The affluent merchant-it was too much of a stretch to describe him as rich-seemed to be just what they were looking for in the way of someone who knew his way around the caravan business. Little happened during their first encounter, the purpose of which, evidently, was to give this man-whose name was Benjamin-an opportunity to size up the mysterious Franks. But it was clearly a propitious sign that the rabbi had bothered to summon such a person, and so they bided their time and redoubled their preparations the next day.
That turned out to be the Sabbath, and so nothing at all happened, but on the morrow, Rabbi Aaron and Benjamin turned up at their house in the middle of the day, seemingly eager to continue the discussion.
And that discussion went quite well for about an hour. At which point Vera, covered with blood and bandages, staggered through the open door, lurched into their midst, and collapsed on the floor.
Once they had recovered from their astonishment, all rushed toward her to see what was the matter. On her shoulder and arms and one leg, she was swathed in mud-spattered and bloody bandages. She waved them away, though, and insisted they go outside first and tend to Alena.
Alena was sitting on an exhausted Mongol pony, hunched over, shivering uncontrollably, though the afternoon was warm. Percival and Eleazar carried her down as gently as they could, then brought her inside and laid her on a pallet so that Raphael could get a look at her. She too had been wounded in several places, and the wounds crudely bandaged. Raphael was disturbed by one in particular, a deep puncture of the arm, obviously made by an arrow, which had suppurated. Alena’s skin was marked by three distinct red lines that originated at the wound and ran up toward her armpit. Raphael had seen such marks before. They did not bode well.
“What are you doing on this side of the river?” Cnan was asking Vera. “Where are the other Shield-Maidens?”
“They are all dead,” Vera muttered, her jaw aquiver, and so exhausted she could barely force out the words. “As soon as we began the journey west, we were ambushed by a force of Mongols.”
“How many?” Istvan asked.
“A jaghun-one hundred men,” Vera said. “Though they are fewer now.”
“Do you think it was an unlucky chance?” Feronantus asked. “Or…?”
Vera shook her head. “They were lying in wait for us,” she said. “And their commander was the one you call Graymane.”
11
It is easy to overthink, Andreas had told his three charges. A good strategist does not try to anticipate his enemy’s every move; he simply plans to have his men prepared and in reasonably good position for any possible action. As when Taran taught you one-handed sword techniques, your opponent might attack in a variety of ways, but why complicate your response by trying to anticipate all of them? Make him come for you; be ready.
Much of training is challenge and repetition, and he knew they had had enough of those. The next task of a good leader is to instill confidence, and in the last few weeks, Andreas had seen how Taran’s labor had brought forth that strength as well. All these warriors needed for their final tempering was real combat.
Which had brought him to the last aspect of the trinity of exemplary leadership: leading men into battle. Though, in this case, it was his hope that the conflict would not be fatal for anyone; he wanted to get his opponents’ attention, not earn their enmity.
Andreas strolled around the side of the alehouse, walking with stick in hand; none of the four Livonian knights left outside The Frogs seemed terribly concerned about his presence-or anything else. Whatever obedience Dietrich von Gruningen had meant to implant in them had not taken root in their hearts, and as their Heermeister sat inside the alehouse, drinking his fill of the local brew, his escort sat in the sun, bored and sleepy.
They had taken up their positions across the muddy track. Their horses, hitched in a line along the low remnants of a brick wall, stood with heads down, ears forward, eyes heavy lidded, alternately lifting a hind leg or a foreleg, tails swishing at flies.
Two of the four knights were close to dozing off; another, closest to Andreas, leaned against the wall, his eyes dull from having checked the blade of his arming sword for nicks and divots over and over in the last hour. He looked up as Andreas approached. At first, his interest was fleeting, but as he realized something was amiss, he met Andreas’s gaze, his back straightened, his right hand firmly clasped his sword’s hilt, and his left hand fell away from stroking the blade.
Andreas ignored this and let his eyes pass over the seven horses. “Those are fine horses,” he said, then slowly returned his attention to the Livonian.
The Livonian eyed Andreas, examining his robes, then loosened his stance a bit and offered a grunt in response. Andreas’s disguise-the dusty, smelly robe, the crooked walking stick, the wood and leather cross-revealed no immediate threat, but the Livonian was not entirely convinced.
“I think I’ll take them,” Andreas finished, and slowly, he tightened his grip on the crooked stick.
The Livonian snorted. “They are not for sale, old man.”
Andreas shrugged. “I was not offering to buy them.”
The second Livonian, overhearing this exchange, found it interesting enough and peculiar enough that he roused from lethargy and dropped his hand to his hilt.
The first Livonian was shoving himself away from the wall when Andreas snapped the end of his stick up toward the knight’s stomach. Off balance, the knight swung his sword wildly, trying to block Andreas’s strike. Steel struck dry wood, and chips of the staff splintered off with a dusty crackling sound. Andreas let the stick’s tip rotate back and whipped the butt around in a hard, whip-crack strike at his opponent’s helmeted temple. The Livonian, so struck, dropped to the packed dirt, letting go of his sword and clutching his head. The ornamental ridge across the top of his helmet was deeply creased. This sound, unlike the parry, was more alarming-a sharp, loud whang that startled the two napping Livonians.
The second Livonian was in the process of drawing his sword when Andreas backhanded him in the face. His nose spurting blood, he forgot all about his sword and collapsed, like a man falling to his knees during a particularly moving sermon. With a sharp snap of his wrist, Andreas whipped the stick around. He struck the man on the side of the helmet, and the soldier bounced off the wall, his helmet absorbing most of the impact-but giving his head a good, rattling shock.
Andreas stepped over the fallen man, focusing on the two remaining knights. They were now on their feet, swords drawn, and regarded him warily. All surprise was lost; Andreas was clearly a serious threat, and they were deciding how best to rush him. Andreas paused as well, but for an entirely different reason, and their momentary impasse was broken up by the sudden appearance of an arrow in the shoulder of the third Livonian, on Andreas’s right.
Eilif, from a hidden position behind Andreas, upset the balance of power between the combatants with a single well-placed arrow.
The Livonian grunted in pain, staggered back several steps, and looked down and sideways at the deep-sunk shaft, confusion writ on his face as he tried to figure out how a man dressed as a priest, armed with only a crooked walking stick, could make an arrow suddenly sprout from his arm.
The fourth Livonian’s attention was also drawn to the arrow, and Andreas took advantage of that drift in the man’s attention to step in and smack his wrist. He followed with two sharp blows-one to the face and one to the forehead-and his opponent crumpled like a sack of loose bones.