And there we left it.
That evening, I played my vielle for my King. It was not a happy occasion. I was not well attuned to the mood of the hall, and perhaps wishing to impress the assembled barons with my sophistication, I played some new compositions. They were perhaps too mournful, coloured no doubt by my months of melancholy soul-sickness, and I struck the wrong note with that brisk, healthy gathering. The King did not care for them at all, they did not suit his current mood of frenzied optimism, and worse, Mercadier sat next to him during the performance and whispered in his ear. At one point, the poignant climax to a tale of doomed love, Richard actually laughed out loud at something Mercadier had said. I barely managed to finish the piece before withdrawing from the hall with a bow and an excuse, and as much grace as I could scrape together. The next morning we rode off to war.
Chapter Twenty-four
We sallied out of Château-Gaillard joyously and in great force; Richard himself and a hundred knights and two hundred mounted men-at-arms under a forest of spears and brightly coloured banners. The King was accompanied by the grizzled Earl of Striguil and his knights, but not by the Earl of Locksley, who had been ordered to hold Château-Gaillard in place of his royal master. I had been given the honour of leading a contingent of Locksley men in green, fifty strong, as well as my own fourteen men-at-arms, who all sported fresh red surcoats with my snarling boar device on their chests.
Before we left, Robin had taken me aside: ‘John and I are staying here,’ he said, ‘we must hold Château-Gaillard in case it all goes wrong and Richard has to retreat; but in truth we could do with the rest. I’m giving you a company of men, who are a little more rested than the others. And I want you to know that I have full confidence in you. Don’t feel you have anything to prove to anyone. Don’t throw the lives of any of my men away – particularly not this one.’ And he clapped me hard on the shoulder.
Mercadier, I was glad to see, was not to accompany the King; the mercenary captain had been dispatched with his own force of paid men before dawn on a mission of some kind in the direction of Beauvais, deep into enemy territory, while we followed in his tracks making north-east for the border castle of Gournay.
The countryside we rode through had been much ravaged by three years of war – by our men and Philip’s – and there was barely a farm beast alive or a cottage unburnt that we passed on our march that day. We travelled light and fast – all the men well mounted and the column unslowed by baggage or a siege train. By early evening we had travelled the twenty-five miles to Gournay and were greeted at the gate by none other than Richard’s brother Prince John, Count of Mortain and Earl of Gloucester.
My old enemy was a humbled man these days; he saluted his royal brother respectfully, without a trace of his former haughtiness, and bore him away, with William the Marshal, to his private chamber to discuss a plan he had concocted for the imminent assault on Philip’s domains. Prince John did not acknowledge me in any way, although I caught him staring at me when he thought I was not looking, and I was content to busy myself with finding adequate quarters in that crowded castle for the men and our horses. Thomas and I dined poorly on a thin cabbage soup from the castle kitchens, which we supplemented with bread, a soft Norman cheese, and a brisk red wine, from our rations.
The next morning word reached us that we were to saddle up and prepare to advance into enemy territory. As Thomas and I were chivvying the sleepy men from their warm bed-rolls, William the Marshal came striding across the courtyard to speak to me.
‘It’s Milly,’ the Earl of Striguil said. ‘We’re going to take Millysur-Thérain. Do you know it?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s a small castle a dozen miles east of here – John has had intelligence that it’s not well defended and he has asked that he be allowed to lead the expedition to capture it. It was his idea, and Richard has agreed.’
‘The King isn’t coming with us?’ I asked, astonished.
‘He’s got other fish to fry,’ said the Marshal. ‘Mercadier is a few miles south of here threatening the stronghold of Beauvais, and Richard wants to remain here so that he can co-ordinate both operations.
‘So Prince John is to be in command?’ My face must have been a picture, for the Marshal laughed out loud.
‘Don’t worry, young Alan, I’m coming along too. I’ll see to it that he doesn’t a make a total hash of it.’
‘Still …’ I said doubtfully.
‘All will be well, Alan, trust me,’ said William. ‘It’s an insignificant castle, poorly defended, and we will snap it up like a trout rising to a mayfly.’
Insignificant Milly may have been, but poorly defended it was not. We had the walls surrounded by noon, with Prince John’s tent pitched to the north of the castle, and I took a bite of bread and ham with Thomas while we looked at the fortress from a copse a hundred or so paces from the western side. Thick walls, fifteen foot tall, a deep earth ditch before them, and scores of defenders, far from intimidated – indeed defiant – massed on the battlements. We had no siege engines, alas, for Richard’s ‘castle-breakers’ would have made short work of these walls – but to bring them up would have meant a delay of several days, and might have brought Philip’s main field army down on our heads in overwhelming force. Besides, Richard wanted a quick victory here, the castle captured, its constable made prisoner – and his brother John had promised it to him.
‘Locksley’s men will undertake the first assault,’ Prince John had croaked a half-hour earlier when the captains had met for a brief conference in his tent. He had barely looked at me while issuing these orders, but I could see a gleam of something unpleasant in his eyes as he spoke the words: was it a spark of revenge? I knew that he had not forgotten my supposed perfidy while Richard was imprisoned. The company that made the initial attack would face the heaviest casualties. It was a great honour to be the first men into the breach, but it was also the most dangerous task of the operation.
‘Perhaps, Your Highness, if my knights were to make a diversionary attack on the gatehouse, it might increase the chances of success for the Locksley assault,’ said William the Marshal. A veteran of a score of sieges, he knew full well how risky the assault would be. And while he may have been trying to spare my men, his suggestion was also sound from a military point of view. Two attacks going in simultaneously would divide the castle’s forces and consequently have a greater chance of success.
‘No, Marshal,’ John had said with a little smile. ‘My brother has told me of your perpetual eagerness for a fight, and I commend you for it, but I must insist the Locksley men go in alone: it will be a chance for them to prove their mettle. Unless there is some difficulty? Your men do have the stomach for it, do they not, Sir Alan?’
There was nothing I could do but nod gravely and agree, while cursing silently that our men would assault the castle – alone.
Now Thomas and I lay on our bellies, side by side, in this damp wood, with sixty odd men laid flat behind us. We were as yet undetected, we hoped, by the defenders and I was fairly sure that with a good deal of courage and determination we could take the castle. But my troops were unhappy at being asked to storm the walls alone – Prince John’s sneering words had spread like lightning among the ranks – and I could only hope that they would prove equal to the difficult task at hand. I had tried to appear confident as I crawled around the various groups of men, indicating where on the battlements they should make their individual ladder assaults, and trying to put heart into them. In a few moments we would go. And I did not want to. I would have happily spent the rest of the day, the rest of my life, in that sodden copse, and let pride, Robin, Prince John and the whole world go hang. Inside my head, a voice was asking why had I come to Normandy if I did not wish to fight? And I knew deep in my soul that I was frightened. It had been three years since I had felt this sensation: the cold, watery bowels, the sudden itch on leg or arm, the startling clarity of everything before my eyes. I was going into battle again; I
was facing yet another dance with Death. And there was no way I could escape it and keep my honour. I touched my chest, and felt the ridge of scar tissue on the left-hand side even through my mail suit. I closed my eyes, dropped my forehead into the moist leaf litter in front of me, and uttered a prayer to St Michael.
When I looked up again, to my right, through the trees I saw a flutter of bright cloth: the Marshal, God bless him, was parading his knights in front of the main gate, just out of crossbow range. I recalled his gruff, half-whispered words after the meeting at Prince John’s tent. ‘He may forbid me to aid you in the assault, Alan, but he may not tell me where and when I can inspect my own men. We will make a bit of noise and a brave show in front of the gates, and that shall be your signal to attack. God go with you.’
Thirty knights were wheeling their horses, clumsily arranging them in a battle formation, and then appearing to change their minds at the last minute; the trappers on the horses, constantly in motion, were a bewildering range of colours: reds and blues, white, gold and black. The iron links of their mail shone silver in the sunlight, their steel helms, too, reflecting blindingly. The horsemen shouted to each other and brandished their lances, pennants fluttering. A few waved unsheathed swords and called to their friends. Some shouted insults at the garrison of Milly or bellowed their personal war cries.
It was time.
I took a deep breath and forced myself up on all fours. I looked behind me at the white, fearful-expectant faces in the gloom of the wood. ‘Well,’ I said in a low voice, just carrying to the furthest man, ‘we’ve done this before and been victorious. Let us show these Frenchmen how the Locksley men can fight. Archers to your posts. Ladder-men to the front! Quick and quiet, boys. Off we go.’
And off we went.
We sprinted out of the wood and made for the deep ditch in front of the western wall of the castle as quietly as we could – which is to say not very quietly at all. A man to my right appeared to twist his ankle and fell to the ground with a loud yell before we had got twenty yards. Another, seeing him, stopped to help the injured man. But we were off and running and, at first, it seemed as if we had managed to take the castle by surprise.
Then there were shouts from the battlements and a single crossbow fired. In answer, I heard the first fluting of the arrows as they flashed above our heads. I had left ten of Robin’s best archers behind in the tree line to pick off the defenders as we charged. And as I looked up at the looming castle walls that rushed towards us, I saw an arrow lance into the head of a shouting defender and jerk him backwards. Then we were in the ditch below the walls, and planting the feet of the ladders in the brown watery mud.
‘Up, up!’ I was shouting and climbing at the same time, my palms slippery on the rough wooden rungs of the ladder, my shield slung on my back, Fidelity gripped clumsily in my right hand. A head popped over the parapet in front of me and I lunged forward with my sword. I was too far away to badly injure the man but, as I had hoped, he pulled back and gave me a few precious moments to scramble up the remaining rungs. My enemy re-appeared: a screaming red mouth, a conical steel helmet, and a short swinging axe. I ducked, and felt a blow skittering across the top of my own helmet, and lunged again, slicing the spear-tip of Fidelity into his face. And I was over the wall. A quick glance to my left told me that the Marshal’s diversionary tactic had worked well, for the defenders had massed above the main gate and only now were they realizing the danger from our assault on the western wall. The man at my feet, a bloody flap of skin from his cheek swinging free, grabbed at my legs and I stamped hard on his throat with my mailed feet, crushing the larynx and leaving him choking. Beside me, left and right, the ladders were thumping against the stone walls, but enemies were coming at me along the walkway from both sides too. I went right, fumbling my shield from its straps across my back; the nearest man-at-arms swung his sword, I blocked and aimed a counter-thrust, spitting him in the belly. The enemy man-at-arms behind me shouted something and struck at me with a mace, but I managed to catch the heavy blow on my shield and, turning, I swept his legs from under him with my sword. The blood was singing in my veins, I felt the ancient glow of battle from my fingertips to my toes. Another man loosed a crossbow bolt at me, and I received it safely in the centre of my shield, took two steps towards him and sank the edge of my blade into the corner between his neck and his shoulder. And turned to look for my comrades, who should have been spilling over the walls behind me.
I was alone.
There were two dead men, in red Westbury surcoats, on the walkway behind the wall, and I could see the head of Alfred, Thomas’s mentor, poking cautiously above the twin rungs of a ladder. He was being assailed by two Milly men-at-arms at the same time – and as I watched the left-hand man split his head with a massive sword cut and he dropped away. I risked a quick glance over the wall. Two ladders remained propped against the walls, one was packed with men seemingly struggling upwards, the other only half-filled. I saw that one man was frozen halfway up. His face terrified, unable to climb the last few feet to his certain death, and behind him men were blocked from ascending by his fear. I saw a scattering of our dead and wounded in the ditch, and among them the body of Thomas, his steel helmet broken and bloodied.
A shout of pain and grief erupted from my lungs, but I had no time to mourn: my enemies were coming for me, dozens of them. And I was alone. I knew I would be united with Thomas very, very soon. The first man reached me and I dispatched him with a fast, hacking blow that opened his waist, I held off another with my shield and turned to smash the hilt of my sword into his face. I felled another with a slice to the back of the neck. There were bodies, wounded and dead, all about me. But more were coming on. The walkway held room for only two men on each side, else I would have been dead in moments; as it was, I struck and struggled against the men who rushed forward on both sides with shining blades swinging. An axe blow sliced the top corner off my shield, something clanged off my helmet and my legs wavered, but I straightened and killed the next man on pure instinct – a hard lunge through the belly. I could feel the crenellations of the wall in the small of my back, I blocked another blow, swung and cut at thin air. Something battered against my lower leg. And then I heard a voice below me shouting: ‘Out the way, out the way, you cowardly villains,’ and a volley of shouts and curses. And from the corner of my eye I saw the top of a ladder bouncing wildly. I blocked another sword strike, and hacked at a man’s head, but I caught a blow that came out of nowhere on my right arm near the shoulder – thank God for good mail. I swung feebly at a tall man in a black surcoat, missing him by a foot or more and feeling the strength draining from my sword arm, but the blow was enough to cause him to take a cautious step back.
And then William the Marshal himself tumbled breathlessly over the wall and barged his way into the fight.
That grizzled old warhorse, armed with sword and mace, dropped two men in as many moments, engaged the tall knight in black in a brief duel and smashed him unconscious with a backhand mace blow to the side of his helmet. I had recovered somewhat and managed to force back two men-at-arms to my right with a couple of wild swinging cuts. And between us, the Marshal and I managed to create enough space for another two knights to come bundling over the wall – one of them being Sir Nicholas de Scras. And from that moment onwards the castle of Milly was ours. Sir Nicholas mowed into his opponents on the left of the walkway, chopping and shoving, grunting, slicing and snarling his way inexorably forward. More of our men joined him. Once the Marshal’s knights had broken the initial resistance on the western wall, the Locksley men swarmed up the ladders at last and poured into the castle. I took no further part in the battle, collapsing exhausted on the walkway, my ears ringing and my leg and sword arm throbbing from the blows I had taken. I was also quite breathless; while I had assumed I was fit, young as I was, I had in fact taken my fitness for granted – I was not nearly in good enough wind for prolonged sword combat. Some of the Locksley men, I noticed, could not meet my ey
e as they passed me and charged down into the courtyard of the castle seeking out defenders to slaughter; others seemed indifferent to their shame. They were not my men, I reminded myself, but Robin’s, and they had a lesser duty to me than they would have had to their own lord. To ask a man or a group of men to risk their lives is no small thing. But I could not help feeling a sense of sadness that, as I had been away from them for so long, the bonds between us had been so loosened. Three years ago there’d have been no fearful hesitation during an escalade, no matter how dangerous, none at all.
The Marshal also evidently believed that he had done his share of the work that day for he sat down a few yards from me, resting his behind comfortably on the unconscious body of the tall black-clad knight. When I had thanked him for his timely intervention – and given thanks for his complete disregard for Prince John’s orders – he brushed away my words and said: ‘Well, Sir Alan, I am nearly fifty years old, and so I believe I am entitled to take a little rest during a battle – what is your excuse?’
With those jesting words he shamed me into rising and following the Locksley men down into the castle of Milly.
Thomas was not dead – praise God and all the saints in Heaven. He had received a nasty sword cut to the head, but his helmet had taken the force of the blow and while he was a little dazed for a day or so, and his cut scalp had bled copiously, within a week he was his old cheerful self.
Prince John was eloquent when he praised William the Marshal’s actions that day – and not a word was said about the Earl of Striguil’s blatant disregard of his orders to leave us to assault the castle alone. Victory forgives all, it would seem. John hanged all the men-at-arms he had captured, which to me seemed unnecessarily cruel – though not, of course, the knights. These downcast warriors were chivvied into a storeroom and locked in while our men-at-arms sat outside and gleefully computed their probable ransoms in loud, mocking voices, meant to be heard.
Warlord (Outlaw 4) Page 35
