‘None, lord.’

  ‘Intriguing. Arrange the meeting, as soon as possible.’

  It took place a week later, the ground still free of snow after a southerly wind brought milder weather. It also brought rain that lashed the Kandava Hills where the meeting took place. Torolf arranged the tent where Lamekins and Vsevolod would meet to be pitched on the slope overlooking the ground where Duke Arturus had defeated the army of Bishop Albert three years before. The venue was not lost on Prince Vsevolod who arrived in the company of Aras and the hundred Russian horsemen of his bodyguard, plus a score of carts carrying their tents and supplies. Their drivers and the servants that attended the column struggled to move the vehicles along rutted tracks that had turned into rivers of mud as the rain continued to fall.

  It was still falling, the wind adding to the desultory conditions, when the prince sat opposite Lamekins in the tent assigned for their meeting. It was a grand affair, a pavilion with two poles supporting a sloping roof and vertical sidewalls. It was surrounded by guy ropes to secure it on the slope, with an additional two hurricane ropes for extra security. This was most fortuitous because it was highly exposed on the rise, the wind battering its walls. Apart from the table positioned in the centre of the pavilion with four chairs arranged around it the inside was bare. Candle holders fixed to the tent poles illuminated the interior where Lamekins and Torolf faced Vsevolod and Aras. Three of them were wearing armour, Vsevolod was dressed in his tunic and silk dalmatic, though he also wore a vest as the wind had chilled the air noticeably. It was a Russian custom not to wear swords during negotiations, though it was a practice unknown among pagans. Not that pagans were averse to protocol: there were two Kur guards standing behind their lord and two Russians standing behind their prince.

  ‘This tent,’ began Lamekins, ‘was captured from the Christians when Bishop Albert attempted to invade Kurland.’

  A gust of wind shook the pavilion.

  ‘Let us hope it stands longer than did Bishop Albert’s army when you faced it on this ground, lord duke,’ smiled Vsevolod.

  ‘I was surprised to learn of your presence at Tervete, lord prince,’ said Lamekins. ‘The last time you were in the company of Duke Viesthard it was part of an alliance intent on subjugating Kurland.’

  Vsevolod retained his smile. ‘I can assure you, lord duke, that I have no desire to instigate a war, much less drag my people into one.’

  ‘And is that the view of your sons-in-law, lord prince?’

  ‘I am here on behalf of Prince Mindaugas and Duke Ykintas,’ replied Vsevolod, ‘and their desire to bring to an end hostilities between Kurland and Samogitia.’

  Lamekins looked around the tent. ‘And yet they do not grace us with their presence.’

  Vsevolod’s forehead creased. ‘To be frank, lord duke, the arrogance of youth, inexperience and the humiliation of your recent victory against them has placed them in a difficult position.’

  ‘Defeat will do that,’ agreed Lamekins.

  ‘However, I bring news that may change your opinion of them.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The reason for my being at Tervete was a proposed alliance against the Sword Brother castle at Mesoten, specifically a planned attack on said stronghold to take place next spring.’

  ‘And Mindaugas and Ykintas will participate in this attack?’

  Vsevolod wore a resigned look. ‘Mindaugas hates the Sword Brothers, lord duke. He has vowed to destroy them and would destroy all Lithuania, I think, if it meant achieving that aim. For his part Duke Viesthard only desires the ejection of the crusaders from his kingdom.’

  ‘And you, lord prince?’ asked Lamekins, ‘will you take part in the war against the Sword Brothers?’

  ‘I will tell you what I told Mindaugas, which is that I will allow him to recruit men from Selonia and Nalsen but those two kingdoms will not be joining the alliance.’

  ‘Because you believe making war upon Livonia to be folly?’ probed Lamekins.

  ‘Because I have a treaty of friendship with Riga that I see no reason to break.’

  ‘Your honesty does your credit, lord prince. If Samogitia desires peace in order to make war upon the Sword Brothers then I will instigate no aggression against Duke Ykintas’ lands,’ stated Lamekins. ‘And seeing as we are being honest with each other I am sure you realise that other dukes making war upon the Sword Brothers is in Kurland’s interests.’

  ‘Then I can go back to Tervete and state that you will not make further war upon Samogitia, lord duke?’

  ‘As a gesture of goodwill,’ said Lamekins, ‘Duke Ykintas will deliver a large amount of grain to Kurland for the damage inflicted upon my people during his raids. In return I pledge not to raid his territory while he is engaged at Mesoten. Lord Torolf will provide you with details regarding the amount of grain to be delivered.’

  Vsevolod was taken aback. ‘Grain, lord duke?’

  ‘We have enough weapons and horses,’ smiled Lamekins, ‘the booty of our battles against the Sword Brothers and Samogitians. Duke Ykintas’ contrition must be demonstrable and grain will suffice. He will agree?’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ replied Vsevolod, now bemused. ‘I don’t suppose Kurland would be interested in joining the alliance against the Sword Brothers?’

  ‘You suppose right,’ retorted Lamekins.

  ‘I will not stand beside those who have tried to conquer Kurland and slaughter its people,’ added the Kur. ‘It is enough that I show mercy towards Samogitia and its duke.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Vsevolod.

  Lamekins leaned back in his chair and regarded the Russian and his general.

  ‘I hope that the kingdoms of Lithuania do not think that just because Duke Arturus is dead that Kurland is now weak and vulnerable. That would be a grave mistake.’

  ‘I can assure you, lord duke,’ said Vsevolod sternly, ‘that I have no interest in instigating a war with Kurland, or indeed with anyone else.’

  Lamekins stood, bowed his head to the prince and walked to the closed flap, which was being buffeted by the wind. Torolf and his guards followed.

  ‘May you have a safe journey back to Panemunis.’

  Then he was gone, a gust of wind disturbing the candle flames before the Russian guards closed the flap.

  ‘Friendly bunch, these Kurs,’ remarked Aras dryly.

  ‘Lamekins seemed remarkably accommodating,’ said Vsevolod, ‘considering he was bargaining from a position of strength.’

  ‘He is still strong, highness, but he is no fool. If Ykintas, Mindaugas and Viesthard are banging their heads against Mesoten then that suits Kurland.’

  Vsevolod looked utterly miserable. ‘Your analogy is most apt, Aras. Mindaugas and Ykintas have yet to realise that it is futile banging your head against a wall, or a timber stockade for that matter.’

  Aras placed his hands behind his head. ‘I don’t know, highness, with Bishop Albert dead and no crusaders coming to Riga the chances of taking Mesoten are fair to middling.’

  Vsevolod rubbed his temples. ‘Even if Mesoten falls, which appears a remote possibility, then its loss will merely provoke Riga into issuing a call for more crusaders, who will undoubtedly come. Sometimes, Aras, it is all too much to bear.’

  Chapter 5

  Western Wierland was a fertile region. A third was covered with forests of fir and pine but the rest was lush and open, a wonderland of oblong lakes, expansive meadows, rivers and bogs. A notable feature of the region was the myriad of drumlins – long, narrow hills – that crisscrossed the land. According to pagan mythology they had been planted by the gods, along with the many large boulders dotting the land that were said to be the playthings of giants. The drumlins varied in length and height, some being up to three miles long, half a mile wide and over a hundred feet in height. Others were half the extent and height but all were covered in either grass or trees and surrounded by land that was very fertile. Villages sprang up around them, growing their crops in the rich soil and feeding their livestock on the lush grass growing on their slopes. The Danes had inflicted terrible misery on the people of Wierland but now the Danes were gone. All that remained to be dealt with were the followers of King Kalev.

  Following the abortive Sword Brother campaign against them in the Alutaguse the bandits had been quiet, giving rise to the hope that those that had not been killed had dispersed. But with the coming of winter they had re-emerged to terrorise the locals. But now there was a force in the region that was more than capable of dealing with them if they ventured from their forest lair.

  They acted like most pagan raiding parties: attacking a village and burning it after taking what they wanted – food, weapons and slaves. They killed the men, young and old, rather than attempting to enslave them. Men were too troublesome and likely to escape; women were more docile, especially if they had their young with them. And women and girls were infinitely more pleasurable and useful once the raiders had reached the sanctuary of their camp. They could be endlessly raped, made to do work around the camp that men found irksome and, in the last resort, killed if they became too troublesome or unruly. And the young, pretty ones could always be sold on for a tidy profit; though the camp leader had to act quickly to weed out those he wanted to make a profit from. It was remarkable how rape and abuse aged a woman’s face and body.

  In the bleak winter landscape they moved slowly, encumbered as they were with carts loaded with plundered supplies and a host of wailing women and children. The raiders were mounted on ponies and used spear butts to prod their captives to keep them in line and urge them on. Behind them they left many dead and a burning village. And that was their mistake.

  The tendrils of black smoke had been spotted at Laiuse and the alarm bell had been sounded. In the icy still air thin pillars of black smoke could mean only one thing: burning buildings. Minutes later fifty horsemen cantered through the fort’s gates, heading to the east of where the burning village lay. During the preceding weeks Paul had sent out parties of horsemen to scout the ground, become familiar with those villages still occupied and know the tracks and roads through the woods and by the sides of drumlins.

  Those tracks and roads were now covered with snow, the lakes and rivers were frozen solid and the air was still and icy. Like many mid-winter days in Estonia the sun was brilliant in the clear blue sky, giving perfect visibility for miles around. The sound of hooves crunching through the crisp snow would travel far but it did not matter: they would intercept the bandits before they reached the sanctuary of the forest. The raiders could divert their journey into any nearby woods, of course, but to do so would mean spending the night without tents and fire if they had not brought dry firewood.

  Conrad gripped the reins and tried to restrain his horse from breaking into a gallop. It sensed battle, as did the riders behind him. They would be tempted to speed ahead with all haste to intercept the enemy, but Paul had trained them well so they managed to curtail their desire to get to grips with the foe. They rode beside a high drumlin, its grassy slopes now covered with deep snow. Around Conrad’s left forearm were the straps on the inner side of his shield, his hand free to hold the reins. In his right hand he held a lance. Freezing air flooded through the vision slits and vent holes of his helm, making his eyes water.

  They passed the drumlin, Paul and one of his men, a local Wierlander resembling a Christian knight in his mail armour, red surcoat, a caparison of the same colour covering his horse, leading the way. The Wierlander held up his lance when they approached a frozen stream, which was now a slight dip in the snow. The only sign that it was a watercourse were two parallel pine copses flanking the depression. The column slowed and divided as it traversed the stream, reforming and quickening its pace as it skirted a larger group of trees to the left. A large lake, its surface smooth and greyish white, appeared on the right as the riders dug their spurs into their mounts. The winter days were short and the sun was beginning to dip on the horizon. They thundered into a wide meadow and pulled up their horses. There, to the west, around half a mile away, was their target.

  Conrad shoved his helmet up on his head as Paul, Hans and Anton came to him and Paul’s men formed into a line behind. Already the air was filled with screams and deeper shouts and curses as the enemy caught site of a flash of red against the white background.

  ‘They’ve spotted us,’ said Hans.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ replied Conrad, ‘they have nowhere to run to. I want one alive.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Anton.

  ‘Never mind why,’ interrupted Paul, ‘if we do not engage them soon they will scarper.’

  He turned his horse and bellowed his orders.

  ‘Open line formation, slow advance, watch out for any obstacles in the snow.’

  Hans turned. ‘Obstacles?’

  ‘Boulders as big as an elk’s balls,’ shouted Paul, to laughter from his men, ‘this area is littered with them.’

  The horses snorted and flicked their heads as the men of iron began to advance, widely spaced and each rider looking at the ground ahead for any signs of the boulders that Paul had mentioned. In the distance the warriors of Kalev raced to form into a line, a wall of locked shields and menacing spear points. The pagans began shouting and cursing the horsemen, taunting them as they got closer. They too stood out against the background in their dark leggings, leather armour and shields. Their bulky clothing, a defence against the cold, made them appear over-sized. They looked like an immovable wall of leather and iron against which the horsemen would founder. It was a large raiding party. Conrad estimated that they outnumbered the horsemen, which is probably why they decided to stand and fight. They would be expecting the riders to lower their lances and charge right into the shield wall. Behind them their captives, frightened and tethered together with rope, began shrieking as the battle approached them.

  When they were within two hundred paces of the shield wall, arrows being shot by a handful of archers in the rear rank, Paul held up his lance and the line split, half flanking left, the other moving right. Conrad, Hans and Anton, at the extreme right of the line, were suddenly in the rear of what was now the right-hand column as it charged ahead and then, as the men had done in training, suddenly wheeled left and left again to hit the enemy in the rear.

  A disciplined, well-drilled enemy would have simply about-faced and presented their shields and spears to the charging horsemen. But pagans placed their best men in the front rank of a shield wall and the wall itself was not a body of disciplined soldiers but a mass of warriors who liked to fight as individuals when the mêlée began. Those who had been in the front rank angrily turned and barged their way through their comrades to fight the horsemen first. And in doing so wrecked the cohesion of the shield wall.

  Conrad dug his spurs hard into the flanks of his horse, causing the beast to snort in anger and bolt forward. The combined weight of man and beast was concentrated at the tip of his lance as he aimed the point at an enemy shield. He gripped the lance hard as it shuddered for an instant and then pierced the leather and wood to drive into the torso of the man behind it. He released the lance and pulled his axe held in the special scabbard hanging from his saddle. As it had been trained to do, his horse moved back and forth to avoid enemy weapons, shifting its legs as Conrad hacked left and right in an effort to split helmets. He yanked the reins violently to the left to move his mount as a warrior ran at him with a levelled spear. The horse instantly shifted left, the warrior’s attack failing as he halted and swung right to face the flank of Conrad’s beast. He dropped the spear as Hans passed by him and caved in his helmet with a swing of his mace. He collapsed to the ground twitching, blood seeping through the freshly made indentations in his helmet.

  The shouts and screams of battle competed with the cries and howling of the captives as men battled for their lives a few yards away. Half the bandits were dead or injured but the rest were still fighting as they thrust their spears and chopped with their axes at Paul’s men.

  Conrad slid off his horse as Hans and Anton did the same, his two friends armed with maces as they flanked him. The horsemen had fragmented the shield wall but not scattered it entirely so the only way to crush the enemy was to bludgeon to death every last one of them. Other riders were also dismounting and arming themselves with their close-quarter weapons for the final struggle.

  One or two bandits tried to escape on their ponies but were easily caught and surrounded by a small mounted reserve that Paul directed. He had trained his men well. Conrad pointed his axe at a bandit armed with a sword, indicating he was a man of some importance among the enemy. The man needed no second prompting as he charged forward, swinging his weapon with aplomb as he thrust it forward but then whipped it back and flicked his wrist to slice the blade low, against Conrad’s right leg. The Sword Brother caught the blow on his axe’s langlets – protective metal strips riveted along the haft to protect it from such a strike. He threw himself forward, putting all his weight behind his shield as he clattered into the warrior who crashed into the snow. Conrad fell on top of him, held his weapon aloft and then drove it down with all his strength to drive the spike on the opposite side of the axe head into the man’s eye and into his brain. He left the weapon where it was to scramble to his feet before yanking it from its bloody stand.

  All around red-uniformed men were whittling down the enemy who, remarkably, were still fighting. Hans and Anton were working in tandem, one attacking the other defending and then vice-versa, smashing enemy shields and helmets as they darted forward and back in a relentless battle of attrition.

  The light was fading now, bodies covering the blood-flecked snow as the last of the bandits was clubbed to the ground. Paul’s men gave a great cheer and raised their blood-covered weapons to the sky when there was no one left to fight.

  ‘Get the women and children on the ponies and back to camp,’ shouted Paul as he rode among his men, helmet in hand. ‘And get a move on, the light is fading fast.’