‘Because it is so early in the spring the ground is too wet,’ stated Rudolf, sitting at his table in his oblong pavilion, candles on stands around the walls providing a yellowish illumination. Also around the walls stood four novices in their plain gambesons, their hair cut short and their faces clean-shaven. They served those invited to the meeting with wine as Thaddeus, Walter, Conrad and leather face, now the commander of all Wenden’s crossbowmen and spearmen, took their places. Rudolf wore the expression of a man at the end of his tether. He took a gulp of wine and ordered one of the novices to refill his cup.
‘Our wagons are getting stuck in mud. At our current rate of advance it will take us a month to reach Holm, which will delay the army’s crossing of the river. I am thinking of abandoning the waggons and loading their cargoes on the horses and ponies. Conrad, as your Estonians are all mounted I think that we could use their ponies as our draught animals.’
Thaddeus was shaking his head.
‘You disagree, Master Thaddeus?’ asked Walter.
‘Having spent a considerable amount of time organising the loading of the wagons,’ said Thaddeus, ‘I would consider it gross negligence to abandon them so early in our march.’
The patter of raindrops on the tent’s roof caused Rudolf to look up. ‘More rain, which means that in the morning the wagons will have to be dug out of the mud, further delaying our progress.’
Thaddeus took a sip of his wine. ‘How many soldiers do you command, Master Rudolf?’
Rudolf did a mental calculation for a few seconds. ‘Just over a hundred and twenty men of the garrison and Conrad’s eight hundred warriors.’
‘Eight hundred and thirty,’ Conrad corrected him.
‘Nine hundred and fifty men,’ said Thaddeus, ‘plus the Liv men hired to drive the carts and wagons. More that enough to construct a road to ease our passage.’
Rudolf laughed. ‘A road?’
‘It is a shame that the nobility of Christendom chooses to spend its time engaged in warfare at the expense of exploring the writings of ancient scholars,’ said Thaddeus.
Rudolf rubbed his eyes as Walter politely paid attention. Conrad had no idea what Thaddeus was talking about but the engineer continued regardless.
‘I remember reading a passage in Tacitus concerning a Roman army marching through terrain that was very similar to Livonia in springtime, that is to say wet and muddy.’
‘This is all very interesting,’ sighed Rudolf.
‘If it is interesting then you will wish me to continue,’ said Thaddeus brusquely. ‘The point is that the Romans constructed a log road. They cut down trees and fashioned logs that they arranged side by side and perpendicular to the direction of travel that the army wished to take.’
Conrad laughed. ‘A log road? Surely you are not suggesting that we cut down trees to create this road as we go along?’
‘That is precisely what I am suggesting,’ replied Thaddeus. ‘We have an adequate supply of saws, axes and hammers with which to fell trees and cut logs, and hundreds of men who can do it.’
‘It would be quite an undertaking, sir,’ said Walter.
The rainfall on the roof increased. Thaddeus looked up.
‘As would hauling wagons and carts through mud.’
Rudolf also looked at the roof that was now being pounded by heavy rain.
‘You are confident that this log road will shorten the time spent on the march, Master Thaddeus?’
Thaddeus nodded. ‘I am certain of it.’
‘Then make it so.’
The next day Thaddeus was busy organising parties to fell trees, other groups to ferry the trunks back to camp by using the ponies of Conrad’s Estonians where they would be cut into logs. The logs would then be laid parallel to each other under the direction of the quartermaster’s engineers. It was a mammoth undertaking but one that Thaddeus tackled with gusto. The warriors of the Army of the Wolf thought the whole enterprise highly amusing and intriguing, and as the first day wore on there developed keen competition between the Saccalians, Jerwen and Rotalians as to who could fell the most trees.
It was as though a thousand woodpeckers had suddenly been awakened as axes and saws went to work on the surrounding pine, spruce and birch trees. Most of the trees averaged a height of around sixty feet, though some were up to a hundred feet high. The rate of felling averaged two hundred trees an hour, which meant that by the end of the day one thousand, five hundred had been cut down. Thaddeus and his engineers managed to lay four miles of road on the first day, five on the second and a further five on the third. When the scouts led the army through stretches of forest with thick moss between the trees there was no need to lay logs as the waggons did not get stuck in mud and so the rate of advance was increased to seven or eight miles a day. But when the army was forced to move across meadows and skirt peat bogs then the ground became very soft and the saws and axes were needed once more. Nevertheless, Rudolf was extremely happy as the army got nearer to Holm with its full complement of wagons.
All the brother knights, sergeants and novices also took part in the tree felling, Conrad, Anton and Hans forming a team that employed the techniques they had been taught by Lukas during the siege of Fellin nine years earlier. Conrad and Hans used a two handed saw to make a straight cut into one side of the trunk, then a downward cut above it at and angle to forty-five degrees that created a notch that Hans knocked out with a hammer. The tree fell on the ground and they went to work with axes to chop off the branches. Then they called to an Estonian with a pony who hitched the timber to the saddle and pulled it to camp.
Conrad recognised the long blonde hair of the Estonian who tied a rope around the end of the trunk with some dexterity.
‘You should be in camp, Kaja,’ he said.
She spun round. ‘Why? You think I cannot hold my own when it comes to manual labour,
Susi
? I was once a farmer’s daughter and know all about long days full of toil.’
‘That’s told you,’ grinned Hans.
Kaja checked that the knot was tight. ‘You should spend some time being a farmer,
Susi
, and then you would realise what a hard life it is.’
‘I was a farmer once,’ said Conrad softly, ‘but only for a short time.’
She looked at him. ‘I was told that you came to this land to be a Sword Brother.’
He sighed. ‘It does not matter. Just make sure you do not over-exert yourself.’
Kaja gave a girlish laughed as she vaulted into the saddle and clasped the reins. ‘You worry too much,
Susi
.’
She urged the pony forward and the hardy beast with stubby legs grunted and hauled the trunk away.
‘She has a fiery temperament,’ said Anton, pointing his axe at Kaja.
Conrad shook his head. ‘I would have preferred her to have stayed in Saccalia but she insisted on accompanying me to Wenden. I just hope she does not get herself killed.’
He heard rustling behind him and turned to see Master Thaddeus approaching, a great creaking noise followed by a crashing sound coming from the left as another tree fell to the ground.
‘I hope you have not pressed that young girl into service,’ said Thaddeus sternly as he observed Kaja urging on her pony.
Two other trees crashed to the ground.
‘She is a willing volunteer, sir,’ said Conrad. He looked around at the frenetic activity in the forest. ‘You plan has exceeded all expectations, sir.’
‘I merely applied mathematical principles,’ remarked Thaddeus. ‘As such my calculations have neither exceeded nor disappointed my expectations, merely fulfilled them as I expected. When one is familiar with the writings of Pythagoras such things become very straightforward.’
‘Was he at Acre?’ asked Conrad in ignorance.
Thaddeus looked shocked. ‘Acre?’
‘The siege in the Holy Land,’ said Conrad. ‘Was Pythagoras a fellow engineer?’
Thaddeus was momentarily lost for words.
‘Perhaps it was a mistake teaching you to read and write, Conrad.’
‘Sir?’
Thaddeus rolled his eyes. ‘I sometimes think I am wasting my time here. Perhaps I should seek employment with the Saracens. Heathens they might be but at least they appreciate a sound mind. Go back to your chopping, Conrad.’
He walked off, shaking his head.
‘I think you’ve upset him,’ said Hans.
‘Obviously he and this Pythagoras did not get along,’ suggested Anton. ‘They probably fell out over something.’
It took three weeks for them to reach Holm, leaving many miles of log road behind. The garrison of Wenden and the Army of the Wolf was the last contingent of the bishop’s force to arrive at the Dvina, the castle sitting above a great camp that circled it like a besieging army. As it waited to invade Semgallia across the short distance over the fast-flowing waters of the Dvina, the thousands of men and animals produced a great amount of smoke, dung and stink. It was the aroma of an army of unwashed warriors and crusaders filling the air for miles around. At least the heat of summer was some way off so the odour did not turn into a stench but many men covered their faces with masks to avoid the ill humours that everyone knew were contained in bad-smelling air.
The camp of the Sword Brothers was positioned immediately north of the castle itself, the master’s hall having been given over to house Bishop Albert, the Duke of Saxony and Fricis, the leader of the Livs. Around the order’s shelters was the tent city that housed the crusader army, the standards of northern Germany decorating the banners, shields, surcoats and caparisons of the knights who had come to avenge the previous year’s treachery against the bishop. The black lion on a yellow background of the Duke of Saxony predominated but there were also the red and white, black and white and yellow standards of the nobles of Franconia, the blue Panther of the knights of Thuringia, the golden lion that adorned the heater shields of Bavaria’s lords, and the white, green and blue flags carried by Swabia’s knights.
The Livs occupied the ground to the west of the castle and Conrad thought he would have an opportunity to visit his friend and brother Rameke, the brother of Daina and now the second-in-command of Fricis’ warriors. But no sooner had Wenden’s tents been pitched and those of the Army of the Wolf sited to the east of the castle, beyond the shelters of the crusaders, who had objected to pagans being planted in their midst, than he was ordered to the castle in the company of Rudolf. The master had been in jovial spirits following the building of the log road but was now in a grisly mood.
‘You remember when we fought at Riga all those years ago?’ he said as they walked across the castle’s drawbridge, the air filled with the smoke of a thousand campfires. Conrad nodded.
‘The flux broke out because there were too many soldiers camped in one place,’ continued Rudolf, the two sergeants on the bridge bringing their spears to their sides in salute as they passed. ‘I fear it will be the same here unless we move across the river.’
Conrad was troubled over a more immediate matter. ‘I do not understand why I have been summoned to the war council.’
‘You are the Marshal of Estonia, Conrad,’ said Rudolf, ‘and bring eight hundred warriors to support the bishop. You are an important person now.’
Conrad laughed as they entered the castle courtyard.
‘Why the levity?’ asked Rudolf. ‘You think the fate of Estonia is something to be laughed at?’
‘No, master.’
Rudolf stopped and jabbed a finger in Conrad’s chest. ‘Livonia is in a perilous position, notwithstanding the display of might sitting outside this castle. Do you think that Novgorod will forget the loss of its banner, or that the Danes will meekly submit to being turned back at the Pala? We need to get the business across the Dvina settled quickly and then turn our attention to the north once more. You are now an integral part of the success or failure of events in Estonia, remember that.’
The business across the Dvina was explained to the attendees by the bishop in the master’s hall. The vaulted chamber was filled to bursting with the castellans of the order, crusader lords and Liv chiefs. They sat on hastily arranged benches and stools while the commanders of the various contingents sat at a table positioned in the centre of the hall.
The bishop sat at the head of the table, flanked by Manfred Nordheim resplendent in a red surcoat emblazoned with the cross keys symbol of Riga in gold, Abbot Bernhard in a simple undyed woollen habit and Master Thaddeus, who was dressed in the red uniform of the bishop’s quartermaster general. On the right side of the table sat Fricis and his senior Liv chiefs, including Rameke, all attired in mail shirts, green, blue and brown tunics and leather boots. They wore their hair long and their beards untrimmed, presenting a stark contrast to the neatly cropped beards and hair of the Duke of Saxony and the other senior crusader lords sitting opposite. At the other end of the table, opposite the bishop, were three chairs for the head of the Sword Brothers, Grand Master Volquin, and his deputy, Master Rudolf of Wenden. They bowed their heads to the bishop and took their seats.
‘Brother Conrad,’ the bishop’s deep voice filled the chamber as Conrad walked towards a chair behind the order’s castellans. He stopped and turned, blushing as everyone looked at him.