by Smith, Skye
"I've done some wall climbing in my day. It is always harder going down than up. How did you get back down?"
"The castle is designed to keep folk from getting in. It's much easier to get out because there are staircases on the inside. You simply time the guards as they make their rounds. When the guards are clear you run up the steps, dangle both ends of a good rope down the wall and then shimmy down it. If you pull the rope down behind you, then they never know you've been there."
"Show me."
"What, now!" Peter exclaimed. "I'm exhausted. Tomorrow though. That will give me a chance to make us some spring boards. Do you have any good climbing rope?"
"I've a ship in the harbour, remember."
* * * * *
The next morning Peter had Daniel practicing with the spring boards on the cliffside behind the inn. The two naval mapmakers came to watch, as did most of the crew. Peter went first and showed Daniel how to carve horizontal slots the size of the stave ends into the limestone, then jam the toe edge into them, step up, and carve the next slot. It was slow going and Daniel said so.
"Only for the first man," Peter replied, "not for the second. Watch me." With that he clamboured down and then clamboured up again. The slowness was in carving the toe holds."
Teesa had been watching, and she laughed at how clumsy tall lanky Daniel was against the cliff face. Despite the great strength of his oar tuned muscles, muscles were heavy. Even Peter, exhausted after a climb of fifty feet, had to admit that when he visited his father in prison he had been a lot younger and a lot lighter.
Daniel looked up the cliff to its top and asked "Is this the same height as the castle cliff?"
"About the same. perhaps fifty man heights tall."
"So climbing it is like climbing on top of fifty men,” Teesa jeered. "Any alehouse whore worth tu'pence does that every week." She shrugged at the failings of these big men and left the demonstration for the workshop behind the inn. When she came back, both Peter and Daniel were gasping for breath and lying in the dusty white rubble at the foot of the cliff.
"Let me try,” she told them as she walked to the cliff face.
"Here," Peter said, "you can use my spring boards."
"No need," Teesa replied as she began to scale the wall. She went up it like a squirrel in an oak tree. When halfway up, Daniel, worried for her safety, called her back. "Nay," she called down. It is easier for me to continue to the top and then walk down the trail."
Peter was in awe. "How did she do that?"
"Well for one thing she is half our weight and almost as strong, for she doesn't drink ale and she is half our age."
When Teesa finally got back down the winding trail she showed them what had made it easy for her. She had strapped two daggers to her boots, and had held two more in her hands, and so she didn't need to chisel out each toe hold, but just slammed the blades into place and climbed.
"Bugger,” Peter said, "I'll recruit a band of children to climb the cliff," and then laughed at the truth of it because he had been not more than a child when he used to visit his Da' in the fortress.
"I'll go up first dragging a rope behind me,” Teesa told him, "and then you can follow me used the rope to help."
"Do you know how much 300 feet of strong rope would weigh. You couldn't lift your own weight and drag it at the same time."
"Oye," one of Teesa's cousins called out. "When we run a ships line to shore we throw a light line, and then use it to haul the heavy ships line ashore. This is no different. Teesa can pull a light line up the cliff and once she is at the top she can haul up the heavy line and tie it off."
Daniel looked around at his men. "It seems to me that you all have made the decision to invade a fortress."
"It'll be a good laugh,” Teesa told him. "What is the worse that can happen? We have to climb down the wall along the road and come back to the inn."
"No, the worst that can happen is that we fall off the cliff and stove our heads in,” Daniel replied, "or are caught and are thrown off the cliff. Or in your case, Teesa, you are humped by forty guardsmen."
"There is that,” Teesa said thoughtfully. "Nah, I don't see that happening. I'm game." The entire crew, and Peter called out that they were too.
Daniel shook his head. "All right, so we make it up the cliff. Then what?"
"We open the gates," Peter answered.
"To who exactly?"
"To whom," corrected one of the mapmakers.
"I'll gather together some of the local lads. Some can climb with us and others can wait outside the gate. Ugh, the lightest of us will be doing the climbing." He looked around at the huge men around him. Frisians tended to be tall, and therefore heavy, but their backs were deep V's and their shoulders rounded with muscles from working on the oars. "I suppose I have to go with the climbers to be the guide at the top."
"This is crazy,” Daniel pronounced.
"Yeh, crazy like a vixen,” Teesa overruled him.
* * * * *
"Is she at the top yet?" Daniel asked. "I can't look."
The local lad who spent half his life keeping local sheep away from cliff edges stared up the white cliff, the cliff beneath the fortress. "She's close, and Peter is about two thirds up." Teesa was carrying the line, while Peter was carving the notches that the other men would use on their climb. "I'm starting up." The lad was not much taller than Teesa. "I should have been doin' the carvin' stead of Pete. He's too old and fat."
His words stung. Peter was younger and thinner than Daniel. "Alright, but keep your ear's peeled for falling rock."
A few moments later Daniel felt a tug on the light line that Teesa had been trailing. "She's at the top. Tie it to the climbing rope." No sooner had it been tied off than the heavier rope began to rise like a snake up the slope. It was knotted at every foot to make climing it easier. When it was about half way up the progress began to slow, and then stop. "Damn, the rope is getting too heavy for her."
They all waited impatiently, and then the rope leaped off the ground. Daniel whispered to the others. "Peter must have reached the top. Now both are doing the hoisting." A short while later the rope stopped climbing and then it jumped and jumped again. "They've secured it. Who wants to be the first to test it."
It was a lucky thing that these cliffs were so white for otherwise they would never have seen the toeholds in the dark. One by one with twenty feet separating them, twenty vertical feet, a gang of men climbed the cliff. While Teesa and Peter had free climbed with as little weight as possible, the rest of the men were carry weapons and ammunition on their backs. Hand over hand up the rope, toe over toe up the slots they climbed. If even one man fell it was all over, because he was sure to scream an alarm and sure to take those below him with him.
In this situation, being the last up the rope carried the most risk, so Daniel brought up the rear. The first hundred feet went quickly. The second hundred feet were much slower as he lost his breath and the moisture in his mouth turned to white mud. The last hundred feet were agony and seemed to take an eternity. Finally he made it to the top and a strong hand dragged him over the edge and into the cool damp grass at the top of the cliff. They had done it. Or at least the first part of it. Oh but how delicious the cool damp of the grass felt as he swilled the dusty mud from his mouth with water. Oh how sweet the water was after the chalk dust.
Daniel looked around at the other men. They were all dressed in black and had blackened their faces and hair with soot. They had already taken the springboards off the souls of their boots.. Tonight the moon would not rise until an hour before dawn, so they would be nealy invisible to any guards so long as they didn't make a horizon. When he had caught his breath and could again feel his fingers he crept inland away from the edge to the closest gun emplacement. It was one mother big gun. Even a twelve pounder would have seemed small if set beside it. He whispered to the other men, "So we are all up. Where is Teesa?"
"She and Peter were the first rested so they have gone a scoutin'"
They all lay on their backs and looked up at the stars, and caught their breath and calmed their hearts. Nothing like swinging on a rope three hundred feet above a beach to get your heart pumping.
Daniel felt a breath of wind that was not the wind and looked in its direction. Teesa had appeared at his side out of nowhere. She was black from head to foot except for her eyes and her white smile. "Hand me my bow and my quiver," she whispered.
"No,” Daniel hissed back. "You've never killed and I refuse to turn you into a killer. Take someone with you to shoot the bow."
"Never killed? Oh, right, never killed anything 'ceptin a few thousand geese and eels. And what about the venison we eat in the winter. Now, hand me my bow. Peter is waiting for me." They had brought a half dozen bows up the cliff because they are silent killers and silence was golden until they could open the main gate.
The men passed over the smallest of the bows and the matching arrows and then she was gone. They thought they heard a moan, but it was not repeated. A bird call told them it was safe to scramble forward towards the call. When Daniel saw Teesa again she was bent over a man lying on the ground. A man with an arrow sticking out of the back of his neck. "Is he dead?" Daniel asked as he drew his filleting knife in case a throat needed slitting.
"He turned just as Peter was about to capture him,” replied Teesa through low sobs. "I had no choice."
"I told you so." Daniels words went over as well as they usually did.
"Fuck off." She hissed and then sniffed up her tears and spat, but not at the corpse. "So now all I need do is rape a woman and I will become a man."
It was a reference to the olden days when a son of the nobility was not considered a man until he had killed a man and raped a woman. "Not in our clan,” Daniel said, trying to distract her sorrow. Under Frisian customary law, rape was treated as a serious crime. Raping a mother cost you dearly in coin. Raping a woman who had no children cost you coin and a severe beating. Raping a virgin cost you your life.
There was another bird call. Teesa and Daniel were left by themselves. The rest of the men, half crew and half local lads were making their way to the tower that controlled the main gate. "Stay here,” he pleaded, but then she was gone like fluff in the wind. Of course she had to go. She could sneak up on rabbits, even on deer, on anything, so of course she could sneak up on men. The crew needed her skill in order to stay alive themselves.
He was left alone with the corpse. Why here. Why was this man placed here of all places. What had he been guarding? The only break in this stretch of stone wall was a small door. What was on the other side of the door? The prison compound? Was this the wall that Peter used to climb to visit with his father? Then why such a small door? It didn't make sense. Why would this guard have been here and not watching the outer wall?
Since he had his knife in his hand anyway he cut the arrow loose from the neck. It was a grisly job but Teesa may need it later. Then he dragged the corpse into the shadow of a corner in the wall and followed after Teesa. It was so dark in the shadow of the stone walls that he bumped into someone dressed all in black. "Shhh" was the extent of the grunt. "There are two guards on the tower above the main gate. They have gone to silence them."
A bird call came fluttering down from the tower. The man in black grunted again, "Come on, help us with the bar." It took three of them to lift the heavy bar that secured the giant gate and they would have dropped it save for shoulders built up by a lifetime of rowing. Daniel went to open one side of the gate, but a hiss came from the fixed end of the gate, "Not yet. I haven't finished greasing the pivot. Right. Try it now."
Daniel grabbed a bracket that was bolted to the gate and he heaved backwards. The gate began to open, and without so much as a creak. Twenty big men rushed inside and then Daniel pushed it closed again. Step two of the plan was complete. They owned the gate and had reinforcements. The new men were armed to the teeth. Most of them were friends of Peter's so he would lead them to the guardhouse where most of the guards would still be sleeping. While Daniel's men were armed with knives and bows, and one dragon each, these men were armed with an assortment of cudgels, bush knives, and axes.
Daniel grabbed Peter by the arm and whispered, "That first guard, the one Teesa killed. Why was he there?"
"The door leads to the manor's garden. That door is never locked in case of emergencies so it is guarded. Across the garden is the gov'ner's house."
"Surround the guard house but don't wake them,” Daniel told him. "That's a job best left to the governor. Otherwise the fighting may be bloody."
"Nothin' ta lose. Go, go fetch the gov'n'r,” Peter told him.
Daniel dodged amongst the men who had just come through the gate and touched the arms of five of his crew as he went. They fell in step behind him. Hopefully the crew who had climbed the cliff were still with Teesa. He found the small door right where he had left it, which was not insignificant on such a dark night. They opened it just enough to creep through. Peter hadn't been jesting. It was a garden. In the starlight they could see that on one side were rows and rows of fresh vegetables, whereas closer to the governor's house there were flower beds and bushes and a pool.
House, house indeed. It was larger than a manor but smaller than a palace. This was where Charlie and Henrietta would have bedded down when they were in residence. They crept around the edges keeping to the shadow of the wall until they reached the house. This was obviously not the front of the house because there was no grand entrance or drive way. Windows. It had been recently and fashionably remodeled to have large glass windows, including a door with glass panes. How stupid inside a fortress.
With his filleting knife Daniel sliced the putty that held the pane of glass in place that was closest to the door handle and lock, then he used the point to lever the pane towards him and caught it as it fell. His hand became sticky with blood. Damn glass. Whenever he worked with glass he always cut himself. This had all taken precious moments. One of the crew was impatient and he reached passed Daniels bloody hand and turned the door knob. The door swung inwards. It hadn't been locked.
The other men pushed ahead of him while he grabbed up some lace from under a vase and used it to wrap his cut hand. The men were motioning to him that they had found the stair case so he followed them into a hallway. To the left of the staircase was a cloak room. He called the men to him and motioned to the capes and hats. He was about to try one on when he saw himself in a mirror. He was black faced. In front of the mirror was a jug of water and a basin so he washed his hands, neck and face clean, or just about clean, and then he went back to trying on hats.
In moments they were all clean faced and dressed like the king's soldiers in hats and capes, though the breeches and shirts were very wrong. Only then did they climb the stairs. All of them were wondering if the count of between forty and sixty for the garrison included the household staff, for such a house would need a large staff. At each door upstairs they stopped long enough for Daniel put his ear to it and listen. At the third door, he turned the knob and cracked the door to see in.
A dog barked inside, which almost put Daniels heart in his mouth, and had him rushing through the doorway since the alarm was given anyway. In the dim light he could see a covered bed so he yelled out to it. "We have you covered. Light a candle and don't do anything stupid else we will fire." The other men grunted their agreement to prove there was a gang of them.
The light of candle showed a couple in the bed. "Are you the governor of this fortress?"
"I am James Stewart, the Duke of Richmond and Lennox, and the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, so yes." He looked about Daniel's age, so thirty-ish. The wife, if she was a wife, was about twenty.
"I am Captain Vanderus of the Canterbury Trained Band and my two companies have just taken your fortress. Do you surrender?"
"You will never take the keep,” the man spoke with a strong Scottish burr.
"Then we will fight and many will be killed, but we will take this castle. S
urrender or we start the killing with you."
Stewart reached over and pulled the covers up to his wife’s chin. "And my wife."
"If there is no peaceful surrender then I am not responsible for what may happen to your wife. Her fate is on your head."
"I will surrender but with terms."
"Name them."
"I have a ship in the harbour. You will allow myself and my wife to go into exile in the Netherlands."
"To join your queen?"
"Exactly."
"Done. Now both of you get dressed. And hurry if you want to save the lives of your men." There were some snickers as the woman got out of bed. She wore more clothes to bed than Wellenhay women wore in the fields.
By order of Stewart, the guardhouse surrendered peacefully, but not the keep. The keep was the original Norman castle and was a fortress in of itself. The captain that lived within it refused to surrender. Thus began a round of bargaining between Stewart, Daniel, and the Captain. It showed Daniel why the Normans built these castles. The captain couldn't have had more than five men inside with him, but there was no way of forcing them to surrender on this night.
Two of the twenty men who had come in by the gate were the two navy mapmakers. Daniel took them aside and told them, "I don't know how long my crew and a few local lads will be able to hold this fortress. We can't even capture the keep. As you know there is a string of fortresses along the Downs, and the king still controls all of them. The garrisons of any of them could march here at any time and re-take Dover. I want you to ride to Chatham and tell Warwick to send a garrison to take it over and I want you to leave right now."
"Lowly officers such as us tell the Lord High Admiral what to do. Are you mad?"
"Blame it all on me. I order you to take two of this garrisons horses and ride to Chatham and order the Lord High Admiral to send me a garrison."
"But he isn't in Chatham. Our last message from him came from Canterbury. I think he is stealing, er ... that is, confiscating the Cathedral's treasury to pay his navy."
