It was the equivalent of a walled garden, a hidden sanctuary that offered respite from the ravages of the world. They were common enough at monasteries—secluded places where the monks could withdraw and meditate without too many distractions. At Petraathen, the contemplative garden was a sheltered slab of stone that looked out over the mountains—there were no trees or flowers, just the endless expanse of the majesty of God’s creation to take in.
In Hünern, God’s majesty was expressed in the defiantly interwoven limbs of a single tree.
Beyond the tree, several stools were grouped around a crate, and Andreas’s guide perched on one of the stools, eagerly waiting for his reward. There were a couple of wooden cups and a pitcher on the makeshift table, and as Andreas entered the hidden sanctuary, he caught sight of another boy, whose face lit up at the sight of the Shield-Brethren knight.
Hans.
Hans picked up the pitcher and poured a libation into a cup as Andreas walked past the tree and the sleeping child nestled in its roots. “Welcome, Knight of the Rose,” the boy said in his oddly accented Latin.
Andreas tossed the second apple to the boy who had brought him and accepted the cup from Hans. He inhaled the aroma of the freshly poured ale. Sage and thyme, he noted. “Thank you,” he said after he tasted it. “Your hospitality is most gracious.”
“This is our...” Hans tried to think of the correct word. He put his hands together in a ring and held it over his heart. “Our protection. Our sanctuary.”
Hans smiled, and his expression was so guileless—filled with such innocence and hopeful naïveté—that Andreas was filled with an intense desire to crush this boy in an embrace as if he were a long-lost son. In a flash, he knew what his father felt every time he came back from the sea and was bowled over by a young Andreas. He knew why his father had hugged him so tightly.
He surprised himself by giving in to this desire. He swept Hans up in a crushing bear hug. The boy fought him for a second, squawking unintelligibly. He relaxed quickly enough and let Andreas hold him, and somewhat tentatively, his own arms stretched around the big man’s frame.
“This is the best ale I’ve tasted in a long time,” Andreas offered as an excuse when they released each other. “I had thought to never taste such nectar again, and...” With a shrug, he drank the rest of the cup and held it out for more.
“Ernust—my uncle—makes it,” Hans said as he filled Andreas’s cup. His hesitation and stress on the word uncle made it clear that the relationship was one of convenience and not blood.
“Your uncle Ernust has been blessed with a God-given talent,” Andreas said. “Does he produce such elixir with an eye toward the marketplace in this growing city?”
“He does.”
“And I would assume there are a number of alehouses which seek to acquire his spectacular libations.”
Hans scratched the side of his nose and looked askance at Andreas for a moment and then nodded. He offered Andreas a third cup, which the knight considered refusing, but then relented.
“In addition to inquiring how I might acquire a barrel or two of this fine ale for my brothers, I also seek more immediate assistance from you, my young master.” Andreas smiled. “There is a man I need to find, and I think you know him—either by sight or by reputation.” When Hans nodded, Andreas swallowed half the contents of his cup before continuing. “I would like to see more of this city, and I do not wish to be distracted or befuddled by its confusing array of unmarked streets and chaotic marketplaces. Would you be my guide?”
Hans bowed. “I would, Sir Rose Knight.”
Andreas laughed. “Please,” he said, laying his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Call me Andreas. Brother Andreas, if you must. Let there be no more talk of titles.”
“Very well,” Hans agreed. He hefted the pitcher. “Would you?”
“No, thank you.” Andreas took one last sip from the cup and poured the meager remains out among the roots of the tree, careful to not splash the sleeping boy. In memoriam, he prayed. It was an old ritual, one rooted in a time before the Shield-Brethren founded Petraathen. Much of the world had changed—both outside the walls of the ancient citadel and within—but the intent of the gesture still had truth and meaning. The chain of brotherhood remained unbroken. With a lingering glance at the twisted branches of the tree, he followed Hans out of the hidden garden.
* * *
As they walked, Hans described the geography of Hünern. There were two landmarks that pulled at the inhabitants—like lodestones, Andreas pointed out, and Hans only shrugged, unfamiliar with the word. The arena, he pointed, and the church. The Mongol camps lay closer to the arena, the heavy tents peeking over the mud-brick walls like shy clusters of mushrooms; the tents, shanties, fortified compounds, and half-raised walls of the assembled Christian encampments were a circular labyrinth with the leaning spire of the church in the center. Roads and paths became narrower and more infrequent as one got closer to the church; in their zeal to be close to the beacon of Heaven, desperate pilgrims claimed nearly every inch of open ground.
The arena was not at the center of the new city, Hans explained as they approached an open commons. Wooden scaffolds and a jumbled mass of crates and sloppily connected pieces of wood made for a crude parody of the more refined construction of the arena, visible on their left. Stakes and ropes marked off three areas, and while they were currently empty, their function was clear. A pole stood beside each fighting ground, a pair of rings and posts jutting from either side. A wooden triskelion separated the arenas from each other, and each leg of the platform was a honeycomb of narrow slots.
“It’s called First Field,” Hans said. “This is where they start.” He pointed at the platform in the center. “They bring their flags and place them there.”
Andreas nodded, understanding how the system worked. Each fighter entered in the competition by putting his flag in one of the open slots. When all the holes in a leg of the triskelion were filled with standards, the fights would begin. A pair of standards would be moved to one of the circles, and their owners would enter the roped-off arena and compete. It was a system not unlike the one used by knights throughout Christendom in their tournaments of arms.
“Win here; go there,” Hans said, pointing at the arena.
“How often are the fights?”
“Every three days.” Hans shrugged. “But no one goes to the arena anymore, and so they don’t fight as much.”
Andreas nodded. The Mongolian champion whom Haakon had fought had gone crazy when the young Shield-Brother had spared his life, and a number of Mongolian guards had died in the ensuing riot. Onghwe Khan had closed the arena, and there hadn’t been any word when—or if—he was going to start the fights again.
The temporary residents of Hünern were waiting, and after a few weeks, they were starting to lose their patience. Andreas assumed the same was true for the Mongolian army. How long would they simply sit and wait for their Khan to regain his interest in the competition? How long before tempers frayed to the breaking point?
The situation was not unlike a siege, and Andreas had seen the way madness crept in men’s minds when they thought they were trapped.
“The Mongol camps are there.” Hans waved his hand. With the arena on his left and the church on his right, Andreas guessed the general direction of Hans’s wave was to the south and east of First Field. Hans pointed to the west. “Knights there, and Christians.” His hand moved to indicate the church and the area to the north and west of it. “Hünern, before...” Hans trailed off with a shrug. “Some call it that now too.”
“And where we came from?”
“Rat,” Hans said. “That’s where the rats live.” There was a hint of pride in his voice.
“Rat,” Andreas echoed. “Do you have names for the other quarters as well?”
Hans indicated each section again as he listed their names. “Wolf, lion, and eagle.”
Andreas liked the simplicity and the descriptive names the
boy had given the areas of the city. He doubted a reasonably accurate map could be made of Hünern, but Hans’s basic divisions against the two perpetually visible landmarks made it easy to know where one stood in the sprawling maze. If you were closer to the arena than the church, you were closer to the enemy; safety meant putting the church between you and the Mongols—a rule any good Christian could remember.
“The Livonians are in the Lion Quarter, then?” Andreas asked.
“Mostly,” Hans answered. He brought his hand up to his mouth, and Andreas realized he was miming a specific action. “The Heermeister likes to drink,” the boy said.
Andreas chuckled. “Having tasted your uncle’s ale, I can’t say that I blame him.” He clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Lead on, young scout. I want to see everything. Show me the Mongols, the Livonians—I want to see where they sleep and keep their arms—and then we’ll go find their master and have a drink with him.”
An idea was beginning to form in his head—a simple plan that Rutger would, no doubt, find entirely unacceptable. Yet, there was an elegant purity to it that was appealing. Yes, he thought, looking at the honeycombed triskelion, at some point you cannot hide who or what you are.
* * *
In the Wolf Quarter, the Mongolian presence was overwhelming. Andreas had expected to see an armed presence, but the sheer number of roving four-men patrols astounded him. They got as far as being able to see the gates of the Khan’s compound, but Hans would go no closer. Nor could Andreas blame him. At least three groups of Mongolian guardsmen had taken interest in the two of them already, and to stand around and stare at the gates would only attract more attention.
Marching up to the gate and asking if one of the guards would mind delivering a letter to the Flower Knight wasn’t an option. Andreas hadn’t really thought it would have been that simple, but there was no reason to not be sure. At the very least, he had gotten a glimpse of the Mongolian defenses and had found them strong and sound. Nothing larger than a squirrel or a rat was going to sneak into the Khan’s camp.
He and Hans swung west, scurrying back across the invisible line that separated east from west, losing themselves in the unnamed and unmarked alleys that snaked across the city. Soon thereafter, he spotted the Livonian standard, raised over a dilapidated barn, the white flag snapping in the wind. The red cross surmounted the red sword, its tip pointing down as if to signal to any passersby, “Here be righteous knights.”
Slightly north of the Livonian camp, Hans led Andreas through a half-collapsed arch and up a charred beam. The wood groaned and shifted under their combined weight, and Andreas crouched low, keeping both hands on the beam. A jumble of masonry jutted out from a ruined wall, obscuring their view of the camp. They couldn’t be seen, either; Hans, crouching at the top of the beam, indicated that Andreas should creep up the last few feet and peek over. Andreas did and found he had a bird’s-eye view of the Livonian camp.
They surrounded a run-down barn that was missing half of its roof. A lazy curl of gray smoke from within the barn indicated the barn was used as the communal mess. Andreas guessed the Heermeister, the Livonian Grandmaster, had sectioned off a private space for himself underneath the portion of the building that was still covered.
A corral of rope and logs kept the horses sequestered on the eastern side of the compound, and several pieces of sailcloth had been stitched together to make a clumsy shelter and windscreen. Andreas would have set aside part of the barn for the horses—that was its original function, after all—and let the men sleep in their tents, but the Livonians clearly thought differently about their mounts.
The entire compound was protected by a fragmentary bulwark made of debris piled behind hastily dug trenches, clumps of rubble, and stacked logs. It wasn’t defensible, not like the Mongolian ramparts, but it was enough of a barrier to grant the knights the illusion of being fortified and entrenched. Half of the winning strategy in any battle is making your enemy believe you are stronger than you are, Andreas thought, glancing back at Hans, who was perched—perfectly still—on the wooden beam like a hunting bird, waiting to be loosed.
“How many knights?” Andreas whispered. “Men with armor and swords.”
Hans shrugged and, without losing his balance, held up both hands, fingers spread. He opened and closed his hands.
“More than twice ten?” Andreas interpreted. Hans nodded.
Andreas peered over the lip of the barrier hiding them, trying to get a count of his own. There were nearly three dozen horses—near as he could tell—which didn’t conflict with Hans’s number. Each knight had more than one horse. And there were more than twenty men milling around. Some were men-at-arms; some were squires and craftsmen retained by the order—noncombatants. Not all of them were knights. Still, more than twenty was as good a guess as any.
There weren’t twenty full knights at the Shield-Brethren camp. Some of the young ones might be ready in a few years, but most—like the boy Haakon had been—had not been tested. Their swords were plain and their pommels were blank. They had promise, but they weren’t ready.
A group of Livonians was drilling in the northwest corner of the compound, and Andreas settled down on the beam to watch. After a little while, he shook his head and sat down, letting his legs dangle off the wood.
“Their drillmaster must be blind in one eye,” he explained in response to Hans’s quizzical glance. Seeing no change in the boy’s expression, he tried to explain and then gave up after a minute or two. “Clumsy,” he summarized, miming dropping his weapon and cutting his fingers off. “Not very dangerous.”
Hans nodded and smiled. “Very clumsy,” he said. “And noisy.”
“Some things never change,” Andreas chuckled. “Okay,” he nodded, “I’ve seen enough. Let’s go find that drink house of the Heermeister’s.”
Hans dropped off the beam and made for the gap in the rubble. Andreas was right behind him, but he paused when he caught sight of the church spire framed in the gap. “Wait,” he said. He stared at the church for a moment, thinking fiercely, and then a large smile broke across his face. “Do you remember the priest who was supposed to bring the message from the Flower Knight?” he asked, and when Hans nodded, he continued. “Let’s stop by the church, then. I may be in need of...confession.” He smiled. “Yes, let us call it that. I have something to confess. If I remember how that works.”
I can’t get into the Mongolian camp, he thought, but I don’t need to. Not if they opt to come out.
* * *
An hour later, after walking past the front of The Frogs—noting the Livonian presence in the street—Hans and Andreas ducked around the building and found a sheltered spot along the back wall. Hans showed him one of several peepholes, and while they waited for the three Shield-Brethren who had been shadowing them all day to catch up, he looked for the Livonians inside.
There had been seven horses in front of the drinking house—three hobbled and four whose riders were milling about aimlessly. The escort, unsure how long they were going to be left waiting.
Andreas felt the presence of other people behind him and turned his head slightly to acknowledge the arrival of his shadows. “Seven,” Eilif said in way of a report, confirming Andreas’s count.
Andreas nodded at the hole in the wall. “The Heermeister is inside, with a pair of bodyguards.”
“Rutger said to not engage them,” Maks reminded Andreas.
“I think he was referring to their entire host,” Andreas suggested.
Styg choked, caught trying to laugh and inhale at the same time. Andreas glanced at him, trying not to dwell on the pale stippling of a beard the young man was trying to grow.
Rutger, for all his caution, was right, Andreas reminded himself. Starting a fracas with the Livonians would only end up getting one of his charges hurt—or killed, even. They were his responsibility, and he needed to be sure they got back to the chapter house alive.
He put his eye to the hole again. The Livonian Grandmaster?
??based on his position directly between the two other men sporting white surcoats—was a short man with thick-hewn features and stringy brown hair that hung to his shoulders. He was leering at the servingwoman as she refilled his tankard. It was fairly obvious what was on his mind. The two bodyguards seemed alert and proficient soldiers. They’d react quickly to any threat, and he’d have to deal with them decisively if he was going to get close to the Heermeister.
If I had three veterans, this would be easy, Andreas sighed. They’d walk in the front door, just a bunch of armed men—unemployed mercenaries hoping to find a source of coin in this urban wilderness. Then one man to watch the door, one man for each bodyguard, and Andreas to deal with the Grandmaster. It’d be all over before anyone knew what was happening, and if they were lucky, none of the Livonians would be dead. A quick chat with the head of the order, and they’d depart, vanishing into the chaos of the Eagle Quarter before the men outside even knew their master had been ambushed.
Quick and bloodless. And none of the witnesses would really know what had just happened, he thought, but they’d tell the story to anyone who would listen. By the end of the day, the entire city would be talking about the incident, and not in a way that would be flattering to the Livonians.
But with just these three, he wasn’t sure they could overwhelm the bodyguards on their own. If he had three more men, he’d be more confident, but singly, it was too risky. Especially against men who were tasked with being ready for any sort of surprise attack. It would be very difficult to catch them unaware.
Andreas watched the Livonian Grandmaster slouch in his chair and brood. The man wasn’t in any rush to leave. He’d stay and drink until his mood changed. If he stayed long enough, maybe his bodyguards would tire and their attention would wander.
He sat back on his haunches and laughed quietly. “The men outside,” he explained to the others, “they’re already bored. We don’t have to wait.” He swept his hand across the ground, clearing away the loose rock and grit. Drawing his knife, he started marking a crude map in the dirt. “This is The Frogs. We’re here; the Livonians are here...”