The Radiant Warrior aocs-3

by Leo Frankowski

  Then our instructors did it as well, with not a hint of fear or hesitation, and we knew we were next!

  "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and…" I heard the man beside me praying, trying not to move his lips or change his expression. In my mind, I prayed along with him.

  My dozen was called to go first, and although we were all frightened, not one of us dared to flinch. We folded our clothes, gave our war cry. and stepped as boldly as we could into what looked like certain death.

  Yet God's hand was on us, and we were saved from the fire. Myself, I think it must have been that He cooled the fire below our feet, for after I had crossed and turned to face the fire again, I could see my own darkened footprints along with the others.

  It was only with great difficulty that I did not fall to my knees and pray.

  FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD SCHWARTZ

  I went through the same routine with the troops on each of the three sides of the fire and not a single man of them showed any fear at all. The crowd was awestruck, and so were the men who had just walked on fire.

  Out of the comer of my eye, I saw Count Lambert doffing his cloak and looking determinedly at the bed of coals.

  "My lord Count Lambert, are you truly in a state of grace'? Have you said Confession and had Communion in the last few hours?"

  "No, but-"

  "Then I must forbid you to do this, for without God's help, you would surely be going to your death!"

  "You forbid your own liege?"

  "I am sworn to protect you, my liege."

  This might have gotten nasty. If Count Lambert walked those coals, without having gone through the training school, it would take away much of the mystique that I was trying to build. Fortunately, Prince Henryk came to my rescue and restrained him. I addressed the crowd.

  "That concludes the public portion of this ceremony. These men and I will be standing vigil tonight, and that is a private thing. My servants will escort you back to the barracks area, and provisions have been made for your comfort, or at least the best that we can do. The training school has already been expanded to take on the next, much larger class and there should be room for everyone."

  I bowed and started to dress when Abbot Ignacy came to me.

  "My son, that was an amazing demonstration. It reminded me of Shadrack in the furnace."

  "Father, remember how I once asked you how it was possible for you to walk barefoot through the snow, and you told me that when your heart was truly pure, you really did have the strength of ten?" I asked.

  "That was on the first day that we met. I remember it quite well. Perhaps fire has much in common with ice, my son. But you seem as troubled now as you were then. Would you allow me to stand this vigil with you?"

  There was no way that I could refuse Abbot Ignacy, my confessor.

  "Of course, Father."

  "I too would like to stand this vigil," Prince Henryk said.

  "As you wish, my lord. I will have some heavy cloaks sent up for the two of you."

  Count Lambert and the other guests were already going back, so with the prince and the abbot, we went up to the hills.

  It was near the summer solstice, and at these latitudes, the night is short. By the time we got to the ridge I had picked out, the night was more than half over. It was moonless and clear, and the stars were radiant. A good night for a vigil.

  So far, the weather had been perfect for the graduation ceremony, but for a while I was worried that the valley below us would not be foggy enough for the optical effect that I wanted. At last it filled with fog while we were still in clear air. Perfect.

  We spent the remainder of the night sitting or kneeling quietly on the dew-wet grass, our cloaks wrapped around us, each with his own private thoughts and prayers. As we waited, the full weight of my hypocrisy lowered onto me. The men about me all believed in me, had faith in me and what I was doing. In return, I was giving them lies and scientific stage tricks, and it rode heavy on my soul. Yet I had to make them believe that they were invincible, that they were capable of taking on the most disciplined, tough and deadly army the world had ever seen. Taking it on and beating it!

  The Mongols had fifty years of uninterrupted victories behind them. They had regularly fought and beaten armies many times their size. They knew that their combination of tactics, strategy and speed had always won and would win again. They had conquered half the known world, more land and more people than Caesar, Alexander, and Napoleon put together.

  One of their main weapons was terror. By building pyramids of the skulls of the people they murdered, by killing every man, woman, child, animal, and bird in the cities they hit, they created such a fear that it was said that men allowed themselves to be killed rather than annoy their own butchers! Stories circulated of whole companies of soldiers being killed by a single Mongol, dying without lifting a finger to help themselves.

  My vassal Zoltan Varanian had spoken to a merchant who was stopped, along with the rest of his small caravan, by a single Mongol soldier. The Mongol had ordered all fourteen men in the caravan to dismount. Fearful of angering him, they immediately complied. He then ordered them to line up before him, to get on their knees and bow to him, and again they did as he ordered. Then he drew his sword and beheaded the first man in line. The other merchants made no move; and the Mongol proceeded to take the heads off three more men, for no reason except perhaps to practice his sword swing.

  "This is crazy!" the narrator of the tale had said to his fellow merchants, "We outnumber him! We have weapons! No matter how good he is, he can't kill us all!"

  "Quiet!" the man next to him said. "Do you want to make him mad?"

  Yet another merchant was beheaded, and the narrator said, "Fools! He is already killing us! What more can he do?"

  Shouting the name of Allah, he drew his sword and attacked the Mongol. They traded a dozen blows before the other merchants got their wits back. Seeing that it was an even fight and that the Mongol was not invincible, the other merchants drew their swords and joined in the affray. The Mongol was soon dead. Then they hastily buried the bodies of the dead along with the Mongol pony and all its equipage. And they fled from the lands of the Khan. Yet the fact remains that thirteen out of the fourteen armed men would have preferred to die rather than disobey the single murderer who was butchering them.

  How do you defeat that kind of terror? The only way I could imagine was to build a counter mystique to fight it. And to do that, I had to lie to and hoodwink the very men who trusted me most, and to dirty my immortal soul in the process. I think that it never will be clean again. The thing had to be done, but in doing it, I have earned my place in Hell!

  Dawn came up and with the sunrise, we recited our sunrise service, with the prince and the abbot standing silent.

  I then arranged the men along the ridge where their shadows would soon be cast on the fog below us. I asked them to pray to God, to ask Him for some sign that what we were doing was right and just. We waited silently.

  FROM THE DIARY OF PIOTR KULCZYNSKI

  I think that I have never prayed as I prayed that night. God's hand had been upon me as I walked through the fire and it felt as though It stayed there through the night. I think that I was not alone in this, for many about me were on their knees, even my lord Conrad. It was hard to tell in the starlight, but I think I saw tears run down those noble cheeks.

  The dawn came and we recited our vows. Then we were bid to continue our vigil, this time lined up and facing the foggy valley below. We prayed for a sign from God, to know that he blessed our efforts.

  I The sun rose slowly at our backs and the shadows came toward us from the hill beyond. Looking down, I saw my own shadow among the others on the fog below. But mine was different from the others.

  Mine was surrounded by a holy halo! I stared, unable to believe what my eyes were seeing. I raised my hand and waved it to prove to myself that it was my own head that was so mystically adorned, and it was true!
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br />   Beyond all possible doubt, I had been personally, individually and radiantly blessed by God!

  FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD SCHWARTZ

  Conditions were fight. I looked down and saw beams of light radiating from the shadow of my own head. I waited a bit to be sure that the others had time to discover their own halos.

  "Yes, brothers, it is real," I said. "Each of you has been given a halo that only you can see. When Moses went to the mountain and was given by God the Ten Commandments, he saw 'horns of light' coming from his head. What was given to him then is given to you now. Each of you has been blessed by God. Each of you has been made radiant. Our mission and our duty is clear. As a band of brothers, we must train the army that will rid God's world of the plague of Mongols that infests it."

  "Will you stand with me, brothers? Will you join me in this great work? Shall we form the Invincible Order of Radiant Knights to accomplish this God-given task?"

  They were stunned, shocked. Miracles were something that happened to someone else, long ago and far away. But these men had seen themselves walk through fire unharmed, and now they saw halos about their own heads.

  Sir Vladimir was the first to recover.

  "I will stand by you, my lord," he said, taking his place at my left side.

  "And I," said Sir Piotr, his face streaked with tears

  All the others were soon with us, and there wasn't a dry eye among us, for even I was overwhelmed by the emotion of this thing that I myself had conjured up.

  "Then so it shall be, brothers," I said. "On this holy ground, we shall form our order, and I shall knight you all on this spot."

  I knighted the thirty-five students who had not been knighted before, and then Sir Piotr came up.

  "My lord, I think it would be fitting if you knighted me this day."

  "Perhaps it would be, Sir Piotr." I performed the simple ceremony on him. Sir Vladimir and the Banki brothers came up as well, with the same request. They, too, were reknighted.

  Prince Henryk was standing back, undecided. Then suddenly he was on his knees before me.

  "Is it possible, Baron Conrad? Am I worthy to join your order?" he asked as the tears streaked his face.

  "Worthy, my lord? But it is I who serve you!"

  "In status, yes, and that may not change. But you have been blessed by God, and this day so have 1. If you think me worthy, I too would join your order, though my duties will never permit me to go through your school. Tell me, am I worthy?"

  "My lord, you are the most worthy man I have ever met," I said, and I meant it. And so it was that I knighted my own prince.

  "Would that I could join you, too," said Abbot Ignacy, "but my duties and my oath to the Church must forbid it. Yet I would do all in my power to aid you in God's work."

  "This army will need chaplains, Father. Ordained priests who would go through our school, fight at our sides and pray for our souls. If you wished, you could find us such men."

  "I will do so, my son and my lord. Somehow, I will do so."

  Chapter Twenty-four

  We were silent as we headed back, but as we got to the barracks, I called them together and said, "Brothers, our order need not always be a solemn one. Tonight, we will be celebrating your graduation and quite a number of young ladies have accepted my invitation to help us do it. Get some rest now, and fall back in at six o'clock in full-dress uniform. Dismissed!"

  We only had a few spare dress uniforms, but one of them was the right size to fit the prince, and he generally wore one from that time on, as did 1. These were a lot like the uniform worn by the boys at Eagle Nest, except that the colors were reversed. The boys wore white pants and shirt, with a red jacket; we wore red pants and shirt with a white jacket. The brass buttons and epaulets were the same.

  At six, I said, "Brothers! There are a few matters of business to be attended to before we can join the ladies."

  "You have each almost a year's back pay coming. Those of you who were students were paid at a rate of a penny a day, so you will each draw over three hundred pence. As knights, your pay from this day on will be eight pence a day, paid monthly. The instructors will draw their back pay at this rate. From this day on, the Banki brothers will be promoted to knight bannerett, at sixteen pence per day, and Sir Vladimir will be your captain at thirty-two."

  "After the festivities, you will have three weeks leave. I've arranged for each of you to have a horse during your vacation. Please take good care of it. Go home and enjoy yourselves! And when you come back, try to bring a dozen new recruits with you! We'll need them for the next class."

  "One last item! You are all invited to Sir Piotr's wedding tomorrow at Okoitz, so don't get too drunk tonight! Fall out!"

  It was a good party, and I had the feeling that most of my new knights would be married in the near future, or they would if the girls had anything to say about it, and they generally do.

  FROM THE DIARY OF PIOTR KULCZYNSKI

  My love was at my side as the party got under way. I was introducing her to my classmates and in the process saying good-bye to them. Baron Conrad was assigning me to head up a section of mapmakers while they would be back here training new troops. We would meet again, but not soon and not often. It was hard, for we had gone through Hell and Heaven together, and in the doing of it, we had become close.

  I had attended to half of them when a surprise occurred. Coming toward us through the crowd was the lady I had had on the night of my knighting! Suddenly, I felt very awkward, for how does one introduce a lady that one has taken in pleasure to another lady that one is about to marry? Worse yet, I couldn't introduce them, for I still did not know the first lady's name!

  Yet again, she saved me, for she was a gem of courtesy.

  "Piotr Kulczynski., surely you remember little Mary Ponanski that used to live four doors from your father in Okoitz!"

  So at last I knew her name! "Of course I remember the little girl that we used to chase away from the big boys' games! But can it be that that skinny little girl is the charming lady I see before me? Oh ho! A duckling has turned into a swan! But then you must know Krystyana, my bride to be," I said, introducing them.

  We chatted for a while and Mary pouted a bit because she had recognized me and I had not returned the favor.

  "But you are not fair," I said. "Girls change more than boys do, and more pleasantly. But why are you wasting your time with someone who is almost an old married man, when there are so many eligible young knights around?"

  "To find out which one I should be chasing, of course I You know all of these men, Piotr. Tell me, which one is the best?"

  "The best? Well, that's a complicated question! If you mean 'Who is the best mathematician?' you are out of luck, because that's me and I'm already taken. If you mean 'Who has the best taste in women?' well, that's me, too, since I'm getting Krystyana and they are not! But the best man for you? Let me think. Maybe August Poinowski over there. What do you think, Krystyana? Is August handsome enough for our little Mary? I can testify to his character, but it takes a woman to tell if he is good to look at."

  My love said that he was a fine-looking man, so we made the introductions. And you know? Not three weeks went by before Mary and August posted banns to marry in the church!

  It was in this manner that I returned to Mary Ponanski the great favor that she had done for me!

  FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD SCHWARTZ

  Sir Piotr's wedding was well attended, and the weather was so fine that they held the reception outside. While talking to Count Lambert, he suggested that I look up at the sky. I looked. A large, two-place sailplane was circling overhead. The pilot must have found a good thermal above the town, because he kept on circling for hours. So now, in addition to everything else, I had to build an aircraft engine!

  FROM THE DIARY OF PIOTR KULCZYNSKI

  And so it was that on a beautiful spring day in the year 1237 1 married my love Krystyana, and we lived happily ever after, or reasonably so.

  Interlude Fo
ur

  The tape wound to a stop.

  "Good God, what a training program!" I said. "Conrad should have been a practical psychologist instead of being an engineer! And that graduation ceremony! I can't help wondering why armies in the twentieth century didn't use the same techniques."

  "It wouldn't have worked," Tom said. "You must bear in mind that Conrad was working with some very uneducated and naive troops. With a modem education, it takes a pretty weak mind to fall for things like that firewalking stunt. A good modem soldier is a very well educated and superbly well trained specialist. You don't want stupid troops, not when they have to operate some remarkably sophisticated equipment. But given his situation, cousin Conrad did the right thing. I'm proud of the boy."

  "Another thing is that weights and measures system he came up with. I got to working it out during some of the slow parts on the tape."

  "Yeah, I saw you playing with the calculator. Did it myself, the first-time I sat through the thing."

  "Well, it's flat amazing how many numbers work out tight! The way his mile works out at 1728 of his yards, and his pound comes out at one 1728th of a ton, and even his volt and his pint come out right! All at accuracies better than could be measured with medieval instruments! That's almost too many 'gosh numbers' to believe."

  "Well, it wasn't all luck. Conrad was using a base twelve numbering system. It's one of the three natural systems, along with base eight and base sixteen. The ancient Indo-Europeans, our ancestors, used that same base twelve system for many thousands of years, and used it for their own systems of measurements, until some dull person started to count on his fingers and invented the decimal system in the process. A lot of what Conrad was doing was just setting things back to the old, sensible way of doing things."

  "But enough of this. Supper is getting cold, and the girls tell me that they have something special planned for tonight's entertainment. Let's close it up!"