Helmuth grimaced. “The way will be congested,” he said.
“It would have been much less congested earlier,” Ocyrhoe said, unable to still her tongue.
“Silence, brat,” Helmuth said.
Léna smiled, silencing both of them with a look. “A path will present itself,” she said calmly. “I am sure of it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Boy and the Tree
The reflection in the horse trough was a hollow-eyed phantom. Ripples in the water added lines, distorting his mouth into a quivering frown that split his face in half. Dietrich slapped the water, disturbing the image even further, and turned away from the wrecked face staring up at him. He dried his face with a rag that was probably dirtier than he was. As much as he tried to push the matter out of his mind, he could not avoid the truth. It kept creeping up on him—staring back from the water in the horse trough, leering from behind the eyes of his men. Doubt. Fear. Panic.
He had lost his way, and he was leading the Fratres Militiae Christi Livoniae to ruin. Had Heermeister Volquin suffered this same realization shortly before the battle at Schaulen? Dietrich recalled the fury in Kristaps’s eyes when the knight had revealed the ugly scars of his failed Shield-Brethren initiation. That same fervor had driven Volquin, and he had been blind to the trap at the river. The Heermeister’s obsession had nearly destroyed the order; the Teutonic Knights had taken pity on the survivors of Schaulen, welcoming the lost Livonians into their ranks. Many of the Sword Brothers wore the black cross rather than the red, and were content to leave the past buried along the muddy banks of the Schaulen River.
But some had strained under the Teutonic yoke. These men—veterans of the Northern campaigns, survivors of Schaulen—secretly spoke of taking the red cross again, of taking their own lands, of regaining their old glory. They chose him to lead them, and all they had needed was a sign that their purpose was just and right.
And they had been given that sign by the Pope himself. The Sword Brothers found an unexpected patron in Rome, and once Dietrich had sworn himself—and the order—to serve not just the Church, but the men who secretly ruled the Church, they could wear the red cross again.
But the memory of Schaulen proved difficult to shake.
Dietrich sat on the bench beside the trough and stared at the tumbledown wall of the barn that was the extent of their holdings in Hünern. Was this all that he, Dietrich von Grüningen, the fourth master of the order, had accomplished? Would history even remember him?
He shuddered, shaking himself free from the grip of this tenacious melancholy. Such weak-mindedness! This would not be the legacy of his command. He would right himself; he would find honor and glory for his men. The rest—the ones who still wore the black cross—would come back. He knew they would.
The Fratres Militiae Christi Livoniae will survive, he vowed. Whatever storm threatened, he could not shrink from his duty: his order must survive. No matter the cost, no matter the danger, he must not shirk his responsibility.
Having dispersed the phantom of failure, Dietrich whistled for his squire and began the slow, deliberate ritual of donning his armor. As his squire ensured that maille was fitted properly over gambeson, that surcoat hung properly, and that sword rested at the proper angle on his hips, Dietrich von Grüningen, fourth master of the Fratres Militiae Christi Livoniae considered his meager options.
He had been given one order by his master in Rome, and after securing the safety of his men, that was his only other responsibility. Destroy the Shield-Brethren.
His squire offered him his helmet, and Dietrich shook his head. He would not need it. Not where he was going. His dressing complete, Dietrich strode out into the main compound, hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
Burchard and Sigeberht were waiting for him. Constant companions, their devotion was absolute. With a hundred like them, we would be strong, he reflected as he looked at their stoic faces.
“Is my horse prepared?” he asked.
“As you asked, Heermeister,” Burchard murmured. “Where do we ride?”
“The Mongol compound,” Dietrich answered. “I must speak with Tegusgal.”
The tree had never had any leaves, as far as Hans could recall; to an outsider, the tree was a scraggly ash, grown from a wind-tossed achene that had sprouted in the unkempt wilderness of a neglected alley. It would never get enough sun. It would never get enough water. But it refused to die, and Hans and the other boys—the Rats of Hünern—adopted it as their own. It was their standard, and beneath its twisted arms, they felt safe. Protected. Sheltered from the cruelty of a world gone mad.