The Knights of the Cross/Volume 2/Chapter 62
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CHAPTER LXII. They went by land through Helmno to Grudziondz, where they stopped for the night and passed the next day, for the Grand Master had to judge a question of fishing between the castle starosta of the Order and the neighboring nobility whose lands bordered on the Vistula. Thence they sailed on barges of the Order down the river to Malborg. Zyndram, Povala, and Zbyshko passed all the time at the side of the Master, who was curious to learn what impression would be made, especially on Zyndram, by the might of the Order when he looked from near by at it. This concerned Conrad, because Zyndram was not only a valiant and terrible knight in single combat, but an uncommonly skilful warrior. There was no other man in the kingdom who knew, as he did, how to lead large armies, muster regiments for battle, build castles as well as storm them, and throw bridges across broad rivers; no other man who understood "guns" so well,—that is, arms of various nations, and all military tactics. The Master, knowing that much depended on the opinion of Zyndram in the counsel of the King, thought that if he could astonish him by the greatness of the Order's wealth, and by its army, war would be deferred for a long time. And, above all, the sight of Malborg might itself fill the heart of every Pole with dread, for no other fortress on earth could compare, even approximately, with that one, counting the High Castle, the Middle Castle, and the First Castle.[1] Already, from afar, in sailing down the Nogat, the knights saw the mighty bastions standing out against the sky. The day was bright and clear, so they could see them perfectly; and after some time, when the barges had approached, the points of the church gleamed still more on the lofty castle and the gigantic walls, towering some above others, partly in red brick, but mainly covered with that celebrated gray-white coating which only masons of the Order had the skill to fabricate. The immensity of the walls surpassed every structure which the Polish knights had seen in their lives thus far. It might seem that edifice grew there on edifice, creating in that place, low by nature, as it were, a mountain, the summit of which was the High Castle, the sides the Middle and the First Castle. There radiated from that giant nest of armed monks such uncommon might and power that even the long and usually gloomy face of the Grand Master cleared somewhat as he gazed at it. "Ex luto Marienburg. Marienburg[2] from the mud," said he, turning toward Zyndram; "but no human power can crush that mud." Zyndram made no answer, and in silence he took in with his eyes all the bastions and the immensity of the walls strengthened by monstrous escarps. "You gentlemen," added Conrad, after a moment of silence, "who understand fortresses, what do you say to this?" "The fortress seems to me impregnable," replied the Polish knight, as if in meditation; "but—" "But what? What can you criticise in it?" "But any fortress may change masters." At this the Grand Master frowned. "In what sense do you speak?" "In this sense, that the judgments and decisions of God are hidden from the eyes of man." And again he looked in meditation on the walls, while Zbyshko, to whom Povala had interpreted his answer correctly, looked at him admiringly and with gratitude. He was struck at that moment by the resemblance between Zyndram and the Jmud leader Skirvoillo. Both had immense heads of the same kind, driven in, as it were, between broad shoulders; both had mighty breasts and the same form of bowed legs. Meanwhile the Master, not wishing that the last word should remain with the Polish knight, began a second time: "They say that our Marienburg is six times greater than Vavel, the castle of Cracow." "In Cracow on the cliff there is not so much space as here on the plain," replied Zyndram; "but our heart in Vavel is greater." Conrad raised his brows wonderingly,— "I do not understand." "But what is the heart in any fortress, if not the church? Our cathedral in Vavel is three times as large as that here." While saying this, he indicated the fortress church, really not large, on which glittered a great mosaic figure of the Most Holy Lady on a golden background. Again Conrad was not pleased with the turn of speech. "You have ready but strange answers," said he. Meanwhile they had arrived. The excellent police of the Order had evidently notified the town and the castle of the Grand Master's coming, for at the landing, in addition to a number of brothers, were trumpeters of the town, who greeted the Grand Master usually with their trumpets when he landed. Horses were waiting at the shore for him. When the party had mounted, they passed through the town and entering the Weaver's Gate at the side of the Sparrow Bastion, rode up to the First Castle. At the gate the Master was greeted by the Grand Comtur, Wilhelm von Helfenstein,—who bore only the title, since for some months his duties had been performed actually by Kuno Lichtenstein, then absent on a mission to England,—and, besides, by the Hospitaller Conrad Lichtenstein, a relative of Kuno, by the Grand Master of the Wardrobe, Rumpenheim, and the Grand Treasurer, Burghard von Wobecke, and finally by the Petty Comtur, the overseer of the workshops and the management of the castle. Besides these dignitaries there were some ordained brothers, who had charge of church affairs in Prussia, and who oppressed other cloisters grievously, as well as parish priests, whom they forced to work on roads even, and at ice-breaking. With those ordained men stood a multitude of lay brothers,—that is, knights not bound to canonical observances. Their large and strong bodies (the Order accepted no weak men), their broad shoulders, curly beard, and stern faces made them resemble the greedy robber knights of Germany more than brothers. From their eyes stared daring insolence and boundless pride. They did not like Conrad because he feared war with the might of Yagello; frequently at the Chapters they reproached him openly with cowardice, made pictures of him on the walls, and roused jesters to ridicule him to his eyes. But this time they inclined their heads with apparent humility, especially since the Master appeared in company with foreign knights; and they hurried quickly to hold his horse's bridle and the stirrups. The Master alighted, and turned at once to Helfenstein. "Are there tidings from Werner von Tettingen?" asked he. Tettingen, as Grand Marshal, or commander of the armed forces of the Order, was on an expedition then against the Jmud men and Vitold. "There is nothing important," answered Helfenstein, "but damage has been done. The rabble burnt villages near Ragneta and towns around other castles." "In God is our hope, that one great battle will break their rage and stubbornness," replied the Master. When he had spoken, he raised his eyes, and his lips moved a moment in a prayer for the success of the armies of the Order. Then he turned toward the Polish knights and said,— "These are envoys of the King of Poland: the knight of the Mashkovitse, the knight of Tachev, and the knight of Bogdanets, who have come with us for the exchange of prisoners. Let the comtur of the castle show them guest-chambers, and entertain and treat them as is proper." The Knights of the Order looked with curiosity at the envoys, but especially at Povala, whose name, as a renowned champion, was known to some of them. Those who had not heard of his deeds at the courts of Bohemia, Burgundy, and Poland were filled with wonder at his stature, and his battle stallion of such size that he reminded men who in youth had visited the Holy Land and Egypt, of elephants and camels. Some recognized Zbyshko, who had fought within barriers at Malborg; and those greeted him rather kindly, remembering that Ulrich, the strong brother of the Master, who enjoyed great favor in the Order, had shown him real esteem and friendship. Not less attention and wonder were roused by him who, in a future then not distant, was to be the most dreadful of all the scourgers of the Order, namely, Zyndram; for when he had dismounted he seemed, because of his uncommon strength and lofty shoulders, to be almost humpbacked. His arms of exceeding length and his bow-legs roused smiles on the faces of the younger brothers. One of them, known for his love of jesting, even approached him, wishing to say a word, but when he looked into the eyes of the lord of Mashkovitse, he lost desire somehow, and walked away in silence. Meanwhile the comtur of the castle went with the guests, conducting them. They entered, first, a court of no great width, in which, besides a school, an ancient storehouse, and a saddler's workshop, was the chapel of Saint Nicholas; then passing the Nicholas bridge they entered the First Castle proper. The comtur for some time conducted them amid strong walls, strengthened here and there by greater or smaller bastions. Zyndram looked with care at everything; the comtur, even without inquiry, indicated various buildings willingly, as if he wished the guests to see all objects in the utmost detail. "That great building which your Graces see before you on the left is," said he, "our stable. We are poor monks, but people say that elsewhere even knights are not lodged as horses are in this place." "People do not reproach you with poverty," said Povala; "but there must be something here besides horse-stalls, since this building is so high, and you, of course, do not lead your horses up stairways." "Above the stable, which is on the ground-floor and in which there are four hundred horses, are storehouses; these contain a stock of wheat to last ten years, I think. There will never be a siege here; but even should there be, no enemy will conquer us by famine." Then he turned to the right and again passed a bridge between the bastion of Saint Laurence and the Armor Bastion, and led them to another square, immense, lying in the very centre of the First Castle. "Observe, your Graces," said the comtur, "that what you see to the north there, though by the power of God impregnable, is only the 'Vorburg,' and may not be compared in strength with the Middle Castle, to which I shall conduct you, still less with the High Castle." In fact, a separate moat and a special drawbridge divided the Middle Castle from that square; and only in the castle gate, which stood considerably higher, could the knights, when they had turned, at the suggestion of the comtur, take in once more with their vision all that great quadrangle which was called the First Castle. Edifice rose there at the side of edifice, so that it seemed to Zyndram that he saw a whole city. There were inexhaustible supplies of wood laid away in piles as large as houses, heaps of stone cannonballs standing up like pyramids, cemeteries, hospitals, and magazines. Somewhat aside, near a lake in the centre, were the mighty red walls of the "Temple;" that is, an immense storehouse, with an eating-hall for mercenaries and servants. At the north wall were to he seen other stables for the horses of knights, and for choice steeds of the Master. At the opposite side of the quadrangle were dwellings for various managers and officials of the Order; again storehouses, granaries, bakeries, rooms for clothing, foundries, a great arsenal, prisons, the old cannon foundry,—each building so strong and so fortified that in each it was possible to make a stand as in a separate fortress, and all were surrounded by a wall, and by a crowd of tremendous bastions; outside the wall was a moat; outside the moat a circle of great palisades; beyond the palisades, on the west, rolled the yellow waves of the Nogat. On the north and west gleamed the surface of a broad lake, and on the south towered up the still more strongly fortified Middle and High Castles. A most terrible nest, which had an expression of immense strength, and in which were joined the two greatest powers known to man in that century,—the power of the church and the power of the sword. Whoso resisted the first, was cut down by the second. Whoso lifted an arm against both, against him rose a shout through all Christendom, that he had raised that arm against the Cross of the Saviour. And straightway knights rushed together from all lands to give aid. That nest, therefore, was swarming at all times with armed men and artisans, and in it, at all times, activity buzzed as in a beehive. Before the great buildings, in the passages, at the gates, in the workshops, there was everywhere movement, as at a fair. Echo bore about the sound of hammers and chisels fashioning stone cannonballs, the roar of wind-mills and tread-mills, the neighing of horses, the rattle of arms and of armor, the sound of trumpets and fifes, calls and commands. On those squares all languages were heard, and one might meet warriors from every nation; hence the unerring English archers, who pierced a pigeon tied to a pole a hundred yards distant, and whose arrows went through breastplates as easily as through woollen stuff, and the terrible Swiss infantry who fought with double-handed swords, and the Danes, valiant, though immoderate in food and drink, and the French knights, inclined equally to laughter and to quarrel, the silent and haughty Spanish nobles, the brilliant knights of Italy, the most skilful swordsmen of all, dressed in silk and satin, and during war in impenetrable armor forged in Venice, Florence, and Milan, the knights of Burgundy, Friesland, and finally Germans from every German country. The "white mantles" circled about among all as superiors and masters. "A tower filled with gold," or, more accurately, a separate chamber, built in the High Castle next the dwelling of the Grand Master, really filled from top to bottom with coin and bars of precious metal, permitted the Order to entertain "guests" worthily, as well as to assemble mercenaries, who were sent on expeditions and to all castles to be at the disposition of voits, starostas, and comturs. So that to the power of the sword and the power of religion were joined here great wealth, and also iron discipline, which, though relaxed in recent times by excess of confidence, and intoxication over the strength of the Order, was still maintained by the force of ancient custom. Monarchs went there not only to fight against Pagans or to borrow money, but to learn the art of governing; knights went there to learn the art of war, for in all the world of that day no one knew how to govern and wage war as did the Order. When it settled in those regions, it owned not one span of earth save a small district and a few castles bestowed on it by a heedless Polish prince; now it possessed a broad country, larger than many kingdoms, containing fertile lands, strong cities, and impregnable castles. It possessed and watched, as a spider possesses its extended web, every thread of which it holds beneath its body. From out that place, from out that High Castle, from the Grand Master, and from the "white mantles," went in every direction, by post messengers, commands to feudatory nobles, to city councils, to mayors, to voits and assistant voits, to captains of mercenary troops; and what there in that centre had been originated and determined by mind and will was executed far from there and quickly by hundreds and by thousands of fists in armor. Hither flowed in money from whole regions, wheat, all kinds of provisions, tribute from the secular clergy groaning under a grievous yoke, and also from other cloisters at which the Order looked with unfriendly eye. From out that place, finally, grasping hands were stretched against all surrounding lands and nations. The numerous Prussian people of Lithuanian speech had been swept from the earth at that period. Lithuania had felt till recently the iron foot of the Knight of the Cross weighing on her breast so cruelly that for every breath she gave, blood went from her heart with it. Poland, though victorious in the dreadful battle at Plovtse, had still lost in the time of Lokietek her possessions on the left bank of the Vistula, together with Dantzig, Chev, Gniev, and Sviet. The Order of Livonian Knights stretched out after Russian lands; and those two Orders moved forward, like the first gigantic wave of a German sea, which was covering Slav lands with an ever-widening deluge. Suddenly the sun of the German Order was obscured behind a cloud. Lithuania had received the Cross from Poland, and Yagello had received the throne at Cracow with the hand of the marvellous Yadviga. The Order, it is true, had not lost a single land through this, or a single castle, but it felt that against its power a power was now arrayed, and it lost the reason of its existence in Prussia. After the baptism of Lithuania the Order had only to return to Palestine and guard pilgrims on their way to the Holy City. But to return would be to renounce wealth, rule, power, dominion, cities, lands, and whole kingdoms. So the Order began to squirm in rage and terror, like a monstrous dragon in whose side the barbed shaft has sunk deeply. The Grand Master Conrad feared to risk all on one cast of the die, and trembled at the thought of war with Yagello, the ruler of Polish and Lithuanian lands and of those broad Russian regions which Olgierd had dragged from the throat of the Tartar; but the greater number of the Knights of the Cross urged on to war, feeling that they must light a life-and-death battle while their forces were intact and before the halo of the Order should grow pale, while the whole world was hastening to give aid to them, and before the thunders of the Papacy could fall upon that nest of theirs. It was a question of life and death then for the Order not to spread the Christian faith, but to uphold the heathen. Meanwhile, among nations, and at the courts of Europe, they accused Yagello and Lithuania of having performed a baptism that was false and counterfeit, declaring it impossible that that could be done in a single year which the sword of the Knights had not done in generations. They incensed against Poland and its sovereign, kings and knights, as against guardians and defenders of Pagan institutions; and their complaints, which were disbelieved in Rome alone, went through the world in a broad wave, and brought to Malborg princes, counts, and knights from the west and south of Europe. The Order gained confidence and felt itself allmighty. Marienburg, with its two tremendous castles and its First Castle, dazzled men through its strength more than ever. They were dazzled by its wealth and its seeming discipline; and the whole Order appeared more commanding, more inexhaustible for coming ages, than it had been at any time; and no man among princes, no man among knightly guests, no man even among Knights of the Order, save the Grand Master Conrad, understood that from the hour when Lithuania had become Christian, something of such character had happened as if those currents of the Nogat, which defended on one side the formidable fortress, had begun to undermine its walls in silence and irresistibly. No man understood that, though power remained yet in that enormous body, the soul had flown from it; whoso came freshly and looked at that Marienburg reared ex luto, at those walls, bastions, black crosses on gates, mantlerooms, and storehouses, thought, first of all, that even the gates of hell would not prevail against the Cross there, in its northern capital. With a similar thought did not only Povala and Zbyshko look at it, they who had been there previously, but also Zyndram, a man far keener of mind than they were. Even he, as he gazed at that armored swarming place of soldiers, embraced by the circle of bastions and by gigantic palisades, grew dark in the face, and to his mind came, in spite of him, the insolent words with which the Knights of the Cross had threatened Kazimir, the Polish king,— "Our force is greater; if thou yield not, we will hunt thee to Cracow itself with our sword-blades." Meanwhile the comtur of the castle conducted the knights farther on, to the Middle Castle, in the eastern flank of which were guest-chambers.
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