Army of the Wolf

by Peter Darman

  ‘Idiots,’ he mumbled.

  Elze looked up. ‘Father?’

  He smiled at his youngest daughter. ‘Nothing. Have you moved yet?’

  Her face creased into a frown. ‘Not yet.’

  The fire hissed and a coal shot out of the hearth onto the thick carpets spread over the floor. Immediately one of the females sprang forward, knelt down and carefully brushed the coal into a pan, mumbling prayers as she did so before returning it to the fire. Vsevolod sighed and shook his head in despair. How long would he have to endure living among these people?’

  Elze tossed her long red hair and moved one of the pieces carved from walrus ivory. ‘You do not seem to be in a good mood, father.’

  That was an understatement. He smiled thinly at her.

  ‘Surely our great victory has filled you with cheer?’ she continued.

  ‘What great victory would that be?’ he enquired, already knowing the answer.

  She frowned again. ‘The Semgallian victory over the Bishop of Riga, of course. Mindaugas told me that it was the first time that an army led by the bishop had been forced to withdraw and that we should all give thanks to Perkunas for our great victory.’

  Perkunas was the Lithuanian God of Thunder and it alarmed him that his daughter should hold with such nonsense. But then, she was her mother’s daughter and Rasa, his wife, had always declared her intention of following her own gods before they had been married. Though he was officially a follower of the Orthodox religion he had little time for priests or church rituals. Indeed, where had the Orthodox Church been when the Sword Brothers had stormed his city and made him homeless? Looking after its own interests. He looked down at the chessboard and reflected that the movement of the pieces was like the ebb and flow of his own fortunes during the year just passed. His machinations in Aukstaitija had bore fruit when Coloman, ruler of the Russian kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia, had launched a campaign of retaliation against Duke Kitenis’ lands. This had prompted the latter appealing to Vsevolod for help, which was duly given, Aras sending a few raiding parties deep into Galicia-Volhynia, though only to keep his general happy. Coloman, alarmed that he was embroiled in a war that would have no end, gladly accepted Vsevolod’s olive branch of long-term peace in return for the ceding of some borderlands to Aukstaitija. The subsequent meeting between Coloman and a score of Lithuanian leaders had been seen as a triumph throughout Lithuania. Vsevolod, though the prime agent of the whole enterprise, did not attend. In Lithuanian eyes he would always be ‘the Russian’ and therefore distrusted. So he sent Aras and Mindaugas who put their names to the treaty, as did Duke Butantas of the Samogitians, Duke Gedvilas of the Southern Kurs and the leader of the Aukstaitijans, Duke Kitenis. Through his cunning and patience did Vsevolod thus draw the Aukstaitijans, Samogitians and Southern Kurs into his camp, and then he received news that made him believe that God was truly smiling on him: Duke Vincentas was dead.

  He had been alarmed when a letter from Duke Arturus, leader of the Northern Kurs, had informed him that the Semgallians were receiving military aid from Riga and even more concerned when the Bishop of Riga and the Sword Brothers crossed the Dvina at the head of a crusader army to fight beside Vincentas. But then Aras sent him word that the duke had been killed in some sort of altercation with the crusaders. Leaderless, it seemed likely that the Semgallians could be subdued with ease, perhaps even enlisted as allies against the Christians who had basely murdered their lord. But then another courier arrived from Aras telling him that one of Vincentas’ warlords, a man named Viesthard, had rallied the Semgallians and forced the crusaders to retreat back across the Dvina.

  Vsevolod looked at the fire. The Semgallian flame had been on the verge of being extinguished but this Viesthard had caused it to flare up again. He had done what no one had done – defeated a crusader army – and his fame and prestige spread like a wildfire. Duke Butantas, previously a cautious observer of events to the north of his kingdom, pledged Samogitian support for the Semgallians, as did the Aukstaitijans and the Southern Kurs. Thus was all Vsevolod’s careful, patient work undone.

  He took one of Elze’s pieces. ‘Time will determine whether it was a great victory. But for the moment we must reflect on what will happen in the spring when the snow melts and the Dvina is free of ice.’

  Elze saw with dismay that she was suddenly losing the game as her father manoeuvred his pieces into a strong position.

  ‘The Bishop of Riga and the Sword Brothers will not take kindly to being humiliated by the Semgallians,’ he continued. ‘They will cross the Dvina once more.’

  ‘Then they will be defeated once more,’ said Elze enthusiastically, moving a piece on the board.

  Vsevolod studied the board and took his move, further reducing the number of his daughter’s pieces in play.

  ‘Do you hate the Sword Brothers, father?’ she said suddenly.

  ‘I believe they are immoral in their religion and greedy in their insatiable desire for lands that belong to others,’ he replied. ‘But to counter their malign influence and expansion means that I cannot afford the luxury of hating them. I must keep a clear head at all times and cannot allow my emotions to rule me.’

  ‘Mindaugas hates them. Morta told me.’

  ‘Mindaugas is young and has not yet learned to temper his anger on the anvil of reason,’ said Vsevolod.

  Elze made her move. ‘He has promised to destroy the Sword Brothers.’

  Vsevolod took the piece. ‘Checkmate. You must learn patience, Elze, if you are to become accomplished at this game, as you should learn patience in life generally. Words are cheap but like the moves in this game’s actions must be carefully considered before they are implemented. When rulers lose the results can be truly calamitous.’

  ‘The Bishop of Riga has lost, has he not?’

  Vsevolod leaned back in his chair and waved over a servant to take away the chess board and pieces.

  ‘He has lost a battle but not the war. And as long as his master, the heretic pope in Rome, sends him men to fight at his behest he will carry on waging war upon us, as the great hero of Semgallia, Viesthard, will discover.’

  *****

  The Danes stayed on the northern side of the Pala for a few days but withdrew back north when it became clear that the Army of the Wolf was not shifting from its position across the river. Every day the two armies arrayed in their positions on both sides of the river but neither initiated hostilities. It also rained every day, drenching men and horses as they stood and shivered in the autumn gloom. On the fourth day King Valdemar sent a herald with a message for Conrad that he would be excommunicated from the Holy Church once the king had contacted the pope and informed His Holiness of the insolence of the Marshal of Estonia. Then the Danes retreated from the meadow and marched back north to Reval. They left behind their dead that had been given a Christian burial: the common soldiers interred in a large pit and the nobles in single graves. Conrad sent a rider under a flag of truce to catch up with Valdemar’s army to inform the king that the resting places of his fallen would be treated with respect.

  ‘That won’t save you from excommunication,’ said Anton as they rode back to Wenden on a cold, clammy afternoon.

  Conrad pulled his cloak around him in a vain attempt to stave off the cool damp that seemed to infuse his every fibre.

  ‘At least the fires of hell will keep me warm,’ he replied.

  Despite having stopped the Danes at the Pala and given Valdemar a bloody nose a cloud of depression hung over him. He and his two friends had been shaken to the core by the loss of Johann, who had been with them since they had first taken ship to Livonia over nine years before. There were five of them then, all frightened boys who had no idea what to expect as they travelled to Wenden to become novices. They had trained and fought together, Bruno being killed before their instruction had been completed. By a strange quirk of fate all the remaining four had become brother knights of their order, fighting the pagans in Estonia and Lithuania without s
uffering any injury, aside from Johann breaking an ankle at the siege of Lehola. Conrad stared at the cart in front of them carrying the body of their friend wrapped in a shroud, his weapons and armour packed next to it. He felt angry and frustrated. Angry because after all the fighting Johann had been involved in his life had ended after being hit by a crossbow bolt shot by a Christian crusader, frustrated because he wanted revenge against the Duke of Schwerin whose men had been responsible for his friend’s death. But he had been able to do nothing as the Danes withdrew north. He would have liked to have pursued them, snapping at their heels and accepting battle if they halted and offered it to them. But Sir Richard reminded him that he had a responsibility to his order and the bishop to protect Livonia’s northern border, not embark upon a revenge mission. And so here he was, his prestige high among the Army of the Wolf and his spirits laid low. Anton and Hans also rode with their heads cast down for they felt the loss of Johann as keenly as he did.

  ‘He will be happy being buried at Wenden,’ said Hans.

  ‘He will have Bruno for company,’ added Anton.

  ‘Friends should be buried together,’ agreed Conrad.

  ‘It won’t be the same without him,’ said Hans forlornly.

  They sank into silence and quiet sadness as their horses walked through the mud. The day grew more overcast when the clouds above darkened and the rain continued to fall steadily. After the Danes had withdrawn the various Estonian contingents had dispersed: Kalju back to Odenpah with his Ungannians and the Saccalians back to their hamlets and villages. Sir Richard and his knights and squires garrisoned Lehola and half his wolf shields were sent to Fellin to guard that stronghold. Marching with Conrad and his two friends were Andres and his five hundred Jerwen and Hillar leading three hundred Rotalians. Apart from the drivers of the two-wheeled carts the rest of the Estonians rode ponies, which meant that when they arrived at Wenden food and fodder would have to be provided for the men and animals of the Army of the Wolf.

  In addition to the Rotalians and Jerwen, Conrad’s force also contained thirty wolf shields commanded by Tonis, who had asked Peeter for permission to ride back to Wenden. Conrad had sent word ahead to Master Rudolf that he had turned back the Danes and was also bringing a sizeable number of warriors back with him. They included Kaja, who had begged Conrad to be allowed to stay with his army, though the other women who had carried a spear when they had fought the Cumans and Russians had elected to remain in Saccalia.

  ‘You and Ilona are my only friends, Susi,’ she had told him with sad eyes. ‘I have no family and am all alone in the world.’

  It was a lie, of course, and Tonis had told him that many among his warriors wanted to make a wife of the blonde-haired beauty who fought as fiercely as any man, had a sharp mind and a shapely figure. She had been a simple village girl but cruel fate had intervened to change the path her life would take, though Conrad had no idea what that path would be. However, her immediate route was more certain after Conrad had arrived back at Wenden and his army had once more made camp on the flat ground to the south of the castle. Because winter was approaching Master Rudolf insisted that he send his warriors into the forests to hunt to provide meat that could be preserved for the cold weeks that lay ahead. He also sent out leather face and his crossbowmen to support this great meat-gathering exercise, the archers and crossbowmen slaughtering a great number of deer, bear, elk, boar, wolves and foxes. The castle and its grounds stank of flesh and blood for days as the carcasses were skinned and the meat smoked. The lakes and River Gauja were also fished to supplement meat stocks.

  Conrad walked with Kaja from Ilona’s hut where she had once more been housed to the training field, where brother knights practised jousting on horseback, sergeants shot crossbow bolts at straw targets and Brother Lukas stood in front of a dozen novices with a sword in his hand. Now in his forties, Lukas still had broad shoulders, thick arms and a powerful neck and looked exactly the same when a nervous young novice named Conrad Wolff had first stood before him with a wooden sword in his hand. Lukas saw the pair approaching.

  ‘So,’ he called, ‘come to sharpen your sword skills, Brother Conrad?’

  Conrad told Kaja to stand by the novice on the right of the line as he stepped forward and offered his hand to Lukas.

  ‘They do not need sharpening, brother, for I had a master tutor who taught me everything a swordsman needs to know.’

  Lukas smiled. ‘Apart from humility.’

  ‘Then with all humility I ask you for a favour, brother.’ Conrad turned and looked at Kaja. ‘I would ask that you teach this young woman how to use a sword.’

  The novices heard his words and began grumbling among themselves.

  ‘Silence!’ spat Lukas.

  ‘I realise that my request is unusual,’ acknowledge Conrad, ‘but she saved my life in battle and wishes to learn how to use a sword. I believe that God sent her to me for a purpose.’

  Lukas looked at Kaja and the frowning, unhappy novices beside her. ‘She has fought in battle? Is your army so deficient in men that you have to get women to fight for you?’

  ‘She insisted and at the time I needed every spear I could muster,’ said Conrad.

  Lukas stroked his close-cropped blonde beard, nodding at the novices. ‘They will not like it. However, I think I can use the presence of a girl to make them more attentive. I assume she speaks little German.’

  ‘Almost none,’ said Conrad.

  Lukas pointed at Kaja and spoke her language. ‘Girl, come here.’

  Kaja scurried over to them.

  ‘This is Brother Lukas,’ Conrad told her, ‘and is willing to teach you how to use a sword properly. This is a great honour and you must promise to obey him at all times.’

  ‘Yes, Susi,’ beamed Kaja.

  Lukas was perplexed. ‘Susi?’

  ‘The name of the ancient wolf that protected the forest in days when the gods walked the earth,’ she said. ‘Susi came to us when we were in peril and has saved us from the evil foreigners.’

  Lukas raised an eyebrow. ‘Be that as it may, I will only teach you if you accept baptism into the Holy Church.’

  Kaja grinned again. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you know what baptism is, Kaja?’ Conrad asked her.

  ‘No, Susi,’ she answered.

  Lukas laughed. ‘Otto will be delighted that a convert shows such faith.’

  Otto baptised her in the cold waters of the Gauja to cleanse her pagan soul, and so as the days passed and the temperatures dropped Kaja joined the novices receiving tuition from Lukas. Her eagerness to learn and her inability to understand the verbal barbs directed at her from the other students overcame the strained atmosphere that accompanied her first month. After a while the male novices accorded her a grudging respect as she showed herself a capable student who was willing to take knocks and falls without complaint.

  In December the Gauja froze and the garrison of Wenden celebrated the birth of Christ. The stonemasons, their task largely complete now that the castle was all but finished, carved a headstone for Johann’s grave. It was set in place one sunny, freezing morning under a clear blue sky and a brilliant sun. Conrad stood with Anton and Hans as the simple dolostone tombstone was placed next to the earth mound. Walter and Rudolf stood opposite the three friends as Otto finished prayers, made the sign of the cross and then walked away.

  ‘What does it say?’ asked Conrad, looking at the carved stone.

  ‘Here lies Brother Johann, knight of the Order of the Sword Brothers, who died fighting for Christ and his angels.’

  ‘Basely killed by fellow Christians,’ insisted Conrad.

  Rudolf heard him. ‘Do not worry, Conrad. In the new year we will be holding the Danes to account for their actions at the Pala. That I promise. But before then you must learn to read and write. It is unbecoming for the Marshal of Estonia to be illiterate.’

  That winter was the hardest that Conrad had ever endured in Livonia. Not because of the harsh frosts and free
zing temperatures that turned the rivers and streams into iron-hard winter roads, or the long patrols that numbed hands and faces and froze swords in scabbards. No, the hard, remorseless lessons under the stern eyes of Master Thaddeus held in his office were pure torture. Conrad would have preferred facing hundreds of pagans alone and with death a certainty rather than try to fathom the strange symbols on the parchments that were placed before him. As the settlers shivered in their huts and tossed peat blocks on their meagre fires in an attempt to keep warm, their children wrapped in furs, and Kaja wielded a wooden waster every day, enduring the sarcasm of the other novices, Conrad learned to read and write. Thaddeus was a patient and considerate teacher and after three months sitting in the engineer’s office on a daily basis he had achieved a modicum of literacy.

  On a cold, miserable February day, with deep snow covering the land, Conrad stood alone in the cemetery and wiped away the tears as he read the words on the gravestone of his wife and child, saying the words aloud as he recited them again and again. He sank to his knees and thanked God for giving him this great gift of reading but he saved his most earnest and heartfelt prayer for Master Thaddeus, asking that the old, cantankerous engineer be rewarded with a place in heaven. And he also asked for victory in the coming war with the Danes, when he would avenge the death of Johann and send Count Henry to hell.

  ‘Semgallia?’

  Conrad nearly dropped his cup of wine when Rudolf informed him where Wenden’s soldiers would be heading in the coming days.

  ‘The bishop gathers an army at Holm to cross the Dvina once more,’ replied Rudolf, indicating to Conrad to hold out his cup so the master could refill it.