Лео Франковски - The Flying Warlord

Besides the Polish nobility, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order was there with a dozen of his masters. There was bad blood between the Crossmen and me, so they had not attended the wedding. There was also a representative from the Knights Hospitalers, as well as nobles from both King Louis IX of France and Emperor Frederic II of Germany. Duke Henryk had been doing his homework.

After an opening prayer, Duke Henryk introduced the envoy from the King of France. Speaking through an interpreter, this marquis pledged the support of France to our cause, and said that already, three thousand lances of French knights were coming to our aid, a total of about nine thousand men, a third of them nobles, a third squires, and a third crossbow men.

The emperor's envoy made a similar statement, promising half again as many men as the French, as well as supplies for the French forces as they crossed the Holy Roman Empire.

You could see the mood of the room lightening. The Polish knights wouldn't have to fight alone! We had powerful friends coming to our aid!

Duke Henryk spoke of strong contingents of Spanish, English, and Italian knights coming to Poland as well. He had been in communication with King Bela of Hungary and Tzar Ivan Asen 11 of the Bulgarian Empire. Since these two empires were threatened with invasion at the same time as Poland, he could not in good con science ask them for aid. But they had agreed that should any of the three powers defeat the Mongols in its own country, that power would then go to the aid of the others.

With emperors and kings accounted for, the Knights Hospitalers stood and promised six hundred knights to our aid, which was almost all that they had.

The Teutonic Knights promised only five hundred, saying that their men were on the frontiers as well, and they could not leave those borders undefended. All present knew that was bullshit. The Crossmen had over three thousand men and the Pruthenians against whom 2500 were supposed to be guarding were no serious danger. At worst, they might do a little cattle-raiding and, what with all the animals running free, they could take their pick without hurting anybody. I got madder when I found out that to get even this little help out of the Crossmen, the duke had had to promise to rescind his father's ban on their order in Silesia. I'd nearly gotten killed getting them thrown out! There was nothing I could do about it now, but someday I was going to get those bastards.

Duke Boleslaw V of Mazovia stood and pledged every man he had, about sixteen thousand of them. In the history books, he's called "the chaste" or "the bashful," depending on whether the particular historian liked him or not. The nickname had to do with his love life, not his fighting. At fifteen, he looked to be a hellraiser.

The Duke of Sandomierz followed suit, pledging twelve thousand men. Knighthood was not really well established in Sandomierz and Mazovia. The men fought in family groups rather than in feudal levies, and the concept of nobility was somewhat different. Not that it mattered much right now.

Duke Henryk announced that from Silesia, Great and Little Poland, he would lead twenty-nine thousand men into battle, over half of whom were knighted, and that he did not include in this total the infantry that I was training.

I was the only mere count who spoke at that council. I said that they all knew about the arms and armor that my men had made. Indeed, most of those present were wearing our products. They knew about the steamboats, but were surprised to learn that there would be three dozen of them on the Vistula alone. The aircraft were well known, and I spoke a bit on the advantages of aerial reconnaissance, until the duke motioned for me to hurry it up.

Then I announced the radios and told what they could do. I don't think anybody believed me! They'd all heard tales about my Warrior's School, but when I said that we would march out with a hundred fifty thousand fighting men, there were looks of stupid disbelief and a few people laughed. They simply didn't think in terms that large.

I was red-faced when I stepped down.

Nonetheless, there was a feeling of buoyancy and confidence in the room. We had the men, we had the power, we had allies coming in from all of Christendom!

Then Duke Henryk announced his battle plan and things started to fall apart. He said that all the foreign contingents, most of which were already on the way, would be gathering at Legnica, and that the rest of us should meet them there. We could then have a single, strong, unified army with which to advance eastward toward the Mongols.

The knights of Little Poland, Sandomierz, and Mazovia were not the least bit pleased by this plan! It meant that they would have to march hundreds of miles west, wait for the foreigners to arrive, and then march back again! And while this was going on, their own lands would be completely at the mercy of the Mongol invaders with no one to defend them!

Young Duke Boleslaw was the first on his feet, shouting. "Henryk, do you expect me to abandon my own duchy, my own people, to go off to your estates to defend your lands? Because if you do, you're crazy! My lands, and those of Sandomierz and Little Poland are in front of yours! The Tartars must go through us before they can touch your precious lands! It is you who should come and support us!"

Duke Henryk was on his feet. "We will come in your support! But don't you see that we must come together? If every man stands and defends his own manor, the Tartars will chew us up one by one in little bites! If we join together in a single army, we will be invincible! The choice of Legnica as a rallying point is the result of simple geography. It is the center point of all the knights who will be fighting on our side, the center of gravity, as Count Conrad would call it. Yes, it is on my lands, but it has to be on somebody's lands! Further, arrangements have already been made to feed and house the vast number of fighting men who will be gathering. Can any of you provide such a thing? Can Sandomierz or Plock feed so many men?"

"Merchants will come," Duke Boleslaw said. "They always do! I say that I will defend eastern Poland with my life! I will not run back for three hundred miles while my people are murdered! I will defend, and if you and your foreigners can come up in time to help me, I will be forever grateful to you. But if you are late, may God have mercy on you, because no one else will!"

And with that bit of bombast, the kid stomped out of the room, followed by all the men of Mazovia. After a few awkward moments, the Duke of Sandomierz stood and followed him, and in a few minutes, the hall was half empty. Even those men from Little Poland, men from the Cracow area who were personally sworn to Duke Henryk, had left. To them, the decision to be made was between abandoning their lands and peoples, or abandoning their oath to their duke. And they had made it. Even many still in the room seemed uncertain.

"Well," the duke said. "It seems that we must fight without them. But at least you men are with me, and Count Conrad's men outnumber by far all those that have left."

I had to stand. "Your grace, don't you see that I can't bring all my men to Legnica, either? I have a major force in my boats on the Vistula. I cannot bring those boats overland to the Odra. They must be used in eastern Poland or not be used at all! The aircraft will be far more useful than you now realize, but we only have one airport! That airport is near Okoitz, which is east of Legnica, and if it is overrun, the planes are useless! My infantry needs the railroads to travel quickly. We have built extensive tracks along the Vistula and through the Malapolska Hills, the area that we will need to defend first. If we can win there, western Poland is safe. But the railroad net is thin in western Poland and nonexistent in many areas. We haven't had time to expand it yet. My men can not effectively fight in western Poland!"

"So. You, too, Conrad?"

"Your grace, I am not abandoning you, but don't you realize what the radios and the rails mean? It is not necessary for all of us to be in the same spot for us to be together! With good communications, we can work in concert even though we are hundreds of miles apart."

"Count Conrad, I don't understand what you're saying. But what I do know is that every man true to me will join me at Legnica before the first of March!"

With that he got up and left, and the council of war was never called again. Instead of one Polish Army, there were now three of them. Those in the east under Duke Boleslaw, those in the west under Duke Henryk, and those men sworn to me. We were in pieces before the Mongols had even arrived.

Chapter Fourteen

There wasn't much time for marital bliss. Not with the war just weeks away. Francine moved into Hell with me, but that was only temporary. The. place for her when it started was Three Walls, only she didn't see it that way. She had visions of herself being a female power behind the throne.

We were arguing about that one night in bed. "Look, love. Three Walls is my home. It's where I normally live and work. It's also my biggest installation, and my best defended. On top of all that, it's the one farthest back. Before the Mongols dare attack it, they must first destroy East Gate. Then they must take out Sir Miesko's formidable manor, as well as Hell, or they have an enemy at their rear. They'd even be well advised to destroy Okoitz before they tried to take Three Walls. It's a matter of simple geography."

"Geography, yes. But not politics. It would be best if I were in Cracow. There I can do you some good."

"I don't need you to do me any good. I need you to be alive. You will have a much better chance of staying that way at Three Walls."

"You have no feeling for the politics of the situation."

"I don't give a damn about the politics of the situation! The city walls at Cracow are made of old crumbly bricks. They are only three stories high, and they are defended by only two dozen guns. Do you know what came into the office today? An order from the city fathers of Cracow for two thousand swivel guns, to be shipped immediately! They should have placed that order two years ago! Then it could have been filled! Now, I could fill it only by stripping the guns from the walls of other cities, and I won't do it!"

"You see? If you had understood the politics there, you could have sold them those guns at the time, yes?"

"It's not that I wanted to sell them the guns! I've never made a penny selling arms and armor! It's just that the city is weak and the people there don't have much chance if they're attacked. You are going to Three Walls. I am your husband and you will obey me in this!"

"What happened to letting each other live our own lives?"

"I'm still for it! But you have to be alive before you can live! Now shut up and go to sleep. I have other things to worry about."

"What other things, my darling?"

"Treason, for one. There is no way that I can obey the duke and retreat to Legnica. That move would destroy the usefulness of everything that I've done here. I must disobey him."

"So. This must be?"

"Absolutely. There is no way around it. I wish I could obey him, and after the war I hope he still wants me for a vassal, but his battle plan is Just Plain Awful."

"Then perhaps I should be going to Legnica, yes?"

"No! You are not going anywhere but Three Walls. And 1, well, I'm going to Okoitz in the morning."

"And why do you go to Lambert, whom you do not like anymore?"

"I go there to add conspiracy to my treason, and compound it with sowing disaffection among the duke's loyal men. If I'm going to send out the riverboats to hold the Vistula, and maybe even the Bug, I'm going to need the aircraft to help patrol the area and watch for the enemy. Lambert is in solid control of the boys at Eagle Nest, so I have to talk him into joining me."

"And you say that you do not care for politics."

"I don't. And I'm sure not looking forward to tomorrow's meeting."

At Okoitz, Lambert was effusive.

"Ah, my dear Conrad! It's so good to see you again! I trust you've come for your usual monthly visit. I want you to look over our defenses here one more time. Those old women you sent to teach my girls how to defend the place seem to know what they're about, but defense is really a man's business, what?"

"I'd be happy to go over the defenses, my lord, but there's another matter to be discussed."

"Now, what's this 'my lord' nonsense? I thought we agreed to treat each other as equals, as brothers, even!"

"Sorry, Lambert. Just habit, I suppose."

"Good! Now, what was this other matter?"

"Treason."

"Dog's blood! Whose?"

"Mine. Maybe yours as well."

"What the devil are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the duke's battle plan. You were at the council of war. You saw what happened, and you heard what I had to say. It still goes. If I follow the duke's plan, everything I've done here is wasted. Poland will fall and most of us, the duke included, will likely be killed. I'm going to have to disobey him."

"I see. But you've always had an obligation to a Higher Power."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Prester John, of course! I figured out who sent you here long ago. The greatest Christian king of all, Prester John."

Good lord! Lambert told me about this fantasy of his nine years ago, but he hadn't mentioned it since, so I'd hoped he'd forgotten about it. Yet my oath to Father Ignacy still stood, and I couldn't tell him the truth of the matter.

"You are silent," Lambert continued. "Well, I understand your problem and your oath of silence. But to answer your implied question, I'd say that your duty to your king takes precedence over your later oath to the duke, so you are safe on moral grounds. As to the practical considerations, well, if your strategy is fight and the duke's is wrong, then you will be a hero and there won't be much he can do to you. If the duke's strategy is right and yours is wrong, then you are likely to die on the battlefield, and again there won't be anything he can do to you. Offhand, I'd say that your treason is a safe one."

As safe as a tomb, I thought.

"Thank you. but I didn't come here for your moral support. I came here for your physical support. My boats are going to need your aircraft to show them where the enemy is concentrating. Can I count on your help here, though it be treason on your part?"

"You can count on my help and that of the boys from Eagle Nest. We'll be up there, you may be sure! But how would that be treason to the duke? My oath to him requires that I send him so many knights in the time of his need. I shall do so, and then some, for I now have more men than my oath requires, despite the loss of those knights that once served Baron Jaraslav and now serve you. In truth, since you are arming all of my knights and squires and my barons, and I need only provide training and a horse, in the last six years we have been able to more than double the number of knights that serve me. I was wise to accept your offer, you see."

"And while my oath does not require it, I have told him that we shall be watching the enemy from above, and reporting their movements to him, and this, too, I shall do. If we also tell your boats what we tell the duke, how is that treason? It's just the sensible thing to do. We're all fighting the same enemy, after all!"

"You have relieved my mind, Lambert."

"If you say so. Myself, I can't imagine how you thought I could have done otherwise! Now then, shall we see to my defenses? And afterward, you shall have supper here with me and my daughter, and you shall see what you missed out on!"