The Iron Castle

by Angus Donald

  There was also an illegal trade in food with the enemy. I cannot condemn it because, occasionally, Robin would provide me and his other lieutenants with a loaf of actual wheat bread or a small piece of smoked meat or cheese to share. We ate this provender greedily and guiltily and asked no questions, but I was aware that French ribaldi, the mercantile hangers-on who followed any army, scum who would sell anything to anyone, would occasionally converse with our sentries in the dead of night; deals were made, at exorbitant cost – three shillings for a loaf of bread, was one figure I heard mentioned – and little packages were hoisted up to the battlements in exchange for fat, chinking purses. To be fair, these ribaldi risked torture and death if caught by the French army providing food, or even talking, to our men, but they made a handsome profit and I believe every available coin in the inner bailey eventually found its way to them.

  We were lean, but we were alive by the end of February, when the French truly set their minds to capturing the inner bailey.

  It began as usual with a pounding from the trebuchets and mangonels, which had been moved from Philip’s Hill to an area of lower ground directly east of the entrance to the inner bailey. These engines of war battered away at the gatehouse for nearly a week, denting the masonry a little, but without seriously damaging it – the design of the walls in the rest of the inner bailey, the series of D-shaped bastions, proved very effective against the missiles of the enemy when they missed the gatehouse. After seven days of bombardment, which sawed at our nerves, but did little else, the French changed strategy.

  Once again they brought forward the cat.

  This time the wheels had been removed and it was lifted and walked forward by the score of men beneath it. It took them most of the afternoon to bring it up to the walls. They walked it parallel to the bridge that linked the gatehouse in the inner bailey to the main gate, now of course occupied by the enemy, stumbling a little as they went down into the deep ditch before our walls. We showered the roof of this diabolical contraption with rocks and arrows and vats of boiling water, once again with almost no apparent effect. A few arrows buried themselves in the ox-hide covering; chunks of masonry boomed against the slanted wooden roof and rolled off harmlessly; the scalding water splashed, cooled and dribbled from the eves; but the cat came on and lodged itself firmly against the base of our walls to the right of the gatehouse. Just as before.

  A feeling, not quite of panic, not quite of despair, but of my doom hurrying upon me filled my heart. I could see the future: the cat would gnaw at the foundations of the inner bailey, a deep mine would be set and fired, the bombardment would resume and the walls would tumble. Then the French would be upon us. And they could be expected show us no mercy. The accepted rules of war were clear on this point. A garrison that was surrounded might defy the besiegers for an agreed length of time, to give time for the lord of the beleaguered men to come to their aid – a month was the usual grace period – but if they persisted in their defiance, the defenders could expect no quarter when the citadel was finally breached. If the French broke open our defences every man inside this place – and Tilda, too – would fall under their swords. In Tilda’s case she might even suffer a fate far worse than death – to be used like a whore by an unending line of French men-at-arms.

  I doubted she would survive an entire night.

  A few days after the fall of the middle bailey, Roger de Lacy sent a servant to summon me to a meeting of the high council. They met on the second floor of the keep, and when I entered the round room, the four men – Roger de Lacy, Father de la Motte, Sir Joscelyn Giffard and Robin – were seated at the far side of a long table draped with white cloth. A flask of well water stood on the table and four cups; it was a sign of our reduced circumstances that it was not wine. There was not a scrap of food to be seen. They did not invite me to sit; instead, I stood like a lackey before them.

  ‘Locksley tells me you are still convinced there is a traitor among us,’ said de Lacy.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The last time we spoke about this I told you I did not want to hear of it again. I still consider the idea preposterous. Yet your master has persuaded me to listen, and I have agreed. So, speak. And be brief, we have more urgent matters to consider.’

  I swallowed, straightened my back and said, ‘The French knew we were coming up river with the food convoys. They lined the banks of the Seine with men during the night, as well as manning the pontoon bridge. We were sworn to secrecy in Rouen. I believe the information about the attack came from within this castle.’

  De Lacy said, ‘Sworn to secrecy! Pff. As if that ever sealed the lips of an army.’

  Robin said, ‘Allow Sir Alan to speak, my lord.’

  I continued: ‘The French also knew the mortar in the outer bailey was moist; this knowledge, I believe, was given to them from inside. When they were before our walls, I heard a French man-at-arms say to another these words: “It’s just as the Sparrow told us. The mortar is as wet as custard in some places.” That exact phrase – “wet as custard” – was spoken to me by someone sitting at this very table. Furthermore, I saw with my own eyes somebody signalling from the south tower of the outer bailey to the French while a celebration was in progress, and a response from our enemies. All four of you were at that celebration. And lastly, but most importantly, somebody left the window of the chapel open, which allowed the French to gain access to the middle bailey – and this was certainly connived in advance. I know this because I saw the French troops in the outer bailey preparing to attack before the enemy got into the House of God. There is a traitor in this castle, he is known to the French as the Sparrow, and I believe it is the man who opened the chapel window after I distinctly told him to ensure that it was shut.’

  I stared at Father de la Motte, the accusation unspoken but absolutely clear.

  The priest looked back at me with sharp blue eyes, smiling and as far as I could tell utterly unperturbed.

  ‘My son, if you think that I have been having dealings with the French, you are quite mistaken.’

  ‘It’s absurd,’ said de Lacy. ‘I cannot believe you have the effrontery to suggest that a man of God—’

  ‘My lord,’ said Sir Joscelyn, putting a hand on de Lacy’s arm. ‘He has made a solid case for the existence of a traitor – Sir Alan, do you honestly believe the good Father invited the French into the chapel?’

  ‘I do not know – but I know that somebody did.’

  ‘When I left the chapel,’ said Father de la Motte in a quiet, measured tone, ‘I left it with the shutters tightly closed and barred and all the candles extinguished – as you specifically asked me to. I will swear to the truth of that on my immortal soul.’

  There was a long silence. De Lacy looked baffled and angry. Sir Joscelyn’s brow was deeply furrowed. Father de la Motte was quite serene.

  Robin said, ‘Well, now that the high council has been apprised of this, I think you may leave us, Sir Alan. On behalf of the council, I thank you for bringing this grave matter to our attention.’

  I bowed and walked to the door, a ballooning silence at my back. At the top of the stairs, I turned and said, ‘My lords, I wish you to know this as well. My squire Kit, a good man, died because of the activities of this person, this Sparrow. He exists. You may or may not believe me, but I know it to be true. And I will find this man and punish him. I give you my solemn word on that.’

  And I left.

  Under the protection of the cat, the mining began as soon as that devilish machine was in place, and nowhere in the inner bailey was one free from the ominous chinking of metal on stone. To divert my mind from the thought that our walls were slowly being eaten away, I set myself to the task of questioning every man in the castle in the hope of gleaning some knowledge about the Sparrow.

  I started with the Wolves, asking each if they had seen anything suspicious over the past few months, anything that struck them as strange or out of the ordinary. Most had nothing to report, but one-eyed Clae
s told me he had seen a light winking in an arrow slit at the top of the keep a few days ago. ‘I though little of it, sir,’ he said. ‘I just thought it was someone fooling with a lantern for their own amusement.’

  Had he spotted a response? ‘No, sir, but I was in the courtyard, and the light was up yonder.’ He pointed to the top storey of the bastion.

  I paid a quick visit to the top of the keep and looked out through the arrow slit Claes had indicated. The window looked directly out at the French encampment on Philip’s Hill, but other than that, of course, there was nothing to indicate who might have used the position to signal to the enemy.

  When I asked Little Niels if he had seen anything suspicious, he screwed up his little face and said, ‘To be honest, sir, I have noticed a good number of odd folk prowling around outside our walls. Desperate, suspicious, ugly-looking fellows they are, and up to no good, I’ll be bound. I suspect, sir … If I might make so bold. I truly suspect, sir, that they might be Frenchmen!’

  His eyes twinkled at me and I confess I laughed out loud.

  Apart from that moment of much-needed levity, I received no joy from my conversations with the men. I pondered hard about who the Sparrow might be, hour after hour, as I went about my duties on the castle walls, and at night alone in bed when sleep would not come, but I could get no further forward. The chinking of the miners distracted me by day – but another person, too, occupied my thoughts in the dark of night. Tilda.

  Unless King John came soon, the castle would fall – this was certain – and I knew I did not want to leave this Earth until I had kissed her and held her in my arms, at least one time. So, as the French dug away at the thick foundations of the inner bailey, and our doom grew ever closer, I decided I must act.

  I found Lady Matilda Giffard near dusk in the great hall behind the keep. She was sitting beside the hearth fire mending a rip in a knight’s chemise with great concentration, and she did not observe me approaching. For once she was alone – there was no sign of her father nor of that loathsome lardy-boy Benedict – but for a few pages and squires seated about her on stools, she might have been entirely unaccompanied. Her sharp pink tongue was poking from her mouth as she squinted at the needle and thread in the gloom of the hall. She was dressed in a black gown, nearly clean, with white lace trim, and she looked for all the world like a black-and-white cat. Looking at her white face, her pink mouth, the dark sweep of her lowered brows, the midnight wink of a loop of hair poking out below her headdress, I knew that I loved her and would always love her from the deepest part of my soul.

  ‘Come with me,’ I said, and it came out thick and clogged.

  ‘Good evening, Alan,’ she said, smiling up at me.

  ‘I must speak to you alone,’ I said. ‘Please put that down and come with me.’

  Tilda frowned, then half-smiled and stood, leaving the half-mended chemise on the stool. She looked a little uncertain but followed me out of the hall into a tower on the north side. I said no more to her but indicated with a gesture that she should climb the spiral staircase. We went up and up, round and round, until we came to the chamber at the top. We went inside. There were two men-at-arms there: Wolves; men I liked and who liked me.

  ‘I will take the rest of this watch,’ I said to the men, ‘you are dismissed’, and I held the door for them to leave. With far too much grinning, nudging and winking, the two left that high lookout room, and I waited until the sound of their boots faded away as they clumped down the stairs, before I bolted the door from the inside, turned and looked at Tilda.

  She looked a little nervous, her face slightly flushed, her wonderful bosom moving gently up and down with each short breath.

  I stood before her and took her cool hand in mine.

  ‘Alan, what on earth is the matter?’ she said.

  ‘I love you, Matilda. I have loved you almost from the moment I saw you. You are an angel in human form and my heart will shatter into a thousand tiny pieces if you do not grant me a kiss, at the very least.’

  Tilda only had time to say ‘Oh!’ before I had my hand at the back of her neck, supporting her head, and my lips gently pressed against hers.

  At first touch her lips were hard, unyielding – and then, to my joy and delight, they melted under mine and her hot tongue flickered out to enter my mouth. We kissed like parched souls at a well of sweet water, my head swimming with intoxicated happiness, our bodies locked together, pressed deeply into each other. After a long time she gently pushed me away, her palm hard against my chest, and gazed sadly into my eyes. My heart sank into my boots.

  She whispered, ‘Is the door locked?’

  I nodded, then was rendered speechless as she grasped my head in both hands and kissed me again, harder, more urgently. Then her fingers were tugging at my belt and I was dragging her skirts up, up to her slim waist. All thoughts of honour and decency were washed away as I glimpsed the neat, dark, forbidden triangle between her milk-white thighs. The storm of love broke and howled about us. I could taste her beauty through her hot mouth: a sweet, spicy, intoxicating brew. I could clearly scent her lithe young body, roses and oysters, and her moist, pungent sex and, over the top, the odour of my own goatish urgency. We found ourselves on the floor and my body reared up between her spread white legs, my prick as hard as an oak branch. I plunged into her, a warm, slippery, driving union of our bodies and souls. I crushed her with my eager body and ploughed into her, my thrusts building in intensity and depth. She gripped the long, hard muscles of my back and called, ‘Yes, oh God, Alan, yes’, in my ear as I sank into her, withdrew and lunged again. I could feel my loins, my tight-bunched balls, seething and boiling like water in a pot, rising perilously close to the rim, as I bucked into her, again and again and again, lips mashing, fingers clawing, naked bellies slapping like some wild applause, until my seed erupted in a huge, joyous, pumping flood deep inside her.

  Afterwards we kissed and held each other naked in a nest of our own sweaty clothing. For a while we were silent – and then both seemed to speak at once: of our wonder at the other and the pain of waiting so long. Of love and life, family and children. She was utterly perfect: our imaginations, our souls, matching as well as our bodies. We spoke about the siege and its likely doleful end, and I promised Tilda on my honour that I would let no harm come to her whatever might happen.

  Then, to my joy, more slowly and tenderly this time, we made love once more.

  It must have been near midnight when I took Tilda back to the great hall. We kissed in the darkness just outside, our bruised mouths gentle in the parting, and murmured all the usual foolishnesses of lovers. I wanted to go to her father to tell him of our union, but Tilda made me promise to keep our love a secret from the world.

  ‘My darling, let us enjoy this wonderful thing between ourselves for just a little while. I want you all to myself. And I do not want Daddy to be distracted when the fighting comes. Please, for my sake, let us keep this as our own special secret. Promise me you will tell no one, promise me, Alan.’

  So I promised. It was a surprisingly difficult vow to keep, for I felt like shouting my love from the battlements; I wanted to stop every passing man-at-arms and tell him the good news about Tilda and myself and elicit their congratulations.

  The next morning I came face to face with Sir Joscelyn Giffard in the courtyard of the inner bailey, his face a barely controlled mask of fury.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  ‘I have found your damn traitor,’ Sir Joscelyn said, the muscles of his face knotted with anger. ‘It seems the Sparrow is one of your own men, Sir Alan.’

  I was completely wrong-footed. My thoughts had been so entirely consumed by the bright glow of his daughter that I had difficulty comprehending him.

  I looked across the courtyard and saw two men-at-arms in Sir Joscelyn’s colours grasping the shoulders of a tiny, wretched figure who drooped between them.

  It was Little Niels.

  ‘I had my men keep a close watch on the walls all last n
ight,’ said Sir Joscelyn, ‘and in the small hours we caught this fellow, red-handed, on the north wall engaged in commerce with the French below.’

  We were walking together to the trio and I saw Roger de Lacy and Robin crossing from the keep, converging on the prisoner. As I drew closer, I saw that Little Niels had been badly beaten, his cheery urchin face a mass of purpling bruises. All his fingers seemed to have been broken, too. They were crooked, misshapen and scabbed with dry blood.

  ‘He’s confessed, has he?’ said de Lacy.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said one of the men-at-arms. ‘He admitted this morning under our questioning that he gave information to the French in exchange for food. Several times.’

  ‘Right. Hang him from the walls, now.’ De Lacy started to turn away.

  Little Niels gave a mewl of terror. The men-at-arms began to drag him away.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Wait just one moment. He is one of my own men. I am his captain. I insist on speaking to him.’

  I glanced at Robin. His face was a stone.

  I looked at my little comrade, his body sagging, his bruised eyes closed. All the fun in the man seemed to have drained away and all that was left was an empty shell of the happy young fellow I had known.

  ‘Niels, is it true? Tell me, did you do what these men say you did?’

  At first I thought he would not answer me.

  ‘Niels,’ I said again, ‘is it true what they say?’

  ‘I was hungry,’ he mumbled, through bloody snapped-off teeth. ‘We are all so hungry, all the time.’ He straightened in his captors’ grip. ‘And there is some that eat like kings in secret while the men starve.’ He was glaring at de Lacy now. ‘So I told the Frenchies a few things – so what! – most of it was lies, or things they must know already.’ He looked back at me. ‘It was just a laugh, sir, I swear it; I told them a few silly things to get a little bread for me and my mates. I did no harm to our cause, sir.’