Free The Sword Brothers by Peter Darman

him as an orphan into the world. Then he
remembered Marie and said a silent prayer to God that she would be
safe and protected for he suspected that he would never see her
again.
    After two hours the
cogs had reached the estuary of the river and the longships cast
them adrift, the captain ordering the sail to be unfurled as he
sought to catch the breeze. Everyone looked up in excitement when
the great canvas sail billowed as the wind filled it and they began
their journey across the Baltic. Conrad noticed that the sail
carried the red sword and cross emblem that Rudolf and Henke wore
on their surcoats. He also noticed that Walter was kneeling on the
deck praying, which Conrad took comfort from. God would not sink
their vessel with such a pious man on board.
    Once under way the
ship’s cook began roasting fresh fish over a brazier positioned
near the bows of the boat. Soon a queue had formed as sailors and
passengers alike waited to satisfy the appetite they had built up
during the loading of the ship. Hans was near the head of the line,
eagerly waiting with his wooden eating bowl. Rudolf had ensured
that the ship’s food supplies were more than sufficient for the
journey and had purchased fresh meat and fish on the morning of
their departure so the bellies of all the crew and passengers would
be full at the start of the voyage and during the passage. From
bitter experience he knew that empty bellies bred mutinous spirits
and lethargy. There was little point in arriving at Riga with a
ship full of half-starving people.
    Hans was eating
greedily from his bowl when Conrad sat down beside him beneath the
gunwale, using his fingers to shovel cooked mackerel into his
mouth.
    ‘I told you we would
not starve,’ he grinned.
    ‘That depends on how
long we have to stay on this boat,’ said Conrad, who had to admit
that the mackerel was most appetising.
    Hans emptied his mouth
and scooped up some more fish. ‘Just over three weeks. I asked one
of the sailors.’
    The prospect seemed
daunting but the days following were filled with work that kept
Conrad’s mind occupied. When helping to clean the deck with buckets
of seawater he occasionally glanced at the distant horizon, the
endless ocean making him and the boat he was on appear miniscule
and unimportant. He shuddered. He had never seen the sea before let
alone sail on it. He gazed at the dark water and wondered what
monsters swam below its surface. At night he lay in his hammock and
heard the creaking of the ship’s timbers and wondered if the vessel
would break apart while he slept.
    He had counted himself
lucky that he had been allotted a hammock to sleep in and wondered
why Rudolf, Henke and the mercenaries preferred to sleep in the
open on deck. After the first night he knew why. The hold stank of
urine and human dung, made worse when several of his fellow youths
were seasick. Whereas Hans was talkative and jovial the other three
– Anton, Bruno and Johann – were more reticent and aloof. They
rarely spoke and kept their heads down, and even the frequent
questioning by Hans had little success. However, their bouts of
seasickness and Conrad’s offer to help them to the deck so they
could throw up over the side made them more approachable, even if
they nearly always vomited below deck, creating a nauseous stench.
Added to the odour of dung and urine it was quite overpowering.
Everyone was given a terracotta pot to piss in each evening, which
also doubled up as a sick bowl. They were emptied every morning but
in the foetid darkness of the hold many were kicked over by
accident, especially during Bruno and Johann’s desperate attempts
to reach the side of the ship before they emptied their stomachs,
which invariably failed.
    Conrad emerged each
morning clutching his piss pot and his nose permanently twisted at
the reek that greeted his nostrils when he opened his eyes.
Climbing the steps slowly so as not to disturb the contents of his
pot, he always encountered a cheerful