by Paul Finch
Prince Llewellyn and his men were themselves a merry band. Dark-haired, dark eyed and, in the prince's case, wolfishly handsome. They had come to England displaying all their traditional banners and standards — the Red Dragon, the Lions of Gwynedd — but for once carrying neither spears nor shields, nor wearing mail. Instead, they sported wedding-day raiment, the prince clad in hose and tunic of forest green, a cape of gold thread, and a green hunting cap with a silver plume.
In the heart of Worcester itself, the cathedral concourse was also decked for this grandest occasion, the stone square carpeted with flowers. Flags and pennons streamed from posts and rooftops. Monks and lay-brethren of the cathedral chapter scampered hither and thither to ensure that everything was just as it should be. For it was here where King Edward would require Prince Llewellyn to offer homage and fealty to the English Crown, and officially recognise Edward as his sovereign lord. Only after this solemn moment, would the prince and his betrothed, Eleanor de Montfort, ward and first cousin to the king, exchange their vows and a holy mass be sung.
It would be a significant occasion, Ulbert FitzOsbern had advised his young son. Only when it was completed could the feasting begin, though already preparations were in progress for this. On a broad meadow just outside the town, where many ornate pavilions — each one representing some great household — had been pitched, long trestle tables were being laid with cloth and arrayed with cutlery. Minstrels were tuning their instruments, jongleurs testing their voices. Kegs of wine and barrels of beer and cider had been gathered in abundance. The delicious scents from the open-air kitchens wafted even through Worcester's crooked by-ways — succulent cuts of meat, pork and venison, basting in their own juices, wildfowl and chickens turning on spits, vegetables boiling in salted butter, the sweet aroma of baking bread.
Of course, the greatest moment of all would come when King Edward himself arrived, escorting his cousin by her dainty hand. Ranulf's father would himself walk in this royal procession, though only at the rear, as a loyal tenant of the one of the king's great barons. The rest of the FitzOsbern family, like the families of other lesser dignitaries, would be forced to wait with the eagerly watching crowd, though they were afforded some solace by having places allocated in one of several roped-off stalls with raised seating, which were ranged at the front of the cathedral concourse. The common folk would have to make do as best they could, peeking out between these flimsy, flag-draped structures, or watching from the high windows and steep, shaggy roofs of Worcester's tall, timber buildings.
Ranulf, uncomfortable in his white hose, white satin tunic and long, pointy-toed boots, sat close and snug against the warm thigh of his mother and held her gloved hand throughout, though her grip noticeably tightened when Bishop Godfrey emerged from the cathedral door in vestments of purest gold, with a gold mitre on his brow, and a fanfare of trumpeters announced that the royal entourage was at last approaching.
When they entered the great concourse they came on foot, having walked from the castle, where they had lodged for the night. King Edward, who strode beneath a scarlet canopy carried by four servants in purple hose and scarlet tabards, was perhaps the most resplendent figure the young boy had ever seen: six feet and four inches tall, massive at the shoulder and with a true warrior's bearing. He had a rich, but neatly trimmed beard and a shock of reddish hair, on which his crown was firmly set. His long tunic was of rich murrey velvet, emblazoned all over with lions, his serge cloak decked in a similar pattern. Behind him came the usual gaggle of prelates in their episcopal purple, glittering with their rings and chains of office, and then the greatest of the great magnates, each one in their own traditional heraldic garb.
The bride herself was a slim, child-like figure. She wore a chaste white gown, tight at the hips but full in the skirt, and walked demurely alongside her cousin, one hand in his. A white fur cape hung from her shoulders and a veil of white lace concealed her features, though her coiled flaxen-yellow hair was visible inside its silken caul, studded with gemstones.
Ranulf had heard that she was a great beauty, but that didn't mean much to him. He'd only ever known one beauty in his short life and, as far as he was concerned, she would never be surpassed — and that was his mother. That morning, when they'd risen in their pavilion to prepare for the day, she'd seemed more gorgeous to him than he could ever remember. Bright eyed and red lipped, she wore a lilac dress covered by a green cloak embroidered with woodland flowers, and her glimmering raven hair was coiled beneath a babette and tied under her chin with a linen fillet. Even in the midst of the cheering and clapping, the banging of drums, the tooting of pipes and brazen batteries of trumpets, Ranulf remembered how much he adored his mother. He glanced up at her, expecting, as always, that she would beam down at him with all the love and happiness in the world.
Except that this time it was different.
His mother was frowning.
Her mouth was a tight, grey line. Her cheeks had sunk and were hued an unhealthy shade of blue. Her eyes had collapsed like tarnished stones into cavernous hollows. When she finally smiled, her shrivelled lips peeled back from brown peg-teeth clamped in a skeletal grimace…
Ranulf sat up sharply, his brow damp.
At first he didn't know where he was.
It was dark and cold, rank with the stench of smoke, sweat and burned flesh. Gradually he noted the grunts, groans and coughs and came to sense the many bodies slumped around him, and his awareness of reality returned. He was on the second level of the Gatehouse, huddled under his cloak and lying in a corner between Gurt and Ramon la Roux. It was probably the early hours of the morning, though from somewhere overhead he heard a faint, echoing boom.
From midnight onward there'd been a lull in the fighting. The dead had withdrawn from the entry passage, abandoning their attack on the portcullis, which by then was crusted from top to bottom with the twisted charcoal relics of their vanguard. This had afforded the defenders an opportunity to drink some water, cram some bread into their bellies and catch a little sleep.
Another boom, deep and hollow, sounded from overhead. Another followed. And another. Suddenly it was relentless, repeating itself over and over again.
Now that the cold had settled into his body and limbs, Ranulf was stiff all over. As he clambered to his feet, his joints ached and creaked. Other men began to stir. With each impact overhead, dust trickled down onto them.
"What is… what is that?" Gurt mumbled.
"Nothing good," Ranulf replied, heading for the stair.
On the third level, he met Hugh du Guesculin, who was carrying a candle and looked ashen-faced.
"They have a battering ram," du Guesculin said in a querulous tone.
Other men were now milling around them in the darkness, muttering and swearing.
Du Guesculin took Ranulf's arm. "Did you hear what I said, FitzOsbern? Those abominations on the north wall — they have a battering ram. They're using it on the gantry door."
"From the north wall?" Ranulf said. "It must be twenty feet across that gap."
"They've cut down a pine and trimmed its trunk. They can easily reach over. Not only that, they've tied ladders together. Improvised their own bridge."
Ranulf moved past him to the door in question. With each impact, it shook violently.
This drawbridge had never been constructed to withstand attack; it had never really been more than an access point between the Gatehouse and the curtain-wall. In due course, probably very soon, it would be smashed — and the dead would push their own bridge over and flow across it. Though many might be tossed to destruction en route, there would always, as they'd repeatedly proved in this siege of sieges, be more of them. At the same time, they would attack the portcullis again. The crew on the fire-raiser would be overwhelmed from within, and the Gatehouse would fall.
At that moment, sluggish with hunger, muddled by fatigue, Ranulf could not conceive of a single strategy to prevent this. And then, with an explosive report, three of the door's cent
ral planks fractured inwards.
"Get the earl," he said, jerking to life.
But the earl was already present, standing alongside du Guesculin. It was Earl Corotocus's manner, even in times of extreme crisis, to be grim but never despairing. Yet now, for the first time at Grogen Castle, his mouth twitched, his cheek had paled to a deathly hue.
"Sound the alarum," he said. "Retreat to the Constable's Tower."
CHAPTER TWENTY
When an army is prepared to lose thousands upon thousands of its men, or indeed, as in this case, is incapable of losing a single man, the word 'impregnable' no longer applies to any redoubt.
The English bore this in mind as they readied the Constable's Tower to receive the next onslaught. In normal times, the Constable's Tower would have felt far more secure than the Gatehouse. Its parapets were thirty feet higher, and in terms of structure it was altogether more massive, its walls infinitely thicker. It had more vents for oil and pitch and more loops from which missiles could be discharged. In addition, it could only really be attacked from one side. To the east and south it faced into the Inner Fort, the courtyard of which was a good eighty feet below. To the west, it faced into the bailey, which was a hundred feet below. Neither of these immense distances could be covered by ladder or climbing rope — at least, Earl Corotocus's men had never heard of such a thing. But from the north, it was a different matter.
The Constable's Tower's main door was on the north side, facing onto the causeway connecting from the Gatehouse. What was more, the door faced onto this directly, so that a ram could be brought to bear if it got close enough. It would not breach the tower easily: the gate was fashioned from English oak, some ten inches thick, and was ribbed with steel. Behind it there lay a passage beneath a murder hole, another portcullis, and beyond that the fire-raiser, which the English had refuelled. But given the nature of the enemy, nobody felt that these measures provided sufficient protection. What was more, the north wall of the Constable's Tower was only sixty feet high and was a far less daunting prospect than the walls to the south, east and west.
The English did what they could. They gathered new stocks of stones, spears, darts and arrows. They brought up new barrels of naptha. They crowded against the missile-portals and along the battlements, particularly on the north side, overlooking the causeway. Several companies had already been positioned in the Constable's Tower when the earl and what remained of the Gatehouse garrison arrived, but from that moment on there'd been no sleep for any of them. Blunted blades were re-sharpened, shields were patched, new fragments of armour donned. Every man — even if he wouldn't admit it — now looked to his own survival as much as to victory for his overlord.
By first light they were waiting, so tense that they no longer saw the weird Breton scarecrows, which littered the rooftops even of these inner ramparts.
The men had already passed the stage where sweat-inducing fear was an issue. Fear comes before battle rather than during it; it tends to dissipate after the first clash of steel, to be replaced by a duller but more practical state-of-mind in which warriors think purely about necessary actions. One such necessity was that everyone in the castle should now be present. The Constable's Tower was the key to the Inner Fort, and they could not afford to let it fall. Hence, the earl had redeployed every man into this one bastion, no longer concerned about a mingling of his companies or any confusion among his junior command.
Those wounded from the assaults on the Barbican and the south wall lay on its ground-level, wrapped in their bedrolls, gasping and shivering, with nothing to anaesthetise their pain as they awaited transportation to the infirmary, assuming such a luxury would ever come. Father Benan, one who would normally tend to them, was among their number, naked and slumped against a pillar. The only item he wore was a large iron crucifix, suspended by a cord at his neck. He was scarcely able to breathe, so weak was he from loss of blood. His entire body — his back, his buttocks, his shoulders, his arms, his legs — were crisscrossed with crimson stripes.
He was only vaguely aware, when a person came and crouched alongside him, that it was Doctor Zacharius, now with a gore-stained canvas apron over his fine clothes and his sleeves pinned back on forearms equally sullied.
As Zacharius looked the priest over, he mopped sweat from his haggard brow, smearing more blood there. With the few orderlies he'd been given now redeployed to defend the Constable's Tower roof, he'd had to cease working on his patients in order to help his assistant bring as many wounded as he could to the infirmary. Between them, they had improvised a bier by tying a cloak between two poll-arms, but it was still a laborious process, especially since neither of them had enjoyed much sleep since arriving here. But Zacharius, for all his faults, was not a doctor purely for the esteem it gave him. He believed in his vocation and would not shy from the dirt and drudgery of it.
"Benan!" he said into the priest's ear. "Benan, can you stand?"
Benan grunted in the negative, still too dazed by pain and exhaustion to form words.
"Benan, can you can stand and make your own way to the infirmary? I have salves that will help with these welts."
"There are… others," Benan muttered. "Others… worse than me…"
"Benan, some of these wounds of yours need sutures. You may bleed to death."
Bizarrely, Benan smiled, though it was still a picture of pain, his face gray and speckled with sweat.
"Our Lord," he stammered. "Our Lord was… scourged for our sins…"
"Benan, listen to me…"
"I am honoured… by this…"
"Yes, very good. Look, our Lord died, or had you forgotten? Do you want to die as well?"
The priest gave a crazy, fluting laugh.
"Henri!" Zacharius called over his shoulder.
The boy threaded his way across the room. He too was weary and sweating and wore a canvas apron blotched with blood.
"Henri, help me!"
Zacharius took Benan by one of his arms and indicated that Henri should take the other, but Benan grimaced and struggled weakly, until at last they let him go.
"No, there are others. See…"
Benan nodded towards a man seated against the near wall. He was one of Garbofasse's mercenaries and he was dull-eyed with pain. His leather hauberk had been removed to reveal the splintered nub of his collar bone tent-poling the flesh to the left of his neck; its white needle tip pierced through the skin. Beyond him, another fellow, who was unidentifiable he was so covered in gore, slumped with his head hung down. His blood-matted scalp was so deeply lacerated that his bare skull was exposed.
"Look to those… those who need you most," Benan said.
Zacharius hesitated, before nodding at Henri, who moved along and began to examine the casualty with the shattered collar bone. Zacharius meanwhile stood and gazed around the ghastly chamber. The sight of a makeshift field hospital was familiar to him. But this had come unexpectedly. Out in the courtyard, the infirmary was already a shambles of blood, filth and stained bandages. The infirmary beds they'd managed to construct were already filled to capacity. Rent and riven figures lay groaning in the passages between them. But in here it was even worse. The men were huddled wall to wall, wallowing in their own blood. Bowels had voided; there was vomit on the walls. The stench was intolerable.
As Henri attempted to move his patient, whose gasps quickly became shrill bleats of agony, onto the bier, the doctor turned back to the priest.
"I thought God's role was to love us?"
"No," Benan said solemnly. "It's our role to love Him. By action as well as word. That's why we all will die in this place."
"I can see why the earl had you flogged."
But Benan was lapsing back into unconsciousness. "I'm glad he did," he murmured. Zacharius moved away, to help Henri with their next patient. "I'm glad he did, good doctor. It's… my only hope."
The morning wore on and no immediate attack came.
The English watched in silence from the roof of the Constable's
Tower. Ninety yards away, at the far end of the causeway, the dead stared back from the roof of the Gatehouse. They also stared from the curtain-wall which, now that it had been abandoned, had been inundated by them. They crowded along the top of it, all around the castle perimeter, and yet were eerily still. If the English had felt they were encircled before, they knew it for a fact now. The dead on the curtain-wall were actually within bowshot from the west side of the Constable's Tower, but as the archers had seen how futile their efforts had been before, none sought to waste an arrow now.
"What are they waiting for?" Navarre snapped. "A bloody invitation?"
"I'd guess munitions for the scoop-thrower," Garbofasse replied. "They threw so much rubble at us before, they probably emptied their stocks. They'll have to scour for miles in every direction to find a similar quantity again."
"At which point our problems really begin," Gurt said.
There were mumbles of agreement. Men glanced nervously towards the western bluff. It was clear to all that the Constable's Tower could also be struck by the scoop-thrower. If this happened, the men on its roof would be distracted trying to shield themselves, while the dead would advance along the causeway unimpeded.
This was Ranulf's suspicion, and it appeared to be confirmed shortly before noon, when about fifty of the dead emerged from the Gatehouse in lumbering work-gangs, and commenced laying out planks, beams and bundles of rope. The English watched, their sweat-filled hair prickling. Soon there was a prolonged banging of hammers and a droning of handsaws. Under the guidance of a twisted, diminutive figure, streaked with blood and dirt, yet with a distinctive gleaming pate, the corpses had commenced the construction of a tall framework.