"You're taking too long, old man! I said that you are under arrest! You men surrounding the town! Advance slowly with your axes high!"
My men came up between the houses and barns, looking less sure of themselves than I would have wished.
"Last chance, old man! Surrender or die!"
There was still more unintelligible shouting. Then two soldiers dropped their swords, but three more drew theirs and charged me. Two went down quickly with arrows in their throats, but the third arrow missed, to bury itself in the chest of a priest standing behind. I had been so overconfident of Tadaos's shooting that I hadn't even drawn my own sword. The soldier was only a pace from me as my blade cleared its scabbard, but I needn't have worried.
Anna kicked the man in the face with a forehoof. There was a satisfying crunch and he crumbled into the dirt.
I tried to act as though I'd expected that. Pointing with my sword, as if that was the reason I'd drawn it, I said, "Form them into a line along there. Search them carefully for weapons!"
Of course, the enemy had still not surrendered, but I was using what a capitalist salesman calls an "assumed close." Pretend that your opponents will do what you want them to do, and maybe they'll do it.
They didn't.
Another soldier drew his sword, one of the plumbers took a clumsy chop at him with a pickaxe, and missed. A second soldier stabbed the plumber in the arm and was struck by a carpenter's axe.
A general melee broke out. They had swords and armor, but we outnumbered them two to one and were not much more disorganized. We had two men mounted while they were all on foot. And we had Tadaos.
His last dozen arrows streaked into the center of their mass, hollowing it out. I saw Sir Lestko take out three soldiers, and Anna and I hopped around, looking busy.
At one point a group of soldiers threw down their weapons, but my workers didn't have brains enough to accept their surrender. Or maybe they didn't understand what was happening. In any event, two unarmed soldiers were cut down with axes before I could disengage and get over there. The rest of the soldiers naturally picked up their swords again and the fight went on, costing me two of my own men that didn't have to die.
Then suddenly it was over. In front of the eight smoldering bodies lay those of four priests, nineteen soldiers, three masons, two carpenters, and a blacksmith, besides numerous wounded.
Piotr was standing nearby with a strange smile on his face and blood on his axe. He had killed his man, which is the other major rite of passage in this world.
I had the surviving enemy stripped naked for fear of hidden weapons, then had them tied up and put in one of the barns under guard. Other men were assigned to guard the battlefield, because the peasants might loot it before we could properly share out the booty.
I'd had the presence of mind to bring my medical kit with me, and naturally I took care of my own people before I bothered with the Castilians, for that's what they turned out to be.
I had seven people in tourniquets and was sewing up an eighth, the man's leg laying on my lap, when Count Lambert rode up with a dozen knights. Sir Stefan was with them.
"More of your witch's work, Sir Conrad?" Sir Stefan shouted.
I ignored him and addressed ' Count Lambert. "Good afternoon, my lord. You'll forgive me if I don't stand."
The dead still lay where they had fallen, and the burnt women were still tied to their stakes. Clothes, weapons, and blood lay thick about the village square.
"Sir Conrad, what the hell goes on here?"
"Well, my lord, the short of it was that Sir Lestko came to me and said that a bunch of foreigners were burning people to death. I came here and found it was true. I put them under arrest, but they resisted, with the result you see. The survivors are in that barn."
"Dog's blood! Sir Conrad, you have the damndest talent for finding trouble! What was Baron Mieczyslaw doing while this was going on?"
"Who, my lord?"
"Baron Mieczyslaw. These are his lands. That's his castle over there. Where is he?"
"I'm afraid I've never met the gentleman, my lord. I've only been here an hour myself."
"Sir Lestko! Go with my men to the castle and see how matters stand there. Come back as soon as you may. I want to talk to the prisoners."
Count Lambert went to the barn and I went back to my doctoring. I was an amateur, but I was the best available.
Tadaos came back from helping secure the prisoners and started retrieving his arrows. "There's a lot of stuff laying around here, my lord," he said, gesturing to the booty scattered about.
"You'll get your share. We'll sort it out once things settle down. That was some pretty good shooting. You probably saved my life."
"I still owe you a few, my lord."
"Except for that fourth shot, of course. Missing a man clean at only a hundred yards. I'm surprised at you." I tried to say it in a humorous way.
Tadaos looked genuinely hurt. "That was an old arrow, my lord. A feather came loose as I let fly. The glue must have gone bad."
"I was only joking. Those things happen. Look, when you finish up with that, count the bodies, get the men together, and dig some graves. But leave things here as they are for a while. Count Lambert might want another look. "
I was finishing up with the last of our men when Count Lambert came back. "Sir Conrad, do you realize that some of those prisoners are priests?"
"I know that some of them were wearing priest's robes and have their heads shaved, my lord. I believe they are impostors. Real priests don't fight and real priests don't commit murder."
"That's true enough. Still, you can't be too careful. What do you advise we do?"
"Well, I suppose we ought to hold a trial, my lord. We have to find out what these people were doing here, and why they seemed to think they could get away with committing murder in broad daylight and in public. For all we know, there could be other bands like this around."
"Yes. We'll do it in the morning, once we've all had a chance to think." He was walking up the line of burnt bodies. "These were all old women."
"Except for the one on the end, my lord. She might have been sixteen, but it's pretty hard to tell."
"Dog's blood. How could anybody do something so… so…"
"Evil, my lord?"
"I think that's the word I wanted, but it doesn't seem bad enough. Well. Have your men clean up the mess here, and distribute the spoils as you set fit. I don't want any of it. It seems unclean."
Sir Lestko came up with six knights.
"Count Lambert, the castle was empty save for Baron Mieczyslaw. All of the servants seem to have run off. I left half your men there to secure the place."
"Good. You other knights, go to that barn and relieve the peasants securing the prisoners. Sir Maciej will be in charge. Sir Lestko, what of the baron?"
"My lord, the baron is in a very bad way. He cannot speak. He is bedridden and cannot move half his body. It is very strange. It's as though a line were drawn from head to navel, right down the middle of his face. All that is to the left of that line is cold and insensitive. It's as if he were half dead."
"Dog's blood! That smacks of witchcraft!"
"No, my lord, that smacks of a stroke," I said. "It's a common enough malady among the very aged. Is the baron very old?"
"Very. He served my grandfather," Count Lambert said.
"That explains it, then. You probably don't see much of it around here because you all die so young of other things first. It's all too common where I come from."
"I see. Can anything be done for him?"
"Not really, my lord. In time, he may regain some of his faculties, but until then he must be tended like a baby. There are a few women back with my baggage. I'll send two of them up to the castle to tend him until someone permanent can be found. But beyond that, there isn't much that I can do."