The Iron Castle

by Angus Donald

  ‘There’s no one here, sir, I’d swear it before God himself.’ A sword stabbed downwards through the ash leaves inches from my nose and disappeared again.

  ‘See? Nobody here, sir.’

  ‘Very well, Gerard, we’d better get back to camp.’

  I was certain then that I knew the owner of the knightly voice.

  As the sound of horse and man receded, I removed Robin’s hand from my mouth and gently parted the leaves very slowly, just a little, enough to catch a glimpse of the rider – blond, youngish, bareheaded, straight-backed, in a suit of costly mail – walking his horse away along the path by the riverbank.

  It was my cousin Roland.

  The appearance of Roland was less of a shock than being alive at all. It added to the weird dream-like air of that waterlogged morning. In the next few days, indeed, I wondered whether he had merely been a phantom of my half-drowned mind. Robin, if he recognised my French kinsman, whom he knew well, made no comment on the matter, and neither did Kit. But it was perhaps not so bizarre to encounter Roland at this place. I knew he served the French King; his father, my uncle, the Seigneur d’Alle, was one of Philip’s more powerful barons. And we knew that Philip was here with his best men. But I had prayed I would never meet Roland again in battle; both of us knew our duty to our lords outweighed our duty of kinship. It had been agreed between us many years before that if we were to meet in these circumstances, despite our affection, indeed, our love for each other, we would each fight with all our strength to overcome the other in a fair and honourable fight.

  However, all thoughts of Roland were gradually washed away in the course of that long, pain-filled day. We dared not stir in daylight hours, for the French were patrolling the riverbank looking for survivors, and every few moments, it seemed, another party of marching men-at-arms or a conroi of cantering knights passed only feet away from our hiding place. We spoke in whispers as we waited – hour after hour, up to our necks in cold water and shivering beneath the cover of the ash tree – for the sun to go down. My headache seemed to grow ever worse, a white-hot spike through my temple, and I was dizzy and weak and fought the urge to vomit almost constantly. A day has never seemed so long in my recollection. It crawled. I suffered. The sun seemed to be nailed in position, fixed high in the blue sky.

  I had the story of my reprieve from death that day, in short hurried whispers from Robin, between passing patrols. A French knight wielding a poleaxe had struck me a savage blow from behind on the side of my helmeted head – I could feel the tender egg-sized lump above my ear – and I toppled off the boat-bridge into the water. Fortunately for me, I fell near a sandbank where the river was not more than ten feet deep, and even more fortunately, Kit saw me fall. He called out to Robin, who was being driven slowly and surely back to the boats by the ferocity of the defenders, and my squire quickly divested himself of his gambeson and dived in after me. It took some moments of desperate groping in the mud and muck of the riverbed to find me and haul me to the surface, and when we were both in the blessed air, floundering on the surface, and sinking again under the weight of my mail, Robin spotted us and leaped from a departing boat to help my squire keep my unconscious body afloat in the churning, corpse-clogged waters of the Seine.

  The convoy had been seriously mauled, with more than half of the men killed or wounded, Robin told me. When it became obvious there was no more to be gained, that the French were too many, my lord had given the order for the few boats that remained intact to withdraw. Even that did not stop the slaughter; for the enemy followed in captured vessels, and from behind and from both riverbanks poured volley after volley of crossbow bolts. It was, Robin told me frankly, a catastrophe. Hundreds of our men dead or wounded, a fortune in provisions destroyed or captured, and absolutely nothing achieved.

  I was deeply touched that Robin had given up his chance of escape to rescue me from drowning, but when I told him so, with sincere gratitude, and tried to thank him properly, he looked away and merely said gruffly: ‘What would I tell Marie-Anne? That I sat in the boat taking my ease and calmly watched you drown? She’d never forgive me. Besides, if I went back to Rouen, the King would likely make me shoulder the blame for this bloody shambles – he’d have my head on a spike. It seemed a much more pleasurable option to take a refreshing dip in the river with you two.’

  He could joke all he liked: I knew that Kit could never have saved me alone and that, once again, Robin had risked his life to save mine.

  So here we were, huddled under a young ash on the eastern bank of the Seine, up to our armpits in muddy water, exhausted after a long night and a short battle, and my head feeling as if it were about to split in two. We had been swept some five hundred yards north of the pontoon bridge, seven hundred yards downstream of the Isle of Andely and its brave little wooden fort, and about a mile distant from Château Gaillard, which could be glimpsed through the grass like a great greyish-white mountain rising to the south-east. It happened that I knew this landscape well – I knew that between us and the safety of Château Gaillard lay the besieged town of Petit Andely.

  The town was well defended, however. The Gambon and the Andelle flowed into the Seine at that point and Petit Andely had been built between these two rivers so that it was bordered on all sides with water. A stout stone wall surrounded the town, too, inside its flowing natural moat. With a determined commander and enough men, it should be able to hold out against the French for some time. But, in the end, it would be no match for Philip’s artillery, his feared trebuchets, mangonels and assorted heavy petraries, the stone-flinging engines known collectively as his castle-breakers. Once the French set their minds to it and began a concentrated bombardment, Petit Andely would fall in a matter of days. However, Château Gaillard, half a mile south, was another matter. Even though we had failed to deliver the convoy of food, it remained a mighty fortress, well defended by nature and man; I was confident that even without fresh supplies it could still hold out for many months against the wrath of King Philip. We would be safe there.

  Robin seemed to be thinking along the same lines. ‘We must wait till nightfall, then make straight for the castle. Vim is there with some of the Wolves – we will be among friends. But we must loop inland around the town, avoiding the enemy before its walls. Are you fit for a night march, Alan? A couple of miles and then spiced wine and a heaped platter of roast pork with old comrades inside the walls of the Iron Castle. How does that sound?’ He smiled devilishly.

  I tried to shrug nonchalantly. But I was shivering so hard I am not sure if Robin recognised the gesture. When I tried to nod my head, it felt as if my brain was about to shoot out through my eyes. Yet I was fit enough for the march, I told myself, I must be: I had merely taken a knock to the head. I had suffered far worse in the past. I was, however, curious about two shallow wounds under my chin, dagger cuts they felt like, to my questing hand, and still bleeding.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir, I truly do. But that was me,’ said Kit. ‘I had to get your helmet off and the quickest way was to cut the ties with my knife. You were unconscious, sir, but we were being thrown about in the water something awful. I am most sorry, sir, and I confess I dropped the helmet, too. Your lovely helmet…’ My squire looked heartbroken.

  ‘I could not give a fart for that helmet,’ I lied. ‘Or a few scratches. I owe you my life, Kit. You have rendered me fine service and I will never forget it.’

  ‘Well, while we were rolling about in the water, I did just manage to keep a grip on this, sir,’ said Kit, brightening a little, and he lifted a dripping hand above the surface to display a magnificent sapphire encased in a silver ring, a wire-wrapped handle and a steel crossbar, and the top of a blade, shining wetly.

  ‘Fidelity,’ I murmured as if greeting an old friend – and, in a way, I was.

  After an eternity of shivering, cramping and red waves of pain between my ears, when it seemed I had spent most of my life in the water, I saw by the sun that it was almost noon. But the sky I notic
ed was darkening. I wiped a hand across my eyes and wondered if the blow to my head had affected my vision. Then I saw it was smoke. A thick grey plume, boiling upwards from the south and filling the sky. Robin cautiously poked his head out of our hiding place and reported back that the small fort on the Isle of Andely, a few hundred yards upstream, was ablaze. ‘You see, Alan, there are worse places to be trapped than at the water’s edge. I’ll wager any of those fellows roasting in that fortress would swap places with us in a heartbeat.’

  I tried not to think about the score of poor souls caught in that inferno. But all afternoon we smelled the acrid smoke and heard the screams of pain and the distant almost musical clash of metal. And it seemed the French were not content with having seen off our botched attack; nor with reducing the island fort to smoking rubble – they were determined to take all the outposts of Château Gaillard in one fell swoop. For at the close of day, only a little before Vespers, I judged, we began to hear the distinctive crack of flung stone on wall, and after another cautious reconnaissance by Robin, learned that Philip’s engineers had two big mangonels set up, playing on the town of Petit Andely.

  At long last, night fell. Yet we waited another full hour in the water, at Robin’s insistence. And as the moon began to rise, when we finally crawled from our hideout on to the rough dry grass of the path, I found my legs had lost all feeling. With Kit’s help, in a thick patch of cover a hundred yards back from the river’s edge, I finally stripped off my chausses, hose and hauberk, and set them on a low hanging branch to drip, while we all took turns massaging each other’s icy legs and feet. I could have slept then and there for a week, but at Robin’s gentle urging I struggled to my feet and, swaying, only half-aware, dizzy with pain from my head, I stumbled after my lord as he led the way due east up a chalky path to the crest of a low hill that overlooked the town. To the south and south-east, I could see the campfires of the French in a ring around Petit Andely. Across the black river, a ribbon of orange torches marked the span of the pontoon, and on the far bank the main French camp sparkled with a hundred pinpoints of light. A broad, sullen red glow in the centre of the Isle was the only memorial to the men who had died in the defence of its fort that day.

  The hours that followed have mercifully leaked from my memory. I followed Robin’s broad back, blindly, silently, stopping when he commanded, starting to march again at his order. Kit came behind me, carrying my heavy mail armour bundled up in a wet cloak, and my weapons too: Fidelity and my old misericorde. I travelled almost naked and unarmed, barefoot and wearing only braies and a chemise, like a trusting child; but I do not think I could have fought off a petulant field mouse in my state of feverish exhaustion. At one point I recall crouching numbly in a patch of tall marsh reeds as a French patrol passed across our front. I had a powerful, insane urge to call out a cheeky greeting to the enemy as if we were playing some harmless schoolboy’s game, but mastered it, just. Next we were splashing through water up to our waists and I thought we were back in the Seine. But no, we reached dry land soon enough and were climbing a steep rocky road, deeply rutted with the tracks of many heavy carts, and the castle walls looming impossibly high and black before us; then came a sentry’s shouted challenge and Robin was calling out his name and rank, and there was the blaze of blinding torches and friendly faces, and the jostle of mailed men, and hard slaps of welcome on the back. And then nothing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I watched the fall of Petit Andely from some four hundred feet above it, from the north tower of the outer bailey, which also happened to be its easternmost, two days after Kit, Robin and I were admitted to the Iron Castle. I had slept for most of the intervening time, and eaten like royalty, and I had finally managed to shake off the monstrous headache that had bedevilled me since the day in the river. I was, in fact, feeling reasonably fit. The top of the tower was crowded – not least because most of it was filled with a large war machine affectionately named Old Thunderbolt.

  Eight feet long and three feet wide, Old Thunderbolt was a kind of gigantic crossbow, known as a springald, which could hurl a lethal yard-long iron bolt weighing a good five pounds. It was powered by two bow arms, encased in twisted sinew, which were winched back by its handlers, before the bolt was slotted into its groove and loosed at the enemy. It was big and clumsy and slow to load – but I was entranced by it. Aaron, the sergeant of engineers who was its master, a dour Yorkshireman who barely spoke, muttered two words to me, when I asked about its purpose: ‘Knight killer,’ he said, and nodded as if that were plenty of information for the time being.

  Philip’s mighty castle-breakers – massive stone-throwing machines with twenty times the power of Old Thunderbolt – had been set up on the far side of Petit Andely, about three-quarters of a mile away. From there they systematically destroyed the northern walls of the town. I had slept through the worst of the bombardment, but the steady crack-crack, crack-crack of boulders smashing against the remains of the town’s flintstone and mortar walls could clearly be heard even from my vantage point. The broken walls crumbled at each strike and the rubble toppled and rolled down the slope to fill the waterway that was the town’s main protection. I could see battles of men-at-arms, hundreds of them, forming up in the open fields beyond Petit Andely, not far from where Robin, Kit and I had spent that long, awful, water-logged day. The foremost ranks of Frenchmen carried vast bundles of straw or great baskets of loosely woven twigs filled with earth – and it was clear that very soon they would be given the order to advance and would hurl their burdens into the moat before the town and create a temporary bridge. Behind the footmen were several conrois of knights and mounted men-at-arms, perhaps a hundred riders in total, the colourful trappers covering the horses’ bodies and the fluttering lance pennants giving these well-mounted killers a surprisingly festive air.

  The town itself was in turmoil, the narrow streets and small squares filled with panicking people hurrying about with large packages; there seemed to be a profusion of handcarts, too, piled high with bundles and being wheeled every which way, creating blockages by their sheer numbers. The bells of St James were ringing out in alarm, as if the townsfolk needed to be told that the end was near.

  ‘Vim’s down there somewhere,’ said Robin, who had appeared beside me. ‘And fifty of my Wolves.’ I merely nodded but I could see there were still disciplined soldiers huddled bravely on the battered ramparts, tucked down tight with shields over their heads, and men-at-arms collected together in squads of ten or so below the walls, waiting to repulse the attack when it finally came. In the square next to the church, a small group of mounted men had collected and I could see they were being instructed by a knight in a red surcoat. It was too far to make out the face of the knight but something about him struck a chord. Robin must have seen me frowning and peering at the distant figure, for he smiled at me knowingly and said, ‘You know that Sir Joscelyn Giffard has been given command of the town, don’t you?’

  I looked at him in astonishment. He continued to grin at me as I asked. ‘His daughter, the Lady Matilda, is she in Caen or…’

  ‘She’s not in Caen. And she’s not down there among the ville folk, Alan. Do not worry yourself.’ And because he had a cruel streak that I knew all too well, he let five heartbeats pass before he said, ‘She is snug right here in the castle. I saw her in the great hall this very morning. I must say she seemed to be glowing despite our difficulties, in very fine looks indeed, in my opinion.’

  I was saved from having to reply by a faint roar from the assembled ranks of the French beyond the town. I could hear trumpets and drums and the thin notes of whistles, as the whole mass of men, perhaps five hundred in all, began to move forwards towards the River Andelle, their bundles of straw and baskets of earth brandished before them. The attack on Petit Andely had begun.

  I do not know what I was expecting. A heroic defence, perhaps, with the remaining men-at-arms in Petit Andely bravely rushing to the breaches now the artillery bombardment had ceased, fil
ling the gaps with their bodies, their courage and their naked steel, and stemming the screaming horde of Frenchmen as they hurled their burdens into the moat and splashed across the makeshift causeway to climb the piled rubble that had once been the town walls. In fact, I was indeed expecting something like that. Or at least some sort of attempt to resist the enemy. What happened left me gaping in surprise. The moment the French signalled the attack, the gates of Petit Andely on the southern side, furthest from the assault, swung wide open; the drawbridge was swiftly lowered to cover the river-moat on that side, and the conroi of knights and men-at-arms I had seen in the square rode out of them. Then these thirty or forty men lined up on either side of the road to the castle and turned to face outwards. Through the gates of the town poured the entire citizenry of Petit Andely: men and women, grandmothers and tiny children, servants and squires, craftsmen, peasants, beggars, priests, whores … The whole population flooded out, hundreds upon hundreds of people, with their bundles and baggage, handcarts and packhorses, and this vast herd of humanity began to scramble up the winding chalk road towards the castle. A surprising number kept on coming, steaming through the gates, between the lines of mounted men who stood guard over them against roaming French cavalry, scrambling, running, pushing and shoving, every soul making his or her way up towards the safety of Château Gaillard.

  Beyond the waves of refugees surging up the hill towards us, in the centre of the town, there was some sporadic fighting. Here and there swords flashed and knots of men struggled against the French who were pouring into Petit Andely through the breaches in the northern walls. I saw patches of grey wolf fur and knew that Vim’s men formed the rearguard, and those brave men I had known in Rouen and Falaise were dying by inches to allow the townsfolk to escape.