by Dan Davis
Unfortunately, he had brought two large, armoured men with him. Neither wore their helm, at least nor carried a shield but both had swords at their sides with hauberks and mail coifs over their heads, much as my own men and I were attired.
“Who are you?” Sir Geoffrey said, looking me up and down. “What in the name of God are you doing waking me? Come on, out with it.”
“King John approaches with his army,” I said, speaking loudly enough for the men beyond the entrance to hear me. “Ten thousand men, two thousand horse.”
Sir Geoffrey was stunned. His men stared in shock.
“Preposterous,” Sir Geoffrey said, looking sideways at me. “You are lying.” His men stared back and forth between us. “Take them.”
“Jocelyn,” I said. Before the word was out of my mouth, my man’s sword had cleared his scabbard. He grasped the head of the man-at-arms’ spear with a mailed fist and thrust his sword through the man’s mouth into his head.
Sir Geoffrey gaped but his armoured men stepped in front of him and came for me.
The second spearman ran for the camp, raising a cry of warning. Jocelyn made to go after him.
The armoured men were wide-awake, battle-scarred veterans and they moved apart to surround me as I drew my blade.
“Joss, take the lord!” I shouted. Jocelyn changed his target to the noble Sir Geoffrey who was likewise attempting to flee.
The bodyguard nearest me charged at me while the other turned to protect his master. I had only one to contend with, so I turned his thrust, stepped inside it and slammed my body against his, grabbing the wrist of his sword arm. I crashed the pommel into his face, then again as he reeled away, pulling him back to me. As he fell, I pushed my point through his nose, grinding against the bones of his face. He was screaming until the blood poured down his throat. I tasted it in the air as he coughed it out.
Jocelyn had tripped Sir Geoffrey and was fending off the other man. Cries were coming from the camp. It seemed to be suddenly brighter. I ran to the armoured man and, having no time for niceties, thrust into his spine so hard that he was thrown onto his face. My blade pierced his mail and I felt the blade push into his backbone.
My blade snapped. It broke two-thirds of the way to the point, which clattered away onto the road. It was too bent to get it into the scabbard so I tossed it away.
Jocelyn dragged up Sir Geoffrey and together we got him onto my horse. He was dazed and bleeding from the head. Still I had to hold my dagger to his throat as Jocelyn thrust him up to me from below.
Frenchmen came charging out after us as I embraced the knight in a bear-like grip, holding the point of my dagger against his neck and my other hand on the reins.
The whole sky to the east was faint blue and the world about us was tinged in blue-grey as Jocelyn and Anselm mounted. Both of them turned to defend me from the two dozen men that staggered out of the camp toward us, tired and uncertain but armed and willing to kill.
The arrows slashed down, just beyond us. A man was shot through the head, another the chest. Arrows clattered off the road. One that bounced off a stone in the road snapped and hit my horse, spinning but still with enough force to draw blood from his leg.
I urged the grey courser on along the track, between my men and up the hill toward the cover of the trees, holding Sir Geoffrey to me.
Jocelyn, Anselm and I stood our horses side by side on the brow of the hill. I glanced behind at the top of the hill. There were a dozen men lying dead or dying at the entrance and still the arrows arced in.
Dozens of men stood out of range. A score of knights gathered at the edge of the camp, more arriving and mounting with every moment.
“Run,” I shouted. “Go now.”
Most of the archers fell back to their ponies, mounted and began streaming away through the trees. Crows flying up, cawing in panic at the clattering of hooves and shouting men. A few kept shooting, covering the retreat.
When the knights realised that the rate of the arrows was falling, they advanced, shields up. Arrows bounced off them.
“We must go,” Jocelyn said.
We rode hard. The final ten archers behind us were the best riders on the best horses.
They kept pace with us, or almost but the French knights caught up, their huge, powerful horses charging up behind us.
We made the first ambush just in time. The road bent around a low hill, the wood was a dense tangle either side of the track.
The pursuing French were slashing at our rearmost archers when the first arrows smashed into them. Our archers had left their horses on the other side of the hill and were only a few yards from their targets. The force of the arrows crashed into men and horses, the arrow shafts shattering and cracking in a cloud of splinters. Riders were unhorsed. The others fled.
On we rode, falling back through three more planned ambushes. We rode, through field and heath at a trot and at a gallop. We led them away from our defended villages and broke off into smaller groups, seeking to confuse them.
The pursuers gave up at sunset.
“Your friends have given up on you, Sir Geoffrey,” I said as we looked out at the riders filing away back to Dover. “Which means you and I can have a nice little chat.”
***
After another night and half a day, when we were certain the French had truly given up, we returned to Cassingham’s village in the Weald. The Kentish squire was given a hero’s welcome by the men we had left behind to guard the families.
The day after our escape, I bound the French knight Sir Geoffrey up in the small shelter I had built away from the camp proper. I had made sure the place was well out of earshot and down in a dank hollow.
I had built the structure around a deep-rooted stump of oak. It was dark and damp, despite the bright summer’s day outside coming through the doorway and the gaps all around the sides. The walls had been made from green saplings and the floor was merely earth with dirty straw atop it. A row of three sturdy posts on either side of the stump held up the sides of the roof. The place was crawling with spiders.
I had built it as a place to hold Brother Tuck.
“This is no fit prison for a knight,” Sir Geoffrey said, puffing out his little narrow chest. “You will get your ransom. I demand a house befitting my station.”
“What do you think,” I asked Cassingham. “He is your prisoner.”
“Don’t speak French all too well, Sir Richard, truth be told,” Cassingham said.
“He demands a finer gaol. Are you certain that you do not wish to ransom him?”
Cassingham, by way of answer, stepped to Sir Geoffrey and looked down. “We know what you did. We know you raped that girl in Rochester. No, you’ll not be ransomed, sir. We may send them your balls. But the rest of you will never leave the Weald.”
“What did he say?” Sir Geoffrey asked me in French. “Tell him I have wealth. I can pay whatever price he sets.”
“I would not be so quick to offer that,” I said. “We know that you raped that young girl outside Rochester. Everyone there knows it.”
“I deny it,” Sir Geoffrey said, his voice shaking.
In the far corner of the hovel, I found the bound form of Tuck and dragged him into the light before Sir Geoffrey. A thick rope ran between the oak stump and the scrawny form of my starving, mad, bound prisoner, Brother Tuck.
Cassingham stood just outside the door, leaning on the frame with his arms crossed.
“You see, Geoffrey, the only thing you have to offer is the stuff flowing through your veins. I have had a problem with our monk, here. He refuses to tell me what I need to know, without me giving him a proper drink. One that will bring him back to himself.”
I took Tuck’s sack from his head and the monk’s twitching eyes fell upon our new prisoner. Tuck growled behind his gag.
“Silence,” I said and cuffed his head, thumping him down to one side. “You see, Sir Geoffrey, Brother Tuck has knowledge that I need. And he is remarkably resistant to torture. Show hi
m your hands, Tuck.”
The monk held out his shaking, bloody hands. I had removed the tips of most of his fingers. Even the thumb and forefinger of his right hand but still he protected his master’s secrets.
Sir Geoffrey recoiled and horror crept up his face as he realised he was being held by madmen.
“I have promised Tuck that he shall have as much blood as he can drink, should he answer my questions.”
Tuck gurgled and heaved, his eyes bulging. He was laughing.
Sir Geoffrey pissed himself, which was the proper reaction.
“Please,” Geoffrey said. “I will tell you everything.”
“No, no. You misunderstand me,” I said. “I do not need anything from you but your slow death.”
“King Louis has given me Rochester,” Sir Geoffrey swallowed. “And other lands hereabouts. If you ransom me, I can assure you that not only will you receive a significant payment, you shall have lands of your own under me when the war is won.”
Cassingham and I looked at each other. “You think you will win?” I said to Sir Geoffrey. “You and Prince Louis?”
“Yes, King Louis.” Geoffrey stammered. “That is to say, Prince Louis of France. I know his plans. I will tell you, I swear it. All his plans.”
“His plans?” I glanced at Cassingham. “He plans to take Dover Castle before winter. Then he in spring he means to take the rest of John’s castles, one by one until John is forced to flee or is captured. Then Louis will be king of England, for ever.”
Tuck giggled behind his gag, his eyes bulging.
“Quiet, you mad bastard,” I said to him. “Am I not correct, Sir Geoffrey? Of the siege, it looked to me that half of Louis’ men will guard the town of Dover while the other half invest the castle. The engines being assembled were mangonels and perriers. It looked as though a huge tower was being made, with wattle sides. Louis has sent his fleet to sea, perhaps back to France, lest it be trapped by John’s ships if they decide to attack. You had men digging in the front of the castle. No doubt, you intend to undermine the great barbican. A sound plan, I am sure. Is there anything I have interpreted incorrectly? Is there anything of substance that you can add? You see, you are not here to tell me anything. You are here because the good folk of Kent want a little justice. And, also, because I need your blood to feed to my monk.”
Tuck giggled again, drool soaking through the bonds at his mouth and down his chin, glistening in the gloom.
“Do not despair,” I said to Sir Geoffrey. “You will have a few days of bleeding yet.”
I took out my dagger and the knight screamed.
***
The French siege of Dover Castle dragged on. By August 1216, they had already breached and captured the castle’s barbican. A great success for them but then they still had the gate beyond to take. Later, one of the mighty gate towers was brought down by the mangonels but still the French could not get through the castle’s defences.
Dover Castle had cost a fortune to build and John had invested thousands in enhancing the place during his reign. Clearly, it had been worth every mark to the crown. It was the only place in southern England the French had failed to take.
All the while, our Wealden archers denied the French foragers access to stores inland. We ambushed, captured and killed dozens of them even when they began riding in force. Eventually, the foragers avoided the Weald altogether and we had to venture out into the rest of Kent to disrupt them. Our efforts certainly helped. Late in the year, the storms grow strong and regular enough to disrupt the short crossing from the French coast. The French would be without resupply from the sea for the autumn and winter and so the besieging forces grew desperate to take the castle before the bad weather forced them to become self-reliant.
At the start of October the garrison, led by the brave lord Hubert de Burgh, still held out, throwing back every assault on the walls. The longer the strength of the French was focused on Dover, the longer King John would have to strengthen his own forces.
All that time, I tried to put the pieces of Tuck’s mind back together. An impossible task, though my hope was I could do enough to find out where William de Ferrers was and what his plans were.
But I waited too long. I had already kept Tuck in a state of starvation and isolation for three months. And it took three months more of feeding Sir Geoffrey’s blood to Tuck to get anything close to coherent answers from him.
Even then, his mind was so ravaged that almost everything he said was incomprehensible. I had to keep Sir Geoffrey alive an awful lot longer than planned. Tied up in the dark with Tuck, being bled every day to feed him, Sir Geoffrey lost his own mind.
Cassingham was a hard young man but it was too much for him. His honour would not allow him to be part of my torture of Sir Geoffrey, the severity of whose continued punishment went beyond the law and common decency. Cassingham spent his days and weeks leading his men on raids against the foraging French and spying on the siege from afar. Swein rode with them and I was pleased, for the young man learned much about that particular kind of warfare.
All that summer and into the autumn, Jocelyn could barely tear himself away from Marian’s side. But when he was with her he found his tongue tied and his jokes and witticisms were painful to behold. Although I met her only rarely, Marian seemed formal and distant with Jocelyn, far more than she was with any other person, noble or common, man or woman. Whether that meant she could not stand Jocelyn or that she was in love with him, Jocelyn could not decide. Neither could I, for that matter.
Whenever we could, we knights and squires trained Cassingham’s men in the art of war. Most of them could shoot an arrow through a barrel hoop at a hundred paces but few could ride or fight effectively with a bladed weapon. No doubt they were good in a wild scrap for they were strong and fearless. But any idiot can swing a blade around. It was restraint they needed to learn, and control and how to defend. Even the ones who knew the sword had to be taught how to properly align the edge of the blade and how to cut with a draw or a push rather than hacking as if chopping wood. And these self-proclaimed swordsmen were the worst. When a man believes himself knowledgeable on a subject not all the true experts in the world can change his mind. It must be beaten out of him with rapped knuckles and clouted skulls.
Eva had learned proper martial techniques from knights and though she had rarely used them in anger, she could instruct just as well as any of us. Many of the Wealden men would scoff at the idea over their ale, or make bawdy comments but they would listen and gravely obey her in the cold light of day. Especially after she knocked them on their arse five times in a row.
After a long day of hard training in early October, I sat with Eva on the edge of a high pasture watching the sun falling over the trees. We shared a jug of ale and some bread. She wore a cap with her hair gathered up inside it.
We had taken off our mail and gambesons and sat in our undershirts, our bodies hot and stinking. She smelled much like a man did after a day of work, only it was different. Better. Whenever she was without the weight of her mail on her, I could not help but notice the swell of her breasts beneath her clothes. She rubbed and scratched at her chest. Through the open side of her shirt, I caught a glimpse how she had bound her breasts down with a wrap of linen.
“They are an impediment,” she said, unsmiling.
I realised I had been staring and looked at the sunset once more, my face no doubt taking on the colour of the clouds. I began to mumble an apology. She waved a hand at me, telling me it was unimportant. She was not offended.
“I imagine it would be,” I said, coughing. “Though it does not seem to slow you down nor restrict your skill. You are better than many a man I have seen named a knight.”
She nodded, accepting what she knew to be true. She fingered underneath the side of her linen wrap. The skin beneath was as pale as moonlight.
It was a sort of madness, her carrying on as if she were a man. Without first her mother’s brother and then the archbishop to pay for
her, keep her hidden, and suppress talk, she would never have managed to carry it on. Of course, I would never have said such things to her. The woman was as prickly as an old holly tree.
But I liked her. She was the only person I knew, other than Emma, who would speak to me properly. She and Emma, though they were so different, shared a directness of speech that was so rare. Without Emma’s effortless courtesy to temper it, Eva’s bluntness was mistaken for rudeness and she found herself without many friends. I liked especially how she never seemed to want or expect anything from me.
“How is Marian?” I asked, keen to change the subject.
“Ask her yourself.”
“You were well trained to fight,” I said. “But never to converse, I see.”
She snorted her derision. “Says you, Sir Richard, who speaks to no one unless it is to command or to terrify them.”
I stared at her, wondering if that was truly how she saw me. “Perhaps you have the right of it,” I said, drawing a suspicious look from her. “Marian will not speak to me.”
Eva shrugged. “You frighten her.”
“Me?”
“You frighten everyone,” she said, peering over at me.
“Is it Tuck?” I said. “I do not wish to keep him there. I know what they say about him. About me.”
“Yes,” she said. “Of course it is Tuck. And Sir Geoffrey. It is wrong. It is madness. But it is not simply your torture of those two. Nor is it your nobility that scares them, for you are barely rich enough to warrant your title.”
“What a kind thing to say,” I quipped. She ignored me.
“Everyone knows that you are different from normal men. They have seen how you move. They have seen you lift a barrel of ale, without effort, by yourself. The story of you snapping that bow is whispered. Then there are the rumours. No one knows why you were disgraced. I certainly have said nothing. But the folk here say you were known as the Bloody Knight. That you drank the blood of the dead while on campaign in Gascony. They say you fought with the Lionheart and that you are sixty years old though you look like a man of twenty and the secret is that you drink the blood of maidens. That last part, I suspect, is one reason why Marian stays away, despite how she truly feels about you. But every day that you keep those two locked up together only further confirms it.”