Conrad Starguard-The Radiant Warrior

by Leo Frankowski

  "Then why did he get up and fight? He must have known that he couldn't win."

  "He got up because he was too angry to think straight. You saw what I did to him. A Florentine Flick to brush off his lance, and then I took him down with the Club of Hercules. I wouldn't have dared try those on another pro, and by using them on him, I showed him up for the buffoon that he is. Yet I can always claim that my attack was designed to not injure him, which it didn't. As to the subsequent face injury, why that was a single blow, and who is to say how well his helmet was made?"

  "So you set it up to satisfy all parties and keep your own nose clean."

  "Of course, Sir Conrad. There's more to this business than meets the eye. Anyway, that dog turd was trying to throw a widow and child off their lands. He got less than he deserved. But that's not what you came to see me about. You're worried about meeting Sir Adolf next Christmas."

  "Who? And when?" I said.

  "They haven't told you yet? I guess that's only to be expected. The concerned party is always the last to know. It's been bandied around the circuit for weeks, so I'll tell you about it. Just act surprised when you hear about it officially, since the heralds like to think that what they do is important. The short of it is that on the third day before Christmas, you will meet on the field at Okoitz with the Crossman Champion, Sir Adolf, in a fight to the death, with no quarter allowed. He's going to kill you, so your best bet is to sell what you can and run away. That's my advice and it's well worth the twelve pence you're going to pay me."

  "If I run away, a hundred forty-two children will be sold into slavery. I can't allow that."

  "Those poor bastards are going to be sold in Constantinople whether you're a live coward or a dead hero. You don't look to be a starry-eyed fool, of the sort who memorizes the 'Song of Roland' and bores people with it at parties. You're a sensible man. Do the sensible thing and run."

  "Sir Boleslaw, I tell you I can't. But look here. If this Sir Adolf is so good, why can't I hire a champion as well? I'm not a poor widow. I can afford the best!"

  "No, you can't, because the best will be fighting against you. All the rest of us are inferior to Sir Adolf, and we know it. This is a rough business. A fool doesn't survive long in it, and neither do the suicidal. There's not enough money in Christendom to pay me or anyone else to go up against him in a fight to the death. What good would money do me in hell? Because that's exactly where suicides go, and fighting Sir Adolf is straightforward self-destruction! Run away."

  "Okay. Thank you for the advice. But I didn't come here for advice, I came here for a fighting lesson."

  "As you will, Sir Conrad. But it's a waste of time."

  He picked up a pair of wooden practice swords and we went outside. We were both already in armor, and that was all the athletic equipment required.

  "I trust that fighting afoot will satisfy you, Sir Conrad, since my charger is being rubbed down and won't be ready for hours."

  I said that this would be fine. We sparred around for a while, and I could tell that he was pulling his blows, as one would do with an amateur, and all the while pointing out various shortcomings in my style. But despite the pulled blows, I was still receiving a serious bruising while I don't think I got a good one in on him.

  "Your swordwork isn't bad, if a bit slow," he said at last.

  "I'm used to a lighter sword."

  "More the fool, you. But your real problem is in your shieldwork. The shield is even more important than the sword, since you can make a mistake with the sword and live. That doesn't often happen with the shield. We'll work on it a bit."

  I received a further bruising while he kept yelling about how slow I was. I got to anticipating his blows, but that didn't satisfy him either.

  "No, stupid! You're covering your eyes too soon! You don't even know what I could be doing!"

  "So what else could you do?" I yelled back.

  "I could do this!"

  * * *

  I awoke some hours later, still stretched out on the ground. My helmet had been removed and a pillow put under my head. A horse blanket was stretched over me. I groaned.

  One of Sir Boleslaw's squires got up from the stool where he'd been waiting.

  "Sir Boleslaw told me that he still feels that your most sensible route is to run away, but that if you must fight, your only hope is to defeat Sir Adolf with your lance, since you have no hope with sword and shield.

  "He also asked me to remind you that you owe him twelve pence."

  I got up, paid the kid, and rode back to Three Walls in the afternoon.

  * * *

  A Herald from Duke Henryk arrived. The Trial with the Crossmen had been Arranged. I was to be In Arms on the Field of Honor at Okoitz at Noon, Three Days Before Christmas. I was to have All Property Seized in the Affray with me, including The Slaves.

  The guy was actually able to talk with capital letters. He even kept it up when he was off-duty, all the way through supper. The girls were not impressed. We gave him one of the spare huts for the night, but I'm pretty sure he slept alone.

  Still, the duke had gotten me a longer stay of execution than I had expected.

  I'd been trying to spend at least an hour a day talking to Anna, though often I couldn't spare that much time. It was fascinating to talk to a member of an alien species.

  She was very fuzzy about her ancestry. She was definitely of the seventh generation since the creation of her species, yet she always talked about her ancestors in the first person, as though she had been the first one created. She was perfectly capable of using second and third person with regard to everyone except her direct ancestors. Furthermore, she always used the feminine forms on them, never the masculine. I couldn't figure it out.

  In most ways she was simple, down to Earth. She had no interest in philosophy, nor could she see why anyone would. Mathematics beyond simple arithmetic, theology beyond the simplest moral rules, scientific theory or anything else the least bit cerebral were completely uninteresting and totally beyond her.

  Yet she was by no means stupid. Given a practical problem, she never failed to come up with a practical solution. A case in point:

  U KENT PUT LENS EN HOL, she spelled out. Her spelling was as atrocious as she had warned it would be. Furthermore, it never improved.

  "I can't put the lance in the hole," I agreed. "Yes, that about sums up the main problem."

  I KEN.

  "You can skewer the quintain? Anna, you don't have hands. How could you hold a lance?"

  PUT HUK EN SADL. PUT HUK EN BRYDL. PUT BRYDL EN ME. PUT LENS EN 2 HUK. I PUT LENS EN HOL.

  "You think you can? We'll try it girl! I'll have the saddler work up those hooks right now. I bet he can have it done by morning. Good night, Anna, and thanks for the idea."

  We were on the practice field half an hour before Sir Vladimir. We tried out Anna's idea, and it worked, every time. She was as deft with a lance as Sir Vladimir.

  Furthermore, her guiding the lance left my right hand free to do other things, like having my sword drawn and hidden by my shield. If Anna's lancework didn't get the bastard, I'd be there a half second later with my sword!

  We were practicing this double-hitter plan, striking the top of the post with the flat of my sword after Anna threaded the shield, as Sir Vladimir came out. He watched us dumbfounded.

  "Sir Conrad, I can scarcely believe that you are finally scoring on the quintain. Getting in a swordstroke besides is—is fabulous! How—?"

  So I explained Anna's idea to him. Sir Vladimir had taken Anna's spelling-out of words in stride, as if it was only to be expected. Any horse who could run the way she could had to be magic, and after that anything was possible, even probable. Furthermore, Annastashia had been teaching him to write. His spelling was about the same as Anna's, so it looked all right to him.

  He scratched his chin. "I don't think it's illegal, but I wouldn't brag about the tactics you plan to use."

  "Right. This is my secret weapon!"

 
"Well, in all events you seem to have it down pat, so let's get into some of the fine points of the lance . . ."

  * * *

  The weeks drifted by. It was a brisk fall day and the carpenters were assembling the combination outer wall–apartment house.

  We had strung two hefty ropes from the tops of the cliffs on either side of the entrance to the valley. A framework was hung on wheels between the ropes and a system of ropes, pulleys, and winches allowed eight men aloft to use the framework like an overhead bridge crane. It gave us a "skyhook" over the entire construction area, and things were going up pretty fast. After months of preparation, when it seemed to the men that nothing was getting done, suddenly we had almost a quarter of our future home up in a single day. The happy mood was infectious.

  Count Lambert and a retinue of a dozen knights arrived in the late afternoon.

  "Count Lambert, welcome, my lord!" I was on the top of the building, seven stories above him. I signaled the crane operators, who quickly lowered me to the ground.

  "Hello, Sir Conrad. Dog's blood, but that looked like fun! May I try it?"

  "If you wish, my lord, I'll have them take us both to the top." Six men running in a huge hamster cage high above soon got us to the top. All of the foundations were visible from up there, and I pointed out where the church would go, and the inn and the icehouse, and the sauna.

  "You're making good progress, Sir Conrad. In another year or two, this will be a fine town."

  "Another year, my lord? These buildings will all be up in three weeks."

  "Impossible! Not even you could accomplish that."

  "Another wager, my lord? Say twenty muleloads of your cloth against forty loads of my bricks and mortar?" I'd never bet money with Lambert again, but somehow he saw goods and services in a different light.

  "Done! You'll be making bricks then?"

  "Yes. We found clay in the old mine, and we'll be building brick ovens as soon as we get our living arrangements set up. We've also found a seam of iron ore, and by spring I hope to be producing iron in decent quantities."

  "My boy, you won't be alive in the spring. You won't be alive on Christmas. Have you forgotten your trial?"

  "No, my lord. But I'm going to win."

  "Your faith is touching. What's that big round stone hole?"

  "That will be our icehouse, my lord. Actually, it will be three buildings, one inside another. The circular stone wall you see will be decked over and used as a dance floor. It will have a roof over it but no sides.

  "A second building, four yards smaller in diameter and three yards shorter will be built inside of it, completely underground. The space between them will be filled with sawdust and wood chips, a fair insulator.

  "The third building will be inside the second, and will be six yards smaller and six shorter than it. Here, the space between will be packed with snow this winter. I calculate that this much snow should take more than a year to melt. We'll have fresh vegetables well into the winter and cold beer all summer long."

  "Still, that's a vast hole."

  "Sixteen yards deep, my lord, and thirty-six across."

  When we got down, I had Krystyana scurry off to the kitchens and see what could be done about something special for supper, and I told Natalia to spread the word among all the young ladies that if any of them wanted to spend the night with a real count or one of his knights, now was the time to get fancied up for a dance. She certainly knew his tastes.

  As we went to supper Count Lambert said, "All the tables are the same height. Which is for us?"

  "They're a convenient height for eating, my lord. It is my custom here that all should eat the same food, and off the same tables. It's handy. I often tell my men at dinner what they will be doing the next day. I find that they work better if they've had time to think it out. As to where you should eat, well, eat wherever the lion sleeps."

  "And where does the lion sleep?"

  "Anywhere he wants to, my lord. Who would argue with a lion?"

  That got a laugh, and Count Lambert settled into a side table. One of the joys of the thirteenth century was that the oldest, tiredest jokes were fresh leg-slappers.

  The usual thirteenth-century dinner table was wide enough for only one person. People sat on one side and the servants walked on the other. My tables were the twentieth century norm, and there were no servants at Three Walls.

  Krystyana hadn't thought to assign anyone to pretend they were servants, and Natalia's band of hopefuls was out scrubbing down and making themselves presentable.

  We normally ate cafeteria-style, with attendants at the meat, beer, and anything-expensive counters, and help yourself at everything else. Now the workers were going through the line and some were eating, while my liege lord was waiting to be served.

  I didn't know how to solve the problem, so I asked my boss. "My lord, may I ask you to clear up a point of courtesy? If the customs of a vassal are different from the customs of his liege lord, whose customs should be followed?"

  "That depends on where they are, Sir Conrad. At the liege lord's manor, the vassal should punctiliously follow the customs of his lord. When on the vassal's estates, the liege lord should follow his vassal's customs unless these are offensive to him. In that case, the lord should so inform the vassal, and the vassal should in courtesy do as his liege lord wishes, at least while the liege lord is around."

  "Thank you, my lord. You see, in my land we do not have servants except at an inn. I am not used to having personal servants, and prefer to do without them. What I am trying to say is that I don't have anybody trained to serve you properly. Would you be offended if I asked you to get your own food, as I normally do? Or shall I ask some of the ladies to serve us, even though they'll probably botch the job."

  "I was wondering when you were going to offer us something to eat! I can't see where a walk across the room will hurt me or mine in the least." We took cuts at the head of the chow line, of course. Rank hath some privileges, even at Three Walls.

  Back at the table, Count Lambert said, "So you always eat the same food as your peasants?"

  "That is my custom, my lord."

  "Remarkable. And you always feed them this good?"

  "I'm afraid not. We usually have one meat dish at supper, and none at dinner. It is unusual for us to have ham, venison, and bison at the same meal. Krystyana is in charge of our kitchen and I suspect that, in your honor, she cooked all the meat we had.

  "We're not at all self-sufficient in food here, and about the only meat we get is what the hunters bring in. I plan to bring sheep to these hills, but that's a long-term project."

  "You'll find ewes to be very cheap. To increase my supply of raw wool for my mills, I have forbidden the slaughter of any ewe less than ten years old, or the selling of them outside my lands. Many are complaining that they cannot possibly feed them through the winter, but I'm not going to relent. If they have to find a way, they will."

  "Perhaps I can help, my lord. For three months, I've had a small flock of sheep eating nothing but fresh pine needles. It's not their favorite food, but none of them have starved."

  "Interesting, but it must be a great deal of work, cutting that many branches."

  "Less than you'd think, my lord. You have to cut the tops off trees to fell the really big ones. I plan to keep my four topmen going all winter, and I calculate that they should be able to keep a thousand sheep alive."

  "You must show me your ways at cutting trees."

  "First thing in the morning, my lord. In about a month, I'm planning to have a big Mongol-style hunt. Perhaps you and your knights would like to join us."

  "A Mongol hunt? I thought you hated Mongols."

  "I do. But that doesn't mean that I can't learn from them."

  "Indeed. How do the Mongols hunt?"

  "They surround the biggest area they can with all their men, and since that can be as many as a million, the area can be as big as all Poland. Then they beat the bushes, working inward, being careful to l
et no animal out, but not killing any either. They might spend weeks driving all of the beasts to a central enclosure. Then, under the eyes of their leader, their Kakhan, they slaughter every single animal in what amounts to a major battle.

  "I don't plan anything so big or so thorough. We'll release all the female deer, bison, and other large herbivores, as well as the young and one-sixth of the males. We have to make sure that there will be game next year.

  "Dangerous animals—wolves, bears, wild boar, and so on—will all be killed. I don't want them in my woods, hurting my people. The smaller animals—rabbits, birds, and the like, well, we'll miss so many of those in the round up that I don't think we have to worry about future generations."

  "I like it. I'll come. You'll build this enclosure large enough for the kill to be sporting?"

  "I'm building it right now. I plan to run them right through the main gates of Three Walls. All the area beyond will be our killing ground. My thought was to distribute one-sixth of the meat to the noblemen who participated, a twelfth to any peasants not living at Three Walls, and to keep the rest to feed my people here. Do you think that would be fair?"

  "Very. I think most knights might have more than they could carry back, unless they brought pack mules, and that would be impolite. You'd be expected to provide a feast before and after the hunt, of course. You mention other peasants. Whose?"

  "Well, there are Sir Miesko's people and my own yeomen, my lord, and—"

  "That's something I wanted to talk to you about. Were there really twenty-seven squatters on my land when I gave it to you?"

  "It appears so, my lord."

  "Dog's blood!" he swore. "There must be hundreds on my other lands! How the devil am I going to flush them all out?"

  "Why not do what I did, my lord? Turn a liability into an asset. Swear them in as yeomen, take less from them than you would from a peasant, and give them less as well. You'll get something where you got nothing before, and they get the peace of mind of knowing that they are legitimate and have certain legal protections."

  "An interesting thought. I'll think on it. But how the devil do I contact them to make my offer?"