The Iron Castle

by Angus Donald

  Around mid-morning, we clattered out of the gates of Falaise Castle and took the road heading south-east, aiming to cut John’s line of march at Alençon. Benedict gave me no orders before we set off, save for an insolent instruction to try and keep up with his men and not to get in their way.

  So, we ate his dust all that day and rested the night in Argentan. My men and I camped apart from the Falaise force, in the pretty orchards outside the town. But I made certain the Wolves were ready well before dawn and we formed up behind Benedict’s force the next day without a single word being exchanged between us. We rode all morning and joined the main road from Rouen at midday. I noted with deep satisfaction the obvious signs of a passing army – a big one. By nightfall we could see the campfires of the host in the fields outside the Castle of Alençon. We broke from Benedict’s column, without bothering to take our leave of its commander, and walked our horses through a small town of green tents and rough brushwood shelters, before arriving at a black pavilion, which I saw, by the light of two flaring torches planted by the entrance, was topped with a large white flag with the snarling mask of a wolf depicted in bold lines of black and grey.

  ‘Ah, Alan, here at last. Well met, my friend,’ said Robin, as I pushed through the woollen flaps of the tent – and then I was being embraced by my lord.

  It felt like coming home.

  ‘You remember Vim, of course,’ said Robin, waving vaguely at a big blond-grey man seated by a large table in the middle of the tent. ‘Some wine?’ I gratefully took a cup from my lord’s hands.

  ‘All well with Little John and the men?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ I replied. ‘He’s seeing they get themselves sorted out. He’ll be along in a moment or two. What news from the south?’

  ‘Oh, Arthur’s burning his way up the south bank of the Loire – he’s already taken Saumur. His Bretons are having a high old time: looting, raping and slaughtering those who don’t flee. We have to teach them some better manners.’

  Despite the levity of Robin’s words, there was a grim timbre to his voice.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said. I knew the answer before the words were out of my mouth. ‘Where are Marie-Anne and the boys?’

  ‘They were at Fontevraud with Queen Eleanor. But, with Arthur and his men twenty miles away and advancing rapidly, they fled. Now – anybody’s guess.’

  ‘But they will be safe with Eleanor, surely?’

  ‘You think?’ said Robin. ‘Eleanor has, what, forty or fifty Gascon men-at-arms? There are a dozen of my bowmen under Sarlic’s command with Marie-Anne, a guard of honour, no more than that. Arthur has a thousand heavy cavalry alone in his main force. How long do you think they would last in a pitched battle?’

  ‘But Eleanor is Arthur’s grandmother—’

  ‘And the Queen backed John’s claims against him. That makes her his enemy, grandmother or no. Although that might spare her some humiliation. Marie-Anne’s fate is another matter entirely.’

  I could see his point.

  ‘Where is King John?’

  ‘He’s up at the castle, dithering as usual; doing a bit of moaning and whining too, I would imagine. He’s come all this way but doesn’t want to go any further. He says we must defend the Norman border, the half-wit. I was just going up there to see him. You’d better come, too.’

  The King was pacing up and down the length of the hall on the second floor of Alençon Castle. I had not seen him for more than a year and he had aged alarmingly. His shoulder-length reddish hair had fine streaks of silver in it, and cruel lines were cut into his face on either side of his nose. His brow was well lined, too, and his mouth wrinkled in the corners. He was no older than thirty-seven. When Robin entered the chamber with myself at his shoulder, the King whirled suddenly, as if afraid.

  ‘You, Locksley,’ he called out in his harsh, frog-like voice. ‘Are your men alert? Are they watching the roads?’

  ‘Yes, Sire,’ said my lord. ‘I have sent out night patrols. There is no enemy within twenty miles of this castle.’

  ‘Hmm. So you say. Sometimes there are enemies where you least expect them, sometimes those who cry friendship the most loudly are the ones to fear most!’

  Robin said nothing; he merely inclined his head slightly in a gesture that could have meant agreement, or nothing at all. The King resumed his pacing, his footsteps short and jerky. He reached the high window at the far side of the hall, spun on his toes and began back towards the door. The walls either side of this path were thick with barons and knights. He looked like a beast in a menagerie, caged by invisible bars, with most of the barons of England and Normandy gathered to watch the spectacle of this strange creature stalking up and down inside his cage.

  ‘Count Robert.’ The King had stopped. He poked a finger at one gloomy face near the wall that I knew well from my previous time in Normandy: the Lord of Alençon, the castellan of this very castle. He was a good man, loyal, honest and fearless in battle, though prone to savage bouts of melancholy. ‘You will post double guards on the walls,’ said our noble sovereign. ‘I shall sleep safely in my bed this night, if it is all the same to you. Double the guard!’

  ‘Sire, I have already doubled the guard, as you ordered me to not an hour since.’

  ‘Do you dare to answer me back? Do as I command. I am your King!’

  ‘My lord, if I may make so bold,’ said Robin in his most calming tone, ‘would you be so good as to tell us what you plan to do?’

  ‘Do? Do? I will fight! I will crush these contumelious bastards – these men of Arthur’s, these vile, traitorous curs, I will destroy them, I will grind their bones to dust, I will drown the fields with their blood…’

  ‘An excellent plan, Sire. And no more than they deserve. But could you be a little more specific. Should we ready our men to march south to confront—’

  ‘We are not going anywhere. I will fight them here. Here in Normandy! Here in the home of my ancestors where I am safe from spies and traitors!’ The King stamped his foot on the rush-strewn floor, sending up a little puff of dust.

  ‘But, Sire, begging your pardon,’ said Robin, soothingly, ‘the Queen Mother is in the south and, for all we know—’

  A blast of trumpets interrupted Robin and a tall man of middle years strode into the hall. He was dressed in a dusty cloak over a surcoat splashed with mud and under it could be glimpsed a full suit of mail; two bushes of flaming red hair jutted from either side of a sunburned head that was otherwise as bald as an egg. Two knights entered behind him, equally travel-stained. The tall man knelt stiffly before the King.

  The herald, who had announced his presence with the trumpet, now said in an unnecessarily loud voice, ‘Sire, the Senechal of Anjou, Lord William des Roches!’

  ‘I know who he is, you fool. William, get up man, get up. What are you doing here? Have you forsaken Le Mans?’

  ‘No, Sire, my men hold it yet,’ said des Roches ‘But I bring grave news.’

  ‘More bad news. I knew it!’

  ‘It concerns your venerable mother, Sire,’ he said, then, catching sight of Robin, he added, ‘and the Countess of Locksley, as well. It seems they have been caught between the Bretons and the Lusignans. Queen Eleanor was at Fontevraud Abbey when news came of Duke Arthur’s advance. She fled south, hoping to find sanctuary at Poitiers. But, alas, the Lusignan forces came north from their lands in Poitou and the Bretons pursued her from the west, and she was caught at…’ He turned to one of his knights. ‘What’s the name of the wretched little place again?’

  ‘Mirebeau, sir,’ said the knight.

  ‘Mirebeau, yes. Well, the ladies were forced to seek refuge at Mirebeau Castle, and there they remain; but they are now besieged by the forces of Arthur and by those of Hugh and Geoffrey de Lusignan. Sire, they cannot hold out for long – their enemies outnumber them ten times over. We must ride now, with all our strength and relieve the castle, if we are to save your lady mother from death or captivity.’

  ‘Ride? So
uth? Now? Are you mad? I have King Philip in my rear, gobbling up eastern Normandy piece by piece, and you want me to gallop a hundred miles away and throw my army into the jaws of Duke Arthur’s savage Bretons and all the massed knights of Lusignan. You’ve taken leave of your senses.’

  I looked at Robin’s face. He was smiling serenely as if he had just had some pleasant, idle thought – he did not look like a man who had just heard that his wife was surrounded by a horde of enemies intent on rape and slaughter. But, by his next words, I could see that he was indeed determined to effect a rescue.

  ‘Sire, this is our one chance, this is our moment, I swear it. If we are swift. If we act decisively, now, we can smash this southern rebellion once and for all. We know exactly where our enemies are – and that they are weak. The main force will be at Mirebeau but at least half of their men, half their strength, will be away ranging the lands between Saumur and Poitiers looting and burning. They are weakened and spread out. I know Mirebeau Castle well. It will not fall easily, not for several days, a week perhaps. If we act fast, if we ride now, in secret, we can reach Mirebeau in two days with all our strength and deliver a killer blow. They will not expect us so soon. With speed, surprise and maximum strength, we can destroy them utterly, and then, before Philip even has word of our movements, we can be back in Normandy and, in turn, bring our whole force to bear upon the east.’

  ‘The Earl of Locksley is right, Sire,’ said des Roches. ‘We can do this.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the King. ‘It is late and I am tired. It seems very risky, to me. Perhaps we should take counsel on this matter tomorrow.’

  ‘It is indeed a bold stroke, Sire,’ said Robin, ‘and men will tell their grandsons, and their grandsons’ grandsons the tale of your courage and cunning, but for it to work, we must leave now.’ Then, rather quietly, he delivered the coup de grâce. ‘It is most certainly what your noble brother Richard would have done.’

  I saw John’s red head lift at the mention of his older brother. His hopeful, watery blue eyes fixed on Robin’s certain silver ones.

  ‘Do you truly think it is what Richard would have done, were he alive?’

  ‘Yes, Sire, said Robin. ‘It is a masterstroke of war – worthy of another Lionheart.’

  ‘Very well,’ said John, a smirk cutting his aged face in half. ‘We ride!’

  An hour later I found myself a-horse, in the dead of night, and heading south for Le Mans, with Robin at my side and Little John, Kit and Vim trotting behind us, and behind them came two hundred and fifty overexcited Wolves.

  Word had spread swiftly through the ranks that Robin had forced the King’s hand, and the men were proud of their lord’s sway with his sovereign.

  ‘Do you think it will work?’ I asked my lord after a mile.

  ‘No idea,’ was the terse reply. ‘But I will not sit idle in Normandy while Marie-Anne is at the mercy of our enemies. That royal bullfrog would have done nothing and squandered his chance. It might work, it really might, with a bit of luck.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were familiar with Mirebeau,’ I said.

  ‘Never heard of the place before tonight,’ said Robin, and in the moonlit darkness I could just make out his crooked smile.

  We rode all through the night and by dawn had reached Le Mans, where the bulk of William des Roches’s men were quartered. We stayed in that town only long enough to eat a hurried meal, feed and rub down our horses, and before the sun was a hand’s breadth above the horizon were back in the saddle.

  It was a hellish journey – indeed, as with so many unpleasant experiences, I cannot recall the full details of it now. I just have a vague memory of aching thighs, battered knees and bruised buttocks; numb fingers and a crushing weight of exhaustion pressing on my shoulders; the stink of sweat, both from horse and man; the constant jingle of metal accoutrements and the creak of leather. We rode without Robin for much of the time. My lord felt it wiser to be at the King’s elbow, in case the wretched fellow changed his mind or his resolve failed him.

  Little John and I rode side by side, with Kit and Vim on our heels and the uncomplaining Wolves behind us. Hour after hour we rode. The sun arced across the Heavens before us. We crossed rivers great and small, by bridge and ford, but tiredness blurred the hours, day and night, into one seamless agony of protesting bodies and jolting movement, of orders passed up and down the column. My head felt as if it was being squeezed in a vice, yet still we rode, endlessly pushing southwards. But William des Roches, who with Robin led the army on that awful, endless march, knew that we must rest our horses and ourselves. It would do no good to arrive at Mirebeau without the strength to fight.

  We stopped a few miles before the city of Tours, at a small castle still loyal to des Roches whose name I never learned. We had been riding for almost twenty-four hours without cease, and there we slept for four short hours. The King commandeered fresh horses for every man, some two hundred knights and three times as many mounted men-at-arms: we must have taken up every rideable beast within miles – and a good thing too, for my bay was nearly dead with exhaustion, his neck lathered with foam, his eyes rolling, his feet unsteady, legs shaking. I was not in a much better state. When I collapsed into my blankets in the straw of the castle stables, I slept immediately and, it seemed, had to stagger to my feet immediately, rouse the men, snatch a mouthful of cold porridge and a cup of water from Kit, and mount an unfamiliar horse, for the nightmare to begin all over again. Twelve hours of ceaseless riding later, twelve hours of agony, at a village a little to the west of Châtellerault, an hour or so after dusk, we stopped again, and once more fell into slumber like dead men. This time, however, with a sense of accomplishment in the back of our exhausted minds. We had ridden more than eighty miles in forty-eight hours. We were a handful of miles from Mirebeau.

  Robin summoned me from my blankets a little after midnight, and I cursed him as I struggled to stand. My back was one long sheet of pain; my thighs were chafed raw, the thick woollen hose worn away against the saddle to expose inflamed skin; my head felt as if it had been stuffed with burning wool.

  ‘The King wants to see all the commanders of his contingents in the church – now,’ he said. I saw the bulk of Little John standing in the blackness behind Robin.

  ‘Come on, Alan, we’ve done well, very well indeed to get here so fast, with all our men,’ Robin said. ‘But we need to be clear about the attack on Mirebeau, and how we should proceed. William des Roches’s scouts are back with news of the enemy dispositions. Come on. Wake yourself up, man.’

  A score of senior knights and barons stood yawning in the candlelight of that rustic church. I saw Sir Benedict Malet leaning against the far wall, his eyes closed, his face greyish and seemingly a little thinner. Little John, Robin and I stood near the altar and John handed me a beaker of wine with a manchet balanced on the top. I tore into the small round loaf like a ravenous wolf and washed the sweet bread down with the wine. I was awake now. The sight of the King, strutting jerkily about the church, talking, joking with his barons, amazed me. He was filled with a desperate, manic energy that crackled about him like lightning. I had seen its like before – around his brother – and indeed, although I hate to admit it, he did indeed have something of the Lionheart’s air.

  Nevertheless, it was William des Roches who called the gathering in that church to business. ‘Gentlemen, my advance men have reported back from Mirebeau,’ he said. And all the sluggish chatter in the church stopped.

  ‘It appears that Queen Eleanor and her party are holding out. The town has fallen, its east gatehouse has been burned to the ground, and the Bretons have looted the place pretty thoroughly. They have also managed to take the outer defences of the castle, the curtain wall and the outbuildings, but not the keep; the Queen still defies her enemies from the safety of the keep, praise God. Duke Arthur is there. His personal standard has been seen. Hugh and Geoffrey de Lusignan, Raymond de Thouars, Savary de Mauléon and a good many more of the most prominent rebels
are also there. My scouts estimate their forces in and around Mirebeau to be about one thousand two hundred men, with more scattered across the whole county. After some losses on the ride – accidents, falls and fatigue – we have some seven hundred effectives. So they outnumber us. So what! We are easily a match for them. But the best news of all, the most important consideration’ – des Roches paused here for greater effect – ‘is that they do not know we are here. Gentlemen, we have surprise on our side.’

  ‘We will catch them sleeping in their beds!’ crowed the King, bouncing on his toes with excitement. ‘We will slaughter them before they can pull their dirty braies on, let alone their armour. Ha-ha. I will have that brat Arthur hanging from his neck from the battlements by sundown.’

  William des Roches frowned at this last remark. ‘Sire, you promised me. You gave your word.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sire, you swore to me, when I rallied to your banner, that Duke Arthur of Brittany – your nephew – would be treated decently, if captured alive. You gave your solemn word of honour. He is an excitable lad, and evil friends have persuaded him to take up arms against your Highness but, by the laws of chivalry, if he is captured…’

  ‘Yes, yes, all right, William. I won’t hang the traitorous little rat.’

  ‘Sire, I want your assurance that you will heed my advice when it comes to Arthur. I want your assurance that you will not harm him in any way.’

  ‘And I have given it to you. Enough of this matter. Let us proceed to the plan of attack. Locksley, what is your counsel?’

  Robin took a couple of steps into the centre of the gathering, where all could see him. ‘Speed and surprise – these are our allies. If the east gate is destroyed, I’d say that is our attack point. I doubt there will be much to obstruct us. We go in hard and fast, straight into the town and punch through to the castle. We don’t stop until we have linked up with the Queen and her people in the keep. If it goes badly, we can regroup in the castle and, if necessary, defend ourselves best there. But I do not think it will. Indeed, quite the reverse. I think our true problem will be making the most of our victory…’