Book Two Chapter Twenty-Seven
I want to put a WARNING tag up front on this post. I very nearly stopped this AAR dead with this chapter, as I felt kind of bad about writing it. This chapter gets fairly dark in terms of violence and in terms of describing a gruesome method of execution.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Blood Court of Brehna
10 November 985 – 11 November 987
The key turned in the lock, and the cellar door swung open. A gaunt Slav with blond hair turned his head up toward the thin knife of light which jutted down into his darkness. The silhouette of a heavyset man descended the stairs and stooped over him, rattling his keys in his hand as he did so. Hardly believing his ears, the gaunt blond Slav listened—one couldn’t really ‘watch’, in this dark—to the scrape and squeal of the key in the lock that fastened his shackles by a chain to the wall, followed by the click and the clatter of iron links that lightened his wrists at last.
‘What’s all this about?’ asked the prisoner mistrustfully.
‘Lord Kráľ asks for Andrei Pavelkov? I give him Andrei Pavelkov.’
‘That’s Andrei Rodislavič Pavelkov to you.’
The guard struck Andrei a heavy blow across the face with the back of his hand.
‘No lip,’ he told the prisoner. ‘Up the stairs. Now.’
Shrugging, Andrei Rodislavič Pavelkov sauntered up the stairs, ignoring the impatient shoves the fat guard behind him was giving. Ah, daylight. Long time—no. He squinted, his eyes aching from too much input. Through his watery eyesight the figure of a robed man with a golden band around his head swam into focus at last.
‘So,’ the prisoner drawled. ‘We meet at last, off the field of battle. Radomír Rychnovský himself. Son of the mighty Pravoslav Rychnovský. Kráľ of Veľká Morava. Somehow I thought you’d be… taller.’
Radomír, unfazed by Andrei’s taunt, stepped forward and looked the man over.
‘You should be glad,’ Radomír told him at last. ‘Today you will have your freedom… provided you behave rationally.’
‘Is that so?’ Andrei shrugged with a dismissive smirk. ‘Sorry. Whatever game you’re playing with me, it won’t work. Boľka isn’t the sort to fork over good coin, even for her kin.’
‘As you say,’ Radomír agreed. Then he stood aside and showed his prisoner the bank of the Mulde that lay just beyond him. Already there was a priest waiting. In his hands were a censer and a phial of chrism. A white robe had been prepared and laid out on a table on the river’s edge. A look of dawning comprehension came over Andrei.
‘You think I’ll take a plunge in the brook for your god?’
‘You will,’ Radomír told him, nonplussed. ‘I’m a man of my word.’
Andrei considered. ‘Just say a few words? Take a quick bath? And I can be on my way? Simple as that?’
‘Simple as that.’
Andrei did not hesitate much longer than that, but submitted himself meekly to the priest to be dunked three times in the Mulde, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. And then Andrei Pavelkov was indeed sent on his way, with a horse and provisions to boot, back to Hungary.
‘Most merciful, my Liege,’ Bogöri commented.
Radomír folded his arms. ‘Hardly.’
‘I must again ask you, though, is it wise to pursue such a course of action? He could very well apostasise the moment he’s at large, and betray all manner of our secrets to his liege, who might seize upon your distraction in the north to attack from the south.’
Radomír said simply: ‘I know what I am doing, kancelár.’
Radomír met his troops near the clay pits at Ilburg. Over seven thousand, all told, had answered his call, including the Brothers of the Holy Sepulchre. Reviewing them with care, he noted approvingly that the zbrojnošov all had clean, well-kept gear, that the riders were well-saddled and well-bridled, the archers all outfitted to the small knives at their boots, and even the levies were standing promptly at attention with whatever arms they had to hand. He gave an approving nod. Lada Erínysa had done her job well indeed.
Behind him, Hrabě Tarkhan barked the order to move out – east. The formations of the army were kept tight, their pace deliberate. There were few places that Lydia’s Lužičania could strike with ease, and it was with confidence that Radomír advanced upon the fortification at Hartenfels on the Elbe. Let Tarkhan loose to play where he was most adept. As expected, using his superior force and tactical control of Elbe fords and bends, Tarkhan was easily able to herd the Lužičania into a trap and then decimate them with his archers.
Radomír’s armies then continued marching eastward and northward into the Spreewald, nigh on the Polish lands. Fighting in these hilly woodlands was a trickier task, but Tarkhan managed it well by drawing his opponent out into the open at a lea near Gubin.
In the battles at Hartenfels and Gubin, Radomír’s army had taken several prisoners, including three of high rank: in point of fact, all of Chieftess Lydia’s sons – the brothers Tadeus, Křeslav and Bohdan Milčanský. Word of Radomír’s notable clemency upon Andrei Pavelkov had reached them by then, so none of them were too concerned, but went quietly along with their captors, hopeful of being ransomed or asked to convert.
Radomír ordered his troops back through the Spreewald, past the Elbe, past Ilburg until they came nigh upon the seat of Chieftess Lydia’s honour at Bielefeld, actually not that far southwest of the town of Brehna proper. He then bade one of the local Sorbs to take a curt message to Chieftess Lydia:
‘Počuvajte svojich synov,’ was the message. ‘Listen to your sons.’
The Moravian army took up position, at Radomír’s instruction, along a ridge south of the fastening. They chose a spot to camp where the pine trees were sparser—within full view of the castle, and within earshot though not within easy bow shot. Radomír had two detachments of the levies avail themselves of some of the local pine in order to build a scaffold on the open promontory, with five plain posts in single file along it. He then set out to find and hire five local lads who lived on pig farms, and had them bring their dressing-knives.
‘Your Majesty,’ Bogöri Srednogorski approached his liege with evident consternation when he figured out what they were doing and why, ‘this goes far too far! Those lads are valuable bargaining-chips. Don’t tell me you truly intend to—’
The cold look with which Radomír answered him was enough to still his voice.
The three brothers who had been taken captive, and two others taken besides (Straš and Věnceslav) were called forth. Again thinking no evil, and hopeful of their swift release as Pavelkov had been released, the five of them were stripped naked, marched up to the scaffold, and lashed by their wrists to the posts as the king had ordered. As it dawned on them, the finality of what was about to happen, their eyes grew wide with terror. Věnceslav began gabbling incoherently, and Křeslav strained helplessly against his bonds as he bellowed out:
‘Radomír! Curse your whole family, Radomír Rychnovský! What is the meaning of this outrage?’
The king stepped in front of the scaffold, faced the condemned prisoners, and spoke in a level voice.
‘Your mother was party to the peace at Chotěbuz two years ago. She betrayed that peace. Now, all of her line shall suffer the fate due to traitors.’
Radomír nodded to the five local pig-farmers, who stepped up next to the prisoners with their dressing-knives at the ready. And then came the fatal command:
‘Flay them.’
This gruesome method of execution, of using heated knives to strip the skin from the flesh beneath and leave it exposed to the air, could leave the victim alive for hours to days after the process was completed. Never before had such a punishment been ordered by a Christian king in these parts, even upon heathens. The soldiers, and particularly Radomír’s vassals, watched in grim dismay and dread as the sentence was carried out before their eyes, by young men whose practice was in skinning hogs. Blood and other bodily fluids began dripping from the scaffold, and the condemned – torturously robbed of nature’s shield against the elements – shrieked and cursed and howled pitiably.
To some, as to Bogöri, the sheer brutality of Radomír’s choice of location for the execution, as well as his message to his foe, at this point became clear. He had chosen this clearing along the ridge, in full view and hearing of Bielefeld Schloß, so that Chieftess Lydia might personally watch the fate meted out upon her three sons, and hear their dying cries.
His vassals looked to Radomír as the execution was carried out. And although he took no visible enjoyment in it, no twisted pleasure or sport in the cruelty, they were disturbed to see that neither was there any trace of sympathy in his cold blue eyes.
When the lads had completed their work, on Radomír’s command each of them was presented with a silver piece in payment. Of the five, only one of them was impious or desperate enough to take it. The others cursed and spat over their shoulders, and walked away from the blood-money that was offered to them. The five condemned prisoners, human in form but no longer so in appearance, stood lashed to their posts on the scaffold, their seeping, denuded flesh quivering under the exposure as night set in.
Even his own soldiers now went in terror of Kráľ Radomír. He had a steel will for cold revenge that was absolute and unremitting, and harboured a depth of cruelty that few could conceive. His every order was now carried out without delay, and his every word was carefully weighed when spoken. But the whispers began to follow him. Had this man no fear of God? Had this man no pity upon his fellow men? And his own vassals began to refer to him, half in awe and half in dread, by the byname of hrozný: ‘the Terrible’.
The siege of Bielefeld Schloß lasted nearly the entire year, and the Moravian army held its positions all around the castle, including upon the ridge of the Blood Court. The bodies of the five executed had been left exposed upon the scaffold long all that time, and their decomposing remains subject to wind and rain were picked clean by foxes and birds-of-prey until nothing remained but their bones.
The defenders of Bielefeld held out as long as they possibly could against the Moravian besiegers, but the needs of the flesh prevailed over bravery. The Schloß was yielded with minimal fighting. The Moravians did a thorough sweep of the castle. In addition to Lady Lydia, they also managed to find ensconced in a narrow hiding-hole, her three-year-old grandson Sambor: the only son of the condemned Bohdan whose bones bedecked the scaffold in full view of the castle ramparts.
Radomír swept into the keep, together with his retinue. Tarkhan brought out Lady Lydia, who immediately launched into a string of voluble curses against the tormentor and murderer of her sons.
‘Odjebało ci, Radomír! Crooked, nine times cursed Radomír! Shade! Wraith! Crazed hedgehog-swiver! Spawn of hell! Give me back my sons! You will pay! One way or another, you will pay for what you’ve done!’
Radomír sat before her, unmoved by the woman’s rage. He steepled his fingers, and then signalled to Bogöri. ‘Bring him.’
Bogöri hesitated.
‘Now.’
After some dithering, Bogöri went off. Lydia paused long enough in her vituperations for Radomír’s order to register with her, and as soon as she understood what ‘him’ he meant to be brought, her face went from red to white, and she very nearly choked on her bile. When she found her tongue again, she took a very different tone.
‘No—’ the grandmother gasped, and her panicked eyes pleaded him. ‘No! Please, no! For pity’s sake, Radomír! Spare him! He is only a child, little more than a babe! I beg you, Radomír! I beg you, spare him! I’ll give you anything—silver, lands—only spare him! I’ll promise anything!’
Radomír stood and brushed past where Lydia was kneeling as Bogöri returned.
‘Babka!’ cried the mousy-haired little Sambor, struggling to free himself from Bogöri’s grasp.
Radomír gave a jerk of his head, and Bogöri let him free. Sambor scrambled as fast as his little feet would carry him to his grandmother, but he never reached her. Radomír unsheathed his steel and, with icy despatch, brought it down upon Sambor’s neck as he ran past.
Lydia’s eyes went wide with horror. Her hands in their bonds trembled. It seemed the woman could scarce draw her own breath. At last a pitiable strangled sound escaped her lips, which then turned into a blood-curdling shriek of agony and despair, seeing her only grandson’s life ended before her eyes. Her shrieking continued, on and on for minutes, with Radomír standing stonily by.
The only word which eventually came forth from her was: ‘Why?’
Echoing her first missive to him, Radomír spoke to her as he walked out of the hall:
‘Because you are weak.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
Blood Court of Brehna
10 November 985 – 11 November 987
The key turned in the lock, and the cellar door swung open. A gaunt Slav with blond hair turned his head up toward the thin knife of light which jutted down into his darkness. The silhouette of a heavyset man descended the stairs and stooped over him, rattling his keys in his hand as he did so. Hardly believing his ears, the gaunt blond Slav listened—one couldn’t really ‘watch’, in this dark—to the scrape and squeal of the key in the lock that fastened his shackles by a chain to the wall, followed by the click and the clatter of iron links that lightened his wrists at last.
‘What’s all this about?’ asked the prisoner mistrustfully.
‘Lord Kráľ asks for Andrei Pavelkov? I give him Andrei Pavelkov.’
‘That’s Andrei Rodislavič Pavelkov to you.’
The guard struck Andrei a heavy blow across the face with the back of his hand.
‘No lip,’ he told the prisoner. ‘Up the stairs. Now.’
Shrugging, Andrei Rodislavič Pavelkov sauntered up the stairs, ignoring the impatient shoves the fat guard behind him was giving. Ah, daylight. Long time—no. He squinted, his eyes aching from too much input. Through his watery eyesight the figure of a robed man with a golden band around his head swam into focus at last.
‘So,’ the prisoner drawled. ‘We meet at last, off the field of battle. Radomír Rychnovský himself. Son of the mighty Pravoslav Rychnovský. Kráľ of Veľká Morava. Somehow I thought you’d be… taller.’
Radomír, unfazed by Andrei’s taunt, stepped forward and looked the man over.
‘You should be glad,’ Radomír told him at last. ‘Today you will have your freedom… provided you behave rationally.’
‘Is that so?’ Andrei shrugged with a dismissive smirk. ‘Sorry. Whatever game you’re playing with me, it won’t work. Boľka isn’t the sort to fork over good coin, even for her kin.’
‘As you say,’ Radomír agreed. Then he stood aside and showed his prisoner the bank of the Mulde that lay just beyond him. Already there was a priest waiting. In his hands were a censer and a phial of chrism. A white robe had been prepared and laid out on a table on the river’s edge. A look of dawning comprehension came over Andrei.
‘You think I’ll take a plunge in the brook for your god?’
‘You will,’ Radomír told him, nonplussed. ‘I’m a man of my word.’
Andrei considered. ‘Just say a few words? Take a quick bath? And I can be on my way? Simple as that?’
‘Simple as that.’
Andrei did not hesitate much longer than that, but submitted himself meekly to the priest to be dunked three times in the Mulde, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. And then Andrei Pavelkov was indeed sent on his way, with a horse and provisions to boot, back to Hungary.
‘Most merciful, my Liege,’ Bogöri commented.
Radomír folded his arms. ‘Hardly.’
‘I must again ask you, though, is it wise to pursue such a course of action? He could very well apostasise the moment he’s at large, and betray all manner of our secrets to his liege, who might seize upon your distraction in the north to attack from the south.’
Radomír said simply: ‘I know what I am doing, kancelár.’
~~~
Radomír met his troops near the clay pits at Ilburg. Over seven thousand, all told, had answered his call, including the Brothers of the Holy Sepulchre. Reviewing them with care, he noted approvingly that the zbrojnošov all had clean, well-kept gear, that the riders were well-saddled and well-bridled, the archers all outfitted to the small knives at their boots, and even the levies were standing promptly at attention with whatever arms they had to hand. He gave an approving nod. Lada Erínysa had done her job well indeed.
Behind him, Hrabě Tarkhan barked the order to move out – east. The formations of the army were kept tight, their pace deliberate. There were few places that Lydia’s Lužičania could strike with ease, and it was with confidence that Radomír advanced upon the fortification at Hartenfels on the Elbe. Let Tarkhan loose to play where he was most adept. As expected, using his superior force and tactical control of Elbe fords and bends, Tarkhan was easily able to herd the Lužičania into a trap and then decimate them with his archers.
Radomír’s armies then continued marching eastward and northward into the Spreewald, nigh on the Polish lands. Fighting in these hilly woodlands was a trickier task, but Tarkhan managed it well by drawing his opponent out into the open at a lea near Gubin.
In the battles at Hartenfels and Gubin, Radomír’s army had taken several prisoners, including three of high rank: in point of fact, all of Chieftess Lydia’s sons – the brothers Tadeus, Křeslav and Bohdan Milčanský. Word of Radomír’s notable clemency upon Andrei Pavelkov had reached them by then, so none of them were too concerned, but went quietly along with their captors, hopeful of being ransomed or asked to convert.
Radomír ordered his troops back through the Spreewald, past the Elbe, past Ilburg until they came nigh upon the seat of Chieftess Lydia’s honour at Bielefeld, actually not that far southwest of the town of Brehna proper. He then bade one of the local Sorbs to take a curt message to Chieftess Lydia:
‘Počuvajte svojich synov,’ was the message. ‘Listen to your sons.’
~~~
The Moravian army took up position, at Radomír’s instruction, along a ridge south of the fastening. They chose a spot to camp where the pine trees were sparser—within full view of the castle, and within earshot though not within easy bow shot. Radomír had two detachments of the levies avail themselves of some of the local pine in order to build a scaffold on the open promontory, with five plain posts in single file along it. He then set out to find and hire five local lads who lived on pig farms, and had them bring their dressing-knives.
‘Your Majesty,’ Bogöri Srednogorski approached his liege with evident consternation when he figured out what they were doing and why, ‘this goes far too far! Those lads are valuable bargaining-chips. Don’t tell me you truly intend to—’
The cold look with which Radomír answered him was enough to still his voice.
The three brothers who had been taken captive, and two others taken besides (Straš and Věnceslav) were called forth. Again thinking no evil, and hopeful of their swift release as Pavelkov had been released, the five of them were stripped naked, marched up to the scaffold, and lashed by their wrists to the posts as the king had ordered. As it dawned on them, the finality of what was about to happen, their eyes grew wide with terror. Věnceslav began gabbling incoherently, and Křeslav strained helplessly against his bonds as he bellowed out:
‘Radomír! Curse your whole family, Radomír Rychnovský! What is the meaning of this outrage?’
The king stepped in front of the scaffold, faced the condemned prisoners, and spoke in a level voice.
‘Your mother was party to the peace at Chotěbuz two years ago. She betrayed that peace. Now, all of her line shall suffer the fate due to traitors.’
Radomír nodded to the five local pig-farmers, who stepped up next to the prisoners with their dressing-knives at the ready. And then came the fatal command:
‘Flay them.’
This gruesome method of execution, of using heated knives to strip the skin from the flesh beneath and leave it exposed to the air, could leave the victim alive for hours to days after the process was completed. Never before had such a punishment been ordered by a Christian king in these parts, even upon heathens. The soldiers, and particularly Radomír’s vassals, watched in grim dismay and dread as the sentence was carried out before their eyes, by young men whose practice was in skinning hogs. Blood and other bodily fluids began dripping from the scaffold, and the condemned – torturously robbed of nature’s shield against the elements – shrieked and cursed and howled pitiably.
To some, as to Bogöri, the sheer brutality of Radomír’s choice of location for the execution, as well as his message to his foe, at this point became clear. He had chosen this clearing along the ridge, in full view and hearing of Bielefeld Schloß, so that Chieftess Lydia might personally watch the fate meted out upon her three sons, and hear their dying cries.
His vassals looked to Radomír as the execution was carried out. And although he took no visible enjoyment in it, no twisted pleasure or sport in the cruelty, they were disturbed to see that neither was there any trace of sympathy in his cold blue eyes.
When the lads had completed their work, on Radomír’s command each of them was presented with a silver piece in payment. Of the five, only one of them was impious or desperate enough to take it. The others cursed and spat over their shoulders, and walked away from the blood-money that was offered to them. The five condemned prisoners, human in form but no longer so in appearance, stood lashed to their posts on the scaffold, their seeping, denuded flesh quivering under the exposure as night set in.
Even his own soldiers now went in terror of Kráľ Radomír. He had a steel will for cold revenge that was absolute and unremitting, and harboured a depth of cruelty that few could conceive. His every order was now carried out without delay, and his every word was carefully weighed when spoken. But the whispers began to follow him. Had this man no fear of God? Had this man no pity upon his fellow men? And his own vassals began to refer to him, half in awe and half in dread, by the byname of hrozný: ‘the Terrible’.
~~~
Lada Erínysa, grandchild of Tüzniq and Vlasta Rychnovský, Kňažná of Horné Slieszko, and maršalka for two Moravian kings, passed from the earthly life not long after the Blood Court. For all that her death was at an enviable age, she had well and truly earned her horseside shroud, and the knightly honours that accompanied her body back to the Christian Silesian lands. Her duties naturally fell to the one she had recommended to, and mentored in, the position: Hrabě Tarkhan Aqhazar of Sadec.
The siege of Bielefeld Schloß lasted nearly the entire year, and the Moravian army held its positions all around the castle, including upon the ridge of the Blood Court. The bodies of the five executed had been left exposed upon the scaffold long all that time, and their decomposing remains subject to wind and rain were picked clean by foxes and birds-of-prey until nothing remained but their bones.
The defenders of Bielefeld held out as long as they possibly could against the Moravian besiegers, but the needs of the flesh prevailed over bravery. The Schloß was yielded with minimal fighting. The Moravians did a thorough sweep of the castle. In addition to Lady Lydia, they also managed to find ensconced in a narrow hiding-hole, her three-year-old grandson Sambor: the only son of the condemned Bohdan whose bones bedecked the scaffold in full view of the castle ramparts.
Radomír swept into the keep, together with his retinue. Tarkhan brought out Lady Lydia, who immediately launched into a string of voluble curses against the tormentor and murderer of her sons.
‘Odjebało ci, Radomír! Crooked, nine times cursed Radomír! Shade! Wraith! Crazed hedgehog-swiver! Spawn of hell! Give me back my sons! You will pay! One way or another, you will pay for what you’ve done!’
Radomír sat before her, unmoved by the woman’s rage. He steepled his fingers, and then signalled to Bogöri. ‘Bring him.’
Bogöri hesitated.
‘Now.’
After some dithering, Bogöri went off. Lydia paused long enough in her vituperations for Radomír’s order to register with her, and as soon as she understood what ‘him’ he meant to be brought, her face went from red to white, and she very nearly choked on her bile. When she found her tongue again, she took a very different tone.
‘No—’ the grandmother gasped, and her panicked eyes pleaded him. ‘No! Please, no! For pity’s sake, Radomír! Spare him! He is only a child, little more than a babe! I beg you, Radomír! I beg you, spare him! I’ll give you anything—silver, lands—only spare him! I’ll promise anything!’
Radomír stood and brushed past where Lydia was kneeling as Bogöri returned.
‘Babka!’ cried the mousy-haired little Sambor, struggling to free himself from Bogöri’s grasp.
Radomír gave a jerk of his head, and Bogöri let him free. Sambor scrambled as fast as his little feet would carry him to his grandmother, but he never reached her. Radomír unsheathed his steel and, with icy despatch, brought it down upon Sambor’s neck as he ran past.
Lydia’s eyes went wide with horror. Her hands in their bonds trembled. It seemed the woman could scarce draw her own breath. At last a pitiable strangled sound escaped her lips, which then turned into a blood-curdling shriek of agony and despair, seeing her only grandson’s life ended before her eyes. Her shrieking continued, on and on for minutes, with Radomír standing stonily by.
The only word which eventually came forth from her was: ‘Why?’
Echoing her first missive to him, Radomír spoke to her as he walked out of the hall:
‘Because you are weak.’
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