Holy Warrior

by Angus Donald

  And then there was a miracle. I heard the great bells of the Minster ring out, their cheerful peal, a hideous joke in the blood and carnage of the Tower. It was Vespers. The bells rang out endlessly and as I listened, and offered up a prayer to the Virgin to keep me safe, I noticed that the bombardment had stopped. It must have been a quarter of an hour since the last shattering strike. The sun was very low in the sky, and I saw that the mangonel had been all but abandoned by the men who served it. A lonely man-at-arms sat on the front bar of the machine, looking up at the ramshackle remains of the Tower, hunched, battered and bleeding, wooden planks hanging off in crazy shapes. My prayer to the Mother of God had been answered - but as the Vespers’ bells continued to ring out I realised that there might be another explanation for our miraculous respite. It suddenly occurred to me that it was Good Friday, and our Christian tormentors were observing a Truce of God on this holy evening. The bailey was less full than before, though the circle of steel-clad men-at-arms around the Tower was still intact; all who could be excused from the task of keeping us penned in were attending Mass.

  Chapter Six

  By full dark it was clear that were we indeed being spared any further attack by the mangonel. And I guessed that we would be free from its depredations for the night, but that it would begin again in the morning; followed, when we were battered unrecognisable, by an assault on the ruins by the blood-lusting frustrated citizenry, backed by the trained soldiers of Sir Richard and Sir John. Robin agreed with me.

  I suggested to my master that we might go below to help with the interior wall repairs, but he shook his head. ‘They are not going to repair anything,’ he said in a strange chilling voice. ‘They have decided to die. At this moment they are praying, and following the rituals of their faith on this holy day; we must leave them in peace for the moment.’

  I stared at him in horror: ‘All of them,’ I asked.

  ‘All but a very few,’ he replied. ‘Tomorrow you and I, with Reuben and Ruth, will lead a handful out of Jews out of here, and we will surrender to the mercies of Sir John Marshal. Don’t worry, Alan, he will not harm us - you and me. At least, I don’t think he will. There would be ... certain repercussions, and I am worth more to him in ransom than as a corpse. As for Reuben and Ruth, I have persuaded them to undergo baptism, and promised to protect them. It’s better than certain death ...’

  ‘Let’s hope Sir John has not heard of Ralph Murdac’s munificent offer of German silver for your head,’ I said grimly.

  ‘Well, if you have a better plan, let me hear it,’ snapped Robin. I realised that he must have been feeling the strain just as much as I - but still it was an uncharacteristically sharp answer for my master. I had nothing practical to suggest, and so I held my peace.

  We passed the hours sitting together in the lee of the rickety battlements, looking up at the stars. I was thinking of Ruth, the touch of her hand against my face, the way her body moved as she walked, and my idiotic promise to her to keep her safe. Below, in the Tower, I could hear the sound of solemn singing as the Jews celebrated their Passover and prepared for the appalling, unthinkable bloodletting to come. Just imagining that kindly faced venerable Rabbi cutting the throats of his family, the knife gripped in his trembling, purple-veined hands, the innocent blood spurting red and soaking his dark sleeve, the loved one slumping in his cradling arms ... I couldn’t bear it. Then the singing from below stopped. For a long, long time there was silence; only the distant sounds of the men-at-arms down in the bailey and in the encircling picket lines, joking, cursing, ignorant of the tragedy taking place beneath only fifty yards away, that faint raucous soldierly chorus and the hooting of a distant owl. My scalp prickled and I heard the first cries of anguish. It was a long, sharp, anguished howl, from one throat, and then moments later the cry was taken up by many more: a chorus of the damned wallowing in unbearable torment.

  I couldn’t stand it. I scrambled to my feet and made my way across the ruined space, littered with abandoned weapons, unneeded clothing and splinters of wood, to the staircase. ‘Alan,’ cried Robin behind me, sharply, ‘Alan, don’t go down there ...’ But I ignored my master and began, with heavy unwilling feet, the leaden tread of a condemned man, to step downwards into the human slaughterhouse.

  I have seen some sights, perhaps I have viewed more horror than I have a right to in one soul’s passage across this Earth, but this was one of the most heart-wrenching. Even these days, mind-scarred, jaded and ancient as I am, and tucked up safe in Westbury, I can barely bring myself to revisit that ground floor room in my mind.

  But I will try: I owe it to Ruth. It is a debt I must pay.

  After the noise, the animal howling of unimaginable grief, the first sensation to strike me was smell: long before I had turned the last corner of the staircase I could scent the blood, clogging in my throat, steely, warm and disgustingly sweet. Gazing in on the square hall, I saw that the earth floor was awash, a shimmering crimson lake. And on this slick of human gore, bodies, dozens of bodies, scores; curled like babies, hands and finger most often crooked to their gashed throats, as if in an attempt to force back in the life-sustaining fluid that soaked their hair and lay in pools about their white faces and staring empty eyes. Some of the men were still standing, some looking dazed, appalled at what they had done, others on their knees, eyes raw with weeping, stroking the red-spattered face of a beloved wife or child. And there in the middle of the room was Reuben, eyes wild but focused in his madness, his left arm curled about his daughter, my sweet Ruth, a bright sliver of steel in his right fist.

  I shouted ‘No!’ and launched myself across the room, slipping and sliding on the blood-greased floor. Reuben saw me and hesitated and I reached him and grabbed his right arm in my two hands. He was fearfully strong, but Ruth fixed her huge terrified eyes on mine and I managed to pull his arm away. She fell towards me and I wrapped her in my arms and held her sobbing face to my chest, crushing her against my chainmail hauberk, glaring with infinite hatred at Reuben’s exhausted, half-grateful grey-white face. Then Robin was there, he had his hands on Reuben’s shoulders, his blazing eyes boring into the Jew’s face. ‘We agreed,’ he snarled. ‘We had an agreement. You come out with me. Your life is in my hands; I will save you, you have my solemn word.’ He slapped Reuben hard around the face, a ringing blow that snapped the Jew’s head around. Once again Robin’s customary coolness appeared to have deserted him. Reuben shook his head to clear it from the blow but said nothing. I do not think, at that moment, he was capable of speech. He had just come back from the brink of some hellish pit, a mental state I do not even wish to contemplate. And Robin, sensing this, and once more in command of himself, began to bundle his friend’s long, unresisting body away from that charnel house and back up the stairs. I followed with Ruth, who was weeping and shaking uncontrollably in my arms.

  We made our camp in a store room on the second floor, Ruth wrapped in my warm green cloak, Reuben sitting with his head in his hands, weeping quietly. Robin and I stood guard, I don’t know why, as there was nobody in the Tower who might attack us, and if the Christians who surrounded us had known what was happening inside, they could have taken the Tower any time they cared to. But perhaps we were guarding against more than human foes. The Devil stalked the Tower that night, I am sure of it. The wailing cries from that stinking hall of blood below continued sporadically throughout the night. And then finally there was silence.

  Long past midnight a great storm brewed up, and lightning lashed the sky while the great crash of thunder overhead was nearly deafening. The rain fell like a curtain of spears descending from Heaven. I knew then that this was the judgment of God. He was angry that his Christian servants had caused so many Jews to die, and die so horribly. I shivered in an old blanket, being dripped on from holes in the roof, and watched the vengeful wrath of the Almighty through a narrow window slit.

  We fired the Tower in the morning light, setting sparks to tinder and wood shavings in five different places to ma
ke a funeral pyre for the Jewish dead, and rode out of the battered iron-bound gate under a billow of smoke and grubby once-white chemise tied to a spear. Robin, myself, Reuben and Ruth, accompanied by a very young Jewish couple with a baby we had found hiding in the pantry. I was glad to leave that place of blood and horror, even though we were riding out to surrender to our enemies. I was the last to pass through the iron gate and, as I gave a final glance back upon that scene of hideous carnage, I saw through the gathering smoke, Josce sitting slumped on a stool in a dark corner, his kind, doleful eyes seemingly fixed on mine. I checked Ghost and was about to call to Robin to wait, when I saw that the old man’s stillness was unnatural and his beard and the whole front of his robe was drenched in black blood. I stared into his unseeing Jewish eyes for just a moment, and then turned back and guided Ghost down the steep wooden steps towards my fellow Christians.

  Our appearance caused the alarm to be sounded in the bailey and men-at-arms came running as we thudded quickly over the earthen causeway and down into the courtyard, Robin led our pathetic group with his chin lifted and, with his light brown hair, silver eyes and fine-wrought hauberk, he looked the very opposite of a besieged and beaten Jew, which was I expect his intention. I was at the rear of our group, watching the gathering troops and trying to show no fear. We were all armed, in direct contravention of Sir John’s orders, but Robin had told us that, if things got ugly, were all were to cut and run for the open gate of the bailey that led out towards the bridge over the Fosse, and beyond to Walmgate. And there was no way on this sinful earth that I was going to leave that Tower without my weapons. I was fully determined to fight and die, if necessary, to protect Ruth, who had still not spoken a word since her near-death last night at the hands of her father. I could not even look at Reuben.

  ‘I am the Earl of Locksley, and I wish to speak to your commander, Sir John Marshal,’ said Robin in his most haughty voice to the awed circle of men-at-arms on foot that had gathered around us in the centre of the bailey. The soldiery appeared to be unsure of what to do. Behind us the Tower was now visibly burning: flames licking greedily at the shattered wooden defences; black smoke pouring upwards to the heavens. We represented no serious threat to the men-at-arms, and we should surely be taken prisoner at the least, but Robin’s demeanour and noble bearing kept them at a respectful distance. Beyond the soldiers I could see townsmen, in russet tunics and hoods, appearing from the buildings around the perimeter of the bailey, rubbing sleep from their eyes, and then my heart sank. There was no sign of Sir John Marshal, the Sheriff of Yorkshire, charged with keeping the King’s peace in this county, but another knightly figure, tall and with a shock of white hair in the centre of his forehead, could be seen mounting a horse, drawing a sword and trotting over towards the knot of men around us. The townsmen followed him in growing numbers, swarming out from their holes like the vicious latrine rats they truly were.

  Sir Richard Malbête wasted no time: ‘What are you waiting for?’ he shouted to the men-at-arms while still twenty paces away. ‘Seize the Jews!’

  A man-at-arms tentatively put out a hand to take hold of Robin’s bridle, but my master pulled his horse’s head away. ‘Someone in the crowd shouted: ‘Kill the Jews!’ and the cry was taken up by many voices. And suddenly we were in the midst of a full-blown battle.

  ‘Make for the gate!’ yelled Robin, hauling out his sword and cutting savagely at the man-at-arms who was still trying to grab his horse’s reins. A man clutched at my leg and I shook the limb free and booted him in the face. I had my blades out by now as well; poniard in my left hand, sword in my right, tied reins over the pommel of my saddle. I slapped the flat of my blade on the rump of Ruth’s horse, it reared and dislodged a man-at-arms who was grappling around Ruth’s waist and trying to pull her down. The horses started forward, mercifully toward the gate, and I plunged forward after her, cracking my sword into the man’s mail-clad arm as Ghost shouldered past. There were soldiers running at me, left and right, and I hacked and kicked, and slashed at faces and limbs until momentarily I had a circle of space around me; but there were too many men-at-arms rushing in for that to last. A soldier unwisely came at me from behind. I gave Ghost the battle signal I had so patiently taught him and he lashed out behind him with both back hooves; with a terrific crack of bone the man went flying, his chest caved in. I cut down another man with sword and sank my poniard into another’s back, the fine strong Spanish steel easily punching through the links on his hauberk, as it had been designed to do. There was no sign of the Jewish couple and their baby, the only evidence that they had once lived was a knot of men-at-arms stabbing down again and again with their swords into a half-glimpsed mound of wriggling blood-soaked cloth. I looked away. Reuben, still horsed, was laying about him with his deadly scimitar, men staggering back from his blows with terrible gashes to face and head. Robin had already cut his way clear of the mêlée. He was halfway to the gate and I saw him look back. We had agreed that, if these circumstances arose, it was every man for himself, but he reined in, looking at Reuben who was still surrounded by soldiers and a group of townsmen flailing at him with scythes and rakes, screaming for his Jewish blood. Then Robin looked to his left, and I, too, saw what he was seeing. My lovely friend Ruth was being dragged from her horse by many grasping hands. I exchanged sword cuts with a man-at-arms who had run up to me and sent him tumbling away then looked back at Robin. He was nearer to Ruth than to Reuben, both of whom now desperately needed his help but - and I will remember these few moments for the rest of my life - he pulled hard at his reins, and wheeling his horse, he lifted his sword and charged back into the fray ... to Reuben’s rescue. I gave a great shout of rage, batted a townsman out of my way and put spurs to Ghost, forcing a way through the crush towards Ruth, chopping desperately about me as I urged my mount forward. But Ruth had disappeared into the press of the mob. I saw hands raised and the glint of steel in them and imagined I heard the dreadful chopping noise as the blades sliced into her sweet flesh.

  Suddenly I was in free space again, the nearest soldier ten paces away. I turned and saw that Reuben and Robin too had broken free of the crowd and were heading towards the open gate, I made to follow, but a man on horseback was coming at me from my right - it was Sir Richard Malbête. He smirked as he swung his sword at my head, and I blocked instinctively and twisting my wrist, turned the block into a blow, crashing the edge of the blade hard into his face. It was not a killing strike, but it contained the manic strength of a rage I had never felt before. There was a great gout of blood, a muffled cry and Sir Richard almost slipped from the saddle. But I had no time to turn Ghost and finish him. A score of men-at-arms in Malbête’s scarlet and sky blue surcoats was rushing towards me. With one last despairing glance at Ruth’s horse, which was standing alone with its head lowered, as if in mourning, I put my heels to Ghost’s ribs and galloped for the gate and freedom.

  I swear that if I had caught up with Robin by the gate to the bailey of York Castle, I would have killed him - or, at least, tried to. I was sobbing like a baby as I rode hell-for-leather through the gate, the image of Ruth slipping down into that sea of grasping hands and hate-filled faces. But I cuffed my tears away - this was not the time for weakness - and made it over the bridge on the river Foss, before turning right down the straight road towards Walmgate. Ahead of me, and far out of reach, Robin and Reuben galloped down the road, not bothering to pause at Walmgate but surging straight through, past a startled pair of men-at-arms and into the open countyside beyond.

  How could he have done it? I asked myself, again and again, how could Robin have made that decision. How could he have decided, when he came to that crossroads in the bailey, to save the life of a man, a very competent and deadly warrior at that, and choose to sacrifice the life of a young, sweet innocent girl. I knew why, of course, I knew in my heart why Robin had done it. Robin needed Reuben for whatever his money-grubbing scheme was; Reuben was his route to riches; the girl was valueless to him. But even though I
knew the reason; I still could not believe it. I had seen Robin do some terrible things in my time with him. He had condoned the ritual death of a human being to celebrate a rite for a foul pagan god, he had cut off a man’s arms and legs to inspire terror in a community, but this ... This was the deliberate sacrifice, murder, you might say, of a young girl, whose only crime had been to be a Jewess.

  When I caught up with Robin and Reuben, and we all slowed to a canter, I did not want to speak to either man. It seemed that neither of them was in much mood for conversation either. Reuben wept silently as we rode, and Robin, after checking that we were all unharmed - I had a shallow cut on my hand but no recollection as to who had inflicted it on me, Reuben had been stabbed in the calf muscle but seemed not to notice it - we rode back towards Kirkton in silence, our heads hanging in shame and grief, each sunk in his own melancholic thoughts.

  The next morning, after a cold, silent night under the stars, as we trotted along the road to Kirkton, that runs to the north and above the beautiful valley of Locksley, I heard the bells of our little church of St Nicholas ringing out, echoing across the peaceful rolling dale. And I realised it was Easter Sunday: the holiest day in the year.

  Part Two: Sicily and Cyprus

  Chapter Seven

  My daughter-in-law Marie is in love. She sings as she feeds the chickens outside in the courtyard, she gave me an extra spoonful of honey on my porridge this morning, and smoothed the thin grey hair off my forehead in a gesture of rare tenderness when she brought me my mug of warmed ale this evening before bed. Her eyes are bright, merry even, her cheeks slightly flushed, and she laughs for no reason; and occasionally she dances a few steps, swinging her skirts gaily, when she thinks nobody is looking.