The new day dawned bright and cool, the fields around the castle white with frost and the air crisp. After Prime Mass and breakfast the three friends donned their armour in preparation for their departure. Soon the Army of the Wolf would be arriving at the castle, hundreds of men on hardy ponies that had greater stamina than the horses the order imported from Germany.
Rudolf came to see them as they were changing into their martial attire on the first floor of the great dormitory where the brother knights slept. They all stood when he appeared among them.
‘Please continue with your preparations,’ he commanded.
Just as the order believed that its soldiers should have good food so it spared no cost when it came to their weapons and armour. They may have been poor, pious knights but their equipment was among the best in all Christendom. Next to the skin were worn cotton breeches and a vest, over which was worn a quilted cotton-covered aketon that protected the vest and skin beneath from the long-sleeved mail hauberk that covered the arms, hands, torso and thighs. The mittens had soft leather palms so the wearer could grip his weapons with ease.
‘So,’ Rudolf said to Conrad, ‘you ride north today. How many men does the Army of the Wolf number?’
Conrad put on the linen-covered, quilted sleeveless gambeson over his mail armour. The garment could defeat a glancing sword or axe blow and lessen the penetrating power of an arrow, though not a crossbow bolt.
‘Just under nine hundred men, master, including the Wolf Shields I will collect at Lehola.’
Rudolf nodded in admiration. ‘The largest force that Livonia can currently muster. You are to be congratulated, Conrad.’
Conrad adjusted the mail chausses that protected his legs, beneath which was linen hose to prevent chafing.
‘The Estonians do not understand why they march to assist King Valdemar, master,’ said Conrad.
Rudolf picked up Conrad’s sword belt and drew the weapon.
‘Estonia will benefit from our expedition,’ remarked Rudolf, ‘in the long term. But at present I must ask you, all of all, to refrain from unleashing your base instincts.’
‘Base instincts, master?’ said Anton innocently.
‘I am well aware that Valdemar was responsible for the death of Brother Johann,’ replied Rudolf, ‘and indeed would probably have burned Conrad at the stake had it not have been for the timely arrival of Kalju at Reval.’
He handed the sword to Conrad. ‘Remember the great knight who gave you this sword and the principles it and he represent. I would not blame you for wanting revenge upon Valdemar. I too have entertained such thoughts. But I would remind you that the very future of Livonia may be at stake in the next few weeks and our actions will determine what that future will be.’
‘Perhaps King Valdemar is already dead, master,’ offered Hans.
Conrad laid the sword on his bed and pulled on his boots. ‘Pray God.’
Rudolf shook his head. ‘You would like that, wouldn’t you? But if he is dead then his son will become king and Livonia will still be under blockade.’
‘And if we rescue him, master,’ asked Conrad, ‘what then? He despises the Sword Brothers and most likely will use the opportunity to attack us.’
‘We should let the Oeselians kill him before we assault Oesel,’ said Anton.
‘Kill two birds with one stone,’ smiled Hans.
Rudolf sighed. ‘Like I said, you all must resist your base instincts. Keep your men and your emotions under control. God will not forgive you if you wreck my plans.’
He began to walk towards the door to the dormitory.
‘What plans, master?’ Conrad called after him.
‘You will soon see,’ answered Rudolf as he disappeared from the chamber.
‘The master is worried that you will try to kill Valdemar, Conrad,’ said Anton.
‘If a Sword Brother killed a king appointed by God then that would surely be the end not only of Livonia but also our order,’ replied Conrad. ‘And that I do not desire.’
‘The master said nothing about his father, Count Henry,’ mused Hans.
‘He probably wants to forget him,’ said Conrad. ‘With a father like that so would I.’
A sergeant appeared at the door.
‘Brother Conrad, the Estonians are gathering beyond the outer perimeter.’
Conrad raised his hand in acknowledgment and put on his white surcoat emblazoned with the emblem of the Sword Brothers. He tied the straps of his linen coif under his chin, pulled the mail coif over it and then placed the padded leather headband on his head. The headband made the wearing of a helm more bearable. He then buckled his sword belt around his waist, the others doing the same.
‘Time to visit the armourers,’ said Conrad.
At the armoury they were issued with their helms and shields, plus Conrad’s axe and Hans’ and Anton’s maces.
‘We will need crossbows as well,’ Conrad told the armourer, who like most of his comrades was a squat, ugly fellow with huge forearms and a condescending manner.
‘Brother knights aren’t issued with crossbows,’ he answered curtly.
‘Three full quivers each as well,’ said Conrad, ignoring him.
The armourer grunted and disappeared into the dim interior of the squat stone building housing a multitude of weapons, armour and crossbows. When he returned, with another man who was uglier than he, they slammed the crossbows on the wooden counter, the full quivers alongside them.
‘Spare bowstrings,’ added Conrad.
The armourer grinned and pulled the rolled-up strings from the pocket of the leather apron covering his thick chest and huge gut. He threw them on the counter.
‘Make sure you don’t let your heathen bastards anywhere near these crossbows. They’re only for God-fearing soldiers.’
The brother knights tucked the axe and maces into their belts and picked up the crossbows and quivers.
‘That heathen bitch was in here earlier,’ the armourer called after them as they walked from the counter. ‘She’s getting too high and mighty for my liking. If Ilona wasn’t with her I would have given her a slap.’
‘I often think that the armoury provides a vision of what hell must look like,’ remarked Hans as the three walked back into the courtyard.
The ‘heathen bitch’ was Kaja, a Saccalian orphan whom Conrad had taken under his wing when he had led the relief of Lehola four years before. The bedraggled girl had been only sixteen then but now she was an attractive, determined woman of twenty who knew her own mind. She was not actually a heathen, having been baptised into the Christian faith. But she had retained her fierce Saccalian nature and backed it up with an intricate knowledge of swordplay, for Conrad and Brother Lukas had taught her to use a blade, which she had strapped to her waist as she sauntered over to the three brother knights. Her blonde hair had been tied into a ponytail and her leggings hugged her shapely legs. She carried an iron helmet with a nasal guard in the crook of her arm. Beside her walked Ilona, the raven-haired beauty, a Liv healer revered for her skill with herbs and potions who had saved Master Rudolf from the flames of Holm many years before.
‘This looks ominous,’ remarked Anton as the two beauties approached.
‘You ride to Oesel, Brother Conrad,’ said Kaja.
Hans and Anton laughed.
‘You are remarkably well informed,’ replied Conrad.
‘I’m coming with you,’ she declared.
‘It would be better if you stayed here,’ Conrad told her.
‘The Army of the Wolf has never been defeated when Kaja has ridden with it,’ said Ilona.
‘That’s true,’ agreed Hans.
Conrad glared at his friend. ‘We are going to war, Kaja. I cannot guarantee your safety if you come with us.’
She grasped the hilt of her sword. ‘I can do that.’
‘The Estonians believe Kaja to be a lucky mascot, Conrad,’ Ilona told him. ‘Men fight better if they believe luck is on their side.’
‘That’s true,’ said Hans.
‘You are not helping,’ Conrad told him. ‘I’m sorry, Kaja, but you cannot come with us.’
Her blue eyes hardened. ‘Am I not free?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then I choose to accompany you north.’
Stables hands were leading out their palfreys with sacks of fodder fastened to their saddles. Conrad noticed that there were four.
‘Besides,’ said Ilona casually, ‘who will carry your banner if Kaja does not accompany you?’
‘That’s true,’ said Hans.
‘Shut up,’ Conrad told him.
He was about to reply to Ilona when he saw Rudolf, Walter and Otto approaching, the latter carrying a standard.
Ilona smiled kindly at Conrad. ‘Rudolf thought the same.’
Conrad realised he had been out-manoeuvred as the group halted and the severe Otto handed Kaja the standard that Conrad had carried into Estonia four years before. Like the standard carried by the garrison when it went to war, it was stored near the altar in the chapel, for it was a sacred banner.
‘Kaja is reckoned a lucky mascot by your men, I believe,’ Rudolf said to Conrad. Conrad nodded.
‘Well, then,’ continued the master, ‘I have been persuaded that her presence will aid your cause, which in turn will aid the order’s cause.’
‘Kneel!’ Otto commanded.
Conrad smiled wryly as he knelt on the cobblestones, a beaming Kaja already on her knees with her head down as she clutched the haft of the standard wrapped around the wood and tied in place with ribbons. He had forgotten how manipulative women could be.
Otto asked God to protect them and give them victory, his deep voice filling the courtyard. After he had finished Rudolf and Ilona wished the three brother knights and Kaja luck as they walked to their horses and rode from the castle to lead the Army of the Wolf north.
And far to the south a chest of clothes was spirited out of Riga under cover of darkness and loaded on a cart for transportation to Odenpah.
King Valdemar’s march to Varbola and then to the coast of Rotalia was not so much a military campaign more a procession. The column extended over many miles as it made its way slowly to the coast where it would rendezvous with the boats that would transport it to the northern coast of Oesel. Among the greenery of the countryside it presented a dazzling spectacle, a garish display of red, blue, yellow and orange. Leading the army had been the knights and squires of Count Albert of Orlamunde and Holstein, the caparisons of his knights’ destriers bearing his coat of arms: a white nettle leaf on a red background. Their shields, pennants and surcoats carried the same device, and the count had also insisted that the shields of his lesser knights, those men who had the money to purchase their own horses and weapons, should also display his emblem. The count had brought fifty knights, fifty squires and fifty lesser knights to Estonia to subjugate the enemies of the Danes.
Valdemar’s bodyguard numbered a hundred mounted knights, men attired in the finest armour and riding the best destriers that money could buy. Added to Count Albert’s horsemen it gave the king two hundred and fifty horsemen, more than enough to charge straight through a pagan shield wall.
The king’s foot soldiers were all drawn from his Danish and Swedish lands. The largest contingent was the axe men, rough-hewn men wearing conical helmets with nasal guards, mail hauberks and gaiters around their lower leggings. Like the Oeselians they carried a round wooden shield for protection and a large-bladed war axe as their primary weapon. The hundred Danish sergeants were likewise armed with axes and equipped with hauberks, though they also carried swords, wore kettle helmets and carried almond-shaped shields. The spearmen’s shields were the same shape as those carried by the sergeants, though larger, and in addition to their spears they were armed with broad slashing swords with a tapering blade. They numbered three hundred and fifty.
Valdemar’s best non-mounted troops were his Danish foot knights. These men wore segmented iron helmets with fixed face guards, beneath which was worn a mail coif. Their mail hauberks had integral mail mittens and their yellow surcoats were very broad and had long sleeves. On their legs they wore mail chausses and a thickly padded gambeson beneath their hauberks. Their principal weapon was a sword. The almond-shaped shields they carried were reinforced with slender iron crosspieces held in place by a small iron boss. There were two hundred of these élite foot soldiers.
Valdemar’s only missile troops were two hundred Swedish archers, the crossbowmen having been left behind at Reval for the defence of the town. The king gave orders that the archers were to be sent out every day to kill game to be served each evening in the royal pavilion. Thus did the royal army number two thousand, one hundred fighting men, plus a substantial entourage that accompanied Valdemar to ensure that his spiritual and physical needs were attended to at all times.
As befitting his status as one of Europe’s most powerful monarchs the king was accompanied by the portly Bishop of Roskilde, a brace of abbots and deans and half a dozen scribes tasked with recording every detail of what would be Valdemar’s conquest of Oesel. In attendance were also the court chamberlain, treasurer, justiciar – head of the royal judicial system and the king’s viceroy, keeper of the royal seal and master of the horse. To serve him at table were cupbearers and dapifers – servants that brought meat to those seated. To entertain the royal party were jesters, minstrels and bards. Then there were falconers, stewards and heralds. They all amounted to a grand total of three hundred men and boys responsible for making the king’s journey and accommodation in the field as comfortable as possible. There were also two hundred Estonians that had been impressed to perform manual duties for the royal procession, such as digging latrines, preparing fires and collecting firewood, though not chopping it as they were not trusted with weapons.
The army with its dozens of carts and wagons managed to skirt the many bog ponds, freshwater springs and lakes on its journey, a vehicle occasionally sinking in the mud and either being hauled out or abandoned, its cargo distributed among the Estonians. From Varbola the army struck west to Matsalu Bay where the ships and boats despatched by Count Rolf from Reval were waiting. It had been suggested to Valdemar that it would be more convenient to take ship from Reval directly to Oesel but the king was insistent that his Estonian subjects should see him in all his pomp and glory as he travelled among them. No one riding with the king said anything as the army passed through a succession of deserted villages.
It took two days to load the dozens of boats in the bay and two more days to ferry the army and its attendants to the northern coast of Oesel. The relief of the island is mostly flat though the coastline is strongly fragmented and so it took longer than anticipated to find a landing site. However, eventually the ships docked in a bay between two grass-covered peninsulas, where the water was deep enough to accommodate the cogs carrying the king, his chief advisers and commanders. The majority of the foot soldiers were shipped in shallow-draft oared vessels with a single sail that resembled Oeselian longships, but the latter were nowhere to be seen. Upon landing the Bishop of Roskilde held a service of thanksgiving on the beach and then the Danes set off inland.
They did not go far, perhaps two miles before the quartermasters found a moraine plain of rocks and sediment on the edge of a great expanse of forest and near a large freshwater lake. They informed the king that the space between the plain and the trees – a meadow of tall grass – was an ideal site to construct a stone stronghold to provide a base for the subjugation of the Oeselians. The Estonians were immediately put to work collecting rocks for the construction of the fort as the engineers marked out the rectangular site of what would be the stronghold while the king’s servants erected the royal pavilion, around which a host of other pavilions and tents were pitched. Soon the space was filled with hundreds of smaller tents, horses, wagons, carts and cooking fires, with a steady stream of soldiers going to the forest and returning with firewood. Sentries were posted as the light began to fade but everyone forgot about the Oeselians who were obviously cowering in their hovels, a people waiting to be conquered.
That night at the royal banquet Count Albert expressed his disappointment at not having to fight the pagans on the beach where the army had landed earlier. Valdemar reminded him that since God had sent him the holy standard his army had never been defeated. This being the case, the news that it accompanied his army had probably cast the Oeselians into the depth of despair.
*****
The king’s hall in Kuressaare was filled with Olaf’s earls: tall, powerful men with long hair and thick beards who wore mail armour and carried swords at their hips. The hall was a huge wooden building in the centre of Oesel’s largest settlement, its steeply pitched roof supported by two interior rows of massive oak posts. The doors were closed but the temperature inside the hall was pleasant enough, the spring mornings still cool though there was no need to light fires in the stone hearth in the centre of the floor. The earls lounged on the tiered benches positioned against the walls, listening intently to their king. Slaves went among them with trays holding tankards of honey mead.
In the centre of the hall stood the squat, broad-shouldered king, his hair and beard now totally white, his skin leathery. Now in his early sixties, his eyes were still alert and his mind sharp. On the nearest bench sat his three sons: Sigurd, Stark and Kalf. The king threw his empty tankard for a slave to catch and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his tunic.
‘The day we prayed that would never come is upon us. The Christians have landed on Oesel and are now in the north of our blessed island building a fort.’
There was a stony silence among the earls. Olaf knew that many were desperate to be heard but they kept quiet out of respect for the king.
‘After conquering the Estonian tribes the Danish king has decided that we are next on his list of targets, to be reduced to slavery just as the Estonians have been. Some of you may be wondering why I have not raised an army and attacked the invaders.’
The silence remained but many of the earls were having difficulty holding their tongues. The amount of treasure and quantity of estates they held and the number of warriors they could raise measured Oeselian earls. They captained the king’s longships and fought beside him in battle. They were fierce, proud and brave but now they were confused. Eventually one rose from his bench, a bear of a man who was older than Olaf but as hard as the iron helmet sitting on the bench beside him. The king nodded at his friend Swein.
‘Forgive me, great king,’ he began. ‘But many wonder, myself among them, why we have not thrown these Danish barbarians back into the sea.’
There were mooted mutterings from both sides of the hall.
‘A fair question, Swein,’ answered the king. ‘One that my son will answer.’
Olaf nodded to Sigurd and sat down. His eldest son and heir, his long hair pure blonde and his face clean shaven, rose and took his position in the centre of the hall. Now in his mid-thirties, he had none of the arrogance and fire of his dead brother Eric. He had been the embodiment of what an Oeselian warrior should be: reckless, contemptuous of death and impossibly brave. But for all Eric’s fame and lust for glory he had achieved nothing except to lead an army to defeat at the hands of the Sword Brothers. It was a mistake that his brother was determined not to repeat.
‘My lords,’ Sigurd began, ‘for over twenty years we have fought the Christian crusaders. Both on the seas and on land. First in Livonia and then in Estonia. Many Oeselian warriors have given their lives in this fight, among them my own brother Eric. Now the Danes have landed on Oesel itself.’
He began walking up and down the centre of the hall, nodding to those earls he knew.
‘I have seen the crusaders break shield walls on the battlefield, have seen the deadly power of their crossbows first hand, and felt the earth shake when their mailed horsemen charge. The Danish king comes to Oesel to fight us in battle.’
‘And we will give him a battle,’ came a voice from the assembled earls. The others cheered and stamped their feet in support.
Sigurd let the hubbub die down.
‘We will not offer the enemy battle,’ he said slowly and firmly.
Stark and Kalf looked at each other in confusion and then at their father. But Olaf stared ahead, a knowing look on his face. There were murmurs of dissent from the earls.
‘We will not offer battle because we will besiege the Danes,’ said Sigurd. ‘We will grind them down and starve them into submission. How will the Danes be able to march out against us when their warhorses are so weak and emaciated that they cannot carry a man? How will their foot soldiers fare against our warriors when they have not eaten anything in days?’
A brawny man with a thick blond beard and long moustache rose from his bench. He bowed his head at his king and close friend.
‘Prince Sigurd,’ said Bothvar, ‘we have no machines with which to besiege the Danes.’
Sigurd smiled. ‘Do we not, Earl Bothvar? In the next few days you will see that we too can build machines just as the crusaders do.’
*****
The scribes that Valdemar had brought with him from Reval called them
paterells
, which was a derivative of
patera
, meaning ‘dish’ or ‘cup’, but they were in fact a form of mangonel. Crude and smaller than the machines that the Sword Brothers and Danes used, Sigurd’s
paterells
were nonetheless effective. They could throw a stone weighing around ten pounds up to a range of three hundred yards, but before they were employed Sigurd unleashed a fleet of longships to blockade Reval. This ensured that the garrison would not be able to re-supply Valdemar or evacuate his army from Oesel. Sigurd then sent a flotilla of
karvs
– small, highly manoeuvrable longships with thirteen pairs of oars – to burn the ships at anchor that had brought the Danish army to Oesel.
Sigurd’s plan had worked perfectly.
Valdemar was now isolated. Soon he would be under siege.
*****
The Army of the Wolf did not ride to Lehola but instead headed northwest towards Rotalia and the coastline of the Gulf of Riga. Hillar and his few men journeyed ahead to rally his army at the rendezvous point where the River Parnu flowed into the Gulf of Riga. The guides led the mounted force through a land of bogs, marshes and thick pine forests, eventually joining the coastline a day’s ride from the rendezvous point. The column trotted by the side of long sandy beaches and fishing villages dotted along the coast, some deserted and burnt. Every settlement had a crude hill fort, sometimes nothing more than four wooden walls with a single entrance to provide sanctuary from Oeselian raiders. But of late it had been Danish horsemen that had spread death and destruction.
On the Saccalian border Conrad had collected Hillar’s three hundred Rotalian warriors, all of them mounted on hardy ponies allowing the army to cover at least twenty miles a day. The land was predominantly flat and very fertile, rye growing in the fields around inland villages and herds of cattle grazing in lush meadows flanking rivers. They also provided good pasture for the ponies that had transported the Army of the Wolf to Rotalia and which now made camp two miles south of the Parnu River.
The three Sword Brothers slept in a simple pagan tent comprising a rectangle of felt draped over a ridgepole with two vertical poles at each end, the fabric staked to the ground by means of wooden pegs. There were hundreds of such tents, all arranged in circles around tribal chiefs. The shields and banners of the Estonians bore ancient pagan symbols, such as the sun cross, pentagram, plaited lattice designs, elk antlers, eight-pointed star and cornflower. There were also the symbols of the chiefs, now dead, who had once fought the Sword Brothers, the leering red wolf, the bear and stag. As Kaja threw more wood on the fire to heat the stew in the cooking pot, Hans looked around at the dozens of other fires that were helping to mist the dusk.