Pagan's Daughter

by Catherine Jinks

  I have to admit, I’m worried about Maura. The flux can be deadly. It killed the last King of France. It killed the last Viscount of Carcassonne. Sieges always bring it on, fast and furious: why should this siege be any different? Half the time, it’s not the fighting or the lack of water that ends a siege. It’s disease among the defenders.

  I’m surprised that the French haven’t been hurling dead animals over the walls.

  ‘No, no!’

  Hell’s cloven hoofs. What on earth was that? It came from the bailey; what’s happening out there? The growling doesn’t sound frightened, it sounds exultant. And there’s movement in the Great Hall—scraping benches and thudding footsteps—as if everyone in it is heading outside.

  Yes, I thought so. The Great Hall is empty. There’s nothing but overturned stools and slimy rushes and greasy tables and a month’s worth of scraps: bones and rinds and fruit-stones and nutshells, with a lone rat in the midst of the bounty, perched on someone’s discarded helmet.

  Over it all, the arched ribs of the vaulted ceiling— studded with their fine carvings of harps and vines— look impossibly pure and delicate.

  ‘God’s death!’ That’s Pons. Pons de Villeneuve, framed in the doorway, dark against the sun. But as he enters the Great Hall, it becomes clear that he’s wounded. He’s holding his wrist and grimacing. His surcoat is smeared with blood.

  ‘My lord?’ Oh no! ‘What happened?’

  ‘What happened?’ He lurches to the nearest table. ‘We lured ’em in, that’s what happened. Ambushed ’em near the barbican.’

  ‘Your arm . . .’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ He picks up an empty jug with his good hand, and shakes it. ‘Any wine?’

  ‘You should dress that. My lord? It’s bleeding.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ He laughs wildly. ‘You should see what I did to him!’

  To him? ‘To whom?’

  ‘Go and look,’ he says hoarsely, nodding at the door. Through it, I can make out milling bodies wrapped in a pall of dust. There are sticks waving and swinging; screams and curses; cries of triumph.

  The sun hits my scalp like a hammer, and pierces my eyeballs like a knife. Whoops! Watch yourself, Babylonne, or you’ll take a tumble down those stairs into the bailey. The dust is making me cough. And what’s going on out here? What’s all the excitement? Why all the cheers?

  Oh.

  Sweet mercy of Christ.

  ‘Mon Dieu ...’

  It’s a Frenchman. A captured Frenchman. He’s on his knees, his hands lifted in supplication. He can hardly speak through the blood trickling from his swollen lips. Most of his clothes have been torn from his body.

  And there’s another one, dead on the ground with his throat cut. And another. Stripped. Groggy. His face pouring blood. Someone kicks him in the head, so that he topples over and lies there, his hands waving feebly. Someone else dances around, waving his bloody surcoat in the air like a flag.

  That Frenchman is only a boy. He can’t be any older than I am.

  He’s crying.

  ‘Let’s cut out your eyes, and see how you like it!’ cries a beast in human form, who can’t be serious—oh no, no!

  ‘Stop!’ What are you doing? ‘You can’t! Wait! My lord!’ (Thank God! Here comes Olivier!) ‘My lord, help, please!’

  Olivier is striding across the bailey towards us. He can’t have taken part in this ambush, because he’s not wearing his chain mail—just his hacqueton, loosely tied under his sword-belt. All his clothes are too big for him, now; he’s been whittled away to almost nothing, and his eyes are looking huge in his small, sallow face.

  Vasco and Guillaume de Minerve are in attendance, hurrying to keep up with him. They’re both blinking with fatigue.

  ‘Where’s Pons?’ Olivier demands sharply, scanning the turmoil in front of the keep.

  ‘In there, my lord!’ I have to raise my voice over all the commotion; when he spots me, Oliver frowns. ‘Lord Pons is in the Great Hall, my lord, he’s wounded.’

  ‘Badly?’

  ‘I—I don’t think so.’ Not like these Frenchmen. In the name of all that’s holy, can’t you see what’s going on? Can’t you hear the pleading? How can you just stand there? ‘Please, my lord—this is not . . . not . . .’

  Not what? Not fair? Not human? Of course the French must pay for their crimes—they are wicked and cruel—but surely we’re better than they are? The French cut out people’s eyes; they’re famous for it. We’re not like them, though. Are we?

  Unless they deserve it. Perhaps they do. Perhaps I’m being weak. Female. I can’t seem to think clearly any more.

  ‘Silence!’ Olivier thunders. And of course everyone obeys, because he’s held in such respect. Everyone obeys except the French, who are still whimpering and moaning. They probably don’t even understand.

  You can almost see the dust settling as all move-ment stops.

  Olivier coughs to clear his throat. He surveys the scene before him: the filthy, panting footsoldiers with their dangling sickles and mattocks; the boots and swords and knitted garments that have passed from hand to hand; the naked corpse in the pool of drying blood; the sobbing boy with his hands wrapped around his head . . .

  ‘These are the captives?’ Olivier asks.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ someone pipes up. ‘God rot them, my lord, they came and—’

  Olivier lifts a hand for silence. ‘No other casualties?’ he inquires.

  ‘No, my lord.’

  ‘But Pons was hurt?’

  ‘In the arm, my lord.’

  A brief silence. Olivier runs his fingers through his lank, brown hair. He looks exhausted.

  ‘All right,’ he says at last. ‘We’ll hang these two from the walls. I want the French to see them kicking.’

  A growl of approval.

  ‘As for the dead one . . .’ Olivier turns to Vasco. ‘Bring an axe. We’ll chop him up and put the pieces in the mangonel. Send him back bit by bit.’

  A savage roar greets this command. The Frenchmen suddenly disappear behind a rush of bodies. A cry of alarm is cut short by a thump.

  Those churls are actually fighting. Fighting over who gets the spoils, and who has the honour of dragging the prisoners up to the ramparts.

  I can’t believe it. I thought . . . I was hoping . . .

  I don’t know.

  ‘Well?’ It’s Olivier. He’s standing there, on the stair below mine. Hands on hips.

  Oh! I’m blocking his path.

  ‘Well?’ he repeats impatiently. ‘What is it?’

  What should I say? What’s the right question? I must look like a stranded fish.

  But as he begins to brush past me, the words suddenly spew from my mouth like blood from a fatal wound.

  ‘Is this because of Loup?’

  He stops. His bleak gaze fixes on me, dark and unyielding. ‘What?’ he says.

  ‘This . . . butchery.’ (There’s no other way of describing it.) ‘Is this for Loup’s sake?’

  He narrows his eyes intently, as if he’s seeing me for the first time. He seems interested in something, but it’s not my question. My question is dismissed with a careless shrug.

  ‘This isn’t Loup,’ he says. ‘This is war.’

  And that’s that. No more discussion; he doesn’t have time. Instead he disappears into the keep, moving briskly—and I might as well follow, for all that the keep is a noisome cesspit.

  I can’t stay here.

  If I don’t leave now, I might see Vasco return with the axe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl whose father died. On his deathbed, her father begged his dearest friend to care for the girl, who had no one except a cruel aunt in her life. So the friend, who was a good and gentle man, took the girl into his house, and gave her nice clothes, and tasty food, and a room of her own. And he taught her to read and write, and to look after his books, and she became his very own daughter.

  CRA-A-ASH!

&nb
sp; Oh God. God help us. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name—

  ‘Here! Over here!’ Someone needs my rock. He’s gesturing wildly, coughing and pointing, but I can hardly see him through all the dust. Where am I supposed to take this? Where do they need it—in the breach? Over there? Or do they want it for ammunition?

  The fighting on the walls is getting desperate. The French must have thrown up ladders, and I still don’t know what’s going on: we seem to be holding the breach that they made in the battlements, but have they got through elsewhere yet? Have they struck another weak point, knowing that we’re busy trying to mend that huge rent?

  There are so many weak points. So many gaps in our defences, because of all the ill and injured. And now this hole—this great, yawning wound on the ramparts . . . CRA-A-ASH!

  That shot was fired wide, thank God. Most of their shots seem to be aimed at the breach, now, but that one hit the wall of the keep. Bounced straight off.

  Luckily.

  Someone snatches the rock from my hands, and it’s passed to the next man in the chain, which winds its way across the bailey into the western tower and up the stairs. All the stone that fell when the breach was made—all that stone has to be returned to the ramparts, so the breach can be mended. Before the French overwhelm us.

  Please God, don’t let it happen. They’ll be so angry. They’ll cut us to pieces.

  No. I won’t think about that. Be strong, Babylonne.

  Be brave. This is only a siege. You’ve been in sieges before.

  Thud!

  ‘No!’ Oh God. He fell. He fell from the ramparts. Oh God, I can’t look!

  He’s dead, though—whoever he is, he must be dead. I can’t take him inside, either, because he’s too big for me to carry alone. Anyway, why bother? What would be the point? He’s dead, after all. And I have to do something useful. I have to . . . what? Get more stone? Yes. Get more stone. They need more stone, up there.

  Someone else can take care of the wounded.

  ‘You! Girl!’

  Who, me?

  ‘Bring water!’ It’s Lord Pagan. He’s already left me behind, his voice drifting over his shoulder as he runs heavily across the bailey towards the eastern wall. Ever since the breach was made, he’s been back and forth from fight to fight, covering every sudden attack or point of weakness, holding our defences together. ‘Get water! Wine! Anything to drink!’

  Water. Wine. Yes. I can do that. The men are labouring hard in the hot sun; they’ll pass out, if they get too thirsty. But there’s precious little wine left, as far as I can tell. It will have to be water.

  The well’s closer, anyway. Closer than the wine-cellar in the keep.

  CRA-A-ASH!

  A shower of stones, pattering down. Ouch! One stone must have grazed my hand, but it’s not bad—it’s not serious, just a scratch. Shouts and wails from every direction. From up on the walls, now. Screams from the walls. What’s happening? I can’t see . . .

  Christ our Lord!

  ‘Run! Run! ’ The wall’s coming down! ‘Out of the way!’

  A colossal roar, like the end of the world. The ground shakes and I’m going to fall! No I’m not. I’m all right. But stones are whizzing past like bees, ricocheting off the ground—good Christ, that was close!

  The keep. I must get to the keep.

  ‘La Becede! La Becede! ’ someone’s shouting. It’s Lord Pagan. He’s turned back from the eastern wall. He’s running towards the keep, ahead of a small, armed phalanx, but suddenly the dust hits. It hits like a great, choking, rolling cloud of fog.

  ‘Ah! Help! I can’t breathe!’

  ‘La Becede!’ (Cough, cough.) ‘To me, La Becede!’

  I can’t see or breathe. The stairs nearly smack me in the mouth. But these are the stairs to the keep (I’m here! I’ve reached it!), so all I have to do is follow them up. And the dust is already clearing. Lord Pagan is visible now: a faint silhouette behind me. He’s still calling and calling. ‘La Becede!’ Beyond him it’s all dust and frantic cries and the clash of weapons.

  We’re lost. They’ve broken through.

  Run!

  ‘Oof!’

  Get out of my way, you dolt! Don’t you have eyes in your head?

  ‘Babylonne?’ It’s old Ferrand, the infirmary sergeant. I didn’t know that he was back on guard duty. ‘What is it? What’s happening?’ he says.

  ‘It’s a breach!’ (Don’t block the door, there’ll be people coming in!) ‘A full breach, the wall collapsed!’

  Consternation. These are all garrison men, in here. Simple soldiers. They must have been sleeping off their night watch in the Great Hall.

  ‘What should we do?’ says one. ‘Should we go and fight?’

  ‘Ask Lord Pagan.’ He’s over there, see? ‘Lord Pagan will know.’

  They all surge forward as one man, and it’s difficult squeezing through their tight-pressed armour. Scraping past their chain mail. There’ll be a retreat, I know there will. A retreat to this keep for the final rout, and after that . . . after that will come the massacre.

  I’ll have to find a place to hide.

  Not in the chapel. When the French arrive, I don’t want to be found up there among the Perfects and their patients. It would be instant death. The buttery will be the first destination of every hungry Frenchman, and as for the latrines—if I hide in the latrines, I’ll be dead before the French even reach me.

  There’ll be fighting in the Great Hall. Fighting in the towers. The storerooms will be looted, and the cellars as well . . .

  Where shall I go? What shall I do?

  ‘Babylonne!’

  It’s Gerard de la Motta, come down from the chapel.

  Great.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he croaks, pausing on the stairs. His skirts are stiff with dried blood. ‘What was that noise?’

  ‘The wall’s down.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The wall’s down. We’re as good as taken.’

  As if to confirm this, a distant, swelling sound reaches our ears. It’s like a thousand voices raised in triumph.

  Gerard turns green.

  ‘Then—then we must pray,’ he stammers. ‘Come. Let us pray together in the chapel, and await God’s pleasure.’

  You must be joking. ‘Not with my help, you won’t.’

  He blinks.

  ‘You can reap what you’ve sown, my friend, but I was never a Good Woman, nor ever will be.’ So go and keep your own pestiferous company, and leave me alone! ‘You’ve always made that clear enough, you and all your friends—and my Grandmother, too. Who am I, but spittle on your boot-sole? A failure in all things, according to you—well, maybe that means I should look to another path. Find another place.’

  ‘Babylonne—’

  ‘And if I die, then so be it. But I won’t die with you! God preserve me from that!’

  It doesn’t matter what I say, because we’re facing the final hours, now. We won’t last long in this place. How are we to hold it in the summer heat? There’s hardly any water. Even if we can repel them—huddled in our stone box, with the trebuchet pounding our walls—I’d give us three days at the most before we all die of thirst.

  Bang-crack! THUD!

  Activity behind me, in the Great Hall. And Lord Pagan’s voice, shouting orders. He must be smashing the outside stairs, or preparing barricades, or some such thing. I wonder if Olivier’s made it back? Dear Christ our Lord, please let Olivier be all right. Because if anyone can save the rest of us, he can.

  Meanwhile, what am I going to do?

  If I stand against the French with a pair of scissors, they’ll cut me down like oats. On the other hand, it would be a noble way to die. I don’t want to be dragged out of here like vermin, clinging to the walls, pleading for my life. I don’t want to be thrown down the well and stoned to death.

  Oh, what am I going to do?

  I can’t think. I have to think! And now I can feel tremors through the soles of my feet; are the F
rench using a battering ram against the door, or is it the trebuchet again? There are noises, too: creaks and groans and shouts and long, drawn-out grunts and enormous thuds and a frantic hammering that makes my joints seize up and the spit dry on my tongue. I know what Lord Pagan is doing in the Great Hall. He’s holding the door, and he has all his force and might wedged against it. Because if it gives way, then we’re finished.

  The French will slaughter us.

  ‘To me! To me!’ It’s Pons yelling. He’s pounding past me, up the stairs, waving his sword. With half a dozen blood-soaked archers scrambling along behind him. And a toothless old man. And who’s that? Is that Dim? Dim the snotball? He’s holding a dagger! (Where on earth did he get that?)

  ‘Babylonne! Quick!’ he gasps, beckoning frantically.

  They must be heading for the roof. But they can’t want me, surely?

  ‘Come on!’ Dim cries, vanishing around the curve of the staircase.

  Perhaps they do want me. I’ll be more use to them than that toothless old man. And here’s a sweating, shaking cripple—all blood and bandages—emerging from the chapel. He’s going to join the fight too. I can hear Pons, faintly, up ahead. Shouting orders.

  I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to stop the French from smashing down the door of the keep. He’s going to fire at them from above. Drop things on them.

  It’s not hard to drop things. I can do that. Here—let me past! Let me on the roof! I still have both arms. I still have all my teeth. I can fight as well as anyone.

  ‘How can I help? My lord?’ The light’s too bright, out here. I’ll have to shade my eyes. ‘Dim? Where are you?’

  Tching!

  An arrow, hitting the parapet beside me. The French must have occupied that part of the curtain wall over there, and now they have a clear shot of the keep, God curse them.

  ‘Keep down!’ roars Pons. ‘Raise your shields. Archers, look to the west!’

  Shields? What shields? Pons has one—he’s fully equipped. He’s even tied a vambrace over the bandage on his arm. But the rest of us might have been scraped out of a butter tub—except for Guillaume de Minerve’s Catalan sergeant.

  Where did he spring from?