by Angus Donald
We tightened our belts and looked forward to the next noonday bowl of slop with a terrible, aching yearning.
King John made no infantry assaults on the keep itself. He seemed to be concentrating all his efforts on the mine. And the trebuchets, of course. These had been swiftly repositioned the day after the breach fell, and these terrible engines now began to rain missiles on the lower part of the south tower and the western wall of the keep. The intensity of the barrage had lessened, however, for only three loosed their stone balls at us. I believe the other two may have become damaged or been judged unequal to the increased range. But three trebuchets bombarding us was bad enough and a dozen times an hour a missile would smash itself to pieces against our walls. Between strikes, the sound of the digging could be clearly heard, even without pressing an ear to the stonework, and we estimated that at least a hundred yards of tunnel had been dug from under the breach and that scores of foes were burrowing away beneath our feet. A horrible, eldritch sensation.
Some of the knights suggested countermining, but d’Aubigny vetoed this and he was probably right to do so, for while we might come at our enemies this way, and kill them all, the extra digging would also further weaken the foundations of the castle and could hasten their collapse.
I was not entirely idle. Some days to take my mind off my famishment I would join Robin and Mastin on the roof of the south tower and help them spot targets for Mastin’s giant bow. The Flemings had withdrawn back to the town, but with a bit of luck, we could still occasionally kill or wound an incautious man labouring near the trebuchet lines to the south-west.
I had spotted a likely fellow, who had wandered a little too close to us for his safety, gathering horse fodder with a sickle in front of the foremost trebuchet as if he had not a care in the world, and I was just pointing him out to Mastin, when Robin said, ‘Hold, look yonder!’
He pointed down towards the building that housed the mouth of the mine. I could see dozens of men running fast out of the entrance and accompanying them the first tendrils of grey smoke. The flow of men petered out but the smoke did not, thickening to become a solid stream of black, dotted with dancing orange fireflies.
‘They have fired the mine,’ said Robin. ‘Everybody off the tower. Now! Go, Alan. Warn the men below. Everyone back into the heart of the keep.’
I flew down the stairs, a cold hard lump in my belly. In my mind’s eye I could clearly see what was happening a hundred feet below my boots. A tunnel would have been hacked through mud and rock below the surface of the earth, groping forward until it reached the castle’s foundations, where the masonry would be carefully levered out and a cavity created under the external walls. This huge hole would have been reinforced with rows and rows of stout wooden beams, planks and joists, just enough to support the walls above while the miners finished their dangerous work. Now the mine was ready, piles of brushwood and many barrels of pig fat would have been carried down the tunnel and stacked in the empty space at the end. At the command to fire the mine, the brushwood would have been set alight and every sane man down there would have run for his life back down the tunnel and into the safety of the open air. The brushwood would ignite the barrels of pig fat which would burn with such an intensity that the wood supporting the castle would be swiftly consumed in the inferno. Then the wall would collapse under its own weight. That was what we were facing now.
On the floor below, a dozen archers were lounging in a circle with Sir Thomas Blood. They were throwing dice.
I burst into the room. Sir Thomas leaped to his feet. ‘It is not what it looks like, Sir Alan,’ he said. ‘We were not playing for real money, just a few pennies! I swear it.’
I had no time to scold him.
‘Everyone out. Get back into the great hall or anywhere away from this tower and the southern walls. They have fired the mine.’
I saw the colour drain from Thomas’s face as the import of my words sank in.
‘On your feet, lads, right now,’ said the knight. ‘Come on, quickly—’
And with a colossal rumbling growl, the bottom fell out of my world.
A sensation of falling. And crashing into something unyielding. A massive blow to my right shoulder, punching me down, and lighter ones to my helmeted head. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, the world was filled with choking dust – and the screams of men. My right arm was pinned across my body, my left leg was bent at the knee and tucked up behind me. Uncomfortable, but not broken, I thought. My shoulder was agony though, a pulsing burning pain that stopped my breath in my throat. My right foot was resting on something hard, supporting my weight. I groped with my left hand and felt stone and gritty dust and the splintered end of a beam. Someone was sobbing a yard from me to my right, his breathing wet, laboured. He was calling for his mother.
‘Thomas?’ I called, my voice sounding hollow and unreal.
‘Help me, in God’s name, help me.’ It wasn’t Thomas but I recognised the voice of an archer. I tried to move but apart from my left arm, which seemed to have some space around it, I was stuck.
‘Help will come soon,’ I said. ‘Hold fast, man, the Earl will come to our aid.’
‘I’m bleeding,’ he said. ‘I’m bleeding bad.’ His voice tailed off into a feeble keening of ultimate pain. I well knew that sound.
Then I heard another that I had come to know – and dread. The flat crack of stone on stone. A trebuchet strike, a missile the size of a full-grown pig, smashing itself to pieces against the broken tower. And then another. And a third.
The world around me twisted, dropped again, reconfigured itself. My body was squeezed, wrenched unbearably; I heard the bone in my left leg snap like a piece of kindling; something clonked against the back of my helmet – everything went dark.
‘Alan, Alan, look at me,’ said a voice.
I opened my eyes and saw a long, thin, hollow face with strange silvery eyes just inches from mine, staring at me. I knew that face. I knew it – but the name that belonged to it would not come.
‘Here, drink this,’ said the face. It held out a wooden bowl filled with cold well water. I sipped, coughed and tried to sit up.
The face put a strong hand on my chest, pushing me back down.
‘Your leg is broken,’ he said. ‘Your shoulder was dislocated, but I think Mastin got it safely back in its socket. You’ve taken several bad knocks to the head. So don’t even think about getting up for a while.’
I looked around me. I was in the north-eastern half of the great hall, lying on a pile of straw by the wall. My whole body was covered in a yellow-grey dust, except for my left leg, which had been washed and bound tight with clean white bandages between two pieces of a broken bow shaft. The pain began then, a great wave rolling up my leg and surging into my body.
‘You are Robert Odo, Earl of Locksley,’ I said wonderingly to the face. It smiled, a soothing balm against the wash of red pain.
‘Yes, I know that. And you, Alan Dale, are damned lucky to be alive.’
‘I’ve always been lucky,’ I said, and slid back into blackness.
When next I awoke, Sir Thomas was sitting beside my pile of straw. I had no difficulty in recognising him, praise God, although the left half of his face was bruised to the colour of a ripe plum. He was cleaning his dirt-crusted fingernails with a dagger and I watched him until he noticed I was awake.
‘Ah, Alan,’ he said. ‘Want some water?’
I nodded, and he reached behind and handed me the wooden bowl.
‘We’ve plenty of water,’ he said. ‘I suppose we must count that as a blessing.’
I saw that the hall was filled, packed tight would be a better term, with men in mail wearing swords at their waists. It seemed almost the entire garrison was inside this small chamber. All the men of the castle, or so it felt.
‘Is there a conference?’ I said. ‘A war council?’
‘What? No. This is it. This is all we hold now.’
I was still confused, and conscious of the fact,
but this made no sense at all.
‘Tell me,’ I said.
Thomas let out a breath and took a long pull on the bowl.
‘We got you out, Robin and me and a few of the archers. But we lost two Westbury men – Hob and Swein – down there somewhere in the rubble. The enemy came at us at once, of course, scrambling like goats up the broken masonry. Hundreds of them coming up through the dust. We couldn’t hold them, although d’Aubigny and Robin battled like lions, and the young knights fought them tooth and nail. The commander ordered us to fall back into the hall but they were right on our heels. They were in the wall-walk, in the hall itself. We just managed to get the doors shut, bolted and barred. And we have blocked off the other floors with rubble and timbers. We are keeping them out – but only just. And now here we are. Shut up like rats in a root cellar. Half the castle ours, half theirs – and no way out.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘It’s been two days since the south tower collapsed. And the fighting has been almost continuous. The men are near the end of their strength.’
I saw then that Thomas was grey and drawn, except where the bruise purpled the skin of his face. I wondered when he had last slept. Or eaten.
‘And food?’
He laughed, an unpleasant creaking sound. ‘There is none. But we still have access to the well, at least.’
He passed me the bowl and I stared into the clear liquid, seeing my own dusty gaunt face looking back at me from its surface.
I drank, wiped a sleeve across my lips and returned the bowl.
‘What is to be done?’
Thomas shrugged and glanced at the oak door that connected the two parts of the hall. I followed his eyes. It was strange to think that a score of yards away, in the other side of this very chamber were hundreds of our enemies who wanted nothing more than to chop us into offal. There could be no escape.
‘Robin will think of something,’ Thomas said. ‘You should rest yourself, Alan, you won’t be fighting or even walking any time soon.’
My friend got up and walked to the other side of the room, where a group of knights were huddled in a circle, gesticulating, arguing, but in low voices. Osbert Giffard’s bald head was red with anger. Thomas de Melutan looked to be on the verge of tears. I saw d’Aubigny straighten up and walk away from the other men, making for the chapel. A dozen other wounded lay against the walls of the hall, some attended by their friends, others alone. The chamber smelled of blood and sweat, stale air and desperate men. There was no sign of Robin.
I sank back on the pile of straw, and in spite of the turmoil of sorrow and rage in my heart, my eyelids were heavy and once more I slept.
I awoke screaming. My leg was vibrating with pain.
‘Be careful with him, you handless buggers, or I will cut your eyes out.’ Robin’s voice. I was on a blanket being carried by two deep-chested archers, who looked suitably shame-faced for having knocked my broken leg against the wall. I was being hauled like a side of beef down the main staircase of the castle entrance. The rain was falling into my face. Icy needles. We were outside, daylight, mid-morning I guessed. It was very cold.
‘What? Why are we here?’
‘Be quiet, Alan,’ said Robin. ‘Just lie still.’
A group of red-and-blue-surcoated spearmen were lounging at the bottom of the stone stairs, next to a two-wheeled cart. They were laughing, drinking ale, drunk.
‘Get a move on, you English pigs,’ said the nearest. ‘Or I shall tickle you along with my pig-sticker.’ He guffawed and shook his spear to ram home his hilarious jest. The two archers dropped their eyes and hurried down the last few steps.
Robin ignored the taunting man but his pale face turned even whiter. I saw with a sense of shock that the scabbard at his waist was empty. He was unarmed.
‘This way,’ he said quietly to my archer-porters, gesturing across the outer bailey towards the remains of the main gate, now a charred hole in the curtain wall.
‘Why are we outside?’ I said to Robin.
‘We are the King’s prisoners,’ said my lord.
‘What? Are you mad? He’ll cut our hands and feet off.’
‘Maybe not. He has given his word that we will be treated mercifully. That was the condition of our surrender. The King will show mercy. D’Aubigny made the arrangement with him through his priest. I helped him to persuade the other knights.’
‘And you trust the King’s word?’
‘Not now, Alan, please, just – not now. All right?’ There was enough iron in Robin’s voice to quiet me. But I was scared, by God, I was plain terrified just then at the prospect of life as a limbless beggar. I knew what the King’s word was worth.
Out of the castle gates we went, down the hill and across the road to the cathedral and once in that hallowed space down the aisle and into one of the side chapels with Sir Thomas, Mastin and a dozen of the Sherwood archers; all of our men who remained alive, I guessed. None of my half-dozen Westbury men had survived the final battle, it seemed, and I felt a shaft of guilt that was far worse than the pain in my leg. More good men gone.
The cathedral was filthy. Horse dung, mud and hay littered the stone floor of the nave, although someone had swept our side chapel clean. The central space in the nave was filled with hundreds of Flemish knights and men-at-arms, puffing out their chests, smirking like new fathers, lounging about armed to the teeth with spear, sword and crossbow – not that they needed weapons to display their superiority. I had noticed that each of the side bays was filled with the woebegone faces of knights from the castle and their men, sitting on the floor, downcast, humbled, hungry, thin as bean-poles after six weeks of short rations. Beaten.
I could hear a man in the next bay along moaning with pain. Occasionally his moans swelled into bouts of screaming. I could hear his comrades trying to quiet him.
Two Flemish sergeants came past our bay, with a pair of civilians – bakers by the looks of their floury linen aprons. They carried a large basket between them and carelessly threw four small brown loaves into our chapel, caught by Mastin and two of his bowmen. One of the bakers unslung a leather bag of ale from his back and dropped it unceremoniously on the floor.
We shared out the bread, no more than a handful for each man, and passed round the ale. It was the first food I had had in days and while it was only dark, coarse maslin, made with wheat and rye, and apparently the sweepings of the bakery floor, it tasted fine. The ale was days old but it washed the rough bread down well enough.
Robin came to sit beside me after he had finished his meal.
‘How’s the leg?’ he asked.
I shrugged, and regretted it. My neck and back were badly bruised and my shoulder was aching almost as much as the snapped shin bone.
‘I have a feeling it doesn’t much matter,’ I said, the pain making me irritable. ‘As I expect to lose it soon.’
Robin looked at me steadily. ‘You would rather be dead?’
I said nothing. He had made his point.
The wounded man in the next bay began screaming again – wild, untrammelled noises that echoed around the cathedral; followed by sharp, regular cries like a beast caught in a spring trap. A desperate sound that grated horribly on the nerves.
‘One of d’Aubigny’s men-at-arms. Stomach wound,’ said Robin.
‘Poor bastard,’ I said.
‘I don’t know why his comrades do not end his pain. He’s a dead man anyway with that kind of wound. Deep puncture to the lower belly. It’s always the same. It will turn bad and, after five or six days of the most appalling agony, he will surely die. Better to end it now.’
‘I wonder where Miles is,’ I said to change the subject.
‘London, with luck,’ said Robin.
‘If I know him, he’s sitting in some cosy tavern by the docks, drunk as a bishop, with a pretty wench on each knee, both vying for his kisses.’
Robin smiled. ‘Like enough.’
‘I hope Robert is safe,’ I said.
I prayed it was true. If I was to die, at least I could hope my son would be safe.
The man next door screamed once more, a haunting wolf-like howl that seemed to last for an eternity. Then, suddenly, it was muffled, then stopped as if by a wad of cloth or thick blanket held tightly over his mouth.
‘I can’t complain,’ said Robin. ‘I have had a good life, I think. We have had some adventures, you and I, Alan. If the King plays us false, and these truly are our last hours, at least I have two strong sons to live on after me. And you have Robert, to carry your name. That is all that matters, really. That is what I have fought for these past ten years, for Marie-Anne, for my sons, for their future in this land. That is what the charter is all about – for me, anyway. That they might live in a country free from the tyranny of evil kings.’
I looked at Robin then. I had never seen him so close to despair.
‘You think this is it, that this is the end?’ I said.
‘What do you think?’
‘I always remember what Little John once said before that terrible battle at Bouvines. He said, “Live, Alan, live like a man until you die!”’
‘As he did.’
‘Yes. As he did.’
‘I miss him,’ said Robin. ‘Although I should not like to see him in the mire we’re in now. He was right, too. We’re not dead yet, old friend, so let us live. And I think … I think I would like to sing if this is indeed to be our last day on earth.’
Robin raised his voice. ‘Who here knows “The Thrush and the Honey-Bee”? Come on, surely you all remember it?’