He pointed a flowing pennon carried by one of the men-at-arms. It was by far the largest carried by the riders, and displayed the arms of their captain.
I strained my eyes to make out the detail. It showed a black hawk with folded wings against a white field topped with a red bar.
“I’ve seen that device before,” I said solemnly, “at Rouen. Those are the arm of the lord d’Inchy, a French nobleman. The folded wings are a symbol of bastardy. Their captain can only be d’Inchy’s half-brother, the Bastard of Thian.”
Herr Hartmann’s face was bleak. He knew of the Bastard’s reputation, as did every soldier in France.
“You must try and bluff it out,” he said, “they have no siege equipment, and his men will be none too eager to assault the walls. If the Bastard doesn’t know how few we are, he may turn around and ride off to look for easier meat. If...”
In a bid to make our numbers appear greater, I told the archers to spread out along the walkway.
“Let me fetch some helmets from the armoury, my lord,” suggested one, “we could balance them on top of our bowstaves, and prop the staves against the wall. From outside, the Frenchies will only see the helmets, and think we have twice the number of men.”
Herr Hartmann nodded in approval. “I’ve seen it done before,” he said, “at a siege in Hungary. The garrison were starving, and dropping like flies from the plague. They set up dummies on the wall. Helms on broomsticks. Anything to fool us, and ward off the final assault.”
“Did it work?” I asked eagerly.
The big German shook his fair head. “No. We stormed the castle in a single night and put the lot of them to the sword.”
Discouraged, I gazed out in despair at the enemy. The Bastard had formed his horsemen up into three neat companies, each two ranks deep. They waited, stock-still as if on parade, their pennons and streamers floating gently in the summer breeze.
The Bastard himself, a bulky figure in a suit of modish German-made armour, painted black and gold and richly decorated with elaborate patterns and devices, cantered forward to the gate. Behind him rode his standard bearer and three men-at-arms.
“He comes to parley,” whispered Herr Hartmann, “be ready to bluff him out.”
I readied myself, and looked over the parapet while the Bastard and his entourage halted, just inside bow-shot of the gatehouse.
“My lord,” the nearest of my archers hissed urgently, “let me a try a shot at him. I could fell him from here. Please, my lord! I have a good eye and a steady hand.”
I shook my head. The consequences if he missed were too dreadful to contemplate.
The Bastard raised his visor. I had never seen his face before, and it wasn’t a pretty sight: fleshy, empurpled and pop-eyed, with thick lips and a broken mess of a nose. He went clean-shaven, and put me in mind of a furious infant.
“Sir John Page,” he barked, “is that you I see on the wall?”
“It is,” I shouted back, “come no closer, bastard, unless you want an arrow for breakfast.”
He grinned. “I’ve already eaten, Sir John. Let us not chop words. Surrender your castle to me without a fight, and I promise to grant you and your men a swift death.”
His grin widened into gap-toothed snarl. “Swifter, at any rate, than if you choose to resist. I believe you were at Rouen, Sir John. You know me.”
I was briefly lost for a reply. The terrible memory of flayed Englishmen, dangled upside down over the walls of Rouen and shrieking in agony while the Bastard chortled over them and brandished his flaying knife, robbed me of words.
Herr Hartman’s steel elbow nudged me in the ribs. “Speak!” he hissed, “don’t let the schwein know you are frightened..”
I swallowed, and did my best to work up some defiance. “There are forty archers inside this castle!” I cried, “all of them veterans of Agincourt. We are well-stocked for a siege. You have no guns, bastard, no rams or siege towers. I suggest you run away and seek a few defenceless peasants to molest.”
The Bastard laughed - a fat, snorting noise, like a merry pig - and pointed to his left. “Forty archers, is it?” he grunted, “these men tell me otherwise. They say you have just a handful of followers, Sir John, barely enough to boil your porridge and wipe your backside in the morning. Do they lie?”
He gestured at a dozen or so ragged youths mounted on ponies. My blood ran cold when I recognised a couple of faces. I had seen them before, working in the fields outside my villages.
“Betrayed,” I growled, “by my own folk! I offered to protect them, and be a good lord to them, and this is how they repay my kindness.”
Herr Hartmann puffed out his cheeks. “I warned you,” he said, “they want no foreigner to rule over them. The old Baron may have been a bad man, but at least he was French.”
The treachery of the villagers took me between wind and water. I was struck dumb, and could summon up no more empty noises to hurl at the Bastard.
“Lost your tongue, Sir John?” he mocked, “tomorrow at dawn you shall be silenced forever. Say your prayers, and make peace with God.”
“One more thing,” he added cheerfully, “the helmets on sticks made me smile. They will make for a good story when I present your head in a basket to the Dauphin.”
With that he turned and rode back to his men, laughing as he went.
The Bastard had given us another twenty-four hours to live. That gave his men time to cut timber from the nearby forest, and use it to make crude scaling ladders.
They were soldiers, not labourers, and made the peasants who had betrayed me do most of the work. The boys needed little goading, and I was disgusted and angered to see more men come in from the villages to help.
Their treachery, as I saw it, cut deep. Had I not rescued them from an evil master, and done everything in my power to win their trust?
In fairness I was still young, and had many hard lessons to learn. I was part of an army that had invaded their country, trampled and destroyed their crops, murdered their kin, drowned their homes in fire and blood, and expected gratitude in return.
Herr Hartmann tried to explain. “Imagine your roles were reversed,” he said, “and you were an English peasant, asked to swear fealty to a new French overlord. Meantime, a few miles to the north, the King of France and his army are camped on English soil. You would be faced with a stark choice of submission or defiance. These men have chosen the latter. I salute them for it.”
“As you wish,” I spat, “I will hang them for it, when the time comes.”
I turned my mind towards the defence of Red Keep. We were outnumbered ten to one, but I was determined to go down fighting. The alternative was to surrender to the Bastard, and I didn’t believe his promises of a swift death for an instant. He would torture us to death, as he tortured his prisoners at Rouen, and draw out our agony for as long as possible.
Herr Hartmann and I sat in the hall and drew up a battle-plan. “If the Bastard has any sense,” said the German, using his finger to draw a rough outline of Red Keep in a puddle of wine, “he will attack from several points at once. We don’t have enough men to defend the length of the wall.”
“The ditch will stop them,” I said, “when it grows dark, we can fill it with caltrops.”
Herr Hartmann nodded. “That will hurt a few of them, at least. Many routiers are none too brave, especially when there is little plunder to be had. If we stop them in the ditch, they may fall back.”
He plucked at the bristles of his short yellow beard. “ The only part of the wall not defended by the ditch is the gatehouse. He could throw all his strength there.”
“I told Pepin to boil up as much porridge as he could, and keep it scalding hot,” I said with an evil grin, “if they try to storm the gate, we can pour the stuff down on their heads. Ralf and the archers are gathering rocks and loose masonry to drop through the murder-holes.”
“How many arrows do the archers have?”
“Twenty-four apiece. All our men are good sho
ts, and should thin out the Bastard’s numbers.”
Herr Hartmann stuck his finger in the centre of the puddle. “If the walls are overrun,” he said, “then we retreat to the tower and barricade the door. We should be safe in there, for a while.”
For a while. How long? Until we starved, or King Henry sent a relief force to save us? Both were unlikely. The Bastard would be reluctant to linger at Red Keep, wasting time and supplies in a lengthy siege.
Henry had greater things on his mind than the siege of one small castle. After spending two months at Rouen, repairing the defences and reorganising the government, he marched east on Paris.
His decision was triggered by the news that the Armagnacs, and their friend the Dauphin, had met the Duke of Burgundy at Corbielle. The meeting was all smiles and good fellowship, without a hint of treachery, and suddenly Henry was faced with the prospect of the French nobility united against him.
He reacted to the threat with typical speed and resolve. In July he took Pontoise, to the north-east of Paris, and prepared to lay siege to the capital. Even if I had managed to send word to the king, pleading for aid, he could have sent none. Every spare man was needed for the assault on Paris.
I knew that our army had marched down the highway from Rouen, just a few miles west of my lands. King Henry sent no order for me to join him, and may well have forgotten my existence. Kings have short memories, especially with regard to subjects they have no further use for.
That night, while our enemies feasted and caroused outside, I had cause to regret my decision not to rejoin the army. I might have taken my place among the King’s knights at Pontoise. Instead I was trapped inside Red Keep, wondering how best to spend my last few hours on earth.
Pepin, the fat little Gascon whose spirits were impossible to suppress, emptied his stores to provide the condemned men with a good dinner. My archers had recently shot and killed a fat buck in the woods, so there was no shortage of roast venison. There was only mead to wash it down, since we had finished off the last of the wine. Pepin made sure it was strong stuff, and after I had downed three cups of the thick, sickly sweet liquid I started to feel bullish, ready to take on the Bastard and all his villains single-handed.
“Let them come on the morrow,” I declared, “I’ll show them I am my father’s son.”
“A gold florin,” I added, rapping my sword on the table, “to the man who brings down the Bastard. Shoot him full of arrows, or cut off his ugly head. It makes no odds. Just kill him.”
My followers, who sat clustered at their table, greeted my offer with apathy.
“What need have I of gold florins in Heaven, my lord?” asked one of the bowmen. Jenkin was his name, I think. Or Jack. Remembering the names of commoners has never been my strong suit.
“You ain’t going to Heaven,” rasped his mate, “not unless the angels need someone to shovel the dung.”
There was a brief burst of laughter, and Jenkin or Jack responded by throwing a morsel of bread soaked in mead at his mate’s head. The other man snatched it out of the air and greedily swallowed it, smacking his lips in relish.
“You need not argue, lads,” I said, leaning back in my chair, “I haven’t got a gold florin anyway. Truth to tell, I only have enough money left to pay you for another fortnight.”
“Can we have the remainder now, my lord?” asked Ralf in his soft northern tones, “I owe fourpence to a tailor in Paris, and should hate to die in debt.”
More laughter. Their gallows humour gave me cause for hope, and I regretted the absence of Herr Hartmann. He had volunteered to take first watch on the gate, ready to sound the alarm in case our enemies attacked under cover of darkness.
Now that danger threatened, the German mercenary was all business, and disapproved of us getting drunk. I told him lightly that we had rather die in drink than despair, at which he shrugged his heavy shoulders and strode off to the gatehouse.
A thought struck me, and I scraped back my chair and staggered out of the hall, leaving the rest to finish off the mead and venison.
I weaved my way across the torch-lit courtyard, grinning foolishly at the silhouette of Herr Hartman on the walkway above the gate. He was huge in his black armour, mace in one hand, short sword in the other. I almost pitied the men who would shortly face him in battle.
His attention was fixed on the enemy, and he failed to notice me as I pushed open the door of the tower. I soft-footed inside and started to climb the stair. Strong drink does nothing for a man’s fitness, and I was labouring for breath by the time I reached the top. Below me, to the south, the scattered fires of the Bastard’s encampment glimmered like a field of stars. The sound of music and laughter drifted up from the field. They had a lute, along with pipes and drums.
I seethed with anger. My tenants were down there. They mingled with the enemy, gave them food and drink, laughed at their coarse jests.
“They shall hang,” I muttered, “every mother’s son.”
I untied the scarf about my neck. At least I could keep one of my vows before the end.
By now the scarf was a fairly tattered and greasy object. I hauled down the rope attached to the pole from which the Baron’s standard used to fly, and tied the ragged pennon around it. Then I winched the rope back up, so the remnant of Thomas Page’s ancient wolf banner fluttered in the chill night air.
“Your standard flies again, father,” I said, glancing up at the heavens, “as I promised it would. Though maybe not for very long.”
I looked north. Somewhere over the far horizon, across the sea, lay England. The land I would never see again. Almost eighteen months had passed since I left my cousin bleeding into the dirt at Kingshook and fled on his destrier.
My father had also fled from Kingshook on a stolen horse. We were born fugitives, forever scrambling from one bolt-hole to the next. He had failed in his bid to outrun fate, and ended his days in a cage, despised and dishonoured. What indignities would the Bastard of Thian heap on my corpse, once I lay dead at his feet? Would he impale my head on his lance as a trophy? Maybe he would copy the example of Herr Hartmann, and tie it to his saddle-bow.
I couldn’t afford to wallow in such dark thoughts. The men in the hall below looked to me, their lord, to set an example. If I gave way to fear, so might they.
More mead, I thought, might stiffen my courage. With a final salute to the wolf banner, I started back down the stair.
Shortly after midnight I took Herr Hartmann’s place on watch. I was very drunk, while the Bastard’s men showed no sign of going to sleep. Their campfires still burned, and the music and laughter was louder than ever.
There was an unrestrained, chaotic edge to the noise. Perhaps they also drowned their fears in alcohol.
“Do they mean to keep up that hellish din all night?” I muttered thickly, leaning against the parapet. The mead caused head to pound, almost in time to the drums in the Bastard’s camp.
“It’s a deliberate strategy,” said Herr Hartmann, “they want to intimidate us, and deprive us of rest. An old trick.”
“They won’t get any sleep either,” I pointed out.
He shrugged. “So? The Bastard has the advantage of numbers. I know his kind. I’ve served under captains like him before. He won’t waste too much concern on the welfare of his men. They may be exhausted in the morning, and we may kill a few before they overwhelm us. What is that to him? A few less mouths to feed, that’s all.”
The German left me, to warm himself by the fire in the hall and get something to eat. I wrapped myself up in a woollen cloak and watched the enemy for the best part of two hours, though it felt like eternity.
Slowly, slowly, the sands of time trickled away. Ralf was next on watch, and took my place while I staggered off, sleepless and frightened and still mazed with drink, to say my final prayers in the little chapel next to the hall.
I lay full length on the cold stone floor, and spread out my arms to form a crucifix with my body. The face of Christ, who writhed in agony on
a small wooden cross resting on the altar, stared down at me. Whether in sorrow or pity or anger, or all three, I cannot say.
For some time I prayed, mostly for forgiveness, the salvation of my soul and the souls of my followers. I hoped the cool touch of the stone would keep me awake, but sleep was irresistible.
The flagstones seemed to dissolve and fall away beneath me. I sank into the pit.
A mailed hand shook me awake. In the confusion of waking, I thought it was the Bastard’s hand, and yelled out in fear.
“Peace, my lord,” said Ralf, “all is well.”
His gentle voice was like a balm. He grasped my forearm and helped me stand.
Pale morning sunlight streamed through the narrow window above the altar. “The Bastard,” I whispered, “has he...God’s blood, get my sword!”
My throat was raw and dry, and my head roared as though the Devil’s drummers were at work inside it. Ralf obediently picked up my sword, which I had placed next to me on the floor, and pressed the hilt into my hand.
“There is something you should see, my lord,” he said.
He supported my weight as we left the chapel, as though I was an old man or an invalid. The hall beyond was empty, the fire burned down to a pile of ash in the hearth, and the benches and tables littered with the remains of last night’s meal.
I shrugged off Ralf before we stepped outside. My men, if they still lived, couldn’t see their lord in such a state. I paused a moment to gather up the tattered threads of my dignity, then strode out to meet the world.
All was quiet. The music had fallen silent, and the voices beyond the wall were stilled. An unearthly calm had settled over Red Keep.
My men, including Herr Hartmann and Pepin the cook, stood on the walkway of the southern wall. They broke the silence with a cheer when they saw me, and the archers waved their bows in the air.
Dumbfounded, I limped up the steps to the gatehouse and looked over the parapet.
Save for a few burned-out campfires, the field beyond was empty. The Bastard and his men had vanished - tents, horses, ladders and all.
The Wolf Cub Page 22