The count bit his lip. ‘Of course, majesty, if that is your desire.’
There was a stiff breeze blowing in from the sea that ruffled the two banners held behind the king. The one sporting the three blue lions he recognised but the other, a red standard bearing a white cross, he thought odd.
‘What is that, majesty?’ he asked, pointing at the flag.
‘I have adopted it as the emblem of my crusade in Estonia,’ answered Valdemar. ‘It is the same design that was on the cloth sent by God during my victory over the pagans. Proof that our Lord smiles on my crusade.’
He tugged on his mount’s reins to wheel the beast around. ‘Gather your men, count, it is my desire to have Estonia subdued before the first snow falls.’
He raised his arm half-heartedly and rode from the compound, his bodyguard following. One of the count’s lieutenants strode from the hall to stand by his lord, watching the king’s riders canter down the slope back to Lyndanise.
‘There he goes,’ said the count, ‘the king who won the recent battle on his own. He has decided to change history and tell people that it was the Danes who vanquished the pagans. And now we are to march south so he can conquer all of Estonia.’
‘He’s a lucky bastard, I’ll give him that,’ remarked his subordinate disrespectfully.
The count looked at his fellow knight, who despite being his younger brother bore little resemblance to the fierce old warrior from Schwerin who was nicknamed ‘Henry the Black’.
‘Luck doesn’t last forever, Gunzelin,’ replied the count. ‘However, we agreed to accompany our liege lord to this land of trees and bogs and so must honour our pledge. Give the order to make ready to march.’
Gunzelin spat on the ground. ‘Coming here was a mistake. We should be in Germany raising men to defend our lands.’
The count smiled at his brother. Like him he resented Valdemar but unlike his brother he was better at hiding his feelings. It had been five years since Valdemar had seized the count’s castle and lands while he and his brother had been away fighting in southern Germany. When they returned they were prepared to fight the Danes to repossess their property but Valdemar held the count’s wife as a hostage and he was unwilling to risk one of the few things he held dear in the world. So they had agreed to swear allegiance to Valdemar. The count thought it no coincidence that the king had married the detestable Portuguese princess just before he had seized Schwerin and believed her scheming mind to be behind the outrage.
‘We will be back home soon enough,’ said the count, ‘but first let us fulfil our obligations. At least we will be able to leave the churchmen behind. I grow tired of their platitudes.’
‘Pity they didn’t all get their skulls split open by pagan axes,’ said Gunzelin casually.
‘You should be more respectful towards the princes of the church,’ remarked the count.
‘Crows, the lot of them,’ sniffed Gunzelin. ‘Still, at least they allow us to kill pagans and rape their women.’
The count twisted his mouth in a frown. ‘We are here to convert the pagans, not kill them. Otherwise the bishops will not have anyone to bore rigid with their sermons and the king will have no subjects to tax.’
Gunzelin looked up at the ramparts. ‘We had better leave a few of our own men here to ensure we have a bolthole to run to in the event things go wrong with the expedition.’
The count grinned. ‘Surely you are not suggesting that the king’s advance will not be a straightforward victory parade?’
Gunzelin cleared his throat and spat on the ground. ‘People don’t take kindly to having homes burned to the ground and their women raped or enslaved. These pagans might not be so willing to accept having Valdemar as their lord after what we have done to them.’
‘After what
you
have done to them, you mean,’ the count corrected him. ‘Still, I agree with your idea concerning retaining some of our men in this fort. See to it.’
The count left a hundred of his spearmen to garrison the hill fort, Gunzelin impressing upon the commander that his immediate priority was to secure the stronghold. If Lyndanise was overrun and burned then so be it. He was to offer no assistance to the Danish garrison, the priests and their servants and the nearly two hundred other non-combatants who had arrived with the crusaders during the spring. During the battle with the pagans it had been the Danes who had suffered the heaviest losses, over three hundred being killed, the majority among the axe men. Nevertheless, Valdemar was able to leave a sizeable garrison behind to secure Lyndanise: ninety foot knights, eighty sergeants and two hundred axe men. It was more than enough to safeguard the archbishop and the two bishops, oversee the captured Estonians who were building the timber wall that would surround the settlement, as well as others who were working on a wooden church in the middle of Lyndanise. Also to provide security for the vessels that were anchored in the bay. Though the surrounding countryside was rich in game that could be hunted and fish that could be caught in the rivers and lakes, over half of the cogs had returned to Denmark to collect tools, weapons, armour, wagons, carts, clothing and more priests to bring to what would become Reval. Valdemar was determined to make the settlement a strong and powerful trading centre, while the churchmen wanted to create a shining beacon of the Holy Church in the barren, hostile northern fringes of Christendom.
It was an overcast day when the army at last set out from Reval following a lengthy service given by the Archbishop of Lund in which he insisted on going among the assembled soldiers drawn up outside the settlement to bless their standards. He was particularly enthused over the new standard of the king, the white cross emblazoned on a red background, that he and the two bishops insisted on all holding as they blessed it and the king. Then the dozens of carts and wagons began their journey south, harassed quartermasters shouting and pleading with their drivers to either be patient or hurry up as they organised them into a long line. The army’s foot soldiers marched either side of them to protect their valuable cargoes and also to take it in turns to drive them. Many contained sacks of wheat, barley and oats, others barrels of cured pork, mutton and fish. There were also carts carrying cheese and ale. As well as food supplies, cargoes included tents, tent poles, spare canvas, weapons, armour and tools. Normally each wagon would be pulled by two oxen but there had been no room for these beasts in the fleet that shipped the crusaders to Estonia and so local ponies had to be pressed into service as draught animals. The quartermasters had at first complained that they would expire from the effort but soon came to appreciate their hardy natures and great stamina.
Valdemar, being a monarch, had no time for logistical necessities and left the wagons behind as he rode at the head of his bodyguard in the van of the army. Count Henry and his brother accompanied him, their fifty knights and squires leading the warhorses of the count, the king and his men. The fifty German lesser knights rode behind the royal party, the other fifty of their number riding on the flanks and ahead of the army to act as scouts. Henry had ordered his brother to desist his campaign of rapine as soon as Valdemar had declared his intention of marching into the Estonian hinterland. The villages and hamlet around what would become Reval had been despoiled and their inhabitants either killed, enslaved or forced to flee, but the count wanted information concerning the nature of the terrain the army would be moving through, any enemy strongholds they would encounter and the size and location of any pagan war bands. This meant persuading locals to volunteer information, which meant acting in a friendly manner towards them.
‘So no raping, burning or torturing,’ he told Gunzelin as his brother prepared to lead a patrol.
Valdemar cast a disapproving look in the direction of the count’s brother, who spat on the ground, nodded to his brother and then galloped away with a score of riders.
‘I really do not see the point, count,’ said Valdemar. ‘As I have told you the pagans are beaten and will submit to me when they see the size of my army.’
Henry saw no reason to argue with the king, who seemed to have become intoxicated with the notion of being a holy warrior.
‘Of course, majesty. But one can never have enough information.’
‘You must instruct your brother not to indulge in rape and taking slaves, count,’ said the king as they continued to ride through a land of rolling hills and dense woods. ‘We are warriors of Christ not servants of the devil.’
‘Yes, majesty.’
Gunzelin might have had a predilection for rape, looting and arson but he was also a good soldier. When the army made camp that night after travelling a total distance of six miles he returned with his men after having ventured three times that distance to the south. The king’s grooms were serving him and his guests a meal of roasted venison served on silver plates and accompanied by the soft music of three minstrels, two playing gitterns, the other the harp. The king sat at the head of the table facing Count Henry, two of the king’s senior officers seated on one side of the table, two of the count’s lieutenants on the other. The grooms filled silver cups with fine wine as the king listened intently to one of his commanders.
The flap of the pavilion opened and one of the king’s bodyguards walked over to his lord and bowed his head, stooping to whisper in Valdemar’s ear.
‘Show them in,’ said the king. The knight bowed and left the table.
‘It appears your brother has returned to us, Count Henry. He brings a guest with him.’
All eyes turned to the entrance as the knight reappeared in the company of a blonde-haired man wearing green linen leggings, leather shoes and a brown woollen tunic. His neatly trimmed beard and leather belt decorated with bronze indicated that he was a person of substance. Gunzelin walked in to stand in front of the king, bowing his head and nodding at the Estonian to do likewise.
‘This man lives in a village to the south in a region named Jerwen, majesty,’ said Gunzelin.
Valdemar regarded the bearded Estonian with blue eyes for a few moments. He estimated his age at around forty.
‘How do you converse with this man?’ asked the king.
‘He speaks German, majesty, after a fashion,’ replied Gunzelin. ‘He says that many men and their families have fled south, to a place called Lehal…’ He looked at the man.
‘Lehola,’ said the Estonian.
‘It would appear that the pagans are gathering there, majesty,’ said Gunzelin.
‘Very strong,’ said the Estonian in a strange accent.
Valdemar smiled at him. ‘Very strong?’
The man nodded.
‘Well, then,’ said the king, pointing at the Estonian, ‘God has sent us this man to convey our orders. We will march to this place, this Lehola, and there do battle with the pagans.’
Count Henry was pleased with his brother. He wondered if Valdemar was losing his faculties but smiled and bowed his head to him nonetheless.
*****
Lehola hill fort was full to bursting with the knights and squires of Sir Richard, wolf shields and their families and the men who had been mustered from the surrounding villages. The stronghold was a huge structure, its outer timber wall being four hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide, with thirteen shingle-roofed towers at regular intervals along its length. The main gates were located in the southern wall and led to the outer compound that was filled with huts, stables, storerooms and forges. In the north of the compound was an inner fortress that had its own timber wall that contained more stables and storerooms. It was also the site of the great hall and a stout timber armoury where a multitude of axes, shields, spears, daggers, mail armour and helmets were stored.
The cleared area around the fort was filled with felt tents and shelters made from withies, the air permanently filled with the smoke of a hundred campfires. Conrad had arrived at the fort two weeks earlier, and five days later Andres came from the north in the company of five hundred Jerwen warriors on foot and around the same number of women, children and the elderly, many of them from Harrien. There were also a number of men who had fought under Alva and had fled south in the aftermath of the Battle of Lyndanise.
It was a week afterwards when Hillar arrived at Lehola leading three hundred Rotalian warriors, all eager to serve under the Marshal of Estonia whom they were convinced would rid their homeland of the accursed Oeselian devils.
‘That will have to wait,’ declared Conrad as he sat in Lehola’s feasting hall with the other commanders of his ragtag army. ‘First we have to convince the Danes not to advance any further south.’
He sat at the top table in the hall beneath the banner of the Sword Brothers that had been given to him by Master Rudolf. The hall had been cleared of the families that had arrived at the fort and had been housed in the hall and surrounding rooms by Sir Richard, who had taken pity on their miserable condition. His knights and squires were housed in the huts in the inner compound, their horses quartered in the adjacent stables. A group of children, urchins with bare feet and dirty faces, suddenly ran into the hall through the open doors, giggling and squealing as they chased each other.
‘Can a man get no peace in this world?’ bellowed Sir Richard, his deep voice filling the chamber and frightening the children who disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.
‘Shut those doors,’ he shouted to the guards standing outside the hall. They duly closed the entrance and the English lord smiled at Conrad. The fire that burned in the great stone hearth in the centre of the chamber crackled and spat as it consumed the thick logs piled on it.