by Angus Donald
‘Come, come, my dear, that is not the welcome fit for your future husband. Most ungracious. And after I have gone to the trouble of bringing you a special gift.’
Murdac poked the left-hand knight in the ribs with his finger and the man fumbled with a dark bundle hanging from his saddle; he attached it to the tip of his lance and, using both hands, he hoisted the package up to the top of the palisade, where Tuck, reaching down over the battlements, was able to grasp it.
The priest untied the string that bound the sombre cloth together and shook out the bundle. It was a broad sheet of linen, dyed black and decorated with three blood-red chevrons – the drab standard of the House of Murdac. Marie-Anne glanced at the black flag and looked away again in disgust.
‘I shall give you one hour, my dear,’ said Murdac. ‘In that time I want to see these gates opened wide for my men to enter freely, and that proud banner flying from the top of the pole yonder. Or I will be forced to come over these walls with all my men and hoist it myself with a rope made from your lovely long hair.’
‘This parley is over,’ said Tuck. ‘Get you gone now, Ralph Murdac, or I will come down there myself and rip you asunder from collar to cock – flag of truce notwithstanding.’
Murdac ignored him. ‘You have just one hour, my lady.’ And he turned his horse and cantered away back to his encampment.
***
The allotted time seemed to pass in an eye-blink. Tuck remained on the battlements, now armed for war, and watching over the army of the erstwhile Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests, as it went about the business of making itself comfortable. Marie-Anne retreated to the hall and could be seen from time to time striding about the courtyard and issuing clipped orders to her servants. When the full hour had passed, Tuck was startled from a reverie by a huge cheer – a rippling, crowing sound of triumph and joy – coming from the ranks of the enemy in the now-muddy fields below the castle.
He turned and looked up, at the place where the blue-and-white flag of Locksley had fluttered bravely all morning, and he saw that the Countess’s cheerful insignia was being hauled slowly down the pole by a pair of servants who were skylined on the roof of the square keep.
He sighed.
They were attaching a new flag, Tuck could see, to the ropes. But the servants seemed unfamiliar with the attachments of this new standard, and there was much fumbling and the faint sounds of Yorkshire cursing wafted down to his ears. Finally, they hauled on the ropes and a dark bundle rose into the sky, to the summit of the pole. At the top of its journey, it opened and flapped in the wind, to reveal a crude image of an oak tree, white on a green field, with huge leaves and six massive acorns nestled in the foliage.
William, Lord of Edwinstowe, climbed to the top of the wooden steps that led to the battlements. He came to stand next to Father Tuck and together they both looked over the encampment, listening to their enemies’ joyful cheers turn to shouts of rage.
‘Do you really think they will attack?’ said Lord Edwinstowe.
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Tuck.
‘And can we hold them?’
‘Undoubtedly!’ Tuck smiled warmly at the baron. ‘With the forty extra men-at-arms that you have so generously brought us, my lord, we could hold these strong walls until Hell freezes over – or, at the very least, until Robin returns to Kirkton, as he must surely do any day now. Indeed, I have heard rumours that he is already in England.’
Then Tuck touched his companion’s arm; a strange, guilty light seemed to shine in his nut-brown eyes. ‘My lord, you will not speak of the matter I vouchsafed to you, to Robin or anyone else, of the lady’s… ah… dishonouring.’
William looked hard at the priest. ‘She has not been dishonoured. She has been cruelly wronged by that lecherous beast Murdac. And it is to prevent her, or any other member of my family, suffering further injury at that foul dog’s hands that my men and I stand here today. But I will not speak of it again, Father, rest assured. I have already sworn that to you, at Edwinstowe. I do not wish to have salacious tales concerning members of my family bandied about. And I charge you, equally, on your honour, to say no more on this matter to anyone. Ever.’
‘Thank you,’ said Tuck.
***
The enemy formed up in companies of fifty to sixty men-at-arms, each commanded by two or three knights; four companies in all, perhaps half of their full strength, Tuck calculated, as he watched the men being roughly pushed into their positions by the captains and their vintenars. Three of the companies had been formed down by the church, two hundred and fifty yards to the south-east, three dark blocks of foot soldiers under three gaudy, fluttering banners. They had ladders, the priest noted, plenty of them, but there was no sign of artillery, none of the big machines for hurling great stones at the wooden battlements – presumably Murdac did not feel the need. And no battering ram, as far as he could tell. The men would come on confidently, straight at the front gate, set their ladders and attempt to scramble up and over the wall, trusting to their superior numbers to give them the advantage over their well-protected enemies above. More than a hundred and fifty men would come against the main gate in one swift overwhelming rush. And Kirkton had half that number to repulse them. And while it was trying to keep the barbarians from the gates, the fourth company, held in reserve well to the north of the castle, would no doubt choose its moment and attack from the flank.
It was a good plan, Tuck conceded. The enemy was rightly confident. While the Locksley and Edwinstowe men were valiantly fighting at the main gate, the second, smaller, single-company attack would overrun the northern walls, and once they were over the battlements the slaughter would begin. Women, children and servants all put to the sword – and the Locksley men-at-arms on the walls would surely quit their posts to protect them, leaving too few men to hold the gates against the enemy. If Tuck chose to divide his force, sending, say, a quarter of his men to the northern walls to guard against the flank attack, he weakened his defences above the main gate, perhaps with disastrous consequences. Yes, Tuck said to himself, Murdac’s plan wasn’t bad at all.
But neither Murdac’s banner nor the man himself was evident in the three massed blocks of infantry by the church, nor in the smaller force to the north. Tuck assumed that he was taking his ease in his striped pavilion, and planned to ride through the shattered gates of the castle in triumph when his men had battered Kirkton into submission. Tuck turned to Lord Edwinstowe, who was standing silently beside him, and said, ‘My lord, will you take the defence of the main gate? I will give all of the Kirkton men-at-arms into your hand, and with your own men you will then have sixty fighters to hold that portal.’
Edwinstowe grunted. ‘Hope your men can fight. Will you garrison the tower?’
Tuck looked behind him at the keep, the stronghold that was the castle’s last line of defence. ‘No, my lord, I do not think so. The women, servants and local folk can shelter in there but I will take my twenty archers and stand yonder on the walls.’ He pointed to the corner of the castle walls where the battlements turned north-west. ‘From there I can command the northern approach and enfilade the main attack on the gate.’
Edwinstowe nodded. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You do not want some of my swordsmen to ward against the northern attack?’
‘No, I will not weaken your command at the gate. We shall stop them with these,’ – and Tuck lightly slapped the full linen arrow bag that swung from his belt.
A brass trumpet sounded down by the church, an ugly braying screech, and Tuck put a hand on Edwinstowe’s arm. ‘God be with you, my lord,’ he said, ‘and may He send all our enemies to Hell!’ And he hurried north along the walkway behind the parapet, shouting in Welsh and English for the archers to form up.
***
Three companies of men, dark in their Murdac surcoats, started forward from the church of St Nicholas. The foremost men held ladders in their hands, others held sword and shield, axe and spear, and they yelled their war cries, c
alled on the saints and shouted the traditional insults as they began to run, a trot at first, straight up the gentle hill directly towards the main gate.
Tuck’s archers, twenty leather-tough fighting men, many of whom had once been desperate outlaws in the wilds of Sherwood, nocked their shafts, pulled the rough hempen cords of their bows back to their ears, the stiff yew wood bending with a creaking sound like a huge door being forced open, and on Tuck’s command they loosed. A score of arrows slashed across the open space before the castle like a flock of slim birds, and scythed into the flank of the advancing horde. The yard-long ash shafts, tipped with man-killing, needle-like bodkin points, drove into the bodies of Murdac’s men-at-arms, punching straight through leather armour and even iron mail, deep into torsos and limbs, tearing flesh and breaking bone. A dozen men dropped, screaming, from the first flight of arrows – which were followed three heartbeats later by another equally lethal flight. A third volley smashed into the flank of the nearest company, and another ten men were transfixed, shafts sprouting absurdly from chests, necks, thighs, arms. Another volley of shafts, more ragged now, and another, and another, and the first company was all but destroyed. Wounded men staggered here and there almost at random, cursing their pain and tugging at deeply embedded shafts; a score or more bodies littered the slope before the main gate. Some men were stationary now, cowering on their knees behind shields – their wood-and-leather, kite-shaped protectors stuck with half a dozen quivering shafts. Others had abandoned their weapons, along with their claim to manhood, and were running back down the hill to escape the lethal, plunging, dagger-tipped yards of ash.
But the arrow storm had barely touched the two other companies. More than a hundred dark-surcoated men, screaming like demons, waving axe and sword, crashed into the main gate. A dozen ladders swung up, and thumped against the walls, and howling, terrified men were desperately scrambling up these frail, bouncing wooden pathways, hurling themselves madly up at the castle’s defenders.
‘Pick your targets,’ yelled Tuck to his men, who were still mechanically hauling back their strings and loosing black lines of death down on to the boiling sea of enemies below the castle walls. ‘Kill the knights first; kill all the knights. Gwen, get that man there, the big one in the blue surcoat. Oh, you buffoon – you’ve missed him. Look here!’ The priest pulled back his own cord and launched a shaft at the knight who was waving an axe and urging his men up the ladders to the battlements twenty feet above. The arrow smacked into his neck, knocking him instantly sideways to the earth.
At the battlements themselves, a furious mêlée had erupted; Lord Edwinstowe’s men held the wall with a glittering, constantly moving barrier of slicing swords and hammering mace and axe; for the enemy there was no way through this hacking hedge of steel – the rare brave man who hurled himself at the top of the battlements was cut down instantly by half a dozen swords. Most died before they could even strike a blow. As the enemy surged upwards, time and again they were smashed down, battered and slashed and stuck with long spears, pierced, cut and killed and forced back to drop bleeding to the ground. And still the arrows thunked into the mass of the attackers, streaking in from their right, relentlessly skewering, puncturing, maiming and slaying.
Then Murdac’s fourth company, the reserve that had formed separately and well to the north, sixty fresh and eager men, charged.
‘Archers hold fast! Hold fast!’ Tuck’s bull bellow could easily be heard above the screams of the battle and the crash of steel. ‘Archers, about face! About face, I say!’ The priest was physically grabbing the big brawny men and turning them from the battle before the gate towards the new threat. The fourth company was running at full pelt towards the walls, only fifty yards away.
‘Everybody have shafts? Right. Draw! And loose!’ At Tuck’s command twenty battle-maddened bowmen, now with their broad backs to the main gate, hauled back their bowcords and unleashed a shower of death into the charging company.
‘Kill them all, kill every one,’ yelled Tuck. ‘I don’t want a man to touch the wall.’
The fourth company died as it ran. The lethal ash shafts slammed into their mass, again and again, slicing through mail and cloth and skin, puncturing soft flesh, tumbling brave men and cowards alike, killing some instantly and crippling others. Of a company of sixty, only a single ladder and a dozen men made it all the way to the wall. The ladder rose – unopposed – and a lone man-at-arms, a hero or a madman, climbed like a monkey and hopped nimbly over the battlements. His friends, finding themselves alone, held back.
Tuck made a clicking noise in his throat and two monstrous reddish-grey forms bounded along the walkway and leapt at the surprised enemy soldier now standing alone, forlorn, just inside the citadel. He screamed just once before he was smashed flat on his back, with one growling wolfhound crunching the bones of his face and the other locking its massive jaws into his groin.
He was the only man from Murdac’s entire force to set foot inside the castle, that day or any other. For the battle was over, the enemy broken and fleeing. Tuck looked over at the jubilant men surrounding Lord Edwinstowe, at the blood-drenched piles of writhing wounded and dead before the gates, at the dark, defeated men streaming away from the walls, blundering exhausted down the slope. And he smiled. He slapped Gwen on the shoulder and congratulated the other grinning archers, promising much wine and ale after supper. Then he pushed his way through the cheering throng and strode back along the walkway towards Lord Edwinstowe, who, by the slightly unnatural twisting of his thin lips, might be mistaken for a contented, even a deeply happy man.
‘Is all well with you, my lord?’
‘I believe it is, Father. I believe it is. I think we can hold these walls for weeks against whatever they may throw at us. We saw those scoundrels off easily, with no more than a cut or two and a few scrapes for our men. In the event, your Kirkton fellows showed themselves to be rather handy fighters. It was simple… It was as easy as…’
‘Child’s play, my lord?’ said Marie-Anne, emerging at the top of the stairs that led up from the courtyard. She looked out over the bloody ruin of the battlefield, her face grimly compassionate.
‘Yes, indeed, my lady,’ said Lord Edwinstowe, finally allowing himself a brief wintry smile. ‘It was, as you say, mere child’s play.’
The story continues in
King’s Man
The third instalment of The Outlaw Chronicles.
Turn over to read the first chapter now…
Chapter One
I can hear the sound of singing floating across the courtyard from the big barn, thin and faint yet warmly comforting, like the last wisps of a happy dream to a man waking from deep slumber. I have left the remnants of the wedding party to their pleasures, leaving the bride Marie and her new husband Osric and dozens of their friends and neighbours to carouse long into the dark night. I have provided ale and wine, more than they could ever drink at half a dozen nuptials, and I slaughtered two of my sheep and a great sow, and all three carcasses spent the afternoon roasting over slow fires in the courtyard so that there might be plenty of meat for the newly joined couple and all their boozy well-wishers. But I slipped away from the throng when the serious drinking began and the wine-flushed carollers began to loosen their belts; I did not wish to be asked to perform alongside them. My voice is a little weaker, as is natural, now that I have reached almost sixty years of age, but I am still proud of my talent as a trouvère, a maker of fine music, and I husband my delicate throat-cords and do not choose to bellow like a cow in calf for the amusement of country-wedding drunks – I who have traded verses with a king, and held noble lords and prelates across Christendom spellbound with my skill.
But, in truth, there is another quiet reason why I have withdrawn here to my private chamber at the end of the great hall of Westbury, where, with a freshly sharpened quill and new-made oak gall ink, I am committing these words to parchment – I do not like Osric, the bridegroom.
There: I have admitted it
. It is difficult to say exactly why I do not like him: he is a plain, ordinary man, round in the belly and with a pointed, peering, mole-like face and short chubby arms, and he will, I believe, make my widowed daughter-in-law Marie a good husband. He came here to Westbury a year ago as my bailiff, and he has rendered me good service in that office, ensuring that the manor – the only one I now hold – is well ordered and shows a little silver in profit every year. But I do not trust him; there is a slyness about him that repels me. His manner is furtive. I believe, in my secret heart, that he covets my position as lord of this manor, and sometimes I see him looking at me, as we eat together as a family at the long table in the hall, and I detect a glint of hatred in his tiny underground eye. It may be nothing but the foolish fancies of an old man, but I do not think so – I believe that despite my kindness to him, and the fact that I have allowed him to marry my son Rob’s widow, Osric would like to see me hurried into my grave and himself sitting at the head of this long table, fawned on by my servants and addressed in this hall as ‘my lord’.
I will go further: I believe that he means to kill me.
Pshaw! What nonsense, you will say to yourself. The old grey-beard’s wits are plainly as addled as a year-old goose egg. And it is true that I am well furnished with years, and that I sometimes forget the names of these dullards around me today, and dwell too much on the bright days of the past. But I know about betrayal: in my time, I have betrayed those who placed their trust in me. And I see the look of a traitor, a God-damned Judas, in Osric’s face. To strike a telling blow, one must be close to the man you are to play false; and Osric is now as close to me as ever he can be.
My death would not, of course, immediately make him the lord of this manor; if I were to die, the manor would pass to my heir, my nine-year-old grandson and namesake Alan, who is away now in Yorkshire learning the skills of a knight – learning how to fight on horseback and on foot, and how to dance and sing and make verses, how to speak and write in Latin, to play chess and serve elegantly at table and innumerable other gentlemanly skills.