"A moi!" Rannulf called desperately.
If they opened the gates to save the guards, perhaps he and his men could force an entrance. For him to do so alone with only John beside him was suicide, but ten or twenty men might be able to hold off the defenders long enough to reopen the portals and let still more men in. It was a desperate chance and would necessitate a complete change in plans without opportunity to tell his men of the change, but it was worth trying.
"Go back," he said, his eyes straining ahead. "Bid the men be silent and come quickly."
The form beside him vanished, and Rannulf moved forward slowly, trying to step on planks that would not groan and betray his presence. The running stopped; Rannulf could hear the men pounding on the gates, calling for admittance. Knowing he was mad but unable to resist, he ran too, biting at the leather strap of his shield. Perhaps he could cast it under the gate and delay the closing. The pounding and voices were closer now. Perhaps they would not open the gates and would sacrifice the few men to caution.
Like a threefold sign from heaven, the strap on Rannulf's shield gave way, the grating of bars being lifted came to his ears, and below him the sound of fighting drifted from the bank, men calling that boats were coming ashore. Trembling with eagerness, Rannulf slowed his stride. He must not come upon them before the gates were opened. He tried not to breathe, fearing that he would miss the sound of the hinges. They would open barely enough for a man to slip through. Rannulf knew that his one chance would be to kill or stun the last man to enter, hoping the body would block the gate, add his shield to the body, leap through himself, and attack those who tried to move the corpse.
He loosened the shield still more and it sagged, the handgrip pressing painfully into his palm. Praise God! That blackness in the gray must be the gates, and there were the clustered shadows of the waiting men. A step; they had not turned, had not heard him. Rannulf raised his sword, moved to the left because they were opening the right gate. Now!
The forward leap gave impetus to his downward stroke. The blade bit true. Rannulf thrust his victim forward, cast his shield down atop the man, and leapt onto the body. The defenders would need to kill him as well as drag the corpse away before the gates would shut.
Time had no meaning; sound had no meaning; numbers had no meaning. Half-shielded, half-hampered by the oak walls on either side of him, Rannulf cried out for help and fought.
Beneath his feet the body moved and the gate, drawn by many willing hands pulling on the great iron rings, thrust against his right shoulder. Irresistibly, Rannulf tipped forward, knew he was falling, knew he would die if he fell.
An anguished grunt was torn from Rannulf's lungs, then another, and another. He tried to call out, but his voice was choked with laughter. His vassals, leaping through the breach to keep the gates open and to protect him, were treading on him. No doubt they were treading on him as lightly as possible, but treading on him they were, and they were no featherweights. Five, perhaps six, had passed and formed a shield wall behind which the others could press forward after the bodies blocking the path had been removed.
"Let me up," Rannulf gasped, for one man stood astride him so that no enemy could suddenly seize his body if the shield wall broke.
The young voice, no longer disguised and therefore instantly recognizable, tremulous with relief, cried out, "He is alive!" And then, "Papa, are you hurt?"
Rannulf leapt to his feet, more invigorated by rage than he could have been by a clear victory. "What do you here?" he roared, but the desperate battle taking place in front of him brought the realization that if he stopped for explanations they might well all be dead before he received them. He had never lost his grip on his sword, for his sword hand would never open while he lived once it clutched the hilt of his weapon, but his shield was gone and there was no moment in which to seek it.
Men pressed in behind him as grappling hooks gradually pulled the gate wider in spite of the efforts of the defenders to draw it shut.
"A shield," he called, and a small, round footman's shield was thrust into his hands. "Just wait," he growled at Geoffrey as he pushed to the front of the battling men, "if we come alive from this melee, I will make you sorry you did not die in it."
Time flowed again, brief and interminable, endless and too short. Rannulf lost count of the strokes, of the men who fell and those who replaced them. He had one fixed determination, that the gates must remain open until they could be destroyed or the defenders of them subdued.
Now the care with which he had laid his plans the previous night was working against him. Fearing that Stephen would recall his men or alter his dispositions in one of his moods of vacillation, Rannulf had ordered the leaders of his forces to accept orders from none but John or himself. Where John was, he could not imagine, so his only hope was to break free of the fighting group himself.
In that way alone could he arrange that horses be brought forward to mount the knights now fighting afoot and hampered by their heavy gear and order the foot soldiers held in reserve to do the work the knights were now doing. Northampton's vassals could be called into action also, and with that weight of men, perhaps they could fight their way from between the towers, which would become a death trap as soon as the mist lifted sufficiently for the archers to regain some accuracy.
Rannulf's duty was clear, but it was not easy to force himself to do it. The lust of battle was upon him, and to drag himself, unwearied and unsated, from the field was bitterly hard. He was not mentally adjusted to such a thing; there had always been John to send before. Moreover, the men who held that narrow space were his own vassals and his own household guard. They were accustomed to following him and if he broke away they might do so also, not through fear but through the habit of doing blindly as he did. Sir John de Vere, chief of his vassals, was far to his left defending the other gate. The only other man whom the vassals would follow was Geoffrey, who held John of Northampton's place and was fighting well. Could he leave Geoffrey alone to face the swelling forces that opposed them?
The fog was a curse and a salvation at once. Had it not obscured all, Rannulf's forces would have done as he desired automatically, seeing that the gates had been forced.
Still, without the fog, they could never have been forced so easily and the few men who passed them would have been readily picked off by the archers above. Furiously, Rannulf used the point of metal which protruded from the center of the footman's shield to thrust away one attacker as he slashed at another. Any moment now the sound of battle and the horn blasts from the towers would call forth the horsemen of Wallingford. If his own men were not mounted, they would be ridden down. As if to add point to that fear, a vassal to Rannulf's right uttered a choking cry and fell back with a feathered shaft protruding from his shoulder.
There was no longer time to yield to impulses of fear or desire. Geoffrey had thrust himself where he did not belong and now must bear the consequences. A quick glance showed that far more of the towers were visible, clearly visible. The mist was lifting. Rannulf jerked himself back and thrust Geoffrey forward.
"Hold the men to their work," he cried, "I must call up the full battle and find us mounts." Then, bellowing at the top of his lungs, "Follow Geoffrey of Sleaford."
"Je combattrais! Je combattrais!" The young voice called the rallying cry above the clangor and cries of battle, and the men drew together and moved forward a step as if to prove they understood.
As Rannulf backed, someone pushed past to fill the space he had left, and Rannulf recognized Andre. "Guard him," he gasped.
"With my life," Fortesque replied shortly.
Perhaps the forces Rannulf gathered could have been arranged better; perhaps his instructions to the men could have been clearer. Driven by so violent a craving to return to the field of battle that he could barely think, Rannulf did not care.
Mounted and leading a horse for Geoffrey, with his own reserve troops bringing mounts for the other knights, he galloped back without waiting for Stephe
n's or Northampton's men. He had sent a message to both saying the gates were breached. Let them come or not as they pleased.
"My lord!" The voice was desperate and Rannulf pulled up a bit. "My lord, why did you desert me?" John was nearly in tears between his fear and his hurt pride. "I have been seeking you high and low. I rode back to give orders to the men as you bade me, and when I returned, you were gone."
Rannulf signaled him alongside, laughing grimly. "I thought you were beside me. That devil's spawn that I thought before to have been an obedient son took your place. God knows where he came by such willfulness. It comes not from me, and I would not have dreamed that the pale nothing who was his mother had such blood in her. Pray God he still lives. I will teach him so to diddle me."
"I thought it was by your order," John gasped. "He came late to your tent last night and said he would ride with us. I never guessed—"
His sentence was broken off as they almost rode into the wain carrying the battering ram, the men with it patiently waiting for the order to attack the gates which had never come. Ahead through the steadily thinning fog, the bridge was vaguely discernible.
"Follow the troop," Rannulf ordered. "The gates are open, but you will be of more use to us in forcing the tower doors."
Swift as he had been, Rannulf found that he had nearly been away too long. His men had been forced back and broken into two groups, but the main objective had not yet been lost. The gates still stood wide. Before each of them, backed against the oak, bloody and exhausted, the vassals and household retainers fought on. Mute but eloquent testimony to their grim devotion were the dead and wounded that lay between the spot where Rannulf had left them and where they now stood.
"Mount Geoffrey and see that he comes to no hurt," Rannulf cried. He did not permit himself to look for his son, merely passed the reins of the riderless horse to John and spurred his own horse forward. His battle cry rang out, harsh and compelling, promising rest and protection—a breathing space in battle—for those who had so faithfully obeyed him.
Swift redemption of the promise came in the thunder of hooves across the bridge as the second group of vassals rode to support their lord. Those who could of the .initial group would fight again when they were rested and mounted; Rannulf alone could not withdraw until a man of sufficient rank came to replace him.
It was a long, bloody day. The defenders of Wallingford bridge, no less than those who attacked them, understood what was at stake. Their devotion and courage were phenomenal, and even Rannulf's lust for blood was more than sated before the towers fell.
His memory of the battle was strangely rhythmical, the strokes of his sword seeming tied in some mysterious way to the strokes of the battering ram. Those dull thuds, a beat spelling out inevitable doom, were no lightener of the spirit, even to him who had begun their relentless movement. And when the splintered wood of the tower doors was torn from the hinges, the rhythm of death did not cease. The archers would not yield; they threw down their crossbows and fought Rannulf's men step by step, a body for every step of those bastions of safety, which had become bloody sepulchers.
Few prisoners were taken; the defenders fought back and died. Nor did the fall of the towers break the courage of the men of Wallingford keep. Again and again they poured forth from the castle itself, at times pushing Rannulf's weary troops back to the very gates, at times being themselves driven to take refuge within their own walls. Again and again the earl of Soke rallied his forces, becoming, as the battle progressed, so covered with his own blood and that of others that, except for his harsh voice, no man would have known him.
The light was failing in the faint mist that had persisted throughout the day when the knights of Wallingford keep rode out for the last time. Now even Rannulf's voice was gone and he was reeling in the saddle from fatigue and loss of blood. Northampton's men had come and had fought ably for Rannulf, knowing their lord could not lead them. Had they not, the bridge and the strip of land before it could not have been held.
Warwick, de Tracy, and Peverel had done and were doing what they had promised also. Stephen alone had not appeared to relieve his hard-pressed vassal. Nonetheless Rannulf formed his battle line, riding up and down before it so that the men might see that he was still leading, still fighting, even if he could not cry out to encourage them any longer.
"Out swords," he croaked. "We will not yield what we have won so hardly."
They formed, exhausted but determined, knowing the men of Wallingford were as weary as they were, knowing it was the last charge. If they could hold the position until the light failed, fresh troops would carry the burden the next day and there would be no need to take the bridge again. They formed and they would have fought, but when the sounds and cries of Stephen, at last at the head of his own troops, came across the bridge, some unashamedly wept with relief.
Rannulf was too weary even for that. He let his sword arm drop and bent limply over the saddle bow. Consciousness receded as the will relaxed, making the sound of battle no more than a nightmare noise in the back of the mind. Consciousness did not recede far enough; not blackness but terror engulfed him. Not once since he had thrust him forward to lead the men, not once in that long day, had Rannulf seen his son or heard his voice. Consciousness returned; Rannulf could not even faint or die until he knew what had happened to his child.
"Where is the earl?"
Slowly Rannulf lifted himself upright, squared his shoulders, and forced his face into rigid blankness. "Here," he whispered hoarsely.
He could barely make out the man under the coating of mud and blood, but he knew the voice. "Geoffrey is with John of Northampton. He is very badly hurt. Can you come, my lord?"
In the pause that followed Andre Fortesque staggered, and Rannulf reached across his left thigh, from which blood dripped slowly, to steady the young man. "Take my stirrup," he said as firmly as his cracked voice allowed, "and lead on."
They went very slowly, Andre barely managing to put one foot before the other. Still at one moment it seemed too fast, far too fast, and in the next Rannulf felt as if he would set spurs to his horse and ride Andre down to end his agony of suspense. It was nearly dark now, and the two young men were in the shadow of the gate, one slight figure stretched on the planks, the other leaning against the oak for support.
Thus it was in such a land, in a place where men endlessly tore each other to bits, that the old outlived the young. The drooping head of the standing man, unhelmed and with the mail hood thrust back, lifted at the sound of their advance. Rannulf's hand trembled so violently that the reins quivered on his stallion's neck and the beast laid back his ears uncertainly. Surely under the matting of dirt and sweat, surely that hair was Geoffrey's gold, not John's black. Rannulf tried to swing from his saddle, but his injured leg failed and he fell heavily, Andre, on the right of his horse, unable to help him.
"Papa!"
"Naught ails me but a little bloodletting and a hurt leg. Give me your arm that I may come to John. Does he live?"
"Aye, and I have staunched the blood as well as may be. But he does not wake, and I fear …"
Rannulf sank down beside his squire, his breathing as labored as that of the ashen-faced young man. Hardened in war, he still winced at the blood-soaked rags that stopped gaping wounds in side and shoulder. It was one thing to deal such hurts to your enemies, another to look upon them on a young man almost as dear as your own child.
Hope, however, there was. John's breathing was strong and Rannulf found his pulse readily.
"Andre." No response but a soft groan. "Andre!" Rannulf called more peremptorily.
Fortesque made an effort to heave himself off the ground and collapsed again.
"Let him be," Geoffrey begged softly. "He saved us both. My horse was broached and John leapt down to give me his. In that moment he was struck and a crowd of footmen drove the beast away. I stood above him as long as I might, but they were very many and I went down too. I was not hurt, papa. I believe someone struck me
on the head. When I came to myself, Fortesque had pulled us both to the tower wall—how I know not for there was not another man of ours in my sight. From the dead around us, he must have held off an army. They must have seen your arms, papa, and thought I was you."
Or known they could make me dance like a puppet on a string for my son's life, Rannulf thought, but of that he would not speak. "Mount my horse, Geoffrey, and bring help for John. And put on your hood and helm! Have you no sense at all? There are still arrows flying about and a man here and there who can wield a sword. A head with an ache is better to bear than a head with a hole in it."
In the distance the battle noise reached a new crescendo and Rannulf briefly lifted his head to listen. Cries of "no quarter" drifted back faintly. No quarter for whom? Had Stephen lost what had cost him so much to win? Rannulf's eyes, half-blinded with tears he would not shed, dropped to John's still form. He had taken the bridge for Stephen; he had fulfilled his pledge and he would do no more.
Shocked by the thought, Rannulf's hand instinctively moved to his sword hilt, then dropped away. It made little difference since, crippled as he was, he could not return to the fighting. He looked at his left leg, wondering how badly he was hurt. It had stopped bleeding again, but it felt strangely dead and would not bear his weight. Well, it was his own fault. He had been in too much haste to take a proper shield or even to tear one from an enemy and had used that cursed footman's bauble which could not protect his leg. Now he would be rightly served if . . . A low moan cut across his thoughts. Rannulf bent low as John's eyes fluttered open.
"It is all finished, John," he said very firmly. "There is no call to arms. The battle is done. We hold the gates. Geoffrey is safe and I am safe. Your charge is well fulfilled. Now it is time for all to rest."
Whether or not John understood the words was impossible to say. The face of his master and the voice of authority was enough. He closed his eyes again and made no move until Geoffrey returned with the men and litters—two litters. Rannulf scowled.
The Sword and The Swan Page 26
