The Iron Castle

by Angus Donald

  Towards the end of October, when we’d endured two weeks of bombardment and about a dozen people, mostly townsfolk, had been killed or injured by flying splinters of wood or chips of stone, I was summoned to a meeting of all the knight commanders in the great hall of the inner bailey, tucked behind the keep.

  As I entered the hall, Sir Joscelyn waylaid me, catching my arm. I blushed to the roots of my hair and was about to protest my innocence in the matter with Tilda in the courtyard, when he took the breath from my lungs with these words: ‘Sir Alan, I have an apology to make to you. I have wronged you.’

  I stammered something to the effect that it was a matter of no importance but Sir Joscelyn continued. ‘No, I have been at fault. I believed the worst of you and I was wrong. Tilda has explained the matter fully to me and I see that you were acting solely from the most chivalrous of intentions, putting your body between her and mortal danger. I should have known you were a man of honour with no disgraceful designs on my daughter. I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me.’

  I assured him he was forgiven, but I could not look him in the eye when I said so. For the moment when Tilda’s soft body was pressed under mine had been in my head and heart since that day, and at night I had been harbouring a host of disgraceful thoughts about this good knight’s daughter. Yet we clasped hands and I told him I was happy there was no longer a misunderstanding between us.

  There were about thirty knights in the hall that day, most of the men in mail and all serious-faced, as Roger de Lacy addressed us.

  ‘Good sirs, I thank you for coming at this hour. But fear that I have some sad news to impart. We must cut the rations once again. From now on they will be issued every second day and there will no longer be a butter ration. The meat and fish issue is also discontinued, as from today. The meagre stocks of butter and meat that we have left will go to the sick and injured. It’s clear that Philip means to remain before our walls all winter to starve us and we must ensure—’

  ‘King Philip is no longer before the walls.’ Robin’s voice hacked through de Lacy’s speech. ‘He is back in Paris preparing for a fresh campaign in the south in concert with the Lusignans and he is organising support for the Bretons in the west.’

  ‘But his standard—’ de Lacy began.

  Once more Robin interrupted him. ‘Yes, the French royal standard still flies above Philip’s Hill – but it is a ruse. The King departed in secret nearly a week ago. But your premise is correct. The French do intend to remain here all through the winter. They believe we will succumb to hunger long before spring.’

  ‘How can you know this?’ Roger de Lacy seemed utterly astonished by Robin’s revelations. In truth, I was, too.

  ‘I have been inside their camp, several times; I have sat by their fires and gossiped with their men; I have eaten their pottage and drunk their wine. I have listened to their complaints, laughed at their jokes and shared all their tittle-tattle.’

  ‘Why did you not inform the high council that you were undertaking these irregular and, if I may say so, ignoble activities?’ De Lacy was angry and he showed it. He had been made to look a fool. ‘You have acted no better than a common spy.’

  ‘I have brought back valuable intelligence,’ said Robin. ‘If you will not include me in your deliberations with regard to the fate of this castle, I do not see why I should include you in mine.’

  The air in the great hall was as taut as a drawn bowstring. I was certain that at any moment something would be said that must cause bloodshed between de Lacy and my lord. I fingered my sword hilt and looked at the knights around Robin, wondering which I would have to strike down first. But the castellan of Château Gaillard was no fool. He knew we could not afford discord in our camp in our present situation. And, wisely, he was not above playing the peacemaker.

  ‘Then, if it would please you, Lord Locksley, would you be so good as to impart to us this “valuable intelligence” that you have gathered on our behalf.’

  The room leaked a breath of relief.

  Robin began. He outlined the forces ranged against us – some fifteen hundred men-at-arms in total – their dispositions, the number of mangonels and trebuchets aligned against us (five) and the smaller fry, onagers, springalds and the like. He revealed they had a shortage of missiles for these stone-throwing engines, but a consignment was expected upriver from Paris in the next month or so. He told us the French were commanded in Philip’s absence by a Lord Simon de Montfort, a fairly decent fellow by all accounts, and a competent soldier who fought in the recent pilgrimage against the infidels of the East, and that they had plenty of grain and wine and no disease or sickness in the camp at present.

  ‘I also understand there is a general distaste among their high command for the indiscriminate bombardment of the castle – the French know their petraries are killing innocent townsfolk inside these walls and that is the reason why we have been spared a harsher rain of their missiles. They are reluctant to make war on the non-combatants from Petit Andely, the old, the sick, women and children and’ – Robin paused significantly here – ‘I think I can see a way in which we can benefit from their fine scruples.’

  There was a profound silence in the hall and thirty knights raised eyebrows or scratched their heads. They began to mutter.

  Robin sighed. ‘We must let the townsfolk out of the castle. We let them go and I am fairly certain the French will allow them through their lines, to make their way to freedom. We let the old, the sick, the weak out – and they will no longer be a burden on our limited supply of stores.’

  De Lacy gave a great roar of understanding. He strode over to Robin and grasped his arm. ‘Do you think so? Do you truly think so? They’ll let them get through unharmed?’

  ‘I believe they will,’ said my lord.

  The three hundred people gathered in the middle bailey two days later were a collection of some of the most miserable specimens of humanity I have ever seen. They looked like an army of beggars: thin, sick, ragged folk, mostly elderly and infirm, but with a few younger men and women scattered among them, and all visibly too feeble to fight. I do not know who spoke the phrase for the first time, but this company soon became known, cruelly, in the way of soldiers, as the ‘useless mouths’. For good reason: not one of the three hundred souls gathered in the yard could have lifted a bread knife in anger, yet each had need of his daily bread.

  We had agreed an hour-long truce to begin at noon and, when the Useless Mouths were assembled, de Lacy blew trumpets to alert the French and the gates were thrown open and the raggedy procession allowed to exit the castle. They shuffled along, coughing, staggering, limping, holding on to each other for support as they filed slowly out and down the chalky path towards the river and the earthworks of the enemy a quarter of a mile below.

  We watched the painfully slow progress of the Useless Mouths from the walls, and it seemed as if the whole garrison were holding its breath when the pathetic procession advanced towards the gates set in their high earthen walls outside the town of Petit Andely. On the other side of the walls were hundreds of armed foes, and we had only Robin’s assurance that they would not fall on these unfortunates and slay them where they stood. The Useless Mouths halted at the bottom of the slope, a dozen yards from the deep ditch before the earth wall, and voices cried out to the French for mercy and protesting their good faith and status as good Christians and non-belligerents. And, to my great relief, the big gates swung open and the Useless Mouths surged forward and disappeared through them into the town beyond that had once been theirs.

  Five days later we mustered another group of Useless Mouths in the middle bailey – some four hundred wretched souls this time – and they too were allowed to pass safely through the enemy lines.

  Robin was, in a reasonably quiet and modest way, cock-a-hoop. Thanks to his efforts the castle was safely rid of some seven hundred people who, merely by continuing to breathe, would have been an intolerable burden. He was now a full member of the high counci
l, with full responsibility for intelligence gathering and, with Roger de Lacy, Sir Joscelyn Giffard and Father de la Motte, one of the four lords who held all our lives in his hands. I was pleased for him – it was no more than his due as an earl and a man of his cunning, skill and experience.

  I must confess, though, I was not overly fond of the idea of Robin being in charge of ‘intelligence gathering’ – I had had some bad experiences in this corner of the battlefield in the past – and my heart lurched against my ribs when he took me aside one day, in a quiet corner on the ground floor of the outer bailey, and said, ‘Make sure you get plenty of rest this afternoon, Alan. I need you to be fresh tonight.’

  ‘My lord?’ I said.

  ‘We are going beyond the walls, just you and me, to see what we can see.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  We dressed ourselves in warm, dark clothing and smeared a mixture of soot and hog grease over our faces and the backs of our hands, and as silently as cats we crept out of the postern gate at the foot of the north tower and gingerly stepped across the long plank bridging the deep ditch at the foot of our walls.

  I wore no mail, for speed of movement and so that there might be no telltale chink of metal on metal, and reluctantly I had left Fidelity in the care of Kit, and carried only my misericorde in a leather sheath at my waist. Robin similarly lacked proper armament, except for a hunting knife jammed down his boot.

  ‘We are not aiming to hurt anybody tonight, Alan. If we have to fight, we have failed in our mission and are probably as good as dead,’ said my lord. For a man who knew well how to raise his followers’ spirits, I found his words disquieting.

  It truly was a black night, with only the faintest sliver of moon peeking very occasionally through the blanket of clouds – which was, of course, why Robin had chosen it. We crawled due east through mud and loose rock and tussocks of wet grass, for about two hundred yards by my reckoning, moving on elbows and knees with infinite slowness, and pausing every yard or so to listen for the enemy, using techniques that a dear Bavarian friend of mine had taught me long ago. Robin led and, as I inched along after him, I wondered what we were doing out here in no man’s land between the walls of two mighty forces when we might be tucked up snugly in bed. My thoughts turned to Tilda as we made our snail-like progress across the ground. Her smile, the way her eyes danced with light when she laughed, and how easily she found joy in the world; perhaps one day …

  ‘Alan!’ Robin’s voice was not even a whisper, but I caught a glimpse of his steel eyes in the darkness. I realised my forearm and all my weight was pressing down on Robin’s boot. I shook myself free of Tilda’s embrace and concentrated on placing one elbow and one knee in front of the other as silently as I could. We saw and heard nothing, wrapped in the blackness, the night dense around us. At least I saw and heard nothing until I felt Robin rise up on his knees a yard ahead of me, cup his hands together and make the sound of a barn owl hooting, three times.

  To my surprise, his signal was repeated back to him twice, and up ahead there was a patch of darkness fuller than the rest. The earth wall. And was there someone there? I heard a click of trodden stone on stone and Robin rose silently to his feet. I got to mine, put my left hand on his shoulder and followed him and soon I could make out the shape of a man greyer than the surrounding gloom. I put my right hand on the handle of the misericorde, but remembered Robin’s ominous words and did not draw the weapon. The man was standing by a stout wicker gate in the earth wall and, as far as I could tell, he was alone.

  The gate opened just the width of a man, Robin and I slipped through and I found myself face to face with a small, very ugly middle-aged man in a dark hood. ‘This way, monsieurs,’ he said in a rough regional French accent. ‘You are late. I expected you an hour ago.’

  Robin made no excuse. He clapped the man on the arm and said, ‘Lead us to him, Gerard!’

  As we walked on, into the light of campfires and standing torches – almost blinding after the darkness – I realised we had just strolled, well, crawled, into the heart of the French camp. We were paid no mind by the few figures we saw crouched around campfires murmuring to comrades, nor did we interact with the men walking between the shacks and tents; no challenges were issued, we were merely three more shadows moving through the night.

  In the time it would take to say ten Hail Marys, we were outside a simple white oiled-linen tent, illuminated from the inside by the light of many candles. Gerard said, ‘One hour, and I’ll be back. That is enough?’

  Robin nodded and gave him a coin from his purse. Then my lord held back the flap of the tent and indicated I should go inside.

  Mystified, curious and not a little nervous, I stepped through the gap between the folds of the fabric with my hand on the hilt of my dagger and there, seated on a camp stool cleaning a long sword with an oily cloth, was my cousin Roland.

  He stood, and we embraced. Then he held me at arm’s length and we looked fondly at each other. Apart from that glimpse at the riverbank, I had not seen my cousin for four years. He looked healthy, fit and only a little older. A tall, blond man, similar to myself in colouring and looks, except that he had a large shiny scar on the lower left side of his face.

  ‘Well, you don’t seem to be starving just yet,’ said Roland amiably. ‘This siege seems to be agreeing with you, Alan.’

  ‘I would find it more agreeable if you would persuade your master Philip to leave us in peace,’ I said.

  ‘That will never happen in a thousand lifetimes,’ he said and turned away to fill a goblet with wine for me. I turned to say something to Robin but to my astonishment he had disappeared.

  Roland handed me the goblet. ‘He has gone to snoop around our camp like a dirty spy,’ he said with a grimace of distaste. ‘My lord of Locksley likes to talk to the men-at-arms, though God knows what he hopes to discover. The truth is plain. We are here, we are staying here, and soon you will be forced to surrender your walls.’

  I shook my head. ‘We will outlast you, cousin. I promise. But I pray we will not meet on the battlements because…’

  ‘Yes, if that happens we must fight. I know it. We must do our duty. But for now, for this night, let there be a private truce between us – what say you, cousin?’

  ‘For tonight,’ I agreed. ‘But how comes Robin to know your serving man, to be met by him and to be guided like an old friend to your tent? And what am I doing here?’

  ‘As for the first part, I do not wholly know. My lord of Locksley appeared, like a revenant, one night some weeks ago. Just popped into my tent like a country neighbour paying a friendly call. I was too surprised to sound the alarm, and then he gently reminded me of our comradeship and the great service he had done me when I was captured by Richard’s mercenaries after Gisors – do you remember? – then he wanted a cup of wine and something to eat, and, well, soon it was too late to call for my men without looking a fool – not that I wished to. He stayed, we spoke of this and that, we drank a cup of wine, ate a little. He swore not to cause harm to any of our men in his wanderings. I asked after you and he promised he would bring you to me at the next dark of the moon. So, though honour demands we must be enemies in this unfortunate business, there is no need for us to forget our kinship, for this night at least.’

  I smiled at him. I was fond of Roland, and while it was fantastical, absurd even, to be sharing wine with a friend in the heart of the enemy camp, I was very happy to be there.

  We talked for a while, comfortably, quite naturally, about his family – the Seigneur d’Alle who was in Paris at the King’s side, and his beautiful mother Adele, who very much wanted to introduce me to a young unmarried cousin of hers. We shared a few sorrowful words about the death of my lovely Goody, too. He asked after my little son Robert, and Thomas Blood, now a knight, who had shared our adventures in the south in pursuit of the Grail. And I told him the sad news about Little John and the terrible wound he had taken at Mirebeau. We drank to his speedy recovery but without much true co
nviction. Before too long the hour was nearly up and, suddenly, Roland was all briskness.

  ‘Alan, I have something that I must tell you – I do not think I am betraying any great confidences by saying this, and I believe it will save the world a great deal of misery if I share it with you. The King has heard about the wretches you released from the castle and whom our men allowed to pass. He is extremely angry. The message I have for you is this: we will allow no more of the occupants of Château Gaillard to leave. You must all surrender, or none. That is the King’s word. We are all aware these people are mostly women, children and elderly folk, but they are your responsibility and we have been giving an advantage to you in this bloody game of ours by allowing them to pass. No more shall be allowed through, do you hear me? No more.’

  I could see his point. I nodded slowly.

  ‘I have one more thing to tell you. Please listen carefully, cousin. King John cannot come to your rescue. He is even now making plans to withdraw to England, our spies tell us. You must persuade Roger de Lacy to surrender the castle to us, to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Simon de Montfort will accept his capitulation, despite de Lacy’s insults. You need have no fear, Alan, you can surrender to me and I will guarantee your safety; your life will be as sacred as my own.’