by Ken Follett
The children were awake early in the morning, but breakfast could not be served until mass had been said, and mass could not be said until the earl got up, so they had to wait. An early-rising servant conscripted them to bring in firewood for the day. The adults started to wake as the cold morning air came in through the door. When the children had finished bringing in the wood, they met Aliena.
She came down the stairs, as she had last night, but now she looked different. She wore a short tunic and felt boots. Her massed curls were tied back with a ribbon, showing the graceful line of her jaw, her small ears and her white neck. Her big dark eyes, which had seemed grave and adult last night, now sparkled with fun, and she was smiling. She was followed by the boy who had sat at the head of the table with her and the earl last night. He looked a year or two older than Jack, but he was not full-grown like Alfred. He looked curiously at Jack, Martha and Alfred, but it was the girl who spoke. "Who are you?" she said.
Alfred replied. "My father is the stonemason who's going to repair this castle. I'm Alfred. My sister's name is Martha. That's Jack."
When she came close Jack could smell lavender, and he was awestruck. How could a person smell of flowers?
"How old are you?" she said to Alfred.
"Fourteen." Alfred was also overawed by her, Jack could tell. After a moment Alfred blurted: "How old are you?"
"Fifteen. Do you want something to eat?"
"Yes."
"Come with me."
They all followed her out of the hall and down the steps. Alfred said: "But they don't serve breakfast before mass."
"They do what I tell them," Aliena said with a toss of her head.
She led them across the bridge to the lower compound and told them to wait outside the kitchen while she went in. Martha whispered to Jack: "Isn't she pretty?" He nodded dumbly. A few moments later Aliena came out with a pot of beer and a loaf of wheat bread. She broke the bread into hunks and handed it out, then she passed the pot around.
After a while Martha said shyly: "Where's your mother?"
"My mother died," Aliena said briskly.
"Aren't you sad?" Martha said.
"I was, but it was a long time ago." She indicated the boy beside her with a jerk of her head. "Richard can't even remember it."
Richard must be her brother, Jack concluded.
"My mother's dead, too," Martha said, and tears came to her eyes.
"When did she die?" Aliena asked.
"Last week."
Aliena did not seem much moved by Martha's tears, Jack observed; unless she was being matter-of-fact to hide her own grief. She said abruptly: "Well, who's that woman with you, then?"
Jack said eagerly: "That's my mother." He was thrilled to have something to say to her.
She turned to him as if seeing him for the first time. "Well, where's your father?"
"I haven't got one," he said. He felt excited just to have her looking at him.
"Did he die, too?"
"No," Jack said. "I never had a father."
There was a moment of silence, then Aliena, Richard and Alfred all burst out laughing. Jack was puzzled, and looked blankly at them; and their laughter increased, until he began to feel mortified. What was so funny about never having had a father? Even Martha was smiling, her tears forgotten.
Alfred said in a jeering tone: "Where did you come from, then, if you didn't have a father?"
"From my mother--all young things come from their mothers," Jack said, mystified. "What have fathers got to do with it?"
They all laughed even more. Richard jumped up and down with glee, pointing a mocking finger at Jack. Alfred said to Aliena: "He doesn't know anything--we found him in the forest."
Jack's cheeks burned with shame. He had been so happy to be talking to Aliena, and now she thought he was a complete fool, a forest ignoramus; and the worst of it was he still did not know what he had said wrong. He wanted to cry, and that made it worse. The bread stuck in his throat and he could not swallow. He looked at Aliena, her lovely face alive with amusement, and he could not stand it, so he threw his bread on the ground and walked away.
Not caring where he went, he walked until he came to the bank of the castle wall, and scrambled up the steep slope to the top. There he sat down on the cold earth, looking outward, feeling sorry for himself, hating Alfred and Richard and even Martha and Aliena. Princesses were heartless, he decided.
The bell rang for mass. Religious services were yet another mystery to him. Speaking a language that was neither English nor French, the priests sang and talked to statues, to pictures, and even to beings that were completely invisible. Jack's mother avoided going to services whenever she could. As the inhabitants of the castle made their way to the chapel, Jack scooted over the top of the wall and sat out of sight on the far side.
The castle was surrounded by flat, bare fields, with woodland in the distance. Two early visitors were walking across the level ground toward the castle. The sky was full of low gray cloud. Jack wondered if it might snow.
Two more early visitors appeared within Jack's view. These two were on horseback. They rode rapidly to the castle, overtaking the first pair. They walked their horses across the wooden bridge to the gatehouse. All four visitors would have to wait until after mass before they could get on with whatever business brought them here, for everyone attended the service except for the sentries on duty.
A sudden voice close by made Jack jump. "So there you are." It was his mother. He turned to her, and she saw immediately that he was upset. "What's the matter?"
He wanted to take comfort from her, but he hardened his heart and said: "Did I have a father?"
"Yes," she said. "Everyone has a father." She knelt beside him.
He turned his face away. His humiliation had been her fault, for not telling him about his father. "What happened to him?"
"He died."
"When I was small?"
"Before you were born."
"How could he be my father, if he died before I was born?"
"Babies grow from a seed. The seed comes out of a man's prick and is planted in a woman's cunny. Then the seed grows into a baby in her belly, and when it's ready it comes out."
Jack was silent for a moment, digesting this information. He had a suspicion that it was connected with what they did in the night. "Is Tom going to plant a seed in you?" he said.
"Maybe."
"Then you'll have a new baby."
She nodded. "A brother for you. Would you like that?"
"I don't care," he said. "Tom has taken you away from me already. A brother wouldn't make any difference."
She put her arm around him and hugged him. "Nobody will ever take me away from you," she said.
That made him feel a bit better.
They sat together for a while, then she said: "It's cold here. Let's go and sit by the fire until breakfast."
He nodded. They got up and went back over the castle wall, running down the bank into the compound. There was no sign of the four visitors. Perhaps they had gone into the chapel.
As Jack and his mother walked over the bridge to the upper compound, Jack said: "What was my father's name?"
"Jack, the same as you," she said. "They called him Jack Shareburg."
That pleased him. He had the same name as his father. "So, if there's another Jack, I can tell people that I'm Jack Jackson."
"You can. People don't always call you what you want them to, but you can try."
Jack nodded. He felt better. He would think of himself as Jack Jackson. He was not so ashamed now. At least he knew about fathers, and he knew the name of his own. Jack Shareburg.
They reached the gatehouse of the upper compound. There were no sentries there. Jack's mother stopped, frowning. "I've got the oddest feeling that something strange is going on," she said. Her voice was calm and even, but there was a note of fear that chilled Jack, and he had a premonition of disaster.
His mother stepped into the small guardroom in t
he base of the guardhouse. A moment later Jack heard her gasp. He went in behind her. She was standing in an attitude of shock, her hand up to her mouth, staring down at the floor.
The sentry was lying flat on his back, his arms limp at his sides. His throat was cut, there was a pool of fresh blood on the ground beside him, and he was unquestionably dead.
III
William Hamleigh and his father had set off in the middle of the night, with almost a hundred knights and men-at-arms on horseback, and Mother in the rearguard. The torchlit army, their faces muffled against the cold night air, must have terrified the inhabitants of the villages through which they thundered on their way to Earlscastle. They had reached the crossroads while it was still pitch-dark. From there they had walked their horses, to give them a rest and to minimize the noise. As dawn cracked the sky they concealed themselves in the woods across the fields from the castle of Earl Bartholomew.
William had not actually counted the number of fighting men he had seen in the castle--an omission for which Mother had berated him mercilessly, even though, as he had tried to point out, many of the men he saw there were waiting to be sent on errands, and others might have arrived after William left, so a count would not be reliable. But it would have been better than nothing, as Father had said. However, he estimated he had seen about forty men; so if there had been no great change in the few hours since, the Hamleighs would have an advantage of better than two to one.
It was nowhere near enough to besiege the castle, of course. However, they had devised a plan for taking the castle without a siege. The problem was that the attacking army would be seen by lookouts, and the castle would be closed up long before they arrived. The answer was to find some way to keep the castle open for the time it took the army to get there from its place of concealment in the woods.
It had been Mother who solved the problem, of course.
"We need a diversion," she had said, scratching a boil on her chin. "Something to panic them, so that they don't notice the army until it's too late. Like a fire."
Father said: "If a stranger walks in and starts a fire, that will alert them anyway."
"It would have to be done on the sly," William said.
"Of course it would," said Mother impatiently. "You'll have to do it while they're at mass."
"Me?" William had said.
He had been put in charge of the advance party.
The morning sky lightened with painful slowness. William was nervously impatient. During the night, he and Mother and Father had added refinements to the basic idea, but still there was a great deal that could go wrong: the advance party might not get into the castle for some reason, or they might be viewed with suspicion and be unable to act surreptitiously, or they might be caught before they could achieve anything. Even if the plan worked, there would be a battle, William's first real fight. Men would be wounded and killed, and William might be one of the unlucky ones. His bowels tightened with fear. Aliena would be there, and she would know if he were vanquished. On the other hand, she would be there to see it if he triumphed. He pictured himself bursting into her bedroom with a bloody sword in his hand. Then she would wish she had not laughed at him.
From the castle came the sound of the bell for morning mass.
William nodded, and two men detached themselves from the group and began to walk across the fields toward the castle. They were Raymond and Ranulf, two hard-faced, hard-muscled men some years older than William. William had picked them himself: his father had given him complete control. Father himself would lead the main assault.
William watched Raymond and Ranulf walk briskly across the frozen fields. Before they reached the castle, he looked at Walter, then kicked his horse, and he and Walter set off across the fields at a trot. The sentries on the battlements would see two separate pairs of people, one on foot and one on horseback, approaching the castle first thing in the morning: it looked perfectly innocent.
William's timing was good. He and Walter passed Raymond and Ranulf about a hundred yards from the castle. At the bridge they dismounted. William's heart was in his mouth. If he messed up this part, the whole attack would be ruined.
There were two sentries at the gate. William had a nightmarish suspicion that there would be an ambush, and a dozen men-at-arms would spring out of concealment and hack him to pieces. The sentries looked alert but not anxious. They were not wearing armor. William and Walter had chain mail under their cloaks.
William's guts seemed to have turned to water. He could not swallow. One of the sentries recognized him. "Hello, Lord William," he said jovially. "Come courting again, have you?"
William said "Oh, my God," in a weak voice, then plunged a dagger into the sentry's belly, jabbing it up under the rib cage to the heart.
The man gasped, sagged, and opened his mouth as if to scream. A noise could spoil everything. Panicking, not knowing what to do, William pulled out the dagger and stuck it into the man's open mouth, shoving the blade into his throat to shut him up. Instead of a scream, blood flowed out of his mouth. The man's eyes closed. William pulled the dagger out as the man fell to the ground.
William's horse had sidestepped away, frightened by the sudden movements. William caught its bridle, then looked at Walter, who had taken the other sentry. Walter had knifed his man more efficiently, slitting his throat, so that he died in silence. I must remember that, William thought, next time I have to silence a man. Then he thought: I've done it! I've killed a man!
He realized he was no longer scared.
He handed his reins to Walter and ran up the spiral staircase to the gatehouse tower. On the upper level was a winding room for pulling up the drawbridge. With his sword, William hacked at the thick hawser. Two blows were sufficient to sever it. He dropped the loose end out of the window. It fell on the bank and slid softly into the moat, hardly making a splash. Now the drawbridge could not be raised against Father's attacking force. This was one of the refinements they had thought of last night.
Raymond and Ranulf arrived at the gatehouse just as William reached the foot of the stairs. Their first job was to wreck the huge ironbound oak gates which closed the arch leading from the bridge into the compound. They each took out a wooden hammer and a chisel and began to chip out the mortar surrounding the mighty iron hinges. The striking of hammer on chisel made a dull thud which sounded terribly loud to William.
William dragged the two dead sentries into the guardroom quickly. With everyone at mass, there was a strong chance the bodies would not be seen until it was too late.
He took his reins from Walter and the two of them walked out from under the arch and headed across the compound toward the stable. William forced his legs to move at a normal, unhurried pace, and glanced surreptitiously up at the sentries on the watchtowers. Had one of them seen the drawbridge rope fall into the moat? Were they wondering about the sound of hammering? Some of them were looking at William and Walter, but they did not seem agitated, and the hammering, which was already fading in William's ears, must have been inaudible from the tops of the towers. William felt relieved. The plan was working.
They reached the stables and went inside. They both draped their horses' reins loosely over a bar, so the beasts could escape. Then William took out his flint and scraped a spark, setting fire to the straw on the floor. It was soiled and damp in patches, but nevertheless it began to smolder. He lit three more small fires, and Walter did the same. They stood watching for a moment. The horses caught a whiff of smoke, and moved nervously in the stalls. William stayed a moment longer. The fire was under way, and so was the plan.
He and Walter left the stable and went out into the open compound. At the gateway, hidden under the arch, Raymond and Ranulf were still chipping away at the mortar around the hinges. William and Walter turned toward the kitchen, to give the impression that they might be going to get something to eat, which would be natural. There was no one else in the compound: everyone was at mass. Casually looking up at the battlements, William
observed that the sentries were not looking into the castle, but out across the fields, as of course they were supposed to. Nevertheless William expected someone to emerge from one of the buildings at any moment and challenge them; and then they would have to kill him right here in the open, and if that were seen the game would be up.
They skirted the kitchen and headed for the bridge leading to the upper compound. They heard the muted sounds of the service as they passed the chapel. Earl Bartholomew was in there, all unsuspecting, William thought with a thrill; he had no idea that there was an army a mile away, four of the enemy were already inside his stronghold, and his stables were on fire. Aliena was in the chapel too, praying on her knees. Soon she'll be on her knees to me, William thought, and the blood pounded in his head giddily.
They reached the bridge and started across. They had ensured that the first bridge remained passable, by cutting the drawbridge rope and disabling the gate, so that their army could get in. But the earl could still flee across the bridge and take refuge in the upper compound. William's next task was to prevent this by raising the drawbridge to make the second bridge impassable. The earl would then be isolated and vulnerable in the lower compound.
They reached the second gatehouse and a sentry stepped out of the guardroom. "You're early," he said.
William said: "We've been summoned to see the earl." He approached the sentry, but the man stepped back a pace. William did not want him to back away too far, for if he stepped out from under the arch he would be visible to the sentries on the ramparts of the upper circle.
"The earl's in chapel," the sentry said.
"We'll have to wait." This guard had to be killed quickly and quietly, but William did not know how to get close enough. He glanced at Walter for guidance, but Walter was just waiting patiently, looking imperturbable.