The Siege of Norwich Castle: A story of the last struggle against the Conqueror

by M. M. Blake

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  HOW OLIVER DIED.

  But there was little time for asking questions and making inquiries, orfor celebrating the exploits of heroes, Norman or Anglo-Dane.

  The morning light was creeping up the east, and the chirp and twitterof wakening sparrows was the signal for the battering-rams and pickersto commence their ominous clatter.

  The attack was made at several points simultaneously; and all thestrength of the garrison, weakened as it was by the losses of a monthof strife, was needed on the walls.

  From every loophole the archers and slingers aimed whizzing arrows andhurtling stones upon the columns of the assailants, and from betweenthe merlons great sacks of wool and horsehair were suspended to protectthe walls from the battering-rams, while huge logs of timber werehurled upon the pickers. Molten lead and boiling water was poured downupon the heads of the besiegers like a veritable hell-rain.

  But for all their efforts the assault made progress. In two distinctplaces the walls were so battered that horsemen could have riddenthrough the breach.

  The garrison did their best to throw up earthworks inside the brokenwalls, and fought valiantly to defend them, sallying forth at intervalswith the impetus of men who felt their case desperate.

  But the besiegers fought with fury also. They were weary of dallyingweek after week before the walls of a castle which was under thecommand of a woman, and were determined to get the mastery, if energyand valour could accomplish it.

  The countess, mounting the battlements of the keep one day, that shemight see for herself the working of the mighty engines which wereplied against her stronghold, had seen Earl William de Warrenne andRobert Malet standing together in one of the wooden towers alreadydescribed. As she bent forward to look below, a stone from a petronelstruck the wall not far beneath her, and the fragments and dust flewinto her face and upon the wall on which her hand had rested.

  Her noble adversaries, who were watching her, could not repress anexclamation of dismay at this; but Emma, without blenching, took herkerchief from her gipsire and nonchalantly dusted the walls with it.

  'You do well to fight a housewife with dust, fair sirs!' she cried,sending a mocking peal of silvery laughter to follow her words.

  Such taunts were not unheeded or forgiven. They helped to nerve theleaders who led the attack; and they were men who were accustomed tolead their men to victory. On this day the chequered shield of EarlWarrenne pressed forward as if it were possessed of magic powers, whichmade it proof against every blow, and wherever it went it had eagerfollowers; while young Robert Malet showed himself the worthy son ofhis great father. As for the Bishop of Coutances, he contented himselfwith blessing the column before it started, and reminding the soldiersthat the brother of the Countess Emma was an excommunicated man.

  Earl Warrenne strained every nerve to make the assault a success. Heled his men in person to the breach; and his strong voice dominated thetumult with trumpet tones, as he cried, 'Dex aie! For William theNorman!'

  'A Warrenne! a Warrenne!' responded his men, as they struggled forwardover the counter-scarp, under a pelting hail of arrows and javelinsfrom the battlements.

  A Warrenne! A Warrenne! For William the Norman!]

  Within the breach stood Leofric Ealdredsson, holding his greatdouble-edged axe in his hand, with his men arranged in a Saxon wedge,the front row kneeling, with shield touching shield, and a forest ofspears bristling out above them, like the spines of a porcupine. Theyanswered the Norman battle-cry with a wild shout that made the wallsring again, and echoed up the sides of the keep behind them, 'Ahoi!ahoi! A Guader! a Guader!' otherwise they were motionless as statues.

  Earl Warrenne had won experience of that formation at Hastings, and hewell knew how invulnerable it was, and how the terrible seaxes couldcrash through helm and hauberk. He knew how stratagem alone hadprevailed over it; how pretended flight had cheated the Saxons intopursuit, and how they had so foregone their advantage; and hedetermined to employ the same device again.

  So he leapt his horse in over the shattered wall, and his men-at-armsfollowed him, but spent their force in vain on the living rampartbefore them; more than one reeled with cleft helmet from the saddle,and Warrenne himself wavered and turned.

  Seeing their leader give way, the band broke and pressed tumultuouslyback over the temporary drawbridge thrown across the waterless moat fortheir use; and Leofric and his men sprang forward to pursue them.

  Then Warrenne turned again with a fierce rallying cry, and his knights,used to strict discipline, and instantly understanding his aim, turnedwith him, and, as at Hastings, the advantage was won. It was ahazardous experiment, but it had succeeded.

  Man to man the battleaxes and spearmen were no match for the mailed andmounted Normans. The struggle was bitter. Horses and knights, Normansand English, fell cursing and kicking from the bridge into the moat.But Earl Warrenne, with a bevy of knights at his heels, made their waythrough the breach, penetrating into the courtyard of the castle; whileLeofric lay senseless on the bridge, with his yellow curls danglingover the edge, streaked with crimson, and dripping red drops into thegulf below.

  So the king's men had made their way within the walls of Blauncheflour,after two months of strong endeavour; and the sight of Warrenne'schequered banner inside the defences they had held so manfully broughtterror into the hearts of the besieged. Their unnerved arms struckfeeble blows; and the king's knights rode them down, driving them tothe very stairway of the great entrance to the donjon keep.

  All at once, from above their heads came a clear voice like aclarion,--

  'St. Nicholas for Guader! A Guader! a Guader! Shall your lord comeback, and find his castle lost?'

  There, on the platform before the grand entrance, stood a white-robedfigure, with uplifted arms and a wildly shining face, which set thehalf-pagan Anglo-Danes thinking of Valkyries and Norns, and the Bretonsand Normans of angels and saints; but when they recognised the face ofEmma the countess, they shouted a mighty shout, and the blood came backinto their hearts with a great glow of determination, and they rushedonce more fiercely against their assailants.

  'I am here to see how bravely you maintain his cause in his absence!'cried Emma from the portal.

  Then the knights mixed in the wild _melee_ at her feet; while theking's archers shot their whizzing shafts from the wooden towers, andthe king's slingers hurled their leaden balls and stones, fighting themen who upheld the East Anglian banners on the walls. Whether or noevery arrow had its billet, as it is said every bullet has in moderndays, many an arrow flew far beyond the men at whom it was aimed, andwhistled down into the courtyard.

  As the besieged knights looked for inspiration to their belovedChatelaine, brimming over with the strong desire to distinguishthemselves before her eyes, they saw a cloth-yard shaft fly straight toher white figure, and strike the tender form they were burning toprotect, marring it with a crimson streak. A great howl of rage rose upagainst the sky, and the passion of vengeance nerved their arms withfurious force.

  They sprang at the foe, who had also seen the arrow strike its mark,and had paused a moment in chivalrous horror, and so were unprepared tomeet the onslaught. Thus the tide of battle turned once more, and EarlWarrenne and his followers were driven out through the breach by whichthey had entered.

  Then, when the knights of the garrison rode back in grievous haste tosatisfy their anxiety for their lord's bride, the countess still stoodbefore the portal, laughing, though the arrow stuck in her arm.

  'See!' she said, 'it is nothing! Only a flesh-wound. I have leeched ahundred worse.'

  The Normans and the Bretons and the Saxons all joined in tumultuouscheers, and vowed to save their countess and their castle if they diedto the last man.

  '_Merci!_ brave hearts!' cried the countess. 'That was well spoken!Holy Mary grant my lord may relieve us ere many days are past!'

  Then they entreated her to have her wound looked to; and she swept awayto the spital, and there had the arrow
cut out of her white arm, so allher wounded warriors might see; and the legend of her unflinchingcourage spread like wildfire through the garrison, and even into thecamp of the besiegers without.

  'By St. Michael!' cried Robert Malet, 'these rebels seem to have theknack of coining heroines. Thou and my father, Earl Warrenne, hadshrewd experience of Hereward's witch of a wife in the Fenlands byEly,--how she wound up the wild galliards her husband got to follow himwith her sorceries and incantations till they were at the point ofmadness! Sooth, methinks we have to deal with such another.'

  Then Leofric Ealdredsson, who had been carried into the camp, and laywithin earshot, raised himself up and swore mightily.

  'No witch was Torfrida,' he cried in anger, 'but as true and noble awoman as ever God made! So truly is De Guader's countess, Norman thoughshe be!'

  At which the king's captains laughed, and turned to Leofric.

  'Ay! thou wast one of that pestilent Hereward's most saucy upholders, Iwell remember; and now thou art leader in this hornet's nest also, Itrow!' said Earl William. 'Dost thou know the mark we are bid to set onall our prisoners in this affair, to the end that we may recognise themagain when we meet them?'

  'Do your worst, usurping cowards!' answered the furious Anglo-Dane.'When Sweyn Ulfsson follows De Guader home, and claims his own, anddrives the tanner's grandson from the throne he has stolen, he will put_his_ mark on _you_ in return, I warrant me!'

  Malet's face grew dark; for William himself and William's followersresented no insult so deeply as any allusion to the honest fell-mongerof Falaise.

  But Earl Warrenne was too wise to quarrel with a wounded man, and saidgood-humouredly,--

  ''Twould be a pity to lop a limb from so fine a warrior as thyself,noble Leofric. Perhaps some exception can be made in this case. We aretold that Sir Aimand de Sourdeval is detained in Blauncheflour againsthis will, and that he is faithful to the king. If that be so, anexchange might be effected.'

  Leofric, who did not relish the prospect of having his right foot hewedoff, courageous as he was, gasped for joy at this proposition. It meanteven more to him than escape from cripplehood for life; it meant thathe would regain entrance into Blauncheflour, and be near the faircousin who had become dear to his heart, and that his rival would beparted from her.

  'That is true,' he said eagerly. 'The knight is there, and has refusedto strike a blow against the king's troops.'

  Meanwhile the sun was sinking in the sky, and with night came partialcessation of hostilities. The besieged were holding council as to whatstep should next be taken, but the counsellors had dwindled in number.Sir Alain de Gourin was no longer there with his purple face andblatant ways, but he could be better spared than Leofric, and thanseveral others who had fallen during the month.

  'We cannot hold the walls another day,' said Sir Hoel sadly; 'there isnothing for it but to retire into the keep. It will take them some timeto dislodge us from thence; the masonry is solid as the earth.'

  'And time is all we need!' exclaimed the countess eagerly. She was verypale, and had her arm in bandages, but her eyes were bright with feverand determination, and she insisted on taking her part in thediscussion. 'My lord must soon be here.'

  'We may hold the keep for months,' said a knight.

  'Yes, if manna would fall from heaven,' suggested another jestingly;'else I fear we must needs eat each other ere many moons had waned.'

  'Gentlemen,' said Sir Hoel gravely, 'there is a means by which we mayincrease our supplies a shade less desperate than that.'

  The countess turned to him with anxious curiosity. Sir Hoelcontinued,--

  'We cannot stable all our horses in the keep, some must be sacrificed;better we kill them with our own good swords, and salt their flesh,than let the king's men have them. Horse-flesh may not be palatable,but at least it would be better fare than picking each other's bones.Relief may come before we need fall back on such provender. Still, itwill be there.'

  A sick shudder of horror passed through Emma's heart. Was famine indeedso near?

  The faces of the knights grew serious. No man stood forward to profferhis own steed for the sacrifice. More than one gave evidence, bytrembling lip and quickened breathing, of the hardness of the trial.For those mailed warriors were a centaur race. Their steeds were almosta part of themselves. Their lives were constantly hanging on thequalities of their mounts. A hard mouth or a nervous temper might bringthem their death any day, and docility and nimble limbs be theirsafeguard. The horse became a trusted friend, and a champion's destrierwas often as celebrated as himself.

  The countess's lip trembled also, and her cheeks grew even paler thanbefore, while her heart throbbed in cruel doubt.

  For was not Oliver, the earl's noble Spanish warhorse, in the castle?Had she not visited him morning and night, and seen with her own eyesthat he had his due ration of corn, and that his satin skin was sleekas grooming could make it? Had she not patted his splendid neck mornand night, and plaited his thick mane, and had his velvet nose thrustinto her soft palms for an apple or a wastel cake? She knew how theearl loved the creature, and had misliked leaving him behind, and sheherself loved him both for his master's sake and for his own. He seemedto her half human as she thought of his intelligent eyes, and theclear, soft neigh, musical as the whistle of a blackbird, with which hewas wont to greet her, and a sob caught her breath as she thought ofcondemning him to death. She knew also that he was worth his weight ingold.

  Yet to sacrifice him seemed to her a clear duty, as she looked roundthe circle of reluctant men about her. They would never ask it, sheknew. Some few horses would be kept, and the earl's destrier amongstthem, as a matter of course; but she remembered how she had heard ittold of William the Conqueror, that when, on his march on Chester, hismen, weary with labour and cold, begged him to let them go back, hedismounted and went afoot to encourage them, and shared all theirhardships. Was her lord a less generous knight than William? A thousandtimes no! If he were in Blauncheflour, he would be the first to leadthe sacrifice. As he was absent, she must do it for him. These thoughtsflashed through her mind in a moment, though they are long to write.

  'Thou art right, Sir Hoel,' she said in a steady voice. ''Tis likekilling a child for a knight to kill his steed, I well understand. Yetit is but wisdom as we are circumstanced, and I make no doubt if mylord were here, he would be the first to make the sacrifice. ThereforeI beg thee, dear Sir Hoel,'--she laid her left hand on his arm, andwould have put the other with it, had it not been stiffened withbandages, and looked into his face with her clear, brave eyes, verypathetic now, with heavy rings of blue round them, and thin, wan cheeksbeneath,--'I beg thee, dear Sir Hoel, despatch my lord's destrier withthine own blade, and see that he suffer no needless pain.'

  A chorus of protests burst from the knights; not a man but offered hissteed to save Oliver; but the countess said hastily, 'Attend to mybehest, I pray thee, Sir Hoel!' and hurried from the room.

  She went to her bower, where Eadgyth was awaiting her. She had nottrusted any of her ladies to attend her in her council-chamber, lesttheir courage should give way, and so weaken her influence over theknights. Now, when she met Eadgyth's look of tender inquiry, and felther caressing arms round her, she was overcome herself. She dropped herpoor weary head on Eadgyth's shoulder and wept--wept as she had neverdone in her life before--no, not even in the chapel through that longsad night when she believed herself a widow; for her fresh youngstrength was in its prime then, and now she was weakened physically bythe strain of continued anxiety and the acute pain of her wounded arm.

  The storm of sobs was so long and violent, that Eadgyth, who hadscarcely ever seen her cry, was sore afraid. She dreaded that some felldisaster had befallen.

  But she was a good comforter; she did not tease with questions, sheonly pressed her friend fondly to her, and kissed and caressed her tillshe grew calmer.

  'Oh, Eadgyth,' said the countess at length, 'they are going to kill thehorses, and Ralph's destrier must die. The dear Oliver!' />
  To Eadgyth this reason for such excessive grief seemed almost absurd,and her blue eyes opened widely.

  'Oh, I am a poor weak fool!' said Emma, drawing away, 'to break down soutterly. But my arm aches shrewdly, Eadgyth, and I am not used topain.'

  She threw herself upon the embroidered bed, tears rolling silently downher cheeks.

  'Poor sweet!' said Eadgyth. 'I do not marvel that even thy wonderfulspirit should yield to nature. This day has been fearful indeed.'

  'Why does not Ralph come? Why does he not come?' exclaimed Emma,covering her face with her slender hands, which had grown so thin thatshe could scarce keep on her wedding ring. 'My heart is full of fears,Eadgyth. I dreamt of him last night, ill and sorrowful, tossing on abed of fever. He was ill when he went away, his wounds half-healed. Itis all doubt and dread--and horror!'

  'Ah, Christ have mercy upon us!' said Eadgyth, who was kneeling besidethe bed.

  'I dare not ask for mercy,' said Emma piteously. 'I am fighting in awrong cause! Thy Sir Aimand said it. I have brought all this woe andsuffering on the man who loved me, and on those who love him and followhim, like leal knights and true!'

  'Oh, do not torment yourself with such thoughts, sweet heart! Surely itwas no wrong cause to strive with the oppressor of this wretchedland,--he whose minions were killing the heart out of his victims withevery species of wrong and outrage!'

  The tears were running swiftly enough down Eadgyth's cheeks now.

  'Alas!' said Emma, 'I fear we thought less of that than of our ownrevenge and ambition.'

  'But how couldst thou have helped it?'

  'I might have helped it. I might have refused to marry against theking's command, and gone into a convent, and then the bride-ale wouldnever have been, nor its direful following.'

  'Perchance it had been better,' said Eadgyth thoughtfully.

  'No, it would not have been better!' cried Emma, starting up, impatientat Eadgyth's acquiescence; she had given her scruples voice that theymight be combated, not confirmed. 'I would go through it all again andmore to be Ralph's wife, and I am a contemptible coward, a _noding_, tobe puling here because my roses are not thornless, when I might behelping to keep my hero's castle for him!'

  She sprang from the bed, and insisted on going to the spital to leechthe day's wounded, though Eadgyth told her that she needed leeching farmore sorely herself.

  Yet in all her self-abandonment she had spared Eadgyth, and had nottold her that they were to be imprisoned in the keep from that dayforth, nor that her cousin Leofric Ealdredsson was dead or in the handsof the enemy.