The Iron Castle

by Angus Donald

  I looked at Robin. He was frowning at the King.

  ‘Sire, have I this scheme correctly?’ my lord said. ‘You plan for two small forces, a few hundred men in each, one coming overland and the other upriver by boat, to depart Rouen and arrive – simultaneously – a few hours later at a spot twenty-five miles away as the crow flies, and twice that distance by water, in the dead of night. Is that it? And the rendezvous you have chosen is a heavily fortified bridge held by hundreds, perhaps thousands of French knights, who also hold both banks of the river. Have I grasped the essence of it, Sire?’

  ‘Exactly, Locksley – it is a stroke of genius, don’t you think?’

  It was a stroke of lunacy, to my mind. Robin seemed to agree.

  ‘Sire, would it not be better, perhaps, to make a simpler plan. If we took all our combined strength and attacked Philip on land and in daylight, I am certain we could surprise him, destroy his camp and drive his men off without too much—’

  ‘This is the plan,’ interrupted the King, his voice becoming harsher. ‘It is a most excellent plan and it will succeed. You will make it succeed, Locksley, or I shall hold you responsible. I will be obeyed in this matter. Do you understand me?’

  Robin let out a hissing breath. ‘As you command, Sire,’ he said.

  The King nodded once, decisively, and stalked from the chamber, followed by his closest household knights. It felt as if, with his departure, a window had been opened and clean, fresh air were rushing in to fill the room.

  ‘We will go tomorrow night,’ said the Marshal. He looked around the room at the doubtful faces of the remaining knights and the mercenary commanders, and his eyes narrowed. ‘A word of caution to everybody. Do not speak of this to anyone but your most trusted comrades. We do not want word getting to the French. We must have surprise. Right. Dismissed. Locksley, would you stay? I need to discuss a few fine details with you.’

  I left Robin and the Marshal in deep conversation and went back to my lord’s house alone. I told Kit we’d be taking a journey by river, and there would be some hard fighting but, although I trusted my squire with my life, I followed the Marshal’s instruction and was vague about the exact particulars of our mission.

  I had a cold feeling in my stomach the rest of the day.

  The next night, at a little after midnight, I found myself crouched in the bow of a sixty-foot trading barge at the head of a vast convoy of some fifty or so boats, large and small, being rowed very slowly up the Seine by three hundred Wolves. On the prow of the boat, Robin stood, peering into the darkness, his green cloak fluttering out behind him in the breeze off the water. He was lightly dressed for one going into battle: a simple domed helmet with a nose guard, a knee-length mail hauberk, kite-shaped shield, leather gauntlets reinforced with iron and riding boots. At my shoulder sat Kit, who was fidgeting with the toggles of the padded gambeson that he wore as much for warmth as for protection. Around his waist were strapped the new sword and dagger I had given him. I was resplendent in full suit of mail, with heavy boar’s mask helmet in my hands, but I was feeling less like a glorious knight and more like a nervous nun or a stripling going into a fight for the first time. We had until dawn to reach the bridge of boats under Château Gaillard, perhaps another five hours, but we were still more than thirty miles away and while the oarsmen heaved valiantly, our progress against the heavy current was snail-like.

  Just before dawn, the Marshal had decided, was the perfect time to attack the French camp. The enemy would be asleep, and he and his knights, and an attached force of mercenaries, should find it easy, he said, to carve through them and reach the bridge by first light.

  But we in the food convoy were going too slowly, the pull of the river flowing towards the sea was too strong. We had only just passed the town of Orival and the first great bend of the river, seventeen miles upstream from Rouen – one third of our journey – while we had used up half the time allotted to us. When I mentioned this to Robin, he smiled serenely.

  ‘I’m sure it will not matter if we are a little tardy, Alan. Once the bridge is destroyed and the river cleared, we can sail past whether it is dawn or noon.’ But I noticed that he passed orders down the convoy for the speed to increase.

  Hour after hour we slogged, the river black around us save for a speck of light here and there from a small castle or watchtower on the bank. As the first streaks of grey touched the eastern horizon, I could make out the bridge at Pontjoie directly ahead and knew with a sinking heart that we still had five long miles to row. By the time it was fully light we could make out the tinny sounds of battle, distant cries and clashes, and see a thread of smoke rising to the south – for the convoy was running north-east along the river on the tongue of plain where the Marshal’s men, only a mile away overland, were engaging the enemy.

  It is rare that I have the chance to observe a battle as an impotent spectator. As we rounded the bend of the river, with only two miles to go, I saw the Marshal had been as good as his word and the French camp on the western bank was ablaze – I saw little stick figures of men on foot and a-horse running hither and yon between the burning tents and rough shelters. Clumped bodies littered the green turf.

  Horsemen surrounded the few groups of armed men still resisting and mercilessly cut them down; a stream of raggedy folk, many of them women with infants, was already fleeing west. The smoke billowed thick and black, jewelled with bright red and orange sparks.

  It seemed we were winning the battle for the camp.

  The Marshal’s men were fighting on the bridge, too. It was an extraordinary structure, as I could now see, with boats of every description lashed together in a solid barrier directly across our path, and two high towers mounted on round sailing ships at either end. I could make out hundreds of tiny figures struggling at the centre of the bridge, which bucked and writhed under their stamping feet. I could hear the ring of steel, the shouts of combatants and the screams of the wounded. Dead and dying on both sides tumbled from the bridge, sucked into the water, never to be seen again. Horses screamed and plunged with their hapless riders into the pinkish foam. French crossbowmen from the tower on the sailing ship at the eastern bank were raining down quarrels on to the middle of the pontoon, on to the heads of the struggling men, it seemed indiscriminately, killing both the attacking Normans and their fellow Frenchmen.

  Then the deadly crossbow assault abruptly ended and a thirty-strong conroi of French knights, on big horses with bright pennants fluttering from couched lances, shouldered their way on to the eastern end of the bridge and came to a clattering canter on the wooden pontoon. I could clearly hear their war cries as the conroi surged forward and ploughed into the knot of struggling men, driving them back, skewering mail-clad bodies on the tips of their long weapons. The charge of the knights was halted by the heavy press of men – but only briefly. Spurs gouged horses’ flanks, drawing blood that showed crimson on the pale cloth trappers of the French mounts. The long lances reached out, lunging and stabbing at the enemy. More Frenchmen cantered across the jouncing bridge, adding their weight to the writhing pack at its centre. Which was slowly, slowly being driven backwards. The Marshal’s brave men held on, and more of their comrades charged on to the bridge to add their weight to the mêlée. For a few moments they held the French counter-attack, even pushed it back a few yards. The dead were falling like scythed barley, toppling and splashing into the blood-churned river. But there was soon no doubt about the outcome: the Marshal’s attack had been halted, checked and was now slowly being repulsed. Like a plug being popped from a flagon of wine, the French horsemen surged forward, shouting triumphantly, sweeping the living and the dead out of their path. The Marshal’s men were no longer hurrying on to the bridge to join the fray; indeed, with a cold pool forming in my belly, I could see the hindmost men were beginning to turn and run, skirting the inferno of the French camp away into the fields beyond.

  We were still half a mile away – and the golden orb of the sun was clear of the hills to our
left.

  ‘Faster men, row for your lives,’ Robin was bellowing to the convoy that straggled out behind our lead boat. I stood and loosened Fidelity in its scabbard. And to my dismay saw the last of the Normans being pushed off the bridge by the irresistible charge of the knights. And more enemies on foot rushing on to the bridge from the French side, scores of them. I could make out William the Marshal’s personal standard, a red lion rampant on a split field of yellow and green, and a tall knight roaring and trying to rally the last of his men, screaming for them to join him in one last desperate attempt on the bridge. But it was too late: the pontoon was intact, and once again in French hands.

  ‘Robin,’ I said. ‘Do we go on? Do we go back? What?’

  ‘We’ll just have to take the damn bridge ourselves,’ my lord said.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘The King has commanded it. You heard him. He will be obeyed in this matter. It’s time for us to earn our pay.’

  The French were all the way across the bridge and flooding back into their burning camp. I saw the Marshal’s flag departing westwards with a handful of other mounted men, and scores of running foot soldiers discarding weapons and fleeing for their lives. There were cries of jubilation from the victorious French. And the sound of singing. The land-based attack had failed to take the bridge.

  Our river-borne attack was about to begin.

  Our approach had hardly gone unnoticed. It was full daylight by now. We were two hundred yards from the bridge, with our exhausted rowers at the last of their strength, hauling on long pine oars to bring us into battle as swiftly as they could. The French men-at-arms, shouting defiance, now lined both banks. The bridge, too, was packed with men, and the gleam of steel danced across the water towards us in the morning sunshine.

  Then the crossbow bolts began to fly.

  A man on the port side just behind me screamed and slumped over his oar, an evil black shaft sticking out from his neck. Another quarrel skittered on the wood of the deck at my feet. Missiles were boring in from both sides of the river, and from the bridge before us. Men were screaming as the quarrels struck; others were shouting war cries. Our craft were still pulling forward on both sides of my barge and I saw a horde of eager faces in the prows of the leading boats, as the Wolves readied for battle. Axes and swords glittered. Here and there a man dropped back, an ugly quarrel sprouting from his torso. Kit beside me was shivering from cold or fear or both; he had his drawn sword in his hands.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, his voice shaky and high, ‘we can do this, can’t we? We can take that bridge? There seem to be so many of them.’

  I gave his shoulder a squeeze then swiftly pulled on my new boar’s helmet. Immediately, my vision was narrowed, my peripheral sight extinguished, by the two eye slits. I felt Kit’s fingers fumbling with the leather laces to secure the helm under my chin. I could see nothing but the looming bridge directly ahead and the hundreds of enemies, some bloodied from combat with the Marshal’s men, jeering, waving swords and spears. A hundred yards to go. Robin was standing high on the prow like a pirate, sword sheathed and a long yew bow in his hands. As I watched, he drew a shaft from the quiver at his waist, nocked it and loosed and I saw the black line of the arrow arc up and down and slam into the chest of a man-at-arms on the pontoon, knocking him back into the press of his fellows. Robin loosed again, and another Frenchman died. Other bowmen among the Wolves were loosing too, dozens of shafts soaring high and smashing into the waiting ranks of the enemy. But the French were taking their toll on us, too. Crossbow bolts whipped and cracked all around, swooping down from the high tower on the eastern bank of the pontoon bridge – now just fifty yards away. I got to my feet and felt my own legs trembling. Thirty yards to go. A quarrel thwacked into my shield and I tucked my shoulder and as much of my body as I could into the lee of its protection. Another iron-tipped missile screamed off my helmet. Twenty yards. I mumbled a prayer to St Michael, the warrior archangel, begging him to keep us safe. Ten yards. Five. Then, with a crash of timbers and a deafening roar from defenders and attackers alike, the prow of our boat smashed into the lashed craft of the bridge.

  Robin leaped on to the pontoon, his bow abandoned, and his naked sword swinging like a scythe, taking the head clean off a yelling Frenchman. Wolves were jumping from their vessels to get at the French above them. But just as I readied myself, a boat from our own convoy racing in behind hammered into our stern, and I was knocked from my feet. The boat swung round, side on to the bridge, and as I scrambled to my feet, almost blinded by my helmet, a screaming man-at-arms jumped down onto the deck and lunged at me with a spear. I took the point on my shield and Kit cut the legs from under him with a sweep of his sword to the back of his knee, a move we had practised endlessly in the courtyard at Falaise.

  I struggled to the prow, my movements slow, my armour weighing down my limbs. I felt as if I was wading through cold honey, as in one of those dreams where everything moves at a crawling pace. I bent my knees and leaped upwards, landing heavily on the deck of a wherry lashed in its position in the bridge. Two men were jabbing at me with spear and sword. I killed the swordsman, Fidelity breaking his neck, but the spear crunched hard into the iron mail guarding my belly. I was winded but not pierced, thank God. I stepped past the spear shaft and killed the man at the other end, crushing his skull with one heavy blow through his thin helmet. I shoved another man backwards with my shield, trying to make room for the Wolves to come up beside me on to the bridge, and stepped into the press, stabbing, cutting and slicing into the wall of men. There were enemies shouting and jostling all around me. But there were cries, too, of ‘Locksley! Locksley!’ coming from behind me that fired my spirits. I was dimly aware of Kit to my left, his sword jabbing forward again and again. I cut down a man-at-arms on my right; I blocked a savage mace blow from a knight behind him, shoved the tip of Fidelity through his open visor, punched it home, and he fell away screaming. I felt my familiar battle rhythm coming to my rescue: cut and shove, and thrust and slice; sword and shield acting together in a perfect marriage, as the good Lord intended them to, to batter and pound other lesser men into submission. I hacked and cut. I cursed at my enemies as I killed them, and trampled their bodies under my mail-shod feet as my bloody sword rose and fell.

  I glimpsed Robin not three yards away, protected by four Wolves who held off a wall of enemies as my lord sliced with an axe at the cables connecting the bridge of boats. A man leaped at me screaming and I dropped him with a straight lunge that cracked through his ribs and into the bloody cavity beyond. He fell gurgling, dragging my sword arm down. But there were two more of his fellows behind him. I ducked the first sword strike, blocked the second with my shield, hauling Fidelity with some difficulty free of the chest of the dragging corpse. And then …

  And then something heavy smashed into the side of my helmet – I knew not what – and I staggered back a pace or two. My vision dipped and swam; streaks and flashes of red and black. The world was slowly revolving. Something shoved hard against my shield-side. My bloody sword was flailing madly in empty air. I stepped back another pace … and into the void. And, dream-like again, I felt myself falling, falling for eternity. For hours I hung between the wood and the water, or so it seemed, before splashing into the cold, shocking embrace of the river. My helmet filled with water, my eyes, nose and ears terrifyingly awash. Down, down I plunged, sucked swiftly, head first into the cold, the darkness, into a frigid Hell. I managed to shake loose my shield, but kept a death-grip on Fidelity’s hilt. My heavy mail pulled me down as if I was roped to a millstone. I kicked my legs in desperation, clutched at the river with my free hand, grasping, scooping, trying to lift my body, but to no avail. I sank deeper, my lungs burning for air, the pressure unbearable but growing ever more powerful. My belly twitched; I had to breathe. My whole body craved the air with a desperate, total necessity. But the icy darkness had me firmly in its possession. The ancient waters claimed me. And I yielded to them. I opened my mouth, the river ru
shed in and all the world turned black.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Be silent,’ hissed Robin. ‘Be silent or you will get us all killed. Be quiet, Alan, or I swear that I will cut your miserable throat myself and quiet you for good.’

  I realised I had been babbling, shouting even. I coughed weakly, then vomited a scalding gush of brown water out through my nose – but as quietly as I could. The sunlight dazzled my eyes and my head was thumping like a war drum, but I could just make out the scowling face of my lord, inches from my own. And someone else supporting me under the armpits. I turned my head painfully and saw Kit’s anxious young face peering into mine. I was shoulder-deep in water, I realised, but I could feel mud and loose stones under the soles of my feet, and there was a greyish wall of bare chalky earth before my nose. Above me drooped the thin branches of a young ash tree, and long nodding strands of yellow grass and mature nettles forming a canopy, with the sun shining through and making weird patterns on Robin’s face. We were at the riverbank, and I was not dead. I opened my mouth to ask why – and Robin put a hard hand over it and glared at me from his slate-grey eyes; ordering me silently to save my breath. Above I heard the quiet chink of metal on metal, a heavy footfall and a squeak of leather. A horse whinnied softly. Two yards to my left a sword suddenly slashed through the covering foliage from above, once, twice.

  ‘There is nobody here, sir,’ said a voice in thickly accented regional French, barely comprehensible as that language at all.

  ‘Be quiet, Gerard, I thought I heard a cough.’ This voice was refined, educated, a knight’s for sure. It was strangely familiar.

  ‘The bastards must have drowned, sir. If they fell off the English boats they would have sunk like stones in their mail. No man could have made it this far alive.’

  ‘Maybe Gerard, maybe. I just had a feeling, you know, as if a goose walked over my grave. Perhaps I am wrong.’ The knight moved in his saddle and again I heard the leather protest at his shifting weight.