Leatherface smiled ruefully. ‘This war might be coming to an end but there will be others to fight, mark my words. That’s the thing about crusades, Master Conrad, there is an endless supply of heathens to either convert or send to hell.’
‘All the more work for you, then.’
‘Me? I reckon that I’ve got a couple of years left in me at most. These winters wreak havoc on my tired old body.’
‘So your plan is still to buy that alehouse in Riga, then?’ said Conrad.
Leatherface gave him a wink. ‘That and acquire a young wife with child-bearing hips.’
Conrad shuddered. The thought of him mauling a young woman was truly appalling. Later, when Hans and Anton were asleep on the floor of their crowded conical tent, Jaan also deep in slumber, Conrad strapped on his sword and went to the tents in the centre of the camp where the supplies and spare weapons were stored. It was a numbingly cold night, still and silent, his breath misting in front of him. A sentry, a Jerwen, snapped to attention as he approached.
‘All is quiet?’
‘All is quiet,
Susi
.’
He walked to one of the tents, its flap tied shut, looked around and then untied the straps to give him access. Inside were spare cloaks, shields and surcoats bearing the emblem of the Sword Brothers, all stacked on a table constructed from pine branches to stop the damp seeping into the wood, leather and cloth. The capes and surcoats were wrapped in hides tied with leather cords. As a pale light entered the open flap his eyes got accustomed to the dim interior and focused on one bundle on top of the pile. He laid a hand on it, closed his eyes and said a silent prayer that they would come. But he could wait no longer. Eventually the whereabouts of the camp would be reported to Narva’s garrison and he wished to retain the element of surprise. He opened his eyes. The die was cast for good or ill.
The next morning the warriors mustered well before dawn in their contingents with ‘the bastards’ in their companies, the cold, damp air making men cough and wipe their runny noses. In January northern Estonia only had six hours of light each day so it was imperative that Sir Richard and his horsemen were goading the enemy garrison when dawn broke. Squires and knights shivered and then sweated as they checked the shoes of their horses. Winter horseshoes were wonderful things, being equipped with spikes that gave the animal traction on snow and ice, preventing a horse from slipping. But they also had to be checked several times a day to ensure that compressed snow had not built up under the hoof, which could lead to bruising. But he had to admit that even in the pre-dawn gloom, once covered with their blue caparisons sporting a white boar’s head with gold tusks they looked very impressive.
Sir Richard and his knights wore the same colours on their surcoats and shields, and even the lesser knights, those men who had originally come with him from England who had no squires, rode horses protected by padded caparisons. In truth Sir Richard’s two classes of knights were no different from each other and his squires were all over the age of eighteen and veterans of the wars in Livonia.
Sir Richard, his helm resting on his saddle, spoke to Conrad as his men filed out of camp. Squire Paul, ever the faithful if insubordinate servant, stayed beside him. They had gone over the plan and reconnoitred the ground and now all that remained was to put the scheme into action.
‘What if they refuse to accept my challenge?’ said Sir Richard.
Conrad shrugged his shoulders. ‘Then we will withdraw, your grace, and warm ourselves by our fires until the spring. But I am confident that they will be unable to resist the temptation. If all else fails let Paul insult them. That should be enough to draw them out.’
‘I will not lower myself to reply,’ sniffed Paul.
‘God be with you, Conrad,’ said Sir Richard.
‘And you, your grace.’
He wheeled his warhorse around and joined the rear of his column of men, Paul accompanying him. Conrad walked back to his tent where Anton and Hans waited, like him dressed in their mail armour and white surcoats, shields slung on their backs. They also wore thick woollen leggings on their legs instead of mail chausses and thick felt boots on their feet. Jaan stood beside them dressed in a gambeson that was too large for him, holding a short spear in his hand.
‘You will stay here with the camp guards,’ Conrad told him. ‘And don’t sneak away and try to catch up with us.’
‘I want to fight,’ he complained.
‘And I want wings so I can fly into Narva,’ replied Conrad. ‘But wanting and having are two different things so you will stay here and prepare our evening meal.’
Jaan looked around in frustration at crossbowmen checking their bowstrings and the full quivers hanging from shoulder straps, warriors tucking hand axes in their belts and ‘the bastards’ adjusting their helmets. The air tingled with the prospect of battle, he could almost taste it, and he wanted to be a part of the great adventure.
‘Your time will come, Jaan,’ Hans told him. ‘We were like you once.’
‘And we had to obey orders, just like you do,’ Conrad told him.
The three Sword Brothers walked to the head of the column of foot soldiers to lead the advance out of the forest. Their destination was Lake Kadastiku, only half a mile northeast of the forest. Like most inland lakes in Livonia and Estonia it froze in November and the ice did not melt until the following May. Now, in the depths of winter, it was an expanse of thick, iron-hard, snow-covered ice.
The pace was slow to conserve stamina, no one speaking as the dawn at last began to break to herald a cloudless, bitterly cold day. The sky turned pink, blue and orange as a pale sun peeked above the treeline. There was no conversation, just a crumping sound as boots trod in the snow and mail armour rustled as men tramped through the whiteness. The majority carried round shields covered with leather and rimmed with iron to withstand blows on their edges. In comparison ‘the bishop’s bastards’ were equipped with almond-shaped shields painted with red crosses and they now wore mail armour over their gambesons. Every man wore a helmet and was armed with either a spear or an axe. It was a testimony to their success in battle that every man was also armed with a sword, a collection of blades captured from the Oeselians, Russians, Danes and Ungannians.
Kadastiku Lake was surrounded by evergreen forest, a bell-shaped expanse of water that in spring and summer was surrounded by low, sandy shores but now was buried beneath snow and ice. There were a few islands in the lake: thin strips of land where trees and shrubs grew. Conrad’s men tramped across the ice towards the largest of these islands in the middle of the lake, now a row of pines some two hundred paces in length rising up from the white.
‘This will be our position,’ Conrad told his commanders. ‘We will form a line in front of the trees and wait for Sir Richard to return.’
‘Followed by the enemy,’ said Hans.
‘God willing,’ replied Conrad.
Anton looked around at the snowy wilderness. ‘If God bothers with this forlorn place.’
The tribal contingents of the Army of the Wolf were intimately acquainted with their drills and formations by now. They had marched and fought together for over four years and represented a veteran formation second only to the Sword Brothers themselves. Master Rudolf had lent Conrad fifty of the order’s crossbowmen, Sir Richard having brought the same number. Leatherface, appointed commander of all of them, now went among them to slap a few arms and shake more hands. He had no need to bellow orders or make threats. He knew his missile men knew their craft and so his task was to reassure them that they were the best at what they did.
It was the same with the Estonians. Tonis, having jumped at the opportunity to rejoin the Army of the Wolf, Hillar, Riki and Andres stood among their men sharing jokes, indulging in idle chatter and enquiring after their wellbeing. Conrad placed the Jerwen on the right of the line, with the Harrien, Rotalians and Saccalians standing beside them from right to left. Everyone knew that the place of honour in the battle line was on the right, though they knew not why, and so Andres and his men thought it very prestigious that they should be placed there. Conrad placed Ulric and his men on the extreme left of the line, next to Tonis’ men. Because they were on the flank they would be exposed to frontal and flank attacks but Conrad believed that they had earned the right to be given an important position in the battle line. The crossbowmen, who also had shields on their backs, were positioned all the along the line, just behind the front rank, ready to shoot volleys of bolts into an attacking enemy. The Army of the Wolf presented a compact mass of brown and green, bristling with spear points glinting in the sunlight and topped by a sea of gleaming helmets. Behind the row of pines thick snow covered the shrubs around them.
Leatherface came up to Conrad who was standing a few paces ahead of the front rank, peering at the line of trees that marked the edge of the frozen lake.
‘Three hours of daylight left,’ he said to the mercenary.
‘It only takes a few minutes to win a battle,’ came the reply.
‘If there is a battle,’ complained Conrad, scanning the area in front for any signs of movement. He turned and walked back towards the warriors drawn up five deep and standing in close formation, though not too close that they would not be able to use their weapons.
‘You should be careful what you wish for,’ said Leatherface, who suddenly sprinted back to the shield wall.
‘Load your weapons,’ he shouted before disappearing behind the line of shields.
Conrad stopped, turned and saw horsemen at the northern end of the lake, men in blue surcoats riding horses covered in caparisons of the same colour. Sir Richard’s men. The commanders of the Estonians and ‘bastards’ shouted orders and signallers blew horns to sound the alarm as Conrad walked back to his position beside Hans and Anton in the middle of the line, among Hillar’s Rotalians. Hillar himself stood in the front rank, alongside his biggest and most powerful warriors, his thick leather cuirass protecting his large chest and an axe in his hand. Conrad took his shield off his back and slipped his left forearm through the straps on its inner side as Sir Richard cantered towards the white-clade figures. The warriors began banging the hafts of their spears and axes on their shields in salute as he approached. He raised his lance in acknowledgement and brought his warhorse to a halt in front of Conrad. He removed his helm, his face framed by the mail coif underneath.
‘They took the bait, Conrad.’
He turned and pointed his lance at a break in the trees at the far end of the lake.
‘There appears to be more of them than we envisioned.’
Conrad peered across the dazzling white surface of the lake to see black shapes clustering in the gap. He could see no horsemen.
‘They have no riders, your grace?’
Sir Richard looked back at the increasing numbers of men on foot swarming on to the lake.
‘They did have when they were pursuing us.’
‘Perhaps they got lost in the snow,’ opined Conrad.
Sir Richard raised his land to him, replaced his helm and rode to rejoin his men who were taking up position behind the pines, to the rear of the shield wall. The plan was for them to be a mounted reserve that would deliver the coup de grâce to win the battle.
The enemy foot were still massing on the far side of the lake, drums banging and banners held aloft. They were around five hundred paces away, thus making it impossible to identify the standards. As the minutes passed the extent of their line increased as more and more foot soldiers came from the trees to form up on the lake. The Army of the Wolf stood silently in its ranks, waiting for the enemy to attack.
All eyes were gazing towards the northeast where the enemy foot soldiers were massing, shouting and banging their spears on their shields to add to the din of banging drums and horn blasts. And create a perfect distraction for the enemy horsemen that suddenly charged out of the trees to the Army of the Wolf’s front, no more than four hundred paces away.
They charged not in an ordered formation, knee-to-knee, but as a disorganised mass, dozens of them. They were led by Danish knights covered in mail armour from head to foot, wearing full-face helms, yellow surcoats and carrying long, almond-shaped shields painted yellow and sporting a red cross. Black and yellow caparisons, the bottoms of which flapped around wildly as they bore down on the packed ranks of Conrad’s men, covered their mounts.
‘Aim at the horses,’ shouted Leatherface to his crossbowmen as the charging horsemen suddenly parted to divide left and right to sweep around the flanks of the Army of the Wolf.
There was a succession of cracks as crossbowmen released their triggers to send bolts shooting through the air. To miss their targets.
‘Stop shooting!’ screamed Leatherface as the horsemen thundered past.
Behind the knights were German mercenary horsemen, men wearing knee-length mail hauberks split at the waist, and round helmets with nasal guards. Caparisons did not protect the horses and their riders carried javelins instead of lances, which they now hurled at the warriors as they passed. Iron points pierced wooden shields to fracture arms and cut flesh. The crossbowmen among ‘the bishop’s bastards’ and Jerwen managed to shoot a number of horses as they passed, the beasts screaming in pain and crashing on the ice. But then the horsemen were behind the island, attacking Sir Richard’s men in a furious mêlée. Conrad’s reserve had disappeared.