I kicked his shoulder, and he just rolled over onto his side, still staring at the bloody stump.
I looked up and saw that Anna had her man on the run. He was dodging between the trees, both arms dangling at his sides as if broken. He ducked behind a massive oak and then peeked out around the opposite side to see what had become of her.
She outguessed him. As he stuck his head out, she put a forehoof in his face. I could hear the crunching squish from fifty meters away.
Then she looked at the body, calmly stepped on its neck, and trotted back to me.
I was just standing there, breathing hard, feeling the rage drain out of me and exhaustion take its place. Anna stopped, observed that I was reasonably alive, and then looked at the first axeman. The man was so intent on staring at where his hand had been that I don't think he noticed as she stepped on his neck.
How do you train a horse to do such a thing? I thought about it and decided that I didn't want to know.
The Black Sea. I could have gone to a nice resort on the Black Sea with girls in bathing suits and been back at my comfortable chair in the Katowice Machinery Works. My mother told me I should have gone to the beach…
"Uh, Sir Conrad," Boris said. "If you have a moment…"
This brought me back to reality. I was beaten, bloody, and certainly not unbowed, but there was work to do. I went to help Boris, still pinned under his gray gelding. The axe chop to the neck had partially severed its spine; the body was completely motionless, but the head was writhing.
"Well fought, Sir Conrad! But not me, yet. Dispatch my horse first. He has been too good a servant to leave in pain."
I opened my Buck jackknife, put it to where I thought the arteries were, and said, "Here?"
"No, no. Up a bit. That's it. Good night, old friend."
We had to tie a rope around Anna's neck and drag the carcass from Boris's leg. Dead leaves and snow had cushioned his fall; his leg was stiff, but it worked.
My knee hurt, but I could walk. I hurt all over, but no bones were broken. My arm was another matter. The cut wasn't bad, but in a world without antibiotics, a scratch can kill. I dug out my first-aid kit to dress it as Boris began methodically stripping the dead.
Somehow, that fight didn't bother me as much as yesterday's killing had. Perhaps it was because the highwaymen had been so obviously in the wrong. Perhaps it was because my soul was scar tissue and I was becoming brutal.
My saddle was destroyed, but the dead knight's was about the same size and of considerably better quality. A beautiful thing; I wondered whom he had stolen it from.
I had just finished saddling Anna when I heard a cry. "Was that a child, Boris?"
"Sounded more like a cat in heat!"
"I'm going to check it out."
"As you wish, sir knight." He had mistaken my luck in battle for prowess and was willing to forgive my squeamishness afterward.
I mounted up and rode in the direction of the cry. It sounded a few more times before I found the deserted camp. Now much there. A few brush huts, a cooking pot over a dying fire, and this kid. It must have been less than a month old, though I was no judge of age. It was wrapped up in a collection of rags and furs, with a fur flap covering its face.
I yelled to see if the mother was around. I shouted that I was friendly, but no one answered.
I could hardly leave the kid out in the snow. I yelled out my name and said that I was taking the kid west. Still no answer. I remounted with the kid in one arm and rode back to the trail.
"Not a bad haul, Sir Conrad," Boris called as I approached. He had packed up our latest loot. "Horse, equipment, three sets of armor and clothing! Five thousand worth, I'll wager. What was that you were shouting about a child?"
"I found their camp. There was a baby in it."
"Ah! Such a poor child to be alone in this heartless world. Best baptize it and leave it with its mother, Sir Conrad."
"I tried. She must be hiding in the forest."
"You don't know? I didn't see it happen, being engaged at the time, but in your path as you came to my rescue there was a woman in a blue cloak. Trampled, she was, with a cut on her hand. Here, I'll show you."
The bodies were naked now, stripped even of their underwear. The knight's head was cut completely in two at eye level, yet his helmet was undamaged. My sword must have spun around in there like an apple slicer.
The woman might once have been pretty, but you couldn't tell. Her limbs were all broken, and there were puffy dents in her chest and stomach. Her face was a ghastly, flattened caricature. The fresh stretch marks on her belly told of recent birth.
"I didn't know," I sobbed. "I saw that you were in trouble, and I was coming to help. She grabbed my reins. I didn't know I killed a woman."
"Sir Conrad, again I am in your debt. Again you have saved my life. But you could not have done so if you had stopped for this woman. Another moment and I would have been dead."
"So she is dead instead."
"And what of it? She had a quick death, which was better than she deserved! Man, she was living with highwaymen, aiding and abetting their murders. Anyway, you didn't kill her. You only made that cut on her hand, and that's no mortal wound. It was an accident, her falling under your horse, or maybe a suicide."
"I'm going to look at that camp. You pull yourself together, man. And do what's right by that child. If you don't have water, melt a few drops of snow with your hand and see that it's baptized." He rode off on the horse that we had "found" the day before, dragging the naked axemen behind him.
In an emergency, any Catholic can perform the sacrament of baptism. I still had some water in my canteen, and I dribbled a few drops on the kid's forehead.
"I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. I name thee…" Whom should I name him after? Of course! "I name thee Ignacy!"
I had the bodies off the road when Boris returned.
"Their loot, Sir Conrad! We're both rich! They had more than a hundred-thousand in silver and gold, robbed from travelers like us! Damned if you didn't step right over their chest!"
Somehow, I really didn't care. "I'm taking the kid with us."
"Sir Conrad, you are the damnedest combination of wisdom and ignorance that I have ever encountered. You are an absolutely deadly knight yet maudlin as a pubescent girt in a convent. But to torture a child is senseless! How do you plan to feed it? Are your male nipples going to spring forth with milk? How do you plan to keep it alive this very afternoon? It's getting colder, and the snow is deeper. It grows dark, and it's a long way to shelter."
He was right. I knew he was right. The kid would die. Why cause needless pain? And why bother with it? "I'm taking the kid."
"Sir Conrad, as your employer I order you to put that child with its mother! Oh, damn you! Give it here. I'll do it." He leaned forward.
"Boris, do you really want to fight me?"
He stopped. "Oh, all right! Keep the child if you wish. But now we must ride if any of us is to live."
That afternoon was horrible, but the evening was worse. The snow slashed into our faces, blown by a westerly gale. The trail was all but invisible, and without Anna's strength we would never have broken through the drifting snow. I was leading the knight's war-horse, our second strongest mount. Boris followed on his captured horse, leading the mule.
I wrapped the kid up with my cloak, at the expense of my legs. Hours later, I reached inside his bundling, and his body was as cold as my hand. This wouldn't do.
Working under my armor, I unzipped my close-fitting windbreaker, stretching out the mail, my sweater, and my underwear. I put the kid inside, next to my skin. He was cold. I packed his bundling around me as best I could and wrapped my cloak tight. Shortly, he returned the favor by urinating on me, I guessed that meant that he was still alive. We floundered on in the starless darkness. I couldn't even read my compass. To stop was death, and it was impossible to continue on. But we did go on. And on.