The Iron Castle

by Angus Donald

  Claes said, ‘He might be a charming lad, Scarecrow, but he’s our enemy and our prisoner, and don’t you forget it. He and his Bretons would have carved you into butcher’s meat at Mirebeau given half the chance.’

  I thought a good deal about Tilda on the ride. I wondered if she would be at Falaise when I got there, a vain wish as she was far more likely to be in Rouen with her father or back home in Avranches. But I allowed myself to hope. I was still determined not to dishonour her in any way, although I must admit I longed to glimpse her face, even for only a few minutes. She seemed to find me pleasing company. Or was I mistaking a natural friendliness for something more?

  Sadly, a match would have been impossible: her father was a wealthy lord and I was an impoverished knight forced to sell his sword. There was no possibility of Sir Joscelyn agreeing to a marital connection with me, I realised gloomily. And I would not take her in a base fashion, much as I wanted to. I tried, therefore, to put her from my mind, as my horse steadily ate up the miles beneath us.

  I thought about Robin instead. I was grateful to him for saving me from the King’s hangman. I did not care much about the month’s pay being docked, nor about being ordered to become a gaoler to a Duke – but I did care about being sent away from the main army. Little John’s fate was in my mind a good deal and I feared I would never see him again in this world, but also the prospect of a return to dull garrison duty in Falaise had little appeal. I would have enjoyed it if Robin and I could have served together in the east – on the marches where King John must surely project his full strength now the south was pacified. If I was stuck in Falaise, I would miss out on the final victory, and the loot and ransoms that would entail.

  We arrived at Falaise in the middle of the afternoon, four days after leaving the army, and I reported directly to Hubert de Burgh and informed him of the identity of my illustrious prisoner and of the King’s order that he be safely housed in the castle.

  ‘We’d better put him in the cells below,’ he said. ‘It’s not really a fitting place for a Duke, but we dare not let him escape. He will not lack for company – Benedict is already back, and he has brought Hugh and Geoffrey de Lusignan with him. So the three of them can roost down there until the ransoms are arranged. See they are safely installed, would you, Sir Alan, with all reasonable comforts due their rank.’

  Before I left the lord of Falaise, I rather timidly asked after Sir Joscelyn Giffard and his household.

  ‘Oh, he’s back in Avranches, keeping the border safe. The Bretons are apparently furious about the loss of their Arthur and they have been raiding, looting and burning the farms within half a day’s ride. Sir Joscelyn and his men will soon have them back in line, though, I have no doubt.’

  He paused and scratched his grey beard. ‘It’s remarkable how much stock they put in the Duke, given that he’s not much more than a boy. Strange. Must be because of his name.’

  As I gathered up the Duke of Brittany and ushered him to the lowest depths of the keep, I reflected on de Burgh’s words. The songs and stories about King Arthur were popular throughout Christendom but, in certain places, Wales for example, and Brittany in particular, they had assumed an almost religious aura. The Duke, despite his Angevin blood, was half Breton, and perhaps his people believed he really was the great Arthur of legend reborn and restored to them.

  The real, flesh-and-blood Arthur tried to hide his dismay when I showed him down the stone steps at the base of the castle, some twenty feet below ground, along a right-angled corridor, passing storerooms, the armoury, the pantry and buttery, and into a low, dark, square space in the bottom of the keep. The windowless room, lit only by a pair of cheap tallow candles, was perhaps ten paces on each side, but about a third of it had been separated off with a square latticework of iron bars set firmly in the ceiling and the floor and the walls on either side. This third was again divided into three cells, each perhaps three yards square. Two of them were occupied: I could make out pale faces in the gloom, at the bars and looking out. Geoffrey and Hugh de Lusignan, uncle and nephew, heads of the powerful clan. The two prisoners said nothing as the gaoler, a shapeless oaf called Rollo, and his assistant, a scurrying rat of a boy, showed Arthur into the cell in the corner of the room and clanged the door behind him, locking it with a big iron key. Two castle guards sat yawning on stools beside an unlit brazier. On the wall, heavy chains and manacles had been fitted and hung down, each set a couple of yards apart, and a wooden rack held the implements of torture: knives, saws, long iron pincers … I looked away quickly. Each cell held only a basic cot – a wooden box resembling a coffin filled with none-too-clean straw, a stool and an earthenware jug, filled with water presumably. Once again the pale face of the Duke of Brittany looked out at me from behind stout bars.

  I turned to the gaoler. ‘Do you feed them regularly?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said smartly. ‘Bean pottage every day at noon – with a nice piece of bacon in it on Sundays. As much water as they can drink.’ He smirked at me. ‘There’s many a free man who’d be grateful for as much in these troubled times.’

  I merely grunted. He was right, a peasant might well consider this an adequate diet; many folk managed to survive on much less – we had at Westbury. But for a young lord of gentle upbringing it would be a hardship. God knew how long he might be here while the ransoms were arranged. It could be a year, or two, even ten.

  ‘I will be bringing food and wine for the prisoners from time to time,’ I told Rollo, ‘when my duties permit.’ He looked uncertain at this. I fumbled in my pouch, pulled out several silver coins and gave them to him.

  ‘They are not to be mistreated, hear me? I shall be angry if they are harmed.’

  The coins had disappeared and the fat little man was beaming at me. ‘Yes, sir, whatever you wish, sir.’

  I turned to go. That dank, dark place was corroding my soul.

  ‘Sir Alan,’ said the Duke. ‘I thank you for your kindness – in this foul place and on the road with your men. God will surely reward you, even if I cannot.’

  I merely nodded at him, unable to speak. I could not wait to get out of that fetid dungeon and into clean fresh air and sunlight.

  Chapter Eight

  The summer that year was glorious. Long golden days with little work to do except for the odd patrol around the surrounding countryside with the Wolves. I visited Arthur about every other day, bringing him wine or cider and a piece of meat or cheese, sometimes fruit. I hated to go down those stone steps and enter that dark place, but I forced myself to. The truth is, I felt sorry for the boy. I sat with him for an hour or so, and sometimes we played chess to while away the time – he was an awful player and I beat him so easily the first few times that I was forced to play without a queen and a castle, just to make a decent game of it. I still won almost all the time. He was not a bright lad, certainly brave and good-humoured, but not bright.

  One conversation I had with him, however, stuck in my mind. We were playing chess one day and he was playing so badly that I had no need to concentrate very hard on the game. I said, idly, ‘Tell me, Your Grace, do you truly believe you are the rightful King of England?’

  He looked up from the board, surprised. ‘But, of course.’

  ‘How so?’ I said, taking his queen with a pawn.

  ‘My father was Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, as you know, and he was granted the duchy by his father, my grandfather, King Henry of England, Duke of Normandy. I never knew my father, alas; he died in a tournament before I was born.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘I’m sorry, too, but it was God’s will. Yet I feel his spirit with me wherever I go.’

  Unwisely, he advanced a pawn to threaten my knight. My bishop sliced down diagonally and took his castle. He took my knight.

  ‘When old Henry died, Richard, my father’s elder brother, became King of England,’ he continued.

  I moved my castle. ‘Check.’

  He stared at the board blankly and sai
d, ‘And when the Lionheart died, my father would have become King, had he been alive but he was already with God. And so I believe that I, as his son, am the rightful King in his place. The rights pass from King Henry, my grandfather, through my late father to me. So, by the laws of God and man, I am King of England and Duke of Normandy. John is the usurper.’

  He said this with such firmness and passion that I was a little taken aback. He truly did have a royal glow about him despite the rags he wore and the filthiness of his surroundings. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to wonder how things would have been if he had been made King on Richard’s death.

  On the board, he moved his king to the left.

  ‘King John is both the brother of King Richard, and the son of King Henry, so surely he has a stronger claim than you?’ I moved my bishop back into the centre and murmured, ‘Checkmate.’

  Arthur glared at me. ‘I should be King of England and Duke of Normandy! And no other. It is God’s will. It has been so decreed by God and the Church.’ Such was the ferocity in his young eyes that I dared not contradict him.

  On the days when I was busy, or could not face the dank misery of the dungeon, I sent Little Niels down with food and instructions to tell Arthur the gossip of the castle and what scant news we had of the war. The little fellow always returned to the surface with a cheery smile on his face and a tale of the jests they had shared through the bars. I was glad he was able to provide some moments of levity for the Duke in his misery.

  There was no word of the ransom negotiations at all.

  The months passed and summer became autumn. I had sent some money to my steward Baldwin and received a letter telling me the harvest in Westbury had been bountiful that year and all was well with my little son Robert. I exercised daily in the courtyard at the wooden paling there with Kit, working on his sword and dagger combinations mostly, and practised tilting at a quintain to keep myself sharp. I had entertained hopes in the first few weeks after my return to Falaise that I would be recalled to the army. After John’s stunning victory at Mirebeau, he had a perfect opportunity to summon all his men to the east and push Philip out of Normandy for good. If he had been his lionhearted brother, I think he might have done it. Instead, he was cautious, making small gains against the French on the march, but no clear, decisive moves. He basked, though, I heard from many lips, in the glory of Mirebeau, claiming he devised the plan and fought heroically in the battle. Those who were there knew differently, but kept their silence.

  I was puzzled by John’s relative inactivity. One day I summoned up the courage to ask Lord de Burgh what the King had in his mind. He looked stern. ‘It is not my place nor yours to question the strategy of our divinely appointed King.’

  I dropped my gaze, scolded. But, surprisingly, de Burgh relented and said quietly, confidentially, ‘He fears treachery, Sir Alan. He does not trust his barons and so he cannot move freely. I fear he is right to do so. Word reached me yesterday of a great blow to the King’s cause. Did you know William des Roches has lately turned traitor and gone over to Philip’s side?’

  ‘But why? He fought bravely at Mirebeau; indeed he was, along with the Earl of Locksley, the cause of our victory there.’

  ‘He claims he was promised charge of Arthur if the Duke was captured. He says he does not trust John to deal with him honourably. That is why, he says, he will serve the King no longer. Because of his treachery, now Anjou and the whole of the south is once again imperilled. William des Roches fights for Philip on the Loire, and Aimery de Thouars, too, has forsaken the King and ravages his lands down there.’

  I admit I was shocked at the news that William des Roches had gone over to the enemy. But, to be honest, I could not feel the proper sense of outrage at his choice. Once again I wondered how the world would be if Arthur had become King.

  ‘Surely,’ I said, ‘if King John doesn’t trust his barons, doesn’t that make them more likely to be distrustful of him in return, and more likely to depart?’

  ‘It is quite simple, Sir Alan, an honourable man does not change his allegiance for any reason, whatsoever. None. He does not pick and choose his lord according to the way the wind is blowing that day, or by what he eats to break his fast. He makes an oath, a sacred promise; he keeps it, till death. Either his death or the death of his lord. Else he has no honour at all.’

  Towards Christmas a courier from Robin arrived with a welcome chest of silver for my Wolves and me – and a sad message. Little John still lived, Robin wrote, but he was weak and growing daily weaker. He was not expected to rise from his bed again. He was being cared for at Fécamp Abbey, thirty miles down the coast from Dieppe. Apparently, the monks who cared for him considered his continued existence these past few months a genuine miracle – but they knew he could not last much longer. Tears blurred my eyes then, and I had to look away from the parchment for a moment. Robin’s other news, however, was almost as dismal – the Wolves had been dispersed across Normandy to hold some castles in their own right, to bolster the garrisons of some others and, he wrote cryptically, in some cases to ensure the loyalty of the castellan. With winter almost upon us, it seemed likely the fighting would grind to a halt. Nothing of note had been achieved after the summer victory at Mirebeau. Indeed, the situation was almost exactly the same as before, with Normandy ringed by enemies to the south, west and east. King John himself, Robin informed me, would hold the Feast of the Nativity in Caen and Robin would be accompanying him. If I could be spared from my duties in Falaise, Robin urged me to spend the days of Christmas with him there.

  Caen lay only twenty miles to the north of Falaise, one day’s ride, and I stressed this proximity to Hubert de Burgh, when I asked his leave to spend Christmas with my lord. I would leave the men here under Claes and take only Kit with me. If he had need of me over the celebration period, he had only to send a rider and I would return forthwith. Hubert de Burgh grumbled a good deal but finally, grudgingly, agreed to my leave of absence.

  So I found myself, with Kit at my side, walking our horses through the muddy slush on the road north to Caen on Christmas Eve, with the snow softly falling all around, making the air hazy. I had bid farewell to Arthur and made him a gift of a roast capon, two loaves of fine-milled white bread, a milk pudding sweetened with honey, a dozen apples, a bag of walnuts and a small barrel of wine, so that he and his fellow prisoners, now gaunt, stinking, filthy and close to despair, could keep the feast of Our Lord’s Nativity themselves with a decent meal. I told him I would be back within two weeks.

  ‘Do you think I will ever leave this cell?’ Arthur asked piteously, after he’d thanked me with tears in his eyes for the food.

  ‘Of course, the negotiations must be well advanced by now,’ I said cheerily. In truth, I was not sure. ‘I will ask Robin if there is news,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he can persuade the King to hurry things along.’

  It was a strange Christmas: cold, crisp and melancholy. The happiness I usually felt at this holy season was entirely absent. I felt hollow, woolly headed and purposeless. We heard Holy Mass in the freezing abbey church of St Stephen on Christmas Day and afterwards feasted joylessly all afternoon in the great hall of the castle. I went to bed that night sober and restless.

  As well as Robin, a great number of barons and knights attended the King and Queen Isabella at Caen, including William de Briouze, William the Marshal, Roger de Lacy and Robert d’Alençon. And a few days after the Christmas Day feast, to my delight, Sir Joscelyn Giffard arrived at Caen. I had not dared to hope that I might see Tilda this Yuletide, but now the prospect seemed imminent. Sir Joscelyn greeted me as an old friend and asked for an account of the battle of Mirebeau and my news of Falaise. I gave it to him and we spoke for a while about music. Then, diffidently, almost timidly, I asked after his daughter.

  He looked at me happily. ‘I have some wonderful news about Matilda,’ he said. ‘She has agreed to become a Bride of Christ; she is with the Abbess of Caen as we speak, taking instruction, and is set to become a novice
at the abbey soon after Christmastide.’

  My stomach went cold. My Tilda was to be a nun, a woman taken out of the world of the flesh, away from the love of any man – and she would live a chaste life of prayer and sanctity until, old, wrinkled and dry, she was finally called to God.

  ‘How wonderful,’ I said, my voice shaking. ‘You must be very proud.’

  ‘I am, Alan, I am. Her mother would have liked the idea very well. She was wed to me when she was young, and happily so, I believe, but before the marriage it had always been her dream to live a holy life, a life in the service of God. I think she looks down on Tilda from Heaven with loving pride and approval.’

  I nodded and said nothing, feeling dizzy and sick.

  Sir Joscelyn put a hand on my arm. ‘I know you were fond of her, Alan, but she has chosen a better life, a far better life than she would have had as somebody’s dutiful wife, and a mother to his children. Can you understand her decision?’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ I said, smiling gamely. ‘She has chosen to devote her whole life to God. It is an honour for you and … and a great blessing for all mankind.’

  He patted me kindly on the shoulder. ‘It is, Alan, it truly is.’

  I saw Tilda only once that black Christmastide – and behaved dishonourably. I saw her walking with a group of other holy women in the street of parchment-sellers near the abbey. She looked perfect, quite perfect: swathed in a black fur-trimmed cloak, her beautiful face peeking out from under the hood, glowing with the cold, her grey-blue eyes bright, lips blood red, her soft cheeks pale as snow. She was walking perhaps twenty paces from me, across my path, noticed me, stopped and waved happily. Seeing her was a physical shock. Like a horse-kick to the stomach. I turned my back on her, without returning her greeting and hurried away, my cheeks burning with shame. I regretted it later, of course, and consider it to have been a cowardly act, but I knew I could not look into her perfect face, knowing I would never have her, and keep my dignity as a man.