out a
patrol to find out where their crusader friends are.’

They walked towards
the river as the Lithuanians began transporting their plunder back
to the boats that awaited them. Mindaugas stepped over the body of
a knight with a spear in its back. Had he stopped to turn it over
he would have seen that it was Sir Jordan.

*****

The harvest around
Wenden was excellent that year, the fields yielding a healthy
bounty. Despite his change of lifestyle Conrad found that he took
to the life of a farmer with relative ease. His life of a novice
had been one of discipline, austerity and hard training; in
Thalibald’s village he found that his daily routine was also long
and hard, but with the lovely bonus of sharing a bed with his wife
every night. Daughter of a chief she may have been but Daina had to
undertake her fair share of work like all the other women of the
village.

In July she pulled up
the flax and hemp in the garden at the back of their hut, laying
them out in the sun before being retted, which involved her and the
other women hauling them down to the nearest stream where they were
placed in the water to rot away the fleshy parts of the plant. Once
the fibres were clean they were beaten to separate them and hung up
in strikes to dry them. The hemp was then ready to be wound into
rope or cord and the flax placed on a distaff and spun into
yarn.

At the end of the day,
after all the chores had been attended to, Conrad always spent an
hour practising with his sword, going through the routines that
Lukas had taught him. Afterwards, exhausted, he sat on the edge of
the bed watching Daina spinning yarn.

‘Do you think that
Master Berthold will summon you back to Wenden one day?’

He ran a cloth over
the weapon’s blade. ‘That would be very unlikely.’

‘Then why do you
practise with it every day?’

He slid the blade back
into the scabbard and placed it on the hooks above his head.
‘Because I was taught how to use it and it would be an insult to
Brother Lukas and Sir Frederick to forget the skills I was
taught.’

She stopped her
spinning and looked at him, the light of the candles catching the
glint in her eyes.

‘Who is Sir
Frederick?’

‘He was a crusader
lord,’ he said, ‘who died of his wounds at Fellin three years ago.
It was his sword. He carried the symbol of a unicorn on his shield
and banner.’ He pointed at the sword. ‘There are unicorns carved
into the pommel.’

‘What’s a
unicorn?’

‘A horse that has a
horn on its head.’

‘Do such things
exist?’

He shrugged. ‘I have
never seen one but I believe they live in a faraway land.’

She went back to her
spinning, a task that has been carried out by women for
centuries.

‘You will tire
yourself out with all that swordplay. And you will need all your
strength for the harvest. My father says that now the Estonians
have accepted baptism there will be no more fighting. So you see,
Master Berthold will not be calling on your services again.’

Berthold may not have
been calling upon his services but he sent some of his men to
assist in gathering in the wheat, rye, barley and oats that had
ripened in the fields. Hans, Anton and Johann came and drank too
much
medalus
as they celebrated with their friend and
toasted his good fortune. Rudolf and Lukas also came and
accompanying the latter were ten scrawny, pale-faced boys who
looked as though they would break into pieces at any moment.

‘Do you recognise
them, Conrad?’ asked Lukas as he harvested wheat with a sickle,
wielding it with the same effortless skill as he did when holding a
sword. Conrad shook his head.

‘They are you.’

Conrad stopped and
looked at the boys struggling in the summer heat. ‘Me?’

‘A few years ago. They
are novices fresh from Germany, wastrels, orphans, thieves and the
like. Brought here to be moulded into sergeants, perhaps even
brother knights.’

Conrad looked at their
pallid flesh and bony arms. ‘Good luck with that, Brother
Lukas.’

‘I remember when I
first clapped eyes on you,’ said Lukas, cutting a great swathe with
his sickle. ‘You looked like them and Brother Hans was in a more
parlous state. Look at you now, all muscle and strength. It is
remarkable what good food and dry quarters can do.’

‘And a good
instructor,’ smiled Conrad.

‘I hope you are not
letting your sword go to waste.’

‘I practise with it
every day, even though Daina informs me that I waste my time.’

Lukas stopped,
stretched his back and looked over at Conrad’s wife smiling and
teasing Hans, Johann and Anton as she handed them ladles of water
from the buckets she was carrying. ‘Marriage suits her, and you.
But always keep the edge of your sword sharp, Conrad, and your
skills sharper. Peace never lasts forever.’

But that summer was
gloriously peaceful and in the autumn the peas, beans and vetches
were harvested and the oxen provided by Master Berthold were used
to plough the fields for the sowing of the winter crops. The women
collected wild fruit and berries and the wheat stubble was gathered
in to mix with hay to create winter fodder. Rameke showed Conrad
how to shoot a bow and together they went into the forest to hunt
deer and elk. He also took part in the weekly gatherings of the
village militia, which was when all able-bodied men aged sixteen
and upwards gathered outside Thalibald’s hall to undergo training.
This involved nothing more then marching outside the village and
forming up into a shield wall, though Conrad found it useful as it
acquainted him with the various horn calls used by Liv war bands:
alarm, muster, attack, retreat and form shield wall. Aside from the
full-time warriors who attended Thalibald most of the village
menfolk were poorly armed and equipped with shields, spears, axes
and a few helmets. And not even Thalibald had a sword to rival
Conrad’s in terms of workmanship, balance and lightness.

He was conscious that
his hut had formerly been the lodgings of a widow who had been
evicted to make way for him and Daina and always made sure that she
was provided for out of their food stocks. The widow was in fact a
handsome woman in her late twenties named Elita. She missed her
husband terribly and had no children to console her and so Daina
insisted that she was a regular visitor to her former home. Conrad
gave her half their chickens, a goat and two pigs, though there was
no prospect of her starving as she ate at least three evening meals
with them every week. Conrad did not mind as she was affable enough
and it made Daina happy for her to be with them rather than sitting
alone with her distaff. Elita was one of the first ones to be told
that Daina would be having a baby in the new spring.

Thalibald was
delighted and when he informed Master Berthold the latter sent
Daina a silver crucifix as a present. The winter that gripped
Livonia that year was, like the previous one, harsh, the rivers and
lakes freezing over and the ground covered in deep snow. When the
first snowflakes had begun to fall Conrad acquired a new companion
when a stray dog wandered into the village. He found it one morning
curled up shivering outside his hut and immediately took pity on
it. He did not know why but perhaps the sight of anything abject
and alone elicited feelings of compassion in him. The dog was a
mangy, flea-bitten beast with sores on its back legs and a slight
limp. Conrad took it in, fed it and left it asleep by the fire as
he and Daina went about their daily tasks. They washed its wounds,
filled its belly and combed the fleas from its coat. It loved Daina
but had little time for Conrad, being content to lie at her feet
and occasionally growl and bark at him when he showed his wife any
affection. Bad tempered and rather affectionless, at least to him,
Conrad named it Henke, which provided him with endless
merriment.

Daina got the village
blacksmith to make Conrad a silver ring that she gave to him one
evening. It was a simple affair and he put it on a finger on his
left hand.

‘No, no, you must look
at it first,’ she implored.

He took it off and
turned it in his hand.

‘Look at the
inside.’

He peered at the ring
and saw strange markings on the inside.

‘It is our names in
our language,’ she said with a girlish giggle. ‘The blacksmith sent
it off to an engraver in another village. It means that we are
together for all eternity.’

He took her in his
arms and gazed into her green eyes. ‘I don’t need a piece of metal
to tell me that.’

She leaned forward and
kissed him on the lips. ‘It is silver not iron.’

‘It is wonderful,
thank you.’

Though winter was
harsh life was made bearable by the feasts Thalibald gave, the
swelling of Daina’s belly and the company of Rameke and Elita.
Waribule kept himself to himself but told Conrad he was pleased
that he would soon have a niece or nephew to play with.

‘It will be a boy of
course,’ Conrad told him.

‘How do you know?’

‘Elita dangled my ring
on a strand of Daina’s hair over her belly and it rocked to and
fro, which means a boy apparently.’

When Thalibald heard
of this he had a gold ring made that he presented to Daina,
insisting she wear it at all times. He may have been baptised into
the Christian faith but old habits die hard and Conrad found out
from Elita that the old gods looked favourably upon women who wore
a gold ring. It ensured that they and their infants would survive
childbirth.

As Christmas came and
went and the new year was born Conrad heard little of events beyond
the village’s confines. Thalibald told him that the Rotalians had
raided south towards Treiden but Caupo and the Sword Brothers from
Segewold and Kremon had chased them back to their own land. The
spring came and Thalibald informed him that Lembit had been
released from his luxurious confinement at Riga and he, along with
the hostages that the bishop had taken, had gone back to Saccalia.
An Oeselian fleet of longships sailed into the estuary of the Dvina
but Riga’s defences were too strong and they retreated after
causing little damage. As the lichens and mosses began to appear on
the ground and on trees as spring took hold and the forest filled
with fungi, Daina went into labour.

As she had promised to
do Ilona came from Wenden to be the midwife, throwing Conrad and
Henke out of their hut while she and Elita tended to the expectant
mother. Conrad spent hours either pacing up and down outside the
hut or on his knees praying when he heard Daina’s screams, while
Henke pawed at the shut door or cried when he heard Daina in
distress. Then it went quiet and he feared the worst, but wept like
a child when he heard the cries of a small infant and Ilona came
from the hut to inform him that he had a son. They called the child
Dietmar.