The Sword Brothers

by Peter Darman

There was no pursuit of the enemy. Caupo himself arrived ten minutes later accompanied by his bodyguard, his face gaunt and his eyes black ringed. He had obviously had little sleep since his defeat at the hands of Daugerutis and even the great triumph he had just won could not banish the anguish that obviously haunted him. Conrad stood holding the reins of his horse as the king made his way through the now standing horsemen to reach Master Berthold. The latter bowed his head.

  ‘Greetings, majesty. God has blessed this day with a great victory over the heathen Lithuanians.’

  Caupo half smiled at him. ‘It was dearly bought, my friend. I pray that we do not see its like again.’

  The king saw Rameke and walked over to him, Conrad’s friend going down on one knee before him.

  Caupo lifted him to his feet. ‘Valiant chief. I grieve with you for the loss of your father and brother. Thalibald was my right arm and I miss him greatly.’

  ‘I hope to be as great a servant to your majesty as he was, lord,’ replied Rameke.

  Caupo placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I have no doubt you will be.’

  Berthold invited the king and Master Mathias to Wenden where they could rest their weary bodies. It was now nearly midday and very warm, the horses in their armour and coverings hanging their heads and their riders drenched in sweat. As the euphoria of victory quickly evaporated a raging thirst gripped Conrad and his limbs felt as though they were made of lead. Like the others he took off his helmet and led his horse on foot back to Wenden.

  They passed men lying on the ground, their guts sliced open and their limbs shattered and bloody. They ignored their pitiful cries for help, though Henke did leave the column once to slit the throat of a man whose body was so mangled and twisted that it looked barely human. Conrad was taken back to that dreadful day in Lübeck when his father had been broken on the wheel and shuddered. He hoped that he would never be wounded in battle but would rather have a quick death. He knew that healers such as Ilona could work miracles with their herbs and treatments, but wounds inflicted by swords, lances and axes could rarely be treated. Amputation was often the only solution and then the patient might die from shock and loss of blood. And what sort of life could a man live with only one arm or leg? No, a quick death was infinitely preferable.

  As he trudged along Walter came to his side, looking remarkably fresh after the exertions of battle.

  ‘It gladden me to see you unhurt, Conrad.’ He looked behind at Hans, Anton and Johann. ‘To see you all unhurt. Praise God.’

  ‘You too, Walter,’ said Conrad. ‘That is Brother Walter.’

  ‘You do not need to stand on ceremony with me, Conrad. We came to this land together and have fought side by side ever since. That makes us all brothers, I think.’

  ‘Do you like being here?’ said Conrad.

  Walter’s handsome face wore a smile. ‘Of course. I have found a peace here I thought I would never have. A serenity that calms my soul.’

  Conrad looked at the blood on his surcoat and the arms of his hauberk. In battle he was a remorseless killing machine but was softly spoken and thoughtful when not fighting.

  ‘Do you miss it?’ asked Conrad.

  ‘Miss what?’

  ‘Your former life. You were a Saxon knight from a rich and powerful family. You had everything.’

  Walter sighed. ‘You are correct. I did have everything. Everything that wealth could buy: horses, women, banquets, tournaments and hunting without end. It was a life of selfish indulgence and a life that was devoid of purpose. What profit a man, Conrad, if he gains the world yet loses his soul? No, I do not miss it.

  ‘And what of you, who is earning himself a reputation as a fine soldier? Have you found contentment?’

  They were nearing Wenden’s perimeter wall now and Conrad looked up and saw Daina at the top of one of the towers, the wind that had suddenly appeared ruffling her long locks. She saw Caupo nearing the gates and bowed her head to him. She then saw Conrad and waved at him, causing the others ahead, including the king, to turn their heads to see who she was waving to. Conrad waved back, saw everyone looking at him and blushed.

  ‘I see that you perhaps have found what you are looking for,’ smiled Walter as Berthold frowned at the young novice before walking through the gates beside Caupo. Rudolf smiled and shook his head and Lukas rolled his eyes.

  ‘Daina is a fine young woman,’ continued Walter.

  ‘She is a princess and I am just a penniless novice,’ said Conrad, suddenly struck by the reality of their respective positions.

  Walter dismissed his negative thoughts. ‘I doubt that concerns her so it should not concern you.’

  ‘I know how the world works,’ said Conrad.

  ‘We build a new world here, Conrad, a better world,’ replied Walter. ‘A kingdom of heaven where all things are possible.’

  Walter’s better world presented an awful sight the day after the battle. The civilian families were moved back to their huts but the Liv women and children were not allowed to return to their homes for fear they would be attacked by the thousands of Lithuanians who had fled the battle but who were still at large. Far from home and leaderless, Caupo assumed they would head south to cross over the Dvina to reach their homelands, but some might remain in Livonia to become bandits living in the forests. He therefore dispatched a thousand men to give chase, reinforced by the surviving brother knights and sergeants from Kremon and Wenden. Conrad had hoped that he would be allowed to partake in the expedition but Lukas informed him and the other novices that they had more onerous duties to attend to.

  ‘Burying the dead,’ he grinned, ‘or rather throwing them on pyres. Godly work, boys, godly work.’

  It may have been godly work but it was also stomach churning, the face masks they wore proving no deterrent to the disgusting stench that invaded their nostrils as they loaded decaying Lithuanians onto carts to be consigned to great pyres that had sprung up on the land to the south of the castle. Leather face and his crossbowmen had been detailed to assist the burial parties.

  Hans grabbed the feet of a Lithuanian who had been killed by a crossbow bolt a hundred paces from the gates, the quarrel having pierced the man’s mail armour and gone into his heart. The blood from the wound had long since turned black and the body was bloated with noxious gases.

  ‘Careful Hans,’ said Conrad, grabbing the corpse’s wrists, ‘we don’t want to drop it and release the gases.’

  ‘It already stinks foul,’ said Hans, climbing from the side of the ditch where the body had rested for several days.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Conrad, ‘but if you get any of his insides on you it could be fatal.’

  They had gingerly moved the corpses a few feet from the ditch, the two-wheeled cart hitched to a pony twenty paces away, when leather face came bounding over.

  ‘Hold on boys, not so fast.’

  He gestured for them to put the corpse down.

  ‘It has to go on the cart,’ said Conrad irritably.

  ‘And it will, just need a little look first.’

  ‘For what?’ queried Hans.

  Leather face knelt bedside the corpse and whipped out a set of pliers from a pocket in his leggings. He picked up one of the hands.

  ‘You remember that first attack against the walls and the enemy horsemen around that great banner they had?’

  He jammed a finger that had a ring on it between the pliers’ side cutters and squeezed them. There was a loud crunch as he severed the finger.

  ‘Well,’ continued leather face, ‘you might not have noticed, being godly and sworn to a life of poverty and all that, but those horsemen were lords and chiefs and men of some wealth.’

  He pulled the ring off the severed finger and placed it in a small leather pouch that hung from his belt, casting the limb aside.

  ‘And men of wealth like to wear things of value,’ said leather face, lifting the dead man’s mail shirt to see if there was a pouch underneath.

  Conrad shook his head and pulled down
his mask.

  ‘You rob the dead?’

  Leather face stood up. ‘Now don’t you get so high and mighty. I have been a mercenary for more years than I care to remember and all I’ve got to show for it is a bent back and a few scars. They ain’t going to buy me that little ale house back in Germany so I can live out my dotage in peace.’

  He walked over to another corpse, this one wearing a red cloak in addition to mail armour and leather boots. He pulled off the boots and then rummaged through the blood-crusted clothes, whooping with joy when he yanked a pouch from the leather belt. He opened it and examined the contents before emptying them into his own pouch.

  ‘Rewards of the job,’ he beamed. ‘And Lord knows there aren’t many of those in my line of work. You can get back to burning them, now.’

  He moved on to the other corpses they had been ordered to haul away to the pyres, and Conrad noticed that the other mercenaries were also examining the dead and stripping them of anything of value.

  It took two days to dispose of the dead, the funeral pyres burning day and night as fuel and corpses were thrown on them. The dreadful smell of roasting flesh permeated the air over the castle and the surrounding area. Caupo had brought nearly five thousand men to Wenden and a thousand had fallen during the relief assault. They had to be buried too and so a thousand of their comrades dug a great burial pit half a mile north of the castle where the bodies were interred according to the Christian faith. Otto told Conrad that it was appropriate that the bodies of dead pagans should be burned as they were going to hell anyway where they would burn for all eternity.

  Leather face and his fellow mercenaries deposited their ill-gotten gains in the armoury and Caupo departed with his warriors. Word arrived from Master Bertram at Segewold that the Lithuanians besieging his castle had mysteriously vanished, the patrols he had despatched to discover their whereabouts having returned with news that they were marching south at speed, no doubt having heard of Caupo’s defeat of Daugerutis at Wenden. No one knew if they would encounter the Livs and Sword Brothers that had been sent after the Lithuanians who had fled from Wenden. Conrad cursed his luck that he would miss the great slaughter that Rudolf, Henke and Lukas would take part in when they finally caught up with the enemy. He was even glummer when Rameke took his people, including Daina, back to his village south of Wenden to begin his new life as their chief. The castle suddenly seemed vast and empty as he and the other novices went back to their duties and the workers went back to their building work.

  *****

  It had been four days since Stecse had left his lord at Wenden to take the Liv chief and his son across the Dvina. He had tried to be civil to Thalibald and Waribule but they made it plain that they had no time for politeness or conversation, grunting one-word replies to his questions and avoiding his eyes. After two days of their insolence he had grown tired of their company and rode at the head of his column of men, alongside his son whose company he found infinitely more agreeable. Even though he had only seen thirteen summers Mindaugas was growing into a fine young man. He had brought him on campaign because he had wanted him to witness the great Lithuanian invasion of Livonia. He also wanted him to see the sights and sounds of war as part of the preparation to become a warlord. He had taken no part in the fighting at Lake Inesis, Stecse having assigned a bodyguard to ensure he stayed out of danger, but his son had shown no fear in the face of the enemy. Soon he would be ready to kill with his own sword.

  The frosts had disappeared now and the days were pleasant, though the nights still cool. The vast forests of birch, spruce and pine were alive with red foxes, elk, lynx, deer, wild boar and marten. The few settlements they had come across had been deserted, the inhabitants having fled into the forest with their food and belongings to wait until the invaders had passed.

  They would take refuge in their sacred groves deep in the forest where oaks believed to be possessed by the spirits of the gods would protect them. Stecse smiled to himself; the crusaders believed that they had eradicated the old religion but they were wrong. Beliefs over a thousand years old would not disappear overnight.

  ‘Is this land now Lithuanian, father?’ enquired Mindaugas beside him.

  ‘To all intents and purposes, yes.’

  ‘And will we live here when the war has ended?’

  ‘It will be for the grand duke to decide, my son.’

  ‘What will the Livs do?’ said Mindaugas.

  ‘They will obey, like all beaten peoples. That is the way of the world.’

  ‘What of the crusaders?’

  ‘What of them? They are few and we are many. The grand duke has planned this war well. By the time they arrive their castles will have fallen and Riga itself will be besieged. They will lose heart when they see that the kingdom they have created has crumbled.’

  ‘I have heard that the god they worship was executed by his enemies,’ said Mindaugas. ‘If that is true, why do they follow such a weak god?’

  ‘The one who was executed was the son of their god and was called the Christ,’ Stecse corrected him. ‘I do not have knowledge of their religion but I believe that they fight to avenge his death.’

  ‘What is the father of this Christ called?’

  Stecse shrugged. ‘He has no name, he is just their god.’

  Mindaugas was silent for a few seconds. ‘It is a strange religion.’

  Stecse nodded. ‘They are a strange people. They seek to convert all peoples to their religion, either peacefully or by the sword. That is why they send armies to this land every year. That is why they are called crusaders.’

  ‘The Lithuanian people would never abandon their gods,’ said Mindaugas defiantly. ‘How did the son of their god, this Christ, die?’

  ‘He was crucified, I believe,’ answered Stecse.

  ‘A criminal’s death,’ sneered Mindaugas. He looked behind to where Thalibald and Waribule rode on their horses. ‘No wonder Caupo and his men were beaten so easily following such a weak god. Only the strong deserve to triumph.’

  The quiet of the afternoon was interrupted by the appearance of four riders from the rear who galloped up to the head of the column, their horses sweating and breathing heavily, their riders agitated and fretful. They wore no armour save helmets and round shields, spisas and axes their weapons. The scouts brought their horses to a halt beside Stecse who gave the order to stop.

  The commander raised his hand. ‘Crusaders approaching, lord.’

  ‘Crusaders?’ said Stecse. ‘From where?’

  ‘I do not know, lord. They approach from the west,’ replied the sweating leader. ‘Many horse and foot.’

  ‘How many?’ asked Stecse.

  ‘Five, six hundred, lord.’

  ‘How far are they away?’

  ‘Two miles at most, lord.’

  Stecse looked back at his men. He had five hundred well-armed and equipped riders. They were in open ground on an old track that meandered its way between two great forests, with a hundred paces of meadow each side of the track before the trees began. If he made a stand here his men could not be outflanked. On the other hand the crusaders probably had crossbowmen among their ranks and he had seen what these weapons could do at Kokenhusen. He also had his orders, which were to get his captives across the Dvina.

  ‘We will continue on to the Dvina,’ he ordered.

  ‘We will not fight the crusaders?’ said a surprised Mindaugas.

  ‘We do not know how many they number,’ replied Stecse. ‘And my priority is to get the prisoners back across the river.’

  ‘But father…’ protested Mindaugas.

  Stecse held up a hand to quieten him, then looked around with concern. It was suddenly eerily still and he sensed something was wrong. During their journey they had seen many birds and had surprised deer among the trees and in the meadows, occasionally disturbing a black stork by a stretch of water. But now there was nothing.

  A twig snapped and Stecse instinctively grabbed his son’s arm and pulled him from
the saddle. A succession of thwacks came from the trees and two of the scouts were struck in the back by crossbow bolts, pitching them forward onto the necks of their horses before they fell from the saddle.

  ‘Ambush!’ screamed Stecse as the other two scouts brought up their shields to protect themselves from the lethal hail that was being shot from the trees. Stecse’s horse screamed in pain as it was hit by bolts and collapsed, writhing in agony. He grabbed his shield lying on the ground and forced his son behind it.

  ‘Stay here,’ he ordered.

  Mindaugas went to protest but a bolt struck the rim of the shield and stopped only inches from his face.

  Stecse grabbed the reins of his son’s horse before it bolted and used it as a shield as he called to his men.

  ‘Clear them from the trees.’

  Horns were already sounding as the first score of riders galloped forward and charged the treeline, spisas held above their heads ready to throw. Crossbow bolts cut half down before they got to within fifty paces of the forest but the others managed to reach the trees and launch their missiles. Then came another fifty riders that charged into the trees, throwing their long spears before attempting to kill the crossbowmen with their swords. But it was costly work and another fifteen Lithuanians fell before the ambushers were silenced.

  Stecse hauled himself into the saddle of a dead scout’s horse and rode to the trees on the right side of the meadow from where the ambush had been sprung. Mindaugas regained his saddle and followed his father. The commander who had led the charge saluted. Shouts and screams were coming from within the forest.

  ‘Recall your men,’ ordered Stecse. ‘There might be more of them approaching. No point in losing soldiers for no reason.’

  The commander saluted and pointed at his signaller who raised the horn to his lips and blew it twice. Stecse looked at the body of a dead crossbowman a few paces away, his conical helmet with nasal guard his only protection, his simple green tunic ripped where a spisa had pierced his chest.

  ‘We should send men into the forest to hunt them down,’ spat Mindaugas, still discomfited by his close shave with death.