Swords From the West (79 page)

They studied the effect and seemed satisfied. Strube hung a gold chain around Rorik's neck, while the armorer fetched a shield with two eagles, black, painted on it, and a half-helm with tiny silver figures and an eagle spreading its wings for a crest. "My sir," said the armorer carefully, "I will bear your shield, of course, but you must take the war helm on your arm. So."

With pleasure Rorik contemplated it. The boys were fastening a belt over his hips.

"You understand," pointed out the one called Strube, "that this is the armor of majesty." He gestured at the pavilion. "You wear now the insignia of empire."

Rorik nodded, hardly understanding, but well content at this kindness.

They laid out some swords for him to look over, asking him to take the one he fancied. Suddenly Rorik stopped, shaking his head. If it was a question of swords, he wanted none but his own. For the first time the two officers looked ill-pleased. Strube said it would never do to carry such a thing-the armorer could not hang it over a horse's side. Rorik explained that he shouldered it.

"Oh, strap it on his back," cried Strube, "and take him along. God's thunder-we have no more time to waste."

When they hung the two-handed sword along his back, the armorer signed to him to hurry and went before him to a pavilion entrance where a knight stood with drawn sword by the standard pole. Within the pavilion, voices hummed with long words-the night advance to surprise the Swiss-the Schwarzreiter maneuver-flanks refused-holding back the charge-

Making nothing of this, Rorik watched the sentry who moved only his eyes. A voice rose over the others: "Have they the mock king?"

Heinrich barked, "Here at command."

Then Heinrich pulled Rorik down to a knee, whispering "Altesse." A tall man, muffled in a robe, stepped out, yawning. And Rorik knew that this was the emperor, who slipped a ring from his finger and pressed it into Rorik's hand.

"Faith," said a drowsy voice, "you have found one as tall as the standard itself, Heinrich."

"At command!"

And the emperor went back to his officers.

Ring in hand, Rorik walked away with the armorer. Beyond the stir of the men-at-arms, the calling of orders by the horse lines, he heard the echo of a distant bell. When the wind blew, the chime came clearly, and he thought of that cowbell. But this was a great, chiming bell. Restlessly, Rorik stirred. "Heinrich, I would like a horse."

"In two hours, my sir-when we advance."

"No, not in two hours-now, Heinrich."

"Why now?"

"To see the girl-the little Maera."

Heinrich grunted. This was not the time, he pointed out, to think about a girl. She would keep well enough, until afterward-when Rorik could do what he pleased. Didn't Rorik understand that now he wore the arms of majesty? He would carry them into the battle, wouldn't he? He would get his eight florins, wouldn't he? Wasn't he content?

And Rorik had to say he was content.

When the armorer hurried off to his duties, he suggested that Rorik drink some wine and stay within sight of the great pavilions. He told off an esquire-at-arms to follow the Dane and see that he did not stray.

When Rorik thought of wine, he thought of his companions at the fire, and he walked over to show himself to them. When men passed him, carrying a torch, they stared at the immense figure holding the crested helm, and they saluted.

Only Conrad sat awake by the embers, still drinking. He lowered the jug when the Dane stepped into the embers' glow, with the small squire behind him. The hilt and wide handguard of the huge sword seemed like a cross behind his bare head.

"Eyes of God," breathed Conrad. "They have done it."

Pleased by the effect on Conrad, Rorik sat down in the straw, examining the gold ring. The ring had a flat jewel that shone, and on the jewel were traced letters that meant nothing to him because he could not read. But when Conrad inspected the ring, he interpreted the letters. Gloria.

"Is that a sign?" asked Rorik, curiously.

"A kind of sign," said Conrad, pondering, "to many men. Do you know what they have made of you?"

Rorik shook his head. Truly, something in this puzzled him.

"They have made you the mock king."

"How, the mock king?"

The words sounded both pleasant and ominous to the Dane. Giving him the jug, Conrad explained, low-voiced. In an hour Rorik would be mounted on a high horse and placed at the head of the gewaltige Haufen. With the half-helm on his head, he would appear to be the emperor himself to all those who were not close to him, or in on the secret. During the fighting, the enemy would drive at the one who seemed to be emperor, to kill him. Probably they would reach him and kill him. But the real emperor, in plain dress, would be directing the battle elsewhere, unharmed.

"Seven to one," said Conrad softly, "you will turn up your toes this morning."

Rorik thought about that.

The eyes of the Schwarzreiter searched beyond the fire glow, where the squire, seeing Rorik seated, loitered carelessly. Groups of men were in motion already, toward the head of the valley, although they carried no torches and no trumpets had sounded. He knew the step of the Italian mercenaries. He listened to the movement at his own horse lines, where the sergeants called and cursed. The Black Riders would go up with the advance, with the Genoese covering them. His troop mates would be calling for him in a few minutes.

"Don't let them make a fool of you, Sir Rorik," he whispered, straining his ears. "What's the sense of becoming chopped meat-with your face bashed in, belike?"

"Mine?"

"Yours. Look-I know the horses of our troop. We can edge over to the lines now, and get two of the best. We can rein down the valley. Before full light we can be four leagues away. Safe enough. We can pass this ring and stuff to the usurers, and live like lords. We can pick over the girls, Rorik."

"Where?"

"Take our choice-Basle, Munich, Paris-"

Reaching out, Rorik took back his ring, while Conrad still breathed words. Rorik had no wish to go to Paris. He wanted to stay here in the valley. Conrad changed his tone:

"Rorik my sir, you've never felt your bones broken in as I have. The Swiss poleaxes can cut the head from a horse-"

He checked at a quick step near him. A voice called, "Thuringen troop in the saddle, Conrad."

The Black Rider got up, with his gun. "At once!" The step went on. "Quick, Rorik-we can get away."

Rorik shook his head. For an instant Conrad stared at him, then swung off toward the horses. Steel clanked as men swung themselves into the saddle; troop commanders called as they led off their men. Rorik did not want to run off from this. They had made him like a king. He would be the first in the battle. And if he left them, where would he get his eight florins? Conrad, with all his cleverness, had not thought of that.

With the sun full on the valley, Rorik the Yngling was riding up in majesty, with the battle standard swaying in the wind behind him, and Heinrich carrying his shield beside him and the squire leading another horse. Rorik was riding on a great bay charger, his sword strapped fast to him, and the helm on his head agleam with silver.

Ranks of men-at-arms paced beside him, their spears rising like a forest of young, slender trees. Thousands of riders moved up the valley, toward the pass where they could see the spire of a church.

It seemed to Rorik that these marching ranks were fine, and surely he was the first of them. He could see nothing of the real emperor, although he heard the fanfare of trumpets blowing commands. Heinrich, he noticed, listened closely to the notes of the trumpets, but watched the narrowing fringe of pines on either side.

"Tell us, Heinrich," he said, "what to do."

"Nothing," muttered the armorer, "but what you are doing-sit in the saddle."

This suited Rorik, but he had another question to ask: "Heinrich, why do we go up this valley?"

"By command."

Rorik nodded. "But for what?"

"To break the infantry of the Swiss cantons."

The armorer answered with half his mind, because the other half was listening to a faint popping and crackling somewhere ahead. So, the Swiss were making their stand in front of the pass.

For a while Rorik thought about it. "But why is there war with the Swiss?"

In the mountains, Heinrich explained, the Swiss refused to accept the sovereignty of the new Reich. They were, he said, commoners having no king. They had no generals. They had only infantry. They called them selves free men of the cantons. They were stubborn, meeting together like a mob, refusing allegiance to the German emperor whose sovereignty in this new plan of the Holy Roman Empire would dominate from Frankfurt over the continent, from sea to sea.

"They rolled down rocks on Maximilian's array of knights," Heinrich grunted. "They broke back the lancers of His Grace of Burgundy, when those dismounted to fight on foot. But no infantry can stand against the cavalry of the Reich."

Rorik was looking up the mountainside, where a rock summit jutted beneath a snow peak. Barely he could make out the patch of Maera's potato field.

"Is that the battle," he asked, lifting his steel headgear to let the air cool his skull, "going on ahead of us, where the noise is?"

Laughing, Heinrich explained that was only their advance, skirmishing with the Swiss, to bring the Swiss into action. Undoubtedly the Swiss would charge with their main onset from the screen of pines here, on one flank. So thought the sir commanders of the Reich's army. And then the Swiss would be charged by all the horse of the gewaltige Haufen, held back in readiness for just such a maneuver-

"But still, Heinrich, I do not see any fighting."

It was noon and Rorik was tired, before he saw it, while the hot sun made him sweat in his steel mesh and the apple orchards around him smelled fragrant with the heat. Stone walls hemmed in the peasants' fields here, and the heavy German chargers labored over plowed land.

Through these trees Rorik could watch a line of Swiss pikemen pressing down the valley with the sun flickering on the steel of their pikeheads. Behind them another brown line carried long axes, coming on slowly, keeping step without trumpets, climbing over the stones. Those lines seemed small in the face of the German regiments now crowding into the narrowing valley.

"Why," muttered Heinrich, "why, they come here-they make no maneuver."

In front of the brown ranks, the Schwarzreiter wheeled in troops, snapping off their pistols when they were close to the Swiss. Bands of Italian crossbowmen sifted back through the trees, fast.

"Bad ground," Heinrich observed. "But now comes our charge-ah, so!"

Suddenly-hearing a call from the trumpets-he caught the rein of Rorik's horse, leading it to a knoll where the figure of the mock king could be seen above the apple trees. Past that knoll the German cavalry surged, with lances down, sweeping up the disordered Italians, forcing the Black Riders off to the flanks.

Through the orchards the packed ranks of horsemen edged around the trees, plunging over the low stone fences. The horses, tired and heavily weighted, slowed in the plowed land.

The Swiss did not stop. The Swiss came to meet the cavalry, closing together. Against those steel pikes, longer than their lances, the German horses piled up, rearing, the first ranks forced into a mass by pressure from the rear. Into the crush of riders the Swiss poleaxes beat like flails. Steel clanged and roared as if a thousand hammers were beating forges.

"Good Lord!" breathed Heinrich.

He heard the trumpets calling to the horsemen to re-form and charge.

Crowded regiments tried to get clear of the press. The steel of the Swiss flashed at their heels. The Swiss were shouting now, digging their feet into the plowed ground, slashing down everything in front of them. They were coming up the knoll where the mock king waited by the standard.

Rorik heard the armorer calling, "Go back-"

"No," said Rorik the Yngling, "now we can fight."

Swinging down from his charger, he pulled clear the two-handed sword. He stepped out toward the Swiss who shifted their pikes lower. He planted his feet, and his heavy sword drove down the pikes. Heinrich held the great shield in front of Rorik, and he elbowed the shield away for arm room. He felt swordsmen pressing against his right shoulder then the steel pikeheads pushed them back.

Rorik did not feel tired now. His arms threshed, swinging the twohanded sword at the bearded men stepping closer. Foot to foot. Something clanged against his headgear and it flew off. He could see better to strike now.

A splintered pike shaft jammed into his shoulder, and he leaned to one side to free himself. A two-foot ax blade ripped the steel rings down his arm. "Ho," he roared, "a good one, that."

Never had he seen so many honest bearded faces in front of his sword. His heavy sword smashed them back, and Heinrich flung up the shield to catch the swing of a poleax. Another blade came down, and Heinrich fell on the stone wall.

Steel struck at Rorik from the side, and he stepped back against the stones of a well. Turning, his long arms threshing, he kept a space clear about him. "Stand up to them, mates!" he shouted, his feet gripping the earth. But he was alone now on the knoll.

The broken cavalry troops, reining back past the knoll, saw this figure in imperial armor fighting on foot. They went on back, knowing that this was a mock king, meant to draw the enemy's attack.

Conrad, getting clear of the orchards at last, stopped to watch and nurse a broken arm bone. He saw the Swiss close in around Rorik, while the tall figure climbed up higher on the stones. The standard was gone and Rorik was alone.

"What if he had been the king?" Conrad wondered, watching until the man on the stones went down, and the Swiss came on over the mound.

And Conrad turned his horse's head. He had kept within sight of a group of officers around a man in plain armor, with four trumpets behind them. They were riding now down the valley, in silence, away from the mountains.

Hard cobbles pressed against Rorik's neck, and a church bell clanged above him. His shoulders ached and a bone's end grated in his hip. Faces of women and bearded men looked down at him and passed on. Blood caked the fingers of a hand when he looked at it, and Rorik thought he was lying here like a calf in the marketplace for the Swiss to stare at. Then one woman did not go away, and he recognized Maera.