IV.
23 March 973 – 23 February 976
White knights appear,
Silhouetted against the dark –
In the battle of Vratislav
The tables turn!
Few knights appear,
But masters of the fight:
In the battle of Vratislav
The tables turn!
In a field of winter wheat outside of Brassel, the Silesian defenders of the town stood in a nervous line. Only two in ten of them had mail – these were the local zbrojnošov – and most of their weapons were improvised from farm implements and tools: pitchforks, staves, scythes, pruning-hooks. Their shields were likewise thrown-together affairs: simple wooden planks or pieces of bark. There was no clear leader at their head – certainly none of any repute.23 March 973 – 23 February 976
White knights appear,
Silhouetted against the dark –
In the battle of Vratislav
The tables turn!
Few knights appear,
But masters of the fight:
In the battle of Vratislav
The tables turn!
And then they saw the enemy arrive at the far edge of the field. A long line of glimmering metal helms, and a heathen battle-vane in black and red upon a gold field, fluttering aloft in the wind. Proper shields with bosses and metal rims and blazons were borne before the men of Kujawy. The difference could not be starker. At the head of the line was a rider clad in blood-red. His personal device left no doubt about who he was: Jarosław, Captain of the Nositelia Viery.
A hush of dread came over the men of Brassel. A few of them crossed themselves and prayed for God’s mercy. The rest did not dare even do that. The heathen mercenary captain’s reputation was as bloody as his tabard. He revelled in slaughter. Those few men who had come south from Poland, and had faced the Nositelia Viery in battle thus far, described the cruel laughter of Jarosław as he led his men in cutting down those who fled: mutilating and befouling their bodies, and then festooning the trees with their torn and broken remains. There was little doubt in the minds of many present, that soon the men of Brassel would meet a similar fate at his hands. After all, there was no leader present for them.
Across the field, Jarosław grinned banefully. The opponents he was facing here, just as he had told Snowid, were weak. Sheep among wolves. The sad part was that none of them would afford him much amusement in battle, since even their arms-bearers did not look that skilled or well-equipped. Ah, well. More sport for the boys after the battle had been won.
‘Let’s soften them up a bit first,’ he stroked his yellow beard. ‘Archers at the ready! … Shoot!’
The volley went up, and the collected villagers, townsmen and country gentry raised whatever meagre protection they had to hand. It wasn’t enough. The sickening sounds of arrowheads landing in flesh sprang out all around, followed by pitiable groans and cries. The line wavered dangerously. It soon became clear that they wouldn’t be able to withstand even a single push when the mêlée came. The hope of the ragtag Upper Silesians gave way to despair. A number of the rearguard gave ground and made ready to flee.
But then a cry, not of injury or dismay but of something much more buoyant, arose from the rear right flank.
From the southeast, against the darkening late-afternoon sky, appeared a line of Slavic riders. Their round helmets, all with long nose-guards and mail veils, gleamed in the falling western sun, as did their lamellar coats. The bits and bridles on their horses were decorated with red and white tassels, blazoned in Slavic fashion with ornate geometric patterns. But their shields bore not the avian or ophidian emblems of the heathen, but instead the Holy Cross, blood-red upon a white field, together with the Greek letters ‘ΦΤ’. ‘Phylakēs Taphou’. ‘Guardians of the Tomb’.
‘The Brotherhood! The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre is here! Praise to Christ our God!’
A wild cheer of joy and relief went up from the rearguard. The battle-horns sounded from the zbrojnošov, and the Silesians regrouped and firmed up their line to meet the enemy advance. They were not alone or friendless after all!
The Brothers of the Holy Sepulchre readied their blades and their spears, and spurred their horses forward to a gallop. They left a broad wake through the green grass as they rode faster and faster, preparing to break like a wave over the light skirmishers that Kujawy was fielding. Foremost among them was the king’s son Luboš, who rode the crest of that wave with his spear in deadly couch, firmly against his shoulder.
‘Za Prázdnu Hrobu!’ Luboš’s shout carried over the early spring field. And then came the clash.
The crunching and splintering of shields, the grunts of struggle and the whinny of horses in fright and rage rang out as the Silesians prepared to advance. But then again, from their right rear, came a number of spear-bearers, zbrojnošov, light footmen and a long row of archers, just in time to rain a volley of death down upon the heathen in retaliation for the one they’d loosed before. The Brotherhood broke off to some distance before wheeling about for another pass. Again, one of the Silesians let up a cry:
‘The King! The King!’
Pravoslav himself strode out onto the field in mail and helmet, his sword drawn and his shield up, at the head of the detachment of light footmen bound first into the fray in the wake of the riders. The king’s unit crashed into the Kujawy left flank, making several breaches in their line.
The heathen of Kujawy and the Nositelia Viery suddenly found themselves outnumbered and unavoidably outflanked. Jarosław scowled. He’d been hopeful for a decent amount of sport against these riders of God – at least they looked like they could put up a fight. But now with the much better-equipped and better-disciplined troops brought in from the reserve, and the King of Moravia – a master of the blade to be dreaded in private combat – himself at their head, it was clear to him that the tide of battle had turned against them. What had first appeared an easy victory, now would take luck to avoid turning into a full-on rout.
‘Branimír! Świętosław! Hold off the knights of the dead god!’ barked Jarosław.
The heathen knights nodded their acknowledgement, and rode out to meet the knights face-to-face.
Luboš saw them coming, and broke off from the charge line to have ado with Świętosław one-on-one. Crossing himself, he prayed: ‘Pane Iisušu Kriste, Syn Boží, zmiluj sa nado mnou!’
The two horsemen rode at each other full tilt, spears couched, and made jabs at each other as they passed. Christian and heathen missed each other, turned their mounts about and made to ride another pass at each other. Luboš scored a glancing blow on Świętosław, but he felt his arm judder and wrench with sudden pain as the tip of the heathen’s spear lodged firmly in his shield. There was a sharp crack. Peering out past the edge of his shield, Luboš could see as Świętosław rode by that he had in his hand only a splintered stump of useless timber, which he tossed aside in preference of a straight blade.
Luboš raised his own spear and slid it into the band on his back. He too drew his sword – not necessarily out of any kind of chivalry or innate sense of fair play, but because he was confident matching steel with steel, and wanted to save his spear for the enemy’s backs when they broke into flight.
Luboš and Świętosław fought fifteen more passes, each getting wilder and more desperate than the one before. At last, Luboš dropped his wrist, causing his sword to swing clumsily down. Świętosław fell for the bait, and leaned in for a chance to slash at the Brother of the Holy Sepulchre’s neck. Swift and sure, up came the Brother’s blade, delivering a crippling slice just below the heathen’s sword-arm. Robbed of his power to fight, Świętosław had little choice but to limp back to the retreating line.
Branimír had fared little better against the other knights. They had cornered his horse between them and hauled him down off of it, binding him and hauling him back to the Silesian line.
The battle was won. The Silesians, bruised and wounded though they might be, had still held onto their town and lands against the heathen invaders. A great cheer went up for the Brothers, for Luboš in particular, and for King Pravoslav, whose swift and timely action had saved them. Far and wide did Pravoslav’s reputation spread in the north country as a result of his action at Brassel.
‘Hail to Pravoslav! Hail to the King!’
~~~
Pravoslav had little time to stay in the Vratislav kraj, however, and had to march quickly back the way he came. Maria of Poloteskŭ, renowned for her fanatic devotion to Rod, was assaulting Sadec with reckless abandon, and Tarkhan had sent word asking for his liege’s aid.
It did give Pravoslav a bit of pause to be fighting against a woman who bore the same name as his departed wife – almost a bad omen to his mind – but those fears quickly dispersed when it became clear that her armies were vastly inferior to his own. She had more horses and riders than Pravoslav did, even counting the Brothers of the Holy Sepulchre. However, her foot troops were sparse and her lines were therefore thin. Keeping the zbrojnošov to each flank to fend off charges from her riders, Pravoslav made the advance and quickly smashed through Maria’s defences.
Captain Jarosław arrived on the scene far too late to help, and could not extricate himself or his men soon enough to escape the vollies of Pravoslav’s archers or the points of the Brothers’ spears. This time, another of the Guardians of the Tomb distinguished himself in this battle. Vlastislav, a Nitran knight who had come to Kroměříž as a child oblate, managed to unseat one of the Nositelia, named Dalimír, who was subsequently trussed up and brought back to Sadec to be held for ransom.
Two years passed. No further assaults on Moravian towns were made, and the armies of Pravoslav settled into the long business of wresting control of the Kujawy-ruled lands – those around Věluň and Miliče, respectively – on his northern border from the young fool Snowid’s grasp.
Jakub came of age on the third of September, just after the turn of the New Year 6485, and earned the right to don mail and bear arms with the rest of the Moravian here. Pravoslav knew Jakub would be an ideal soldier. Fearless but possessed of a remarkable degree of restraint, he had nerve and steel both – necessary both on the battlefield and among the court. In addition to this, he had proven his exceptionally selfless habits by his consistent yielding of reward on his own account, but lavish praises and gifts upon others.
Luboš, Velemír and Tarkhan readily admitted the young princeling into their fellowship. On account of Jakub’s bold and unflinching demeanour (as well as in reference to his father’s device, his mother’s Bulgarian lineage and his own long black mane of hair), the three of them took to calling Jakub ‘čierny lev’, or the Black Lion. Jakub was pleased indeed by this nickname, and even contrived for himself a booming battle-roar to match it.
He had the means to test it soon enough as well.
The Poles who had joined Snowid’s war came to the defence of Miliče. Pravoslav took to the field against them, and they had fought through most of the morning on that late September day when riders under a red vane appeared at the edge of the field. Tarkhan recognised them at once.
‘Maria of Poloteskŭ has come!’
‘Let her come,’ answered Jakub, ‘if she dares!’
Jakub led his men toward the riders, stopping boldly in front of them, with shield and sword in hand. Deep in his throat he issued a low growl, which caused the horses to clop their feet back half a pace. Jakub’s growl mounted slowly, deepening and rising in volume, until he let forth an almighty bellow that was, for all the horses could tell, indistinguishable from that of a great beast of prey. They forgot their training and reverted to the primal instincts of grazing hoofed beasts before a deadly foe. Bucking and shying beneath their dismayed riders, a number of them bolted and fled. Tarkhan’s jaw fell as he saw this. For her part, Maria soon thought better of joining a fight where her forces were likely to be outmatched.
‘Let all heathen fear the roar of the Black Lion,’ Tarkhan boomed, clapping Jakub on the back.
With the Poles’ defeat at Miliče, Kujawy had run out of allies to call upon and had run out of forces to spend against Moravia’s might. It wasn’t long before the same insolent herald that had delivered Snowid’s declaration of war returned to Pravoslav’s camp, cap in hand.
‘The fates have chosen to side with you this time, Pravoslav of the Moravians. On behalf of Lord Snowid, I am sent to deliver to you his terms for peace. He sends two thirds of a pound of fine gold as tribute, withdraws all his troops from Moravian-held lands, and relinquishes all of his claims over Brassel and its attached lands.’
Pravoslav, not being a vindictive man, accepted the terms of Snowid’s surrender, and himself took the heavy bundle of gold nomismata from the herald’s hands.
‘Assure Snowid that we shall no longer pursue his armies, but shall return home in peace.’
At long last, after Pravoslav retired to his tent, he slumped down in his seat and let each and every one of his sore muscles relax. After nine years without end in the field, at last Moravia was at peace.
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