The Iron Castle

by Angus Donald

  This was plain mischief-making on Philip’s part – the French King knew well enough that Arthur was dead; he had scores of spies in Normandy, according to Robin, and even if he had not, the steady stream of knights going over to his side must surely have told him much about the rumours of the young Duke’s fate.

  With Norman support for John seeping away, and the opinion of Christendom against him for the murder of his nephew, and with the Bretons and the Lusignans resurgent in the west and south, King Philip felt strong enough to make his move. In the middle of August, a travel-grimed horseman on a lathered horse clattered into the courtyard of Rouen Castle. Robin and I were giving his sons a lesson in swordsmanship, when the messenger arrived. And Robin hurriedly sheathed his blade, strode over and seized the horseman’s bridle.

  ‘What news?’ my lord said.

  ‘I must speak to the King,’ the man said.

  ‘He is still abed. Tell me, and I will wake him.’

  The man looked surprised for it was long past dawn, almost midday.

  He stammered, ‘The King must know…’ and stopped.

  ‘What is it, man?’

  The messenger mastered himself, swallowed and said, ‘King Philip is marching, with all his knights, all his strength.’ He stopped again. ‘Philip is in the Seine Valley, not twenty-five miles from here, outside Château Gaillard with thousands of men. This time he is in earnest. This time he truly means to take the Iron Castle.’

  Part Two

  Chapter Twelve

  I returned from Kirkton yesterday, a sadder and wiser man. I have discovered the nature of young Alan’s disgrace and the reason why he was expelled from the Earl of Locksley’s household. It is over a woman – not a villein or a common trull, not some drunken tavern slut, but a yeoman’s daughter from Stannington. Her father, Godwin, is a freeman of some property; he holds several decent-sized sheep pastures, and according to the Earl is a most respectable fellow, strong, healthy, sober and hard-working and much liked by his neighbours; his wife is a large woman, cheerful and kindly. His only daughter Agnes is, like her name, as mild as a lamb, but as beautiful as the dawn, with golden hair of surpassing brightness and a loving disposition. Apparently, young Alan met her while out hunting with the hearth knights of Kirkton – some of the drunken louts who now infest my guest hall – and he was charmed by her grace and beauty. He visited her several days running with his fellows and she gave the young noblemen some refreshment after the heat of the chase – ewes’ milk and bread and cheese – but behaved entirely modestly, her family insist. The Earl told me my grandson formed some sort of attachment for this girl, who cannot be more than seventeen, and took to visiting her in the evenings, over several weeks, riding miles across the Locksley valley to spend a few moments speaking with her, feigning to have a great fondness for her ewes’ milk.

  Well, it seems that they did a little more than talk and drink milk. For the girl is now six months gone – and her father is a very angry man.

  Godwin came to see the Earl a few weeks ago with the complaint that one of his knights had besmirched his daughter’s honour and got her with child. He threatened to take the matter to law, to the King himself, if necessary. It was clear from the guilt written on his face that the culprit was young Alan – and he swiftly admitted it. Godwin suggested sensibly that the young couple be married, and the Earl gave his blessing to the match, but Alan flatly refused to take the girl as his wife. When the Earl insisted that Alan reconsider taking this Agnes as his bride, Alan was apparently extremely discourteous to his lord, grossly rude, in fact, and gathered his belongings and left the Earl’s service the same day.

  I pondered this problem over a late supper, saying nothing to young Alan, and retired to bed. Not long afterwards I heard the drinking songs begin in the guest hall, the calling and shouting of young men sounding strangely like the cries of fear-maddened farmyard animals. I tried to stop my ears to their youthful din. In vain.

  A little before midnight, when sleep had eluded me for several hours, I finally released my temper. I pulled on my boots and an old cloak and went out into the darkness. I ripped open the door of the guest hall and found my grandson and his playmates in a disgusting state of drunken disarray. The young men were evidently playing some game that involved repeating a long and complicated series of phrases, and the punishment for any mistake was to down a brimming beaker of wine. Naturally, the more wine consumed, the harder it is to remember the phrases – a deeply stupid pastime, in my opinion. Alan himself was declaiming something about a cardinal as I burst through the door roaring for them, in the name of God, to be silent. I am not proud of myself, but after a good deal of shouting, all of it from me, and mostly concerning the state of affairs in the guest hall night after night, the embarrassed giggles turned to sheepish looks in the circle of young men. I told the boys that, while it had been a pleasure to be their host – a damned lie – it was time for them to leave Westbury, and I would be most grateful if they would pack up their traps and leave by noon the next day.

  At which point Alan stood up and complained that I was being most unfair. These were his bosom friends, he told me, and if I did not treat them with the honour due to noble guests, then I was also slighting him.

  To my shame, I told him to shut his stupid mouth – what did he know about honour? I asked. Nothing. I told him that when he inherited the manor of Westbury – if ever he did – he could do as he liked, he could carouse himself to death, and play silly drinking games for as long his liver could stand it, but while he remained under my roof …

  To cut an embarrassing tale short, I made a spectacle of myself – a foolish and ranting old man, his skinny, scarred and wrinkled body clad only in boots and braies and a billowing cloak. The only excuse I can offer is that I was truly angry, and with the last of my midnight ire, I ordered Alan to come and see me the next day the moment he had bid farewell to his unwelcome friends. We had grave matters to discuss, I said. Then I retired to my hall and my bed.

  Silence reigned.

  I was rich, I was young, I was a warrior at war – and so, after sending a goodly amount to Baldwin at Westbury, I took some of the hoard of silver that I had accumulated in the past year and commissioned a full suit of mail from the armourers of Rouen. I took possession of it at the beginning of August: chausses that covered me from toe to thigh in a mesh of round iron links and attached to a belt around my waist. The belt and the leather straps that held up my chausses were covered by a knee-length mail hauberk, which protected my thighs, belly, chest and the full length of my arms; the hauberk even included leather-palmed mittens to protect my hands. A separate coif, a metal-link hood that laced up at the back and attached to the neck of my hauberk, protected my skull, and a new flat-topped steel helmet went over the top of that, secured by laces under my chin. The helm covered my entire head with just a pair of slits for the eyes and a breathing grille over my nose and mouth. It was formed in the shape of a boar’s mask, and had engravings of boar’s tusks on either side of the short tubular snout. I loved that helmet – although it was rather heavy – it looked bold and fierce and offered almost complete protection for my head in battle.

  I also had three new triangular shields made up, oak-framed and faced with slats of flexible elm, light and strong, and covered in tough ox-hide and painted with my device of the walking boar in black on a red field. I ordered a dozen twelve-foot wickedly tipped lances and purchased a new long sword and dagger for Kit. I had a new delicate edge ground on Fidelity and the blade oiled and polished, and a new handle fitted to my misericorde, as the old one had begun to rattle loosely on the tang.

  When I strapped Fidelity around my hips and admired myself in a mirror of polished steel that belonged to Marie-Anne, I hardly recognised the pig-faced monster who glared back through the eye slits of my helm. Here is the true warrior, I said to myself proudly, let his enemies tremble.

  Kit was even more enamoured of my new warlike finery than I was, which was just as wel
l, as he would have charge of it and the responsibility of keeping it clean, oiled, rust-free and ready for battle, and I am certain that when I was engaged elsewhere he would try it on and strut and pose as I had in front of the mirror.

  The only drawback was the weight – in full mail, I was carrying forty pounds of metal on my body, and while cinching the hauberk tight at the waist distributed it more evenly, I was still slower than usual when I moved; indeed when Kit and I exchanged a few passes in the courtyard of Robin’s house, I was hard-pressed to keep his blade from slipping through my guard. I was used to fighting in only a hauberk and a plain light helm, but the new chausses and the fancy head-covering added twenty pounds in weight to my ensemble. However, even if an enemy did pierce my guard, he was unlikely to be able to pierce my flesh, protected as it was by a thick skin of fire-hardened iron and steel.

  I wore ordinary clothes – a woollen tunic, hose and boots, and a dark-green cloak – but slung Fidelity at my side, when I went with Robin to a conference called by King John for his senior commanders the day after we heard the news that Philip had marched. I had protested to Robin that I had no wish at all for the society of the King, but my lord insisted.

  ‘You must let the Arthur thing go, Alan. Really, it has been four months now. I need you with me – you are my right hand; if I fall, you need to know all our plans and stratagems in the minutest detail so you can command the Wolves.’

  Reluctantly, I agreed, though I vowed not to speak to the King.

  We met in the great hall of Rouen Castle, which had been emptied of all furniture save for a broad trestle bearing a square box filled with sand. The King was peering at the sandbox with that old warhorse William the Marshal at his side pointing out several features contained within it. A few of John’s household knights were gathered round, as well as several of his mercenary commanders, men I knew by sight but generally avoided on principle as their reputations for brutality and vice were even more unsavoury than Robin’s. The King was speaking when Robin and I entered the hall, and I caught the end of his sentence.

  ‘…just like Mirebeau. Fast and deadly, the two arms acting together as if controlled by the same mind.’

  The Marshal scratched his grizzled head. He was frowning down at the sandbox.

  ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘these things can be very difficult to execute in the field. I know from experience. Perhaps if we devised something a little more simple…’

  ‘Nonsense,’ huffed the King. ‘It will be child’s play to accomplish for any half-decent commander. Ah, there you are Locksley, just in time. I have had a superb idea to remedy the situation at Château Gaillard. Marshal, perhaps you would care to explain it once again now everybody is here.’

  I walked over and looked into the sandbox and saw a crudely drawn model of the lands around Château Gaillard, with the Seine snaking through the middle. The Iron Castle was marked in the centre by a square block of limestone the size of my fist, and to the west of it, a tongue-shaped piece of land, made by a loop in the Seine, appeared to lick at the stone battlements. The Isle of Andely, a boat-shaped island in the middle of the Seine a few hundred yards downstream, or north, of the castle was marked, as was the walled town of Petit Andely, just to the north of the stronghold; and, as a line of pebbles, a bridge that linked town and Isle and the tongue of farmland. As I looked at the map, a host of memories came flooding back. I felt the loss of Richard most keenly then, and not for the first time I cursed the cruel fate that had taken him and left us with this murderous creature for our King.

  ‘As we all know,’ William the Marshal began, ‘Philip has brought his army up the left bank of the Seine, in an attempt to capture Château Gaillard. His host, some two thousand men, was encamped here initially.’ The Marshal poked a calloused finger into the tongue of land to the west of town and castle, the broad flood plain on the other side of the Seine.

  ‘We believe,’ the Marshal said, ‘he aims to throw a noose around the castle, cut it off from all help and starve it into submission over weeks and months.’

  There were a few mutters and mumbles of assent from the knights around the sandbox. It was the wise thing for Philip to do.

  ‘Roger de Lacy, who commands Château Gaillard and the surrounding defences, is, as I’m sure many of you are aware, a most brave and competent knight. He has not been idle: when Philip’s host was first sighted, de Lacy destroyed the bridge connecting the Isle and the east and west banks, which meant that for some days Philip was blocked by the river, unable to cross the water and attack either the small wooden fortress on the Isle or the town of Petit Andely, or indeed Château Gaillard itself. For a while, the Seine acted as a huge moat keeping the French on the western bank, away from our walls. But Philip’s a competent fellow, too, and it seems he is serious about taking the Iron Castle.’

  ‘That cannot be allowed to happen,’ interrupted the King. ‘All of you must understand this: Château Gaillard cannot be allowed to fall to the enemy!’

  ‘Quite right, Sire,’ said the Marshal. ‘Quite right. If we hold Château Gaillard, we hold Normandy. But if it falls…’

  ‘Explain my plan, Marshal,’ said the King. ‘Go on, tell them. Tell them.’ His face was alive with enthusiasm, like a child who thinks he has been especially clever.

  ‘To replace the bridge that de Lacy destroyed, King Philip has constructed a pontoon using flat-bottomed river craft mainly, lashed together, but with larger ships on each end, on which he has raised defensive towers. Our scouts report that the new floating bridge is positioned here.’ The Marshal indicated a point beyond the northernmost end of the Isle of Andely. ‘And since its completion, Philip has been able to cross the river with his best troops and invest the fortified town of Petit Andely, here.’

  The knights and barons all leaned forward to peer at the sandbox.

  ‘As far as we know, the town is holding out, aided by some brave knights from the castle garrison, but when Philip gets the bulk of his troops across the river, the town will fall and our men must retreat to Château Gaillard itself.’

  The assembled men muttered and huffed at this open talk of defeat. But the Marshal was still speaking: ‘That mighty fortress, however, will not fall. Château Gaillard can stand firm for months under siege because it was designed to do exactly that. It has layer upon layer of defences to ensure that no attacker can even get close – furthermore, Roger de Lacy has sworn on his honour to hold it in the King’s name until the sky falls. He says he will not quit the castle until he is dragged out of there by his feet at the tail of King Philip’s horse. And he will hold it, too, because apart from his courage and determination, he has large stocks of food, plenty of water and a full garrison – forty knights and some three hundred men-at-arms, but—’

  ‘My plan, Marshal, tell them my plan!’

  ‘Yes, Sire. His Royal Highness has wisely decided to fight hunger with, um, food. He intends to send a relief convoy of seventy barges filled with wheat, barley, oats, cheeses, oil, wine and so on to Château Gaillard. If the provisions can be got into the castle, the siege is over. If the barges get through, there would be enough food for the garrison to hold out for a year or more, and even Philip with all the resources of France at his fingertips cannot sit outside the walls that long, the risk of disease is too high – his men would soon be dead or dying of the shivering sickness or the bloody flux if they were to sit there for a year twiddling their thumbs. Desertion would be a worry as well – his proud knights would grow bored and impatient after months of inactivity. Many would go home, promising to return if battle loomed. Philip’s army would drain away like water from a leaky bucket. He would look like a fool, too, sitting there doing nothing month after month, waiting for de Lacy to feast his way through his vast piles of stores. Philip cannot stay before the walls of Château Gaillard for a year. So, if the convoy gets through, he will most likely pack up and go immediately. Food is the key. If the food convoy gets through to the castle, at one stroke we will have won th
e battle.’

  ‘But if the French hold both banks of the Seine,’ said Robin, speaking for the first time, ‘and this ingenious bridge of boats blocks passage of the river here’ – he pointed with his finger to the thin line in the sand north of the Isle of Andely – ‘how can we possibly deliver these vital stores to the defenders?’

  ‘Good question, Locksley, very good question. And to answer that the King has come up with a bold plan. It is this: a dual attack on the French positions by land and by water, at the same time. I will lead a small force, four hundred men in total, south from Rouen by land, overnight, down the left bank of the Seine. We will march fast and attack the main French camp on the tongue of land to the west of the river, here. If we are swift, we shall be among them before they know we are coming. By all accounts, Philip’s best knights are across the river attacking the town of Petit Andely, and we face a camp full of ribaldi, hangers-on, washerwomen, merchants, whores, beggars and other rascally types that follow an army wherever it goes. It will not be difficult for us to prevail. We aim to smash through the camp and swiftly capture this boat-bridge – and utterly destroy it. Leaving Philip’s knights on the eastern bank cut off from supplies, servants and baggage. Meanwhile, the river convoy, with three hundred men under your command, Locksley, will be approaching upstream and once we have cleared the bridge of the enemy and destroyed it, you will sail south of the Isle and moor the food barges at the quay directly below Château Gaillard. The garrison will come down to meet you and help unload the stores. The French at Petit Andely may try to interfere, but you will have your famous Company of Wolves to hold them off until the cargo has been safely delivered. Once the castle is filled to the brim with provisions, it can easily hold out until … oh, I don’t know, until Judgment Day, or at least until Philip realises he has lost this contest and slinks back to Paris.’