CONRAD'S QUEST FOR RUBBER

'An excellent suggestion, Komander. Act on it.'

'Thank you, sir. What if any of the Germans are still alive?'

'Give them medical attention, by all means. What we want here is as many people as possible telling how just one of our companies ripped up an entire invading army,' Lord Conrad said.

By this time the herald and the margrave had finished being astounded at Lord Conrad's pronouncement, and the troops were carrying out their orders over loud protests in German.

The herald said, 'But Lord Conrad, this is madness! How can you accuse us of such crimes?'

'While you were invading my country, your troops sacked and burned at least eleven villages. That's enough arson to get you all hanged. I don't have proof of the murders, rapes, and the rest of it just yet, but I'm sure that we'll have it by tomorrow.'

'But that was a simple act of war! Who cares about the damned peasants?'

'I do.'

'But it was the soldiers who killed those peasants, not us!'

'You ordered them to come here, so the responsibility is yours. If it makes you feel any better, we've already killed all of your soldiers.'

'But surely, Lord Conrad, when you consider the size of the ransom that the margrave could pay, well, he's one of the richest men in all of Christendom! Surely that can convince you of the folly of your path!'

'I just had six thousand men butchered. Do you think that I did it for money? No, I don't want the margrave's money. I have plenty of my own. Actually, it's possible that I'm the richest man in Christendom.'

'But the emperor, Frederick the Great, will never stand for this!'

'All Frederick can do is send in another army just like this one. If he does, it will meet the same fate. I don't think he is as much of a fool as the margrave is. Was.'

'But you can't go killing a margrave! It's unheard of!'

'I can kill him, and I will. What's more, I want as many people as possible to hear about it. Your class of 'noblemen' seems to think that war is just an amusing game, a pleasant way to spend a summer. Well, it is not, not anymore. I need to communicate to people like you, in a meaningful way, the idea that murdering a lot of peaceful, innocent people wholesale, in war, is just as evil as killing them one at a time, in peacetime.'

'But it's always been done that way.'

'You just don't listen very good. It's not done that way anymore. But enough of this. It doesn't matter if you understand or not, because you are not the recipient of my message. You are part of the message itself. Guards, march these men away.'

'But you can't do this to me! I'm a herald!'

'Bet?'

I watched seven naked old men walk barefoot back along the length of their slaughtered army, thinking — I'm sure— that this couldn't possibly be happening to high and wonderful noblemen like them.

Already, some of the people from the baggage train were stripping the dead, putting valuables, weapons, and clothing in separate piles. The dead were being laid out neatly by the side of the road. Chaplains from both armies were going down the rows, giving extreme unction. Behind them, men were digging graves.

Komander Wladyclaw came over and reported in to Lord Conrad.

'Your orders are being carried out, sir. I notice that some of the prisoners are stealing money and jewels from their own dead, sir.'

'Let them. When the job is all done, probably sometime tomorrow, I want you to strip-search all of the noncombatants. Then I want you to give each of them five days' food from the captured supply wagons, and march them to the border, naked. The idea is, I want them to have some very vivid memories of what happened here. I want them to tell everybody who sees them that attacking Poland and the rest of the Christian Federation is a bad idea. Stripping them naked will force them to explain themselves, as well as let us recover our booty.'

Chapter Twenty-One

From the Journal of Josip Sobieski

WRITTEN JANUARY 15, 1250, CONCERNING JUNE 3, 1249

THAT EVENING, when the last of the petty details had been handled, I was still in Lord Conrad's tent, because no one had thought to dismiss me. He was sitting on a camp chair, slumped over and looking very tired.

I asked him if he knew that Maude could give a most refreshing back rub.

'That is an excellent idea, Josip. A truly wonderful idea. Yes. Maude, would you please oblige me?'

He was soon stretched out on his back on the carpet, enjoying Maude's calm ministrations. Maude had removed her skirt as soon as the last visitor had left, and I wondered at this strange preoccupation of hers. Still, it improved the view.

'Sir Josip, tell me, what are your thoughts on this day's events? Was I too brutal?'

Lord Conrad wanted my thoughts? I said that I was mostly impressed with the new armaments, especially those submachine guns. I had heard that in ten years' time every man in the army would be paired with a Big Person, and when that happened, we would be truly invincible. No one would dare to bother us.

'It's actually more like five years from now, not ten,' he said. When he saw my surprised expression, he continued, 'Just now, there are almost five thousand Big People. Most of them are involved with civilian occupations. More than four thousand of them are used to carry the mails, throughout Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ruthenias. We have a school with a post office in almost every village in the Federation, and almost every one of them is visited by a Big Person five times a week. King Henryk has four dozen Big People for his entourage, so Prince Daniel, King Bella, and Tzar Ivan all have to have the same, or they pout.

'Very few Big People are involved with the military. Too few, as it turns out, but I never thought that the margrave would pull a stunt like this. There are about two thousand new Big People coming on line in the next few months, and they will all go to the Wolves, or similar groups.

'In a few years we'll be invincible, all right. That's what an army is really for, Josip. To be so big and so strong that it never has to hurt anyone. What happened today was an aberration. One noble fool, who didn't believe what people had told him about us, and was too proud to visit us peacefully, decided to attack us without warning. You see, I've often invited the margrave to visit us, to see what we've got, and he wouldn't do it. But I asked you about the brutality.'

I said that once the attack had started, I didn't see how he could possibly have called it off. And if we killed all of them, well, wasn't it their idea to kill all of us? Wasn't that why the Germans crossed our borders in the first place?

'True. The attack went better than I expected. But I was referring to what I did later, to the margrave himself and his staff.'

I said that I was a commoner. My knighthood notwithstanding, I was still just a baker's son. It always troubled me that the rich and the powerful people in this world could do unpleasant things to the likes of me and not be held respon-sible for it. They were not punished for the crimes they committed, if they were committed on some peasant. I said that I was glad at what he did to those fat old men! And that I'd be even gladder when I saw them all hung up by their necks on the scaffold.

I was just as glad when I found that our troops hadn't hurt those people on the baggage train. And I said I was gladder yet that he was going to let the noncombatants all go free, the next day. I said I would have done just the same things he had, if I had been in charge, and if I'd been smart enough to think fast on my feet, the way he always does.

'Thank you. You've relieved my mind, a bit. So tell me, what will you be doing next, Josip?'

I was surprised, and said that it was up to him, or maybe some assignment clerk somewhere. I guessed that I'd spend some time at the Explorer's School, and then go out with my lance to some strange new place or other.