by Angus Donald
And I led more than a score of men, fizzing with victory, to the huge wooden door of Nottingham Castle, where another fight was already reaching its climax. Little John, like some giant Saxon war god of old, his yellow braids swinging in time with the sweeps of his double-headed axe, was cutting his way methodic ally through a gaggle of terrified enemy men-at-arms, but I could see that his assault on the north side of the barbican had been even bloodier than ours. There were very few men in Robin’s dark green livery fighting beside him — perhaps a mere two dozen of the hundred that had set out such a short time ago.
We men of the southern attack charged into the fray, yelling our war cries and brandishing weapons — and the enemy melted away before us, deserting the gate in panic and retreating a hundred yards or so to where a dozen knights on foot were rallying the fleeing troops and preparing for a counter-attack. We had only a very little time, for there were so few of us — fewer than fifty men still on their feet, the mingled remnants of both attacking parties — and if we did not get the gate open swiftly, the enemy would mass in their hundreds and easily overwhelm us.
Two of Little John’s men were fiddling with the cross-bar that held the swinging sections of the great door together. There was some kind of locking mechanism, a bar-and-lever combination, and the men, it seemed, could not fathom how it might work.
The enemy knights had stopped roughly forty fleeing crossbowmen, and I could see them reassembling, calmer now, under orders again, loading their weapons, using the hook on their belts and a foot in the stirrup at the end of the bow to haul the drawstring back.
Worse, a large crowd of men-at-arms — perhaps a hundred or more in Murdac’s black surcoats with the red chevrons — was pouring out from the barbican in the middle bailey. Reinforcements. Things were about to get very, very bad.
‘Hurry!’ I snapped to the men pushing and pulling at the cross-bar on the gatehouse door. ‘They are coming. We have only a few moments before they attack.’
‘Get out of my way,’ boomed a deep confident voice that I knew so well. And I saw Little John shove the men aside and swing his blood-soaked axe double-handed at the oaken beam that barred the door.
Thunk!
But even Little John’s mighty blow only chipped out a slim bright brown-yellow splinter of wood an inch thick from the cross-bar. The wood was old oak and tough, and the bar a foot wide. We didn’t have time for John’s rough carpentry.
‘Form a line here,’ I shouted. And with one eye on the mass of black-and-red enemy a hundred yards away, I pushed and pulled Robin’s men into two ranks, the front rank kneeling, the second rank standing, shields to the fore.
Thunk!
Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Little John was beginning to lay into the crossbar with a slow but steady rhythm. Then Hanno was by his side, following John’s blow immediately with one of his own from a smaller, lighter, single-bladed war axe.
Thunk! Think!
The two axe blows made strikingly different sounds.
‘Stay tight, and keep your shields up,’ I shouted to our raggedy wall of forty or so men. But the men needed no urging, for the crossbowmen had reloaded and soon, as everyone could plainly see, their wicked bolts would begin to fly again.
Thunk! Think!
I looked behind me to the east and saw that the sun was fully up by now. It was going to be a lovely spring day.
‘Here they come!’ I shouted. The crossbowmen had divided into two groups of about twenty men each and were advancing on either side of the main body of a hundred or so of Murdac’s men-at-arms. At seventy yards they began to loose their quarrels. Not as a volley but individually: two or three men shooting, then stopping to reload while the others advanced. These were clearly first-class troops, well disciplined and brave. They kept up a nearly constant rain of missiles on our thin, weak shield wall, forcing our men to cower behind their flimsy protection to avoid being spitted like hares.
Thunk! Think!
A man standing beside me on the edge of our double line screamed suddenly and fell backwards, a black bolt thrusting from his eye.
‘Keep those shields up!’ I shouted, and crouched down myself in the front rank beside the men, trying to keep my body as much as possible behind my kite-shaped shield.
The two groups of crossbowmen were now so close that they could hardly miss. And between them the men-at-arms were advancing in a purposeful manner, swords drawn, some armed with short spears or cut-down lances. I knew that at about twenty yards away they would launch into a run and smash through my thin line of exhausted, battered men. We had, by my reckoning, only a few moments before we were overrun by the enemy. The crossbow bolts were rattling against the shield wall, occasionally finding a gap and giving rise to a yelp or scream.
Thunk! Think!
‘God’s bulging bollocks!’ shouted a great voice, clearly in pain. And I turned to look back at Little John, who was peering over his own shoulder at a black quarrel sticking out from his huge right buttock; his green hose were glistening black, soaked with blood. But he merely shrugged the pain away, leaving the evil-looking bolt in place, and turned back to his task.
Thunk! Think!
I heard Hanno yell something but could not make it out. The enemy men-at-arms were only forty paces away now.
Thwick! A different sound. I risked another quick look behind me and saw that John had finally chopped his way through the bar. Limping more than a little, he was helping Hanno to swing the heavy wooden portal open. I looked out of the gap between the slowly opening doors of the gatehouse and saw a sight beyond it that made my heart leap with joy.
Horsemen.
A great mass of armoured horsemen, led by a tall knight in brightly polished, gold-chased helm riding a magnificent destrier beneath a red-and-gold standard. And beside him was another familiar figure, faceless in his flat-topped tubular helmet but wearing a deep green surcoat with a black-and-grey wolf’s mask depicted on the chest. The horsemen came on at the trot. They were only thirty yards away. The lead horseman lowered his lance, and all his companions — at least three-score knights — followed his example in a wave of white wood and glittering steel. A trumpet sounded and the cavalry came up to the canter. It was Richard, my King, coming to the rescue. And my liege lord, the Earl of Locksley, was riding at his side.
Another trumpet rang out. The horsemen charged.
‘Down!’ I shouted. ‘Everybody down. Lie down. Lie still, lie absolutely still if you want to live.’ And as one the men in the shield wall dropped to the muddy ground. I could feel the wet earth vibrate under my cheek, and hear the rumble of massive hooves, and I dared not look up as the household cavalry of Richard Plantagenet, by the Grace of God, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou and Maine, a company of some of the finest and bravest knights in Christendom, poured over our prone bodies like a rushing equine waterfall, jumping cleanly over the cowering bodies of forty prostrate men in a welter of pounding hooves and flying mud, before spurring on to smash straight into the advancing line of black-and-red men-at-arms, lances couched, a battle cry roaring from every mounted warrior’s throat.
When I finally lifted my head I saw a scene of utter carnage. King Richard’s cavalry had crashed into Murdac’s men-at-arms like a mighty tempest blowing through a field of stacked wheat, the twelve-foot razor-tipped lances skewering bodies and hurling the enemy several yards backwards. Those who had not been pierced by their spears or crushed by the giant hooves of the knights’ destriers had scattered. And when the lances were gone, snapped off, impaled in heads or buried deep in infantrymen’s bellies, Richard’s knights pulled out long swords or a mace or an axe and the butchery continued. I saw Robin lopping the sword arm from a man-at-arms who had been foolish enough to turn and face him. But even those who ran rarely escaped. I watched a fleeing crossbowman easily overhauled by a horse-borne knight, who hacked down in passing, slicing open the poor man’s unprotected face. Three knights surrounded a knot
of struggling men-at-arms, battering at their heads and upheld arms with mace and sword until all the footmen had fallen in a sodden, twitching heap. Everywhere running men-at-arms were being sliced and hacked and battered by the victorious knights; no quarter was given, and none of the enemy were thought to be worth ransoming, so scores died, and their bloody rag-doll bodies were trampled and torn time and again under the hooves of the knights’ big horses as they criss-crossed the outer bailey looking for fresh prey. The lucky ones, or those enemy crossbowmen and men-at-arms who could run the fastest, made it back to the barbican in the middle bailey, and were quickly pulled inside for safety as the thick iron-studded oak door slammed shut behind them. But they were few, very few.
Richard’s knights, however, did not have it all their own way. After the initial onslaught was over, from the walls and towers of the upper and middle baileys, Murdac’s surviving Flemish crossbowmen took their revenge. Foot-long oak bolts, tipped with sharp iron, hissed from the battlements, sinking deep into horse and rider without discrimination. Javelins were hurled downward, and huge boulders, too. One unfortunate knight, unhorsed outside the barbican of the middle bailey and battering futilely with his sword hilt at the barred door, was fried alive when a cauldron of red-hot sand was poured on him from a murder-hole above. I saw another knight, cursing and crying with pain, pinned through the meat of his thigh by a black quarrel to the wood of his saddle.
But the outer bailey was ours. When the defenders who had remained there were all dead, mortally wounded or captured, and there were no more easy targets for the roaming knights’ swords, most of the mounted men, panting and praising God, retreated back beyond the open gate of the captured gatehouse and out of range of the defenders’ deadly missiles. There was nothing else for them to do: the main castle was shut tight, secure from their blood-spattered blades, and their horses could not gallop through the grey stone of its massive walls.
We men in Lincoln green had picked ourselves up from the ground by this point, though we had taken no further part in the fight for the outer bailey. A few of the brighter enemy men-at-arms had thrown their weapons away and run towards us, shouting as they came that they wished to surrender. They escaped the wrath of the knights, and took refuge with us, under guard, on the far side, the town side of the gatehouse and the wooden palisade we had so valiantly captured. The outer bailey of Nottingham Castle belonged to King Richard’s men — but we could not easily move about in it, except by running and dodging and hiding behind the few scattered buildings there, for fear of the crossbowmen who now lined the castle walls, seemingly determined, even though the fight for that ground was over, to pick us off one by one.
King Richard came walking unhurriedly across the open space, horse-less and hobbling slightly. For some reason — most probably ignorance of who he was — the crossbowmen seemed to be sparing him. He stopped in front of the right-hand part of the wooden double door that Little John had managed to open in the nick of time and greeted me cordially:
‘Blondel, how goes it?’ he called. ‘You survived, I see.’
‘I’m well, sire. Quite miraculously unharmed.’
The King nodded distractedly and just then a crossbow bolt slammed into the ground between us. It seemed that the bowmen on the castle’s stone walls had finally woken up to the fact that the King was in their sights. Richard ignored the bolt sticking out of the earth in front of him, and a second one that landed on his other side but closer to the royal foot. He was staring up at the wooden bulk of the gatehouse. We were at the extreme range of the crossbow’s power, more than a hundred and fifty yards from the battlements of the middle bailey, but Richard must have known that, with his light desert armour, any quarrel that struck him could still do considerable damage. The King’s self-possession, I thought admiringly, was remarkable.
Two household knights came hurrying up to their sovereign as he stood in the doorway of the gatehouse gazing silently up at its structure. They were carrying two large shields and, standing behind the King, they lifted the kite-shaped objects to protect his back from any further insult from the castle crossbowmen.
‘You did very well, Blondel,’ said the King ruminatively, ‘to capture this gate. I thank you for it. But, you know, we cannot hold this place…’
A crossbow bolt skittered off the shield being held by one of the knights standing protectively behind him, and my concentration was diverted momentarily so that I did not hear what the King said next.
‘… it’s a shame really, but it can’t be helped,’ he said.
‘I beg your pardon, sire,’ I asked, embarrassed by my inattention. ‘What did you just say?’
‘I said, my good Blondel, that you are to take your men and burn this gatehouse to the ground. Destroy the whole outer palisade too, while you are at it. If we cannot hold the outer bailey, then they shall not have it either. Burn this and all the defences that you can get at. And when we have done that, I shall send heralds to talk to this Murdac fellow, to see what he has to say for himself.’
It was easier said than done to burn the palisade. I gathered up the survivors of that morning’s attack, borrowed a score of Robin’s archers, and we set about placing dry straw and brushwood faggots doused with oil along the inside and outside edges of the palisade, ready to put it to the torch. We were harassed constantly by the crossbowmen in the middle bailey and I had to use a screen of men carrying shields on both left and right arms to keep those men laying the fire safe from the darting quarrels of the defenders.
I lost one man killed and two injured in the process, and it was grim work. We were not taking part in a mad rush for glory, with the rage of battle pounding in our ears, but doing heavy, difficult, dirty work. What is more, destroying the outer bailey’s defences made the sacrifice of precious lives that morning seem a terrible waste. But when a King commands, you obey.
It was gone noon by the time we finished, and I released the men to find food and rest as the first flames began to crackle and burn along the line of palisade. I put the torch to that damned gatehouse myself, piling straw and brushwood on either side of the wooden doors, then throwing a burning length of pine into each pile and retreating beyond the burnt strip as the column of smoke rose into the blue March sky. My task accomplished, I walked back into the town to seek out Robin and receive fresh orders.
I found the Earl of Locksley in a big townhouse in the centre of Nottingham, drinking red wine and joking with Little John. Robin was sitting on a stool in the corner of the room with his left leg extended. He had a bloody bandage on his thigh, but he assured me jovially that it was a clean javelin wound and would surely heal, given time — if he was only allowed a little peace and quiet. Little John was lying flat on a big table in the centre of the hall, naked from the waist down. His right buttock was swollen and bloody and the black shaft of the quarrel was sticking up vertically, protruding about six inches from the mound of pink-white flesh. Nonetheless, John seemed to be in very good spirits. A nervous barber-surgeon was fussing around the big man’s nether regions, mopping at the blood that was trickling down his hip and muttering. The man, who was clearly rather frightened, kept picking up an instrument that resembled two spoons fixed together — the bowls facing each other, and the whole contraption attached to the end of a short, thin iron shaft — then putting it down again.
Robin saw me peering at the instrument and said: ‘It’s a tool for removing arrow heads from deep wounds. The spoony part is inserted into the wound, closed around the arrow head, which allows the head to be withdrawn without causing any more damage. Totally unnecessary, in my view — Flemish crossbowmen don’t use barbed arrows for warfare. But Nathan here insists it is a marvellous invention and the decision must be his: after all, Nathan is the man who is to operate on John, when he can summon up sufficient courage.’
I looked at Robin quizzically. And my master said: ‘John has threatened to break both of Nathan’s arms if he causes him any unnecessary pain.’ And he gave me a lop-si
ded smile.
Little John was grinning owlishly at me from his position on the table. I could see that, unlike Robin, who was merely relaxed, John was thoroughly drunk. He had also been tightly strapped to the table, with several thick leather bands securing his huge chest and both meaty legs. I walked over to him. ‘Now then, John,’ I said, selecting my most patronizing tone. ‘There is no need to throw your weight about here and make such a childish fuss about a little thing like this.’
And with my index finger I flicked the shaft of the quarrel that was sticking out of his arse cheek — hard.
It wobbled satisfyingly, and John bellowed with rage and pain and tried to struggle free of the leather bonds that strapped him to the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Nathan the barber-surgeon looking stunned and Robin, heedless of his javelin wound, convulsed with laugher on his stool in the corner.
‘That,’ I said to the red-faced giant now writhing on the table and trying to reach me with great backward sweeps of his massive hands, ‘was for the punch in the face that you gave me at Carlton.’ And I grinned broadly at him to display the tooth he had chipped.
‘And this is to teach you not to bully poor barber-surgeons-’ I grabbed the shaft of the quarrel and pulled it free of the wound with one swift, clean jerk of my wrist. It came free easily, accompanied by a splash of black blood.
Followed only by John’s booming roar of outrage and the sound of Robin’s helpless laughter, I ran from the room and tumbled out into the street, hardly able to contain my own mirth. It had been a long, difficult day, but that image of Little John’s crimson face, contorted with impotent fury, was one that would warm me on many a cold night for years to come.
At dusk, the King summoned his chief counsellors to his big pavilion in the deer park. I accompanied Robin to the meeting, but only after I had ascertained that Little John was hors de combat, sleeping off a vast quantity of drink in a comfortable bed in the town, his bum cheek now cleaned, stitched and bandaged by the surgeon. I had resolved to stay well out of his way for a few days, at the very least, until he had calmed down; possibly a month — maybe even a year or two.