Yes to the lack of support they’d given him throughout the war. Yes to the French advances, and small wonder when the bulk of the English leadership lolled at home.
His hand flying to his head to fiddle with the plain gold coronet, he snapped, ‘You are in no position to demand an accounting, for you never incurred any costs! Oh, yes, I grant that ten or twenty of you made the crossing. But you were back here on the next tide! And you think— do you think that gives you the right to weep for your Norman friends? You should weep, messires, but for shame.
‘You believe I’m a poor leader—’ to which there was a howl of assent ‘—well, perhaps so, but how can any man lead when his own nobility stay away and grow fat? What prowess can a rider show, if his horses all refuse?’
‘If that’s the case,’ someone shouted, ‘it’d be the rider that’s at fault, not the mounts!’
‘And the remedy?’ John countered. ‘A change of rider, is that it? A new leader for the army? Or would you go the whole way and dethrone your king? Would you dare that, my lords, and turn our war with France into bloody anarchy at home? How Philip would love you for it. Before he robbed you of everything you have.’ He unhooked his fingers and let his hand fall to his side. Then he waited, staring at them, knowing the impetus had been checked.
There were a few inaudible comments, but no one answered his challenge. They told themselves he had over-stepped the mark, a favourite ruse of the Angevin kings. He hoped to silence their criticism with his talk of anarchy and then, having raised the spectre, stand alongside it and offer them the choice. It was a despicable trick, and one that evaded the real problems, but they were forced to admit that even a flawed king such as Softsword was better than no king at all. Besides which, John would harden his blade at the first sign of rebellion. He was unpopular, but by no means friendless, and there were a number of foreign princes, a host of mercenaries, who’d rally to his support.
The only sure way to dethrone King John was to kill him, and it had not yet come to that.
* * *
From then on he pressed his advantage. Armed with the information he had collected at Canterbury, he set out to gratify his friends, woo those who were uncommitted and isolate the rest. He held a series of meetings at which he dangled the bait of reward and advancement. The Earl of Surrey was won over by the promise of Stamford Castle, the Earl of Arundel by the immediate gift of L’Aigle in Normandy – for which he’d have to cross the Channel – and the Earl of Huntingdon by the cancellation of a debt his father had owed Richard Lionheart. In return, these and other interested nobles pledged their support to the king and agreed to contribute to the war-chest.
By midweek he was able to tell Isabelle that he had purchased half the court. ‘Most of them have an eye for reason,’ he said sarcastically, ‘it’s just that their patriotism needs the spice of profit. I tell them it’s their duty to defend the realm, and they sit unblinking; then I let slip that there’s a vacant fief in Kent or Anjou and they come forward to kiss my hand and blather on about the imminent destruction of our enemies. Ours, they say, theirs and mine, as though we’d been fighting-to-shoulder since the war began.’
‘And those who are not so – reasonable? How do you deal with them?’
‘As we planned, my sweet. I ask them how much it cost to get here, and reimburse them from my own pocket. Then, whilst they’re reaching for the coins, I remind them that however important they might think themselves at home, they are still tenants of the Crown. They hold their lands on condition that they make available a certain number of knights for military service, an obligation they have so far failed to honour. I let them know that we know the exact number of knights enfeoffed to them, and charge them accordingly. I list their manors and castles, assess one-twentieth of their value and add it to the bill. And then, since they seem so happy to handle money, I impose the one-seventh tax on their goods and chattels.’
‘And arrive at a punitive sum,’ the queen remarked. ‘Good. It’s time they were milked. But how do you know they’ll pay? These men are a law unto themselves.’
‘Oh, they’ll pay,’ John assured her. ‘They may need further encouragement, but sooner or later…’
‘What kind of encouragement?’
‘The kind husbands and fathers find irresistible.’
Isabelle nodded. ‘You mean you’ll take their wives and children hostage.’
‘Into the protection of the Court,’ John amended. ‘They will be our guests for a while.’
* * *
The sound of a trumpet, its strident blast flattened by the rain. Then more clarion calls, and a roar that spread through the eastern camp and was taken up by all those who encircled the castle. Before long a fanfare and a jubilant chorus and the steady pounding of mailed fists on shields.
The noise was enough to bring the garrison of Château Gaillard to the walls. Weak and haggard, the defenders urged themselves up the steps and sank gasping against the battlements. Sections of the wall-walk had been torn away by French missiles, and it was no longer possible to man the entire perimeter. But the inner steps were still intact, all but one of the towers still inhabitable, the fortifications still unbreached. The siege had now lasted for more than five months, yet the castle remained as impregnable as ever.
Roger Lacy found a vantage point above the river and peered out between the fractured merlons. The rain impeded his view, and he could see no farther than the flat stretch of meadow beyond the far bank. But even as he watched, a group of heavily armoured French knights emerged from the downpour and indicated that they wished to parley.
Dragging damp air into his chest, the castellan shouted to his archers to hold fast, then clambered to his feet and raised a hand in response. One of the Frenchmen saw him, pointed him out to the others, then trotted dangerously close to the riverbank. Braving the rain, he squinted up at the battlements and shouted, ‘Can… me, Lord…’
Lacy shook his head, swept a hand across his body in a negative gesture, then cupped both hands around his mouth. The knight copied him and tried again. ‘Can you hear me, my Lord Lacy?’
‘I hear you.’
‘And the trumpets?’
‘Even them.’
‘Do you know why?’
Lacy ignored the question and wiped his face with a slimy leather glove. There could be any number of reasons for the fanfare; the arrival of reinforcements, the completion of a siege-machine, the news of another French victory, anything that would bring fresh heart to the besiegers. So long as there were trumpeters there would be fanfares, though it was true the enemy had roared louder than ever before.
Suddenly exasperated, Lacy shouted into the rain. ‘Why then? Why such a bleat?’
‘As a welcome,’ the knight taunted. ‘Can you guess who for?’
The castellan uncurled his hands and waited. Yes, he thought, now that the snow has gone and the roads are passable. Yes, I can guess who it’s for, though pray God I’m wrong.
But he was not wrong, and the Frenchman delighted in telling him that the trumpets had sounded a welcome for Philip Augustus. ‘The king is prepared to accept your surrender, and will impose no special hardships upon you. Unlike John of England, King Philip treats his enemies with honour.’ He broke off, his throat raw from shouting, and Lacy leaned forward to jab a finger at the hillside below the wall.
‘Before any talk of surrender, tell your king about those poor wretches! Let him first treat them with honour. Four hundred were sent out from here, and you have a fine view of the survivors. At the last count less than thirty. And do you still say he’ll impose no special hardships? We’ll believe that when the hillside’s been cleared.’ He waved his hand in dismissal, then coughed his way down the treacherous steps to the yard.
King Philip had been present, though not in the eastern camp, during John and Marshal’s abortive attempt to restock the castle. But he had left before the refugees were evicted, and was perplexed to hear that his commanders had refused to let
them pass. ‘What have you achieved?’ he asked them, his good eye bleak with contempt. ‘What advantage does it bring to starve women and children?’
‘We thought Lacy would waste his food on them, or take them back inside.’
‘And when he did not? When a week had passed? A month? A hundred days? How long did you allow him?’
‘We set no date on it,’ they shrugged. ‘The locals have always looked to the castle for work and refuge, so why not this time? It’s Lacy’s responsibility, not ours.’
‘Not as his enemies, perhaps, but surely as my friends. If the world remembers me at all, I would not like to be credited with this.’
The commanders worshipped their half-blind monarch, but even so they rejected his criticism. ‘And what if twice the number of refugees had existed? Were we to feed them all, then let them roam at will behind our lines? With due respect, lord king, we’d employ any method if it would hasten the downfall of that – that monument to the sodomite they called the Lionheart.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Philip told them, ‘we will not allow any more of these unfortunates to die. Ask the castellan to disarm his archers, whilst we lead the remnants from the hillside. Who knows, they may tell us of a weak spot in the walls.’
* * *
But the civilians had nothing to say. Only twenty-two of the evicted four hundred left the rocks, and the physicians pronounced half of them sick unto death. As for the dozen who would live, their gibberings and unrelated movements showed they were mad. Several of them had eaten their own fingers, though only as a last resort. Until the snow had thawed there had been enough stringy corpses, preserved by the cold.
The soldiers who led them from the slope were not so tongue-tied, and their story was passed from sergeant to knight, from warlord to the king. When Philip heard it he removed his casque, unlaced the hood of his link-mail hauberk, peeled back the woollen lining and knelt bare-headed in the rain, the water glistening on his bald pate.
His prayer was short and succinct. ‘Almighty God,’ he implored, ‘make it so, make it true.’ Then he hurried into his pavilion, towelled himself dry and sent for the soldiers from whom the story had originated. If it was so, if it was true, a weakness did exist within the walls of Château Gaillard.
* * *
The army was alerted. Archers and crossbow-men made ready to let fly at the battlements and window slits, their shafts supported by a steady barrage from the catapults. Other machines were dragged to the southern end of the rock and set up beside the approach path. Their task would be to batter away at the prow of the ship-like castle and, if possible, damage the gate. With them went grappling-hooks, scaling ladders and a large detachment of foot-soldiers. Fifty mounted knights milled about at the far end of the zig-zag path. Some while later they were joined by the commanders of the southern and eastern camps, their rain-soaked pennants visible from the barbican.
By mid-afternoon the last catapult had been wound and the light was beginning to fade. His feelings concealed beneath his mask of amused scepticism, Philip Augustus signalled to the trumpeters. The blast vaulted the river and echoed among the rocks, an overture for the missiles. Then, as the sounds were thinned and flattened by the rain, the air grew heavy with the weight of flints and arrows and bales of blazing straw.
Inside the castle, the garrison moved away from the windows or ducked behind the merlons. They had watched the enemy deploy, and now prepared to repulse an attack from the south. The French had tried similar tactics before and failed, so Roger Lacy was not unduly concerned. The besiegers were obviously putting on a show for their king, if only to prove to him that Château Gaillard was indeed impregnable.
On the other side of the Seine, and beyond the range of any retaliatory missiles, King Philip turned his attention to the six men on whom success or failure would depend. They were all young and, understandably, they shivered in the wet, for they wore nothing but woollen shifts and pliable, rabbit-skin shoes. That and a belt, from which was suspended a leather bag containing broad iron pegs. In addition, two of the men carried hammers, but the six were otherwise unarmed.
‘Do you think you can find the place?’ Philip asked. ‘Even in the dark?’
‘We can, king. It’s just over there, behind that outcrop. You can’t see it – I mean, nobody can see it from here, but—’
‘Very well. The boat’s waiting, so you’d better get started. And may God protect you.’ He accorded them a deep nod and they backed away, not sure how far they need retreat before turning. The king frowned to speed them along, and they wheeled and ran.
Accompanied by his bodyguard, who promptly ringed him with shields, he followed the six towards the bank and watched the pitch-blackened craft angle across the river. It went unspotted, though a defender loosed an arrow at random, missing Philip and his guards by less than ten feet.
It was close enough for his protectors. They crowded in on him, their shields raised, obstructing his view. He moved his head from side to side for a last glimpse of the craft, but he knew better than to remonstrate with the guards. They would tell him what they always told him; arrows and cats, they’ve respect for no one.
Meanwhile, the boat had grounded itself, and the men were scuttling up the slope. It was almost dark now, and they were anyway too involved in their task to be deterred by the grisly litter of bodies and bones. Finding their own paths amongst the rocks, they reached the outcrop, edged between the natural feature and the base of the wall, and grinned at what they found.
The outflow of a disused latrine.
As his one concession to the refugees, Roger Lacy had prohibited his garrison from using the gardrobe situated directly above the slope. So the shaft was dry and, of greater importance to the invaders, long forgotten.
They could not tell if the latrine had been merely boarded over, or sealed with a slab of rock, and they could only guess at the height of the shaft. Thirty feet, perhaps, and thus level with the wall-walk. Nor did they know whether the gardrobe was linked to other rooms, or just an isolated cell. If the latter, they would probably emerge on the ramparts and be cut down where they stood. And their bodies added to the rubble with which the defenders would block the shaft.
A grunt of assent, and the first man wriggled through the aperture and stood upright in the darkness. The shaft was a few inches wider than his shoulders, and he was able to crouch down, feel for a joint in the ashlar blocks, then hammer in the first foothold. He balanced on it to fix the next iron peg, climbed again and repeated the process. The air was still foul, and although he could see nothing, he paused to wipe the sweat from his eyes. Then he hammered in the next broad spike, not caring that the sound reverberated through the shaft. It was an unavoidable hazard, and the quicker they all got to the top, the better.
A second man inched his way inside, cursing viciously as he tore his scalp on a peg. Then he too began to climb. The others followed, passing their stocks of pegs upward, from hand to hand. The leader paused again, spat directly against the wall, then went back to work. His companions found their next foothold, and the next…
Blazing straw arched above the battlements and exploded on impact. The rain favoured the defenders, and they saved their strength for the fire-balls that fell against the gate. In truth, there was little wood left in Château Gaillard, save for the beams and joists and defensive gates.
And the boards that covered the latrine.
The leader hissed at his companions, and they braced themselves for the final climb. Then, without further hesitation, he shoved upward with the palm of his hand and was astonished to feel the unnailed board lift and crash to the side. Lacy’s men must be an obedient lot, he thought, and used his shoulders to scatter the planks.
There was no light in the gardrobe, but as the invaders emerged from the shaft they discovered an archway and a passage beyond. It was not in their character to invade a castle unarmed, so whilst the first and second men imagined their hammers as clubs, the rest made daggers of the spikes.
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They reached a door and listened. But they could hear nothing, so the leader felt for the latch, lifted it and eased the door open. They entered a store-room, the long dry chamber illuminated by a single, cruciform window. Rats scurried behind empty barrels and squeaked in protest as the invaders crossed the room. Another door, which also yielded was pulled open to reveal a spiral staircase, curving both upward and down. The leader’s whispered message was passed back to the last two men in line. Then, leaving them where they were, he led the others up the steps.
They passed a larger window and discovered that it overlooked a curtain wall and part of the middle bailey. The leader cursed with pleasure and continued to climb. A dozen steps more and they reached the head of the flight, to face a final studded door. Again they listened, tested the latch, made the hinges creak.
‘Aah, Jesus of Mercy, what better goal than this?’ The room was deserted, though two thick candles burned on the distant altar. The invaders had found their way into Roger Lacy’s private chapel.
The leader grinned at his men, moved back to the head of the stairs and, crouching forward, bellowed at those below. ‘We have taken it! Here, use this and let them know!’ He sent his hammer ricocheting down the steps, snatched at something one of his companions offered him, and realized it was a heavy girandole. Perfect. A man could make a nice loud din by thrashing a silver candle-holder against the stair post.
In the upper chamber, the invaders were wreaking havoc, hurling the carved pews from end to end of the chapel, screaming commands, howling encouragement. The leader joined them, whilst fifty feet below, members of the garrison stared at the tower and heard the sounds of a full-scale assault.
The shock unnerved them. The deprivations of winter and the ever-thinning diet of barley mash had already left them weak and edgy, and the realization that the enemy had gained the tower – and were destroying Lacy’s chapel! – was too much to bear. They panicked and fled for the inner bailey. They deserted the barbican and its flanking towers, evacuated the walls, withdrew from the bridge that linked the middle and outer yards. The contagion spread to the hard core of knights and, last of all, to the castellan himself.
The Wolf at the Door Page 18