Conrad Starguard - The Radiant Warrior Part 8

"You've said that you can't possibly survive without the half pay you've been making sawing wood. I say that's dog's blood! You and your husbands can survive quite well without any pay at all!"

"You were all starving in Cieszyn before I brought you here, and if you left, or if I threw you out, you would go right back to starving there! I could stop paying you all and you would keep on working here.

You'd do it because it's the best thing that's ever happened to you!"

"Who pays for all the food you eat, that some of you are getting too fat on? I do! Who got the cloth you're wearing? I did! Who puts the roof over your head? I do! Who built the church you go to? I did! I even pay the priest!"

"And what do I get for this? Do I get your loyalty? No! All I get is complaints! What would Count Lambert do if his people met like this and complained to him? He'd have half of you flogged, and you know it! What would the duke do? You'd all be hung!"

"But you think that because I've been good to you, you can get away with being bad to me. Well, you can't!"

"You complain that you will be losing your jobs because of the new steam sawmill. Well, you'll lose your jobs when I tell you to lose them, and not before."

"Is there anyone here who actually likes to walk back and forth on that walking mill? Because if you do, you might as well leave now; you're too dumb to make it around here!"

"We are building three steam mills. The first will go to Count Lambert's Eagle Nest. The second will go to the duke's new Copper City. And the third will be set up right here at Three Walls. And when it's working, we'll tear down the walking mill and saw it up for lumber."

"I took an oath to take care of you, and I have, even though you have as much as accused me of being an oathbreaker. And seeing your disloyalty, I am half tempted to throw out the lot of you!"

"But I won't. I take our oaths seriously, even if you don't. Things are going to go on just as they have been.

Women with children will work half a day for half a day's pay. Those without children will go on working a full day for full pay."

"You will work when and where I or my managers tell you to work. You will continue working until I tell you that you have lost your jobs. If you want to change jobs, come to us as individuals and maybe we can work something out. Or maybe not!"

"But the next time you organize a protest meeting against me, I'll throw the leaders out and have the rest of you working without pay for a month!"

I stomped out, pretending to be madder than I really was. Had the matter been about food or housing, I would have been easier on them. But I couldn't tolerate protests over every new machine I introduced.

Those were going to start coming in fast and furious.

But Count Lambert is right. You can't use reason on a mob. You have to tell them what to do and expect to have it done.

Chapter Eight.

I was taking a group of seventy-nine men, fifty-six mules, and eight women to Legnica to build Copper City.

Another crew of about the same size was already at Eagle Nest where, their spring planting done, Count Lambert's peasants were starting to arrive. The Krakowski Bra.s.s Works and Three Walls were running with skeleton crews leading a bunch of rookies.

Annastas.h.i.+a was due for her child, so I'd a.s.signed Sir Vladimir to take care of Three Walls. He'd have his hands full, since Ilya was the only real foreman left there.

We were taking it in easy stages, averaging about two dozen miles a day, or about a tenth of what Anna could run in the same time. Despite my precautions, we'd had to take the steam saw in two parts, since the roads were worse than I had imagined. Between them, the pieces occupied half our mules.

On noon of the third day, we were near the boundaries of Count Lambert's county when one of his knights, Sir Lestko, his horse lathered with sweat, overtook us.

"Sir Conrad, thank G.o.d in Heaven I've found somebody! You must come quickly and bring all your men!

Something terrible is happening in Toszek!"

"What do you mean? What's happening?" I said.

"I'm not sure! But there are soldiers there and they are killing people! They are some kind of foreigners, and they are burning people alive at the stake!"

Toszek was about a mile up the road. The village where the trouble was happening was about a quarter mile from a wooden castle sitting prominently on a hill. I detailed two men and all the women to watch the mules and baggage, and led the rest, mostly armed with axes, picks, and hammers, to the town. I'd tried to leave Piotr with the baggage, since he had too good a brain to lose, and he was too small to be of much use in a fight, anyway. But he wouldn't stand for it. He was still trying to prove something to himself, or maybe to Krystyana, who was with us. There was no time to argue with him.

We surrounded the place, a process that, for lack of training, took a quarter hour. A modem man has at least seen enough war movies to have a vague idea as to what to do; these men had no such background, and I almost had to tell them individually what I expected of them.

Dirty smoke was rising above Toszek, and we could hear screams and shouts. I knew that people were dying while we blundered around. Yet if we went in like a mob, trained soldiers could cut us to rags!

When the men were all in position and understood that they were to advance when called, keeping the men on either side in sight, Sir Lestko, Tadaos the bowman, and I went into the town. I'd brought Tadaos along to help provide meat for the camp, but I had other uses for him now.

A few dozen peasants were standing some distance away, cowed and frightened. In the middle of the square, eight stakes had been set in a line, and tied to them, slumping, were the burnt bodies of eight women. Three dozen soldiers and some priests stood around them.

The clothes and hair are the first things to b.u.m, and I think that some of the thrill these filthy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds got was watching the clothes burn off the women.

Tadaos rode his mule to the side of a shed, stood up on its back and climbed to the roof, where he could cover the square with his longbow.

Sir Lestko and I were actually in the square before the soldiers noticed us. Soldiers? The a.s.sholes didn't even have sentries out! Women had died because I had overestimated the opposition. I made a solemn vow to myself that next time there was trouble, I was going to just charge straight in and let the chips fly any way they would.

"You people are all under arrest!" I shouted. "You are outnumbered five to one and we have you surrounded! Drop your weapons and raise your hands!"

The soldiers and priests looked at each other, confused. They started babbling to one another in something that might have been Spanish, but which I didn't understand.

"Don't any of you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds speak Polish? Speak up or we'll shoot you down!"

"I speak a little, knight. What is it you want?" An older priest said in very broken Polish.

"Want? I want you to drop your weapons and raise your hands! Tell them that in whatever tongue you speak, or I'll have the lot of you killed right now for resisting arrest!"

He hesitated a bit and then announced something to the crowd. One of the soldiers shouted something and drew his sword. He got one step closer to me before a steel tipped arrow tore through his throat. Tadaos was on the ball.

"That's one, you old fart! Anybody else want to play target practice? Tell them to drop their weapons!"

There was some more shouting that I couldn't understand. These murderers acted as though they were doing the most natural thing in the whole world, and that I was a strange person for intruding on them!

"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 "a.s.sumed 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 ma.s.s, 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.signed 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 h.e.l.l 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 d.a.m.ndest 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 finis.h.i.+ng 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.